I spent last weekend at a natural hotspring.
A truly magical place, in the middle of nowhere.
It is a place of alchemy, of liminality, of juxtaposition.
Situated right next to the river, my friends and I spent the weekend jumping from hot to cold, from the calm and peace of the hot pools, to the raw power of the freezing cold river.
I spent about an hour sitting on a tree that had fallen across the river. A bridge over the tumbling, churning water.
As I sat there I contemplated the chaos of nature. The river isn’t trying to be or do anything. It just is.
The water levels rise and fall, and as they do, the flow patterns change, from smooth standing waves to treacherous piles of white water.
And as it just is, it shapes the landscape around it.
The wind picks up, causing the trees to sway violently, and then clams, restoring peace to this beautiful place.
As I sit, I reflect on how we humans insist on trying to control everything.
We present ourselves in what we hope are neat little packages, wrapped in nice paper with a lovely ribbon bow.
We do everything we can to put forward an impression that we have everything together.
We spend our time in the future, hoping that one day we will have the salary, the relationship, the house, the holidays, the whatever that will finally allow us to feel good about ourselves.
We spend our time in the past, worrying about what we have said, what that person thought about us, reliving situations that didn’t go how we would have hoped.
Not the river. The river just is.
What is it that you are protecting with your neat little package?
What are you afraid to feel?
For me personally, it all boils down to abandonment and rejection.
If I can wrap my package up just right, with the right amount of humour, the right amount of sincerity, the right amount of intelligence, caring, wisdom, and whatever else goes into it, then maybe I won’t have to feel alone.
If I don’t ask for what I really want, then I don’t have to face the possibility of being rejected.
If I don’t say what I really think, I can bypass the shame of being judged for my opinion.
If I wrap my package up just right, and am ‘on top of my shit’ enough to re-wrap it whenever anyone tries to look inside, then I don’t have to feel any of the bad stuff that’s inside.
It’s EXHAUSTING.
It’s a bit like holding a beach ball underwater.
It’s pretty easy to do, but it takes all of your attention.
And as soon as your focus drifts for one second – someone calls your name, you get distracted, or whatever, the beach ball zooms to the surface and makes a big splash.
This is what we do with the things we are afraid to feel. We hold them down, and it takes everything we have.
I got pretty damn good at this over the years.
I could hold that ball underwater with one hand while sipping a martini with the other, and for the most part, no-one knew it was there.
Until…SPLASH!!!
Suddenly the smallest thing happens and boom, it’s all out there, everyone is wet, the martini is spilled, and I’m back fighting to get the beach ball back underwater, embarrassed and ashamed.
But there is an alternative guys.
It sounds crazy, I know, but if you can allow yourself to feel whatever it is you are feeling in any given moment, and feel it fully, you have to deal with it for about 90 seconds. That’s it.
Dr. Joan Rosenbrg writes about this in her book, 90 seconds to a life you love.
She says:
“Consistently avoiding or distracting from what is unpleasant or uncomfortable is, unfortunately often the start of a slow trek to increased anxiety, bodily pain, vulnerability and disempowerment”
Conversely, creating space to feel and express the anger, sadness, shame, fear, doubt, or whatever it is that you have spent your life trying to hide and bury is a rocketship to freedom, fulfilment, and joy.
Because if I just let go, and in a controlled way allow the beachball to come up to the surface of the water, then it can quite happily sit there, without disturbing anyone.
The wind might blow it around on the surface, and occasionally it might bump into me, or someone else, but because it is out in the open, the bump is a gentle one, and it is easy to redirect and continue with the martini sipping.
When we can do this with our emotions, both the uncomfortable ones and the easier ones (excitement can be just as destructive as fear), then they don’t have so much power over us.
We gain space between stimulus and response, meaning that instead of reacting in a fit of rage, we have the mental space to think about what has happened and respond calmly in a way that doesn’t cause us to have to clean up afterwards.
How does it work?
Emotions are energy in motion. E-motions.
When we prevent ourselves from feeling a particular feeling, we block the movement of energy and it gets stuck.
Over time, as we keep preventing the energy from moving, the whole channel blocks up, and like a dammed river we build up a lake of unprocessed energy.
This eventually leads to the pain, stress and anxiety that Dr Roseberg talks about in her book.
But when we allow ourselves to feel, that energy can move freely, and while it may be painful to feel and experience sadness, anger or fear, once we have felt it, it’s gone.
And when we release the energy that we use to repress and suppress the uncomfortable feelings, it can be put to use creating the life you truly desire.
So my invitation to you today is simply to create space to feel whatever uncomfortable feeling arises for you.
Give yourself 5 minutes, and just feel.
With no story, no judgement. Get curious about the sensations in your body.
Where do you notice them? What do you notice about them? What changes as you put your attention on the physical sensations, and not the story?
What happens when you allow yourself to feel the feelings you are afraid to feel?