One of the greatest paradoxes of spiritual awakening is that we must develop the courage to lean into what we do not want to experience.
Right?
Well, who wants to do that?
If someone is timid and speaks very softly you do not move further away to hear them better. You move closer. You listen more intently. You lean in. You let them know you care enough to want to hear what they are seeking to communicate.
This is exactly the approach we must take in order to heal our woundedness. Our wounds begin by speaking softly. They are afraid to be speak, as part of our brokenness is rejection, aversion, and shaming. These emotional bruises need to be carefully and consistently attended to. They need to be listened to. Integration cannot happen when notions of positive thinking are slapped over them. What we deny or deaden cannot give way to new life. When we seek to rid ourselves of our wounds they cannot be healed. They must be listened to carefully, compassionately, patiently. Rather than pullback or push away we are in a very literal way called to lean into and to listen and to feel.
Scary stuff, eh?
Not nearly as scary as being bound for life by what we will not acknowledge or mindfully process.
When I came to what is termed New Thought spirituality more than thirty years ago, I had no idea what a tumultuous journey it would become. I initially thought that it was the perfect way to rid myself of all that I loathed about myself and also get what I wanted in the physical realm. I thought I had come across the perfect way to escape the pain I had lived in for almost all of my life. I was finally going to be able to control my life and the circumstances happening around me. A few magic affirmations, a vision board, and voila! I would be the Land of Oz.
Not how it turned out.
My journey has been about going to and dealing directly with that often-overwhelming self-loathing. Pulling back from it only made it grow louder. As much as I tried to self-medicate it the pain only grew. The louder I shouted my affirmations the more of a roar the pain became.
While I was able to manifest some of the external things I thought I wanted I quickly learned they did not compensate for the toxic atmosphere that was simmering inside of me. I was shown fairly quickly that I could not and was not meant to control the externals of my life experience. I could not and was not meant to control others or their behaviors toward me. It took longer but I finally got down deep inside that control is the greatest illusion of all. The distinction between control and cooperation began to create more and more internal freedom, and from that freedom, choice. That choice was once again dependent on my leaning into the feelings associated with not being in control.
When I really, truly listened I learned.
I wish I could report that these lessons were easily leaned and that I learned them once and for all.
Not so.
As a child I was not listened to. I was not allowed to have my own opinions or use my own voice. I was not heard. I did not feel seen. When I was seen it was largely through a lens of scrutiny and evaluation. Part of my adult excavation revealed that I adopted that same way of dealing with my own inner being. I did not really listen to myself. I did not allow myself to have my own ideas, opinions, perspectives. I tried to take on the perceptions of others so I would not be rejected. I lived in constant scrutiny, evaluation. It was and sometimes is tormenting. I tried to get rid of those imprints without ever really stopping and listening to them. I recoiled. I fought. I denied, I suppressed. I kept moving and doing. I pretended and I defended. I leaned as far away as I could.
And it did not assuage the pain.
That pain, those bruises, the imprinting needed to be heard. They needed to be accepted. Included. Embraced. I had to stop leaning away and lean into what needed to be heard and felt and loved.
Heard and felt and loved.
As a result of my own inner experience and ever-increasing freedom I share often with others that the only way to heal is to lean into what is arising.
And most of those with whom I share lean far away from me.
When they do, I softly smile within. I know that what is right for me is not right for everyone. Or at least it may well be that the time is not yet right for them. I note that almost universally the volume of their voices drop as they look incredulously at me and question “lean into?”
And then I get the chance to give back what life has so generously given to me.
I deliberately move toward them as I softly exclaim “lean into.”
