Feeling "Burdened, Guilty, and Ugly"
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As a response to our Tip last week about traumatic memories, we heard from another reader, who writes: "Your reply that we don’t have enemies inside us that are trying to hurt us has been so helpful for me in Focusing. Recalling those words have been very liberating for me.
"There are times when I get stuck and drawn into an internal conversation with someone who seems to have a life of their own inside me…in a negative way. I feel burdened, guilty, and ugly when I am going through these times and have a difficult time getting back to Focusing. It’s like a fear lurking around the corner waiting to raise its head. Even Focusing is out the window during these times and gradually it passes. How does one get through this stuckness?"
Dear Reader,
What’s most difficult, in the difficult times of our lives, is when we lose the ability to be in Presence, the ability to be with what we feel. And then Focusing isn’t possible, because Focusing needs Presence.
It sounds like that’s exactly what you are describing. When you say "I feel burdened, guilty, and ugly," we know you aren’t in Presence, because in Presence we wouldn’t feel identified with those painful qualities. We might still feel them… but from a "being with" place.
That would sound like this:
"I’m sensing something in me feeling burdened, and guilty, and ugly."
Maybe we would add: "And I’m saying Hello to it." You know you’re in Presence when you can say Hello to the places in you that have feelings, without reacting against them, without trying to make them different, without judging them at all.
And in the difficult areas of our lives we almost always need to say Hello to two sides or two warring parts. It sounds like you have those: something in you that feels like it has a life of its own inside you in a negative way, and something in you that reacts by feeling burdened, guilty, and ugly.
What a difference it can make to experience that something in me feels burdened instead of that I feel burdened! If you take the time to really notice how that feels in your body, you may sense how the first way of saying it feels more free, more expansive, more compassionate, more curious….
And nothing is being pushed away or made wrong. "Something in you that feels burdened" becomes something to turn toward, to sense in your body, to get to know better. It has something more to reveal about what it doesn’t want and what it needs. You, in Presence, will be its gentle listener.
The result of this gentle listening is often an astonishing transformation. Do try it–and let me know how it is for you.