Are you really living your life, feeling it, having the experience of it or are you merely thinking about it? One of the ways we adapt to feeling overwhelmed is to disconnect from feeling our bodies. It doesn’t mean that the hormonal reactions and physical tension don’t happen. We just don’t bear witness to them.
We can get stuck in our heads or our nervous system can be left in survival mode. It is then that we typically resort to solely thinking about our experience rather than including feeling it. The last time you asked someone how they were doing, what did they say? “I’m fine”, “living the life”, I’m ok”, “comme ci, comme ca” are all common answers. And it’s not just the words that carry the meaning. It’s the feeling behind them. The words usually are accompanied by a robotic response or habitual or hypnotized conveyance that just screams convention and cultural conditioning. They might as well sound like Charlie Brown’s teacher. For those of you who are too young to know what I’m referring to, think “blah blah blah”.
If we want to be well, we need to feel well. If we want to have a good or great quality of life, feeling needs to be part of the picture. A truly holistic experience is one that is felt using our bodies. Without that, quality of life begins to diminish. And quality of life is the basis of our health, whether we get sick or not, and what sorts of diseases we may manifest. Quality of life determines the aging process. One might think that it’s the other way around but one would be wrong:).
When I talk about really feeling your life I am including those times when it sucks and it hurts; When we grieve a loss or when our dreams get crushed by an unexpected occurrence.
“Try to exclude the possibility of suffering which the order of nature and the existence of free-wills involve, and you find that you have excluded life itself.” ~ C.S. Lewis
Feeling our bodies and having the experience supports our ability to have compassion for someone else or to express empathy. In other words, when we’re stuck in our heads and when the nervous system is in survival mode, we care less…about anything. We also tend to have less intelligent and stimulating conversations. Feeling and experiencing really forms the basis of a life well lived: our relationships, our ability to make sense of the world, even our ability to have an impact.
My prayer for you is that you wake up more to the life around you and within you. Life is too precious and fleeting to waste time just thinking about it. Feel it all until it’s done with you. Then you can truly say that you have lived the life.