Knowing how we feel.
Marnix Pauwels ??
Coach | Schrijver | Gids bij spiritueel ontwaken | Begeiding tijdens en na psychedelica
This morning I felt sad, and now, around noon, I feel hope and optimism.
Just another day in the life of a human being, you’d say.
Nothing remarkable.
Unless you take a look at it.
(And looking at things is what I do.)
It IS remarkable.
Because how do we know how we feel?
How did we learn to read this ever changing energetic echo within us, and not doubt it?
How does it work, this amazing awareness of emotional colors and shifts, this in-the-moment knowing of what’s happing inside us, through us?
What IS a feeling?
The first day I went to school I saw the classroom covered with wiggly symbols.
I knew they were letters, but they meant less than nothing to me, and being able to someday make sense of them seemed totally impossible, and the whole idea of conquering words was even more discouraging.
Somehow I learned to get a feel for them and recognize them and use them and play with them, but it was a gradual and logical change in familiarity.
I didn’t learn to read my feelings the same way.
Feelings are inside us where nobody can see them.
And nobody was ever truly present with mine, feeling the exact same stuff in the exact same moment, being within me, next to me.
We learned by description, by stories, by looking at pictures of people with emotions plastered all over their face, by studying the changes in our parents.
We looked and looked and watched and listened and looked some more.
And then we made up our own conclusions, our own versions, and they solidified into a personal awareness system, our very own emotional legend.
‘This sensation means this and I like it.’
‘This sensation tells me this and I don’t want it!’
‘This one is bad.’
It’s all so sophisticated and we can feel the slightest changes.
But how?
I know exactly how I learned to read and write.
But emotions?
I will never understand.