Working With Big Feelings and Grief
In a previous topic I presented ways to work with feeling more grounded and more sense of purpose. Big feelings can really flood us and cause us to lose our ground and sense of purpose. These feelings might be anger, hurt, fear, sadness, grief, loneliness, regret, guilt, shame or something else. Don’t try any of my suggestions if it doesn’t feel right to you or is counter to the advice of your health practitioner.
One thing about feelings is that they can seem really big, sometimes completely swamping our boat so to speak.
Some Resources for Grounding and Gaining a Sense of Purpose in the Morning
Many people tell me they feel adrift in their life, not tethered to any deep sense of purpose, not deeply a part of any community, not really close to many other people. Yet most say they would really like to feel more connected and rooted in a community. Humans are not generally hermits. Most people want to feel connected but many don’t know what to do to achieve that.
The Path to Peace, Part Two: Setting the Stage Early with Children
The Path to Peace starts in youth. We can help encourage/ground/nurture the path to peace in our communities by beginning early with our children and youth. Many of us were not brought up with a clear understanding of boundaries. Often, children’s boundaries are routinely violated either meanly by abusers or subtly by adults who don’t give children the dignity of having personal space.
The Path to Peace: My Journey in Giving Up the “War Vibration”
I have been an Aikido student and practitioner since 1974. I’ve always believed in the rightness of robustly defending our boundaries with non-violent self-defense methods. However when I was preparing to be initiated as a medicine man, the Spirit instruction I was given was to give up the war vibration. I learned that this was more than just renouncing sorcery or physical violence, which I don’t believe in anyway. It is a total renunciation of an orientation toward vengeance—giving up focusing on retribution and instead asking inside, “what needs healing here?”