Sometimes you need to think positive…

…and sometimes you need to sit your ass down in a dark corner with melancholy music on and bawl your effing eyes out for like four days.

Sometimes you need to sort out what’s happening inside yourself before you speak or act…

…and sometimes you need to splay the mess out there, all risky like, and allow the next step, insight or direction to show itself through real relating.

Sometimes you need to push yourself to ship or launch…

…and sometimes you need to relax and surrender into just how terrified you feel and flounder about a little longer and maybe even have a chuckle about the absurdity of the human experience.

Sometimes you need to be gentle and loving with yourself and others…

…and sometimes everyone needs a good swift kick in the ass, because what are we all doing here if not evolving in some way?

Sometimes you need to solve incredibly complex problems that are limiting your growth…

…and sometimes you just need a good night sleep.

Sometimes you need to be understanding, compassionate and open…

…and sometimes you need to seethe with anger, vibrate with rage and draw a line in the sand with your stiletto.

Sometimes you need to treat yourself…

…and sometimes you need to take a close hard look at what you use to soothe yourself and why.

Sometimes you need to be more disciplined…

…and sometimes you just need to get drunk with a friend and eat too much bacon.

Sometimes you need to suck things up and honour your commitments…

…and sometimes you need to fall apart, mess up and trust that you can clean it up later and be forgiven.

Sometimes you need to put yourself first…

…and sometimes you need to stop being so fixated on yourself and open to a wider view of what’s going on around you and put your energy into serving others.

Sometimes you need to honour how you feel and what you want…

…and sometimes you need to do what you said you’d do, by when you said you’d do it, despite how you feel about it.

Sometimes you need to take rest and rejuvenate…

…and sometimes you need to stay up all night, push through, get ‘er done and allow your delirium to guide you into the best work you’ve ever generated.

Sometimes you need to build your confidence and competence…

…and sometimes you just need someone else to take care of things for you.

Sometimes you need a little extra holding and support…

…and sometimes you need to dig deep within, cultivate a greater sense of intimacy with God and feel the paradox of your sense of separation and oneness with all things simultaneously.

When and where does she find you? When the past surfaces- losses left unfelt, unfinished? When the now turns out to be other than the future your mind had promised? When you see your lover’s ache or your child’s pain or your friend’s distress?

Sorrow. She laps at your toes and you flick her off, maybe whack her away or smile and beg her to leave you alone. You know if you let her in she’ll take you over and you’ll drown in the fabric of her gown. She’s soft and stealth and wears the ocean. In the depths of her, is darkness or shimmer or a clear calm day which you cannot predict or see until you let her in.

She promises renewal if only you let her wash through. She begs to be felt, received, danced with, drank.

Sorrow finds me in the quiet moments, in the pause between the pauses. She comes when I confront that the futures that I have constructed in my mind are not real. When I pull myself from my reverie, there is loss of what could be and never was. I always feel myself contract when she comes knocking. I don’t want to drop in; I don’t want to feel her. I’ll notice my breath get shallow and my mind go a flutter, grasping for the bright side and silver lining, for the next thing to do or person to connect with. Sorrow brings with her a void so deep I can feel myself dancing on the surface of my being, not wanting to be drawn in. I don’t want to feel the thickness and slowness and waves of her.

Thus I’ll dodge the difficult conversations or the hard decisions, I’ll tread lightly as to not bring full completions. In endings there’s sorrow. Loss. With clarity comes sorrow. Opening one door closes another. Never ever ever. Done. In closure there’s sorrow.

If you’re missing closure with something, you’ve likely not felt the sorrow.

Welcome her and welcome release. When surrendered into her, the frightening void becomes vast spaciousness. There is so much sweetness in the tender and sorrowful heart. The achy, open, hungry heart. Let her touch you, let her take you, down, in and through. 

I’ve always felt as though I’m too emotional. Particularly as a teenager. But let’s face it, teenagers are always ‘too’…whatever they’re going through. Throughout my life, this feedback has rolled in, mostly from parents as I’m in some meltdown or another. Sometimes from partners. Rarely from girlfriends because, well, we’re all just trying to manage the crazy aren’t we?

It’s confusing when the rush of love or shame or rage or fear that floods through our experience feels more intense than is warranted. ‘I shouldn’t feel this way’ or ‘I should be above this’ or ‘I should be over this by now’ or some other version of the inner narrative says…

These emotions are not okay.

Cool, calm, collected and rational are like our cultural holy grail and this post here is about calling bullshit on that whole thing.

We’re emotional beings. We don’t make decisions rationally, we make them emotionally. We don’t want what we want because of our thinking minds, we want what we want because we think that if we get it, we’ll feel a certain way.

Our emotional selves are running the show and there’s a lot of energy spent on trying to keep the flood at bay. In fact, when I feel into my fellow humans, I can feel just how much of the actions, contractions and behaviours are really about trying to not feel something or manage and overcome an emotional state. Over the years I haven’t struggled with my emotional self, I’ve battled. It’s been a full blown war. ‘I’m too much’ has been carved so deeply into my psyche that the more I’ve tried to wrangle, push down, manage or contain my arising emotional experience, the hotter it all gets.

Some people have one or two emotions that can get the better of them. Fly into a rage perhaps, or feel afraid much of the time.

Not me….nope, by some divine grace I feel everything.

Sometimes I’ll be sitting there minding my own business and I’ll think about my family, how much I love and appreciate them and the rush of love is so fierce that I burst into tears and sob and sob.

When I was pregnant with my son, I was driving along and was in the wrong lane, I was trying to change lanes but it was one of those times when everyone in the other lane has been lined up there forever and they all look straight ahead and pretend they don’t see you and inch closer to the car in front of them because heaven forbid we actually lighten up and help a neighbour out. So this guy lets me in and smiles and waves and gratitude takes over. Like TAKES OVER. And I’m sobbing and sobbing and sobbing because of this stranger’s kindness. Of course we can blame this on pregnant lady hormones. I sure did. Just like women (and men) like to blame emotional flux on PMS or some kind of external stress that leads to a breaking point, all the while, in that breaking point is the ‘I shouldn’t feel this way’ song.

WTF? Really? It’s time we all got an emotional education. ‘Too emotional’ isn’t real. Doesn’t exist. Sorry.

That’s not to say that when someone is feeling emotion intensely and they explode that emotion all over everyone else that it’s cool. Nor does it mean that being overtaken and paralyzed by emotion is very productive. But making emotions the problem is totally misguided. The problem here, as counterintuitive as it may sound, is not allowing yourself to truly feel what you feel.

Feeling more, leaning in, and opening to our emotional selves is what makes the difference.

I’m not cool, calm and collected, I AM RED HOT AND FULL HEARTED. But that doesn’t mean I’m all over the place, or out of control or unable to contain what’s happening. It’s through opening to my emotions, being curious, loving and surrendering to the fullness of my experience that I actually have more containment. When practicing with and being accepting of our feelings, we become more spacious. As we become more spacious, more intense emotion can arise without taking us out. People who are ‘too emotional’ are generally just not very emotionally developed, meaning there’s not enough space within them to allow for emotion to come and go. The felt experience of that is, as the intensity builds, the ability to act and not react, wanes. Once we’re in a reaction that we can’t contain, it feels like we need to clamp down on and manage the arising emotion. But if we can actually make more space for the emotion, it can arise and run and move and be within us without us having to DO anything about it.

I must say, being someone who’s spent a lot of time contracting around her feelings, trying to manage herself…it’s painful and lonely and takes a lot of energy. As someone now who feels even more deeply than ever before and can hold the enormity of those feelings, I actually have the experience of being more in control, more rooted and steady and able to invite deeper connection and intimacy into my life. I also am a lot less concerned about sharing with someone that I feel vulnerable or tender or angry or ashamed or whatever is arising because I no longer interpret this inner experience as being something that is wrong or inappropriate or needs to be ‘handled’.

It’s almost as though we’re in a massive collective conspiracy that no one wants to know how each other is really feeling. But we actually do. It feels scary to open to emotion and certainly to let others into the mess of things at times, but there’s actually a ton of safety there. When we’re really intimate with our emotional selves and can share that with one another, there are openings for connection, care, tenderness and empathy. We’re desperate for that. And there’s no shame in feeling desperate for that.

Danielle LaPorte…you know her. Chances are pretty high you found me through her. She’s my Oprah. One tweet, one link, one wink of praise and not only does it rain…it’s a love flood.

I rarely check my e-mail first thing in the morning. It’s not good for my soul or my mind or my practice or my son. I give myself a few hours of suspended time, time that is mine, is ours…between me n’ the Muse, the Holy Spirit and the Biggest Heart. But for some weird reason…this morning there was that oh so familiar slide of the thumb across that phone and I was all…

…whoa….what’s going on? Oooohhhhhh….I see what’s going.

In another incredibly useful post by Danielle, there I am. Thank you Danielle…a deep bow to you. On the one hand, this woman has made my career. On the other hand…I’ve worked my ass off for it and I’ve earned what I’ve got.

We all stand on the shoulders of giants. The shoulders of our ancestors, our revolutionaries, our greatest supporters, thinkers, mavens, leaders, teachers—in our culture, we live in a great illusion that we are individuals...that we’re going it alone, that we must go it alone, that needing others is somehow weak or unacceptable. But we’re part of such a deeply interconnected web, we simply can’t get anywhere without each other, get anything done or survive at all. We’ve all heard the adage It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. Well goodness, that’s certainly true. And yet…maybe it’s about something a little bit more. I would add…it’s about who you are and what you offer.

I work with a lot of entrepreneurs and yet I’m not an entrepreneurial coach. While in my past life I strolled down the hallways of business coaching and consulting, it’s just now where the juice is for me. I want the human. I want in to the human. I want to work so deeply with the human that the business stuff works itself out without me. But the dilemma of what to focus on and how to build our businesses is a real one. As my own career is on fire, my own work moving all over the place, both in my writing and my expanding clientele, I can see all the places in which my energy and attention could go and arguable should go.

In this digital world our opportunities are vast– particularly if you begin to plug into a network of incredible humans who are rocking their lives, the lives of others and this system and are generous enough to lift you up. But the demands for our energy and attention are also vast. Over and over and over clients and friends and colleagues get overwhelmed with where to put their attention, how to build their audience, how to get their work out there. I get overwhelmed too…until I remember…Do My Work.

I suck at Twitter. One day I won’t. I used to suck at Facebook but I’m starting to sort it out. I used to get stressed about this, as though if I don’t get going, like yesterday, opportunities will pass me by. We all know social media will get you there. But where’s there?

It could be argued that, so far, I don’t need to flex the social media/promo muscles because I have the likes of Danielle and Kate Northrup  (and many other of you generous souls) talking about me. I am lucky. I am blessed. I bow down with humble gratitude. I got my break and it just keeps breaking. But here’s the thing, I deliver. When I get all in a tizzy about what I should be putting my energy on…I come back to my clients and I come back to the page.

My attention is not on the results I’m getting and how I can squeeze every penny out of what I do. I’d argue that while it’s important to get paid, for those who are rockin’ it…that’s not what comes first. Doing the work is what comes first. Knowing who you are and what you’ve got and offering it out is what comes first.

I have coached countless people for free. When I was building my clientele, I’d coach whoever wanted and needed it and was available for it. I still take pro-bono clients, though I’m currently booked for those programs. I run this online magazine with a collective. I write, I edit, I work with emerging writers helping them craft their work and get their ideas out there. I don’t get paid for any of that. yet.

Everything I do I would if I never got a penny.

But I’ve got some pennies now. And it’s only the beginning. My systems will only improve, my ways of managing and growing my business, I will continue to refine. But if I start putting my writing on the back-burner— or my time, attention and commitment to my clients starts to wane, I’ve lost the plot. My mind will tell me that I really should be tweeting more or have prettier documents to send my clients (not just a basic word doc!) or should Vlog or really get a better admin system, or maybe an assistant, really leverage all that is out there. And all that is true. My mind can spin out on all the things that I really should be doing that I’m not doing. There will always be more to do.

But we can only do what we can do and we can’t do it all…

So what’s the most important thing? The rest is there, in the vision, in the future, on the action lists and dream sheets…but I cannot and will not allow those to impact the most important aspects of my work. This is what’s earned me my place. This is why such respected people give me props. So when the people show up…I’m ready…when the people show up…I deliver.

What’s most important? What do you need to be ready? It may not be what you think. It doesn’t need to be perfect, it needs to be an offering. What are you offering?

Aggression. She follows you everywhere. She’s in the flurry of doing laundry as you transfer that wet ball from one door to the other with a little more force than was needed. She saunters in to your yoga practice while you sneak a peek at the bitch whose bird of paradise doesn’t wobble. She’s speeding from red light to red light feeling the agitation of the five minutes that will pass without you where you’re meant to be. She’s in the conversations you have in your head with your in-law, your neighbour, your ex, that client who can’t see the vision. She lives between your shoulder blades when you look into the near future at all those things you just don’t have the energy to get done.

Aggression begs you to push through. And she’s kinda mean about it. I should eat better, exercise more, be more patient with my kids, more open and loving to my spouse, my house should be cleaner, my files more organized, my thighs smaller, my income higher.

PUSHING. STRIVING. CONTORTING. CONTRACTING.

I don’t know many people who get all in a fuss about how tall they are or the size of their feet. Because there’s really nothing we can do about that. But goodness, as soon as we have one iota of control, of influence, in rolls the aggression on a rampage for change. The Inner Critic sure is aggressive. But so is the tension we hold in our bodies when we imagine that things should be other than they are.

I’ve been feeling aggression present lately in my jaw. I can feel myself holding my jaw in a way that’s just not necessary and if I follow the line of thought that’s occurred just before, I will find a whole stream of things I need to get done that I’m resisting the heck out of.

If you’ve ever been a student, you’re probably quite familiar with spending more of your energy resisting doing something than it would actually take to buckle down and do it. When aggression towards your self is present, resistance will likely show up to the pain party. Feeling aggression and resistance in their dance is like watching a really sloppy, fierce and cruel tango—which is just lame since the tango is supposed to be so sexy. As resistance to something or someone builds, so does the aggression that demands we overcome. But whenever aggression is generated, resistance builds.

Ewww, I feel tense just writing this. Hold on.

Ok…just had to make some tea, stretch my spine and relax my belly a little…all good…

If we’re in the game of living an open, connected and awake life, noticing the ways in which our own aggression and resistance towards ourselves, others and reality as it unfolds will be like a lazar to the areas we could transform by simply softening. I can certainly feel in myself a habit that says I need to push through. I see it in others A LOT. We try to get leverage on ourselves using aggression in subtle and not-so-subtle ways. But when we get all agro with ourselves, the feeling on the other end is not one of satisfaction, but one of exhaustion, depletion or defeat. It erodes self-esteem and leads to more aggression.

Soften your jaw. Relax your anus. Breathe so deeply into your belly you can feel it in your thighs. Lean back. Smile. Not to change the circumstance or the outcome, but because we’re usually using way more force than is needed. Feeling resistance to something? See if you can relax into that. Feeling stressed about something? See if you can relax into that. You don’t have control anyway and we’re all going to die, so we might as well lighten up, soften up and relax into the mystery of how this will all go in the next iteration of the present moment.