Why having Messy Emotions are so empowering
The planets have been in alignment lately, did you know? Venus. Jupiter. The Moon. Mars. Saturn. They have been there so clearly in the early morning sky. That time when night turns gently into day. That time when the hours of day gently open a doorway into something more. Something exquisite.
And then there have been eclipses. We have just had the Solar Eclipse with the New Moon and in a couple of days the Lunar Eclipse will be above us with the Full Moon.
Beltainne and Samhain have been honoured and celebrated in the Pagan Wheel, and days have turned to night over and over again.
Today I’m feeling balanced and calm. It’s 6am and the ravens caw in the background.
The Ravens. One of my favourite birds. For me the bird of Truth. The bird that in its pure blackness encourages me to go deep into my blackness (my darkness) to find my deepest truth. My own inner medicine - that DEEP DEEP INNER MEDICINE that only when I’ve travelled so deep down or so deep through will I find it.
There is the caw again. As I write those words.
“Messy” that is sometimes what I call myself when I have moments of feeling very anxious and very stressed, when I have moments of feeling so out of balance that I am unsure which way is up. Do you have any of those moments? When you feel that all you want to do is hide under the covers until the world turns around again and then you can breathe out.
Do you have those times when you feel that your smile is upside down and all you want to do is let the waters flow yet somewhere there is a dam and everything seems blocked? Or you feel that if you let the waters flow there would be a flood and then all the beautiful flowers you just planted would be drowned?
Do you ever have those times when you feel you are dragging yourself and that right now every footstep feels so heavy and cumbersome?
I haven’t felt this way for a long time. Decades actually. However over the past couple of weeks Messy and Friends have certainly come to visit.
They have knocked on my window. Woken me up at night. Made me feel slow in my actions and made me feel listless at times.
Why have I named my emotions as “Messy”? Because that is how I feel. All messy inside without any order or understanding. I feel dull and colourless.
“Messy” doesn’t like being called dull and colourless though, because in reality there is so much colour in my emotions. Like an artist who is holding a palette of all the colours they have every used in their long history as an artist. So many colours splash that palette. So many colours, so many different tones, shades, shadows. Why categorize them? Why say one is more important than the other? Why say the palette looks messy when it is a testament of life and creativity, hopes and dreams, loves and losses?
Why?
Because when I am feeling Messy the colours of my life become more of a blur than a testament.
Messy came to visit the other day. With lots of friends. And so I poured the tea.
We sat around together. I introduced myself and Messy introduced them. “Low Self Esteem” and “Low self worth” “Anxiety” “Stress”
I poured the tea. I realised they didn’t really want the tea. They just wanted me to be still. They just wanted to show themselves. They just wanted to show their new drawings.
Have you ever watched a child draw? Some so young they just “scribble”, and yet in that scribble there is are adventures happening - a family created, a dog in a basket, faeries under the tree - with the eyes of a child the scribble becomes something more.
So Messy’s friends showed me their drawings. Drawings of feeling stretched. Drawings of new homes. Drawings of dreams and hopes and curtains opening and closing and opening and closing. Drawings of ancient Guardians standing tall. Stalwart and strong. Drawings of feeling tired. Drawings of love bursting forth in such waterfalls that magnificent rainbows shower the sky. Drawings of contentment amongst the chaos. Drawings of trying something new and falling. Drawings of reaching out and then falling. Drawings of trying something and then achieving it. Drawings of pickling and bread-making, of sewing and stitching. Drawings of wanting to share more and unsure how. Drawings of reading out loud and having hugs. Drawings of feeling inwardly strong and then outwardly powerless. Drawings of pennies and money and savings in a piggy bank. Drawings of sadness and emptiness and hair thinning. Drawings of baking and cooking and laughing and eating. Drawings of the ocean and horizons, trees and streams.
Drawings that seem as though they have been carried with them since time began. Battered. Dogeared. Torn. And yet drawings that show so much pride despite the uncertainty.
I reached out and tentatively touched Messy’s Friends hand. One at a time. They were unsure at first. Timid. I pushed back my chair and invited them to sit on my knee. They all wanted that. To sit on my knee. To be curled in my arms on my knee. One at a time I hugged them. One at a time I let them sit on my knee for as long as they needed. There were no words. Why would there be when the heart empties and fills with an omnipresent sense of timelessness.
Anxiety.
Stress.
Low Self Esteem.
Low Self Worth.
I just hugged them. One at a time.
Just as I would hug my children. They were silent hugs where the words of the heart speak more than those of the lips.
We hugged.
Just hugged.
That is all they wanted.
For me to be still enough to look at their pictures and hug them.
To look at their pictures and ask them about it. Released of my interpretation. Released of my judgements. My half guessing. Released of my thoughts of how I could have made it look “better” or “different” or or or.
I let them speak. I let them share. There were so many more stories in the pictures. More than my eyes could ever see at first. They shared them. They mimed them and told them and they became quiet animated in their sharing. Their little hearts knew they were being HEARD and truly LISTENED TO. They chattered and chattered.
Each one.
One at a time.
The tea was made again. And this time they shared it with me.
For this time, I shared with them.
Messy is a old old friend. When Messy comes to visit I know I have to stop. Listen and be humbled by the tiny, the unsure, the scribbles.
Sometimes I choose not to and the colours of my life turn grey and lifeless.
However when I do I can hold, ever so gently, one at a time Messy and Friends, and the colours on my palette no longer look lifeless and colourless,