Find Your Tether So It's There When You Need It

I'm going to be real and say right up front that this has been a challenging couple of weeks for me. I've experienced the loss of a dear friend and grief is here.

I've experienced the loss of loved ones many times throughout my life, and although each experience has been unique, I have noticed a similar underlying way that I engage with the grieving process. Overall, I can usually recognize how the heaviness of grief sits in my body and drowns my mind.

But this time it's different.There is a visceral crispness to the emotions that I don't recall. There is a different kind of clarity that almost sharpens the pain and makes it easier to deal with simultaneously.

I'm sharing this with you because I really believe keeping a daily practice has made a huge difference in the way I'm able to process this situation. I have a rope I can grab onto and follow back to the place inside of me where there is strength and solace and because I practice every day, I know exactly where it is. Even when the tsunami starts hitting, I know I can grab it and those of you who have been in class with me recently may have witnessed this in action. Sometimes I just let the wave take me, but it's a choice and even then I can still feel the tether for when I need to come up for air.

As a part of my practice, I have been studying very closely how and where I experience emotions in my body and what it means to let go of them. Creating a little buffer of space allows the opportunity to witness and inquire. How can I hold these emotions and honor them without letting them overtake me? How can I embrace but not enmesh? How can I separate but not dissociate? Asking these questions in each moment enables me to hold myself in whatever ways I can, so that I feel supported inside of myself.

Sitting in sacred space with community is also comforting because it is an opportunity to gain strength from a collective pool. We may not be experiencing the same challenges, but we are all facing challenges. It’s the nature of being human.

Facing challenges and learning from them helps us evolve to our highest potential. Sitting with our challenges along with other people who are also doing the work, lends wordless support that can hold us steady through rocky times. 

Ram Das says, "We are all walking each other home." This is true friends. Link arms with those around you and appreciate the breath in your body while you have it. Make each moment count.