I sat with a client recently who has addictive and self-sabotaging tendencies. She wants to stop herself. She wants to be free. We sat and felt. Felt the moment. I guided her in feeling in her body what was there, and allowing it to be, and giving it room.

My first experience with this kind of practice was years ago at an Omega conference, in a workshop with John Welwood. Feeling and allowing the sensation as much room as it needed. Then feeling some more. No story. No analysis. Just feeling. What happened was that the “negative” feeling (which I think for me at the time was sadness, or disappointment) kind of wafted off as it was allowed as much space as it wanted. As if I had been the one keeping it in, holding it prisoner in my body, and in so doing giving it life.

So after meeting with this client a few days ago, I was in the shower (where I often hear God), and thinking about that practice I heard “Free everything except love”.

Free Everything Except Love

Then my mind started judging. “That’s corny. F-E-E-L.” “That’s not even right because we couldn’t free love if we wanted to. It’s our nature, our essence. It’s what’s left after we free the other stuff.” But I am committed to being an open listener and messenger – so here it is. I offer it. Free everything except love.

Let the anger and resentment go. Feel it and then give it as much space as you can possibly allow.

Let go of hurt and betrayal. Feel them in your body until you have had enough of them, and then open the door for their departure.

Free the dulling sadness that seems to be weighing you down, but in reality is being held in place by thoughts, the ego’s needs, and unseen fear.

Free worry and anxiety. Feel the sensation of it shaking your body – tremors, earthquakes. Watch it rattle that cage of your physical being. Let it, until it wears itself out. It won’t kill you – even if you wish it would.

Free guilt. It serves no one – changes nothing.

When they’re all free – when you’re just there, alone – you might feel strange, different. Feel again. What’s there? What appeared – or arose? Who waits – ever-present, omnipresent, under or behind or between the constructs we build and hold in place with our minds ?

Love can’t be freed. Attempting it would probably lead to denial. Yes, it makes us cry. It also makes us scream with joy. It fill our hearts, stretches our hearts, aches your hearts. It too fills the body with sensations, whether we enjoy them or not. But it’s different. It’s real and substantial and connecting and elevating and will take us somewhere and not hold us back.

So free everything else… except Love.

 

Artwork by HYURO. Click on image to see more.