On fear, sadness, and beauty.

Lately, I’ve been on a mission to feel-my-feelings all the way through (If you don’t know what I mean, a short explanation I’ve been given is that feelings take from 20 seconds to 20 minutes to be felt completely, processed and moved through — if you don’t allow them the time, they just stay there in your body, waiting for the time and space to be felt. Maybe they’ll stay as tension, pain, disease or excess weight. Maybe as a general sense of discontent and fight-or-flight. It pretty much sucks to be in that place. Have been there myself for years and am trying to leave it, move through it, FEEL my feelings).

So this morning, with the news of the tragedy in Colorado, as well as some not-so-great news about a beloved family member, I was feeling some feelings.

The first reaction was to be sad/fearful/angry, and then to try to “cope” and move on with my day, but stay in a mournful place, a serious place. But instead I sat with them, moving-meditated on them (didn’t have a chance to sit in stillness, was getting ready for the day and caring for Nat). But I was able to discern that I was feeling mostly fear. Sadness, yes, for the lives taken too soon and the families and friends of those affected, who’s lives will never be the same.

But also fear because if something so senseless can happen in that community, so could it happen here, to me, to my friends or family. And that’s a scary thought.

But I played the whole tape through.

I was afraid and in a place of “what if” and protection mode.

And then it dawns on me that I’m just fine. Everyone is just fine. Those poor souls are not fine, I get that, but I see that I can’t live in a place of fear, or hold this fear in my heart all my days. They wouldn’t want that.

So I play the tape through, I feel the feeling and I release it. I know that I am safe, my daughter and husband are safe. Right now. In this present moment.

And that’s all I can know.

I can’t be in the what-if. It doesn’t serve me or anyone else.

I wonder if this discussion/description seems selfish? I wonder if (and why?) there’s a pervasive belief in our society that we must all stay in mourning and fear for many moons after a tragedy. No I don’t want to forget to honor those lives, but I’m thinking it’d be much better if we all, then, started enjoying our days more. The days we do have.

If we were given permission to play just a little more today, smile and laugh just a little more? I give you permission, even if no one else does, ok?

{and then as I write this I get news of my DEAR friends having a new little soul enter their lives. Two of my favorite friends in the world are new adoptive daddies RIGHT NOW. Everything seems so beautiful and right and I can’t help but cry happy tears.}

Beauty, my friends. It’s all around. Sadness, fear, shame, guilt, violence, it’s here, too. But let’s focus more on the good, so as to value our “one wild and precious life”, ok?!

“You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
call to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.” ― Mary Oliver

(Welcome to the world, little River! We love you so much!)