“Yesterday’s liberating insight is today’s jail of stale explanation.”
This week I had an unexpected day trip to Loch Lomond with one of my daughters. We had met up initially to just hang out in the city as we hadn’t seen one another for a week or so as she had been at an international music festival in Spain. It was such a beautiful day and as we completed our chores it occurred to me that Loch Lomond would be a wonderful place to take her too.
Luckily she was all in.
We drove past the schools I had attended as a child and passed the house that my parents used to live in. Although many years had rolled by the house still looked very similar and as we drove by my daughter began to cry. She was only 4 years old when my dad died and they had had a beautiful connection. I wasn’t unduly concerned about her tears.
Like all of us she was feeling her thinking. Thoughts instantaneously flew into her head as she saw the house and at that moment she experienced a tsunami of thought about her pop and grandma. It wasn’t a conscious process. It just happened. Tears flowed.
I saw this myself so clearly again a few months back as I waited on friends to arrive from the USA at a local airport. As I stood there lost in thought I saw humans of all ages, sizes, shapes, and colour, looking happy, sad, or joyful as they hugged hello and waved goodbye.
My head was effortlessly filling with stories about who they were and what they must be feeling. My eyes filled with tears, my smile grew unconsciously wider, and every now and again I would become aware that I was only ever feeling my thinking in the moment. It was a beautiful rollercoaster, thoughts, and feelings flowing through every cell of my being. I was being given the gift to notice noticing the thought-feeling connection in motion.
The Three Principles, first articulated by Sydney Banks give us all the opportunity to understand how we create our experience of life. Knowing this is why I was awake to the fact that I was only ever feeling my thinking at the airport as was my daughter as we passed my parents’ old house.
In our family we let life live through us. We understand that our moods fluctuate naturally during the day and that is nothing for us to be concerned about. We notice that when our moods are low we are better to keep our mouths shut and our hands in our pockets and when our mood is lighter we seem to be gentler and kinder to everything around us, including ourselves. We encourage our feelings to flow through us; to experience life in all of its forms.
When my girls were growing up I often told them that letting their tears flow was a sign of strength, not weakness. We evolve and grow with every life lesson and there is no need to be afraid of it. Our experiences just like our moods and our thoughts always pass. Let your laughter and your tears flow by really feeling life in the moment and don’t let thoughts of embarrassment or fear hold you back from being unashamedly human.
As Syd Banks says, “If the only thing people learned was not to be afraid of their experience, that alone would change the world.”
Until next time, take care and let life live through you.[/fusion_text][fusion_text]
All my love,
Jacquie Forde RGN RM
