I'm feeling waves of an old wound today, an old terror resurfacing today. It's an old issue in my life which has not been fully resolved - the details are unimportant right now. I notice, each time it pops back into my head today, that familiar contraction and wave of fear and anxiety go through me - just the image of that person's face arising in my mind's eye sends a wave of tension through me. This time I am using it to dissolve the tension that arises in my body. Each time it arises I breathe and focus on the exact sensation it throws up. I'm NOT trying to solve the situation or run the details round in my head again or 'work out' what I'm going to say or do. That would have been my old pattern. I am living a new life now where I am disciplining myself to feel it in my body first, not attach to the storyline and events of the actual issue (which can go round and round forever). I believe these challenges are an opportunity for me to feel my body more, breathe into the place where it feels stuck and uncomfortable, and keep dissolving it, keep feeling it physically as deeply and fully as possible. When you look at it a certain way it can be experienced as just a physical sensation. THIS is self love to me. To feel the yucky stuckness even more deeply, to go into it, to be fascinated by it instead of rejecting it and trying to control this discomfort by finding mental solutions.
The specific issue is very seductive. It cries out for a solution to make it go away. And yes, it will need to be attended to. BUT I want to attend to it with the person it concerns only AFTER I have moved the blocked feeling in me, NOT as a reaction to the feeling, NOT as a way to escape or get away from the feeling.
When I do my feeling and breathing and dissolving as much as possible first then the actions I take later to address this issue in my life will be rooted in equanimity and good sense, not reactive fear. However, when I take actions before having done some inner dissolving and attending to these feelings in me peacefully I am in escape and fear and my actions will likely perpetuate the problem in the World.
This practice takes discipline because the 'problem' is so seductive and I really don't want it in my life any more. I'm scared of how it might turn out. I know though that being a willing participant to this challenge and feeling deeply into how this hurts in me, into how my body is using it to dissolve something old and scared and stuck, is the route to my freedom, both from the literal issue itself and from the age old pattern of resistance in me that it is a signpost for.
There it goes again. A fear wave. The scary problem reminds me it's still not resolved. I feel the tightness in my solar plexus. I feel something I used to call 'fear', something I used to call 'anxiety'.
Maybe those words have stopped being useful.
Please try this with me. Meet the feelings of 'fear', or 'powerlessness' as a way to dissolve blocked areas of the body. Breathe into them, dissolve them, feel love for yourself as you do this, compassion for yourself and all beings who have this challenge. We are all challenged this way - it's not so personal.
This practice is a game changer. It empowers us. It can magically have unexpected effects out in the World with the issue itself.
This is how I am learning about self love in a practical way
Have you tried it?
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