We’re taught to believe everything should lead to our happiness. That happiness is the goal. And if we’re not “happy” then we have to fix ourselves in order to get back to happy.

The deeper I go into my own spiritual evolution, the more I understand that happiness is no better an emotion that sadness. In fact, it’s sadness that often has a gem in it. It’s sadness which tells me I am opening in some new way and I’ve just got to lean in. They’re all temporary anyway.

But when we visit those other emotions, like lonely, sad, lost, grief …we judge ourselves and we (unconsciously) judge those around us who feel them and express them without shame.

We say to ourselves…”Oh, stop feeling this way. Look around you, be grateful! You have no right to be sad now, you’re healthy and loved and blah blah blah…!

We say to others, “It will get better soon, I know it.”

But those words actually diminish our experience. They tell us that being where we are isn’t good enough. That we have to change it, make it better somehow.

And the only way to transform anything… is to move through it gracefully. No matter how long it takes, or how many times we may touch upon it. It becomes our spiritual practice to just be okay with ourselves… without making our experience wrong.

Being human is a trip. (I’ve been listening to Ram Das lately and he says things like this and it makes me laugh 😂)