Photo by Bekah Russom on Unsplash

Successful writers write.  Successful writers write their asses off.  I, however, have been quite lazy in my writing lately and it’s time for that to change.  So for the next 30 days I will post a piece…my morning musings, so to speak.  You are not obligated to read them.  No offense taken.  But I started this blog as my white space to say whatever is bubbling up for me and so it’s all going to get spilled here in my happy place.

With that being said, a thought popped into my head just as I was drifting off to sleep last night. That always seems to be the case for me.  Just enough of a juicy thought to keep me from falling into the arms of Morpheus.  So instead of letting this idea steal me from my drowsy brain waves, I got up and scribbled it down, “What if we were taught to feel instead of to think?”

I mean we come into this world only knowing how to feel and it’s through our feelings that we communicate with the rest of the world.  The hope is that our parents learn the difference between our cries to discern our needs and mirror our giggles and coos when we are happy.  As infants all we know is how we feel.

But tragically, at some point an event happens that makes us feel unsafe, unprotected even for the most doting parents and our blissful space of “feeling” shifts into “thinking” to protect ourselves from experiencing that scary feeling again.  I know a lot people will spend hours on the therapist’s couch trying to illuminate that one moment when things shifted.  And although I was only two I remember my moment…trauma does that to a little person.

I was hospitalized for pneumonia, a virulent strain that was quickly killing kids at the time.  It was the first time that I remember being afraid, unprotected and cold as I sat barely clothed in an oxygen tent.  I could see my mother through the plastic but she couldn’t hold me and I was freezing.  I remember nurses bustling about.  I remember getting my blood drawn.  I remember feeling separation for the first time.

I was separate from my mother.  I was separate from my father.  I was no longer part of a trinity of protection.  I was alone.

And here’s the tragedy of those moments, those traumatic events that rip us out of our blissful union…they permeate the fabric of our being and our oneness with God.  We now spend the rest of our lives feeling separate from all of creation and our creator chasing down our worthiness to be in union once again.

The ironic part is that we were never really separated.  It’s an illusion that this human condition, this skin suit journey brings with it.

So what if we could minimize the run amok thinking and teach kids to “feel,” to stay in their bodies when the emotions come instead of in their heads where the fear resides?  What if this was taught in school along with all of the other “thinking” pursuits?  I’ve read a few articles where some progressive schools are using meditation instead of detention to help kids manage the feelings that created the classroom disturbance.

This is awesome, forward thinking stuff that just might have the power to revolutionize education, educating the “whole” person and healing generations of destructive patterns.  Any avenue that can help our children hold onto their divine union, internalize their sacred nature and promote an understanding of belongingness is healing balm for sure.

We came here to love deeply, to be in union with all of God’s creations, to be the arms and legs of our creator.  We came here to feel.  We came here to think.  But it’s when we separate our feelings from our minds that we obliterate our oneness with each other and our God.

Blessings,

Susan