DTube Diving Deep: Loving & Accepting Yourself, Including Anxiety, Fear, Anger, Sadness!

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Let's start off with a little poem:

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

— Jellaludin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks

This is one of my favorite poems. I shared it a while ago and quite a few of you commented on it.

The thoughts I share in this vlog were ones I have been thinking of often and it struck me in a new way today.

So often, we resist, deny, suppress or ignore the "less fun or joyful emotions". Many of us were taught to "always put our best face forward" and "be happy", "smile!"... There's nothing wrong with this inherently, but it can lead to a lack of understanding or inability to handle when other emotions come our way, as they necessarily will!

Anger, sadness, fear, depression, anxiety... these all come to us at different times and yet many of us aren't taught how to relate to them. Oftentimes we're told it's bad to feel this way and so it's natural to want to push these emotions away.

For a while now, I've been practicing loving these emotions and accepting them.

I find that when we do this, the emotions do their work in us and move on. If we fight or ignore them, they can become trapped in the body, come out in other ways through other behaviors, etc, or we can become numb to all experiences of emotion.

Not accepting these other "harder emotions" greatly limits our experience here. These aren't emotions to strive to never have, but ones to be embraced for their unique messages as the poem above articulates so well. I find if I relate to them in this way, there's a gentler sense with myself, I have more self love and acceptance instead of hating these very emotions that need me to see them.

When your friend feels sad, would you tell him to bug off? Perhaps not, so why when we feel sad do we push it down? Same goes for all of these "less comfortable" emotions than happiness, bliss, joy, etc. It's definitely a practice to learn to accept and hear these emotions and allow them to move on in their time, but one that is worth the time and effort.

How can we say to ourselves?

I only love you when?

Our love is not scarce and comes from an infinite wellspring within, that is the God(dess) within us. So why not shower love on all these parts of ourselves?

I'm curious to hear your thoughts & experience on this. Feel free to leave them below! Let's have a conversation! Thanks for watching/reading!

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