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I cannot count the number of times I felt a lump in my throat while holding back my tears yesterday. It wasn't until I got in bed to go to sleep that the tears came out. Not really crying. Just tears. An emotional cleansing I'd been putting off all day.
A full day of Kuan Yin Sitting. This was the first Sheng Zhen form I ever learned, and here I was a couple of years later in the same workshop. I had first learned it at a time that I was holding back, not even realizing it, but holding in so much emotion, withholding so much love. My heart was closed. Protective. Overly so. Wounded. And understandably so. The first noticeable emotional release during that first Kuan Yin workshop had to do with forgiveness. Forgiving my ex-husband. Forgiving myself. Over the next couple of months, I went through some rapid and dramatic transformation in terms of my heart opening up and my ability to enjoy life. I had never felt so open and so genuinely loving-- well, I probably had as a child, but years of social rejection, a car accident, and a divorce brought out more fear than love, a protective armor, a dark cloud.
So yesterday I was reminded of this, of how far I'd come. But my tears were not tears of joy for this progress. My tears were from the memories of hurt, and the hurt that still lingers, the wounds that get reopened from time to time.
At lunch a friend reminded me that the universe presents us with opportunities to continue moving up along our spiritual paths. The reopening of wounds, the challenges, are also opportunities. I started to see the silver lining of the recent looming clouds overhead. That doesn't take away sadness completely. It just adds another perspective. Widens it. Bigger picture. Helps give me strength. Helps me embrace all I'm presented with and all that I am. Helps me trust and accept that all is just as it should be.