Talking to Judith, my great friend, and partner in Imagine Zürich, she said: humans are beautiful and I answered: beautiful, powerful, and dangerous, we are capable of everything, that is what makes us special. Two minutes later I was here, writing this article.

This conversation reminded me of a scene of “Suits” a Netflix series I watch. To make it short one of the lawyers tried to overrule the boss. At the end of the episode, they shake hands. The one who did wrong did not understand the peacefulness of his boss and she says: I like working with tigers and in so I must accept a scratch every now and then. That is accepting wholeness. Continue reading to explore how we can do this too!

Wholeness is a term that I believe is sometimes misunderstood in spirituality. Wholeness is not only recognizing our connection to the beauty of life, to each other, to universal consciousness, or let’s say recognizing the good part of us. Wholeness is that but must also imply that we recognize ALL we are, ALL we feel, ALL we think, and you know and I know that is not ALL love and peace 😉

This brings me to the question of why? If we are all like this if we all have all sorts of feelings inside of us, then why do we all try to fool ourselves accepting only one part of it? Terence, a Roman – African philosopher that was once a slave, states it clearly: “I am a human therefore nothing human is alien to me”.

We must begin by recognizing that, despite cultural and religious differences, we all receive a set of rules when we are growing up. A set of acceptable and not acceptable behaviors, feelings, emotions, attitudes, and thoughts. These sets of rules are nailed in by reward/punishment mechanism so we learn as fast as we can the way “we should be”.

We live as if we were in front of the camera all the time. We live trying to be as we think we should be accepting feelings we consider adequate or good and rejecting others (or hiding from) that we consider “bad”. This takes all our power, all our inspiration, all our creativity, and courage! What we are doing is trying to fit and, my friend, is not in the society where we are trying to fit in, we are trying to fit in who we think we should be. It is an internal process.

What to do then? In the first place, we must understand feelings are tools and they are all valid and they are all there for a reason. Second, you must ALLOW yourself be, you feel how you feel no matter how much you deny it. Allowing yourself to be is basically the only answer. How? The yoga lifestyle has always the same old answer: repetition.

Here is an experiment that might be extremely powerful for this last part of the year. Choose 2 weeks, better 3, but choose is enough, where you will do the following.

First, sit down one day after meditating, make a list of at least the most relevant feelings you know you reject and those you believe define you. For example, in my case, I love to “believe” I am always inspired and purposeful and I HATE when I feel tired and sad or uninspired.

Second, begin to allow. Every day, before you jump into your routine, take a moment to allow yourself to feel, to check, and simply connect with the question: how are you? how do you feel? And whatever the answer, allow it to be.

NOTE: Please consider I am not saying to engage in risky and unhealthy honesty. With whom you open up is crucial. What I am implying is that at least you know how you feel and live your day to the top of your possibilities but this time instead of hiding from, take in how you feel, and live the day as well.

Third, celebrate the uniqueness of each feeling, journal! I know I always recommend it, and I do so because it works. Write down every day how you feel and how did you feel allowing yourself to be.

Fourth, avoid anything that numbs how you are feeling, especially alcohol and drugs. We will be with ourselves for the rest of our lives. We must stop hiding from part of us and rather embrace all so we become our own safe ground.

And last, share with your loved ones you will be doing this. This will allow them to understand and be prepared. Also, it might inspire them to begin allowing themselves too.

My friend our beauty and power resides in our wholeness. When we look away from our whole all we are stating at is a hole.

Pedro Misle.

This week in our live sessions in YOGA BREAK Private Facebook Group we will be sharing thoughts and practices related to this topic. If you are not a member yet, click here to join for free and enjoy!