When you shut down emotion, you’re also affecting your immune system, your nervous system. So the repression of emotion, which is a survival strategy, then becomes a source of physiological illness later on.
(Gabor Mate)
One day at the dinner table, completely out of the blue, my sister-in-law called me a stoic. I didn’t know how to respond then, but I didn’t mind her assessment either. She was probably right. By that time I lived in my head and tried following all spiritual rules to the best of my abilities, never mind that the demons tended to bubble to the surface on the heavy full moon nights. I had an extremely stressful job in the financial industry that required me to withstand the eternal ups and downs with a stiff upper lip. All this mental overriding of what I truly felt it only professionally but in the name of spirituality as well had left many emotional scars behind. I was visibly struggling even though I had already been several years into a spiritual Awakening process.
As providence had it, I met a healer who helped getting me in touch with what truly happened inside of me. I started accepting the depression, the rage, the suppressed sex drive and just let these energies run through me without engaging and without judgement. I finally did what the Zen disciplines advise us to do, I accepted myself and life as is, not as I wanted it to be. Amazingly I discovered that our feelings are not the enemy, our opinions about them are! Life is not the enemy, our regrets and disappointed expectations are. While it is true that thoughts and emotions can separate us from the Way, when we truly open up to what’s going on inside and when we are mindful, they drift away like clouds. Life here to support us every step of the Way.
I have met countless spiritual travelers who live in their head just as I used to do and want to enter the Kingdom of God with an intellectual sledge-hammer in hand. I am not saying that this path cannot succeed, I am just saying that it is a bit painful and not so good for our health. God is nearby in the bright day-light just as She holds our hand during a fierce autumn storm. Watch for yourself how the spiritual insights are flowing in a Dark Night of the Soul episode when we face them and not try to drink them away or find other means of escape. I still remember the afternoon when I cried my eyes out for the first time I could remember after an investment case had gone terribly wrong. I heard our youngest saying to his mom, ‘I think Papa is crying’, and it was ok. Along a spiritual path pain is present just like for everyone, but our suffering is optional.
Drop that intellectual façade and embrace life as is. For better or worse, your heart will show you the Way.
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