It is the Holiday season and everyone is supposed to feel uplifted and merry. But today you woke up, and suddenly you feel degrees of separation anxiety from the change and loss in your current life situations that is overwhelming you. It is not just one event, but a series of events that began to pile up. Now three words come to mind…I give up. That person you thought had potential to rent space in your heart runs hot, and without warning becomes cold. Your best friend gets a life-threatening diagnosis from the oncologist and is undergoing Chemotherapy while you become the pillar of strength as they fight for their life. Your teenager graduates high school and goes off to college. In between all of this you moved into new living quarters. So here you are. New environment, no significant other to hold hands with, your BFF is too sick to have dinner with, and you find yourself savoring every morsel of random texts and calls from your child that has flown the coop. You ask yourself, “What is it all about?” You begin to feel separation anxiety as that soft, boggy area of land starts to give way beneath you. So how do you climb out of this field of quagmire and where are the seeds of growth to be found in this marsh?
We live, we love, and we have loss. These are life experiences. I recently came across a client that was suffering from great and sudden loss of a loved one. The compounding of pain, trauma, separation and depression had overwhelmed him and his sense of self was completely gone. All that he identified himself with had suddenly dissolved. I told him that he may not see it now, but there is a portal here for enlightenment. He looked at me like I was nuts, but he kept coming back. It is a wonderful thing to see someone begin to explore the possibilities of evolution in their lives amidst the dark clouds. No one wants to be unhappy. No one wants to stay in a state of suffering. We all want peace and happiness, and love. So here’s the deal. We cannot not divorce the process of emotional wounding from enlightenment. And we cannot reach enlightenment without a clear return to self-love. One of the most profound sutras of Gautama the Buddha is “Love yourself”. It sounds so simple but we often forget this. And if you have been reading my column, by now will know that to love one’s self is to experience Divine love. When we can love our self, we take our first steps toward real love.
We mourn the loss of others, especially during the Holidays, but we also mourn the loss of self. Just as changes in our bodies redefine us, the events of our life situations also redefine us. The ways in which others see us, redefine us. Sudden loss of someone or something redefines us. We identify ourselves with everything and everyone in our lives, and somehow, someway we lose who we truly are because we had this false sense of self that attached to everything in the world as we knew it. Often separation makes us feel less needed and unimportant because there is a sense of powerlessness and loss of control from it. There will come several points in our life, however, where we will have to give up our former image, that false sense of self, and move on. There is much we have to give up in order to grow. Some of these things in life, we relinquish involuntarily. But if you cease resistance to what is, then you can transcend the fear of separation and begin to experience new growth in your life. We all experience loss and change. It is inevitable. It is necessary for self-growth. We cannot love deeply without experiencing loss, and we cannot engage our creative self without having change. I find that one of the biggest offenders against positive change through transformation is fear. And if you are living in fear, it will obscure your heart’s ability to love and feel love.
As the Holidays approach us, the tension sets in and at the expense of each other’s hearts we hold on, we allow suffering, and we cause suffering upon others. We hide behind the nuance of the Holidays hoping that the spirit of it all will bring peace and happiness. For some, the Holiday sounds and décor bring depression, especially after a sudden change in life circumstances or a great loss in one’s life. For others, no matter what the intentions of the Holidays may suggest, they still feel anger toward one and hurt from another. This is because they haven’t let go. So in this present moment, I encourage you to change your mindset to…’I give up. Let’s just love each other.’
Love is the catalyst for everything in your life. But you need to shut off the chatter in the mind that stops love from entering. When you surrender to everything you think is going to work, and everything that you thought was supposed to happen, and let those walls come down, the love will enter. Stop sitting in the dark. Take down the walls and let the light in. Don’t believe fear. Embrace love. It is why we are here. It is the heartbeat of the Divine. The love of a mother for her child is eminent. Some of the greatest love that any one human being encounters toward another, is that of a mother’s love for her child. And yet, it is smaller compared to the love of God. Let that love enter. In the end, this is all that will matter.
Wishing you all the peace and love at this very moment, because this moment is all there ever is. As always, I welcome you to contact me for ongoing support in helping you bridge the gap between where you are today, and where the purpose in your life awaits.
Love and Light,
Lily Sanders