This morning Philippe, my partner, and I woke to the sad news of David Bowie's death. We commented on what a bummer it is and kind of just continued with our morning routine. After getting back from our work out I put on a Ziggy Stardust video. This wasn't the music video for the song. It was a mash up of videos of Bowie performing with the song Ziggy Stardust playing over the top. As I watched the video I could feel my heart was heavy. I thought to myself, "You're being ridiculous. You didn't even know him. How can you be sad?" Then I looked at Philippe and saw tears in his eyes. It wasn't just me. I asked him a couple coachy questions and he has kindly given me permission to share our experience this morning.
First I asked him to describe what he was feeling. He answered, "Ridiculous."
I asked him, "What is ridiculous?"
"That I am so sad."
I then asked him where the sadness existed in his body. He said, "My heart."
"What are the sensations in your heart?"
He said, "Tightness." and let loose a few tears and so did I. Without knowing it Philippe described to me almost exactly what I was feeling.
The tears were a major release and we then talked about what we loved about David Bowie. What's critical here is that we went into to that dark, dim place in our souls and found our real emotion, our grief. Can you imagine if we had not had this discussion and just went on with our day with heavy hearts? Without naming what we were feeling and shedding some light on it, we would have walked around in this sort of heavy mucky unknowing. This is not to say we aren't still sad but now we know exactly what we are feeling, grief. I don't know about you, but I would rather know and acknowledge the emotions I'm dealing with, than be followed around by them all day. There is a truth that I hold here. My truth is that until you acknowledge what you are feeling, small or big, it will follow you around until you deal with it; which can and will affect how your day, month, week, year, and life is lived. Feelings are important.
This leads me to "the urgency of now." I have heard this phrase in several forms repeated a couple times over the last week. The band Savages' song Adore contains the lyrics, "I understand the urgency of life. In the distance there is a truth that cuts like a knife, maybe I'll die tomorrow so I need to say, 'I adore life.'" And in Barack Obama's speech on Gun Control he quotes Dr. King saying we need to feel the "fierce urgency of now." This phrase has been mulling around in my brain and it came up this morning with our talk about David Bowie.
Bowie seemed to live with the urgency of now, and this is perhaps what I love the most about him. With glitter, make-up, spandex, dresses, and his awesome crazy style he seemed to say, "Why not?", and "Who cares? I'm doing this anyway." I see a career of a man standing in his authentic self creating what he wanted because this was the "now" of his life. I think this is most obvious in his most recent album Black Star released on his final birthday , January 8th, 2016 just before his death.
The "urgency of now" pleads for our authentic self to be here presently right now. Stuffing away emotions with no acknowledgement drags us out of our authentic selves and out of our present living. Today I take this teaching from David Bowie. Figure out what you want from your life, do it how you want, and do it now... this is the urgency of life.