The Messy Middle
Happy end of the calendar year time to you! And whatever that may mean for you. For me, it’s a lovely time of endings. Wrapping up what I can. Finishing the end of a semester. Completing a few jobs. Last walks of pups and children for the year. One by one the “last” of the year for my commitments has been completed and it feels GOOD.
I love finishing things. I love starting things too. The messy middle… that is not my favourite place to be. Yet, I’m finding more and more comfort with the ability to stay with myself in that place of things feeling like they won’t end, won’t be figured out, won’t clear. It links to having the ability to let emotions move through me (isn’t that the foundation of all of our psychology? Or a lot of it…).
As I continue to grow in safety within myself and actually feel the primary emotions as they happen AND can expose my emotional being to others, I’m learning that it actually simplifies moving through complex things. And, newsflash to me, I’m finding there is no risk of losing the people who love me because of how I feel or how I am. There is no risk of losing myself.
As I am held and witnessed by those who allow me to feel (and as I have grown to allow people to do this–which I never used to do) and those who allow me to be “a mess,” that middle part of living is starting to become more comfortable. To me, this also means no longer having to avoid a whole lot of myself, to limit myself to others, and to limit life.
I had the opportunity to teach some high school kids about emotional intelligence last week and was able to let them know that this “EQ” was a relatively new concept in our modern society. It’s only really been around for the last twenty years or so. While they may have grown up with this as part of the cultural ethos, many of us did not. Many of us have been learning it as we go and to various degrees of desire to do so and comfort. That is all okay of course.
What I was reminded of again is that the sensations, the raw information within us and from the world around us, taken into the body must move through the body. It’s when they get stuck (and they do! For all of us) that the middle becomes a more difficult place to be. And we build stories and behaviours and ways to get out of some of those feelings. Clinging to life rafts of our own creation. Trying to make things move or stall by force and, sometimes, feeling like it (whatever it is) will never end and sometimes using absolutely anything we can to avoid the messy middle, new beginnings and/or endings. It’s a lot!
But the messy middle sometimes lets those things come up and out. The messy middle, especially when it can be met with love, holds so much of the magic and keys to healing and understanding how to be in the world. The messy middle means not rushing forward to close a chapter or a door or an emotion. Nor does it mean only seeking the new on repeat. Both of these options can be ways to avoid the mess. To keep up appearances. To keep those we love.
It also doesn’t mean sustaining in the suffering of that middle part–when that feels familiar it can lead to avoiding endings or avoiding beginnings. To wear the messy middle as a badge of honor or a legacy. So, even with more comfort in the messy middle, I do not need to or want to hang out in it all of the time.
We each have our own preferences to a part of this beginning, middle, end cycle and it’s interesting to see where that preference is, to learn what we may need from the other parts. Like everything else, it’s about acceptance and finding a healthy mix or balance and you are the only one who will know what that is for you. Even as it changes again and again and again.
Anyway, these are some musings that are emerging in this moment as I sit at the airport. Take what may resonate and ignore the rest. Or all of it. Haha.
You can click through to find info on the return of my Heart Connection workshop–an opportunity to learn or be reminded how to be present with the heart as our main sensory organ (and all that means) and a Reiki 1 training, both in January (Reiki 2 follows in March).
I hope the end of the year brings you what you may need, want, and may any seeds that you want to plant for new beginnings take root.
Photo by James Leonard.
