Lesson One
As we have moved along in what we call life, our growth has been delivered in the form of thought and feeling. At first, without words, we felt and reacted. Then gradually, with the maturing of our bodies and vocal chords, we learned to make sounds……gooo goooo gaaaa ahhhh mmmmmm and eventually ma ma ma.
Once these words were repeated enough, they become part of our bodies and our sense of feeling the world move in response to us. Lying in our mothers we had no words. Outside our mothers, without their very direct intervention, we developed sounds to reconnect with them. MA!!! ma ma mmmmmm delicious.
From there we have added countless sounds and meanings which our bodies house and store for our use as live beings. We learn names for hunger, and names for comfort. We learn “yes” and “no.” We learn the word “mine.” We learn the word “please.” We learn the word “sorry.” Each word is a little bridge between the private world of sensation and the shared world of relationship.
And still, even as the vocabulary expands, something stays the same: the body leads. We can explain ourselves for hours, but the first message is always the felt one. The tight chest. The open breath. The heavy belly. The buzzing hands. The softening in the face when we are met. The bracing when we are not.
Why are you here? What is your life purpose? If you ask this question you return to the wordless state of creation, the unformed impulse to be, and with enough stillness, room for our purpose to emerge in words. This is important. Because purpose is not only a concept. It is an experience. It is a direction felt before it is named. It rises like a yes in the body, like warmth, like a settling.
Sometimes when we ask “Why am I here?” we reach for an answer that sounds good. We reach for something we can defend. Something impressive. But purpose often comes quieter than that. It comes as a simple urge toward life. Toward connection. Toward truth. Toward a particular kind of love. And it does not always arrive as a sentence. Sometimes it arrives as a sensation. Sometimes it arrives as a tear. Sometimes it arrives as the relief of finally admitting what you already know.
My motive is loving, and what does that mean in this moment? To find out I choose to be aware of my body and how it feels. This goal of bodily awareness is wordless AND also describable. A combination of the two becomes how most people relate to each other, with feelings and thinking.
Thinking can be a shield. Thinking can be a tool. Feeling can be overwhelming. Feeling can be clear. The work is not to choose one and reject the other, but to let them speak together. Feeling gives information. Thinking gives shape. Feeling says, something is happening. Thinking says, how will I respond?
So we practice. We slow down enough to notice what is actually here, before the mind rushes into interpretation. We notice the difference between a story and a sensation. We notice when we are far away from ourselves, and we notice when we return.
What am I feeling now?
How am I going to share that information?
These questions are simple, and they are lifelong. They return us to the beginning—where we were always trying to communicate what we needed, what we loved, what we feared, what we hoped. Sometimes we only had sounds. Sometimes we only had breath. Sometimes we only had “ma ma mmmmmm.”
And now we have language. And still, the deepest truth is often the same: I feel something. I want to be known. I want to know you.
—
This article was previously published on thefatherconnection
Join The Good Men Project as a Premium Member today.
All Premium Members get to view The Good Men Project with NO ADS. Need more info? A complete list of benefits is here.
—
