How to Make Peace with your Stress or Suffering (when you feel in a funk, get sick, or you're d

Freedom in Seeing the Highs & Lows as One in the Same.

PART I: Unity

~Seeing the Highs & Lows as One: Non-Judgmental Awareness

~Nature’s Nurture to Remember Our Own.

When you're in a "low," you’re human ego experience tells you that you feel like shit. Really, though, we’re complex creatures & there is way more at work underwater--in our 75%ish watery, alchemical, sparkling bodies of light cells created for transformation.

Just recently, I caught a 24-hour stomach virus. Hadn't been sick with a minor bug in a good while & my ego found the perfect overlooked scenario to sneak right in. I remembered what it felt like in human ego experience mode to “get sick." It reminded me of the story we can play out in our heads at the very beginning of a low. My spirit used this mini window of lesson as insight into how stress or darkness plays out on the human ego at the very beginning when we still have time to catch it before we're swept away into the emotional tidal wave of disempowerment & heavy energy. My memory was even triggered into what it feels like at the beginning of a traumatic event in one's life (aka remembered the beginning of my own). It helped me remember & receive insight on the beginning phase of suffering or “being in a low.” That thing we like to call “darkness” swooping behind us up over our head. And what feels like a gnarly shove down the path of transformation in a rough, chaotic, blinding, ugly way. Unveiled, that’s just the ego fog. We can be our own light in stress or chaos even at the beginning. Yes, we were built with endless strength. While I do believe it is incredibly healthy for our wellbeing & vitality to experience & release lower emotions, we do not have to put more work on ourselves by being a victim to our low. Experiencing a low doesn't have to feel so bad. Actually, there is the potential seed to have a positive experience through the discomfort. I know this from experiencing a 24-hr stomach bug to a round the clock 6 year trauma. It just takes practice in quickly shifting yourself as the narrator right in the beginning. The key is learning how to lovingly take back your innate power of Peace & Love from the ego who did its job & dimmed it. I like to think of the ego, a low, or darkness as a wild mustang neutrally helping us by giving us an opportunity to grow or keep things in balance like a checks and balance system.

Really, our suffering is a loving hand resting on our shoulder--meant to be used as help for support, protection and strength along the way. I spent years immensely suffering really getting to study & learn this part of Life. Eventually after three years, I finally was willing to to receive help from something greater outside myself; Nature became my faith. Whether you’re having an off day or something real intense just went down in your life, in the end, it’s all the same. Suffering. And we all experience it too. While yes we are spirits housed in a human body, we're also still human & it is important that we come to terms with how to deal with this messy beautiful unknown part of ourselves. Some call it the dark night of the soul & I just call it a wild bronco wanting some Love. The ego. It's in all of us. We get free will choice to experience it as a dagger or an unconditional gift of Love. So let’s shine a light on it Now, shall we?

The best thing you can do when you feel your ego or low taking over is to support yourself with as positive hopeful and uplifting of a mood or energy as possible.

Deep Dive into the Story Playing Out in Our Heads at the Beginning of a Low or Traumatic Event (using getting sick as an example)

Remember, you have control over this-- always. Remember it’s called getting sick, keyword being you “GET” to get sick. Like you’re getting a gift or something. A gift in disguise. First, you have a cloudy disposition. Yes, this part sucks. You worry and frustratingly wonder: what do I have, when will I get better, what caused this & did I do something wrong that caused this to happen to me? You reject the experience. You push the low energy feelings away. Perhaps, trying to do your best to disconnect from feeling uncomfortable or other suppressed pain trying to rise up & release. You’re mad & upset with it. You separate yourself from the very blessing in disguise here to help you integrate fuller into Wholeness & Beauty—into your Truth. You think about all the stuff you need to do and the rising pressure internally from now not being able to do it. The inner chatter thunderstorm takes over the blue sky.

Monkey Chatter: How am I going to take care of my kid and keep the house from falling apart, or now I can’t get together with my friend or now I have to drop out of school or how will I ever believe in Love again and how am I going to make it to work for my big presentation that could get me a promotion. They’re all humans suffering, moments of stress.

SIDENOTE: All Suffering is the Same.

It’s not up to our little human eye to judge others humans if they're suffering more or less than us in terms of how much compassion we give out or restrain. We all deserve compassion all the time. We are all doing the best we can with where we’re at in our human growth journey. Remember that.

But then you remember you’re inner voice is simply asking you for a rest and to slow down and just be still. You get out of your head & let go. You free yourself. You surrender. You stop fighting. You let go of your debilitating thoughts.

Then you feel peace, Peace and at one with the sensations of pain in your body and heart.

You trust and know this feeling is far beyond some shallow darkness with no meaning. Then, a new life emerges and it has a purpose. The low or darkness you're experiencing has a rhyme and a reason. It starts to make sense. You start to trust it. It is really a pathway of letting go of what no longer serves you into growing beyond. The ugly chaotic energy of a low one-day or a life-altering event begins to take on a subtle ever so slight glow! And is mindfully replaced with a new word with a meaningful function--detox. I see any stress or trauma coming up as a positive step in the right direction allowing anything that needs healing to be fully seen in the light.

Then you’re hope & your inner sun dawn yet again. You are richer & wiser. For you know the “darkness” too brings you wealth just as the Light. And so you start treating the same whenever a day comes. You start developing non-judgmental awarenss & just see the day as it is. Being present & open to receive lesson with lots of love & compassion in your heart to deal to allow you to rest in what would feel quite zen.

Then, you feel inspired to make the most of this rich experience of a "low" or "trauma". You want to give yourself the best possible experience to reap the most lesson & seedling of Joy! Fully becoming open & vulnerable to your teacher to extract the most juice of growth, Love, Truth, & awareness.

For me, I wanted to make the experience as beautiful and as kind as possible. Filled with loveliness and thoughtfulness for the wounded bird in me. Allowing Mother Nature to help me. Letting Nature in to help me, to lighten my energy. Letting Nature relieve me or make me feel better by on a hike or bike ride gently taught me how to receive help. Then, I started getting better at soothing myself: relaxing, feeling safe to inhale & strong enough to exhale, read, nurture, & be super easy and soft with myself. This is what I did in the beginning of trauma. I went out into Nature like I did growing up: hiking, biking adventuring & keeping my spirit alive. I fed my soul medicine through the green trees, the panoramic bird’s eye mountainous views—allowing me to accept how small I really was and how powerful I could truly be as long as I received Nature’s Love. Nature was co-creating my story with me the whole time. I was never alone. I was experiencing the hug you learn to give yourself: solitude. The early on stage of re-falling in love with yourself unconditionally like when you're real small. I adventured through Colorado, New Zealand, Bali, Mexico, & India taking in all of Nature’s colors & shapes. Taking in Nature’s nurture to remember my own power of self-Nurture.

You remind yourself of this nurturing power we all have—of your Yin feminine power. Whether you’re a man or a woman, we all have feminine and masculine energy within us. Masculine energy looks like doing things, taking action, playing, movement, quick pace, and is more physical. Feminine energy is the opposite and looks like relaxing, taking a bath, smelling flowers, breathing, just being, dreaming, spending meditative time in nature. And yes, of course they can intersect. Activated feminine energy embodies a slower and softer quieter vibe where as masculine is more faster & action-oriented.

Then you realize that this is the best timing in your life or week you could have gone into healing. You realize you are positively moving forward and then taking on a new intentional role of purifying & cleaning yourself from the inside out, emotions and all. You become immensely grateful to be alive & for the gift of Life itself. You feel blessed for the low & you really no longer see it as separate from the high.

The cool thing is you start practicing non-judgmental awareness; the highs and the lows, the good days and bad days, start looking similar. Because you begin perceiving the low's differently more like neutrally witnessing them—becoming less and less associated with ego and lower emotion feelings. When what appears as a low arising, you newly stay somewhat distant, sending love to your body and mind sorting itself in this human experience. So you don't get pulled into the ego mind chatter story. You stay at rest in Peace.

The highs and the lows both seem to take on a similar glow and that becomes the majority of the experience and eventually perhaps all of it. You take on a fresh non-discriminatory nature in relating to good and bad. You start seeing it as different at first and then it all seems the same. You’re sight is replaced with vision of One. This is unity consciousness. You’re bad card you dealt ends up being an opportunity to Merge into non-discriminatory Oneness.

The kind compassionate observer resting in the heart of Love, Peace, & Truth. Willing to respectively & compassionately allow all that is to be (darkness included) while you continue on Emitting your Light.