Feelings …

Triggered by exercise, music, and life … each moment I dip into my expanding pool of feelings … exposing more and more each day. When they speak it is like a runaway wild fire … causing me to burst into emotional flame as one moment moves to the next, without a means of damping or decreasing the intensity until the flames find their own peace and naturally diminish.  Clearly I see that I am a man of extremes …extreme feelings of warmth and pleasantness … extreme feelings of deep, penetrating sadness as though my soul has been impaled by some spear. All are experienced intensely and experience outside my conscious control. And because they are so intense, understanding their message is made more complex.

At times I seem so complex, so ill-defined, so raw and unfinished. So many, many years I operated with the old scrip that guys didn’t feel … that having feelings just wasn’t manly.  Added to that my scripts from parents said feelings got in the way … got in the way of working hard and getting on with life.  So I just kept adding all that on top on me … closing off to feelings for so many years. 

But times have changed … big time!!  I now swim in a pool of feelings … all affecting me as described.  And as my feelings continue to evolve and reveal themselves I feel it all much more intensely. At times, it overwhelms … takes my breath away … makes me feel like an infant just beginning to learn how to walk. Feelings …. a wonderful, painful, yet so important set of tools for this new journey. 

“It is important to expect nothing, to take every experience, including the negative ones, as merely steps on the path, and to proceed.”  – Ram Dass

Love … a word that is woven into our culture … a word that we all define in so many unique, personal ways.  As with everyone, love exists as threads in the fabric of my life as well.

In my heart there hides a love song … a song that has been created as I’ve live my life.  A song whose lines reflect the broken journey of a man trying to live life, then discovering that his life was written by others.  So I choose … choose to write my lyrics to this song titled love and I discover how to see and feel … and I engage in writing new versus for this song called love … verses needed to take back my life and speak with a new, genuine voice that reflects who I truly am inside and my unique form of love.

Sounds are being tried on, rhythms are being explored, and a new song is under construction.  Though beginning to emerge, a harmonic rhythm remains elusive and has yet to rise from the fog of awakening.  Clarity comes and goes, and at times it seems as though the work has only begun even though it seems like endless time and effort have been expended.  How long will it take to compose this new song?  I do not know and realize that it may never be sung.  What I do sense when able to reflect with an open heart is that I feel like I have so much love to give … endless love to give … love that at times cries out to escape into the universe and world … feelings that seem to reflect years of love held back and buried within me because of fears.

Though excited by each new discovery of myself and my true story, my fatigue grows.  I push to understand … assemble the evidence that will reveal the path and story that will be my future.  But the voice of my spiritual partner has open a door into new awareness for me … awareness that suggests that my old way of wanting clarity and understanding is flawed, and conflicts with how the universe unfolds in random yet guided directions.  An awareness that reveals that seeking clarity and understanding may never come because the situation I am immersed in is evolving as quickly as I am understanding … creating a dynamic of never being able to know.  My old style is like a dog chasing its own tail … an endless effort that simply does not fit the condition called life nor fits what is love.  The result … an opportunity to choose … a choice to change yet one more time … a choice to embrace letting go and being in the moment rather than continuing to adopt my established way to understanding.  Yes … another huge change in the ocean of changes that seems to be my life these days.

In the end we all have such few days.  Making as many days as possible feed our hearts and souls seems a better choice for living life.  But I have a tired heart … a heart that is awaken, changing, facing fears, and learning to let go. A heart that at times desires to retreat from the endless demands of self-awareness and awakening. But life demands that my heart remain open to hear and feel during each moment a breath is taken. So I must discover a means to bring peace to my heart while it engages each moment.  Peace warms and soothes a tired heart, even one deep inside a man taught to be strong and resistant to abuse.  And my song … my song of love … it still goes unsung … but with my new awareness maybe more of the melody will be revealed … at least it is my hope.

“Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.” – Henry Miller

When the message is clear, one must listen …

Yes … changes abound and my life seems filled to overflowing with change.  Over the past couple of weeks significant change is occurring once again … change that has triggered deep emotions and created clear and strong messages for me to take in.

Fear, anger, frustration, and renewed realization that elements in conflict with what is my truth, the way I wish to be and live, are all now surfaced and exposed.  Where before I was able to at least select those things I could control and execute them day-to-day such that joy and rich feelings resulted, now new influences, management styles, and dictates are striping even that away.  The flow of painful feelings now speak volumes … and I choose to listen.  My spiritual partner helps me process and assess so that the messages become clearer.  And the message is clear … I must choose to accept things as they are and bathe in pain, or change.  I am at a tipping point where I now stand, deeply connected to my feelings.  I look inside, feel my feelings, and hear the messages.  The choice becomes clear … I choose to change.

The fears push me to retreat and fall back in exhaustion at the thought of mounting the effort I perceive is needed to make these changes.  But talks with my spiritual partner reveal a path … set intentions and begin by taking small steps.  So I take a small, simple step … then another … and the feelings inside me begin to shift and feel much less uncomfortable … then another step … and the feelings even begin to feel energizing … then another small step … and the shifting from fear and pain continues.  What a fascinating process … what a wonderful result.  I begin to lift from pit of despair into the excitement of opportunity, and though there are no guarantees I feel empowered and moving towards my intentions … not victimized and oppressed by new circumstances.

This is new … fresh … only underway for a couple of days now.  But it feels right … good … and encouraging.  Oh how important it is to listen … listen to feelings and inner voices.  Look out new and unknown path, here I come …!

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” – Alan Watts

The dance of life ….

I am learning the dance.  The life dance.  But the dance has many complex steps.  I don’t know the steps but I try to learn them as I flow across the floor.  I place my feet with awareness but still fall down … I concentrate yet still make mistakes … I desire to learn the steps but am reminded that the dance takes practice … but sometimes mistakes offer no recovery, no correction.  There are so many steps to learn … steps in forming relationships … steps dealing with work adjustments and dissatisfaction … steps to becoming more self-aware … steps to being in love … steps aimed at resolving old wounds and pain … they are unfolding so quickly … all in this moment … why are they all coming at me now, piled on top of one another, all creating feelings.  I am flooding with feelings!  And I am tired … worn down by the pace of changes and adaption.

I know not the future, and hardly understand the present.  But I continue … I choose to remain engaged in this process … holding on to nothing certain other than my life in this moment and in foreseeable moments.  Trust, faith, courage, and love … all colorful clothing I wear as I move and learn.  This dance … this “life” … this thing I move through on our way to the horizon.  Such a dance … such a dance of feelings and discovery … such an effort … but I chose life so I must dance.

“We go through those circumstances in order to evolve into people who can hold to our loving center no matter what the world throws us.” – Marianne Williamson

Yes … an intention … to be a person who can hold to my loving center no matter what the world throws at me.  So much work to arrive at that place.  Yes, circumstances that offer important lessons and foretell the need for more changes.  I am land forever changing … always changing … never the same from one sunrise to the next. It offers a constant sense of discovery … revealing the new … but also presents an equal sense of loss … leaving a part of me behind.

I lead a team at work.  I love my team.  I love those aspects that resonate so deeply and make me feel human … the loving and shared caring, the collaboration and shared accomplishments, the cooperation shared to surmount challenges together … all bring an up swelling of feelings even as I write.  But the context around me … it does not nourish me … it dilutes that which gives me joy and rich feelings … the context that has forever been there due to my choices to be a leader standing in the middle of an organization.  Yes … I made those choices and as such, what results is my own doing.  I made conscious (though unaware) choices feeling I was willing to accept the “down side” for the gains and benefits provided by the opportunities.  But now … after many years of accepting what betrayed my core, in many roles and settings, my willingness to simply accept is no longer the same … my desire to spend what time I have remaining engaged in the undesirable activities of this surrounding context has diminished to a level of intolerance. 

My intentions are now forming … beginning to reflect the changes I am feeling must now come … but I need more guidance from the somewhere on how this all fits together.  I feel confused … but not angry.  I simply feel the challenge before me … a challenge that requires effort to address. 

So I enter today seeking signs and guidance … moving in small, initial steps toward my next set of changes.  There must be change because I can no longer remain in a place where only a small part of the whole nourishes me.  Changes needed but yet unknown … life being lived in moments of confusion and in moments of clarity.

“Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain… To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices – today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it. – Kevyn Aucoin

A smooth journey?  Are you kidding … ??

This journey of discovery … of discovering the real “me” hidden behind the scripts, stamps, stories acquired along my walk through life … is a lumpy, bumpy road.  Though I’ve been at this for some time (almost a decade or more) it has only been in the last couple of years, especially within the last year, that giant gains and changes occurred.  Up to then, my journey made small gains … open doors just a crack, exposed enough to entice but not allow entry.  I also encountered stop signs and rest stops along the way where I thought I had reached greater understanding and felt maybe I had arrived at my expected destination.  But wow, was I wrong! 

First, what I thought was understanding was only the beginning of sensing from new perspectives.  Next, I discovered that having expectations was limiting myself … missing some of the truly great adventure about to unfold.  Next, I discovered that there is no end … but instead a lifelong walk that begins to change you more and more right before your eyes and in such wonderful ways.   And the excitement and joy from these changes is incredible … and fills me with joy and feelings never felt so deeply before in my years.  And it creates enthusiasm and excitement for even more change because what unfolds is filled with such rich surprises and feelings.

Finally (but more exists), the trip is far from completed because there are so many burdens from the past that only time, work, and increasing awareness can reveal … it appears to be the only way to expose them in order to explore them, understand their real truth, and place them aside so that they no longer add weight upon my back.  So many old burdens created from living the old way for so many years … all deeply engrained and carved into me … creating the need to do the work to move through and past them, remove them from blocking “me”.  The work required is great … but the resulting freedom, joy, and feelings are worth every moment of effort.  For me … the result becomes greater and richer and more full each time I discover an artifact from my past and place it alongside the road and feel the change it brings … and it has created a time in my life like no other … a time so GOOD, RICH, and filled with JOYFUL FEELINGS … a time I have never lived before but am so very, very glad to be living now.  It is well worth the price of admission, the sweat of the effort, and the discomfort from revisiting old stuff because what it results in is truly a life worth living … a life never dreamt of but now felt each and every day.  Yes … lumpy and bumpy, but worth every step I take.

An early morning moment of awareness ….

I am discovering …

I am a man of great sensitivity and capacity for love

Who is healing deep, painful, and long felt wounds

Who is finding himself … a “himself” hidden for so many years

Who is embracing this new dawn with excitement and desire

and feeling … richly feeling like never before

It is simply 1 man’s journey … mine

“The most important aspect of love is not in giving or the receiving: It’s in the being.  When I need love from others, or need to give love to others, I’m caught in an unstable situation.  Being in love, rather than giving or taking love, is the only thing that provides stability.  Being in love means seeing the Beloved all around me.” – Ram Dass

Coming from love, not fear.  Being in gratitude.  Seeing the world compassionately.  Setting intentions to act with integrity and with loving actions.  All are part of the fabric of “being in love”.  All are mentioned and encouraged by those that share their stories of traveling life’s path looking for what resonates … what enriches … what creates warm, deep, wonderful feelings.

Living my life such that every aspect operates from a place of love … it is my intention.  I have felt the joy of living moments in my life this way, and that direct experience has made “being in love” my truth because among other things it serves as a compass and helps me as I make choices.  I do my best to act in ways that show love for the world … love for others … and love for myself.  I am not always successful, but those times I do succeed are so incredibly good … feel so wonderfully rich and empowering.  So I know … I believe … that “being in love” is right.  It is the intention of a life time … literally.