Moving through the Wave
A feeling is like energy in motion. E-motion! It’s an energy that has an impulse to move. It’s not a stagnant thing that shows up and stays. At least that’s not the essence of it. It wants to move through.
My job (and my joy) as a human being, is to let my feelings move through my body. Reduce any resistance I’m offering and just let them move through my system.
For example, I heard the other day that my big brother is in Boston this weekend for a conference, and he didn’t tell me. Fuck! I got this sinking feeling right away. My mind started spinning stories and imagined dialogue, and possible actions.
But underneath that, or off to the side, is an energy in me that has arrived. It’s familiar. It feels like anger, fear and shame, sort of all mixed together. My practice is to locate the feeling in my body, as best I can. This one is at the top of my heart center and up into my throat.
I let myself feel the body sensations, and give them more room. I kind of allow them to be. There may be colors, temperature and texture in my exploration of them. And I use my breath to kind of ventilate the feeling. Long slow breathing. This lets the wave-like nature of the feeling to come forth. It amplifies a bit. The feeling intensifies.
And then it subsides, just like a wave. It may not go away, but it’s intensity decreases and I feel more integrated. This is the key. It’s a wave. It will subside.
I think this is the part that a lot of us miss. We either never learned how to do it, or forget about it. We are so habituated into thinking, that we forget to feel. The result is that the feeling kind of stays around, unprocessed. We might not even be aware of it if we are really into our thoughts. We can be like PHD’s in thinking and Kindergarteners in feeling.
