It's funny how acceptance and even submission can work in a life. Faced with uncertainties and fear of my husband losing his job, I've had endless potential to worry and grieve and fear for the future. The last two weeks have been challenging. We made significant changes to our budget and repositioned ourselves better for come-what-may, and I finally reached a place where I accepted this new wrinkle in the fabric of our lives. Everything changes and ends. When I submitted fully to that, when I found the courage to face the fear, I felt fine.
But last Thursday the announcement came through that my husband's job, and those of many of his co-workers, were saved. The project(s) came in, and they were given their lay-off notices to destroy. We are grateful. Grateful for the job and also thankful for the wake up it gave us to examine and evaluate our spending and our budget. Once again I'm grateful for the teachings that have me be a better, more open and less fearful person.
I've given a lot of thought to my sister, who is in the greatest crisis of her life right now. I have always been afraid of her, afraid of her inflexibility and unforgiving stance with the world, afraid of her anger and emptiness. I don't know how to connect with her, I never have I guess, and that has made me hard against her sometimes. It's made me angry sometimes, so I'm facing my fear now, opening my heart as Pema Chodron teaches, softening. If I'm afraid of my sister it is likely that I'm guarding my own heart, and thus my own ego, and I have nothing to lose except grief and suffering by facing my own and therefore also her anger, her emptiness, her fears.
I will not withhold my love.
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