No Fixing Required

"No Fixing Required"
(January 2011)

I am a self-professed book hog. I have been reading ever since I can remember and have cultivated the habit of having multiple books on the go. I don't know that I recommend this style of reading much as it means that I have many unfinished books hanging around the house. However, many of the books I read are the kind that you can pick up and carry on with several days and even months after leaving it without getting too lost.One of the many books I have on the go is actually a daily affirmations-type book...so I guess this one doesn't really count as it's the type you can open up on any given day and benefit from the perfectly timed message presented there. This little gem is Judith Lasater's "A Year of Living Your Yoga". And the message I opened up to is "We spend too much time trying to fix everything".

A thought came to me this morning as I read Judith Lasater's quote. 'What if it is not ourselves that needs fixing but, rather, our perception of ourselves?' The moment that thought down-loaded into my mind, the truth of it rang loud and clear for me. And I realized that my zealous exploration of practices to help me know myself better and to stay centered within that new-found (but in fact very ancient) self, has been, for many years, a deep desire to fix what I believe to be broken within myself. Instead of using these practices to celebrate my innately human and divine, miraculous self, I had been using them to banish the parts of myself that I'm not happy with.

Which leads me to another incredible book I devoured (and one that I highly recommend everyone on the planet read)....Miriam Greenspan's "Healing Through the Dark Emotions: The Wisdom of Grief, Fear and Despair". There isn't a page in this book upon which I have not highlighted some pertinent piece of wisdom. In a nutshell, we live in a culture of denial...a culture that denigrates and even demonizes painful emotions as 'bad' or 'negative' and insists that we only allow ourselves to feel joy (and it's emotional variations). Since we are divine beings living human lives, we are gifted with a whole suite of natural emotions; however, we are reluctant to acknowledge, let alone feel, painful emotions and, instead, bury them deep inside ourselves or mindlessly act out against ourselves and others. The state of the world - spiritually, culturally, environmentally - is an incredibly telling mirror of that which we deny within ourselves. The fear-mongering stories we hear in the media, the violence we see around us, the alarmingly high numbers of people who are labelled 'clinically depressed'...all of this is an acting out of the fear, grief, despair and anger that we deny ourselves. The proverbial 'monster in the closet' gets bigger and scarier as long as we keep the door closed.

So, how can acknowledging our 'dark emotions' or 'shadow' bring us to a place of self-acceptance? Consider that in our culture, if you display fear, grief or despair you are labelled a coward, a pariah or a psychological disorder. Is it any wonder then that we refuse to give a voice to any part of ourselves that feels the anguish of these emotions? And yet what is it but the desire to be truly seen and heard that every human being longs for on this planet? To be seen and heard as we are, in our entirety, and without judgment? Giving these parts of ourselves a voice does not mean that we are giving them permission to act out nor does it mean that we need to overdose on the emotional energy that surrounds them. Anyone who has mentored a child knows that the child who constantly seeks attention suddently transforms the moment we really look at them and engage authentically with them. This is no less the case for the child within each of us. When we find the courage to acknowlege all of our emotions, paradoxically, instead of their overcoming us, they are given the space to expand and then transform - and it is through their transformation that we discover their hidden gifts.

I have had first hand experience in the magical transformation of grief over the past couple of years. Prior to allowing myself to be fully immersed in the moments of grief, my fear of feeling that emotion caused me to stuff its emotional energy somewhere in my body where it wrecked havoc on my physical, emotional and mental well-being. The messages I had received growing up was that expressions (and, ultimately, the act of 'feeling') grief were worthy of being either ignored or punished. The culture I lived in (and still live in) and the people in my life who I turned to were incredibly uncomfortable with witnessing my grief because they were unable to be with their own in any normalized way. My efforts to keep my grief at bay resulted in a long-term period of despair and, even more sadly, a closing off of my heart - to myself and to others - that left me alone and lonely for many years.

The journey I took to transform my emotionally beige life to one of vibrant colours has taken many years and started with my willingness to acknowledge the rage that simmered just below the surface of my awareness (but was achingly obvious to everyone else in my life) and the deep well of grief that lived below that. Once I was able to find the courage to open to the consistent feelings of grief that lay heavy on my heart, my heart cracked open and I learned to love myself and others in authentic ways - rather than modeling what I had learned love to be through good-willed (but misguided) souls and the culture of idealized romance. I opened the doorway to possibilities and was able to welcome the very real and mature love of another to share the journey of life with.The self-love that I continue to cultivate is also showing up in my ability to be with myself on both the light and dark days. And my yoga, meditation, movement and sounding practices are ones that now support the integration of myself as I continue to reclaim my wholeness - rather than vehicles of self-torture.My wish for all of you who read this is that you find the courage to love all the diverse parts of yourself, knowing that when they can live in harmony, they create a unique and magnificently whole human and divine being. Namaste.