Practicing with Holiday Mood Swings

Many emotions, both pleasant and unpleasant, well up from deep within and flow through us especially during the Holidays when we are away from our family and friends. You can choose to repress and constrict these emotions or you can choose to allow their flow, opening up and knowing that under a creative and loving release of these emotions is the harmony you seek. The harmony is not found running from our emotions, fearing them or even manifesting them in anger or frustration.

I’d like to suggest that when your sorrows (and joys) bubble up to the surface, remember your T’ai Chi Chih practice and do whatever moves you remember, in whatever order comes to you. In times of intense emotional flow your intuition serves extremely well in selecting the moves and number of repetitions. If in doubt start at the beginning and just do “Rocking motion”, or flow through the whole set letting the memory of your previous practices within your body serve you as you allow your heart to open.

Rock your sorrow. Empty of judgements and stories. Let go of the why’s and the therefor’s. Release any guilt, blame, fear, anger or jealousy. Release your hold on the sorrow and let it flow through your body. No one need know you are doing anything but your practice.

Be your sorrow fully, let it move around with the moves and flow through every aspect of your being. Feel your feet in the earth, and know she will sustain you in this process. Let go of storing it in any particular place in your body. Like a wave, it will swell. And like the swell of a wave, it will eventually release upon the shore and loose its energy.

When the energy of the sorrow has been expressed and released, the essence beneath the sorrow will be able to nurture your healing. This is the essential aspect of yourself that knew all along you were more than the sum of your sorrows and joys. This essence knows harmony as it’s reality.

When the blocks to it’s expression have been cleared, this harmony will be free to flow and express and expand within you. Within all of you. Within your body, as the muscles relax and melt into a continuous flow of movement. Within your mind, as it stills and knows without words, without details, without judgement. Within your heart, as the sorrows and joys are released and you are at home within yourself regardless of how time and circumstances have treated your body. And within your spirit, as it reflects not only a single point of light and love, but becomes a manifestation of a much greater light and love. All aspects of yourself become aligned with the source of life and love, and together you are one.

Experienced even once, this sense of harmony deep within you will call you back to your T’ai Chi Chih practice time and time again as new sorrows and joys seek to flow through you on their way towards release, rather than remaining blocked and allowed to fester. . .