Loving What Is Even in the Face of Crisis

Crisis can bring people together into a sole purpose. It can blur the lines of unforgiveness and shift your perspective so dramatically that your “never” turns into “maybe” and your “always” becomes “not anymore.” It can be gut-wrenching, surreal, and unfair as hell. And it can be a wake-up call or a thing to endure and leave behind. At the least, it can challenge you in ways you never imagined.

I tend to get emotional with personal crisis, taking time out to feel my feelings, no matter how painful they may be. However, I have learned over the years (and yes, it does take practice) to bounce quickly and often from a position of pity and “poor me” to one of action and “where do I go from here?” Each moment offers this opportunity, even if we don’t recognize it.

While you may not be going through a personal crisis, you may find yourself at a crossroads, a choice point, a place of needing to decide between two paths. I suggest you first get quiet and sit with yourself, not in that “should I do this or that” place, but in a place of loving what is, which may be confusion, pain, or indecision. Not knowing is at least knowing that you don’t know, which is an important first step in many journeys.

Here’s some other ideas you might try:

1. When you feel a strong emotion (sadness or fear, for example), surrender to the emotion by breathing it completely in. Feel your body’s reaction to the emotion. Allow it to come. And know that it will pass.
2. When you start to feel fear creeping in, stop and say to yourself, “I love the part of me that is afraid to…(I doubt you will have difficulty filling in the blanks)” It’s easy to feel fear but accepting it can be another story. Try it and see what happens.
3. Look for the lesson (or lessons) you can learn from your situation. While whatever has happened may not seem fair or bearable, look at it from different angle to see what good can come of it.

We all go through times of tragedy in our lives. The more we can learn to accept that it will come, the more we will be able to move through it when it does.

Photo: Yin Yang – Symbol © by DonkeyHotey