Feeling as the New Frontier, first published May 12-2009 (c) Licia Berry
(NOTE: February 4, 2010-I re-publish this piece I wrote last year now as it comes to my attention again and again that we can do horrible things to each other or buy in to outrageous belief systems because we are not connected to our feelings….it is our feelings that guide us, provide feedback to us about whether we are following a moral compass, let us know if we are off track.
Case in point: the incredible lack of feeling response demonstrated by James Arthur Ray, wealth advocate and teacher, who said in an interview 2 years ago that the Holocaust “was a good thing”, after people were traumatized (and some even died) at an event he held in Sedona AZ in October 2009 . He was arrested yesterday, and the outpouring of feeling from the public shows that this is an important thing to look at. http://abcnews.go.com/gma/video/spiritual-guru-arrested-sweat-lodge-deaths-9744388&tab=9482931§ion=1206825
I have long said that the worship of the mind, intellect and thought as king is a very imbalanced masculine quality playing out in our world. Feeling requires us to be present in our human, fragile, animal bodies, and to find a way to courageously live with that temporary, precious nature that our physical existence has. Feeling requires honesty, that we feel the hard stuff as well as the easy stuff. Repression of feeling is denying our physical existence, wanting to run away or escape, wishing it were different than it is. It could be said that feeling is a feminine quality, if we look at it as a “being still, accepting and receiving” practice. Perhaps if we were to balance our minds with our feelings, our world would not be in the state that it is in today.)
Published on liciaberry.com and Face Book under notes
I write this today in response to an email that I received in which a woman friend is processing feelings and looking for some answers. She is not alone! I include partial transcript from that email, as well as more thoughts to offer.
I know a whole lot of folks who are feeling emotions right now….and I think this is GOOD. I am told that the “return” of the feminine looks like folks FEELING their feelings, not just talking about them or conceptualizing them or thinking “positive thoughts”. Feeling is not logical in any way…it is the right side of the brain, it is the feminine way, it is the antithesis of putting things in a box so we can understand them. It is soft, animal, messy, uncontrollable, heart, soul, dreams, and water….it is the balance of the way humanity has been living for 5000 years.
In the face of the seeming preponderance of sad news out there, I’m reminded of my prediction that we would be faced with so much that we’d have to crack open and FEEL. Feeling is part of our humanity, and when we block it off, try NOT to feel, we harden our hearts (and change our brains), and we can move through the world not responding to the things that are meant to be seen, heard and changed. FEELING is how we change ANYTHING in our lives…it is feeling that drives us to reach for more or for better, and to stand up and say NO when something isn’t right. If we don’t FEEL, we move along like zombies, and nothing changes.
We’re scared to feel…even the good stuff like joy! What are we afraid of? It is simply emotion, like the weather…it will move through us and clean house on its way out, through our tears, our shouts, our laughter. It is GOOD for us to feel…and it is good for the world.
I FEEL and am told that feeling is the next frontier in human consciousness and expansion/evolution. I think the women will be leading the way to learn how to BE this feeling state that we are entering…at least the women who have not internalized patriarchy so much that they are “men in skirts”! We will have to allow this feeling to BE us, then we will teach others, and then the world will truly change to that balanced state so many of us feel coming.
We are meant to feel…this is part of our design as human beings. We have physical, mental, spiritual and EMOTIONAL capacities, all of which serve a purpose and have a very important function towards our being fully human.
My experience shows me that the problems come in when we judge ourselves for what we are feeling, or that we are feeling at all.
Once a woman called in to my radio show…she was a “Law of Attraction”-inspired coach in her day job, but she was calling in seeking some answers for a traumatic event in her life; her son committed suicide. She was driving her self crazy trying to cope with this incredible, unnamable loss by “thinking positive thoughts” and looking for “spiritual” answers about it. What I offered to her was swift and clear: “Honey, you need to allow yourself to grieve.” She broke down on the air, and wrote to me several months later that the permission to FEEL had freed her, and changed her life.
If you are finding yourselves in tears more frequently lately or feeling a little chaotic on your insides, maybe even angry or depressed, I would offer to you not to think you are going crazy or that there is something wrong with you. Let yourself be soft, human…remember that when we allow ourselves to feel, we get to feel the joy and happiness, too.
I say all this to reflect to you that I FEEL you are right on track….and that I echo your experience of feelings being a very important expression of my humanity right now. I am finding healing, understanding, self acceptance and incredible love as a result of my allowing myself to feel without judgment or conception…just FEELING. And when I allow the feelings, ALL OF THEM, no matter how uncomfortable or painful to move through me, I come out the other side wiser, cleansed, and feeling whole. And this is how we add to a better world.
First published on http://www.liciaberry.com in May 2009
Copyright Licia Berry 2009
