In one of my classes yesterday we did a small exercise. This came from the discussion of how we have learned to suppress our feelings and emotions, favoring our intellect. It is a societal condition that has allowed us to only think and not feel, thus denying our true selves and natural state. So, I invite you do the same exercise.
I will say a word, you should identify a feeling, not a habitual feeling that we have trained ourselves to feel, but to honestly feel the word. Once you have identified your feeling, write about it. (that's poetry) Got it?
Ok are we ready for the word? The word is God.
What'd you come up with? I invite you to share, if you can, my comments section often does not cooperate.
So when I did this exercise and heard the word, I instantly rolled my eyes and said, "that's not a word." I defaulted to angry, because that is the emotion I most often associate with God (read previous blogs to see how much I blame God). Then I went to happy and comforted, but that felt like a contrived Sunday School answer. So, frustrated with myself and my inability to actually feel I shut down and gave up.
Maybe my blockage came from seminary training to only think about God, not feel. Or maybe I can't feel after all. I have long rationalized away my feelings and thought myself through them. I don't have many uninhibited feelings anymore. Another part of my seminary training is to acknowledge your feelings and look at why you feel them. I spend a lot of time thinking about my feelings and not actually feeling them.
How do you feel feelings? How do you sit in it and allow it to be? Movies make me feel feelings, but as soon as the movie's over, so are the feelings, back to normal. Occasionally, I will find myself in a place where my feelings take over, I will cry, or be in a funk after watching a movie. I will then analyze the crap out of why I'm feeling those things and where they come from or what I identified with, but I dont just let them be. There always has to be an explanation some repressed childhood memory. Can you just feel? Is it unhealthy to just feel and not psychoanalyze them? Is that even possible?
