Week 16: Staying Possible

When we are fully present in our lives, we have, as Mark Nepo says, the ability to feel everything until the truth rises out of us.” The awareness of what it is to be alive.

We are linked in our humanity the way the earth holds a tree, so that tree can hold a nest, so that nest can hold a bird, so that bird can drop a seed that will in time give birth to the next tree.

• Week 16: Staying Possible
• The Book of the soul - 52 paths to living what matters by Mark Nepo

When I first learned about Marina Abramovic’ I felt an extreme discomfort in her work. Her performance art is both shocking and engaging and the vulnerable side of me could only cringe to imagine such exposure. But part of her story, or lesson, in one specific piece, was about sitting with complete strangers for 8 hours a day from March 14 through March 31, 2010, openly welcoming anyone to sit in the chair opposite her and look in silence into each other’s eyes for as long as they wanted.

The attendance at the MOMA, Museum of Modern Art, drew more than half a million participants, with 1,400 sitting in the chair. Allowing the courage, discomfort and vulnerability to rise within us is how we learn to live in this world.

Whenever I feel vulnerable and the overwhelming sadness slips in undetected, I push it away instead of allowing the spill of tears. In its place, I let the busyness of life take the reins, and move from the discomfort, locking it away until the next time it attempts its escape.

A part of her performance art is about sitting with our feelings instead of escaping through all the ways we have found to ignore them. Even the bursts of anger come from all the emotions we keep locked away until they demand release. 

Maybe it’s time to allow those feelings to bubble up, rise to the surface and let them wash over us…