A friend recently shared this quote from Eckhart Tolle:
Stress is caused by being “here” but wanting to be “there”, or being in the present but wanting to be in the future.
I was thinking about this quote in the specific context of experiencing our feelings. There are times when I experience Real Big Feels and those are the times I most want to fast forward through: anger, sadness, loneliness, fear, grief, insecurity. They feel big, overwhelming, all-consuming.
But they’re also there to tell us something.
And if we fast forward, or push them into the dark corners or fringes of our internal landscape, they will just creep right back out – often at the most inopportune times and in wildly out-of-control ways.
One of the habits I’ve been working to cultivate is to stand in the feeling, to let it course through me without pushing it down, so it can work its way through – and then out – of me. It is no easy feat. It can mean tearing up in moments when others aren’t expecting it, needing to leave a room to make it possible to be in the experience instead of shutting it down, having to stop in the middle of something and wait for a feeling to pass.
Our bodies are like the canaries in the coal mines…they tell us when something is off. If we tune in, they call our attention to ourselves when we may be distracted.
If you decided to listen to your Real Big Feels…what do you think they’re trying to tell you?
Those big feels are written all over my face…