We have been taught that uncomfortable emotions are bad. That there is something wrong with us if we are sad.
There is a billion dollar industry devoted to this notion and you better believe they are quite motivated to making sure we believe it.
The truth is there is nothing wrong with pain.
We can all agree that physical pain is invaluable to the task of keeping our bodies safe – we would be burning our hands on hot stoves every time we cooked a meal if we didn’t have pain receptors to guide our movements and warn us when something is not right.
Emotional pain is just as valuable to our spirit.
Feelings, even deeply painful ones, are meant to be felt — not covered up, numbed, ignored or labeled as pathological.
Emotions are meant to be IN MOTION — they are potent motivational forces meant to MOVE us.
The problem with denying our pain or labeling it as bad is that this is not just detrimental to our personal bodies and lives — it is devastating to the body of the world. When we are numb to our own pain we are also numb to the pain of others. Before we know it we will be terminally wounded without even realizing there was a problem.
As a culture we have been primed to allow atrocities, like those unfolding at our borders right now, to happen right under our noses.
If you read between the lines here you may feel I have made an attack on the pharmaceutical industry, stated a strong opinion about the gross over-use of anti-depressants in our society and implied that this is all part of an intentional effort to control the population in mass so that evil forces can roll out their will without too much resistance or fuss.
Yep. Sure did.
I’m in a sassy mood I guess. But also, our culture encourages a dissociation from soul and our healthcare system is financially incentivised to keep people sick, so… I dunno…. Ima go ahead and keep my wits about me, feel my feelings and turn my pain into service.
Photo by Hannah Marie as part of the Rising Experience, a healing storytelling experience for women who have faced the dark and found the light.