Just Move On!
How You Can "Just Move On" in The Face of Great Loss or Crisis
How can "You just move on" in the face of great loss or crisis?
Skye Hirst, Ph.D for Inner Tapestry
(Norm is doing much better now, by the way, with the help of acupuncture, Jin Shin Jyutsu, homeopathy and Norm's indomitable living spirit.)
Norm was in hospital and we were tired from a night of struggling with health issues when in the door walked the most beautiful woman with the most radiant smile she grabbed my attention and curiosity. We didn't exchange words at that time as she had a job to do, to clean the room. Dressed in Muslim attire that framed her face she worked peacefully, quietly but every now and then she would look up at me and that beaming smile would greet me. She came several times over the next few days and we began to talk. I learned that she was from Rawanda and had come to the US 15 years ago about the same time of the genocide there. I asked her if she had lost family then. She said, "Yes, everyone." She now has a family, two children of her own. "How," I asked, "can you smile with such radiance? Did you have help dealing with the losses?" "No," she said, "You just move on."
I was stunned, then felt my own heart open in the light of her wisdom. That day lifted my heart and I was able to feel the power of the human spirit not only in her, but in myself. I need only think of her smiling radiant face and my heart opens, surrenders whatever is burdening me at the time, and I am renewed. "Just move on," she said.
With Norm's and my work, we have learned so much about the power of the human organism to renew itself, to change everything about itself in a heart-beat. But I realize too little is taught about this capacity. It seems people get stuck and feel that stuckness will last forever. Some times it comes in the form of anger at those who have killed or hurt our loved-ones and that anger seeks revenge. Hateful thoughts breed more hateful acts and the cycle of warring continues. And yet, every once in a while, we learn of someone who is able to transcend that way of being. The idea of forgiveness is now being called out in many places in the world where it seems almost unimaginable that acts of apartheid, genocide and torture could be forgiven. We are learning that holding revenge affects the health, raises blood pressure, creates conditions for cancer as well as depression and rage.
So how did this lovely Rawandan woman find her way through such tragedy? Moving on sounds so simple, too simple to comprehend. Yet, if we are to understand that life is ever changing, moving, oscillating, fulfilling and dissolving, that the harder we push against something in an attempt to control it, does little to do so. Letting go of wanting something to not happen, feels impossible sometimes. We don't want our loved ones to die. We don't want our friends to suffer or be sad. We don't want our business to fail. The Sedona Method has a way of helping us to release these feelings so they don't have to control us. It's comes from the Buddha tradition of letting go of what we resist, being with what is.
Through my work and my life, I've worked with those who are in the process of dying many times and with each case, I learn of their recognition that loving and feeling loving is truly the greatest gift. All else seems to fall away, their fears, their resistances, feelings of hatefulness, revenge and sometimes even their pain are diminished by compassion.
There are those in our prison system who have committed hideous crimes and when those families of victims confront them can find compassion for themselves and then for those who have transgressed against them, something magnificent happens. It releases the bound-up creative energy within to be free to vibrate once again. The organism we are is able to move on, to create a new. What has been held tight, tense, in control, fighting against that which has been is released. The feeling of "I can't," changes. New possibilities open. We find something shifting within that feels more like "I allow" myself to live, to breath, to feel the movement of becoming new. We don't forget what has occurred, but what has been held so tightly begins to integrate into the whole of us. It becomes a most important thread in our soul's fabric, but not the only thread.
No one likes to think that we each will die in the form we are today. It seems our entire US culture is formed around being in denial of this. Even our funerals have become so fantastic to cover up this transformation process. I have found myself resisting the possibility of losing someone close to me who is ill. The tension is horrific. Then when I remember, oh yeah, this is also something I'm resisting, I allow myself to go through the loss a little bit to whatever degree I can. It eases the pain and suffering. I did this with my mother over several years as she struggled with her illness. This gave me some comfort when the emotions of loss were so extreme. I won't say it was easy when she died, but I knew I could survive it and move on eventually. I've used it constantly with Norm's illness the past two years.
What moves me is how this, "moving on," occurs. How it does so is unique to each living being. Each organism has it's own inner landscape which forms it's integrity. When something happens that forces change on that inner integrity, the whole organism must work out how to handle it. Some organisms may take longer than others to find their way through to the integration process to find new order and restored integrity. Those of religious faith talk of grace saving them. I think it feels like that. There's a timing that has to work itself through with resolving all the conflicts and beliefs held in that inner history of one's life's acts and experiences. Some can surrender this holding more easily and having the feeling that there is a connection to something greater gives them courage to do so. And I believe we are all connected to something greater - a life force that breathes us - enables us to co-create, to find our way through almost any situation we may face.
The creative resources we organisms possess are evident everywhere around us. In nature we see the infinite results of evolutionary creation where organisms evolve to find more effective actions to deal with whatever conditions they may face. It's not the survival of the fittest, but survival through, that which all life possesses, accessing those creative resources within us provided by this infinite life force. And often it is in asking deeply for this resource, available to us, to be called out during those most difficult times that our living spirit truly comes most alive. I think that's why so many people who have been in deep crisis and access this resource will say it was or is the most important time of their life.
Such creative resources need not only be accessed in crisis, but we see it happening in those who are reaching heights of human capacity beyond what seems to be the ordinary, like outstanding athletes, artists, single mothers raising several children, etc. they remind us of what the living spirit is capable.
And I try to practice each day during those little moments in my day when I can stop myself in mid-act, when I'm feeling some resistance, some feeling of wanting to control or change what is or what has happened. When I can catch myself, I connect to that "felt sense within me, in my inner landscape ecology to locate the I can't, or the I don't want something to happen. Can I let go of wanting to change or control what has happened or my fear it might happen? Lots of resistance will come up, but sometimes, it's just as simple as deciding, no I can't change it, I can't control what has or might happen. Then I look for some way to replace the I can't with I allow it to be as it is. Sometimes it takes several goes at it, or sometimes I can feel the shift/release happen in a heart-beat. But little by little, I feel released, changed and I become more alive, lighter, my creative force is free once again to live. So when I can turn around those times when I'm feeling defeated, depressed, or just plain tired or frustrated, with every time I can do this, even for a little tiny bit, I connect to that power within me to know I can change, I can feel loving, alive, creative once again. Then when the big challenges come along, and they will, I've got the understanding and confidence that I can and will move on as long as I am alive. That's the gift of being an organism, we can and do do it constantly - we can just move on.