Feeling Deeply
Sep. 26th, 2011 02:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cedar_groveFrom The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.
For to feel deeply and precisely with full awareness is what opens us to both joy and sorrow. It is the capacity to feel keenly that reveals the meaning in our experiences.
Feeling is different to expressing. I'm told recently that I 'never smile any more,' and aside from the fact that it worries me that people I love are perceiving that I'm unhappy all that time – which I'm not, not by any stretch of the imagination – it makes me thing about how I find it hard to express that I am happy – contented.
My face doesn't do well with smiles... I don't like my teeth for starters, and when I smile, it often looks more like a grimace than an actual smile, just because of the way my face is put together... or I look or squinty eyed or something. I have a real problem with my self-image of a smile. I have a serious face and I can't help that... but just because I'm not grinning like a fool, doesn't mean I'm miserable.
There are of course exceptions to this, like anything else. Sometimes I will just grin, for no other reason than I'm contented and/or happy. And then of course I get asked what I'm grinning at. I can't win. LOL
But I feel... and I feel deeply a huge range of emotions often within the span of a second or two... even when I don't express what I'm feeling, I'm still feeling.
When we went to Biltmore for our anniversary pictures, walking at Mir's side, dressed as we were on our wedding day, just being there together, walking the gardens – sharing in watching the squirrels fighting to get apples up to the tree, feeling loved, and cherished, and wanted... feeling confident and beautiful, and strong... giving love, sharing a sense of peace together, all of these things combined in me to a deep and profound happiness. Yes the rain fell a little bit to begin with, things were wet and muddy a little bit, but that didn't matter, all that mattered was the love and happiness that we were sharing. The silly moments, the happy moments, the moments of falling down mole or gopher holes... it was all just perfect. I couldn't have hoped or wished for a better day, a day that began with the rain and ended in sunshine, but was all 'smiles' – whether those smiles were actual or just the feelings of them inside of me, they were there. Little things, like tying Mir's tie... playing around with the cake knife... walking hand in hand... snuggling unselfconsciously... the 'monkey kiss'... telling stories of the actual day... all just – a perfect day.
Not to feel is to stop the heart from
breathing.
For to feel deeply and precisely with full awareness is what opens us to both joy and sorrow. It is the capacity to feel keenly that reveals the meaning in our experiences.
Feeling is different to expressing. I'm told recently that I 'never smile any more,' and aside from the fact that it worries me that people I love are perceiving that I'm unhappy all that time – which I'm not, not by any stretch of the imagination – it makes me thing about how I find it hard to express that I am happy – contented.
My face doesn't do well with smiles... I don't like my teeth for starters, and when I smile, it often looks more like a grimace than an actual smile, just because of the way my face is put together... or I look or squinty eyed or something. I have a real problem with my self-image of a smile. I have a serious face and I can't help that... but just because I'm not grinning like a fool, doesn't mean I'm miserable.
There are of course exceptions to this, like anything else. Sometimes I will just grin, for no other reason than I'm contented and/or happy. And then of course I get asked what I'm grinning at. I can't win. LOL
But I feel... and I feel deeply a huge range of emotions often within the span of a second or two... even when I don't express what I'm feeling, I'm still feeling.
When we went to Biltmore for our anniversary pictures, walking at Mir's side, dressed as we were on our wedding day, just being there together, walking the gardens – sharing in watching the squirrels fighting to get apples up to the tree, feeling loved, and cherished, and wanted... feeling confident and beautiful, and strong... giving love, sharing a sense of peace together, all of these things combined in me to a deep and profound happiness. Yes the rain fell a little bit to begin with, things were wet and muddy a little bit, but that didn't matter, all that mattered was the love and happiness that we were sharing. The silly moments, the happy moments, the moments of falling down mole or gopher holes... it was all just perfect. I couldn't have hoped or wished for a better day, a day that began with the rain and ended in sunshine, but was all 'smiles' – whether those smiles were actual or just the feelings of them inside of me, they were there. Little things, like tying Mir's tie... playing around with the cake knife... walking hand in hand... snuggling unselfconsciously... the 'monkey kiss'... telling stories of the actual day... all just – a perfect day.
