Being in the moment

The question threw me off guard. It was a good question, a great one and I wasn’t ready for it. “How am I supposed to deal with disappointment? How am I supposed to react when the period comes, when the pregnancy test is negative?”  What are you supposed to do when you hear bad news? What do you do to deal with news of an illness? Rejection? A big No? Death?

My first reaction is to tell the person. “Move on, go, don’t let this stop you.” But upon hearing the news of the illness of a loved one, upon hearing someone tell me, “Don’t get so upset. You can’t make yourself sick over this-it won’t help the situation.” (And of course she is right-it won’t help anything.) I realized that what I need to do in that moment is to feel it. I need to feel the sadness and the disappointment. I need to allow myself that time and that space. I needed it to be okay to be upset.  AND THEN I felt that I could pick myself up and go on. Then I can deal with it and move on.

When a person is in mourning, they sit shiva for seven days. There’s no work, no learning, no laughing. You sit and you cry and you mourn. Seven days. And then you get up. That moment passes and then you need to live in the moment of now, which is the moment of life, the moment of opportunity, the moment of hope and the moment of faith. 

Healing and growing is about living in the moment .