The truth of love, real love, can never ever be lost. It cannot leave. It rests inside like a quiet knowing, an untouchable force, a presence, grace itself. It’s who we are.
When we do the inner work to raise our awareness of our unprocessed pain.. when we learn to stay present with ourselves through it and release unconscious protective mechanisms that no longer serve us, we can come to a peaceful kind of emptiness, where there is nothing left but is-ness, being, awareness.
Our essential nature is all that is always there. Love. Even if we might feel sad.
“What does it take for one single body to exist? – It takes the entire universe.” Adyashanti.
Nothing and no one exists on their own. We are all part of the ecosystem of life. We are born through our parents bodies. We can’t survive without loving relationships and connection. We need each other. Too much isolation has been scientifically proven to affect our physical, emotional and mental health.
We can and need to strive for a level of self reliance and independence yes, but no matter how independent we might become, we are still dependent on everything. We are dependent on the air we breathe being clean. We are dependent on our liver function and our heart continuing to beat. We are dependent on the supermarket being stocked, the truck drivers delivering food, the electricity and internet operating, the sun and the rain. We are dependent on the honey bees to pollinate our plants and food, the trees so we can have a liveable planet, the mycelium to feed the soil so the trees can grow… The list is endless.
The entire planet, in fact the entire universe and everything in it is interconnected.
Repressed grief or resisting feelings of grief is a worse and more prolonged kind of suffering than being with our grief and allowing it to be fully had.
To really feel our grief, with all it’s intensity, is one of the hardest things, but if we push it away, it will still be there, waiting to be felt, waiting for the truth of expression at some point.
With unprocessed grief, we often unconsciously create other problems to focus on to keep grief and our fear of loss away. However in running we generate much more suffering.. feelings of guilt, frustration, apathy, emotional disconnect, depression, addictive/compulsive behaviours, arrogance/victimisation, general stress, anxious thoughts, sleep problems, physical symptoms, suicide ideation, shallow breathing and less ability to be open and receptive to life on the whole.
We also usually have increased relationship problems. We’re attracted to certain types and play out unconscious relational patterns in an attempt to have more control to mitigate loss or devastation. But then it’s these patterns that are what end up being what makes our relationships not work and we then experience more loss and grief.
Unfelt grief holds us prisoner. On some level we are unable to get past certain blocks/demons so we can truly step into our full potential and the life we envision for ourselves.
The long and the short of it is.. we need to find a way to be with grief. It’s hard, but it’s a lot harder long term when we don’t.
A conscious, equal relationship, where there is no ‘clingy unstable one’ and no ‘strong one’, will strip us of our ability to operate on that familiar kind of ground, through these unconscious roles/senses of identity.
When our partner won’t be our strength for us, our saviour/rescuer, or our partner doesn’t ‘need’ us and we don’t get something out of being the strong one, how do we know they/we will want to stick around?
Equality in relationship is so beautiful, so delicious; all that we really want, and yet it also shines a light on our insecurities, traumas and fears. It shows us where we worry we’ll be abandoned, inadequate, a burden, unloveable and rejected.
It takes a lot of courage and commitment to work with ourselves and together, to stay open, to share and receive each other in deep intimacy. But oh how beautiful is a life lived with such love.
I don’t have to be the strong, independent one or the hurt, not ok one, I can just be human and compassionately acknowledge and express whatever is arising in me at the time.
RATNA DYER 