*Cosmic laughter* and some tears… HOW FASCINATING!

I wrote my last post on the liberation of acceptance in a state of sincere joy and revelation; I still stand by the whole piece. And, the last ten days have humbled me with my own premise. I have struggled for a good 20 years to negotiate, reconcile, and yes, accept, certain hard realities in my life. Looking back, I’ve come a long way, suffering much less now from self-induced frustration and rage than at the turn of the millenium. Ten days ago I honestly thought I had come to that joyous place of whole-hearted acceptance and creativity, looking ahead and feeling ready to charge forward and invent my new way of being and doing.

And I was ready–in my thinking mind. This happens sometimes, that I understand a concept in my newly evolved, analytical brain, express it eloquently in words, and think I’m done (see ‘self-delusion’ in the last post). I can observe patterns and understand logically that certain things will not change. I can create strategies to suffer less by changing my rational expectations. I can plan to take alternative action in the future when I encounter typical and recurrent friction. I can think my way to practical solutions and cognitive peace.

I don’t realize the gap. Then my feeling mind catches up and catches me off guard, knocking me on my ass for a while. Turns out acceptance occurs in layers.

“When I accept the thing, I can put it down, let it be.” Writing this, I had forgotten that while carrying the intellectual burden of the thing I don’t accept, I hold with it an unrealistic hope, an emotional investment, in the thing being other than it is. The latter is not rational; it’s qualitative, limbic, and drives my thoughts and behavior from a place that has no capacity for language. So when I truly, honestly put the thing down, I experience a deep and ineffable sense of grief at letting go–abandoning–my sentimental hope and investment, unrealistic as they were.

I even wrote about it! “Anger, jealousy, self-loathing, grief, sadness, conflict, …: Allow it.” This is where the cosmic laughter chortles now–allowing grief and sadness means feeling them, DUH! Seriously, is avoidance of that discomfort the basis for all of my non-acceptance this whole time? I’m not sure, but even if it is, I don’t judge myself for it. Discomfort aversion is a fundamental survival reflex, the impulse for which originates in deeper, even more primitive parts of the brain than the limbic system. And I imagine that the epiphany I describe in this post is still nowhere near the last stop on my train ride of self-discovery and -education. It’s an important waystation, though.

This past week I hunckered down, allowing the grief and sadness more openly, with more vulnerability. It felt like wallowing for a bit, if I’m honest. I journaled rivers of ink, forsaking my intended blogging schedule. I did a lot of escape and comfort reading (YAY, smutty romance!). I attended to the hard feelings gently, embracing them (at times as if I were hugging a cactus, but still). And it helped. The sadness and discomfort dissipated, and I soon felt lightness and relief, if not quite joy, on this side of it.

I sense now a slow shift, a reorientation. I am able today, at least partially, to show up differently to my reality, which feels new and different from even two weeks ago: less heavy, more fluid and flexible. I carry fewer rocks in my emotional rucksack now; made a cairn with them these last days. And yeah, I can feel some joy coming on.