by David Walsman
So lets get this straight from the start, I'm not a preachy, self help, pseudo enlightened, pain in the ass. Well atleast I don't think I am. However by the time you've read this blog entry you'll probably beg to differ. If indeed I have become the preachy thing-a me-boby that I refer to above then I only have Elizabet Criner to blame, and I duly thank God for it.
I met Lizzy aka Elizabeth Criner aka poopscicle three years ago. (Yes "Poopscicle" a story for another day.) What was I like back then? Well you know those Sydney people who have those endless supplies of "acquaintences", the ones they bump into in trendy bars and oh so politely acknowledge through gritted teeth as they struggle to remember a name to blurt out between sickly double cheek kisses as they look over each other's shoulder to see if there is someone more important to talk to. Very fashion indusrty I know. Well I was one of the air kisssers, we all knew how cool we were, connected deliciously by our mutual vaccuosity. But that was then.
So how did I miraculously shape shift into a man writing a blog entry titled,"Our subconscious strategies to avoid emotional pain suppress our ability to truly shine"? Fantastic question. The simple answer is...... I met Lizzy. The first time was during downward dog in a yoga class. How many great love stories have started that way? Two years later we bumped into each other in a laundry mat, I grabbed her hand, or did she grab mine? Any way hands were held and I skipped into a mystical world of self discovery that at times has left me miserably lost, immensely elated, immersed in wonderment and sometimes crying like a baby (Lizzy's loves it when I do that). I have howled at the moon, danced with tears rolling down my eyes in rooms full of the closest strangers a man could have only just met. I have bowed down to those same strangers and been overwhelmed by humility and the releif that I can stop pretending to be seperate. (My bookeeper finds it mildly disconcerting when I get down on my belly in the office for her). I have beared witness to magical feminine rites of pasage, been lectured by a tantric master, made women orgasm 3 metres away (not only one, they had to bring in a substitute!) . It's been a very big three years for this Sydney boy.
What an amazing journey of self discovery Lizzy has taken me on. Sure, on countless occasions that journey was experienced as me doing my best impersonation of a kicking and screaming kid but never-the-less I'm still here ready to fight another day and I wouldn't have it any other way. Lizzy spoke a different language to me when we met (and she still does), "feel into what is really going on for you right now", "you need to learn to love yourself" were quote's that would drive me crazy. However I quickly learnt that the things we resist the most often hold the greatest insight for us. Hold on a second I have to withdraw that last sentence. I can hear Lizzy's words ringing in my ears right now "I' 'I" "I".. "I David, you have to refer to your experiences in the first person" she would say to me. So...I have quickly learnt that the things I resist the most often hold the greatest insight for me. As the years have passed the true power of Lizzy's first words have only now hit me. The journey Lizzy has taken me on is such a beautiful gift, she put me in a little canoe on the banks of my own heart and gave me a paddle. Sure I take credit for the discoveries I have made but secretly I know that Lizzy is always right behind me with a paddle in her hands.
Now for the preachy, self help, pseudo enlightened, pain in the ass bit. Actually I take back that self parody.A good friend recently asked me why I take the piss out of the spritual comments that I truely believe right before (or after) I make the comments. I considered that for a while and came to the conclusion that spritual truth can be quite over whelming, both for the giver and the receiver. We have to be open to changing the fundamental way we perceive the world, shatter our realitities. We have to be courageous enough to believe that we can actually change ourselves. Sometimes this courage is misunderstood for arrogance. No one can truely receive an arrogant man so I would temper my diatribes with a little self parody. Right now it's time to get a little arrogant if that is what it takes. Basically here are a few things that Lizzy has introduced into my life over the past three years. I'm proud that I have created a life where these teachings have flowed to me. I by no means believe I have truely learned them, however at the very least they are part of my consciouness.
It was only a few strokes into my canoe journey that the first resistance came up for me. I began to question how I operated in the world, who I was, why I acted the way I did. The stubborn resistant me said, "I am a man, men don't consider these things, men take action, they don't sit around like women and talk about their emotions!". A teacher filled me in on the whole 'resisting that which holds the most insight thing' for me and the flood gates opened. I was made painfully aware that I was doing everything I could to avoid feeling emotional pain so I could be what I thought was a "man". This offcourse had the entirely opposite effect of mainaining my little boy qualities. The secret strategies that I played out every day to avoid placing myself in a vunerable position was truly genius. My sub conscious mind is a tricky, conniving animal that can only be tamed by understanding and the life long pursuit of self awareness. I thought I felt my worst when I was swept away on an emotional tidal wave, drowning in sorrow, anger, frustration, hate, self loathing, regret. However the worst pain came from trying to avoid feeling the sadness. The avoidance was an insult to myself, I denied myself from being alive. I would make secret agreements with myself not to feel those things again at any cost. So I ended up living a life that was all about the avoidance of feeling. The secret is that it is through that pain that I first found the real gold of life which is happiness through self awareness. Or maybe just the pursuit of self awareness as I have only paddled a short distance from the banks of that lake.
When I was a child crying about the latest catastrophe to overcome me my parents might have told me once or twice to "stop acting like a child", to "grow up", to "act my age?" Already I was learning to repress my emotions. As an adolescent I found myself in many situations where I felt out of control, heart broken, depressed, angry. I was never taught how to understand my emotions, ultimately I was not taught how to function as an aware human being. This is primarily because our modern culture has no initiation rites for young men and women.The indiginous cultures of the world definitely have a thing or two teach us here. I was left to make it up for myself and invariably the decisions I made about how I lived my life involved the avoidance of emotional pain. This startegy ironically had the very opposite effect.As I got older I would chastise myself for feeling those seemingly negative emotions, I felt guilty about feeling my feelings.
Every day I would deny my emotions, pretend they were not present, drink alcohol or worse to avoid feeling them. On a logical level it makes sense that I would try to suppress my feelings, to suppress the potential for emotional pain. However as a human I intrinsically wanted to live on a level of heightened self awareness. We are the emotional lightening rods for the universe. When I am truly in my full humanity I am taking everything in, all of my emotions, all of my intuition. I feel everything and then distil them into truth. Truth through emotional courage creates a gateway to self understanding, to awareness and transformation.
When this emotional gateway is opened my strategies for avoiding pain dislove and emotional garbage can be filtered away, only the truth remains, the impurities are removed to leave only the gold. As aconscious human being I am an emotional alchemist. Did I really want to walk around like a stranger in my own body, too scared to touch anything for fear of breaking it? Why on earth did I try to do everything possible to avoid feeling what was coming up for me? Because my parents told me to, because I was terrified of the consequences, because I didn't want to be out of control? The irony is that all of those strategies created even greater pain because they all suppressed my true nature, what I love, what I was born to create on this earth was repressed through the avoidance of feeling my true self. Fears, confusion, depression and anxiety faded like the sun burning off a morning fog when I had the courage to enter my emotions, feel them and begin to understand how I operated in the world..
As I paddle off into the distance I know that Lizzy will be right behind you as you confront your darkest places, remember kicking and screaming isn't so bad, it just might take you somewhere you never imagined.
Love,
David.
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