The Beautiful Pain of Our Emotions

I felt an intense tightness in my stomach, and my mind was revved up and already worrying itself in circles.  

As I moved through my morning routine and eventually sat on my meditation cushion, I was EXTREMELY uncomfortable emotionally.

This happened exactly one month ago - I remember the date because it was the day before the last Mind Mastery Experience I led.

I thought I should cancel the event. I thought I should cancel my client calls for the day. I thought I should get up and move and focus on something else. I thought I should get up and do literally anything else but sit there and be with what I was feeling and thinking.

I plan for 15 minutes of meditation as part of my morning routine for exactly this reason: to practice being with reality as it is, instead of running towards the first distraction I can think of.

Our distractions dilute our experience, and we’re not often better off for it.

I wrapped up my journaling (which mostly consists of the practice of forgiveness and reminding myself who I am), closed my notebook, then closed my eyes.

The emotion I was sitting with was literally the most intense emotion I’ve possibly ever felt.

It felt like a group of sharp, jagged, shiny, black obsidian in the base of my gut, piercing up through my lungs and heart. It made it tough to even breathe.

I didn’t even know what emotion it was at first. I could just feel its darkness and its sharpness. It hurt.

Was it sadness? Was it fear? Was it hopelessness?

I didn’t feel like I should sit there with it. I thought something was wrong. I thought something needed fixing. I thought I needed to do anything but sit there and be with this terrifying emotion.

And I continued to sit there.

There are many many practices out there to support our emotional freedom. I used my go-to, a customized version of the Hawaiian spiritual practice of Ho’oponopono (write to me if you’d like my notesheet on it).

No joke, within 10 minutes, the emotion was complete and I was sitting in peace.

As I sat there, the name for the emotion eventually came to me: despair.

Here’s what effective emotional freedom practices do: they help me see that I am bigger than the emotion. I am the one experiencing the emotion. I am at the helm, and this emotion is an experience I’m having.

I could have lessened the intensity of the emotion by diluting my experience with social media, tasks, continued worried thinking, or any other number of distractions.

We dilute our experience with distractions.

We dilute our communications with bull crap and platitudes.

We dilute our apologies with justifications.

We dilute uncomfortable emotions, yet they don’t actually go away. Diluting them with distraction or resistance simply keeps the energy of the emotion stagnant, unintegrated, unwanted, and un-cared for.

Another path is possible - the path to emotional freedom.

I’ve learned how to love myself deeply by being willing to be with uncomfortable emotions. They are a secret gateway to the best parts of our humanity.

Even the piercing obsidian of despair can blossom into something extraordinarily beautiful.

Much Love. ❤️

Molding Heroes

I didn’t have the language for it then, but I was 17 years old when I began to identify that supporting the well-being of all life was my primary value, purpose, drive, and commitment in life.

It was something about the summer between junior and senior year of high school - like an awakening to both purpose and power.

One warm morning that summer, around 11am, a few of us lifeguards were carrying buckets of liquid chlorine up from the pump room to dump into the pool. (No, this isn’t the dumbest thing we did with chemicals at the pool. 🤦‍♂️)

We’d pour the yellow liquid into the pool, and as it splashed in, some of it got onto our arms - it made them burn a little and itch!

I was working on one side of the pool, and I noticed my friends across the pool staring into a bucket. So I walked to them to check out what they were looking at.

There was a bee trying desperately to get out of the chlorine in one of the buckets. It was struggling - legs moving and wings fluttering. Its very survival was at stake, and it knew it.

My heart went out to the little guy...

And my friends found the bee's struggle entertaining. 

Though I was awakening to this innate care and commitment for the well-being of all life, I didn't know how to best access it. In fact, for much of the time in my life between 17 and 24 years old, I struggled. I had challenging feelings and thoughts and I grappled and fought what felt like a losing a battle I didn’t even understand.

Each of us is a hero in our own lives and in the lives of others. We each have a direct line to the Divine Source of it all. What varies among and within us is how well trained we are in connecting to our Source and living from that Source.

We build up a lot of unhelpful habits and perspectives along the way. We've been molded - by our environments, by the people in our lives, and by our own choices.

And there comes a point in our lives, whether we recognize it or not, that we are actually the ones responsible for molding ourselves into the heroes we want to be - the heroes we're meant to be.

It’s no longer up to anyone but ourselves.

As Catholic priest Anthony de Mello has said: "The nature of rain is the same, but it makes thorns grow in the marshes and flowers in the gardens."

Are you using the rain of your life to grow your life intentionally, in all ways and at all times?

You are always molding yourself and the people in your life either towards or away from our own heroism.

Here's something people get out of working with me: self-love, reconnecting to their Source, and access to their inner hero as an experience and a place to live from.

Reach out and connect with me if you want that too.

Much Love. ❤️

Regret Is a Choice

During one of the last couple Mind Mastery Experiences, a participant shared that they struggled with making a choice because they didn’t want to regret it.

You ever find it tough to make a decision because you don’t want to make the wrong one? Because you don’t want to regret the decision you make? 

Regret is a choice. 

Here’s how regret happens:

1. Me in the present, I think back to something I did or didn’t do in the past.

2. Me in the present, I judge that action or inaction.

3. Me in the present, I feel the feeling of regret (disappointment, remorse, sadness).

The mind makes up that regret is about the past, when in fact regret is the result of present judgment about the past.

If I am the one judging my past actions or inactions, present me is therefore the source of my own regret. Not the past version of me!

Regret is the result of judgement, and judgment is a choice!

Sure, most of us have a lot of judgmental thoughts that we’re not meaning to think - they’re unintentional thoughts, default thoughts. The problem isn’t having unintentional/default judgments. 

The problem is that we buy into our judgmental and default thoughts! We believe them! We empower them! 

The problem is that we use our incredible power of the Self, our will, to feed our judgmental and regretful thinking with energy.

Here’s one alternative to feeding our soul’s energy to judgmental thinking:

Forgiveness.

Forgiveness is an access to love.

Where there is judgment, there is no love. Where there is forgiveness, judgment is released and love becomes possible.

Forgiveness is an intentional practice. It occurs in our:

• Language: “I forgive myself for doing ______.” “I forgive myself for being ______.”

• Feelings: generating compassion, understanding, love, and release.

• Body: relaxing. 

Each moment of our lives is an opportunity for us to choose our being, how we respond, and what we empower.

If regret is a choice you've been making, what could you choose in its place?

Much Love. ❤️