With a Little Help from My Friends

Greetings all,

It has been a very rough week for me.  I have had yet another friend pass away from illness, and an immediate family member in the hospital.  During this I also had a job interview and meetings, while I continued to teach and even started a new teaching position.  This didn't leave me much time to sit and feel.

My reaction to strong emotions in the past has been either to drown in them or to completely shut them down and run away from them.  However I have adopted the phrase "adulting" from Facebook. So I have been attempting the act of the adult emotionally.  I will not lie this shit's hard.  Staying centered in the heart and the place of feeling is no picnic when you experience loss.  Harder still is to do my work by focusing within the field of the heart and moving its energy around.  It hurts both emotionally and physically.  Still it must be done.  I once said I want to learn to paint with all the colors of the emotions.  Sorrow has its strokes as much as joy.  It highlights it even by contrast.  However there is a tendency in our society to label the darker hued emotions as wrong, bad, or even as a medical condition.  Apparently in the new DSM-V grief is considered a disorder if it lasts longer than two weeks.  So you aren't allowed to feel sad and down for more than half a month, otherwise you may need to ask your doctor if ______ is right for you.  (Caution may cause alien babies to burst forth from your sternum in rare cases).

So I had someone offer me, with the best of intentions, to energetically poof my sorrow into nothingness.  I politely declined telling them I needed to feel what was there because it was real.  Loss hurts and I think magically banishing it away would be too much like running away from life.  I've done that enough.  No more running, unless chased by raptors (it could happen you don't know my life so no judging).  No I put on my big boy pants and cried, shook, and mourned.  I worked with my heart moving its energy while feeling the pain that was there.  I don't want to suffer, but I also don't want to invalidate how I feel.  The pain I feel from the losses I've had means that the connections I've shared were good and valuable ones.  So I did my work, I meditated without trying to numb.  I did my ceremonies asking for what I needed.

What I got were my friends that remain.  Those lovely souls I have been patiently gathering the last several years have formed a web of support around me.  The last time I did this loss song and dance I was not only without support I was downright antagonized.  It led me into a place where I nearly didn't survive.  Part of me began to fear that with all the heavy emotions and losses piling up I would head back into that place.  This time is different.  This time I am not alone.  This time no one is antagonizing me.  (Woe to anyone who would at this juncture I'm much feistier now, Mooneagle 2.0).

So after my diving deep into the wounds of the heart I went to my regular game night.  I didn't think I had the energy to, but I went anyways.  I was greeted with hugs from both our regulars and others not seen in some time.  We fell into each others company and took comfort.  I am not the only one among us who've had significant loss and upset of late.  People may think it frivolous but my game night and time with my friends has really added so much color, depth, and light to my world.  I can't imagine life without it right now.  I think we've forgotten how much we need to be with each other in our culture.  We have social media and texting to keep us in constant contact, but it doesn't give us what our hearts need.  It can't give us that look of knowing, that hand on the shoulder, or embrace that takes the weight from our minds.  As I said above I want to paint with all the colors of the emotions and while the sun bright yellow of joy is most definitely one of my favorite colors, the somber blues are teaching me to be kinder.  We've all lost something special or someone in our lives rather than let it numb us what if we let it made us more compassionate and grateful towards each other?

So how about you?  Was your week a gauntlet of sorrows?  Does life weigh heavy on your heart?  Does the man get you down?  Well maybe now is the time to reach out.  Call that person who knows your heart like their own.  Plan to meet with your old friends from the long ago or the recently found soul mates.  Breathe into your heart and feel the pain because it is authentically yours as much as the heights of ecstasy.  Own your feelings let them find space, and then gather with your loved ones.  See if that lightens your load or at least shifts your shoulders to a more comfortable spot.  In the meantime I'll get by with a little help from my friends.

Peace and Blessings,
Thomas Mooneagle