The Unbearable Heaviness of Being Human.

Source: aurorae.tumblr.com via Michele on Pinterest

The past few days, the weight of my heavy heart has brought me to my knees.

I bring my forehead to touch the ground, with gratitude, with grief, with sorrow, with joy. For all of these emotions are me, in any given moment…in every given moment.

Through our practice we strive to find our breath, heart, body, spirit; we search for bliss and glee and happiness. And I, in my own practice, also work to nurture and hold the darkness that at times drops down like a veil of the blackest night sky.

The moon sometimes glows above me, but there are moments when not even the most powerful stars can penetrate the hard thoughts in my mind.

As I continue to practice, as I dive deeper into this human being that is me, I am consistently confronted with the many faces of myself.

I try, most days, to meet myself where I am, with a warm heart and kind eyes; when I am in integrity, this is easy, so easy. But when I stray outside of my authentic self, it gets harder to meet my demons with softness.

I strive to be the fawn in the woods, who meets the monster before her with so much compassion that the power of her love melts him away.

I strive to listen to my heart and speak truth and love and do everything I can to live well in this world.

This works, sometimes.

Other times, I am a harder version of me; I am my ice queen, sad martyr, or engaged enabler. All traits that grew to protect my heart; all traits that must be leashed if I am to live life to the fullest.

In the past few days, I’ve been disappointed with the waves of anger I can feel raging inside; instead of sitting and listening and breathing and holding, I hear my thoughts and my fears rush up and immediately, my sharp edge pushes back.

My ability to speak clearly is stunted, as a traffic jam of words piles up in my throat; a knot, a road block of sorts, is keeping it all in.

I should be better at this, I think. I shouldn’t feel so angry. I should practice my practice, so that I can continue to be kind. 

Angry at what? Anything and everything and everyone.

I can say:

Oh, damn that thick snow that doubles (and triples) my travel time from class-to-class; the weight of my boots on my feet, the weariness of the cold in my bones.

Or,

It’s the passing of my love, like strangers in the night, as we live disconnected and disjointed, he in night, and I in the day. Miscommunication and the challenges that all love holds. 

And,

It was that wild man, the other day, who stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk, making gestures at me in the falling snow and yelled: I have children who are way more fucking attractive than you, you ugly bitch; to which I responded (to my surprise) with a raging Go fuck yourself!

There are also these moments:

Where I feel that everyone needs something all of the time and how I wish I had a door that I could shut, in a room of my own, so that not even the furry beasts that love me unconditionally could get in.

I can make all manner of excuses, and as thoughts and feelings full of judgements of others arise, as I my talkback to myself becomes more heated and more frustrated, I think I might actually explode, my head busting into a thousand—no—a million pieces.

There is so much hurt in this world, I think. So many hearts I know, in pain and sorrow; so many people that I love are suffering. And so many people, that I’ve never met, are suffering too.

Really, if I keep digging, I can keep coming up with reasons; perhaps, even, creating ones where they simply do not exist.

This is the unbearable heaviness of being human.

Sometimes, I feel so sad that I can barely stand, and other times, happiness radiates from every pore, and I can feel myself float a few inches from the ground.

This too, is my practice; this too, is life.