tug of war within

I had an off day yesterday, a genuine funk. And I thought that I was doing so well with the recent struggles in our lives. For the most part, I have remained centered and stable and connected in the face of these challenges. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, fear or grief or anger bubbled up from the deep crevices of my being and disturbed the calm waters of my peace.

As is typical for me, I am incredulous and shocked that fear/sadness/anger still have an unyielding grasp on me. I am frustrated by my internal tug of war, the knowing that “all is well and exactly as it should be” holding one end of the rope v. the feeling “but this hurts like hell and/or I am so afraid of the unknown” pulling equally in opposition at the other end. Why, oh why, if I am tapped into and connected with my higher self and a broader perspective, do I still feel and experience negative, draining emotions?

This is when I have to remind myself that I am both a spiritual being and a human being.  Even though I desperately wish that my higher knowing (and the accompanying peace it provides) would act as a magic wand and simply erase any and all residual fear, pain, anger, despair, regret, depression, melancholy...it doesn’t. The reality is that the human part of me still needs tending to.

This awareness has never been clearer to me than with the deaths of my loved ones. With each loss, I simultaneously experienced profound peace and insufferable pain. I never questioned or judged my expression of grief. It was real and pure and raw and I knew without a doubt that it was far healthier for me to grieve than not. I’m not sure that I could have contained my deep feelings of loss even if I had tried. Yet at the same time, I was acutely aware that my higher knowing, my sense of the bigger picture of life, was the grace of God that allowed and nurtured my healing.

Being in fear or sadness or any other negative emotion sucks. The negative emotions arising in me now are not overpowering as they were when my family and friend died. I could ignore them.  I could choose to only validate the higher knowing part of myself, dragging the human emotional part of me along kicking and screaming, expecting a magical healing. Or I could acknowledge that the human part of me still holds old beliefs, patterns, programming that need to be dismantled and replaced with more expansive, loving, higher thought, truth connections. 

It will require attention and effort on my part to give the human aspect of me its expression, allowing my fear or sense of loss or sadness its voice so that I can then understand it, heal it, release it, transform it. (There are infinite resources available to help me through this process, some of which I connect to are prayer, the teachings of “What the Bleep” and “The Secret,” and The Work of Byron Katie.)

I absolutely cherish that I trust and listen to my intuition, my heart and my guidance, but I also want to be mindful of the tug of the human part of me that still needs attention...that part of me that still wears and bares the sentiment, “Fragile. Handle with care.”