I am practicing this concept I heard on a Pema Chodran book I recently finished listening to.
Learn to Stay.
For about a year now I have been losing a relationship that was a major piece of my history. For months the wound is still so fresh that when I think about it I feel pulsating aches from my stomach to the walls of my chest around my heart. I feel myself lose my breath the minute the persons name flashes in the corner of my brain where all my childhood memories exist.
Since the beginning of this mess I have pushed it down. I found a way to turn heart break into rage. I have brushed it off, and put it away. I have eaten countless pints of Ben and Jerrys, wrote hateful letters that I will never send and cried tears so hot they felt like acid burning my cheeks on the way out. All these things not helping me resolve this heartache. Nothing making this wound heal faster.
Since I have been on this spiritual path of awakening for at least two years I get frustrated. Why am I not fixed yet?
A few weeks ago I heard Pema tell me to learn to stay. I shook with recognition. It was one of those beautiful moments when you see the next step in your very confusing path light up.
Maybe it is not about finding a place to hide from feelings. Even feelings that take my breath away in sadness. Maybe I am just supposed to let that feeling take me where I am meant to go. Lord knows I wouldn’t be going through it if there was not a lesson to learn. Instead of running to a piece of Greggs Lemon Burst cake I just need to learn to stay.
So I do.
I accept that fact that grieving this loss will take as long as it will take. I understand finally that nothing will make that go any faster.
I learn to stay.
I learn that sadness does not have to turn to anger, and it does not have to run the show.
I learn to stay.With anything that comes up from the trenches to knock me off my feet.
When Last Baby got sick this week and turned into a needy, soul-sucking monster I looked at the bottle of wine and then at my crying baby, and I learned to stay. I learned to look at things with love even when all I felt was aggravated rage.
I learn to stay when I feel overwhelmed by all the things I should be doing. All the things I need to accomplish. I learn to stay when I don’t feel good enough.
Sitting in the peace of knowing how I really feel. This brutal honesty that I tried to run from is saving me instead. I also learned that this path is not an instant fix, and there will be times for the rest of my life when I do not learn to stay. There will be times when I search frantically for some worldly thing to make me feel better…….I have a brand new WWE graphic T collection to prove it.
But, since I learned to stay most of the time I know that moving back a few spaces is ok. Especially when that relapse gets you an Enzo and Cass “certified G” shirt…
