I decided to participate
Earlier on this year, my friend, who some may describe as a coach or facilitator, posted onto Facebook about how she was inviting people to join her experiment. It was apparently going to help us find a way to living our lives with with more ease. I must confess that at first I was not really too sure what I was signing up to. But I have known her for some time and have always liked how she mirrors what issues you may have. In her direct and kind approach, she has helped me look at stuff that I needed to face. She blitzed the stories and b.s. that were not really serving me. And afterwards, I would always feel that a weight had been lifted. So in this instance, I had to sign up and participate in this experiment.
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The Feel-Good
In one of our first sessions, she described to us what I now refer to as: "the feel-good". This is a place which exists within ourselves, where we connect to life, joy, passion, comfort and ease. It is like something we did very easily when we were babies, like breathing properly through our diaphragm. It is as I learned, our anchor to navigate from. To feel lighter!
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Corrupted programming
As any person who has already lived through life for a number of years, I too have been imprinted with certain societal conditions. Along the road I've travelled so far, I have picked up beliefs and behaviours that are somewhat limiting. They have been picked up not only from my internal response mechanism, but also from the outside, through my parents and their parents, friends, the scholastic system, the office culture, the media and so forth.
However, as with all systems, our belief system needs to be updated and reconfigured at times. I realised this as I was going through my friend's experiment and becoming more self-aware and re-acclimatizing myself. I found as I went through the experience, little by little it made more sense.
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We need to feel again
I would like to warn you, that the feel-good was not about numbing the stuff that we consider to be bad. So there was no covering up my ears and singing "la la la". Not to say that I was not seeing and feeling things more from a pink tinted lens. A lesson I learned is that all feelings are as natural as breathing. I needed to accept them all. Allow space for each and every emotion. There was nothing to fear. This helped me to feel more liberated and transition back to my "feel good" place. The issue with modern day self-help is that sometimes we are conditioned to think we always have to be happy. And yes, I did write the book Be Happy. But I also mentioned how this does not have to be a constant state of being. Happiness can be an interesting dichotomy. One side of us may be comfortable with, for example, loving to complain about life's issues. So much so that when things are supposedly good, then there is a feeling of unease about that. The other side of us can be feeling joy. Yes, happiness is subjective. It is a feeling. Emotions are the undercurrent beneath it. Emotions are fickle "creatures". We may not even be aware of how we influence them, by the way we choose to respond. How we move.
All emotions and feelings are valid. They need to be felt, not numbed. They need to be allowed. One day in this experience, I shared with my friend a feeling of being low. It was the aftermath of an event. One that was spontaneous. I was feeling low, as I was identifying an action as not being meaningful. In my psyche -it could it have been a limiting belief I picked up or one I somehow agreed was to be followed-, I thought that little things were not significant. I was reminded that I can give myself permission to find joy in all moments. I felt liberated when I came to that conclusion. Please note that I did not just jump to this place. I looked at where I was first. I felt the lower vibrational feelings and accepted them, and then from that place I navigated to how I can feel good. How this emotion was not too dependent on anyone else. It was in fact about knowing when I need to love myself more.
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The answer is love: "We need to give ourselves more love"
I was driving my car recently, when I was struck by an epiphany. In life, there are going to be challenges. This may include times when you may have found a grey hair, put on extra weight unexpectedly or going through a break-up. So there will be times when we do not like the place where we are at that time. We may play the game of "future tripping", where in a supposed time in the future everything will be fine if a certain event takes place. This may be an event that could actually happen. We can start to already feel the emotion that we want that event to bring. But the problem is in the now, which is really where we are, we may become detached. We may try to detach from love and the feel-good, because the now does not match that perfect future we envisioned. Going back to the example of weight gain, we are always worthy of love no matter what size or shape we are. It's not that we become worthy once we lose the weight we feel is excess now. Therefore, even though you may not like where you are, or what goes on in your life, but you can love yourself. Be kind. From this place it is so much easier to link back to your feel-good.
Question: What are you doing today to rediscover your feel good?