You stand up tall but then you fall and now you're small. Tall fall small. None of these are who you are at all.
Backstory
I wrote this short poem to honor the feelings of smallness and tallness inside us and to serve as a reminder that who we really are goes far beyond how we feel about ourselves or how others perceive us.
You are not your feelings
If you never feel small, you can never really feel tall either – you’ll just spend all your time at the top fighting off this integral part of your humanity.
The trick is to know that on the most essential level, you are not your failures or your weaknesses, and you’re not your achievements or your gifts either.
What are you? Can it even be expressed?
Are you…
A grateful child of the Almighty?
Rabbi Zelig Pliskin
What about…
A spiritual being having a human experience?
Pierre Teilhard du Chardin
Or maybe…
…Just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her?
Julia Roberts, “Notting Hill”.
(I know, I know, it makes no sense here, but I still feel like it fits.)
Whatever you are, when you understand yourself to be experiencing certain emotions and perceptions instead of identifying as them, you can move through life so much more freely.
When you feel tall. . .
When you’re doing amazing things and receiving incredible feedback, when you’re in a position of knowledge and helping others – you can experience all of this joyously and vibrantly without the pressure of desperately needing it to continue because on some level you’ve defined yourself by it and don’t know who you’d be without it.
And when you feel small. . .
When you’re unproductive or stuck, when you’ve failed, or you’re dealing with intense shame or sadness… you can know that these feelings are not you either. There’s no need to run away or fight them. They are just feelings and you can hold them, tend to them, and let go of them when you’re ready.
There are many books on this subject but two that really helped me are, “The Pathway” by Laurel Mellin and “What We May Be” by Piero Ferrucci.
The concept has been an absolute game-changer for my emotional balance and ability to be open to the rich and beautiful experiences that the world has to offer.
This doesn’t mean that my life is free from emotional pain. However, it helps so much to have a framework in place that more often than not keeps me grounded and allows me to feel my feelings without being overwhelmed by them.
