Hello Shay,

I was glad to see a new post from you even before I opened it, and appreciate that you shared more from your life.

{{I have been going through a changing time this last year; divorce, my father’s stroke and care giving. Custody battle of my children and meeting someone who has totally amazed and delighted me has challenged me on a whole new level.}}

Life does have a way of providing us with challenges that will most give us opportunities to grow.

{{On so many levels the extreme of a lot of emotions has confronted me on all sides and I will say I look for centering and rely on practicing the centering more and more with heightened awareness.}}

I thought of you today, because of your earlier comment about being in nature, when my partner and I walked our Husky puppy among the towering conifers of Yosemite. Heightened awareness of course is available anywhere, but pristine nature emanates a powerful presence which supports centering as you said.

{{Today as I felt nagging grief over the changing of my relationships and anxiety over my meager finances. My daughter has some chronic health needs and I am responsible for half of the cost. It dawned on me once again to be thankful for the challenge, the loss, the changing of all things I have known and loved these last twenty years.}}

Thankfulness eases the emotional pain and turns hardened soil for new seeds to grow.

{{That thankfulness brings me to be grateful for the rain, the flowers on my desk, then I plan to do something I delight in such as a new poem or painting.}}

A heart that softens in the rain
releases sorrow, grief and pain

it opens to the smallest flower
with thankfulness for every hour

and delights itself in each new day
and says to God, ‘I’m glad I’m Shay.’

{{Ahhhh. What a sigh of relief to know that this challenge will grow me, grow my girls, parents, and maybe my ex, or others in the process. It will give me new tools, and new colors to place on the canvas. I think feeling this grief and concern is not over. I will revisit it again and pursue it until its story is all told. If not in the garden, then in a warm bath or an empty canvas or page. As I do, I will be thakful for the most intense of the emotions and name them, honor them, acknowledge what they have to say right down to the source of pain and then be thankful for that pain.}}

{{I looked at the diagram of the emotional color wheel and have been contemplating my ideas and understanding of them. I personally would put all the intense emotions on the outside, and the inward leave in with acceptance and serenity.}}

Why not paint it? Then send me a photo if you like. You visited the page with the wheel just in time, because I unpublished most of the site on May 1. Letting go of the old to make room for the new.

{{I think seeing it as a hurricane with a calm eye and disruptive violent edge is what I can identify with best. Thank you for opening this door for me. I have enjoyed it.}}

Thank you, Shay. And blessings on your journey.

Joe,

After a period of letting go of the old to make room for the new, and allowing new writing to flow, I have re-visited your comments.

I’d like to catch up on some of our dialogue. Do you know of any comments I have not responded to?

Kati and I are fascinated by your seeing music as color. How would you describe the difference not just in colors but in any other quality such as intensity or feeling of the color, between genres of music?

Have you visited the Whole Human blog post of the dialogue between us? Whenever you feel, no pressure, I would enjoy any feedback.

Have you read the new discussion, ‘What does fear serve?’ This goes into a new stage of my own unfolding, as I revise my way of thinking about emotional mastery and emotions.

How would you feel about having private communication? If it is your interest, it is mine.

Best regards,

Gary

{{For me, emotional mastery equates to not being the master of my emotions, if that makes any sense. Emotional mastery for me seems like some near-impossible feat (in my view, at least – maybe other people are adept at mastering their emotions but I don’t think I am at all!) I no longer try to fight certain emotional responses, try to deny them or trying desperately to return to the state of equilibrium from before that particular emotional response to such-and-such. I just allow myself to be and feel whatever it is I’m feeling at that particular time. I allow them to just be.

Journalling is my preferred method of processing these things – writing is my preferred method of meditation. I just write whatever is on my mind, a stream of consciousness if you will and certain words trigger certain associations, memories and emotions which triggers more words.

But I think I can kind of agree with your view that humanity isn’t developed emotionally – the people I see around me in my day-to-day life, I see grown adults who are angry and easily upset at the tiniest things, or prone to denial. An idea I discussed with Anita in a previous post – the quest for the holy grail, the quest for Shangri La, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. That which supposedly brings everlasting fulfilment, happiness or some form of salvation. Always seeking things, always waiting for the big break in life, always wanting to be anywhere but in the now, always wanting something else…We think we’ve found it or acquired it but there’s no lasting fulfilment, there is always something more that we want…The pot of gold is elusive, the pot of gold is an illusion…