Herein we delve deep into our cultural norm that emphasizes a scientific, objective, rational, non-relational, unemotional paradigm, where our feelings tend to be much maligned and denigrated. In fact, in U.S. culture we utilize a variety of ways aimed at numbing our emotional nature, such as food, alcohol, technology, etc. not to mention powerful psychiatric psychotropic and neuroleptic drugs designed to control behaviors and feelings that we don’t want or that disturb others because they are not part of the “status quo” or how we are told to be in this culture.
If feelings are expressed, such as crying, we can be made to feel that we are not able to manage our life, nonetheless “control ourselves,” and that we are “lesser than.” Actually, these expressions/behaviors have an awakening effect on us and those around us, shifting us out of denial.
When denial is as strong as it is in this culture, we will find many methods and tools to maintain that denial. In our denial, all the important messages that seek to come forth are lost, true healing is circumvented, and disconnection becomes greater. Disconnection from our own self and our divinity, as well as a disconnection from nature and those around us, ensues.
In other words, we feel empty inside. We deny the cry of our soul and the voice that brings forth the heart and essence of what makes for an extraordinary life — the one we are destined to live.
When feelings arise, it is cause for celebration! You are preparing to take a leap in consciousness.
We often use labels like “mental illness” or behavioral disorder for expressions of feelings and the deep discomfort and angst associated with what is happening in the world around us, our lack of community, and the growing malaise related to systemic disempowerment, including the inability to fully dispense our gifts, passion and purpose in the world. In spiritual terms, this angst can be known as “the dark night of the soul,” “shamanic initiation” or a “shakti/spiritual awakening.”
However, in our Western culture, the minute our emotional body becomes disrupted and we move outside of “normal,” rational behavior, we are made to feel an outcast and stigmatized.
The notion of the “non-emotional observer or objective observer separate from their surroundings” is so deeply embedded in this culture and projected as a world view that we can no longer distinguish it as merely a belief, which was put into place more than 400 years ago during the scientific revolution. It is so embedded we hardly recognize it for what it is.
Those who espouse a more unified whole or holistic viewpoint are often met with raised eyebrows. Even with the advent of Albert Einstein’s scientific work and his illumination of a far more relational or unified notion of reality, this 400-year-old “mind is separate or we are separate” world view and way of being has not budged and remains deeply embedded throughout our systemic structures, such as judicial/legal, medical and political. It is seen across the vast majority of corporate thinking, and is further perpetuated by our educational systems at all levels. It even invades our spiritual practices.
At this point, some people may stop reading here, for this engrained pattern of thinking is so pervasive that the notion that it may not be true will raise a high level of resistance as this fundamental part of our cultural belief is pushed against. If this is what is happening for you, then before tuning out, dismissing this conversation or moving past this article and on to others, please…stop.
Seeing and acknowledging our resistance is the key to our ability to dance with the change and flow of what is occurring in daily life and to deepening our understanding of the universe and ourselves.
Resistance is the edge where we stand still, proclaiming that the world is flat when it is, in “reality,” round. It is on this edge, as we shout into what appears to be the abyss below, where we will hear, if we listen, the echo from that quiet, but powerful voice that whispers about an impending shift in thought — a feeling — an opening to the wisdom of the heart leading to a new way of knowing and being. This is an opening in the mind that begins to see the many doorways, nooks and crannies filled with possibility.
Resistance to our own life story, as painful as it may be, creates disconnection. Resistance and denial from what we see going on all around us creates disconnection. We seek to separate from that which we do not like or that pushes up against our beliefs. Chasing the light and ignoring our own painful feelings moves us further from that which we long for most: the ecstatic divine light and love.
Acknowledging resistance through reflection — instead of closing our ears, hearts and minds — can lead to the potential for astonishing transformation to unfold. Begin to take notice of the resistance that arises — small and large — throughout your day. This has been a most profound practice for me.
The deep resistance and denial of our feelings, and the effects they have on those around us, as well as their effect on us if they are also engaging in this separation, resistance and denial, leads us into relational/relationship issues (personal, culturally, nationally and internationally) and the grossly evident disasters showing up more and more predominately in the world around us.
Some people are “waking up,” but denial, and the lack of feeling what is ours to feel, separates us ever more deeply from what the indigenous peoples term, “All our relations,” and from the Divine within. This only enables and exacerbates the perpetuation of ways of being that are leading to our own deepening malaise and the growing pollution of the waters of life and the extinction of many species on this planet.
The advent of our feeling nature and its voice, whether it screams loudly or is quietly nudging in its sometimes uncomfortable way, is really the voice of our soul, our deepest heart, calling us home to the fullness of our divine nature.
The time of waiting is over.
In darkness and stillness you have prepared. Wrapped in mystery you waited and listened.
The call stirring to the depth of your soul.
A voice quietly whispers…it is time…it is time.
Joyfully you now stand, poised for flight.
