Sunday, February 5, 2017

It's okay to feel sad


It's okay to feel sad.

Be sad. Fully. Not partially, for your longing will never be satisfied by that which is partial. Love is full-spectrum and will unleash all of its children here, including sadness, to awaken itself in all form. It is an act of profound kindness to turn into the open, sore, achy caverns of the heart and seed them with holding.

Allow yourself to fall apart, just for a moment. You can put yourself back together soon. But for now… end the war. Call on the seen and unseen ones to bear witness and hold you as you fall to the ground. Ask the moon to help you, or a tree, a friend, a lover, a deer, an owl, or the mud of the earth. There is guidance everywhere. Attune to the vision as it erupts within and around you.

Waves of hopelessness, despair, and heartbreak… touch them, give them a home, provide sanctuary and safe passage for the broken pieces to unfold and illuminate. For they, too, are filled with light.

Dare to see that the presence of sadness is not evidence that something is wrong with you. It does not mean you’ve “failed” or that you are lacking in faith, trust, or gratitude. It doesn’t mean you need to meditate better, become better at staying in the present moment, manifest the opposite of sadness, or that you are lost or beyond redemption. It means you are alive. Welcome.

Sadness is not something you need to fix, cure, or transform. It need not be healed, but held. You need not shift sadness into some “higher” state or apply teachings so that it will yield into something else. For it is complete and pure on its own. You need not pathologize your sadness or fall into the spell of a world that has abandoned the tender gold buried inside your body.

Stay close to your sadness and surround it with curiosity, presence, and warmth. With the fire of awareness and with the ally of your breath, descend underneath the story of the sadness and into the crucible. Go on a journey into the core of the feeling, the sensations, the images, and the raw, shaky life that is longing to be held. And listen.
It is by way of this journey that sadness will be revealed to be what it is, a secret wisdom-guide and bridge into the universal heart, come to remind us of something we’ve forgotten in a world that has gone a bit mad.


Art by Toshiyuki Enoki

The Way of Rest summer retreat – registration open now 


New book – The Path is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – to be released in April