It’s occurred to me lately that the whole point of social media and blogging for so many of us was designed to be an opportunity to connect with each other authentically, creatively and without reservation. I’m not talking about the blog as a confessional or Facebook or Twitter as vehicles to tell the world what you had for breakfast. That’s not it. But what I’ve found is that as hard as I try to tell a story– even my story– with a newfound sense of freedom, old habits tend to die very hard. I am still measuring each word, each phrase and each decision to post something as though my future world depended on it. And maybe it does.
We all want to put a face, a persona out there that is not necessarily who we really are but, rather, who we aspire to be. And there’s nothing wrong with that. But for me, I still struggle with putting my inner journey out there on display for the world to see and, yes, to judge. So be it.
But as real as I believed I was getting, I think what this journey has been lacking in Soul Lab is a meaningul and conscientious eye toward the dark side of life, not sunshine and roses– puppies and rainbows. For the record, I believe in the power of positive thinking. It is a needed and extremely powerful tool in the fight against depression, self-limiting beliefs, anxiety and emotional scars from painful past experiences. For many of us, even entertaining a positive attitude is in and of itself a momentous breakthrough in our own personal development. With it comes hope, energy, even joy.
But life is not always positive, and that’s OK. This can be a big realization for some people… the idea that you can live a life of purpose, passion and authenticity but also be crippled with fear, worry, and loss. In our desire to find peace, harmony and truth, we talk ourselves out of what we feel to be these lesser negative emotions. I think this is a mistake. A friend of mine often talks about the gift of living the “full human experience.” What she means by this is that while we are mostly spirit, we arrive here in a physical body for the purpose of expanding our consciousness and moving through our individual journeys in ways that are fueled by the human part of us– we live in this world full of people, systems, values, nature, communities, process and every nuanced emotion that the human animal has pushed to evolve. This is extraordinary to me.
So while I appreciate living in states of gratitude, grace, love, fun, peace, joy and all of those incredibly delicious feelings, I feel compelled to stop this subtle self-judgement that creeps in whenever an uncomfortable feeling arises. And I am not talking about that emotionless detachment that us “spiritual” people are encouraged to foster when some big experience hurdles toward us. I’m not interested in watching my feelings float by like clouds. Thoughts, on the other hand, are another thing entirely. What I am interested in is being as close to the core of my emotions as possible– to feel them and move through them in real time. Not later. Not never. But right now in this moment… in the rain.
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Thank you for that Jennifer. I too often feel guilt for having “bad” days and feeling lost, anxious, or any of those “negative” feelings. What your friend said about living the “full human experience” reminds me of Dr. John Kabat Zinn’s book, “Full Catastrophe Living.” Being human is embracing all of it, like you said, right now.