Mixed emotions

This past week my family suffered a difficult loss. My husband’s mother passed away after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. Our family has been processing a range of emotions. There is sadness, loss, grief and also relief that she is no longer suffering and gratitude that she is now at peace. A death after a prolonged illness is an extreme example of experiencing “mixed emotions”.  However each day we experience a range of emotions; joys and sorrows, surprises and disappointments, love and loss– sometimes in small ways and sometimes in larger ways, sometimes more of one or another. 

Our mindfulness practice helps us to find comfort in being with the whole patchwork of emotions like a quilt sewn together from different fabrics that together makes a warm cozy blanket. The joys, the sorrows, the happy memories, the deep grief, the jokes, the tears, the love and the loss all interwoven to make a full life. 

This quote explains the power of “being with all of it” beautifully and is what I shared with my classes last week as our practice.

“It’s very helpful to realize that the emotions we have, the negativity and positivity, are exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake and fully alive.”– Pema Chodron

 I am writing this week’s newsletter in a quiet moment alone sitting on my mother-in-laws couch in her house the day before her funeral. It is quite a mix of emotions yet again as I look around the home I have spent so much time with her in and she is not here. I almost feel guilty… like we came to visit and aren’t seeing her. I guess I will be adding that emotion to my already expansive “mixed emotion quilt”.  I am using my practice to experience the emotions and let them move through. From there the work becomes cultivating the space to hold them all.  I know it will take patience and time but it is so worthwhile because when we are fully present, awake and alive we have the opportunity to live deeply and authentically. There is nothing mixed about the gratitude I have for the chance to practice that each and every day.