Are you trying to understand the contradictions and complexities of life? Read on…
Matthias writes:
There seem to be big why questions without answers in me. I fear being present because so much is happening in the present when we are really there and mindful. It is like a part of my brain can’t comprehend life. All concepts are too small.
So maybe the question is how to we care for parts of us that struggle to accept and grasp the craziness of life. With missed opportunities and love and with so much pain and guilt and shame and regret. It seems endless and pointless. Yet maybe it doesn’t need a point.
It seems like behind all that is a feeling that carries all feelings and is too big to put into words. And to even feel. Like life itself in a way. Beautiful and scary and full of paradoxes. Is love the answer?
Dear Matthias:
I feel honored and touched that you shared your struggle with me.
What comes to me is, Yes, love is part of the answer… and so is trust, and curiosity.
I think our body process can be trusted to carry us forward. Being alive in situations, we are already processing (successfully) so much information from the environment, including other people.
We don’t have to be able to understand it or think it through! Alive and embodied, we usually find ourselves already doing the right thing. Your “brain” doesn’t have to comprehend life, that’s not its job!
My mentor, Gene Gendlin, liked to say, “Life wants to live.” For me that sums it all up so beautifully.
You can be with the parts of you that feel things like pain and guilt and shame and regret. Those feelings aren’t the last step. Each of them is the beginning of a trail you can follow, using your body’s felt sense, into more self-compassion and relief.
This isn’t a thinking process—and yet it is a process that takes us to more coherence, and to feeling comfortable and at home in the world.
After all, as Gendlin would say, since we are here in this world, we do belong here!
