Awakening to Presence: Healing, Feeling, and the Magic of Being
It has been a while since you have heard from me. I have been dealing with some health challenges after taking a while to recover from Covid. And Angus had knee replacement surgery, so I’ve been supporting him in his recovery. He is doing really well. The doctor said he is ahead of 90% of his patients at this stage, so his commitment to physiotherapy is paying off.
My health needs and supporting Angus have forced me to slow down.
In slowing down, I noticed a layer of numbness being stripped away. I became aware of a level of dissociation from my experience that I hadn’t noticed before. I recognize this as a coping mechanism, and the slowing down helped me become more present and feel more.
Just this morning, I got quiet, and right under the surface, I felt sadness. It blossomed around my heart and took my breath away.
I understand my resistance to feeling when it is present.
What’s the point of feeling? There is always more to feel. It is always changing anyway.
But the aliveness that is felt in presence is why it makes sense. The aliveness of feeling it all.
Living in my head has been my safe space. I thought it was my saving grace. Living in a fantasy world as a child then finding the salvation of intellectual pursuits.
But there is another way that doesn’t throw away the intellect or imagination but also has room for presence, stillness, quiet, and being. Not to get anywhere. Not to improve myself. Not to feel better. No to get anywhere or get anything. Nothing reveals itself.
It is so easy for me to slip into doing and the numbness of not being present that I have enjoyed being forced to take it really easy. Productivity sacrificed. Efficiency massacred. Optimizing ignored.
Instead, prioritizing being of service to my Self.
Listening deeply.
Feeling what is.
Allowing myself to cede to the requests of my body.
Letting my mind relax.
Slowing down to what feels like anarchy.
Instead of my life falling apart. A deeper frequency is felt. The frequency of love. The frequency of synchronicity. The frequency of peace. The frequency of abundance. It feels magical only because of how long I have resisted.
This is not a prescription to follow. I have no answers, no solutions. I’m only sharing my experience and inviting you to listen to your wisdom. What is your body asking from you? What are your senses telling you? What does your inner knowing have to say? What discovery is awaiting you?
What happens when you listen deeply and take the risk to follow your call? The call that seems so impossible you daren’t feel it? What happens when you let the yearning take over? What happens when you say yes to your Self?
It starts with feeling.
It starts with presence.
It starts with listening.
For no other reason than the pure aliveness of it.
Let me know what you find out.
This article was originally published on https://www.therewilders.org/blog/awakening-to-presence-healing-feeling-and-the-magic-of-being.
If you would like to listen to the Rewilding Love Podcast, it comes out in a serial format. Start with Episode 1 for context. Click here to listen. And, if you would like to dive deeper into the understanding I share along with additional support please check out the Rewilders Community.
Rohini Ross is co-founder of “The Rewilders.” Listen to her podcast, with her partner Angus Ross, Rewilding Love. They believe too many good relationships fall apart because couples give up thinking their relationship problems can’t be solved. In the first season of the Rewilding Love Podcast, Rohini and Angus help a couple on the brink of divorce due to conflict. Angus and Rohini also co-facilitate private couple’s intensive retreat programs that rewild relationships back to their natural state of love. Rohini is also the author of the ebook Marriage, and she and Angus are co-founders of The 29-Day Rewilding Experience and The Rewilders Community. You can follow Rohini on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. To learn more about her work and subscribe to her blog visit: TheRewilders.org.
Christine Heath & Judy Sedgeman – Spirituality and Resilience
When you no longer give authority to the fear-based thoughts in your consciousness, all you are left with is happiness. Through the teachings of Sydney Banks, you can see how your psychological functioning works, which makes you less compelled to follow those thoughts that do not serve you. Becoming more aware of the wholeness and integration of both your human and spiritual natures helps to ground you in the unchanging essence of who you are, and ride out the ups and downs of your emotional experience more gracefully. Accepting the normalcy of your humanness will naturally reduce your anxiety and fear and enhance your joy and happiness in each moment. By placing less pressure on yourself to feel a certain way or be hung up on self-improvement, you may find that low moods do not derail or debilitate you; instead, you will become much more attuned to your innate wellbeing and peace of mind and experience more happiness as a result.
Greater psychological freedom is the gift that keeps on giving. How grateful would you feel if you no longer had to listen to your negative, self-punishing and painful inner narrative, day in and day out? Understanding the role of thought and recognizing how it creates your feelings of insecurity and self-doubt is truly liberating! You will be better able to hear and heed your inner wisdom and become less driven by the noisy thoughts of fear and constriction. As an ongoing practice, this allows you to more fully experience your resilience and reach a greater sense of clarity about how you want to move forward in your life. As a result, you can live in a way that feels authentic and true in every area, including your career, family, home, creative expression, play, relationships and overall well-being.
Your ability to enjoy life comes from being present in the moment rather than caught up in habitual, negative thoughts that take you out of the Now. Sydney Banks’ wisdom supports you in becoming aware of how you get seduced by your limited personal thinking and thus, create a painful reality of misunderstanding, fear and restriction. When you recognize how and why this happens, you can step free of the pattern. This understanding assists you to dismiss unhelpful thoughts and not take them seriously. Unlike traditional self-help or therapy, experiencing more psychological freedom and enjoyment does not rely on techniques. There are no magic bullets on the path of well-being. All you need to do is follow an internal compass that points to the truth of who you really are—beyond transient thoughts to your unchanging, formless essence.
In our culture, success is often associated with hard work and narrowly defined as material gain. However, authentic success, as shared by Sydney Banks, includes such intangibles as happiness, well-being, love, joy, compassion, and peace of mind that are innate in each one of us, along with outward goals and achievements. It honors the whole person in all walks of life, whether you are a professional, leader, executive, solopreneur, employee, mother, teacher or student. From this knowing and experience, you can access the infinite wellspring of love that is your essence, then share your gifts with the world from a place of fulfillment and meaning, through a profound understanding of the interaction between your psychological and spiritual natures. While conventional success can deplete you, authentic success only fills you up.
Are you self-critical, hard on yourself, and constantly trying to “fix” whatever you think is wrong with you? Perhaps you have tried all kinds of different personal growth techniques and spiritual practices in the hope of solving all your problems. This cycle can be exhausting and never-ending, because there will always be something to improve about yourself, from that mindset. Sydney Banks’ teachings can help you to see how your humanness is normal and not something that needs fixing: as a spiritual person, you don’t need to change or eradicate your humanness! Seeing yourself as normal allows you to love and accept yourself exactly as you are—warts and all. Adopting this perspective naturally brings out the best in you and helps to find peace with your personality. Self-love and self-acceptance is your natural state, and any disconnection from your true nature is only temporary. What a relief!
One of the first areas people often experience profound transformation from the teachings of Sydney Banks is in their relationships, both personal and professional. While it often seems like another person’s irritation, anger, indifference, insensitivity, rudeness, etc., directly affects your experience, in reality your disturbance is a product of your own individual thinking. By making someone else responsible for how you feel, that person automatically becomes the cause of your suffering. Once you understand that you always have a place of well-being inside, independent of another’s behavior, it is easier to maintain equanimity through their changing moods and behaviors. Romantically, you may experience deeper love and intimacy with your partner, but the teachings benefit all relationships. This awareness supports more authentic connection and expression, while facilitating greater understanding, improved communication, reduced reactivity, more acceptance of self and others, and improved ability to work out differences and find common ground. Best of all, just one person shifting in a relationship is enough to transform it.
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