Sometimes we feel the pressure of life, demands, needs and desires. We'd like to slow down, but we're afraid that if we did, we'd stop, never be able to start again because our need for quiet is so great. We may be afraid we might feel those feelings bottled up, and if we started feeling, we might never stop. We feel how much energy it takes to hold ourselves together. We feel we are just a step away from "breaking down". That fearful word for feeling the depth of our feelings, bottled up for so long, so needing to be expressed. Just to be felt.
Feeling our feelings, choosing to let go of the control by which we keep ourselves constricted, just letting them come through. Having a good cry.. a real good cry, not just tearing. Sometimes deep sobs and shaking our body, allowing the energy to move through us, deeply cleansing our bodies, mind and soul. Letting go. The fear of crying is much worse than crying itself. You'll find you feel clean, empty inside, having let go of old emotional stuff. Then we can deal later on, if we need to, with what is underneath the emotions.. No more struggle and effort to keep ourselves contained. Just letting go...
We must center ourselves, go inside, connect with our deep psyche, into depth with our spiritual points of view. Pray that we can stay connected to this source, the source of unconditional Love, Compassion and Wisdom. Pray that we will not collapse into hatred and anger and react with violence because we feel angry, scared and powerless. No, this would just add violence into the world..
When two contradictory aspects of the psyche fight for control, it's best to activate our inner observer, and just notice the inner dance. Just observe the various opinions and feelings within and hold them in our awareness. Sometimes it's helpful to say "Isn't that interesting!" We earn to hold the tension of the opposites. Don't try to make anything happen. Be with it all. Hang out with whole inner drama and smell the flowers. Live life. Hold the tension, just noticing until the energy shifts and stress dissipates.
There's some time in life, after the woundings of childhood and previous experiences, the growth of the youth, the achievements of adulthood, the strivings to "fix oneself" and to make ourselves perfect, or at least to look good enough, when we may come face to face with ourselves just as we are! And see ourselves with all the woundings, personal resources, and skilled and unskilled behaviors, and begin to ask "Now, just who am I?"
At this time, we have to look ourselves in the eye, see our lives as they've unfolded, and say, yes, "This is Me! This is who I am." And begin to see that we are who we are because of all our history, and we are much, much more.
May we look inside with loving honesty, see what's in ourselves does not support our highest level of becoming and let go, open to the experience of compassion and unconditional love within, and then take this state of consciousness into your life in the outer world.

Leen