I can’t believe Robin Williams is gone
I have been exhausted the last few days from staying up late watching old clips of Robin Williams. I have had trouble turning them off, as I want to savor as much of him as I can, knowing he is no longer walking with us on earth. He is, however, now in spirit form and most likely around, somewhere, laughing with us. I was touched and moved by the poem his daughter posted on Twitter
The noted late astronomer Carl Sagan once said that we are, all of us, made of star-stuff. Carbon, nitrogen and oxygen atoms in our bodies were created in previous generations of stars over 4.5 billion years ago.
We are all made of the same chemical stuff.
We all feel the same emotions.
We suffer from similar things.
Robin Williams helped us feel we were not alone. By expressing the full range of our shared emotions, he helped us get in touch with our humanity and feel connected, as we laughed, cried or sometimes did both simultaneously, LOL!
I remember laughing to the point of tears watching his stand up show at Carnegie Hall years ago.
It’s ironic that a man who gave us so much laughter and joy was in such despair. I have often wondered if being able to feel and express the extremes of anxiety, sadness or pain gives us a greater capacity to feel and express happiness, laughter and joy and vice versa. They are indeed opposites on our emotional spectrum. In doing emotional release work with essential oils, there is healing in feeling both sides of an emotion. Feeling the opposite of an emotion, as you use the oil associated with it, helps you re-set to neutral. And, it is only at neutral that we are completely at choice because we are able to be discerning in the present moment and to take in our environment without a rose colored or a blackened lens.
I am not saying we shouldn’t feel all of our feelings at all. I find that it’s intriguing and energizing to be experiencing feelings at either extreme, as both sides actually cause the production of energizing hormones like adrenaline and endorphins. So, I actually think we get chemically addicted to both feeling exhilarated by life and fearful of it. And, that is why it’s so tough to break the habits which get us ramped up to either side of the emotional spectrum.
With essential oils and other energy exercises you can release any feeling, and get back to a neutral state. If the heightened state of Robin’s expression of glee was any indication of his emotional depth, I can only imagine the pain he was feeling. I only wish, he could know, as I do, and as I hope you are learning too, that ANY EMOTION, whether it feels good or bad, can be released by moving its energy through the body. And, the more you move it, or release it, the easier it becomes to do it again and again, as energy exercises become the ‘”go to” habit that works and gives emotional relief in the form of calming the body to a neutral state versus swinging from one end of the spectrum to the other. Quite frankly, our poor bodies are working way harder then necessary if we are living at either end for too long. It takes too much energy. Poor Robin could have just been extremely tired from being addicted to the chemicals being produced in his body at either end of the spectrum swing.
I hope he has now found peace.
“To die, to sleep-
To sleep, perchance to dream-
ay, there’s the rub,
For in this sleep of death what dreams may come…”
– Shakespeare, Hamlet
So, I invite you all to see if you can find peace here on earth in neutral by trying the energy exercises below. See if you can notice when you are at either side of the emotional spectrum swing, and enjoy being high on joy or feel the energetic fuel from anxiety, but also be able to come back down to neutral, put your feet on the ground, and get grounded in calm, so you can feel what it’s like to be truly present, and also have the energy to swing high again.
The same way we can train our bodies to perform mental and physical feats, we can train our central nervous system to relax. I have witnessed this work stop panic attacks, pull myself and my clients out of immobilizing anxiety and crippling depression. When we release these feelings in the body, we affect the central nervous system and the secretion of our stress hormones.
Below are videos of two my favorite exercises for releasing stubborn, upsetting emotions, and one that is just a great calmer, even for excitement. I invite you to use at least the calming head hold daily, and the ones for more intense stress, if you feel any uncomfortable emotion you can’t seem to shake off within a day.
There is peace on earth for all of us. We just need to get our bodies on board with it.
And,
Thank you, dear Robin, O Captain, my Captain,
Thank you for reaching us by teaching us how to feel the extremes, to seize the day, to swing higher and to soar!
Thanks for being our teacher and our Genie!
What you gave us was pure magic, the stuff of stars!
We love you. We miss you.
Thanks for the magical ride! Now you are free, flying with the angels.
We will keep looking up!
“I’m history! No, I’m mythology! Nah, I don’t care what I am; I’m free, hee!”
– Genie, Aladdin
“Thank you for choosing Magic Carpet for all your travel needs. Don’t stand until the rug has come to a complete stop. Thank you. Goodbye, now. Goodbye. Goodbye. Thank you. Goodbye.”
– Genie, Aladdin
So much love,
Lara
