Where were you when you were first told to stop feeling?

When I was four years old my sister pushed me down the stairs and I landed on my head. An egg the size of a rugby ball emerged on my forehead, and our neighbour who was a nursing sister was called. She came at once to administer first aid to me with my giant egg and I remember her briskly telling me to not cry, to be a brave little thing, and my worried mother was brought to the point with a bracing cup of strong tea. “You’re fine,” she said, “no need to cry. You have a prize egg!”

At the office the unemotional are considered more rational and dependable than those who (gasp!) have feelings. The ideal of the masculine traits are revered and the feminine feelings are considered soft.

We all do it – telling ourselves and others to squash and suppress any excess display of emotion. We often do it to help people so that they can stop feeling sad, afraid, sore, or lonely. It is better to get better quickly, and not have the painful emotion.

We are meant to ‘be strong’; it is such a cultural force that we are swept along. What starts as outside pressure to ‘buck up’ and ‘get over it’ becomes pressure from within, and we keep the system of control going on and on.

“Yes, of course,”
you say,
“we can’t go about crying and showing feelings
all over the place.”

But what if, as humans, that is what we are meant to do?

When you run into the ocean in anticipation of an invigorating swim, that is the same way that we enter this life here on earth. We dive into life just as we dive into the waves, expecting a stimulating rush of experience and emotion. We know that we will have the best time if we allow the waves to wash over us, or if we go with the flow.

It is when we resist the waves that we get bowled over – if you have ever been caught by a wave and tumbled over you will know what I mean. You emerge as if from a washing machine, with sand up your nose and packed into your costume, your hair a bird’s nest washed forward into your face – and your dignity a distant memory.

How to Not Get Sand Up Your Nose

Life eventually sends us tumbling, too, when we block and suppress what is the most natural thing. We end up with sand up our noses in life when we have suppressed our feelings for so long that dis-ease, heartache or worse bring us to a grinding halt.

What would happen if, instead of blocking, stopping or suppressing, you went with allowing the feeling to happen and dive into it without holding onto it?

Something we seem to forget is that we have the emotions – they don’t have us. They are one of the tools we have, and they need not become who we are.

We allow an emotion like sadness, or feeling like we are not enough, to become our identity, and it becomes the one in charge of our thoughts which then play in the same loop. The thoughts feed the emotion, the emotion feeds the thoughts, and we are blocked.

Free up your barometers which tell you how to be,
what to do, where to go next.
Emotions are your aerials, your receivers, your whiskers, your seeing-sticks.
~ Michelle Thomas

If we can feel these emotions and notice them, allow them, and they move through us but don’t sit there as a big block, then we can move on to the next emotion. There is a joy in allowing the fullness of a feeling. It’s the holding onto the emotions that causes the wave-dump and the sandy nostrils.

“But I Would Rather Have Sand Up My Nostrils!”
“Wait a minute!”
you say,
“There is no joy in feeling this wretched/desperate/sad/alone!!”

Yes, indeed. It is hard to feel these things and I am not suggesting that we should love staying in those states. That’s the thing – staying there is hard, and it happens when we resist and keep thinking about what is causing the pain while we pretend to the world that it isn’t there. We live a life with baggage dragging us down, a half-life.

If you are torn apart by grief, allow the grief, dive into it, live it, and the joy is in the memories and in knowing that you wouldn’t grieve so deeply if you had not loved so fully.

And then, when the emotion has run its course, you emerge on the other side having grown a little, and you carry on fully alive.

When you decided on this life, you were attracted by the big challenges and the intense experience it is to be alive in this body now, at this time.

You knew the challenges would sometimes make you want to turn around and go back to the other side. You knew though, that you came armed with a superpower within you that would see you through the worst times and into bright sunshine again, if you will let it. Your power is your feelings, which will allow you intense pleasure and happiness as well as pain.

The most attractive thing about being Human is that we feel deeply, and feeling deeply allows us to live fully.

“The definition of vulnerability is uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure.
But vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our most accurate measure of courage.”
~ Brene Brown

P.S. When I started writing this newsletter, I had a completely different message.

In fact, I finished it and was going to send it to my team to get it off in time for the weekly Wednesday mail. But then I was woken at 4am Wednesday by my guides with this message above, which came out fully formed. It is why we are a day late with it getting to you. They wanted you to receive this now.

Of course, seeking professional help when you need it is advised, so please don’t hold back with that either.

P.P.S. Get in touch if you would like to book a session with me. I would love to work with you.