I’ve just received good news and am suddenly wondering what to do with it. My daughter-in-law, Michelle, had a cancerous growth removed from her liver with clean margins. News to be thrilled about after two long years of heart-breaking worry. But what do I do with this good news?
I’m used to working with feelings and situations that are tough or upsetting or hard to deal with. The notion of working with being overwhelmed by good news is a new experience. I don’t want to misuse this energetic, to throw it away so to speak. There’s a sense that it could go to feed something higher, just as transforming negative energy can do.
How do I take in information that is positive without assigning it to an automatic part of myself? The part that wants to think and talk about it, to understand what it means. Or that runs around spreading the good news. Conversely, I could be afraid to share this news thinking about the “what ifs?” At this moment, all these scenarios feel automatic and like a misuse of something very precious. News that carries an energy of hope, faith, and love. What is the best way for me to assimilate good news?
Working With Good News
Just like with negative emotions, I can be aware of breathing into this good feeling. The relief and gratitude I recognize can mix with the sensation of my arm or leg, blending there. That way I am not putting the information into a box such as, “God has answered my prayers,” or “too good to be true.” In short, I’m not taking this energy and turning it into thoughts. I’m using the energy as food to grow something within me that can radiate out towards Michelle.
At the same time, the finer energy of feeling Hope or Faith or Love transcends the realities of our lives. A surgical outcome, for instance, can be considered a success or a failure, yet there can still be a feeling of Hope, even when facing the reality of death. These finer feelings of Hope, Faith and Love don’t have to be tied to good news alone. They carry their own message.
The practice of blending positive energy that comes my way seems a novel idea and just as valid as transforming negative emotions. Blending the energy of emotion with the energy of sensation is transformative whether it starts out as negative or positive.
No matter what the future holds, I’m assimilating this good news and the hope and love for Michelle it engenders in me. I’m sending it into my right leg and letting it blend with the sensation there. This leg of flesh and bone, connected to the earth, part of me yet external to me. I sense this energy turning into nourishment, feeding something deeper than my everyday self. My inner work gives substance to the expression of relief and joy such good news brings.