Feeling it ALL

made possible by trust in a power bigger than me

Can I just say that I’m feeling pretty darn good these days? It has nothing to do with external circumstances, which remain mostly unchanged, and everything to do with my healing journey.

(Although the beauty of Nature does lend a hand… )

I want to be super clear here: healing does not equal feeling good all the time. Healing means feeling it all. And when the time is right, that includes the preferred states such as joy and peace.

Choosing to feel all my emotions is a no brainer for me these days. I want to accept all the parts of myself, feelings included. If I reject my sadness or anger, I cannot be whole and I neglect the wisdom that these energies offer. I have to turn down the dial on my feeling capacity, and that affects the full spectrum, and I just feel less, not better.

There is a popular myth in our culture that to “feel good” is better. The past few weeks, I’ve met with several new clients and had the uncomfortable conversation with them that Reiki is not going to take away their grief or pain. It can help process, integrate, and heal, but not suppress.

That’s not how it works. It’s a misconception that we can avoid the unpleasant emotions somehow by discovering the perfect combo of probiotics, Pilates, pranayama, and a pinch of magic mushrooms or some such recipe.

It looks like that on Instagram, doesn’t it? Or so I’ve been told. I don’t go there myself anymore. Those reels are essentially highly produced commercials and need to be viewed with a healthy dose of discernment.

The true healing magic is born from the willingness to feel it all and not get attached or identified.

Simple, but not easy.

Just for fun, I made a graph of my emotional state over the past few months. Feeling states on the vertical, time on the horizontal, and a wonky line that defies logic.

So, yeah, I’m feeling downright happy right about now. I’m enjoying it, knowing it will last exactly as long as it lasts until the next thing comes along.

Over the years of being 100% all- in for my soul-assigned healing, I’ve had a lot of ups and downs. Gradually, my set point has risen so that I’m generally in a content and peaceful place, with occasional, even frequent, bursts of bliss.

There have also been occasional, mandatory trips to the pit of despair where I’m required to face my demons and integrate suppressed emotions, examine my beliefs, and make difficult decisions about what I want to bring back with me.

This topsy turvy way of being is made a whole lot easier since I’ve learned to trust that Life has my back and that if I allow it to flow through me, it will take me where I’m meant to go. That might be very different from where my mind thinks I should go!

Trust can be a tricky path. It’s easy to fake-surrender, pretending to be at peace with whatever is, but still conniving and attempting to manipulate in secret. It’s not as nefarious as it sounds; that’s just the ego trying to claim some semblance of control. I know because I did it for years.

I still do, sometimes, until I catch myself. Here’s a good example. I’ve given my finances over to the Divine Management Co. since I can’t seem to figure it out with my intellect, so here ya go Universe, you’re in charge.

It works pretty darn well, but sometimes I’m still crunching numbers, looking at deadlines, and occasionally fretting. OK, Life, I know you’re handling the money, but don’t forget that April 15 is tax day and the following week, car registration is due, but first I need an oil change and state inspection. 🙄

I’m nagging the Universe; the opposite of trust.

Clearly I have yet to achieve full surrender.

Which brings me to the essential point I wish to make in this article. It took awhile, but here we are.

Surrender means I fully trust Life’s plan for me. This is completely different than using fake-surrender as a means to get what I want.

Sure, I still go to work and make plans and have dreams. I go about my days doing all the things and moving towards my goals. But without any attachment.

A few weeks ago, I read a post by a popular spiritual teacher. She fell ill while abroad. Worried about an upcoming retreat, she “surrendered” and poof! was miraculously healed. This left me a bit befuddled. I realized eventually that the takeaway for me was: if you surrender, you can be healed and experience minimal disruption to your plan.

This really ruffled my feathers! A) because it highlighted the ways I do this. (Gah!) B) because I think it’s a dangerous message to share. It suggests that health is the “right” outcome of surrender, that if you surrender and remain ill, you probably did it wrong. And that we can get what we want by preceding our challenges with the phrase “I surrender” without actually doing the work of fully letting go and trusting that maybe in this moment health is not the highest outcome for some unknown reason.

Surrender means that the Universe is handling this and I’m ok with that because the Universe KNOWS BETTER THAN ME. If I’m meant to be well, I’ll be well. If something else, perhaps something even better or more meaningful or magical, is meant to be, then I might continue to be ill. Either way, it’s ok, because I believe that I’m on my path, which is exactly where my soul wants me to be.

(If this concept is intriguing, you might enjoy Tosha Silver’s book Change Me Prayers.)

Cultivating faith in a benevolent power that guides me towards my highest good allows me to leap into the realm of feeling it all. One of the hardest things I’ve had to accept on my healing journey is that I don’t always usually know what’s in my best interest because I don’t see the big picture and my mind has been infiltrated by limiting beliefs and cultural conditioning.

If you want, you can develop a relationship with Life, God, the Universe, Spirit, whatever you call that eternal presence that guides the way. It’s just a matter of willingness and slowing down to notice the connection. Reiki helped me a lot in this regard, but mostly it was paying attention to the mystery underneath the surface of my days.

If you find the thought of jumping headfirst into all the feelings disconcerting or even downright scary, I get it. You can start in the shallow end and set a timer for five minutes and start from there.

Whether you’re all- in or just dipping a toe, it will be a lot easier if you sense your trust like a life vest, keeping you afloat now matter how rough the water may be.

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