How often during the day, do we brush our inner experience, our feelings aside? How many times do we tell ourselves, just as a busy parent tells a child, "Not now; I'm busy!" How long can we go along that mode of doing, doing, doing, thinking, producing, until we stop and give ourselves the time to just be, to just feel and to process on the inside what is happening all around us? And stay with me now, just beyond that lies the question: How much time do we give ourselves to feel what's happening inside of us?
Well, I'm 45 now, and even as an art therapist who is trained to pay attention to the interior life of feelings, I found myself in burnout last January. I was fried. Body, mind and soul. I let time pass for so long without giving myself the nourishment my inner parts needed to be properly fed, that I'd just reached the end of the marathon I put myself on, without ever reaching the finish line. You know, the one we create in our minds? Yes, that finish line:) Somehow, I let my mind take over, my ego run the show most of the time, and left few windows for inner felt experience. I was going there, to that place inside, but only just enough so that I could check it off my list and rush on to the next thing. I never really gave myself permission to sit long enough with my inner experience, the embodied feeling experience, not the thinking version.
After much inner process work to get myself back in my body, to get my body back to whole and healed, and to reconnect myself more deeply with my inner voice and my inner experience, I am just now feeling myself come back to center. I'm a therapist; this should come easily, right? Well, I'm here to tell you that we all have to work at staying with our feelings, maintaining a deep connection with ourselves. No one has a free hall pass. We all must do the daily awareness work. And we must all be good parents to ourselves, and take time to say "Yes, I'm here. What do you need?" to our inner child, our tender self that is still there inside us, no matter what age.
It's hard to do this alone. I recommend finding others who you feel safe with, who also are interested in taking nice soulful scuba dives, as a fresh change from the more common snorkels we do with our friends on a daily basis. If you don't have anyone you feel can go to the deep end of the pool with you, perhaps it's time to find some new soul brothers and sisters? Cultivate a new circle of friends who can meet you on that bridge to forever, the path of discovery. We all need people in our lives who help us grow, to keep us true to our soul's code, to inspire us to dig deeper. It's our relationships with the people we share these meaningful moments with that delineate our growing edge, and elicit our true potential. When we relate with self, we become aware. When we relate with other, we have the chance to become who we are meant to be.
I dare ya'. Go out there and make a new friend today with the intention of a new soul connection.
Enjoy your discoveries along the journey.
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