The Gate of Feeling
La Puerta del Sentir
A student shares how, after a recent retreat, a new openness to feeling has emerged in the body, bringing unexpected beauty, generational healing, and a surprising connection with her mother.
The Gate of Feeling
A student shares how, after a recent retreat, a new openness to feeling has emerged in the body, bringing unexpected beauty, generational healing, and a surprising connection with her mother.
What's been said in the last two conversations resonated so much, about being an outsider and losing interest in the rat race. I wanted to share what's been coming up after the retreat. It feels like some gate has opened to feeling, to going into the body and the direct feeling of sensations. Some people might call it shadow work, but that label never really resonated with me. I don't see it as work. It's actually no effort. It's just letting go, having it come up, welcoming it, being with it.
What's been really amazing is that when there is this openness to feeling in the body, it's multidimensional. You can't pin it down. Is it sadness? Is it something else? Whatever comes up arrives with so much love. It could be what you'd call painful or sad, but there is this love of acceptance, of just welcoming it. It's so beautiful. It makes me cry. I've been walking in parks and I can feel something bubble up. I don't go looking for it. It just spontaneously appears, almost as if it wants to be seen. It rises out of the heart area.
Feeling into the generational line
There's been a feeling into the female generational line of my family. There's been a lot of stuff there, traumas, and it just came up. The impulse was simply to feel it, to hold it. This is a new experience for me. Before, I think I was running away from it. I could see the mind come in and start its usual functioning: "Something is off. What is it? Why is it coming up? Why are you crying?" And the response is simply, "No, thank you, mind. I don't need this now. I'm safe. It's all good. We're just being."
All of this feeling into the generational line with the females in my family was happening, and then later that night, it turns out my mother, without my having told her anything about my experience, had what she described as an amazing heart opening. She's a little bit into this kind of thing, she hears the calling, but she's not too deeply involved. She had this huge heart awakening that left her stunned: an out-of-body sense of unity, of being one with everything, no separation. When I later told her about my own experience, we were both astonished.
Could it be that something is actually liberating, releasing, just by seeing it, by being with it? I just wanted to share that.
Well, it's beautiful that you shared that with your mother.
Yes, I've been sharing a little bit with her.