Working For Magnificence

The most important and probably the most neglected work on the planet is emotional. That inner work of resolving the baggage that keeps us from love. Not the ability to subdue emotions and become measured and non-reactive, but the thorough resolution of wounding that leaves us genuinely and effortlessly at peace.

Humanity has the potential to become God-like in our capacity to remain loving in every circumstance.

It’s true.

It's rare, however, to be taught much about cultivating the emotional fluency that’s required. Quite the opposite in fact. We’re often encouraged to repress, deny, shut down, and silence our emotions. But with non-expression they hold their charge and linger to stalk us with sicknesses, accidents, and all manner of setbacks. We are complacent with the broken parts of ourselves because we lack clear awareness of the implications of emotional suppression.

If our positivity and talents are sails in the wind, then emotional baggage is the rudder. There’ll be endless drag and broken dreams so long as we deny all that’s beneath the surface.

It’s the habit of resisting that’s problematic. Not the feelings themselves. When stifled, cut short, made wrong and disregarded, they become pernicious. Conversely, emotions allowed to run their course are neutralised. Anger that’s thrashed out evaporates. Fear that’s voiced can be allayed. Tears that flow bring sweet relief. The charge is defused by surrendering to the feeling.

Why don’t we intuitively seek to address our wounds and make ourselves available to the tenderness on the other side? Why do we stay in the tangle of blocked emotion that keeps us oriented to the struggle? Why are we so afraid of giving our full attention to the truth of our feelings?

Because we’re groomed that way from the beginning.

At the moment of conception, we spark into being with an immaculate blueprint for who we can be. A perfectly unique design of personality, passions, desires and inherent skills that hold stunning potential. Our gleaming soul carries magnificence waiting to happen.

But we don’t arrive in a pristine environment.

At that same moment of incarnation, we fall under the influence of the prevailing emotions of our parents. And then friends, teachers, and the human collective at large. This vast, pre-existing emotional backstory contaminates us and dulls our shine with hand-me-down disappointments, trauma, sorrows, resentments, prejudices and hostilities. These impressions suggest how we too should feel about ourselves. We’re presented with a defective map of the world.

Far more than what we see or hear, it’s the weight of all we pick up emotionally that so significantly alters our wiring. Whatever is locked up and unfelt around us can be absorbed. Like air pollution, it’s mostly invisible but pervasively noxious. Society generally teaches us to keep it that way. Don’t cry, don’t yell, don’t be afraid. This repression perpetuates all the suffering of humanity. A pandemic if you like.

And this internal reservoir of disturbance, left unaddressed, gets continually paid forward from adults to children. The same emotional distortions can cascade through hundreds of generations. Thousands.

It becomes our emotional inheritance.

I can’t rely on anybody. No one listens to me. Women are disregarded. I’m never understood. I can’t make money doing what I love. Men are domineering. I’m overlooked. People are angry and abusive. My sensitive nature is unwelcome. I’m stupid. Life is hard.

We all have a personalised collection of thousands of these broken records. Unattended, these distortions echo year after year, job after job, relationship after relationship, generation after generation.

And so our faulty map leads us astray. We proceed through life making choices based on unconscious hurts instead of soulful passion. We marry to be mistreated in keeping with our family story. We develop an array of addictions to strategically mask our suffering. We become seduced by money instead of our dreams. We seek familiarity in place of invigoration. We accept what’s on offer rather than strive for what’s meaningful. We make endless choices that further contribute to the collective rudder of pessimism that says we can’t thrive and prosper by following our hearts.

The aim of the game should be to resolve our inner turmoil so that we become fluent in love rather than struggle. This result enabling us to love ourselves, love each other and to allow ourselves to be loved.

Why is it so confronting to claim self-responsibility for our emotions?

Admitting when we’re angry.

Revealing instead of defending.

Crying.

Why not aspire to the achievement of great emotional integrity and blissfulness in the same way we aspire to vocational success and material prosperity. Our lives would change radically if we all prioritised personal development over professional progress, feeling over thinking, being honest, transparent and vulnerable over clinging to control.

Humanity is not the only casualty. What we live with internally determines what we accept (and perpetuate) externally. The devastation of the earth is a direct reflection of our inner strife. We must mend our hearts if we’re to have any chance of recovering the earth.

Faced with troubles, all too often we work only on fixing the external, material aspects in order to effect change. But usually these are merely symptoms. We change our job, home or relationship for example, instead of addressing how we actually feel about ourselves.

Real transformation occurs from the inside out. It comes from attending to all that directs our rudder to take us incessantly off course. The more we clean up the inner darkness and damage, the more the outside climate self corrects.

The one requirement…

is feeling.

Feeling emotions all the way through to their natural completion. Attending to all the upsets we adopted unwittingly upon our arrival and all we added along the way. Not bottling them up, distracting ourselves, pretending time will heal, thinking our way out or rationalising upsets away, not medicating, putting on a happy face and pretending, not choosing stoicism or celibacy or Buddhist detachment.

Just feeling. Pure and simple. Honest and uninhibited like a child.

And thus we can unwind ourselves from all the tangle of excess baggage. The earlier we start, the less unpacking there is to do. And the more we do before having children, the less we pass on. This invaluable emotional work looks like:

Speaking the truth, no matter what.

Being willing to cry. In public.

Unapologetic aspiration for joyous magnificence.

Learning to make peace with fear.

Embracing the intimacy of vulnerability.

Finding our voice when we’re terrified to speak.

Trusting that life is better on the other side of all we guard against.

Sensitivity.

Reaching out to apologise even when we feel guilty or ashamed.

Allowing the sadness and fear that often hide beneath the bravado of anger.

Willingness to confront uncomfortable situations.

Always choosing to be the better person. Time and again.

Being transparent instead of trying to look good.

Trusting enough in the best outcome to risk saying the things that will cause upset in the short term.

Remaining open hearted no matter the hurt. Always. Always. Always

Aspiration to grow beyond known limits.

Facing fears directly instead of working around them.

Disclosing shameful secrets.

Considering the truth in unsolicited advice.

Recognising the difference between when to dig deep and when to call for help.

It takes courageousness to feel all the uncomfortable things we’ve repressed over a lifetime. But our relationship to emotionality ultimately determines either our demise or our salvation.

There is heavenly potential available to us if we’re willing to clean up shop. Imagine humanity getting to the point where of our genetic inheritance affirmed the very best possibilities instead of undermining us. Imagine that the pristine condition of each new child remained intact so that it was natural for everyone to realise their hopes and dreams.