Training to Take Care

Holding feelings and getting to know them is seeming like the other day when it was sunny and snowed at the same time. It was Monday (I think🙃) and the sky was grey, then blue, then a sudden hailstorm showed up for a bit. In the evening, all of those elements simultaneously held the sky together. It snowed into the midst of golden light also making it’s way through the clouds.

I’m familiar with pushing past feelings without looking at them. I know how to distract so they don’t run their course and fall into view. Though in the midst of pandemic, I’m feeling able to give permission to any forecast– whether predicted or unexpected, I’m becoming okay with looking into what falls.

I feel that with the atmosphere we’re in, there are factual reasons to point to as a way to explain sources of negative feelings. Because of the examples available, I feel able to hold harsh emotions because they seem valid and in company with the current worldwide experience. By learning to acknowledge, and accept all that’s felt, it’s allowed to settle and exist as a whole that is seen. It creates a moving dynamic towards understanding.

But of course...We shouldn’t need reasons or excuses to allow feelings. This freedom of emotion presented by the existence of pandemic reminds me of a comparison I’ve noticed in the past when sick. When I have physical symptoms, I find I’m suddenly able to take proper care of myself. It’s as if proof is required for worth when of course we all require care in all seasons and at all strengths. Pandemic or not, our everyday experiences hold depths of nuanced feeling that require essential care and allowance of existence.

I feel that in this time as we learn to be at home in ourselves, we have a training ground for the process our emotions take. I know a lot of us are feeling every possible weather change within us in the course of each day– or each hour. Together, we’re encountering new weather unlike anything we thought possible– it’s falling upon us and surrounding us, and we’re learning how to look at it, hold it, and recognize it’s nature.

It helps me to remember that, as we do this, we’re all under the same sky.