Our body feels the bigger picture...
25/03/16 Focusing
Sometimes we have this deep sense something is wrong....
What is that?
Many times in my Focusing I have felt this, and without realising my assumption, expected it to be "about me"; some deep pain waiting to be heard (or so a part of me fears)... then after spending time with it, I sense that this wrongness I feel is about something bigger. Yes, it is about me, but me as part of a much larger process; processes in our world, that we are faced with often without much choice. I was struck by this paragraph from the writer and activist Charles Eisenstein.
"A multiplicity of needs go chronically, tragically unmet in modern society. These include the need to express one's gifts and do meaningful work, the need to love and to be loved, the need to be truly seen and heard, and to see and hear other people, the need for connection to nature, the need to play, explore, and to have adventures, the need for emotional intimacy, the need to serve something larger than oneself and the need sometimes to do absolutely nothing and just be." (Page 147, The more beautiful world our hearts know is possible)
When I read this, something deep inside both relaxed and woke up!
What is that?
Many times in my Focusing I have felt this, and without realising my assumption, expected it to be "about me"; some deep pain waiting to be heard (or so a part of me fears)... then after spending time with it, I sense that this wrongness I feel is about something bigger. Yes, it is about me, but me as part of a much larger process; processes in our world, that we are faced with often without much choice. I was struck by this paragraph from the writer and activist Charles Eisenstein.
"A multiplicity of needs go chronically, tragically unmet in modern society. These include the need to express one's gifts and do meaningful work, the need to love and to be loved, the need to be truly seen and heard, and to see and hear other people, the need for connection to nature, the need to play, explore, and to have adventures, the need for emotional intimacy, the need to serve something larger than oneself and the need sometimes to do absolutely nothing and just be." (Page 147, The more beautiful world our hearts know is possible)
When I read this, something deep inside both relaxed and woke up!
That's what is wrong. So many deeply human needs are going unmet. He goes on to say, how we try and meet those needs in unsuccessful ways: through social networking or consuming for example. We sense the pain of the situation, but fail to recognise the source, then try and numb the pain or distract ourselves from it with a plethora of activities.
I was listening to a talk about why more people are not doing anything about climate change (or you could choose any issue the world faces) and speaker hypothesised that we simply did not want to feel the grief, the pain of how we are truly treating our collective home and each other.
Again - this felt so true in myself. It is simply feels too hard to bear, yet so important to meet.
What we feel in Focusing is about us, situated in our lives, and those lives are woven into many, many larger contexts and situations.
So... again and again I turn towards my experience with both curiosity and compassion. Turn towards the part of me that wants to pretend it's not happening, that part of me that sometimes feels hopeless or huge loss with what is happening in the world.
And from that simple listening and being with, something has changed...small steps come that bring me closer to what I deeply value. Some more courage comes to speak out more about what I care about. Some fire begins to awaken to try and change things, no matter how small a part I can play right now.
I still turn away a lot... but less than before.
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