The Mess….the most humbling teacher of love
I feel so much reverence for the mess.
I wrote this sentence down and was sitting quietly waiting for the next impulse of energy to come when I heard a woman scream at the top of her lungs, "I can't take this anymore!!!" It was my next door neighbor, who lives in an apartment on the bottom floor of a three story row house. The walls are paper thin, so it felt like it was happening right in my own house. I kept sitting and listening. The fight she was having with her boyfriend was pretty brutal. At one point she went screaming out of the house, slamming the door. That's when I heard my husband start to motion towards the door. He tried to ask my neighbor if she was okay, but she was in such a rage, she was unable to answer him and went back in the house. The fighting resumed.
I went back upstairs and sat quietly on my bed, listening to them yell. I stared at my computer and couldn't help but to smile as I saw the sentence I had just written down moments ago. Okay, so I really get why people think I'm nuts when I say how grateful I am for the mess.
This kind of fighting is exactly what makes couples get divorced or sends people into counseling so they can learn to improve how they relate better in their relationships and learn tools and techniques to stop that kind of violent relating. I get this and completely understand why people do this.
But at the same time, I must offer another perspective that is based on my own experiences. The first experience I ever had of awakening was discovered within explosive emotions. It happened in the middle of a panic attack where I was experiencing profound existential angst. I seriously thought I was going to lose my mind because the fear was so intense. But, in the center of the stark raving fear I tasted the deep, still calm that is my essential nature. This experience put me on the map of reality and gave me the courage to keep exploring.
In the years that followed, I experienced more explosive emotions, especially in my relationships and continued to discover stillness and love in the center of each wave. Over time, I began to trust this dance and could see that the mess was not just 'my mess', it was the sum of humanity. Our collective consciousness is not very skillful when it comes to honest, real, vulnerable relating. We protect our hearts at all costs and care more about proving our point than we do about real connection and intimacy. We are filled with pride and fear. But we cannot escape this way of being by trying not to 'be it'.
We cannot truly move beyond this way of relating on the deepest level if we separate from these 'ugly' waves of energy and work towards some 'positive' way of relating. The ugly waves of energy are only ugly because they are being rejected. Though, this doesn't mean if we stop rejecting the seeming ugly waves we will feel good. These waves don't feel good to experience, but the resistance of them is what causes the insidious arguing and conflict with our own self and whoever we are relating to. Typically, when we go into therapy or seek for spiritual enlightenment our motive is to get rid of the mess. We want nothing more than to change these 'negative emotions' and 'be free'. While this is an intelligent impulse, we most often go about it from a place of separation. We do not want to be associated with the mess. We see the mess as the problem and think if we can learn to control, manipulate, manage or rise above it we will have better lives. We will be better, loving human beings. Imagine if a wave in the ocean thought it could be a better wave if it could only escape being a wave? The ocean is the wave, so what is there to be better than?
In my experience, the mess is not a problem. Emotions, even big explosive ones are not a problem. When these waves are truly allowed to be as they are, we are brought face to face with the beloved, right where we stand, AS we stand. This totally transforms our human relating into divine communion with the source of who we are. This encounter does not always look neat and tidy; sometimes there are great tidal waves and tsunamis that cause destruction and devastation. But there is absolute freedom to experience and be whatever wave is moving through - there is an underlying yes to it all, however it unfolds. There is complete trust that no matter what wave comes, the heart always opens and falls in love again and again regardless of the appearance.
When this takes hold in one's life, you cannot help but feel grateful for the mess. It's very nature continuously invites us to embody the living truth of who we are - always drawing us deeper into the radiance and beauty of the heart. It is the most humbling teacher of love - pointing us directly to the densest, darkest places of our humanity, so that we can experience love even there, if we are willing to stay the course. This is how we grow beyond and transcend the old ways of relating and learn to communicate with one another from love and true holding of each other's humanity. This is how we embody the great ocean of stillness that we are, by discovering it right in the center of the wave, not by escaping or excluding any of it.
I wrote this sentence down and was sitting quietly waiting for the next impulse of energy to come when I heard a woman scream at the top of her lungs, "I can't take this anymore!!!" It was my next door neighbor, who lives in an apartment on the bottom floor of a three story row house. The walls are paper thin, so it felt like it was happening right in my own house. I kept sitting and listening. The fight she was having with her boyfriend was pretty brutal. At one point she went screaming out of the house, slamming the door. That's when I heard my husband start to motion towards the door. He tried to ask my neighbor if she was okay, but she was in such a rage, she was unable to answer him and went back in the house. The fighting resumed.
I went back upstairs and sat quietly on my bed, listening to them yell. I stared at my computer and couldn't help but to smile as I saw the sentence I had just written down moments ago. Okay, so I really get why people think I'm nuts when I say how grateful I am for the mess.
This kind of fighting is exactly what makes couples get divorced or sends people into counseling so they can learn to improve how they relate better in their relationships and learn tools and techniques to stop that kind of violent relating. I get this and completely understand why people do this.
But at the same time, I must offer another perspective that is based on my own experiences. The first experience I ever had of awakening was discovered within explosive emotions. It happened in the middle of a panic attack where I was experiencing profound existential angst. I seriously thought I was going to lose my mind because the fear was so intense. But, in the center of the stark raving fear I tasted the deep, still calm that is my essential nature. This experience put me on the map of reality and gave me the courage to keep exploring.
In the years that followed, I experienced more explosive emotions, especially in my relationships and continued to discover stillness and love in the center of each wave. Over time, I began to trust this dance and could see that the mess was not just 'my mess', it was the sum of humanity. Our collective consciousness is not very skillful when it comes to honest, real, vulnerable relating. We protect our hearts at all costs and care more about proving our point than we do about real connection and intimacy. We are filled with pride and fear. But we cannot escape this way of being by trying not to 'be it'.
We cannot truly move beyond this way of relating on the deepest level if we separate from these 'ugly' waves of energy and work towards some 'positive' way of relating. The ugly waves of energy are only ugly because they are being rejected. Though, this doesn't mean if we stop rejecting the seeming ugly waves we will feel good. These waves don't feel good to experience, but the resistance of them is what causes the insidious arguing and conflict with our own self and whoever we are relating to. Typically, when we go into therapy or seek for spiritual enlightenment our motive is to get rid of the mess. We want nothing more than to change these 'negative emotions' and 'be free'. While this is an intelligent impulse, we most often go about it from a place of separation. We do not want to be associated with the mess. We see the mess as the problem and think if we can learn to control, manipulate, manage or rise above it we will have better lives. We will be better, loving human beings. Imagine if a wave in the ocean thought it could be a better wave if it could only escape being a wave? The ocean is the wave, so what is there to be better than?
In my experience, the mess is not a problem. Emotions, even big explosive ones are not a problem. When these waves are truly allowed to be as they are, we are brought face to face with the beloved, right where we stand, AS we stand. This totally transforms our human relating into divine communion with the source of who we are. This encounter does not always look neat and tidy; sometimes there are great tidal waves and tsunamis that cause destruction and devastation. But there is absolute freedom to experience and be whatever wave is moving through - there is an underlying yes to it all, however it unfolds. There is complete trust that no matter what wave comes, the heart always opens and falls in love again and again regardless of the appearance.
When this takes hold in one's life, you cannot help but feel grateful for the mess. It's very nature continuously invites us to embody the living truth of who we are - always drawing us deeper into the radiance and beauty of the heart. It is the most humbling teacher of love - pointing us directly to the densest, darkest places of our humanity, so that we can experience love even there, if we are willing to stay the course. This is how we grow beyond and transcend the old ways of relating and learn to communicate with one another from love and true holding of each other's humanity. This is how we embody the great ocean of stillness that we are, by discovering it right in the center of the wave, not by escaping or excluding any of it.
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