Meeting the Moment However We Can
After coming down the hill from seven days of silence on a lovingkindness meditation retreat yesterday, I took a deep breath and turned on the phone that had been dark for the week.
The vibrations and dings and sights around filled me in on the things going on in the "real world."
The joy of news from a friend whose little boy's MRI showed some unexpected and wonderful news, and the tears that came with it.
People stuck in hours of traffic on the Bay Bridge because protestors on this Martin Luther King Jr. Day had chained themselves to cars to call attention to matters important enough to their hearts to do that.
The welcome home card my partner left on the kitchen counter for me and the sweetly simple daily life text that he'd bring home avocados and dish soap.
And the right-through-the-heart sadness of a voice mail from a dear friend letting me know that his partner had unexpectedly passed away.
Tears flowed — this time for such a different reason, yet somehow feeling so similar in their tender quality to the "good news" of earlier.
We talked and cried a little together, and there was nothing to say except I love you and I'm so so sorry and I'm here.
Giving and receiving love for real - like really for real - sure can feel painful, can't it?
Keeping an open heart in this world isn't for the faint of heart.
Staying as open as possible while simultaneously protecting our energy and soft spots when appropriate. Riding out the open and closed phases of the heart.
And the reality is, the heart does open and close. Rhythmically. Naturally.
Our work is to let ourselves feel life in its insanely wide spectrum as best we're able.
To be generous with our hearts in whatever ways we can and to be willing to forgive ourselves for the times we just can't muster the reaching out.
To keep intending toward openness but to be OK with the closing when it shows up, too.
To let the moments of our lives touch us and break us open and be as gentle as possible with ourselves when we have trouble saying yes to the moments that just feel like too much to handle, whether because of the expansiveness of their joy or the depth of their pain.
So we just keep practicing.
We intend to open to this moment with as much allowance and gratitude as possible, whatever this moment looks like.
Sometimes we meet it gracefully, sometimes we shut it out with our walls up.
And that’s all OK.
Whatever your moments look like right now, here's to them opening your heart maybe just ever so slightly more, and to your willingness to trust in the moments of your life unfolding just as they're meant to.
Lots of Love to you (truly),