Not all high vibrations come with a smile. Why your authentic fire is more powerful than forced positivity. A love letter to the sacred power of being real.
I've been saying this for a while too and it's really interesting how must resistance people have to sitting with the "other" emotions, or even listening to me talk about it ! They can be quick to shut it down
We just don't know what to do with grief in Western culture. We hide our sadness and suppress our rage and then wonder why we get sick, physically and mentally. It is time for us to let it all up, and hold it to the fire. Time to purge and refine. I'm glad you're talking about it - keep going! The world needs more like you!
"Love wants the truth to burn off everything that isn’t real." Yes! It is time to be real about everything...that is the only way things have the chance to really be seen and change. This is not a time for positivity contests. It's a time for deep reflection, allowing clarity to rise and, responsive action.
Yes, deep reflection! Dredging up the deep stuff that we've kept hidden and bringing it into the light, to be purged and transmuted. Hold it all to the fire of truth!
yep..sort of like that damp, festering thing at the bottom of the laundry bin, which really needs attention but everyone seems to avoid because of its unpleasantness. But once you finally reach in and give it a good wash...the whole atmosphere shifts. Another analogy from my growing up times....there was always something that looked ominous hanging out in the fridge that just seemed to keep being pushed further to the back...eventually the aroma could not be ignored and it had to be taken care of. After that, for a time...it felt safer to seek nourishment.
We deeply need to grieve all the destruction. Grief is love. We wouldn’t grieve if we didn’t love. Our spiritual bypass serves no one, because those emotions become shadows and hungry ghosts eating up everything. Inauthenticity is nauseating to be around because there is usually a seething mess hidden underneath which is toxic, you can often feel the judgment careening off people who pretend and don’t know themselves, tryin to be something. It is an ego trip. I never could stand it, not growing up in my church, nor in any new age groups I ran across.
We don’t grow when we don’t face our pain, fear and shame. We are made to have all the emotions we have. Sometimes I think we need to simply accept our humanity instead of trying to be a perfect something else.
This is so long overdue! Very well put and strikes at the heart of the most profound truths. Even rage can be an act of love, and grief can move mountains.
Thank you for expanding the English dictionary on the topic of rage.
The notion of rage has always been sistered with anger in my brain. When one shows up, the other is nearby. They didnt play well with others inside me, and I often left them outside while the other aspects of me tried to work through everything with thoughts in the brain. It took a cross-wiring of the brain for rage and anger to recognize that nobody was watching the door, and they made their way inside and loudly spoke out, without any assistance from the mind, and not stopping an eyeblink to check-in with the heart first.
The result is that rage stayed at the level of what tweaked me out of my peaceful state, disrupted my hope for a happy life, or threatened to take a brick out of one of my walls that worked hard to cover up all that I was ashamed of within me (the ones that had a mural on them of what I thought the world would want to see).
But - your invitation is whole-hearted and different from this.
It enables rage to make friends with discontent, injustice, loss, grief, hurting of others, damage to all that which we hold or kneel before in reverence, and myriad other realms that map our hearts.
Your invitation allows us to bring rage into the solution.
Through truth, it invites the heart to navigate alongside the mind.
It considers rage to be a note available to us on the keyboard of life - I am thinking of the A-zero key on the piano - that last key on the keyboard that we can't resist touching and feeling its base reach deep inside us
If the heart is the source of our lives, then why wouldn't we be grateful to have permission to reach all the way down to the lowest key on the keyboard, to overcome our fear of being resonant, deep, and able to touch people beyond the eardrum and to their core. It opens up the ways in which we can be, and opens us more broadly to give voice to what is inside us. Expressing ourselves with only a partial keyboard is not why we were given a full set of 88 keys
Among countless sounds of other's bitterness, anger and disconnected rage - our voices will need to be spoken along others who are playing their notes loudly too. Yet, when our notes are spoken from well-considered truth, they will be heard differently, through the resonance and depth of the sincere heart that brought them to life.
Mark, this has moved me deeply. I actually think you said it better than I did, and drew out more of what I was trying to say. This is what I love about Substack - I send out a signal and it gets echoed back, often better and clearer and with more resonance. What you wrote about the keyboard - I was clumsily trying to say this to my partner just yesterday, about how on a piano there are white keys and black keys and most people prefer it when you play the white keys because they feel perkier, but the black keys give a piece depth and color, and all of the keys are available to us to create a beautiful melody. But I said it more fumbly than that, like the idea wasn't quite formed, and here you have just laid it out so perfectly and completely....so just thank you! I'm so glad to have connected with you so you could echo this signal back to me better and clearer. Thank-you for being you.
Thank you!! This had a very personal impact on me (as I shared in an email to you) and I so appreciate it!! The truth in love is mighty! Something I am reminded of from my former Christian days is the truth is called The Sword of Truth, it is doubled edged and it does divide. I think the double edge is freedom(love) and fear and then how to understand both. There is a book I got a while ago, not read it yet, but the title is Whatever Aises, Love That!! (by Matt Kahn). Authenticity is about loving ALL of who we are and LOVE will transform, heal, and bring us to clarity and understanding. That means, EVERY emotion, everything that arises is met with acceptance, not judgment and we just embrace and accept those emotions. Let them be and as we accept we will see the truth and the answers without dismissing or submerging these "negative" emotions. I do love what was found out in that study and as we just accept completely as if the hard emotions will be with us forever, then all of this becomes the truth whatever that may be. Authenticity is fast becoming one of my most favorite words!! I loved this truth you shared!! So exactly what is needed at this moment in our history!!
i have about three trillion things to say on this (like the psychological damage the “positive vibes only” motto creates for people who were perhaps lucky enough to be psychologically unscathed prior to adopting this inauthentic way of existing, and the extra damage it does to people with pre-existing psychological issues like major depressive disorder/ocd w intrusive thoughts/anxiety/ptsd etc., who as hard as they try may NEVER succeed in ridding themselves of “negative” read: real emotion/thoughts and then are told to fear that they themselves have manifested “bad” things or feels that happen to them because they couldn’t achieve a constant stream of “positivity, love and light”), but i’m going to need a minute to organize my thoughts. in the meantime THANK YOU FOR FINALLY FREAKING, FLIPPING, F’N SAYING IT OUT LOUD ON THE PAPER ON THE SCREEN!!!! you’ve just articulated all my jumbled AUTHENTIC feelings around this very topic and i don’t know that i’ve had a deeper exhale in a vvv long time.
Absolutely! Authenticity is the alchemical fire. Read James Hillman, listen to Robert Johnson and Marion Woodman. Go back to Carl Jung. What you have recognized is called the “tension between opposites” which is finding the sweet spot of truth in a sacred world where bombs and madmen also exist. That sweet spot is what Jung calls the Whole Self. It’s doing our inner work, tending the shadow as much as the light. Great post. We need imagination as much as authenticity right now, too. Read the Imagination Matrix by Stephen Aizenstat.
There’s a place for righteous rage. Think of Jesus over-turning tables in the temple. I suspect Peter or John suggesting that he “just put on a happy face” wouldn’t have been well-received. Joan of Arc’s voices demanded action, not navel-gazing. Calcination as a stage of the alchemical/individuation process.
I've been saying this for a while too and it's really interesting how must resistance people have to sitting with the "other" emotions, or even listening to me talk about it ! They can be quick to shut it down
We just don't know what to do with grief in Western culture. We hide our sadness and suppress our rage and then wonder why we get sick, physically and mentally. It is time for us to let it all up, and hold it to the fire. Time to purge and refine. I'm glad you're talking about it - keep going! The world needs more like you!
"Love wants the truth to burn off everything that isn’t real." Yes! It is time to be real about everything...that is the only way things have the chance to really be seen and change. This is not a time for positivity contests. It's a time for deep reflection, allowing clarity to rise and, responsive action.
Yes, deep reflection! Dredging up the deep stuff that we've kept hidden and bringing it into the light, to be purged and transmuted. Hold it all to the fire of truth!
yep..sort of like that damp, festering thing at the bottom of the laundry bin, which really needs attention but everyone seems to avoid because of its unpleasantness. But once you finally reach in and give it a good wash...the whole atmosphere shifts. Another analogy from my growing up times....there was always something that looked ominous hanging out in the fridge that just seemed to keep being pushed further to the back...eventually the aroma could not be ignored and it had to be taken care of. After that, for a time...it felt safer to seek nourishment.
We deeply need to grieve all the destruction. Grief is love. We wouldn’t grieve if we didn’t love. Our spiritual bypass serves no one, because those emotions become shadows and hungry ghosts eating up everything. Inauthenticity is nauseating to be around because there is usually a seething mess hidden underneath which is toxic, you can often feel the judgment careening off people who pretend and don’t know themselves, tryin to be something. It is an ego trip. I never could stand it, not growing up in my church, nor in any new age groups I ran across.
We don’t grow when we don’t face our pain, fear and shame. We are made to have all the emotions we have. Sometimes I think we need to simply accept our humanity instead of trying to be a perfect something else.
This is so long overdue! Very well put and strikes at the heart of the most profound truths. Even rage can be an act of love, and grief can move mountains.
Yes, I'm so glad this resonated with you. There is no emotion that we should avoid feeling - all can serve us in some way! Thank-you for reading!
Thank you for expanding the English dictionary on the topic of rage.
The notion of rage has always been sistered with anger in my brain. When one shows up, the other is nearby. They didnt play well with others inside me, and I often left them outside while the other aspects of me tried to work through everything with thoughts in the brain. It took a cross-wiring of the brain for rage and anger to recognize that nobody was watching the door, and they made their way inside and loudly spoke out, without any assistance from the mind, and not stopping an eyeblink to check-in with the heart first.
The result is that rage stayed at the level of what tweaked me out of my peaceful state, disrupted my hope for a happy life, or threatened to take a brick out of one of my walls that worked hard to cover up all that I was ashamed of within me (the ones that had a mural on them of what I thought the world would want to see).
But - your invitation is whole-hearted and different from this.
It enables rage to make friends with discontent, injustice, loss, grief, hurting of others, damage to all that which we hold or kneel before in reverence, and myriad other realms that map our hearts.
Your invitation allows us to bring rage into the solution.
Through truth, it invites the heart to navigate alongside the mind.
It considers rage to be a note available to us on the keyboard of life - I am thinking of the A-zero key on the piano - that last key on the keyboard that we can't resist touching and feeling its base reach deep inside us
If the heart is the source of our lives, then why wouldn't we be grateful to have permission to reach all the way down to the lowest key on the keyboard, to overcome our fear of being resonant, deep, and able to touch people beyond the eardrum and to their core. It opens up the ways in which we can be, and opens us more broadly to give voice to what is inside us. Expressing ourselves with only a partial keyboard is not why we were given a full set of 88 keys
Among countless sounds of other's bitterness, anger and disconnected rage - our voices will need to be spoken along others who are playing their notes loudly too. Yet, when our notes are spoken from well-considered truth, they will be heard differently, through the resonance and depth of the sincere heart that brought them to life.
The sound will be unmistakable.
Mark, this has moved me deeply. I actually think you said it better than I did, and drew out more of what I was trying to say. This is what I love about Substack - I send out a signal and it gets echoed back, often better and clearer and with more resonance. What you wrote about the keyboard - I was clumsily trying to say this to my partner just yesterday, about how on a piano there are white keys and black keys and most people prefer it when you play the white keys because they feel perkier, but the black keys give a piece depth and color, and all of the keys are available to us to create a beautiful melody. But I said it more fumbly than that, like the idea wasn't quite formed, and here you have just laid it out so perfectly and completely....so just thank you! I'm so glad to have connected with you so you could echo this signal back to me better and clearer. Thank-you for being you.
Yes, that is exactly it
I love this, the whole range of human emotions are important for different reasons💛
Thank you for this.❤️
Thank you for writing this. A breath of real air!
super powerful and a coherent way to balance the spiritual with the reality of our physical existence right now. thank you for this 🙏🏼
This. Absolutely this 💜
Thank you!! This had a very personal impact on me (as I shared in an email to you) and I so appreciate it!! The truth in love is mighty! Something I am reminded of from my former Christian days is the truth is called The Sword of Truth, it is doubled edged and it does divide. I think the double edge is freedom(love) and fear and then how to understand both. There is a book I got a while ago, not read it yet, but the title is Whatever Aises, Love That!! (by Matt Kahn). Authenticity is about loving ALL of who we are and LOVE will transform, heal, and bring us to clarity and understanding. That means, EVERY emotion, everything that arises is met with acceptance, not judgment and we just embrace and accept those emotions. Let them be and as we accept we will see the truth and the answers without dismissing or submerging these "negative" emotions. I do love what was found out in that study and as we just accept completely as if the hard emotions will be with us forever, then all of this becomes the truth whatever that may be. Authenticity is fast becoming one of my most favorite words!! I loved this truth you shared!! So exactly what is needed at this moment in our history!!
i have about three trillion things to say on this (like the psychological damage the “positive vibes only” motto creates for people who were perhaps lucky enough to be psychologically unscathed prior to adopting this inauthentic way of existing, and the extra damage it does to people with pre-existing psychological issues like major depressive disorder/ocd w intrusive thoughts/anxiety/ptsd etc., who as hard as they try may NEVER succeed in ridding themselves of “negative” read: real emotion/thoughts and then are told to fear that they themselves have manifested “bad” things or feels that happen to them because they couldn’t achieve a constant stream of “positivity, love and light”), but i’m going to need a minute to organize my thoughts. in the meantime THANK YOU FOR FINALLY FREAKING, FLIPPING, F’N SAYING IT OUT LOUD ON THE PAPER ON THE SCREEN!!!! you’ve just articulated all my jumbled AUTHENTIC feelings around this very topic and i don’t know that i’ve had a deeper exhale in a vvv long time.
Absolutely! Authenticity is the alchemical fire. Read James Hillman, listen to Robert Johnson and Marion Woodman. Go back to Carl Jung. What you have recognized is called the “tension between opposites” which is finding the sweet spot of truth in a sacred world where bombs and madmen also exist. That sweet spot is what Jung calls the Whole Self. It’s doing our inner work, tending the shadow as much as the light. Great post. We need imagination as much as authenticity right now, too. Read the Imagination Matrix by Stephen Aizenstat.
There’s a place for righteous rage. Think of Jesus over-turning tables in the temple. I suspect Peter or John suggesting that he “just put on a happy face” wouldn’t have been well-received. Joan of Arc’s voices demanded action, not navel-gazing. Calcination as a stage of the alchemical/individuation process.
Once again, you've provided a wonderful, thought provoking essay. This speaks to me on all levels.
I am very grateful to have found your substack.
Thank you!