The sadness consumes me
and it feels so familiar to be caught like this,
to be caught by anger, by resentment,
by anxiety, by fear, by doubt…
It occurs to me that it doesn’t take
much courage to feel what I’m feeling,
but it does take courage to recognize
what the feelings are here to teach me.
What can I learn from the sadness,
from these shadow emotions
whose presence bring balance
to the more desirable states of
joy, calm, love, confidence?
There is a deeper courage called for here:
to trust that if they’ve shown up,
they have something, some message to convey,
and to be patient and wait
while the message becomes clear.