Happy New Year! I know over the last couple of weeks you haven’t been hearing from me consistently. I haven’t forgotten about you. I love writing from a highly inspired place, and being so pregnant (36 weeks approaching 37) has left me feeling pretty tired some weeks. Also, we just moved. The picture above is the view from our living room.

But today’s post came from that highly inspired place, and I feel everyone struggles with this topic. In fact it can easily keep us from loving and living full out.

A client of mine, Lisa, is going through a break up and like any break up it’s been really really hard. She really believed that he was the one, and it’s been hard for her to reconcile how or why it didn’t work out.

A friend of mine just went through a miscarriage this week. She’s rightfully heartbroken, and very surprised by the amount of emotions that are coming up for her with this loss.

Another client tells me today that she knows she’s at a company and in a position that is no longer challenging her. She can’t seem to feel motivated to make a real change in her career and she’s frustrated with herself.

My client, Marisa, just started dating a friend’s brother. It’s going well, but she’s having doubts. She kept saying to me, “But he’s a great guy. I shouldn’t be having these thoughts or doubts.”

When Hemal, my husband, broke up with me, I was in total denial for over 3 months. It just didn’t make sense to me how I was going through this after everything we had been through and shared.

Here’s the common thread amongst all of these stories. They are all questioning and feeling a sense of “Why me?” “Why now?” “How could I be so wrong?” “When will this be over?”

Our minds during these moments of pain will just circle and circle around these questions and many more, which has us resist “what is.”

“What is” is the reality that is occurring right now. There’s a whole reality occurring in front of you, and instead of accepting and allowing it most of us prefer to be somewhere else in the future.

Maybe you want it to go away. Maybe you’re tired of feeling a certain way and want it to change now.

Our minds won’t let us feel all the feelings that come up when we are in so much pain.

It will have us go straight into researching, doing, isolating and analyzing every moment. The mind will even try to find the lesson and comes up with an action plan to get over it. Basically fix it.

Our mind won’t allow us to take in “what is” because it’s too busy trying to fight or flee from the emotions into “fix it” mode.

Taking in “what is” is honoring ourselves by being really honest about what we are feeling or thinking right now in this moment fully, without justifying or diagnosing.

My client said to me, “I’m just mad at him, mad at him for breaking up a relationship that felt so real and loving. How can he not see that and how could he do this to me?”

She followed that up with, “But does that sound like I’m playing the victim? Does that mean I’m not as evolved as I should be?”

Do you see how she starts to let herself feel what is real for her right now in the moment, and then shuts it down to try to be somewhere else?

I said, “Is it victimy? Technically sure. But are you allowed to be pissed that this is happening because that’s how you feel right now in this moment, YES!”

When I asked my friend how she’s FEELING after the miscarriage, she said, “I’m just trying to figure out the lesson behind why this happened and what caused it.”

Notice how she didn’t really answer my question. She didn’t reveal how she was feeling at all. This is normal because facing the emotions can feel so hard.

When I asked my client, why she feels she needs to be focusing on her career when she naturally isn’t feeling very motivated she said, “Well I’ve always been that person, especially in my family. The valedictorian. The lawyer. Driven to really feel accomplished in my career.”

Can you see her attachment to what she’s known herself to be, a specific identity, is keeping her from being honest and real about what she feels right now?

I asked the client that’s dating her brother’s friend what she was actually questioning. She said, “I’m just being superficial and dumb.” I pushed her on it and said, “Don’t judge yourself or think it’s wrong to think what you’re thinking. What are some of the doubts you’re having?”

She said, “He doesn’t seem as sophisticated as I thought he would be. He’s divorced and I feel he’s still holding on to some parts of that relationship. Also, at times I feel he can’t meet me at my intellectual level.”

And each time she wanted to go into how she doesn’t really know him yet, and how she could be wrong, which is true, I just kept bringing her back to allowing herself to admit what she’s thinking.

After she rattled off a bunch of doubts I said, “How does it feel to just be honest with yourself without trying to change it?”

She said, “I actually feel so much more freer like some of these doubts aren’t really true. I feel like I have more space to also just see what happens.”

The first and only step to taking in “what is” is asking yourself, “What am I honestly feeling right now?” “What am I honestly thinking right now?” And allow it fully. Accept it fully. Then we can have space to move forward differently and transform into what we desire.

Let me know what you think about today’s post in the comments below. Is it hard for you to take in “what is”? How do you move through difficult or painful moments?

In Love,