Relaxing Into Discomfort

Relaxing Into Discomfort (c)2015 Joan M. Newcomb

I'm in Germany, and it's been one roller coaster ride since we got here.  There were 32mph winds when we landed (which should have been a clue for the rest of the trip).

We came from Madrid, where it was nearly 80 degrees, and in Germany it was in the 30s.  We've been rained on, lightening'd over and pelted with hail pellets.  Our artist's apartment in Madrid was warm and inviting.  Our flat in Kreuzberg is a flophouse for grunge-rebels.

Madrid is no problema friendly.  Germany is nicht so.

It is hard to stay Conscious in discomfort. My body contracts in the cold.  It feels similar to being in poverty, or ill. 

I'm distributing my mother's ashes to the places where we lived. To get down to Zehlendorf, we encountered closed stations in the Reichstag, a change of trains on the U3, and then an Erzatz U3 bus because there'd been 'a fire on the line'.  

At some point, I realized I'd just relaxed into the discomfort. A girl who looked like Tin Tin appeared to help us when passengers were being told to leave the train.  It had thundered and hailed over the Reichstag, and it was sunny and almost warm in Zehlendorf.

Zehlendorf's brick-cobbled streets were strewn with tree limbs, from the windstorm the night before.  Many of the houses were unchanged from when my family had lived there during the Cold War.

The more I relaxed, the more Dorothy showed up.  That's not true, she'd been present the whole way (we'd walked on Dorothenstrasse at the start of our trip, and "DB" - for DeutschesBahn, is also my nickname for her).  Little purple flowers appeared.  The first house had whimsical tiles - probably not original, but the kind of thing that would make her giggle.  And the pub on the corner had a -probably original - Berliner Kindl sign (she had a large collection of mugs and glasses, mostly likely from there).

We left a dusting of her at each place, and returned to Kreuzberg where we were rained and hailed on.

The next morning we took my husband to the Krankhaus, which is such a good name for the place.  I got to practice relaxing into discomfort with rude admins and raving admitteds. Nobody feels like they've chosen to be sick on vacation and certainly nobody likes to go to hospital. But I have a traumatic reaction to them after sleeping beside Dorothy for 18 days when she fell and broke her pelvis and then got diagnosed with cancer.

Meanwhile, my 24 year old son is having the time of his life with the night scene in Kreutzberg, German beer and Currywurst. He does not mind the discomfort of the weather, or at least does not let that stop him from fully enjoying his Berlin holiday.

He is symbolic of the next generation moving forward without the restrictions of the past. My husband, currently, is symbolic of those of us releasing those painful patterns.

Tonight we leave, my son returning home to Madrid, my husband and I going on to London. Perhaps this whole ordeal was to make the next phase of my journey seem easier. London will now feel warm (it's in the mid-50s there).  We'll be used to trains and undergrounds.  And we'll really appreciate knowing the language!

Tomorrow's a major eclipse, which closes one door and opens another.  It's a time of sudden, unexpected changes.

What do you need to relax into? What are you resisting (that needs releasing)?

Breathe into it.  This too shall pass.  It is taking you to a new level of Expanded Consciousness.  And, it will get better!