The Courage to Feel

The purification process is based on the activity of spiritual light in interaction with both the physical self and the mental-emotional self.

Because light reveals, to participate with awareness in this process, one must be willing to see and to know what is being revealed. This willingness can be easy when revelations are more gentle and the process more gradual. But when new situations create a more profound effect on the psyche, then the courage to feel can be both more important and more difficult to access.

Often, when life presents challenges, there is a desire to blame the external situation for our emotions and to feel justified in continuing to feel what we feel. This perspective is commonplace when we look at life through the lens of the physical rather than the spiritual. However, the understanding obtained by looking through the lens of the spiritual is that whatever is being brought into our life through an external situation is serving the purposes of our healing and growth. This is not to say that 'bad things cannot happen to good people,' but that even then, the product or result of such a circumstance can be used for the good.

The courage to feel is often challenged in instances where our usual ways of avoiding, denying, or rationalizing things prompt us to accept our 'cover story' for what we do and for how things are, rather than a deeper level of truth. For example, we may tell ourselves that the reason we are not sleeping at night is because of drinking coffee or not exercising enough during the day. These may be contributing factors, but the underlying reason may be found in the anxiety or agitation which is operating as a subtle energy in the body which wakes us up when we have become physically quieter.

Most people have 'cover stories' - things they are willing to tell themselves that create a sense of inevitability about feeling the way they do. This 'cover story,' while painful to admit, may be concealing an even more painful truth that the conscious self is not yet willing to recognize. And so the 'cover story' creates a self-presentation that offers a sense of greater comfort with ourselves than we would have if we looked at things more closely. It presents an understanding and conceptual framework without anything new coming into the picture that would disturb us.

The courage to feel applies to what is known and what is unknown. What is known are the feelings we have or have had that we recognize then try to push aside. What is unknown are the feelings that may arise once we open ourselves to the power of God's light and to seeing what what has formerly been concealed. The sequence of events initiated by such openness can bring to us an unknown set of circumstances which, while being an answer to our prayers, may not be the answer that we were hoping for.

In all of purification, the courage to feel is an essential ingredient. Blessed are those who possess such courage and who trust the process of awakening as it flows from moment to moment. This process carries the embodied soul from one level of truth to another, until all is laid bare and only love remains.