We’ve had a couple of shitty days. I told you that living The Pleasured Life doesn’t always equal rainbows and unicorns. What it does do, however,  is stop you in your tracks to figure it out in a blog and a video.

I do love how things fall into place during trying times, however,  often we don’t see that until we’re ready and we feel like holding up a middle finger to the synchronicities. This is great though. Feel the feels. We don’t often allow ourselves to feel the feels. Especially if we are “spiritual people” on a “spiritual journey” because we are too busy spiritually bypassing.

John Welwood coined the term 30 some odd years ago, and you can read that here. But in a very small nutshell, he said this

“When we are spiritually bypassing, we often use the goal of awakening or liberation to rationalize what I call premature transcendence: trying to rise above the raw and messy side of our humanness before we have fully faced and made peace with it.”

We are spiritual beings having a human experience, but on the spiritual path we often want to rise above that raw and messy side that makes us human.

Let’s be real. Things happen in our lives, day to day…or hour to hour…minute to minute that get our goat and get us steaming.

Today has been a particularily shitty day. Ken and I have had some rather prickly stuff to handle and since the morning it has been a back and forth game of text with many interesting combinations of curse words.

The last of these was followed by the phrase…

“I just need to groan.”

Now this is something we fell upon during a really difficult situation we encountered around our youngest son. We were feeling emotionally broken and battered over the situation. We were laying in bed discussing and tears free flowing while discussing it, and Ken came out with it.

“I feel the need to groan.”

And so we did.

Primal. Gutteral. Groaning loudly from the very core. (the windows were closed so the neighbors didn’t wonder)

To our surprise this action moved us in a hugely positive direction. It allowed us to release the emotion that sat stuck and stagnant in our bodies. You know that heavy, helpless and sad feeling. If you don’t close your eyes and ask your body how it feels. It will tell you. It was pretty cool that this was the intrinsic reaction Ken had to get rid of our emotion that night.

Moving that crap and emotion that doesn’t serve you through and out of your body in such a physical way helps to energetically release that stagnant and stuck energy that can hold and grip you in a cycle of frustration and despair.

Here’s what Ken had to say on this:

It’s hard for us in our Western culture to show our emotions. If we are too overjoyed we are ridiculed, if we show despair, we are judged.

It’s hard for me to show anger given my childhood upbringing. I constantly have to remind myself that what I am feeling is okay.
It’s okay to be pissed off that it’s not working out, it’s not fast enough, that you are tired of waiting for something.

I guess maybe the idea to groan came from a sound course that I took. Or from the news clips of Eastern European mourners who wail in sadness, in anger, in joy.

By letting the hurt, anger, despair out, we can let the emotions that we seek in. Joy, love, security.

Groan it out.