Feelings are nothing to be afraid of

The cause of most addictions in a very addicted world is the avoidance of feeling.  People don’t want to feel.  Or the counter argument is that people want to feel good, and many want to feel so good they’re willing to risk everything on the rush of the high that will wane dramatically over time.

But let’s go back to the art of feeling that basically everyone avoids.

There’s nothing wrong with feeling those things that we think we ought to be afraid of.  The truth is there’s freedom at the core of those feelings that threaten to swallow us whole in pain.  But we must be willing to do the achievable work of healing our trauma.

We seem to be afraid of what promises to be painful without testing that ground.  And then when we’re caught there in grief outbound of loss, we’re forlorn and feel like we’re the only ones who feel that way.

What we’re feeling is the sharp din of reality.

Yet even reality is not only not to be avoided, but it’s also to be embraced because our emotional and spiritual freedom lies in its depths.  Sure, this experience of plumbing reality’s depths will change us irrevocably, but we’ll never achieve our true potential without it.

The only loneliness we truly face when we go through feelings’ felt pain is the fact that so few people are prepared to go there with us.

I liken it to a journey only one in a hundred will go to—even many Christians who are supposed to be committed to worshipping in Spirit and in truth won’t go there for fear they’ll not be able to do it.

The age-old Christian traditions of lament and mysticism describes in essence what facing our feelings is all about.  These traditions don’t pathologise pain.

Lament and mysticism see facing pain as the gateway.

Rather than avoid or deny the pain that’s in our lives—and everyone has pain they have the opportunity to deal with—every day of our lives there’s the fresh opportunity to go there and face our truth.

Some of this is about our body image or how our body works.
Some of it’s about our unfulfilled dreams and a difficult past.
Some of it’s about what we haven’t achieved or what we’ve done (bad) or haven’t done (good).  

Some of it’s about how people perceive us or how popular or unpopular we are.  
Some of it’s about what we have or don’t have.  
Some of it’s about who we are who we cannot accept yet.  
Some of it’s about pain that we cannot control whether it’s what others are doing or pain that’s in our body or mind. 

And some of it’s about existential pain, which is that pain we suffer in simply being alive.  Lastly, some of it’s about the fear or sorrow we feel that we seem at a loss to deal with.

The concept of dealing with this pain by simply feeling it is it’s doing just that.  If we feel we can’t do it alone—and most people embarking simply cannot, and that’s okay—it’s a good idea to take a companion with you on the journey.  Someone who is compassionate, reliable, safe, real.

If there’s one thing everyone should do before they die, it’s to feel all their feelings.

Once we feel all our feelings and we find there’s life and hope on the other side of them, we decide to live bolder lives, and fear no longer controls the narrative.