Living Retreat: Harder and More Beautiful Than I Expected

Hey Guys,

As I sit here typing, I’m getting a little weepy eyed. Don’t worry, don’t worry.

Crying -- it’s actually a really good thing!

For me,
right now,
at this moment,
crying is a good thing;
even when it is induced by what most of us would typically categorize as “negative emotions”.
It’s a great thing.

I have been in this hunt the last few weeks to change some aspects of my life, my behaviors, my character that I’ve not been so attracted to. My life has started feeling a little chaotic, and a series of encounters –one by one-- inched my metaphorical eye open to some of the not-so-pretty issues I have let percolate inside. Was only a matter of time before the dysfunction with-out was to externally match the dysfunction within. Or did it all along, I just was just too distracted to notice…

Loads of irony here --maybe even unintended hypocrisy this seems-- because
I am a “feeler”!

In all senses of the word. . .

Physical touch wins as my top love language,
my face can’t help to inflate or deflate along with the vibrations of a conversation,
I want to experience the moments I’m in;
breathing in the scent of the wind,
acknowledging the way it feels wrapping around and through my arms,
paying attention to how it moves my hair across my cheek
and how that feels like tickling.
Heck, I even think in emotion (though usually heavily filtered through my own Brita-of-Logic prior to exiting ;]),

Most of my family and good friends know I’m not a crier.
And Most of my life I didn’t know why.
Even with my fascination with the emotional and sensory world, I thought I was born with malfunctioning tear ducks, a stubborn will, and a couple major life events that proved the former reasonings invalid for a short  time.

Truth be known,
I have done almost all in my power,
almost all of my life to keep myself from expressing those “negative emotions”.

I have sought comforts
and busyness,
gave into my own addictions,
found whatever I could to obsess about,
laugh about,
or however I could distract myself from spending time with my sorrows, and allowing them the stage they deserved.

A few friends of mine have spent some significant time on monastic retreats;
days and full of long hours of strict meditation,
sitting sometimes 8 hours at a time, with nothing but themselves.
No busyness.
No comforts.
Just the distractions of their own thoughts, which provoke all the feelings –good and bad—attached to those thoughts, and their observations of all this happening.

I feel as though like I’m walking cross-legged,
unmoving on my pillow,
unnervingly far from all my busyness,
my comforts…

Consciously attempting to move away from these empty comforts I have observed,
The busyness
The obsessions,
The distractions,

Yes, I cry more--more than probably I ever cried in a week’s time in my life--
but I feel more…

In all senses of the word...

I’ve started the very long, difficult --but as we all know-- most fulfilling journey towards actively paying attention to those feelings as I begin paying attention to me:
when am I obsessing,
or reaching for a snack when I’m not hungry,
or busying myself?
Why?

All the pain, and shame, and regret I’ve tucked into me has finally convinced me to build a safe haven for them on the outside also.
They deserve to feel the wind too.

And I deserve to feel whole, and human.

Here’s to letting out what is inside of ourselves,
In all the most fulfilling ways possible. 

Love you all.