Unexpected Freedom

Getting to Know our Emotional HouseholdWhen I allow this feeling of lack – often in the belly – tobe received, I feel more honest and more genuinely alive.Related aspects of the experience start arising – memoriesand sensations – and if I track them, if I follow them andlisten to them, not getting lost in them, not getting intoarguments with them but simply receiving them withkindness and patience, I start to feel that there is all thisunlived life, emotions that I didn’t want to live through,didn’t like, didn’t agree with and therefore stuffed them in thebasement. We feel like we’re lacking, because we are lacking.There’s all this unacknowledged life of ours that has beendriven into unawareness, that’s unreceived, unlived throughand it’s getting very antsy.Sooner or later in practice we come to a stage where wecan no longer ignore the fact that we feel that something isnot right; a stage when affirmations and the various otherdevices don’t work any more. We always have the option ofgiving up, of course, and indulging our beliefs in thepossibility of fulfilment offered by sense gratification.However, we also have the possibility of continuing on ourpath of practice: that of listening deeply and receiving ouremotions with increased willingness.We might hear all these growling noises coming fromdown below and think, ‘Oh my goodness, what’s going tohappen if I lift the lid off that?’ There can be a very real fearthat arises when we find ourselves starting to encounterour unlived life. Habitually there might be thoughts ofwanting to reach for the bottle, roll some weed or put onsome good music – of doing anything but feeling this terriblefeeling that we’re going to be taken over by somethingunknown and terrifying.But what is there that would take us over anyway? This isEngland, for goodness sake! This is not some unfortunate49