“They both listened silently to the water, which to them was not just water, but the voice of life, the voice of Being, the voice of perpetual Becoming.” ― Hermann Hesse
This quote often comes to me when I am out in the water. The times I allow myself to just experience my being. I sometimes just get low down, enough to watch the ripples and notice that flow in my eyeline and my body.
The water is where I feel the most, where I experience that complete sense of myself. An aliveness. A witnessing. A feeling. Its a time where deep emotions rise to the surface, where I allow and acknowledge my experiences. Water has always been a place that fascinates me and holds me.
How often do we give ourselves the chance to do that? To feel?
We spend our entire lives in a constant state of motion or finding things to do and often because we don't know how to feel or what we are feeling.
The work I do takes people through a process of getting from one place to another. The essence of that work is allow these feelings to rise, to be seen and heard without judgement.
Often we desire something which brings about action and then we get ourselves stuck. This stuckness is often an emotion or feeling that needs to be seen and released before we can progress.
The stuckness or discomfort we feel makes us reach out for support. We want to change it. Shift it. Or understand it.
The question is "Why can't I get to that place of health, wellbeing, happiness and growth?" The answer is always given, especially in the body, this is how it speaks to us. Its how we know we aren't aligned or fully living our truth.
Something inside of us needs to be noticed, witnessed, understood before it can be released and a new pattern built. This is the way of nature. One thing moves to make way for another.
“When emotions are expressed, all systems are united and made whole. When emotions are repressed, denied, not allowed to be whatever they may be, our network pathways get blocked, stopping the flow of the vital feel-good, unifying chemicals that run both our biology and our behaviour.” - Candace B. Pert, Molecules Of Emotion
In the process of witnessing and feeling, allowing the emotion to rise. Growth and expansion is created.
Why do we avoid the feeling?
We have been taught to push things down, to repress and supress emotions because they are uncomfortable or seen as shadow aspects. They are riddled with shame and anger and hurt.
Sometimes we don't realise it's there. We have buried things so deeply that we think its all gone. But the body knows, it keeps the score.
“Crisis is what suppressed pain looks like; it always comes to the surface. It shakes you into reflection and healing.” ― Bryant McGill
These crises come in all sorts of forms. Physical, emotional, mental. Big shocks to our lives that make us shift and change quickly. Where we find out who we really are and what we are capable of...if...we choose to feel.
Is there anything in your life that your are avoiding?
Do you have habits or addictions that are associated with repression?
Is your physical body speaking to you through illness, emotional issues or big life changes?
If so, will you take this opportunity to listen, to notice and to feel your feelings?
Or will you fix things up and set forth with a to do list?
I invite you to welcome some of your feelings this week. To even notice emotions and what they are. Sit quietly with the wind in your face and talk gently to your body.
Find space to feel.