When the wave of deep sadness rises
Or anger
Anxiety
Shame
Blame
Guilt
Even hatred
When the body convulses and quakes
Or the heat surges
Or the breath comes short and sharp
Or we collapse beneath the weight of our own self-disgust
Can we know that this doesn’t mean:
We’re not spiritual enough
We haven’t ‘got it’ yet
There’s still so much work to do
Spirituality was never meant to be the surgeon’s knife sent to cut away your humanity
It is only the call to embrace the moment
Even this moment
With all its tears, its grief and deep, deep pain.
There is space enough within you for this. Even this.
Indeed, you are the boundless space into which it all comes and goes.
Can we meet it with tender curiosity, this pain?
Sit with it like we would the dearest of friends?
Know that this feeling isn’t separate from our spiritual life but rather
is our spiritual life?
Sold a ‘high vibe’ lie, we don’t trust this pain
We’ve made it wrong
And cast it out
A hooded stranger on the dark streets
Not knowing that in casting it out we denied the only thing it wants
To flow with us for a little while
To be felt
heard
understood
and held.
Open the gates
To this sadness, this rage, this self-loathing, this shame, this guilt
There is nothing about it that makes you less spiritual
Come out of the ‘high vibe’ lie
And rest in the moment of Now
Whether it’s high vibe, low vibe or middle-of-the-road vibe
Without the story that says it’s wrong
Somehow there is a kind of joy even in the midst of this pain.
Love and courage,
Leah