I'm sad. Can you relate?
Let’s pretend we’re talking about this over coffee. Credit: Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash
One of the first things I learned in recovery is that you can restart your day any time you choose.
Right now, for instance, I want a restart. It’s 11:55 AM China time and my morning has been garbage.
I’ve been sad, but not in the “mmmmmm, I love feelings and this is delicious” kind of way. More in the despair way. The “this is too big” way.
It started with wanting to muse about an acquaintance who recently passed. His friend shared a post saying, “Raul went out doing what he loved,” and I wanted to contemplate the beauty of that statement.
Raul was 30. He died tragically young. AND he died doing something that he loved. He was in Brazil with soul-tribe-level friends and they were out on a waterfall hike. A flash flood happened and, in minutes, the water levels rose by multiple feet. Raul was swept away by the water and his body was found by divers after a 5-day search and rescue effort.
A tragedy. A sad, sad, horribly sad tragedy. But the part that struck me was how his loved ones navigated the time. I wanted to write about the beauty of that. Their faith. Their love. The achingly beautiful way they showed up for Raul and each other during this challenging time.
A hopeful message. That’s what I wanted to write about.
But I wasn’t at the frequency of hope (if you’ll forgive the new age turn of phrase).
I couldn’t access the awe, the gratitude, the love that would be required to write that piece.
Instead I ended up in a downward spiral, contemplating perceived (key word being perceived) shortcomings in my own life.
The ways I’m dissatisfied. The ways I’m lonely. The ways I’m feeling simultaneously overwhelmed AND underwhelmed. The ways it feels like life is passing me by. The ways that I’m questioning decisions and actions and general ways of being.
And I don’t have answers. One of my teachers would say this is part of being an emotional being. If you have a defined solar plexus in the Human Design system, some days you are just going to be overwhelmed by emotions. It’s not even linked to what’s going on around you. It’s simply about letting the feelings flow through you without making up too many stories about them. Surrender and feel the feeling, then it will pass.
Another teacher would tell me to fight the despair because, the more you surrender to it, the more it arises in the future. Exact contradictions, the advice from these two teachers.
Because I’m decades into being a wildly sensitive human, I know that I don’t have to worry. I know that I’ll feel this way until I don’t feel this way, and then I’ll feel good until another feeling arises. I know that there are actions I can take to increase the amount of time I spend feeling good and decrease the amount of time I spend feeling bad.
What intrigues me is that I’m feeling unusually disconnected from my inner knowing. A few weeks ago, I wrote that I was suffering, but I found the suffering tediously boring. It was boring because I knew 1) why I was feeling off and 2) what would make me feel better. I just needed to remember that 1) actions have consequences—aka the four months of travel that backfired needed to be dealt with and 2) that time takes time. I couldn’t expect an instant shift.
But today? Today the suffering is interesting again. I don’t have the inner knowing that I’m used to having (because, again, actions have consequences) and I don’t know the right next step. I don’t know if the short-term answer is to get on the floor and cry, or if I’m better off moving a muscle and changing a thought. Longer-term, same not-knowing: I don’t know if I should commit to stillness, waiting for weeks of ritual and routine to bring me back to a place of peace, or if I should take action, doing something like signing up for a retreat to help Keel-a get her groove back.
I’m writing about it because this is soothing to me. Putting my fingers on the keyboard is, for me, a way to restart my day. It’s a way to connect to my inner knowing and find peace. It’s also a way to connect to others. I imagine that more than one person reading this can relate to feeling despair, to being confused by emotions that feel too big and not knowing what the right next step is.
In other words: being human.
So, from this human experience to your human experience: I’m wishing us peace, contentment and joy,
Keely
