The Never-Ending Cycle of Birth and Death

It was an exciting day in my extended family this week as a new baby arrived. Such an exciting thing really, to have a new human join us. It happens so often, we may forget how momentous the occasion (unless it’s us, LOL)!

But this time it was different. We now have quite a few children among my myself and my siblings. But this child was the first since my mom’s passing in the spring.

As I was looking at the pic of the beautiful, plump newborn the other evening, the emotion of sadness bubbled up. It indeed caught me by surprise. 

In that moment, I intensely felt the circle of life: of birth…of death…of newness….of the old falling away. 

In my own day to day life, I dance through the busyness of each day, often losing sight of this cycle. Have you ever looked up and thought your kids (or nieces or nephews) were a whole few inches taller?!

Every single moment, we are moving along many different life cycles. The life cycle of our life, our relationships, our businesses, our communities, schools, on and on. Every single thing in our lives has a life cycle. In fact, if you have done sessions with me, you may have had this balanced! Because YES, we can energetically work with life cycles.

Back to my story. As I was driving and feeling sadness come up (note: driving is a great time to let your subconscious mind speak to you!), I just allowed it. That means I didn’t try to talk myself out of it, didn’t try to distract myself by turning on some music, didn’t call someone…I just let myself feel this emotion. 

It was a flash in the pan, gone in less than ten minutes. In fact, by the time I arrived at my destination and pulled my car into the parking space, it was a thing of the past.

If we are able to allow this movement of release, we unburden emotion and stuck energy from our bodies. From organs, muscles, fascia, body parts. And, get this, it takes older stuff with it too! Yes! It’s not just the emotion of the moment, but old baggage hiding out as well – think of old boxes in your attic – that are suddenly thrown out the window to be sent on their way, out of your possession.

I have a term for this entire dynamic and I call it triggering. Triggering is when something in our present moment triggers the emotions we felt, but were unable to fully process, at some point in our past.

There are several ways this is totally empowering and life changing.

First, the events of our current life experiences are actually teachers, not intended to be moments of torture or suffering. They are learning opportunities for us to find a different way of moving through them than we may have in the past. 

For many of us, we didn’t have the skills or feel safe enough to process difficult moments in our past. These moments are teaching us how to approach our difficult moments in a healthier way. For instance not shutting down, not using anger as a coping mechanism, not distracting ourselves are some healthier ways we could choose to cope with intense moments.

Second, they are healers! They are pulling up the past and allowing us to choose a different way to move through. They are removing baggage stored in our body that may be paving the way for dis-ease later in life, or perhaps even causing problems now.

Excess emotion that is not properly processed gets stored in our body. And it is a burden. It creates heaviness and obstacles and stress our body must cope with. When an opportunity to clean house arrives, it’s actually a blessing, though it sure doesn’t feel like one.

Wow. The emotional triggers we feel are helping us become healthier. How empowering is that? 

So the next time a difficult moment comes along, or a moment of surprise emotion, try to give yourself the space to process it, knowing it is helping you move forward into a lighter, less burdened, healthier you. And likely will only require a few short moments of your time.

And give your children, grandchildren, nieces or nephews a big squeeze today and every day as we all honor the cycle of life.