My Roller Coaster's Got The Biggest Ups And Downs

It's amazing and crazy being in this intense self-development program at this intense amazing and crazy ashram.

I have learned from physical messages inside my body and from clear messages in my dreams that my nasty old friends Judgemental, Controlling, Insensitive, Nervous, and Overanalytical are perversions of Discernment, Self-discipline, Self-protection, Awareness, and Reason... and they occur when I don't allow my emotions. My old friends turn nasty when the messages they give me about sadness and fear and vulnerability are pushed away. I've been pushing my negative emotions away in order to get stuff done ever since I was 12. Was it ever a shock to me, when I tried it in karma yoga the other day, to discover that yes I can still get stuff done even when I don't push my emotions away. It just feels more sad. Sometimes.

Yes, that is what happened. I made a decision on a high of inspiration to allow my emotions and see what happened... and the next day I was deep in a pit of despair.

I was crying all day, for all kinds of things, little things, big things, that I had just pushed away before. It was not pleasant but I did observe that I am just as capable when I am feeling negative emotions as when I am feeling positive ones, or none at all. I also observed that the feeling of dread hanging on the horizon was gone when I didn't push my sadness and fears away and just let them inhabit me. I guess the only thing I was scared of, the only thing that was really making me so anxious before was the fact that I was trying so hard all the time to hold off the rainy weather.

I missed home, my mom, my dad, my brother, my hometown, all my exes, my computer, my dead dog, my sitar, so desperately. My whole body was seething with sad longing and I knew that my sadness was inflected with earlier sadnesses I'd pushed past, just to get stuff done: people and places I'd left, turning on a dime, without ever looking back. The sadness I had felt when I got my first period at the tender age of 9 and lost my innocent belief that I would someday be a certain kind of man. Sadness from being sick and almost dying last year. Sadness from my grandma dying. Sadness from my grandpa dying. Sadness from my great-grandma dying. Sadness from not being Chinese. Sadness from not being able to fly like Peter Pan. I could get into a list... but no. That's not the point.

For two days I was the embodiment of sorrow! Crying constantly, crying all night, crying myself to sleep. I have never really let myself do that before. I just let it happen. It was soft. I had to check in often to stop from pushing it away - admit it, you're scared of this - yes I'm scared - but I want to let it happen. I want to go to this place where my emotions are allowed and I can be with myself and care for myself with my old friends, not turned nasty. Discernment, protect me - judgement, don't torment me. Etcetera.

It lasted for two days. The next day, every movement felt like making love with myself, my breath, my body. My self.

Om Nama Sivaya!