Bittersweet Grief
It’s astounding the myriad of ways we are willing to be anything other than who we authentically are. Because we believe our genuine self is not ok, not enough, we reorganize our being and how we show up. Anything to not risk abandonment or engulfment- to be accepted, to stay safe, to be loved, to survive. These convoluted ways we shield our hearts, move off our centers, and away from our genuine beings, are at once impressive and heart wrenching. With an intentional shift to courage and steadfast inquiry, we can begin to recognize and identify what’s “not me,” so we can come back to know “me” and reclaim the miraculous majesty of our lives.
Kelly Minor PhD. is a personal transformation therapist. Her approach draws from the foundations of ACT therapy and wisdom traditions as a way of bridging conceptual knowledge toward embodied understanding. She provides space and time, a context, for consciousness to integrate. With a framework to distinguish the difference between a thought generated by the ego to protect us, from a genuine experience, we can stay in the authentic moment without allowing the well meaning ego to hijack our integrity.
We have a choice to make when we arrive in a moment of dynamic tension. With the internal narrative asking, “Will I be loved? Will I be safe?” we can learn to rest in a relaxed state without forcing or striving toward an acceptable response rising from a habitual pattern of non-authentic action and reaction. We can choose to trust ourself as our own authority. Instead of running from, we can do a u-turn, stay with self, shifting our questions to, “What is the nature of this? What am I afraid of?” When we choose to do a radical turnaround, engaging in gentle and intimate curiosity, we go more deeply into the moment rather than resisting it and spinning off ourselves. When we allow and entertain the action of genuine relating to self and others we live a more authentic, expansive, joyful, and fulfilling life.
As we lean in, instead of deserting our essence by spinning off into habitual, protective patterns of protection and control, we meet the magical being we were about to abandon and our heart breaks open. It breaks for all the time lost, all the times we fled thinking we weren’t enough. And as we determine to stay, we experience a beautiful, transformative moment of bursting enlightenment and a wave of bitter sweet grief.