An important life teaching
“Releasing stored energy.”
We often don’t let experiences pass through us. Meaning, we might take a small “incident” and store it in our body or subconscious.
Over time, this becomes our “trigger” and we layer the “incident” with behaviours to help avoid ever confronting what it is that really bothers us.
All the teachers that I’ve listened to explain this in one way or another.
When we are not okay inside, we seek to make the world around us “just right” to make us feel better. Except, it’s a dead end, because the physical world is in a constant state of ebb and flow.
Deciding other people are the cause of our pain or trigger will ultimately lead to suffering, because we cannot control others or expect them to be the thing that heals us.
Great teachers all say that we are perfect inside – our spirit, soul, energy, life force – it’s pure love. It’s at peace and is connected to life and god.
It’s our unwillingness to stand in the humanity of it all and recognise that life isn’t happening TO us, it’s actually all quite impersonal. Life is just happening and when we release the need to control it, we realise that the meaning of life is just to experience it.
And not just the big things that are often another form of escapism from our problems, but every moment becomes an acknowledgment of life.
We will still be swept up in the chaos and monotony of life, it can’t be helped, but if we know our centre – our spirit, our true being – then it’s easier to recognise that it’s all part of the living experience and it’s no longer “good” or “bad.”
Michael singer and ram dass both teach that in moments where we have cultivated a practice of self awareness and we NOTICE that we are feeling a certain way, we can reconnect with that centre.
And it’s easy, but hard.
They say, stop. Be quiet and instead of pushing down the hard emotion and the subsequent surge of energy that accompanies it, we sit with it.
We let ourselves FEEL whatever it is, in the moment it’s happening.
If this is possible, then life becomes a wonderful, unfolding experience.
I’m not saying I’ve achieved perfection or got the process right. But this year, I committed to a journey of introspection.
To notice how I am feeling in certain situations and take time to process it. And a toddler in particular, will amplify every unhealed emotion we have.
My perspective is, that every person, every being, is capable of this practice.
But it starts with a willingness to first drop into the icky, messy stuff. That’s the stuff that might’ve been in there for years, decades even.
That’s really hard to pick at that.
What I’ve learned though, is this practice can also be freeing from feeling like everything is just always happening TO you.
