Overwhelmed
You're enjoying the sunshine warming your skin, making daisy chains with puppies on a Persian rug with a perfect plate of sugar-free-gluten-free expensive personalised monogram cupcakes that instagram celebrities have for their expensive children's parties.
It's a perfect day, oh what a wonderful life!
And then you hear the distant galloping of the dark horse....
You see it coming over the hill.
It looks at you, you look at it.
You know that look.
That look says I'm coming to spit on your face, poo on the daisy chains, eat the puppies and trample on your Persian rug and perfect expensive cupcakes.
The dark horse is wild, it's free, there is no caging it up.
It will find you, especially when you have expensive cup-cakes, it can smell those monogram cup-cakes miles away.
The dark horse is an analogy for pain.
It is totally unavoidable in life, it doesn't matter how much money we have, how many wonderful people we have in our life, or how skinny we are. Pain will come galloping in.
I think we all know this by now, especially over the last few years.
There is a nervousness that can arise, since we know it will come to visit again soon. Which can make us over-attentive, over-cautious or defensive and ready to attack...we use these reactions to try and control our environment and have a few moments of illusional peace.
Honestly there were times year I didn't know that I could handle anymore, I felt like my heart was crying and would not stop.
It was only when I soften towards it did I begin to really feel the depths of myself, did I experience dark corners I didn't know where there, that whispered wisdom I had not known before.
Then came love, so much love. That was always there but it was hidden by a wall I had put up to protect myself from the dark horse.
The thing is we will keep on getting the same visitors until we learn how to transcend them.
Pain will continue to knock but if we can practice transcending it, it can be our muse for the heart of life.
Pain is on the same grid as loving compassion.
Pain reminds us of our own humanness, we all feel it and brings the other closer to us rather than as something to fight or defend or conquer.
Pain can melt our shields, to see each other clearly in-spite of differences.
Pain is what can melt away hate and conflict, arriving at compassion and peace, and it can happen instantly.
Seeing the pain in you is the same as the pain in me instantly takes us offer the battle field and into peace.
A peace that is unwavering. So when the dark horse comes again, we can accept that it is part of our experience.
We feel it, but do not need to make it mean anything or fight for anything, we let it come and go.
When we can accept pain, we accept our humanness, we dissolve the barriers between us and we can meet each other and life with love.
It is this very earthly essence that can enlighten humankind.