Feeling Love in the Midst of Imperfection
By Carolyn Tucker LAPC
Living in an imperfect world is stressful. Imperfection can look many ways. It can look like an argument with a loved one, being let down by a friend, losing a job or even not being able to pay the bills. When things do not go how we want them to, the imperfection seems to mock us and get us twisted into a bundle of nerves. Many of us walk around in distress much of the time due to our circumstances. Most of the discomfort we experience is from negative emotions wreaking havoc in our body.
We have two primary emotions, love and fear. The discomfort comes from resisting fear and thus trapping it in our bodies. Fear in our bodies can manifest as anxiety and can cause many physical symptoms. Our muscles tighten, we get knots in our stomach and lumps in our throats,our heart rates increase, our breathing becomes quick and shallow when we experience fear. It can feel almost unbearable.
We are hard-wired to have the fight or flight response from the beginning of time. It does not serve us well because we rarely encounter a pterodactyl waiting to devour us for dinner these days. The evolutionary response that saved our lives when we lived among carnivorous beasts is killing us now. It causes our bodies to idle at a high-speed, exhausting our adrenal glands and wearing out our minds with repetitive thoughts of “danger”.
Fear is literally an energy in the body, as are all of our emotions. When we recognize it as such we are able to visualize control over it, being able to manipulate it and to help it shift. We usually resist uncomfortable energies, because it feels like if we focus on them they may consume us. Actually dropping your awareness into the area where you are experiencing the energy and noticing its presence is helpful in taking away some of its power and causing it to dissipate.
Making a conscious choice to shift to the place of love inside of ourselves is the cure for this discomfort. Fear and love cannot exist at the same time. To make the shift we focus on the area of our heart in our bodies. We begin to call into our presence pictures of the faces of those we love (their smiles and hugs, picturing them at tender and vulnerable moments), remembering fond experiences from childhood (playing a game, enjoying a toy that we loved so much, playing with a special friend). We focus on gratitude to the universe for all we have.
