A feeling wants to be felt, like a piece of chocolate in your mouth.
Humans have this unique ability to feel.
We also have an incredible ability to think about, or overthink, our feelings.
I have done enough of it to know it does not help in the long run.
Yet, feeling in order to integrate an experience, to understand yourself more, to evolve, to understand and let go of the past, is crucial.
People kill themselves because of a feeling or emotion.
Sometimes literally, often slowly and metaphorically.
Why did I never learn about feelings in school, I wonder.
How come most of us never learnt how to understand a feeling or emotion, and what to do with it. I
How willing are you to feel your feelings?
Are you resisting them?
Feeling “not enough” is something I’ve been working with many times in my life.
I still do… at times.
I have other feelings too – frustration, resistance and doubt, procrastination, numbness, anger, the list goes on.
They all have the same story line.
“Who am I to build my vision into the world?”
“Who am I to live amazing relationships and have a life of freedom and abundance?”
“Who am I to create culture, that demands people’s time and willingness to co-create?”
….or…
“Who am I to have beautiful and trusting friends?”
“Who am I to have thriving, healthy and happy children?”
I used to push these questions away, thinking “I’ve got what I deserve” and avoiding my old story of “unworthiness”.
It was never helpful and has never changed anything important in my life.
Here is what has changed the story for me….
– the almost forgotten yet ancient art of feeling the feeling.
I have had to learn to feel my feelings (including the one of
not being enough), until there is nothing left to be felt… like that last bit of chocolate slowly dissolving from your tongue.
You might eat chocolate for days! Keep feeling it until you get the full taste and appreciate the rich flavour.
From bitter to sweet. Everything wants to be felt.
Yet, as with chocolate, it can become an addiction.
Feel the feeling think about the feeling then feel more of the feeling….
This is not the full story.
You might accept my invitation to feel, and find yourself sitting there dwelling on feelings, not realising they are generating more of the same to feel tomorrow.
I’ve done my fair share of that too.
I know it is not helpful.
What seems to work the best (for me) is to recognise and acknowledge whatever is there, appreciate it and appreciate everything else.
Feel it all.
How…? You might ask.
Curiosity is my great teacher here.
When we face challenges, feelings and emotions can come up.
If we remain curious about the obstacle rather than offended or annoyed by it, we are gifted with an unoccupied and innocent space. In this space, magic can happen. If we give it enough time and space, a solution can form that was not even thought of before. Allow the unknown to unfold.
You can start by asking “whats beneath that.. and/or.. what else is there…” other times I simply feel…. with no labelling nor words – just with curiosity.
Sometimes I move my body, sometimes I sit still. I love to shake my body, gentle and peaceful or like a mad wild dancer. Other times I do a calm yoga practise.
Once I’ve felt it, the feeling, and perhaps identified the story (not that the story is always needed…. sometimes the story is a waste of time) or maybe I have just felt my being, the energy that is present, I can move on.
Here is an important part. Offer it, the feeling, to something bigger than yourself. Let it go. Give it away.
Offer it to the cosmos, the void, to God, to the quantum field, to your ancestors, king or queen… whatever works for you.
Do make it an offering. It is a ritual and that is extremely powerful.
It is your declaration, you trust and give it to something bigger than yourself to take care of.
Done.
You’ll feel something move.
Here is the second important part:
Step into a new way of thinking and feeling.
Commit to acting as if the old pattern was never there.
(It is still there and will always be a part of you but you have a choice to not put your energy there!)
Again:
You choose to make your feelings an offering, to give them up. It is not the feeling you get rid of but the story that is beneath it and the thoughts that have shaped that story.
And you are responsible to choose a new way of being by choosing new ways of thinking.
A lot of people miss this part.
Do not go back looking for the old thing. This is not necessarily easy, your being will be looking for the familiar.
Do not look back. We both know now that it is still there.
Appreciate the learning and do not turn around.
Medusa makes you turn to stone if you turn back, the metaphor behind this is that if you turn back, you are stuck in your familiar patterns.
You do not want to be turned into a pillar of salt (Genesis 19:26).
Here are some possible ways how you can teach your system (for example, the part of you that feels “not enough”) how to feel differently:
1) Create practices that will help you feel better – Choose how you want to be in this world. Decide how you want to feel. Create practice that will generate how you want to feel. Ask for help if you don’t know how. This is how we humans learn and communicate.
2) Balance the left and right hemisphere of your brain – this is the key to trust. There is a mastery in balancing the analytical focus part and the creating part of your brain. Discover that is your dominant hemisphere and learn how to cultivate balance between your dominant and your less dominant hemisphere (i.e. if you are an analytical person, experiment with creativity and art-making; or if you are more artistic type, learn how to do your finances).
3) Be aware of where your attention goes and feed your energy into your chosen path. The old one is still there. You decide where your attention goes. Do not feed that old synaptic pattern again.
Now you need to do the things as if things have well and truly changed.
With your whole being and heart.
4) Find the balance between feeling your feelings and getting things done. Paradox? What if this is a balance?
It is not like you can go the wrong way.
Find your way!
There is no mistakes if you are willing to learn.
Again, the magic happens when you can bring your thinking and feeling, as well as your being and doing into a dynamic and ever changing harmony. Yes, ever changing like life.
Start feeling, keep doing your work and make choices that serve you.
Remember: You are absolutely free to create in your life, with every thought, word and action you are one step closer to heaven or hell.
Live every day as this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist.
Just feel it.
Choose to praise god if you wish. Thank god if you wish. Feel grateful…
And prove it by taking care of yourself, your health, your relationships, the (your) world.
Express your joy! That’s the way to praise god.
Live as you want to arouse God (if you like the picture that God is watching)
And know… that the only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders you can feel and love.