My mom’s ‘final(?)’ or most profound lesson
When you're an empath, you teeter on the edge of allowing yourself to feel it all and believing it may likely take you down. Probably subconsciously (maybe not for some), you keep some form of mediation active. Maybe you flat out use escapism, or build an internal fortress. Perhaps you give oscar worthy performances or maybe you do sink. And maybe it's not just empaths, but anyone learning to feel with a full open heart.
This blog may at first appear to be written about a struggle, when in fact, it's about freedom. It's about what may be my mom's final or most profound lesson for me. Or maybe it just seems this way right now.
For about 2 decades now, I've been practicing mindfulness meditation and yoga. One of the themes I've had for most of this time has been 'letting go.' When you first start to focus on something and feel it work, it can seem like big shifts. Like when you first cut caffeine consumption down or out..you might get a headache and it's obvious. Or, when you start taking dōTERRA's life long vitality vitamins and you immediately feel what it's like to have energy all day. :) Then over time, the changes or progress may seem less obvious. Maybe you reach a certain plateau and the progress slows, isn't as loud or has reached an optimal place. 'Letting go' was an obvious experience for me once it started: in yoga...letting go of the 'perfect form,' the comparison, the overdoing of muscle energy. Eventually, the 'letting go' of attachments to thoughts in meditation was more graceful. These days I meditate for 30 minutes most mornings. Typically, I combine meditation with some Bengston energy practice and sometimes Reiki. My mantra has been ..."help me get out of my own way"...as I encourage my ego to step aside and allow something deeper and bigger to lead. A less obvious, perhaps deeper layer of 'letting go' ...of 'surrender' we sometimes say.
So last week I meditated. Like most mornings these days, I had a few moments of sadness/missing my mom and a few tears fell. Then it became overwhelming and it hurt so fucking much. There was no warning, at least that I sensed. It took my breath away in a very specific way. So this is grief? In that moment, I was vividly aware I had no hold. A moment of feeling totally suspended in air and under immense gravity. A few fleeting moments, and then ...I was FREE. Not free of sadness or grief or any particular sort of thoughts. A freedom that can only be felt when the fortress dissolves in real time and space with no battle, when we seem to step outside of time altogether..there is nowhere to run to or from or thing to grasp. And yet, I did not sink. I can only describe the feeling as Free. Not relief even... as that seems to fall short, just free. Perhaps a moment of experiencing the full, open heart with no cautions or ego involved. A moment of being so aligned with THAT...with Love? with our true essence? And that is freedom as I see it.
I often tell my yoga students and therapy clients about 'letting go' in the physical body with an example of how one might approach a stretch. They might meet their edge and push to go a little further...striving to get some place 'further.' Or, they might meet their edge..that place just outside the comfort zone and then pause and soften. They might 'let go' and find the space open to move deeper into the stretch. Now, I have an emotional tale to tell. And I thank you again, mama...my greatest teacher (next to my boys ;) )
