Feel More to Be More

Feeling is another wayfinder on the Path to a Soulful Life. We’ve already explored slowness and solitude. Now, we turn inward to the wisdom of the body, the depth of emotion and the truth it reveals.

Michael Meade’s work has been illuminating for me on this topic. For centuries in the modern western world there has been a split between the realm of the mind and realm of the body. "I think, therefore I am" is the foundational statement in modern philosophy, attributed to René Descartes, which marked the point at which the two departed from one another. Mind has taken precedence; the realm of feeling and imagination deemed inferior. In the split we have lost Soul, the connective tissue that binds them all together.

I once heard a metaphor that captures this beautifully. Each of us is like a mansion. We’re born with every window flung open, full of light. But over time, to survive, we build walls and close doors. We shut down feelings like grief, fear, anger and shame. Before long, we’re confined to the attic of our being, afraid to enter the rest of the house.

Our feelings want to be acknowledged and accompanied. The strong and repetitive ones are often unintegrated younger ‘parts’ of us that are protesting, because we aren’t acknowledging them. We tend to desert them, or fight them and they, in turn, become more solid and immovable.

We think we can design our inner life by tinkering and meddling with our feelings. We think we can choose which feelings to allow, and which to send away.

But the choice we have is not WHAT to feel, only WHETHER to feel.

Michael Brown, author of The Presence Process, once said:

“Our intent isn’t to feel better, but to get better at feeling.”

This line sums up an entire way of living. Our feelings are not IN the way, rather they ARE the way.

They are signs pointing towards what matters. They show us what we love. They remind us that we care.

Our emotions often carry their own medicine. When we really allow ourselves to feel grief, we touch gratitude. When we stop fighting fear, courage arises. Anger, when cared for, brings peace.

When we meet our feelings with patience and compassion, they integrate. It’s only when we meddle that we get stuck at one end of the polarity.

Interestingly, the etymology of the word think points us back to a systemic perspective of who we are. In Proto-Indo-European, the root teng meant not just ‘to think,’ but also ‘to feel’ and ‘to know.’

And from this same root comes thank. To think was once to feel. And to feel was to give thanks.

I like to see this in today’s world through the expression of ‘being thoughtful’. Let’s be thoughtful towards our feelings and thankful for them.

So real intelligence is whole and the way to access it is to allow our feelings to be just as they are. Which is simple, but not easy.

Several years ago I became quite overwhelmed by the world’s problems. Overwhelm, I’ve since discovered, usually comes from resisting our feelings. (Sidetone here, wallowing in our emotions is also a form of resistance.)

I felt pressure to ‘find my purpose.’ But all I was doing was trying to solve emotional questions with intellectual tools. My grief, anger, fear and shame, show me how I love the world and what I am willing to stand for, speak for and hurt for.

So maybe a useful question for you is:

What hurts you? And what does that show you about what you stand for?

I also notice that I continue to try to shape the outer world to accommodate my inner world. For example, I try to avoid failure, so I don’t feel shame. I avoid conflict, so I don’t feel anger and fear.

If what I’m really avoiding are the feelings I associate with my life’s challenges, rather than the challenges themselves, then there is an amazing opportunity.

What if, by changing my relationships to my feelings, I would no longer be at the mercy of uncontrollable life circumstances? Inner inclusion would lead to outer inclusion.

It’s our responsibility, as adults, to feel, because feeling is what gives us the ability to respond. It’s how we become truly responsible.

To feel is to include. To include is to heal.

Feel more to be more.