Are you feeling more triggered than usual?
Everyone I know is being triggered right now.
Big stuff, small stuff, old memories that had been forgotten, stuff they thought they’d moved on from.
I originally wrote this blurb and recorded the video for my Wonder Sessions students, because we have a big ongoing support space for coping with these changing times in our Mighty Network (and I've been putting together a 'toolkit' for life as a separate section on the website-- this counts as a fundamental Wonder-skill :) ).
But I think this one is really important, and so I want to share it with you all, too.
(There is one reference to an exercise people use in Module 1 but I think you can get the hang of what I'm saying even if you aren't a student.)
So this newsletter is about processing emotions.
Knowing this stuff, and how to do this, is such a fundamental part of how I exist in the world. It's something that my students learn over time, because I think it's a more natural way for us to be (feel, express, process; instead of feel, repress, try to understand intellectually). I think that this pandemic is shining a light on the fact that some of the things we are doing need to change. And I don't think that understanding how to do this is a luxury anymore. A bunch of emotional, old stuff is coming up for many of us, and we don't know what's happening, or what to do with it.
So that's what this is about:
How we're being triggered right now.
And what to do about it.
Big hugs, and feel free to respond if you have any questions.
Rebecca
ps. If you want to have access to all of these thoughts and conversations every few days, they're a part of the community network of The Wonder Sessions. It's like a membership site, with lifetime access, that's already included in the course. I upload videos and writings, and we have extensive group discussions about these topics (plus Zoom meetings). Some people charge $50/ month for these types of membership sites, but it's alllll a part of the Wonder package!
pps. The Wonder Sessions registration closes tomorrow (Sunday) at 11pm!
Contents:
1. On being triggered during the apocalypse
2. How to process an emotion through the body: a video
3. More on the fire-water imbalance
4. What to do.
1. On being triggered during the apocalypse
Why is this happening?
I don't know the answer to why, and I'd caution you to not blindly believe anyone who suggests that they do know why this is happening, be it lessons from a higher power, or the earth trying to teach us something, or even a benevolent virus come to usher us into our new, 5D world. Some people think that it is intentionally bringing up some things from our pasts so that we can move forwards. We get caught up in 'why's a lot as humans, wanting to understand an objective meaning to the things that happen. But objective meanings are speculation, made only to provide us mental comfort. I'm wary of these, because they box in our worldview, which in tun influences how we perceive each other, and which course of action that we take.
I think that whether it is intentionally triggering us, or unintentionally triggering us is not as important as 'how'.
How?
I've mentioned my thoughts on societal trauma a lot, but for those of you who are new here (Hi new people!), it comes down to this: the very fabric of the society that we live in is traumatic to most of us. Any point at which we are taught that who we are at our core is not enough is a subtle (or overt) affront to our deepest selves. Sometimes it’s even violent. I firmly believe that our deepest selves do not for a single instant believe that we are not enough. Society tells us different. In order to survive, we try and get along with society. Which for many of us, means hiding ourselves, trying to fit (or pretending to try to fit while lamenting that we don't fit). Regardless, all of this is freaking painful. Some of our deepest wounds as children come about when we feel that we are not loved and accepted as we are. It is from here that shame arises, that the wound of 'not enough' is born, and from here that most of our actions as a society derive their sense of purpose.
This feeling in itself is so painful, that most of us do as much as we can, to avoid slowing down, to avoid ever feeling it.
But when we slow down, or have to spend time alone... the distractions fall away and then we are left with nothing but ourselves.
What happens if you've spent a lifetime trying to NOT be yourself. To hide yourself. To be more than yourself. To prove to the world around you that you can be lovable if you can just work a little harder? What happens if you learned to hate that self, early in life? And then you slow down, and the self that you've been running out ahead of, trying to escape, catches up, out of breath, and there's nowhere to run?
The layers of the onion.
I see the human energy, and our layers of traumas, and the patterns we create to protect ourselves from them, a bit like an onion. A very complex, multicoloured, multifaceted, multidimensional onion. And at its core is the pure self: the Us-ness of the us. The bright shiny thing that came into this world as itself, and leaves this world as itself, and cannot for a minute understand what self-hatred is.
The layers that build on top of that are the things that we protect ourselves with, and create a version of 'reality' around. (All of the stuff we explore in Module 2 of TWS: the stories, the beliefs, the intentions, the habits). Woven throughout these layers are areas where we are traumatized and we form something akin to an emotional or energetic scar tissue: it hardens, and it hurts if we touch it, and it flares up on occasion, and it changes the way our energy works. These trauma-scars can be minor or major, they can be yours alone, or they can be collective. They change the way our energy flows. I don't even see these things as 'bad' per se (like, there's no state of perfection that we could all just reach if we could erase our energetic stretch marks), they just are. But they definitely impact whether we perceive ourselves as safe or not, and that changes the way we act in the world.
When we experience something that is upsetting to us, we have learned to 'process' these things mentally. Often to talk ourselves out of feeling what we're feeling, because its irrational, or it rocks the boat, or because it's 'asking too much'. The feelings that arise from our deepest selves-- that we've already decided aren't worthy enough-- are annoying messages that remind us that we still aren't enough yet. That annoying voice is still there! The deepest self still exists! Dammit!
In judging our own feelings, we judge other peoples' feelings too. Then the world becomes very unsafe for any of us to feel, because we're rarely met with acceptance and empathy. Instead we're told (from such a young age) that there are people in other countries who would be so grateful for the dregs of attention that we're given and therefore we should be happy. Or that our feelings are inconvenient because other people have lives too, so why don't we stop being selfish and let other people get on with it. We rationalise our feelings away. And get back to work. In fact, just in case those feelings come up again, why not make ourselves even busier!
We have never been taught how to process our own emotions.
We've never been taught that our emotions are valid.
Nobody ever told us that our emotions are our own, and not a reason for anybody else to do anything.
And nobody ever told us that other peoples' emotions don't need to change our own course of action.
The purpose of an emotion is for the self: to express that we are off course, that we are in danger, that something doesn't line up with our deepest self, that we don't like something, that something needs to be paid attention to, or something needs changed.
And because we think that other peoples' emotions are about us, we also never learned to simply sit with another person and hold space: to accept them fully in the light of our own awareness, and allow their emotions to move up, and out, and through, and be released, so that they can figure out the deeper truth for themselves.
When an emotion is processed fully, we can return to our baseline state.
I'll say this again in a different way because it's so important:
When we allow ourselves to feel, allow ourselves to process, and to complete the process, the emotion disappears, and our body doesn't need to hold it anymore. The shiny bright thing at the core of us, that exists in a state of joyful, playful, open trust, is allowed to be in charge again. The trauma doesn't disappear, but the way it impacts our perception of the world does.
Depending on the severity of the emotion, or the impact of the trauma, processing can take a long time. But the end result of the processing is to return to an emotional baseline.
I'm not talking about returning to 'how it was before' or 'erasing the past' or anything like that. I'm not talking about erasing the actual events that happened, and how they change us and our perspectives and make us more wary, or afraid of things. I'm talking about our emotional state, and the state that is our daily worldview. The event and the emotional state are separate things. We can have experienced something horrific, and learn to be wary, and never want to experience it again, and never want it for anyone else, without it being the lens through which we view the world. But that takes TIME.
Do you know what's frustrating to a fire-imbalanced society that likes to move forwards at an unsustainable pace?
Processing. Watery meaning. Feeeeelings.
Now society has slowed down*. The entire WORLD has slowed down. And all of a sudden, our watery bits have their window.
You see, it can't stay down there, stuffed away in our bodies indefinitely. It's just not what it DOES. Our inner being is this bright shiny thing that is always going to be moving towards expressing itself into the world. It's like a river flowing downstream that can be diverted with machinery, or dammed up with concrete, but the second you stop pushing against it, it'll return to its natural state again. And everything that stood in its path is going to start getting dislodged.
Emotions are going to come up.
Some of them might be old.
Some of them might be painful.
Some of them might even belong to other people.
It doesn't matter where they come from, only that they are there: it is the present reality in your body when it arises to the surface. And so you need to know what to do with it.
Here's a video explanation/ demonstration of what to do.
*except for healthcare workers and parents who now have to homeschool while working while keeping the house clean.
2. How to process an emotion through the body: a video
3. The fire/ water imbalance explained a bit more.
If fire represents progress: forward momentum, building, growth, goals, purpose.
Then water represents meaning: nebulous, subjective, poignant, subtle, emotional.
As a society we have been moving forwards at a rate that lets the fire move out of control: this giant, seething, raging beast that consumes everything in its wake.
It has moved so fast as to leave meaning in the dust, unable to catch up, because meaning is what comes as a result of processing: feeling and experiencing something fully, not just on the surface, but through all the layers of our existence. The deeper the change, the more processing is needed, and the more meaning that arises from it. The deeper the change, the longer the processing takes.
We’ve been consuming, gnawing our way through resources too fast, burning through fuel faster than we can process the waste that results from it.
Consumption always creates waste.
Disturbance creates debris.
An object moving through water creates ripples. The larger the object, and the faster it moves, the bigger the ripples.
Progress and meaning go hand in hand, and need each other to create balance.
Progress without meaning creates a drive to consume and grow that is unsustainable, and out of control. It creates drought and wildfire and land with no nutrients and a body (be it a singular body, a societal body, or a global body) with energy on the surface but growing emptiness underneath.
Meaning without progress however would be just as bad: too much stillness, not enough movement. A putrid pond. Mosquito-laden puddle. Focusing on feeling over taking action.
Either one in excess creates a state of imbalance.
Balance, however, leads to something beautiful. Like the wheel that turns itself, when progress and meaning dance with each other as we move forwards, we don’t leave any part of ourselves behind. We progress and process, in a state of embodied wholeness. Not just for ourselves, but as a community, a society, a planet.
4. What to DO with this.
You are being triggered right now.
I am being triggered right now.
We are all having our pasts, our beliefs, our traumas thrown in our faces at every turn because our bodies are finally catching up to us, and there is finally space and time to process.
Allow your feelings to come up. Process them. Acknowledge them.
Allow yourself to heal, and to return to a state of trust: it is a rebellion against a world and a system that forces us to close off from each other in order to survive.
But be kind to yourself, because lots of stuff is coming up.
And be kind to others, because I guarantee you it's coming up for them too.
This is not a time to harden up our defenses against each other, but to take responsibility for ourselves, so that we can see each other more clearly, and be present with each other more honestly. By taking responsibility for our own emotions, we can all start to restore the balance together.