Learning to Feel

We must learn to feel the world and with feeling the world, feel and truly experience “the other.” Experiencing the other we see past the forces of indoctrination. In time we start to see things as they are. When the thought "other" no longer takes up a position between you and I – this position creating a screen, a curtain between us – we can genuinely let “the other” in. We may even be able to merge in the truth that we are One.

This learning to feel should not be taken too lightly. Just three words and as with so much in personal growth, therapy, and inner work, three words that might sound light or trite or inconsequential. We might write it off – oh yes learning to feel, I get it, I see. But learning to feel is profound, highly significant, and intensely serious.

It reminds us of the insight of the heroes in sci-fi novels and movies like Brave New World, 1984, or The Matrix. It is like the altered states we can experience through hallucinatory or mind-bending pharmaceuticals. Then again more accurately and closer to home it is like those life-changing meetings with transcendent Reality, God, or the Mystery that has been experienced by humankind since recorded time began.

Feeling may be natural but we have learnt to shut down to such an extent that we habitually experience only a very small amount of our total potential. The visceral psycho-physical discovery of feeling in its true capacity and potential can be overwhelming. Therefore it should be approached gently – not because we want to hold back, but because a sudden, radical change for the organism can be such a shock that the suppressors and the contraction that previously held the organism in an unnatural state of feeling suppression may strengthen to meet the perceived threat in reaction to the sudden change.

As is most often the case in effective inner work, slow gentle progress is best, most thorough, and most importantly most genuine and lasting. Ego-forces have had us in their grip for many years by the time we come to inner work. At one time these defenses were a viable effective answer to what we were facing in our lives. The most effective way to let them go is with understanding and with love.

Richard Harvey is a psycho-spiritual psychotherapist, spiritual teacher, and author. He is the founder of The Center for Human Awakening and has developed a form of depth-psychotherapy called Sacred Attention Therapy (SAT) that proposes a 3-stage model of human awakening. Richard can be reached at [email protected].