The beautiful paradox of being positive and embracing light and shadow
/I've thought for so long about how to frame this so that it truly invites you to both:
Face and love all of you -- the hurts, the happiness, the shadow and the light.
Focus on what you want -- as what you focus on expands.
I think I've found it. I hope it gives you that 'expanded within' feeling that happens when you have a true deep awakening that invites you into more of yourself.
Face and Love All of You, Light and Shadow
The thing about authenticity and the joy of truly living life fully while you're hear and alive, is that you can't be only spiritual or logical. That defeats the purpose, doesn't it?
Once I'd realized that my Creator is the benevolent Source of Love (however you define him/her/them), that I am loved, lovely and love itself, that I chose to come here to fully experience being human and to expand all that love is and means through my experiences here, I was liberated. I recognized, on hearing that, that I knew this all along. I didn't find this out of desperate loneliness, but from an empowered place of mindfully seeking the truth in all encompassing love.
It was tempting to stay in my spiritual space once I'd discovered that. Why would I want to be apart from that kind of love? So I stayed in the spiritual for a while -- for years -- but then I woke up.
"I chose to be present here in this specific time and space, with all of its ups and downs in technology, politics, biases, awakenings and enlightenments, because I knew I could expand and create, here and now, as I could in no other time and space."
Understanding that, I realized that, that means that, I have to live, and I can only do so alive.
I state the obvious, but here's why. There are schools of thought that take extreme positions, such as:
Be Zen. You have failed if you have an emotional response to anything. We must step back, observe and embrace all that is, as-is. Emotions matter if you're going to fully experience being human. Emotions save our lives often, as they're more difficult to ignore than the logical brain.
Be Selfless. People may hurt you, but hurt people hurt people, so once you understand that, it's easier to love them despite their actions. The danger unstated here to the human element is that mental, emotional, physical, even spiritual, abuse, can lead to death -- you're not alive to love any one if you're dead. Boundaries are important to survival. You can forgive without putting yourself in harm's way again. You can love from a distance.
These are just two (2) examples. I'm sure some others are already popping up for you -- philosophies that make you feel 'safe', playing only in the spiritual or in your head.
Melissa Maher, a reiki master among so many other great things, wrote this on her Facebook page,
Better Days Now.
"Spiritual bypass can occur when we believe we have to feel good all the time. That's complete B.S. and one of the biggest misconceptions people believe. I used to believe it too.
IT'S HEALTHY TO FEEL ALL EMOTIONS. The uncomfortable ones and the joyfilled blissful ones.
If you choose not to feel the pain and sorrow deep in your being, you'll never heal it. It will simply come back bigger and stronger and louder until you finally pay attention to it.
So when I say it's healthy to feel emotions, it is. What's unhealthy is to stay there too long.
So if you're going through something right now. Feel it. Face it heart on. Be with it fully. And then, once it's acknowledged, experienced, and loved, is when you can move from it into a more positive state.
#emotions #healing #spirituality #spiritualbypass #spiritual #spiritualgrowth #soulhealing #soultherapy #reiki #reikimaster #spiritualcoach"
Source:
https://m.facebook.com/betterdaysnow/photos/a.342960925850684/1628244933988937/?type=3
Focus on what you want, so that That expands
I may have mentioned that I have found, and love, Meredith Murphy aka Ailia Mira, founder of
. People use text-to-talk apps to convert her blog posts to audio -- if you can get past the mechanical sound of the voice, as her words really sound like home to me, it's always worth listening to her.
Ailia Mira reminds us that we chose to come here to expand. That's it. Not for some greater purpose or some burdensome reason, but simply to experience life here. So why not have fun doing so as far as possible? Her focus
IS on staying focused on the positive to create what you want.
Only so that you have fewer negative experiences to work through -- not to ignore your feelings or exist only in the spiritual or anything of that nature.
Okay, sure -- if what you focus on expands, then any time spent focused on negative emotions creates more of the same.
While that is true, it is the energy behind your focus (thoughts, feelings, words, actions), that create or expand what is.
Ignoring your negative feelings does not eliminate that energy. Unhealed, you're injecting that energy into all you create. Facing it to heal it -- not living in it, but releasing it once healed --
creates a positive environment within you so that you can actually focus more easily on what you want.
Here's one that I think invites us gently into a space of, sure, focusing on what we want but also, gently acknowledging that we won't always be in that frame of mind. It guides us to gentle ways of slowing down less positive momentum so we can invite more positive flow --
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Od1pmDrOQBg
-- there are better ones, so if this resonates, I hope you begin to explore for yourself.
What does this for You?
What gets you out of your head or spirit mode, out of fear or whatever holds you back from freely enjoying this life for the short time that you have here? I'd love to hear.
Crystal-Marie S, MBA
