If you're like me.... Today, happiness is... Not.

If you're  like me, it's been an interesting few days. Where interesting can be translated as "painful", "frustrating," "difficult," "mind-bending," "weight gaining," "bad hair," and "suck-ass". 

So what do we do, with all this pain, all this frustration, the desire to simply return to the shell, the womb, the bed, the other world? When all of our tricks and tips and tools seem useless against the waves of anguish? When you look in the mirror and really don't like what you feel? When it's all you can do to be civil - and bright and cheerful is no longer an option? What do we do?

Between all the posts on FB, and my personal feelings, the first thought in my head is we just push the red button! But. That's not the advice I would give to anyone else. And knowing we teach that which we most need to learn, I shall reach a little deeper than the pain and say…

We let go and we accept.

We stop trying to analyze. We stop hyperventilating. We stop forced deep breathing. We drop the bootstraps. We lower our chin. We drop the load and we stop grinning.

We give in. "I am in a nasty, sulky mood." "I feel awful and sad and frustrated." "I feel like giving up." "I feel pain." "I just don't care."

I have to tell you, the minute I started thinking that, my mood elevated. Because I was free of the self-imposed prison of who I ought to be.

I am allowed to be crabby. I am allowed to feel less than 100%. There is no reason. No rhyme. I don't know where the pain is, and I don't know why I feel it today. I don't what I'm allergic to. I don't know what's annoying me. I don't know how deep the grief is and if it will ever end and what will set it off this time. I don't know what tomorrow brings. And I am so tired of answering these questions. Tired of asking these questions. Tired of working.

I give in. Today, I give up. I am not going to push against the walls of anything; I’m not going to resist the grumpy mood, and I sure am not going try and accomplish anything when my mood is like this. I'd just have to do it over.

So I accept. I release. I let go. And I ply myself with as many caramel chocolate yogurt shakes as I want.

Because, if you're like me, when you're happy, there is no struggle. There is no resistance. There may be fear, uncertainty, and definitely a lot of practice. But none of this "oh, shoot me now!" despair. None of this blind beating against an invisible wall.

And if you're like me, you want to be happy all the time, yes?

But, if you're like me, you're human, and the weather turns, and we age, and stuff hurts. So. In order to be happy, we have to allow all the emotions to have play. The grumpy, the angry, the righteous, the goofy, the dopey, and the sad. To be in our truth, we have to be IN our truth, even if that truth is not bathing for a week or binging on alphabetizing everything in the home.

If you're like me, you eventually accept yourself, even when you're the Bitch from the Back of the Beyond. You give in. You declare. You celebrate.

And, in the middle of your pity party, you find a small gleaming nugget of happiness. Because, if you're like me, accepting your truth of the moment has set you free.

I hope you have a(n) [insert adjective here] day.

-Lila

Soapbox of Perception - Chemistry of Tears

this was written in January, 2013 - for myself, after my mom died.  I posted it on my website, before that website was here *g*, so you may have already read it. But given the season (Sawhain!), and the fact I like to reread this from time to time, I decided to post it again. - L

When someone we love dies, most humans express their emotions with tears.  Even if the death is a healing; even if we believe in a next life that is better, we cry.  The tears roil up out of some mysterious pit and head straight for the eyes.  Then they spread to the nose, the throat. A sound often emerges.  The body shakes.  The head aches.

We rarely get to control when we cry.  Sometimes we can control how much noise we make, whether it’s a few artistic tears or a flood.  Often, we can clench our teeth against the dying animal sounds.  The headache we can do little about.

But why do we cry?  Why does the emotional wave wash over us?  Why does the stomach clench and the breath hitch and the nose run?

Here is today’s theory, specifically related to death.

We create connections with each other, with family and friends and teachers and clients.  We form energetic bonds with many other beings.  Thus, when we think of said being, we reach out energetically, with heart or soul or mind or psychic field or what have you, and touch quickly upon that being.

When a being is alive, she is bound by the physical nature of the body, the limitations of the rules placed by time and space.  So when we think of the being, the energetic touch reveals information we are able to translate easily, even if we don’t know we’re doing it.

But when a being dies, her self is released from the physical form.  The soul or heart or consciousness or what have you becomes an energetic body.  This body, this state of being in whatever afterlife, is a body unbound.  It is a body that can experience, encompass, embrace, expand into a whole new existence.  An existence with which we, as bound humans, have little experience.

So when we think upon the being who is dead, we reach out energetically, with heart or soul or mind or psychic field or what have you, and we touch upon the awesomeness that is heaven or the universe or the cosmic mind or... or... or...  We touch upon the beauty we have no words for, the emotions we have no ability to feel, the richness that is overwhelming.  And we cry.  We cry from the wonder of it.  We cry from the shock of it.  We cry because we cannot experience the fullness of that existence.  We cry in fear and sorrow and wonder and desire and envy and anger and bewildered acceptance because that is how the human body releases the overflow of emotions.  When we are full physically, we belch.  When we are full emotionally, we cry.

So reach out to the beings who are no longer in this physical existence. Touch the other side, fel the connection and the wonder.  And let the tears fall.

I hope you have a wonderful memory!

-Lila

Chemistry of Greed

Where?
Where is it?
Where is that special something?  That perfect piece?  That thing that was us?  That thing that represents the bond between us?  Where is that momento, that picture, that jewelry, that piece of clothing that shows ME in her life?  Not you, not him, just me.  Where is my specialness?  Where is my secret, sacred, sweet and unique moment, the thing only we two shared?
Where is it?
Where?

Enlightment is Awesome - Finding the Center

The best thing about being a teacher is how much I learn from myself. We teach most that which we need to learn most. We work our way through it for someone else and are therefore brought to the light of the situation ourselves.

Grief is tearing and painful. Joy can be as well. And when it feels like all is turbulence around you, the joy and the grief seem almost intrusive. It certainly feels fatalistic; the emotions so explosive, I feel my head might burst, my heart might stop, my breath might fail. I long for the quiet dignity of the single poetic tear glissading down my cheek.

By having been requested by circumstance to repeat and repeat and repeat the calming phrases and steps to calm decision making; by showing the way to the center of self; by spouting virtuously that the center is the best place to make decisions from, I have led myself (or stumbled along behind my student) finally to that calm and centered place.

And when the comfort food is churning acid, and the alcohol is vinegar, and the sad songs are annoying and the happy ones are raucous; when the words spoken and heard no longer mean anything, finally I come to the center and the peace. I fall away from the pressure. I deny it. I float free, down and in. Calm. Connected. Grateful that the violence has passed, if only for a moment. Every time the moment lasts longer.

The hardest part to learn - this calm, this center, is not a denial of the emotion, be it joy or grief. It is acceptance. Total acceptance. Complete acceptance. Acceptance deeper than the grief, than the joy. Deeper than the fear and the hope. Deeper than the learned perception of self.

Follow your breath in. And Down. Find your center. And discover a whole new world with me.