“Sitting still is a pain in the ass.”
Noah Levine
Against the Stream: A Buddhist Manual for Spiritual Revolutionaries
Dear one,
The hardest part of my recovery journey was how painful it was in the beginning for me to spend time with myself. I grew up being told I was worthless and unwanted, and when we reinforce those ideas to young, impressionable minds, they believe it. I had no self-worth, self-respect, or self-love. I couldn’t even stand to look in the mirror.
Making the choice to not use cocaine was a breeze compared to the work I had to do on myself to build a responsible, loving, compassionate adult out of the ashes of a severely traumatic childhood. I embrace a spiritual path that encouraged me to sit down, shut up, and just be. Be with my thoughts, my feelings, my pains, my pleasures. Be with the sounds and smells and distractions around me.
That shit is hard. When I wasn’t self-medicating to avoid feeling, I felt things and didn’t know what to do with that. Then I learned that what I was supposed to do was be like a rock in a stream and let the feelings flow over and around me, letting them flow and letting them go.
Let it flow. Let it go.
Don’t hide from what you feel. Feel it. Let it flow.
Don’t hold on to what you feel. Like I’ve said before, the feeling is a messenger, not a permanent resident. Acknowledge it. Honor it. Let it go.
Never forget that I love you, and that excludes no one.
Love,
Let it flow. Let it go.
