Our culture and our religious structures emphasize the importance of giving of ourselves, putting others first. While there is growing awareness of the value of emotional literacy, there is not a lot of actual teaching on how to be present to our feelings, and why this presence is important.
Jesus’ words are often used to emphasize the necessity of caring for others instead of ourselves.. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and your neighbour as yourself.”
What often gets missed is that he tells us to love our neighbour as ourselves, not instead of ourselves.
The way I read this is that I can only love my neighbour to the degree that I love myself.
When I attempt to be present to another without first having provided presence to myself, I have no foundation from which to offer care. What is being offered is what I think they need, rather than a response to their actual need. It all comes from a faulty place because I cannot give to another what I have not received for myself.
In fact, we as humans often put our attention on others as a way of avoiding the discomfort of our own experience. When I’m hurt, I blame someone else for “hurting me”. When I’m afraid, I blame someone or something for “making me afraid”. When I don’t know how to tend my own heartache, I distract myself by “doing good” for someone else.
Our hearts will never be eased when our focus remains on outside people and events.
Soul-growth calls us inward. When I feel distress, I learn to just let myself feel the feelings. I don’t try to explain it or justify it, and I definitely don’t shame myself for the feeling.
This is hard work. It’s not something we were taught in school, in our families, or in church. In fact, it sounds a lot like what those environments would label “being self centred”.
It is actually the ultimate in self-care. I am caring for myself. I am listening for what my inner being needs.
Being present to my own needs is not simply uncomfortable. It can be a lot like learning an entirely new language. We start with acknowledging that it is unsettling to feel myself in need of anything, even my own compassion.
The more we practice presence to self, the more our capacity expands. We grow in our ability to make space for the complexity and variety of our feelings. As this grows, we are less prone to reacting against what life brings us, and the people with whom we interact.
This is peace.
Notice that it is not the absence of frustration or anxiety or grief. It is the ability to be present to them, along with any other feelings which surface. It’s not about ignoring or repressing, but about tending.
While we are the first ones to benefit from growing in this work, we are not the only ones. When I am able to be present to my own turmoil, others sense in me that capacity and feel safe in my presence. They feel peace in me, which they then begin to feel in themselves.
To put it another way, when I tend the light in myself, it fans the flame of light in another. As we each do this inner work, each of our flames becomes brighter and together our inner flames make a difference in the world at large.
However, the work doesn’t stop there. As I learn to be present to my inner being, tending my heart and listening for my inner wisdom, it will always lead to me what is called “right action” in the world. With a well-tended heart, I grow in my capacity to attend to the suffering and needs in the world around me. I am not overwhelmed by the immensity of it, but rather discern what is mine to do.
Because I start from a place of presence, I recognize that my best offering to a hurting world is being present to it. When I am truly present, I will know what is mine to do. Sometimes what is mine to do is about tending my own heart. Other times, it is about showing up for or with another in solidarity.
I will be affected by what I bear witness to, which then takes me back to tending my own heart. It’s an ever-giving dance, inward, then outward, then inward again. It is never about just myself, or just another. It is the work we do individually that bears fruit for humanity as a whole.
As chaos and fear and upheaval continue to expend in the world around us, it is ever more important that we stay faithful to our soul-work. Our lights can only shine in this darkness if we are attentive to our inner being, staying present to all that stirs in our hearts. Never has the world needed our well-tended light more.
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