August Blog - How would your life be different if ... ?

Welcome to my Blog for the month of August! It has been a wonderful month, welcoming several amazing new women into the Circles, setting up a beautiful new Workspace and preparing for my Girls' Circles and Qi Gong classes to start in Term 4!
 

How would your life be different if ...?

In our Circles this month we asked how might our life have been different if, as we were growing, we had been taught by our communities (and shown, through the actions of the adults around us), to truly feel our feelings, sit quietly with our feelings, listen to them, honour and follow them as the most unique and amazing guidance system we own in our lives.  In our society, busyness, service to others over self and dutiful fulfilling of responsibility are glorified and prized above all else and non-emotionality is seen as a strength. It is little wonder then, that we all struggle to feel the value in making time to reflect on our feelings. For many, this concept is so alien that it doesn't cross our mind. For others, we experience deep guilt and shame in prioritising ourselves and indulging in our feelings. 

Having a sense of your feelings is the greatest gift you can give to yourself, and the most true, authentic and loving way you can be with any others. Just as our bodies send us messages through pain and discomfort, our heart and soul sends us messages through our feelings. And just as we experience more severe pain or illness if we choose to ignore those physical signs and symptoms,  we risk creating emotional pain and mental anguish in our lives by not listening to our feelings.  We would be considered stupid if we chose to ignore chest pains and soldiered on ... it's time to privilege the callings of our heart and soul just as highly.  

(By the way, this isn't a free pass to express your anger or hurt towards someone in the guise of 'I'm just feeling my feelings"! This process - sensing your feelings -  allows you to be present, with love and compassion to whatever feeling is arising for you, which allows you to respond to the outside world in the most loving way also.)

Even for those of us who seem to be quite connected to our feelings, who value sensitivity, emotionality and taking the time to sit quietly with our reflections, we tend to censor what we are 'allowed' to feel. There is a large and ever growing population of women and men today in Western Society who carry with them a gentle nagging ... a feeling that there is more to life, that what they are experiencing right now is simply not enough.  This feeling is a craving for more ... to be more connected to themselves, more connected to others, more engaged in their own life in some way. And as a society, we judge those who want 'more' very harshly. We feel we should be grateful for what we have and so we squash down that niggling feeling which is trying to guide us to our deepest, most loving and authentic lives. 

So then, how would your life have been different if ... 
 

" ... early in your life, the first time you, as a tiny child felt your anger coming together inside yourself, someone, a parent, or grandparent, or older sister or brother, had said 'Bravo! Yes, that's it! You're feeling it.'

If, the first time you had experienced that sharp awareness of ego, of 'me, I'm me, not you' ... you had been received and hugged and affirmed instead of shamed and isolated?

If, someone had been able to see that you were taking the first tiny baby steps towards feeling your own feelings, of knowing that you saw life differently from those around you. If you had been helped to experience your own uniqueness, to feel the excitement of sensing, for the very first time, your own awareness of life. What if someone had helped you to own all of this ... to own your own life?"
(Circle of Stones, Judith Duerk, p. 64)

 

And today the question is ... how is your life going to be different as you gift yourself the experience of honouring and loving yourself enough to stop and listen to your feelings? Even the feelings which you think you don't have the right to feel ... especially those.  The gift of asking what those feelings are trying to communicate to you. And trusting yourself enough to allow those communications to guide your thoughts, actions and way of being in the world? Imagine what the world would look like ...

With much love and light as you journey into a deeper experience of feeling! 
Sasha xxxx