Hello and Welcome back!
If you haven’t done so already, please do go ahead and read:
This week, I am going to be diving DEEP into what it REALLY looks like on a practical level, how to level, to follow your feelings.
This is one of those topics that I speak to a lot around here, because it’s one of those skill sets that can be very challenging to master - but once we do it can become fully life changing.
A LOT of spiritual and self help teachers tell us that we need to ‘listen to our intuition’ and ‘follow what feels right to us’ - but they are missing some VERY important details and context with this message.
They are missing the fact that most of us have been trained to see consensus reality pain and pleasure as guidance, and we’ve been trained to ignore, deny and misinterpret our actual feelings. Meaning when we try to ‘follow our feelings’ we end up simply re-creating out problems over and over again because while we THINK we are following our feelings, what we are actually doing is just following our conditioning.
This is a big part of what the self love path is, so I hope this exploration serves you today!
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Following Feelings Means Figuring Out The Difference Between TRUE Reality And Consensus Reality
A BIG part of this was learning the difference between consensus reality pleasure/pain and real reality pleasure/pain.
When I say I learned to follow my feelings, what I REALLY mean is that I first needed to learn how to understand that the pain that came from being misunderstood, rejected, told I was wrong, told I was evil, told I was ‘making others feel bad’, from being DIFFERENT, the pain that came from doing something different and out of my comfort zone and the pain of letting go of my security in order to find something that worked better than what I had was actually GROWTH pain. This kind of pain required a LOT of self compassion, a lot of grace, a lot of learning to be on my own side, learning to work through shame, learning to VALIDATE myself even when others radically opposed me - so that I could then move forward in the ways I NEEDED to move forward to make life better for myself.
This kind of pain is consensus reality pain. This kind of pain is filled with shame, blame and guilt, and this kind of pain actually takes me AWAY from real reality and into fantasy.
This kind of pain was not the kind of pain that told me ‘no, you’re on the wrong path.’ This was the kind of pain that was trying to keep me SAFE by trying to keep me the SAME. Trying to keep me IN LINE. I had to learn that this was CONSENSUS REALITY pain - and it was not the guidance kind of pain that I needed to follow.
Next, I had to learn that the pleasure that came from being loved, being approved of, being accepted, being told I was ‘good’ by others, being told I was right, doing what everyone else was doing, fitting in and generally being validated by others isn't necessarily a sign that I was actually on the right track. Sure, it felt good to be loved, included and approved of - but so often the reality of doing what it took to GET that approval meant I had to abandon myself. It meant I had to deny the actual OUTCOMES I was getting. It meant I had to ‘go along’ with what everyone else was doing/what I’d always done - and this wasn’t always what was truly best. So again, I had to learn that the good feelings of being loved and accepted weren’t necessarily the guidance to keep doing what I was doing or to keep walking the path I was on.
This was consensus reality pleasure, and while there were *sometimes* elements of truth within it, generally speaking, it was again the kind of pleasure that led me away from looking at real reality, and into a state of looking at what OTHER PEOPLE thought reality was.
This was the kind of pleasure that blocked me from seeing what was truly real - and that’s why again, it was something that needed to be questioned. Because the truth is, just because a lot of people agree with something or believe in something, doesn’t make it TRUE. Doesn’t make it helpful. Doesn’t make it effective.
From there, I had to learn to really FEEL the TRUE REALITY pain of what I was doing. I had to learn to take a step back and truly assess if something was giving me the results I wanted or not.
I had to allow myself to feel the pain of what was normal, and to open myself to the idea that if something hurt, it wasn’t right - even if everyone around me believed it was, even if everyone around me was doing it, even if everyone around me believed in it. Even if it got me approval. Even if it was logical to my current understanding. Even if it matched my world-view.
If I slowed down, checked in with myself and felt that sting of something not being right inside, if I felt that agitation, if I felt that sense of contraction, shut down, shakiness, if I looked objectively at the results and they weren’t what I wanted - no matter how much it ‘made sense to me’ that what I was doing ‘should’ work because of the world view I had - that I had to trust these feelings.
This was true reality pain, and it was never coming from a place of shame, blame or guilt. True reality pain was never about blaming myself. It was never about seeing myself as fundamentally anything - it was about looking at RESULTS and OUTCOMES and assessing what was happening in REAL REALITY. This is how I knew it was true - it wasn’t about me, my character, my morality or my worthiness - all of that was inherent - this was about being able to look at REALITY for how it was actually unfolding and working WITH that.
This was one of the hardest feelings to follow - because SO much of the time in acknowledging what HURT, acknowledging what didn’t work, acknowledging what wasn’t getting me the results I wanted - I was then opening myself up to having NO idea what to do instead, no idea what other ways of life were available, and no idea how to make myself feel safe as I was going to then have to BE DIFFERENT. It was SCARY to admit what really hurt in real reality because again, I never STARTED having awareness of what else to do, and there was ALWAYS a sense that I was just going to lose everyone and everything, or that there was no other way. But eventually, as I started to practice ALLOWING myself to feel how I actually felt and ALLOWING myself to open to the possibility that my true feelings were right - answers ALWAYS came. And the came in the form of…
Reality pleasure. This was the next piece of the feeling puzzle I needed to give me the full picture.
Learning to tune in to what felt expansive for me, what felt exciting, what felt GROUNDED, what felt hopeful but not BUZZY or like it was going to ‘fix or change my whole life.’ I had to start to tune into what felt interesting to me. What opened my mind and heart. The steps that FELT settled in my body even if they made no sense to my mind or even if I had no idea where they would lead or if they would lead to anything.
I had to embrace what felt TRUE to me - even if it meant being weird, being misunderstood, going alone, being rejected.
I had to admit when things DID work, when things DID make things better even when that contradicted what got me love and approval and even when that contradicted how I believed the world to work.
I found that the more I could acknowledge what didn’t feel good, and then remain OPEN, I was always able to find something that DID. I couldn’t shut down at the first step of not knowing and feeling the earth drop out from under me.
Real reality ALWAYS showed up for me in the form of steps, ideas, inspirations, words, philosophies and actions that FELT good in my being independent of what anyone else was doing/believed/thought/approved of.
Again I knew I was following the truth when the feelings of pleasure were grounded and stable. When they were rooted in a high, buzzy, ‘this is going to change my whole life, this is THE answer, this is IT’ feeling - I knew I had to back up a little. Real reality pleasure always feel settled and stable, never shaky and overinflated.
Learning to put all of these different feelings into their appropriate boxes, and learning to follow TRUTH vs. what got me love and approval - THAT is what I mean by ‘following my feelings.’
The work I had to do FIRST was to work through the guilt, shame, blame and fear that came with being different, and all the messages that told me that if I didn’t do what everyone else was doing that this made me a ‘bad person.’ I had to work through the shame and guilt that was projected onto me when I was in pain - the idea that I was in pain because I was bad, wrong, guilty or deserving somehow. I had to work through the shame, blame and guilt that was telling me if I changed I was admitting flaw and fault. I still work through this today. I now know that ANY feeling rooted in shame, blame or guilt is not a feeling to follow, but a feeling to investigate - because it’s not what I’m really feeling and it’s not TRUE awareness or guidance.
There’s always something UNDER the guilt and shame - and THAT is where I usually find truth.
ALL of that was consensus reality pain that was driving me AWAY from true pain and true pleasure. I learned that shame, blame and guilt are ALWAYS lies - and THAT was my biggest clue that I was in consensus pain, not living in reality. I learned that COMPASSION for myself always led me to my TRUE feelings - and those TRUE feelings led me to REAL awareness.
For me, consensus reality pain showed up the MOST in the idea that I was evil for being different. For pointing out what wasn’t working. For not going with the flow. For not being ‘easy going.’ I had to work through that, in order to connect with what I was REALLY feeling - which was often anger, outrage, deep sadness and grief and a true, deep desire for CHANGE. Learning that when I felt blame, shame and guilt that this ALWAYS meant I wasn’t seeing reality clearly was a HUGE game-changer for me.
THIS was the true beginning of this whole self love path.
Compassion for myself first and foremost.
Deep, deep understanding that I was not shameful, wrong, bad or guilty - and working that muscle as much as possible.
Learning to differentiate between consensus reality pain and pleasure and true pain and pleasure.
Learning that shame, blame and guilt were always lies.
Learning that pain was pain even if I didn’t have an alternative right away, and learning to follow what truly felt good even if I couldn’t logically understand it at the time.
Learning that rejection and acceptance of others wasn’t what made something true or false.
THESE were the ROOTS of true feeling.
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How is this landing for you? What is resonating? Would you be willing to open to the idea that all shame, blame and guilt are lies, and that there are TRUE feelings UNDER those stories?
What if feelings are NEVER there to tell you that you are bad or wrong - but simply to help you see the truth of what does and doesn’t work in life?
How would that feel?
<3
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