Well done, my friend! You have learned through experience to LISTEN with every fibre of your being! The result, as you have found, is joy and warmth! Is that not reason enough to strive to LISTEN, instead of RESISTING? B-:)
Life IS beautiful and rich and awe-some, and such a GIFT, when we but make the EFFORT to truly LISTEN! The LITTLE things in life, just like listening, make ALL the difference! When we resist there can be a mighty display of fireworks, and everybody applauds wildly! LOL! But listening, like everything the warrior does, is so APPARENTLY insignificant that it attracts no attention! But, dear god, is it POWER-FULL! 🙂
THE WARRIOR IS A MAN WHO HAS LEARNED TO LOVE LIFE AND ALL THE MANY RICHNESSES IT BRINGS HIM — MOST OF ALL THE PATH WHERE HE WALKS. THERE IS FOR THE WARRIOR NO GREATER JOY THAN TO WALK A PATH WITH A HEART. ON THIS PATH HE WALKS, THRILLED BY THE WONDER OF IT ALL, AND IN HIS JOY HE GIVES THANKS IN HIS HEART FOR THIS MARVELLOUS PRIVILEGE BY EMBRACING EVERYTHING HE ENCOUNTERS WITH LOVE AND GRATITUDE.
Question:
Theun, right now I am swinging between intense sadness and extreme anger at the fact that my wife left me. How do I deal with this state of being, for I am not finding it very comfortable?
Answer:
🙂 What can one offer a friend in a time like this? Not much really, except possibly for a, “Yes, I know how it feels!” I have been there all too often, not only in personal relationships, but also in my work with humanity.
In times like these I stare into the fire in the fireplace at my home, or else I stand quietly next to the fishpond in my courtyard, and I let my feelings flow wherever they wish to go. Emotions come and go, tears come and go, whilst laughter seems elusive. But then somehow my heart will always guide me into shifting the focus, and in that shift I see the poignant beauty of it all. I see that humanity can only learn through the pain of loss, and therefore I find and hold dear to my heart the gifts of power gained through such experiences. Only in this way can one turn the sadness into joy, and only in this way can one turn the loss into something of value, rather than allowing it to become a non-experience.
I know it is not easy, my friend, but through the pain of loss we learn a greater openness of heart enabling us to love ever more unconditionally. Allow yourself to experience your sense of loss fully, and use your anger to fight for that clarity that comes from having shifted the focus. Your true battle right now is not AGAINST the sadness and the sense of hurt, but instead it is to flow WITH that sadness and hurt to find the MEANING inherent within the PURPOSE of ALL! That meaning is “unconditional love in action”, INTENT! Use this experience to teach you how to fight in making each and every one of your actions an expression of true love, for if you do, the sweet FRAGRANCE of the Yellow Rose of Friendship will come to you unbidden! Power without that fragrance is nothing but a cumbersome burden, so much more shit that weighs us down! But power that is touched by that fragrance is true JOY! Power that is touched by that fragrance is the very essence of what it is to tread the Path with a Heart!