To Feel.
March 23, 2012 § Leave a Comment
Over the past three weeks, I’ve been reading Dr. Marshall Rosenberg’s “Nonviolent Communication” and it’s been more than life changing. In a later post, I’ll go into more depth on the concepts of NVC, but let’s just say this: it’s opened my eyes up to the importance of naming my feelings and sharing them as well as naming the feelings of those around me.
This post is a great poetic description of naming of those feelings and letting them out in a very real way.
Anger. Fear. Pleasure. Sadness. The basics of feelings that stem to all others. They’re a continuous strand of verbs, adjectives, and the like that describe what’s going on inside. They extend from east to west. They’re never ending yet interconnected. One can and often does lead to another. Continuing on to the depths of the soul.
All at once one may not be able to describe. Or one may be able to precisely pinpoint. Even deducting where. How. Whence those feelings arose before. Contrary, some move on regardless. Blindly into day as if it were night. Unaware of those misguided, nay misplaced feelings. Incautiously moving supposedly forward.
Some feelings get breezed over by the strong winds that flow through one’s person. Winds that are brought on by externalities. Externalities that one allows to control the inner-self. Media. Friends. Family. Noise that brings a strong wind. One that is so gracefully flowing that it may pass through unbeknownst to the feeler. And these feelings could quite possibly be false on a variety of levels.
Untrue because they have been brought on and steered by another. Covertly or overtly. And your soul just soaks them in. Instead of standing against the wind, as a strong red wood. One blows to-and-fro, leaves falling abruptly to the ground. And your mind, yourself, with them. Feelings can also be dismayed by the lies deeply in the roots of the past. The soil that seems so rich beneath is actually burdened with spoiled soil; see, hear, smell, touch.
Sense something around oneself that brings upon nostalgic feelings. And instead of digging into the roots to find the corrupt soil. The roots grow deeper into the nothingness. The non-reality. Needless to say, it is one’s responsibility to decipher between the feelings of truth. And the feelings of lies.
To ignore them completely–of which I have been abliged to most of my life–causes an actual sickening. An actual weakening of the body, mind, and spirit. To stuff them. Repress them. Ignore them. Move on. And look past the feelings with one’s own retort.
“I’m too good for feelings.”
“I don’t feel.”
“I’m too hard for that.”
“That’s not my style.”
“I don’t know what I feel.”
“I don’t base my decisions on feelings.”
To retort is yet again a lie to only be divulged in. Revoked. And exposed. Feelings are reactions to thoughts. Thoughts give way to action. Action guides dreams. Dreams unfold the future. Perhaps it is time to sit down and ponder upon one’s feelings today.
Originally posted in 2006.
The Gut-Guided Existence.
July 8, 2011 § Leave a Comment
The gut-guided existence. It’s not an easy one to live in. Yet I know that I should go back to it if I’m not living in it already. When I listen to my gut, I make better/smarter decisions. I have a tendency to spend less and do more. I’m more relaxed, enjoyable, and pleasant to be around. It’s not that I’m trusting in things magically to come together, I’m patiently waiting for my inner self to make the path clear.
Sometimes that even looks worse to those around you than living in a mindset of what I call “responsible control.” Or what Trever knows so familiarly as being dutiful. The hard worker that works to work compared to he who does what he’s passionate about, poor or not. I wrote a song with friends back in Novemeber 2006 that was a classic description of my now-husband. The pre-chorus went something like this:
Why are dutiful and separated?
Separated from your own soul?
When I’m dying for a man that is wild.
Wild at heart.
Whenever I would bust it out at the piano, he would get deeply convicted. Telling me, “I don’t know why I’m that way! I don’t mean to be!” See, the thing is: it’s completely and 100% natural to live that way. Not abnormal. The difficult way to do things and make decisions is to live in the utter unknown. It’s not comfortable to most. There’s a part of me, however, that yearns for it. That was how the first few years of our relationship went. Here’s the chorus:
You should just let it go
Just let it slide
Forget all there is to hide
I could just die inside
Forgo all my pride
There isn’t much time
You haven’t much time
I haven’t much time
We haven’t much time
We would argue about this world between living dutifully by making the dollar, working the nine to five and this grey world of unknowns. At some point we just stopped talking about it. Trev made some decisions that turned into lifestyle changes that caused him to continue on a path of unknown. Maybe my words or personal choices finally got to him sub-consciously. I’ll probably never know. What I’m totally cool with though is the fact that we’re now on the same page accidentally. Living in this gut-guided existence. From one day to the next. As the bridge says it all:
Will you be so bold?
Are you willing to surrender
The image of a warrior
To become the one to who you’ve been called?
Yes. I think I am. I think he is. So Jessie and Zach, when are you coming to Cali for some more awesome impromptu song writing and coffee shop shows? Listen to your gut now.
