The nature of emotions is flow… I heard this the other day on a book on tape. And like a song that gets stuck in your head, it keeps coming back to me again and again. The nature of emotions is flow… And so I have been noticing how this is true, that if I can allow the big emotions in and not resist them, I can also allow them out. The same mechanism allows for both.

This has been my practice this week. The tide of hurt, sadness, fear, rushes in, sometimes in a roaring, deafening wave, and then flows back out. I notice that when I am trying to hold it together, to be strong, to “pull myself together” (was anyone else told this as a child?) the monster only gets bigger. It hardens and changes form. Instead of being like water it becomes more like sap, corrosive and sticky- and the flow is lost. This is when I become grumpy with the people I love… not soft or gentle, but pent up and anxious.

Earlier this year, I had a session with an extraordinary body worker. She is also an intuitive and gets most of her information from working on your body. This means that while you’re getting a wonderful massage, she simultaneously gives you the download on your life. More importantly, on what your spiritual work is at that time.

When I saw her months ago, she told me that my work is about honesty. I was surprised, thinking, “I’m honest. What gives?” but then she explained. “I mean emotional honesty. I mean telling the truth to people you love even when you’re afraid, even when they might not like it or disagree. It’s allowing your feelings to be valid, to matter. It’s standing in your truth even if someone pushes back. You need to learn that in holding someone else’s truth, you don’t have to abandon your own.”

And since I didn’t get it the first time, my therapist alerted me to this last week as well. Almost verbatim.
One of the things that moved me most about Jen Lee’s voice course is the part where you explore voice injuries. We all have them, but since I am fairly self-expressed in my creative life and able to be vulnerable in my emotional life, this showed up as a blind spot for me.

How much of our truth are we willing to tell? Especially if it’s bad news? Is there a way to tell your truth with fierce love in your heart?

I feel like I’m being handed my mission from the Universe and I have been trying to wrestle it to the ground. I see how I want to quit instead, forfeit, avoid, hide, talk myself out of how I feel.. and because this is old wound territory, it feels like my survival is at stake. I suppose in a way it’s true. There is some part I am ready to let go of. Some way I have always been that might not survive, but (hopefully) I will. Something new might be born. It is a risk to grow, but I am reminding myself that it is a risk worth taking.

Jen and I always joke that we can’t escape being students in the class we are offering. We are immersed in the content of each course whether we like it or not. This Dream Lab is no exception- it is about clearings, about making space and letting go of what no longer serves us. It is no accident that I am being called to do this work now. As scary as it feels though, I know that on the other side lives deeper connection, truth and real power.

I have had insomnia on and off for weeks now. The image that continues to find me in those wee hours, (literally sitting right behind my eyelids) is of one of those chinese finger traps. Do you remember those? You put an index finger into each end and the more you pull and pull, the more you get stuck. There is no way out except to do the most counter intuitive thing — you push your fingers further in, thereby loosening the grip of the toy. Only then can you take your fingers out.

I suppose the message is clear. Relax, allow… let go. There are gifts on the other side.