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Sadness. We all fight it. As if it is something wrong. Bad. I am fighting it right now. I have an overwhelming desire to cry, but I do not know where it is coming from. I have been sitting here for 2 hours fighting it. Avoiding it. Analyzing the wheres and whys. Why?

What if we just feel it and go with it?

Open the door and let it out. What is so bad that is going to happen? We might cry for a bit. Crying is a release of energy. It allows the sadness to pass through us. Pass through us and be gone. Not a bad thing at all.

We might share it with someone. Let them know we are sad. What is going to happen? Well, sharing is intimacy. We might actually get closer with another human. Even a stranger. Allow someone to show compassion. Connect at a human level. Not a bad thing either.

We might still be sad. That is absolutely possible. But that doesn’t make us worse off than we are now. It will still make us better. Respecting your feelings is honoring yourself. And that is so very important. Our feelings are what they are. We have a right to them. We do ourselves a disservice when we negate ourselves. And I see people doing it all the time.

I admit it. I am sad. But really, I do feel a bit better now because I just honored and respected myself by admitting that. I feel a bit prouder, a bit stronger, I value myself a bit more.

So try it on. Admit and feel how you feel. There is no right or wrong.

 

 

 

Fear is a program ensuring our survival. It is a great tool for survival, if not ‘the’ tool of survival. Having the awareness of fear, we can make a choice about the program of fear. Once we can see how it serves us, we can be conscious about whether it is serving us in our present scenario. Our minds do not know the difference between being chased by a bear and being late on a deadline. Our body instinct reacts in the same way. The adrenalin gets pumped into our body, we can feel like both are a life and death situation. Although, being late on a deadline does not mean bodily danger. Because we can make this distinction that rises above instinct and we can consciously look at it, we can choose how we want to be in the situation. Without being able to make the distinction, we would simply react on instinct.

We can be run by fear when we do not recognize it. We can get lost in surviving and not living. At this point of humanness, we have a wonderful opportunity to live in a spiritual realm that is higher than instinctual survival.

Our specific fears are based on our own particular beliefs. You have to look at your individual belief system to recognize your own particular fears.

“We do not see things as they are, we see things as we are.”

If we stop to listen to our thoughts, the thoughts that we have every day, we see that so many of them are just habitual patterns. We carry them around with us, not even thinking about whether they are valid or not. Thoughts of being overwhelmed, thoughts of being behind, thoughts of “I am so tired”, “I have so much to do”. These thoughts are exhausting. They drain our energy and take up our time. How absurd is it to be exhausted by thoughts of feeling exhausted?  They fill our heads with mental clutter. Identifying these thoughts is the first step to letting them go.
We need to stop and listen to ourselves. Practice checking in with your thoughts and just listen. Do not put any judgment on what you are thinking, as that just keeps the cycle going. Some thoughts that you may be carrying habitually:

I’m so tired.
I have so much to do.
It’s just not fair.
It’s always up to me.
I just need to get this done.
When will this be over?
My head/back/feet hurt.

Sometimes you don’t need to do any more than just become aware of them. Accept that they are there and they lose their power. They become just what they are. Just thoughts.

Awareness.

It’s the first step to healing from overwhelm.

Everyone comes from a different place. We will meet many people who have opposing viewpoints to ours. But by ‘holding our tongue’, letting them have their say, we will have better access to finding a commonality that we share.

Our commonality is larger than our differences, although we tend to put more energy into focusing on what is different instead of what is the same. This happens on a small scale, “oh, he/she dresses that way, it must mean…”, and on a large scale, “all republicans are…, all democrats are…”.

The challenge is to let go of all those differences. Think of them as clothing to be stripped off and blown away in the wind. What lies underneath is commonality. Our fears, desires, wants and needs are so much the same. They express themselves differently, but it all stems from a desire for love and an aversion to fear.

We try to control getting what we want from how we have learned to survive, how we have learned to live our lives. We have ‘tricks’ that work, ways of manipulating the world around us that we have learned since childhood. That is what creates our differences: we all have learned different ways that work. But really, that’s almost random. The underlying desire is what is important. It is all for wanting love and avoiding fear.

Look at everyone with the question in your mind, “how are they using this to get love or avoid fear?”, and you will see that their differences are just different tools.

Acknowledging this will allow you to bridge the gap between you.

And wouldn’t the world be such a nicer place?