Do you know the feeling of living in the unknown? I have a feeling you do. It’s been a place that most have been living and exploring in these past two years of Covid. The feeling of always being in the unknown is not normal for our psyche, it can cause so much stress, confusion, and exhaustion. Yet, for some, that unknown keeps growing and expanding. I am one of those people. Over a year ago the unknown expanded into the greatest void when Kyle called me to tell me he had brain cancer again. Everything I thought was going to be our life together suddenly felt uncertain. Yet, isn’t that life? It is a constant place of the unknown. We truly have no control over the outcome. We humans want control… control that isn’t actually available to us. I’ve sat in that place this past year, learning how I can be HERE, in the present moment, right now.

It has been messy and the most challenging year of my life. Learning how to be in the present moment in the most challenging time has brought up some of the darkest days. I’ve struggled to get out of bed and I was crumbling. That curmbling feeling made me feel even more terrible, I am supposed to be strong for him. That’s what everyone told me, just be strong. Strength felt nearly impossible to find within myself. I am not sure if I’ve even found it, a whole year later. Everything felt as if it was compiling on top of me with no end in sight. That feeling manifested emotions and reactions in ways I wish it hadn’t. I grew short tempered, angry, avoidant and I was depleted. I honestly just wanted control. Control over something in my life. 

Yet, we have no control and are not guaranteed anything in life. Well, I take that back. Our one guaranteed experience is that we will die. That might be hard to hear, you might be saying ok well I don’t think I want to keep reading. I understand that we have learned in our culture (I speak as an American raised here in the US) that death is something to be avoided. Americans, as a whole, try to do everything in our power to avoid the reality of death. Fight to look younger, fight to live longer. Why are we fighting it? I’ve learned in this time of uncertainty that when you start to accept that we will all die, life expands. Life right here and right now expands, with so much more love, joy, and presence. Isn’t that what life should be about? 

It may seem impossible, too scary to face, overwhelming even. I’ve felt all of that, yet I wanted to avoid feeling any of it. My reaction was try to push it down, which meant all my energy went to resisting. So, I had no energy to get dressed, brush my teeth before noon or be the loving partner and human I wanted to be. Yet I kept feeling it, I kept becoming consumed by my fear. As much as I tried to hide from it, it found me. I thought of all the worst possible scenarios, on a loop. You know where that always led me, to seeing Kyle dying. To see me still here living, and missing him. Then I would look over and see him, he is here right now! I’d think, right now can never be returned to me, so why am I allowing myself to be consumed by the fear. That fear is taking me away from my life. The life that I know will someday no longer be. Why live that death twice? (The real death that will one day come, and the death that replays in my mind). Then the fear would win and I would go back to the story of death, looping in my head. Only a glimpse of presence was found, and the cycle would keep going. I was growing more and more miserable in my body, and to be around.

That cycle has played out for a year. Finally, I cracked and something shifted. Optimism, hope, faith, divine intervention, will power or whatever it was stepped in and helped me break the endless loop. Hell, maybe and most likely it was all of the above working to help. The fear was far from gone yet, I started to feel myself returning to my body. I felt I can trust again, not that I have control, which is important to note, but that I can trust. 

It’s taken me a long time to come to a place, the place of finding more presence. It has not been easy because our minds are powerful. They can take us on wild adventures that completely consume us. Yet, once I experienced my own mysteries with my health, it all finally clicked. I have something wrong with my heart. A truly vital part of this earth suit I am wearing, and I don’t know what is wrong with it. That’s the place of limbo that I am personally sitting in. I went in for chest pain, thinking it was anxiety, but wanting to be certain it wasn’t something greater. Then I found out all my test thus far are abnormal. What that abnormality is, I don’t know. I'm waiting for more tests to find the answers. 

Sitting in that place of the deep unknown, in my own human experience, has brought it all into great clarity. I am alive, breathing, able-bodied (aside from strenuous activities until I have answers) and that means I can enjoy it. I can choose to wallow in the fear and pain, which I allowed myself to do for a bit. I let all those emotions arise, I let myself have a whole day to be in it. A day of being numb to life, not leaving the couch, barely eating and feeling it all.

Then I woke up the next day and did the things I loved. You know what happened to my greatest surprise? By the end of the day I felt great! I felt happy and joyous. All the truths were still there, I have something wrong with my heart, I don't know how bad it is and Kyle has cancer. Yet I was happy. I’ve felt overwhelmed realizing, finally that I have the ability to be here, right here, at this very moment, watching Ollie (our dog) stare at me with his sweet eyes, hearing Kyle cooking us food in the kitchen, and feeling my fingers move across this keyboard. So how did I get here? Well, that’s what I’ve been piecing together. What has allowed me to move to be here, instead of moving in the direction of fear? There are many things, yet the things that I can find to have the most impact are listed below. 

• Daily Introspection 

  That looks like sitting for a tea ceremony every day. I couldn’t tell you the last time I missed a day. I show up each morning for tea and she helps me connect to myself. I find my center again, every day, and then I journal. That journaling allows me to process anything that clouds my vision and get it out of my head. Even when I don’t want to write, I simply write, “I don’t want to write”, over and over until something comes.

• Doing Challenging Things 

  Cold plunging has given me so much more control over my stress and my mind. In the water, I find my breath, and I am there. If I am anywhere else, I cannot remain in the cold it becomes too much. That has translated to most things outside of the water. I can find my breath and anchor into that moment because I’ve seen I can do it. 

• Moving my Body, Moving the Emotions 

  Daily movement, specifically yoga,being in postures that help get my body unstuck allows my emotions to become unstuck. We store everything we experience in our lives, in our bodies, and moving it allows us to release it all. Some days I feel angry in my practice because it is moving out of my body and other days I feel at ease when the stuckness leaves. 

• Laughing 

  It feels so great to laugh. It provides this euphoric feeling when you can be present to laughter. I find laughter by being silly, watching animal videos and making weird faces at Kyle. However, when laughter comes it always helps me feel lighter and reduces my fears. 

• Time 

  Grief, healing and processing all take time.! You won’t know the length of time until you come out the other side. Then you may fall right back the stuckness because, none of it is linear. Allowing yourself to be, and move through it at your own pace is greatly healing. 

I am most definitely not fully present all the time. Fear still shows up and wants to dance but I see now I can turn away from that fear. That fear can no longer come in unannounced, I see it and I have a choice. Do I dance with you right now, or do I send you on your way? More days than ever I have the strength to turn it away. When I don’t have the strength I let it ride and I return to what I need. I maintain my introspective practices, get in the cold, move my body and find just one thing to laugh about. Eventually, I return to the moment that I am in, the now, present to life in this moment, once again.

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