An illustration of what can happen when you follow a feeling all the way.
Amber was gutted. She had taken her dog Snow to the veterinarian for a follow-up for an ordinary bacterial infection he was being treated for, when the vet had noticed that Snow was showing early signs of a chronic and degenerative muscular disease.
Snow was the only family member Amber had left, and the news that he was headed for an irreversible decline and shortened life hit her hard.
Back at home that night, Amber noticed a sensation of weight in her chest. She tried distracting herself from the feeling by watching TV, but found she couldn’t concentrate. The room appeared darker to her than usual, even though it was well lit. Her eyes wanted to fixate only on Snow, who was stretched out at her feet.
She pulled out a box of treats and goaded Snow to jump up on the sofa beside her, as if seeking reassurance that all was still well with him. But Snow remained where he was, unlike his usual habit of pestering Amber for treats whenever she watched TV.
Amber waved a couple of Snow’s favorite treats under his nose. That got his attention. He hoisted himself up from his seated position and Amber noticed for the first time that Snow seemed to be straining to hold his weight on his legs. Surely this was a sign that the degenerative disease had begun impacting Snow already.
The sensation of weight in Amber’s chest grew stronger. She felt afraid of it and she tried to suppress it, but it kept on growing and growing till it felt unbearable to her.
At last, on impulse, Amber decided to stop resisting and to turn towards the feeling, to give in to it, to see where it would take her. Avoiding it wasn't taking her anywhere.
A part of her was worried that this feeling would drag her down a dark tunnel of despair and plunge her into oblivion, where she would shatter and be unable to put herself together again. But curiously, the heaviness in her chest began feeling better almost as soon as she turned towards it.
The heaviness began tugging her down a well of old and painful memories, many of which surprised her, because she thought she had long forgotten them.
She remembered how it had felt to lose her mother when she was sixteen, the shock and searing pain she had felt when she had found out her fiancée had cheated on her, the grief she had felt when she lost her father last year, all this old grief came back to her. And she found herself crying for her old losses afresh.
Amber felt confused and disoriented- what did any of these memories have to do with her dog Snow’s illness? Maybe she was going mad? And yet, she kept her resolve to keep following the feeling, because mysteriously she felt better whenever she did.
At last she arrived at what felt like the ‘bottom’ of the well.
Here, it seemed to her as though her very last tear had been shed, and there was nothing more for her to do. Amber felt exhausted and spent after all her crying, but curiously calm and comforted too. With the lights still on in her living room, she curled up on the couch and fell into a deep sleep.
When Amber awoke the next morning, she felt strangely peaceful and hopeful. Somewhere in the night Snow had jumped up on the sofa to curl up beside her.
Now, looking at his peacefully sleeping body, Amber noticed that her grief was no longer clouding her perception. Following her heavy feeling all the way down, she had arrived into a state of deep acceptance.
At least for now. Maybe more grief would come later, but for now Amber felt as though she were standing in a small pool of gentle optimism and hopefulness.
From here, Snow didn't seem as unwell as he had seemed to Amber last night.
The full force of Snow's degenerative disease would be felt years into the future, not just yet. It occurred to Amber that they still had many good years left to enjoy.
Snow’s present muscle weakness could more simply be explained by the fact that he was on strong antibiotics for his bacterial infection.
Amber felt confident there were things she could do that would slow down Snow’s decline and later on there would be others things she could do that would make Snow comfortable as the degeneration progressed.
Together, they would fight for his quality of life for years to come.
A new path seemed visible to Amber. Most importantly, she felt capable of walking it.
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