Author: Connie Burns

One of the things that always strikes me when I’m looking at the culture of white/male/human supremacy, (I am not talking about indigenous culture here) is how as we learn to disconnect from (and desacralize) not only the “other”, whether human or non-human, but our own hearts/emotions and bodies. I will write in another place about our disconnection from other humans, and from the natural world, which are grievous losses. For today, I want to write about how I see this disconnect in terms of our experience of our own self-awareness, our loss of connection to the information systems we were born with that are meant to guide us to a fulfilling and authentic life. 

We get told (and modeled) over and over that our feelings are somehow invalid; that they need to be controlled, contained, and hidden from others. To do that, we learn to ignore, and when possible, simply keep them out of our awareness. I’m sure you’ve had the experience of being with someone who is clearly angry; they’re expressing it through tone and volume, words, body language (clenched jaw and fists,) but are saying, “I’m not angry!” We learn early on to be distrustful and/or ashamed of our feelings. We hear (spoken to ourselves or others) that feelings are “irrational,” “hysterical,” that we’re being “over emotional.”

So rather than being able to use the energy and wisdom of our feelings to help us find our way to an authentic, meaningful life, we cut off from them and learn to listen to others to find out how we should feel/think/act. We learn to look outside of ourselves to see who we’re supposed to be, rather than believing that we were made to live complex, messy, but beautiful lives of growth, learning and discovery. 

We are also taught that our bodies are “primitive”, less than, untrustworthy relative to our minds. “I think therefore I am,” being an old and fundamental statement of that belief system. And, as our bodies are the repositories of those complex and seemingly tainted feelings, we learn simply not to pay attention to either the sensations in our bodies (other than sickness, and some of us even learned to ignore those feelings as “weakness”) or our emotions. 

Thus, we learn to ignore the sense of discomfort that arises in our bodies when something internal is trying to get our attention. Our inner compass may be trying to tell us that something is off and needing to be looked at, that we need to change direction, speak up, or change something in our lives. But instead of being able to turn inward and listen, we turn our attention away from our bodies and look outside for confirmation of how we’re doing.

I believe each of us has a unique set of gifts (and limitations) that wants to be expressed into the world. We each have our own type of genius or calling, that we can only sense clearly when we are tuned into our bodies, our feelings, and our intuition, as well as our minds. When we are cut off from our feelings and from our bodies, we struggle to find our way to that authentic life.

Again, in Western culture we’re taught that we need to look to others to see how we “should” be and what we should do with our energy and our lives. Thus, making money and looking good in other’s eyes become primary ways of being “successful”. We’re told over and over (ceaselessly in these days of social media) that happiness comes from meeting the cultural expectations of success. 

This disconnection from our hearts and bodies means that even when our experience is telling us over and over that more money, more power, more image control, more “success” is not actually making us joyful, connected or fulfilled, we don’t register that. We think we must not be doing it well enough, that we need to work even harder, get more, and then we’ll finally feel really satisfied in our lives. The shame that arises, the feeling that there’s something wrong with how we’re doing our lives, makes it even harder to turn to our own inner guidance to know what direction to take. We’ve learned not to trust ourselves even when our inner voice is yelling at us that this isn’t working!

How different life can be when we are able to listen to our bodies and our emotions! I know how differently I live even day to day when I am attending to what my emotions and body are telling me about what I need, what I’m called to do, and what I am not called to, even when it feels like I “should.” Life begins to slow down. I am more present, and I feel a sense of clarity, even when others don’t agree with me. I’m less reactive to their disagreement and can hear that as their opinion rather than as a judgment or rejection of me. I have found over time that when I listen closely and process what is arising for me internally, I will end up being profoundly grateful for that guidance.