The Power to Allow

Happy Labor Day Weekend! I hope you all are doing well. I have had a couple of people in my life suddenly lose a parent in the last couple of weeks. There is the intellectual understanding of the natural course of things and then there is processing the shock and touching what is out of our control; the temporariness of life. 

Loss is an emotion that goes hand and hand with impermanence. The loss of a person, a relationship, a life stage; all loss asks us to face what is scary and painful. This can be extremely challenging and we might try to run or hide from it but what I have learned is this loss waits for us. It waits for us to pay attention and it can subconsciously drive our decision making until we do.

When we pause and do the work to move through it, the pain of the loss is still there but our intentions and decisions in the moment are mindful. This requires a combination of compassion and patience. I am offering both of those to my friends this week as they work through the practice of processing the pain of loss and the eventual acceptance of impermanence. 

It is a reminder to live in your authenticity each day. Don’t leave words unsaid or gestures unfinished. This is another part of how we eventually (with compassion and patience), settle into a peace within the loss. 

This poem is a powerful reminder of that:

Allow, Danna Faulds

There is no controlling life. Try corralling a lightning bolt, orcontaining a tornado.Dam a stream and it will create a new channel. Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet. Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground. The only safety lies in letting it all in– the wild and the weak; fear, fantasies, failures, and success. When loss rips off the doors of the heart or sadness veils your vision with despair, practice becomes simply bearing the truth. In the choice to let go of your known way of being, the whole world is revealed to your new eyes.