Why is a very important question to ask ourselves. It is a question we often ask when something so-called ‘bad’ occurs, as in “Why do things happen the way they do?” or “Why did this happen to me?”.
This is where we have the opportunity to get really, really honest.
We all, on some level, can feel how much more there is to life. Much more than what we can see with our eyes or hear with our ears. There is a depth to life that we can sense, yet it is seemingly unreachable, lying just below the surface.
How many times have we hugged someone to feel something there? To feel a joy, a sadness, a withdrawal, a depth of something that we seemingly cannot put words to?
Often there is a struggle to put words to the depth of what is felt in life; a depth that seemingly has no words.
What is this depth?
We all come from something grander than words. We are multidimensional, multifaceted beings. We have a beingness to us, an unseen part of us that can only be felt when we allow ourselves to feel it. After all, we are human BEINGS, not human doings!!
Some may call this God, the Universe, our Soul, a higher power. It does not matter what we call it, but that we simply acknowledge that this depth exists.
How often have we been in situations in life where we feel so much more than what we can see? If we are truly honest, we can all feel how we have had these situations arise at different times in our lives: it could be whilst witnessing an accident (or being involved in one), at the time of the death or birth of another, in crisis moments or in moments of great joy. We have all had these moments. All of us, bar none.
From this unseen depth of life, messages are delivered to us constantly, if we are simply willing to observe. To slow down enough to feel, to sense what is going on just below the surface.
Yet we rush around with such force, constantly on the move, running from one thing to the next. We don’t slow down to actually feel what lies below the surface, instead preferring to numb or distract, with the seeming multitude of choices that life offers us!
If we were to stop and actually feel what is there to be felt, it might feel completely overwhelming. We see this as not OK. We are told and we are shown that we mustn’t feel this way, we cannot not be OK, because others are relying upon us, or we cannot stop. We are told it is ‘all too hard’, and we constantly have expectations placed upon ourselves to be something different. To be ‘better’: a better sister, a better mother, a better friend, a better lover, a better husband, a better father, a better employee, a better co-worker, a better insert title.
Well, I am here to tell you it is a load a BS. I am here to deliver the message to you that you do not need to be ‘better’, for there is nothing wrong with you on the inside. You are already whole and complete; you were born that way. You don’t need to be ‘better’ or to strive for being something that you have a picture that you ‘should’ be!
Why do we have so many pictures, a multitude of layers upon us, of what we need to be, when we are born gorgeous tiny bundles of joy, already perfect, whole and complete? Why is it that we are told over and over in life that we need to be ‘better’?
What in life is feeding us these pictures that we so-called must ‘live up to’?
If we stop long enough, can we not feel the pressure of all these pictures, all these layers?
Everywhere we turn in life, we are shown pictures of what we must be, what we must get to: got to get a better house, a better car, a better job, better hair, better face, better thighs, better phone, better computer, better shoes, better tummy, better nose, better makeup, better nails, better whatever. If we can stop for a moment, and allow ourselves to truly feel, we can feel the compression in this, in the trying to live up to pictures we are constantly fed in society, everywhere we turn. We cannot go anywhere without being bombarded by pictures and images: TV, billboards, shopping malls, magazines, flyers, our neighbours and friends talking about the latest new ‘thing’. It is everywhere, ubiquitous in our society.
But if we are born whole and complete, not needing anything, except being tended to in a tender and delicate way, fed, changed, held, etc. then why are we told as adults we are not good enough and must be ‘better’?
And have we ever stopped to ask WHY?
Stopping the incessant race inside to ‘get somewhere’ might actually lead us to feeling what is just below the surface of life, and we may indeed realise there is far, far more to life than meets the eye. That there is a depth to life that matters, that needs to be given priority, to be given words, to express. Acknowledging this depth and the raciness we have been in oftentimes requires a courage and an honesty in our own lives: to see how we have been with ourselves and with others in a not so loving way.
But not feeling this depth requires us to remain living life on the surface. It requires us to stay on the top, skimming along and not acknowledging the depth, and with this, we miss out. For if we shut off our ability to feel this depth, we also shut off our ability to feel the depth of joy, love, harmony, stillness and the truth that lie within. We rob ourselves of the incredible depth of feeling that we feel. We remain at the surface we walk around life in a pseudo zombie-like state, being moved by something that does not allow us to go to the depths of our Soul and feel the feelings that lie within.
We are robbed of this depth.
We move in a way that we are not able to acknowledge that this depth even exists, scurrying around, and it so robs us of everything that is truly loving, true and truly holding of ourselves and of others. We shut down ourselves and we shut out others. We miss out on life.
There may be great fear of going to this depth of feeling, fear of feeling what lies just below the surface. All of us have this.
Yes, ALL of us.
You are not alone.
But to bury it further is not the answer, for it needs to come up and out, to be acknowledged, to be spoken about, in order to feel with lies beneath. This is where we may need support: support from someone that can hold us in a loving way whilst we uncover the layers and free ourselves from the pictures we have been buried in and told we need to live up to.
Why remain living on the surface of life when there is so, so much more richness and depth to feel? So much more joy and love to feel, and to express to each other?
Why rob ourselves and others of this gorgeous depth? ✨
Comments