Feelings make me/you/us real!

Hi - Long time no write. I am exactly sixteen and one half weeks pregnant and was suffering the first trimester "stuff" and am only just getting the energy and verve to put out fresh words from my heart on this blog. Ronnen, thanks for the encouragement to write.

For many many years, as I moved from apartment to apartment, I had this wonderful little poem by Sara Holbrook glued to my clock radio...yes a clock radio with tape deck. It was the size of a small Chevy. The poem feels particularly poignant today as Sara is absolutely wonderful at writing from a child's voice with such powerful insight. As I swim in both joyful and painful memories from my own childhood as a result of embarking on motherhood this poem captivates me again and reminds me of how totally pertinent it is for us to honor the truth of our feelings for they are the things which make us real and no matter how cross eyed someone might get when you express your feelings I just want to say for all of us...

YOUR FEELINGS ARE WHAT MAKE YOU REAL AND ANYONE WHO CAN'T HONOR YOUR FEELINGS IS NOT LETTING YOU BE A FULL SELF. SO THIS POEM IS A DECLARATION OF SELF AND OF OUR RIGHT TO LIFE.

Here's the poem and we can chat more after you read it...

Feelings Make Me Real
You are not the boss of me and what I feel inside.
Please don't say,"let's see a smile,"or tell me not to cry.
I am not too sensitive. You think my inside's steel?
You can't tell me how to be,
feelings make me real.

Here is the scoop; We are all feeling things all of the time. Each of us is made up of unique histories upon histories of material that spark individual responses to current day situations. Some of this reaction happens totally consciously, some of it totally unconsciously...some of our responses to things happen instantly and some of them take a while to bubble up. But all of what we feel is real.

The hardest part to understand is how two people who grew up in the same family or who were at the same event or who heard the same conversation can have two different experiences. Our minds tend towards wanting to slice the world up into black and white and if two of us were there inside a family, inside of a conversation or inside of a scene, our experience can still be totally different than others present simply because we are all different. What we often choose to do with that difference between us is say inside that surely one of us is right and one of us is wrong and then shut down to any more dialogue, judge or analyze the other person for their faulty experience or talk ourselves out of our own experience because it is different. Once this happens the chance for intimacy is "bye-bye".

Sometimes there are some really good trade offs for living with the status quo in relationships and limiting the uncensored expression of our feelings - don't get me wrong. While there may not be a ton of self expression of feelings and intimacy, if there is respect, kindness, nurturing, warmth, play, affection, a good pay check and other goods without abuse, criticism, passive aggressiveness, dis empowerment and other ills then it makes sense right? Some emboldened folks might say not even then...censoring myself is never right ... note I am more in your camp but I get why some people do it.

But if all the above ills exist in conjunct with the inability to completely express who we are, what we feel, what our experience is sometimes it is time to re evaluate the relationship. We can either:

a) talk with the person and tell them what you want and need b) walk away c) "a" followed by "b" if they don't respond to "a"

My intention in blogging on this topic and encouraging courageously making contact from our own unique different whole selves is because, in my experience, it makes life wonderful, yummy, and it IS the point. This kind of expression is what allows us to feel connected to something larger, it is what allows us to feel fully alive inside of our skin and on this planet, and it is exciting and challenging and growthful. But my other intention is to point out, some folks just won't meet us in this kind of living and maybe they just aren't our tribe.