She said, "What color is the place where you keep your feelings?""Black and indigo like a moonlit night," I answered. "Close and safe, like a womb." And I felt myself, as I spoke, inside my feelings, as if I were inside a living cave.
"Where is this place?" she asked.
I formed my hands like two sides of a circle 10 inches across and positioned them in the air to the side of my left hip.
"What would happen if you moved them inside you?"
With that question, I was transported back in time softly, instantly. Looking out the window on a moonlit night in my past, I was realizing how I had pushed away, pushed out, set aside my feelings. From that past to that present, I had carried my heart alongside where no one could find it. It was close and attached, yet separate and alone.
I moved my hands to put my feelings back inside me.
In that moment, I knew the meaning of heartfelt.
--me liz strauss, letting me be
16 comments:
Safer to keep the heart on the outside.But then you miss so much.
Happy Valentine's Day Liz. :-)
liz, your analogy of feelings is so perfect. Perfect enough that I am compelled to wonder when you put feelings back in your body, where did you put them? I'm hoping not in the left side of your chest. They are fragile things and they always seem to get crushed or broken there. It strikes me that maybe an outside locale is a good thing.
I didn't realize until I reached the end of your post that I was holding my breath. I know the experience you speak of. I am drawn to visualize the place where I keep my feelings, and to remember the time when I did not know what they were, could not name them, thought I didn't have any. I have this strong urge now to go and visit them again. Thank you, Liz.
Hi Dr. John,
It is safer, but it puts a wall up that interferes with connecting.
Better to be brave and vulnerable.
Hi Tree!
Happy Valentine. I left cookies for you. Big hearts. :)
Hi Roberta,
I put them all through me, in every cell down to my fingers. :)
You can't separate them out anymore. :)
Hi Dawn,
I was grateful to find my feelings. They are much stronger than I ever gave them credit for being. They make me stronger too. :)
It is easier to dissociate it and not feel it, than to hold it and bear it. The burden seems too heavy...
But without it, aren't you empty?
Hi Bungi,
We can be brain dead or heart dead. Either one is less than a person. I'm finding that living with both together integrated is most natural.
I've been working with folks to show them how to do that. Two have found a new purpose based in their unique value -- head and heart together and are "graduating" this week. I've known both of them for six weeks.
That is great! It is true, what you say. One can't afford to be dead in the brain or the heart... Either ways, they are dead... And an interesting way of living - integrating the two... I wonder if i do?
Hi Bungi!
I wonder too. Do your heart and head know the same purpose?
There are times both seem to be aligned... And then there are times when my heart or head overtakes the other... And those are indeed times of confusion and pain... But, i guess integrating the two involves embracing the pain and disappointment as well...
Hi Bungi,
I really don't think so. I think that when we get our head, heart, and pupose going in the same direction . . . we feel a part of the cycle of things and don't hold them so tightly or give them the same power we once did.
My heart resides at the center of me,that's where I feel things. Sometimes it travels to my sleeve, but it always ends up back in it's usual place.
I love the colors in the place where your feelings live.The colors in my place change, today it is iridescent like mother-of -pearl edged in gold.
Hi Easy!
What a lovely description of your relationship with your heart. It so suits the you that I know.
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