Since my brother passed away I haven’t been able to concentrate very well. There’s things that I’ve needed to do, I just look at them, and walk away. I’ve needed to finish a couple books for my Yoga Nidra Certification and I have to write book reports on them. These books are about consciousness, feeling into our Awareness, etc. Well I would read one page about five times and nothing would stick.
I’m reading this book called Dynamic Stillness by Swami Chetanananda. I read this paragraph and it just stopped me. I read it about five times to be sure I was reading it right and I haven’t been able to get it out of my head.
Tension is creative energy that has contracted into a pattern. When we release that pattern, we free the energy to do what it wills. We release tension and allow it to flow as creative energy. This is our great challenge, because only to the degree that we learn to do so do we come to know directly the essence of who and what we are.
The author goes on to talk about the necessity of consuming our tensions and growing from them because they consume us if we do not. By making the simple conscious effort every day to rise above the tensions, we find something truly beautiful and incredible in ourselves. As long as there is tension in a particular event, we know that we haven’t gotten to the heart of the matter.
I also believe a lot of that tension is fear. We don’t want to feel the tension or the fear, so we push it away and the more we push those things away the stronger they become. So when I read about inviting the tension in, we can then release it, I had to really think about what I was doing with my own tension and fear.
I can’t change the events of the past couple weeks. I can’t take away the pain, and anguish my family is going through, I can’t “fix” things. So what would it feel like to invite “it” in? We as human beings will all lose someone close to us at one point or another. It’s comforting to know in the times when I feel alone, I know this feeling is only temporary. This contracted pattern will weave it’s way through my life the way it needs to, until it finds it’s way through to the place where I will feel a greater sense of balance.
Everything in life is a lesson and I’m not going to push the tension and fear away because that’s the easy thing to do. No, I’m inviting it in and asking what it wants of me.
Don’t be afraid to be with the uncomfortable feelings in our lives. They are messengers and we need to listen to them otherwise they will keep knocking at your door and will eventually break down the door if you don’t start listening.
You can’t change what you refuse to confront.
With Gratitude,
