The only place you can be going is here.

And when you show up HERE!

You can be the star that you are.

A few months ago, I found myself really feeling the impact of a loss I have been dealing with for a while.  In general, I have been doing all that I tell my clients to do when dealing with a loss. I had been moving through the loss in a very good, albeit painful way. (Hear this:  Going through loss does not mean you will not feel pain, and if you are feeling the pain, you are most likely dealing with the loss).

However, I woke up one morning and no matter what I did, the pain seemed to grip me in such a way that I felt like I was sinking into an abyss that I had not experienced for decades.

A friend happened to call me, and I told him a bit of how I was feeling. When we hung up I still felt really low.

A few hours later, he sent me an email more or less telling me what to do to feel better–be sure to not “blame the other” who had stimulated the loss.  He told me to make sure that I remember that this person was my teacher……………

This did not help me.

And, in the most kind and considerate way, I told this person that I knew he was trying to be helpful and that this did not help.

Later he asked, what would help. I said this:

All that I really need is to have someone say to me:
“I am here, what is this like for you”.

That is it friends!

This is all we initially need to do when we or a loved one, friend or even an enemy is dealing with an issue of any type that is causing them distress, sinking into that emotional abyss that most of us have been told to avoid at all costs.

This emotional abyss is where all unhealed losses, un-dealt with traumas, and wounds live. And, what goes part and parcel with all of this are feelings and our ability to deal with them. When we were young, our caretakers may not have known how to deal with feelings and therefore taught us to shove the feelings into this emotional abyss. What creates this abyss is wrong thinking.  The Abyss is created because humans have incorrectly learned that feelings can’t really be dealt with.

Again, I want to repeat this:  we somehow learned that we can’t deal with feelings.  We learned that the thing to do when feelings come up is to allow the mind to take us far away from the feelings. We learned to use our intellect to take us away from the truth of what is going inside us. And, when this did not work, many people learned to use food to hide the feelings, or some used drugs and alcohol to medicate the feelings. However, this did not eliminate the feelings. Also, some people learned to use Spirituality to do a “spiritual by-pass” to rise above the feelings. Often people who have mastered the trick of “spiritual by-passing” will look down on those “lower folks” who have feelings.  This is so ridiculous that as a therapist and a minister, I would rather work with clients who use food, or drugs or alcohol or sex or shopping over someone who uses spirituality to make themselves think they have risen above it all.

The truth is we are born with the ability to feel our feelings. We have biological emotional circuits for many different feelings. Our feelings are like little barometers that continually tell us how we perceive something. It is an amazing gift that we are born with. However, I would say in 80 % of most families, the children are taught to not deal with their feelings.

However, there comes a time when you have to BE HERE NOW, and feel your feelings rather than allowing your mind to drag you like a dog on a leash “there and everywhere”, but not here.

Here is the only place where we can truly deal with what is going on. Here in this now moment.

Rev. Marvin Anderson, Unity Minister, told us in ministerial school, that “this NOW moment is where all ideas originate; This NOW moment is the realm of Divine Ideas, and Divine Ideas are under everything that is.

I am calling this realm within us the House of Truth.

There is one choice we really have in life and this choice has to do with whether we are connected to the House of Truth within. We each have our own House of Truth and no one can really know what is in anyone’s House of Truth except for their own. In our House of Truth, we have access to our thoughts, our feelings, our perceptions, our feelings, our history, our dreams, desires, passions, and hopes. When we make the choice to connect to this part of who we are, we are placing ourselves in CHOICE. We are choosing to be here NOW and in this NOW moment.

So the answer to the question about what to do when we are caught unaware and feel like we are sinking into that emotional abyss is to stop and feel our feelings.

So, what to do when we see ourselves or someone else falling into that abyss? Ready? Here is what you need to say:

“I am here, what is this like for you”.

Though these 9 words may seem easy to say; though you may think, well I can do that, I invite you to consider how many times you have tried to make someone feel better when they were going into the abyss as opposed to telling them: “I am here, what is this like for you”.

Or, have you tried to “just help”, or a have you told them what worked for you, or have you  offered them a beer or tried to distract them with the news “de jour”.

These 7 words are rarely used.

And these 7 words or something like them, if used could change the world.