PART ONE
Love's opposite is
not hatred, it's indifference.
A poorly navigated
loss, and its resulting poorly healed heart, can make you a lifelong victim to
the darker side of love, and keep you locked into a lesser life with a
diminished capacity to love and be loved moving forward.
At the heart of all
attachment is fear regulation, and our closest relationships serve the purpose
of calming us down when we're in danger of spinning out of control.
In the Tibetan
language, the word karma is literally las.rgyu.abras, which means
"action-seed-results".
With all of the
darkness you may be walking through right now, it's good to remember that where
there is no light, you have the choice to become it.
We human beings are
actually a pretty needy bunch -- biologically and psychologically predisposed
to bond in ways that make us strikingly reliant upon those we are close to, and
particularly helpless when it comes to regulating our own emotions independent
of each other.
In the aftermath of
a traumatic event, our first task will be to restore a sense of safety.
When you're willing
to be with your experience, simply naming your feelings and needs without
frantically trying to get rid of them, you're practicing what Buddhist s call
"mindfulness". It is neither
passive non active, but a deep honoring of your own humanity as you come to
terms with the vulnerabilities of having a heart that loves.
Ineffective grieving
happens when you allow your pain to calcify your heart closed and fixate your
identity as someone who is alone, unwanted, or abused. It threatens to doom you to living a
contracted, lessened life for months or years to come. Effective grieving, however, turns the love
you've been giving another towards yourself.
You might think of
your feelings of depression as life's way of preventing you from moving away in
haste from your loving connection; it's an existentially enforced waiting
period that mandates you to take downtime for reflection on the actions you're
taking, the choices you're making, the changes needing to be made, and the
lessons needing to be learned.
Though we may
believe that slipping into a depression is bad, it can actually mean you're
heading in the right direction by grappling with life on its own terms, as you
crawl your way toward grief's final resting place: acceptance.
Release unconscious
and habitual patterns of people pleasing; self-abandoning, overgiving, or
tolerating less than you deserve, and begin showing up in ways that are
reflective of your true value.
Learn how to make
amends to yourself in a way that frees you from the residue of resentment and
regret.
This question, where
is my attention? needs to be your mantra as you continually turn away from the
finger pointing that your mind will automatically gravitate toward.
