Sunday, October 9, 2011

Honoring Sadness

"Perhaps we would bear our sadness with greater trust than we have in our joys.  For they are the moments when something new has entered us, something unknown; our feelings grow mute in shy embarrassment, everything in us withdraws, a silence arises, and the new experience, which no one knows, stands in the midst of it all and says nothing."  - Letters to a Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke

My mother passed away about a month ago, in this time, I have experienced more sadness than usual.  I found solace in the above quote.  I notice I don't honor my sadness.  When I don't trust my sadness it becomes anger.  In those moments I fool myself into denying I was ever sad.

Some part of me believes a strong person doesn't get sad.  That trickster silently fools me into believing without conscious awareness that anger is my only strength and power. While I know that when I experience healthy anger it is truly strong and powerful, in these moments,  I watch, dumbfounded, as I  begin to destroy everything and every relationship in my path.

In sheer exhaustion and shame I scream inside the hollows of my soul, "What the hell!!"  I am quickly re-minded - Yes, indeed, I have powerfully created my own hell.

In that quiet moment of awareness, Wisdom's voice is heard and I re-member that true Strength does experience anger and is comprised of both joy and sadness.

"Sadness is the soul recognizing change." -M. Night Shyamalon

There is great change happening in my life.  Yes, Great Change.



Journal Prompt:  What feelings do you notice under your anger?
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