Recently I was faced with some tough emotional decisions.  In the moment I felt I was in a large paper bag filled with tiny pieces of paper representing the emotions, thoughts, and perceptions of others.  As the bag continued to fill, I began to feel overwhelmed because I could not ‘keep up’, meaning I couldn’t process all the messages on these pieces of paper because they were filtering in too quickly.  As the light from the top of the bag because increasingly less visible, I felt the top of the bag twist and more darkness set in.  It was harder to find my own breath in that moment and I became very cautious and conservative as I moved into survival mode.  Then if that wasn’t enough, the bag began to shake, and for as much as I thought I had adjusted to the previous struggle, I now found myself shaken amidst those tiny pieces of paper as we all tumbled, twisted, bumped, an rebounded.  What now? How do I continue to work through this problem when everything around me is jumbling?  On one hand, I want to hold onto my own thoughts and feelings that are on MY paper.On the other hand, I want to let go of some of those thoughts and feelings and even piece together many of the individual slips so we can come together.  The later process is so much harder and requires me to go deeper and release some of my own vulnerability.  Both sides are important to me.  I don’t want to choose one over the other and I don’t know how to find the essential balance while honoring my Self and honoring the whole that are twisted tightly and jumbled in the darkness with me.