The Space to Feel

Two days after my dad’s funeral was the sixth anniversary of my mom’s passing. That pretty much sums up my summer. Now, randomly, I just start ugly crying without notice. My chest tightens, my breath gets caught in my throat, my eyes feel pressure—I think: Maybe I can hold it together? But no. These “cry bursts’’ don’t last long, but they are clear messages from the deep that grief is always with me. Grief I haven’t allowed myself to fully feel yet.

I have a complicated relationship with the word “allow.” Maybe it’s my, let’s just call it “willfulness,” but I’ve always associated this word with permission or power being given or withheld, not assumed. During a recent meditation, however, there was a moment when I understood that “allowing” is actually always there. Always accessible. That to “allow” is to get in touch with our most natural selves.

The moment was fleeting, but it felt like a physical shift in my body, a revealing of space I was too stubborn to notice before. Space to feel without identifying fully with, or judging myself for, what I was feeling. All the feels were still there—the grief, the shame, the wanting to cocoon-up in bed with bad TV—but they weren’t alone.
Turns out, allowing feels more like awareness with a side of discernment, and a hint of intention and possibility. An expansiveness that offers the promise of choice and trust, with a heavy dose of kindness for yourself and others.