Ever had that moment where you’re home, the lights are off and the light switch you need is just over there? So you walk towards it with your arms out, confident but hesitant because you know where everything is in the room. Then you reach out to where this piece of furniture should be as a landmark, this wall, that door jamb and it’s not there! You startle, then you try to figure out where you are logically, then you flail around more and more frantically until you touch something, anything that orients you in space for a moment. For a moment you felt lost and anxious and disconnected. You weren’t actually because it’s practically impossible to get lost in your own house, but it felt like it. And flailing got you back in touch with solid reality and helped you get to the light switch. You could say that flailing allowed you to find enlightenment. 🙂
Culturally we are seriously out of touch with the fact that we have emotions let alone that they could be valuable or have any wisdom. Yet they are integral to our health and to being fully functional, spiritual beings here on this planet. Emotions can warn us of negative situations before we’ve seen the actions go into play. They can lead us to opportunities and events that are for our best and highest good even though logic declares that it should be the opposite. They can also lead out of the darkness and into the light if we would let them.
We’re taught to rely on our minds, on mental knowing, on analysis and meaning and coming to conclusions about things. These are great things, but if we rely on them exclusively life can become monochrome and sterile. Letting go of the knowing and the thinking and the understanding of things and simply feeling feelings as they occur in the moment allows you to access reserves of wisdom that years of intellectual searching can never reach. But these emotions are always fluffy bunny, licked on by kittens fun. They aren’t necessarily romantic or ecstatic, happy or passionate, depressing or dire. Many times they are immediate, seemingly random, uncomfortable, and uncontrollable. They take us out of our comfort zone, make things not “fine” and expose to us the fact that we not only don’t know, but don’t know what we don’t know. And that’s FANTASTIC!
Sometimes the adventure comes to us rather than us going to it. In these cases flailing is not a failing, it’s the solution. So let yourself get into uncertain waters, unknown emotional spaces, get uncomfortable in your own skin and be ok with not immediately understanding it all. You’re in your own body, in your own life, you know all the furniture, it’s not like there’s actually anything new in here, it just feels like it because the light isn’t on yet. Flail around until you get your bearings. You will…and then the light will come on…at least for that room…