Feeling life.

Life: It's so full of complications and disasters, both great and small. Too full of complications at times it seems. But I have learned that it is also full of joy and happiness, even in your darkest hour.

I used to wonder why life was not fair, but Life never has been and it never will be. Some days you win, others you lose and that is as fair as it will ever be. It is an uneven, never-ending puzzle of emotional upheavals, largely dependant on your attitude.

We will all have moments of extremes no matter how careful we are. These moments of extreme pain or happiness are essential to the very existence of our continuing life. The moments we hope to forget and moments we can't bear the thought of not remembering are as essential as each other. Thet are the energy that keeps the Universe growing. 'We' know that everything living being feels both hope and despair - sometimes in the same moment - and the energy that is discharged from these moments is sometimes extreme. But it is essential. You can avoid feeling, but your avoidance serves no purpose.

So where does this Energy from emotions go? And why do we have to feel them?

I remember a time when I proudly told my Doctor that I had not cried for 10 or more years - and I hadn't - but at that same moment I was being given some devastating information - a death sentence. But I shrugged determinedly: I was not going to feel the pain. I would deal with this in the same way that I had dealt with some of the most fractured moments of my life.

My life had included assault, divorce, a very ill child, the loss of my home and so much more, but I did not want to feel all that pain then and I did not want to feel the pain of terminal illness now either. What I wanted was to soldier on, as I always had. Get the job done.

That was years ago, and at the end of a very long list of additional hardships, I finally cried. I could not hold the grief in anymore and it tumbled out of me as if I was a cracked jug. It felt like the Universe was determined to push me as hard as it could until I allowed myself to feel. And feel I did.

On the evening that I finally cried, I died in my sleep from an unexpected cardiac arrest. I lay dead for almost an hour and when I finally came back to my body, I regretted my decision. Life was tough, tougher than I expected it to be. I could barely see or talk, could barely walk either. If life had been tough before, it was indescribable now.

Energy must be released or consequences will be felt. I felt mine in the form of a total shutdown of my heart. In the death of me.

These moments of emotional intensity that we need to feel and in turn, radiate out, is the very same energy that the Universe uses for everything it makes. This intense, emotional energy is the creator, forming everything from the smallest amoeba to new planets and stars. The Energy is spread like star seeds into the atmosphere where it is scooped up and used to recreate another living being.

I had stopped being a creator, a participant in life until I allowed myself to feel.

Since that time, I feel. I feel everything. I cry for abused animals, hurt children, missed opportunities. I feel for those that have no defence. I rescue animals and protest injustices. I love and allow people to love me. I have become friends with people I stayed distant from before and I have found that I love them, I need them and I want them to be there, in my life. I want to be important to them.

Because that is the purpose of life and I love life.

So, rather than bemoaning those moments that tear your life apart, you might find yourself feeling more fulfilled by taking them in, just sitting in the middle of the feelings. Hopefully allowing the pain or love, joy, or wonder to be fully felt, with gratitude that you still have the heart and the Energy to feel emotion.

As William Faulkner, the poet, wrote "Between grief and nothing, I will take grief"

Take all of these feelings, suck them in and breathe them out. And feel them, really feel them. Let the Universe continue to grow. Because if you do get the chance to choose, choose grief. That is the only way to grow.