Words are literally us pouring our entire being out.
It's how we connect our FEELING states with one another.
It's how we create community.
It's how we, as you so eloquently stated, PROCESS our own experience, making sense of the cacophony of sensory input that is being alive, so that we can move forward in any way.
It's how we find ourselves. It's how we find one another. Over and over again.
Communicating our own experience, even to ourselves, it seems to be THE way of organizing so that we can understand, and therefore act accordingly.
I've had SO many experiences of being totally mixed up inside - experiencing diverging feelings that don't match thoughts that don't appear to match what I'm witnessing, feeling like I have no idea WHAT'S going on or what I feel - only to find myself having TOTAL clarity on the other side of taking 10 minutes to write or talk it out with someone. I've often wondered why I can't do this with 'just my thoughts' - but there does seem to be some sort of secret sauce in the EXPRESSION of the words.
That compassion piece as well. It's basically the key to all growth as far as I'm concerned.
We need to express and make sense. And we NEED to know that we are not fundamentally bad, wrong, flawed or at fault. That what we're feeling and experiencing is valid. That we are GOOD. From that place of SAFETY, it seems that we can then do whatever needs to be done.
When expression happens void of that compassion, that's when I think we can get even more stuck, mixed up and trapped in loops. It also makes it a lot easier TO express AT ALL when we are in a safe container.
We are all doing the best we have with what we know. We MUST explore in order to learn more, in order to do different. And we must explore in safety - validation and acceptance not necessarily physical safety - because to us acceptance = love = we're going to be ok. That's when we do our best problem solving - when we feel like we're going to be ok.
I love these words, your communication and the ability to communicate back.
I started writing morning pages again, after a summer break. My summer was full of mercy but since the cold started I’m taken on spells of pain and it’s hard to accept that my body is consumed by the pain. If it goes on too long, I get anxious and angry. Writing about it, helps my process of accepting the mortality of my body and seeing the grace I get, too.
Hugs Josh, I am sorry about the pain. I have to get a transfusion for my immunity every other month. I have a painful reaction and then am tapped for a few days. Martha introduced the Gathering Room to The Way Out by Alan Gordon. It has a technique help w neuroplastic pain.
I have been practicing for a few months and it has transformed my experience with these transfusion. Not only can I control the pain once it starts, I don’t require multiple days to recover. If there is a possibility that some of your pain is neuroplastic it is worth a read.
I've always said that the reason I journal is to introduce myself to myself. By doing so, I found that 'self' needed to be pluralized. So many identities, so little time. I resonated with "my inner swirlings tend to calm down a lot once they’re identified. " and that "Language is never exact..." Because of this, I have been exploring distinctions, nuances, roots, etc. of words with such hunger of late, that I am no longer capable of good conversation. I am constantly interrupting with "what do you mean when you say..." I think this may be a place to practice 'wordlessness' a little more.
As a life long nerdy introvert who spent much of my life in my head language was both my succor and my torment. Language at it’s base is a form of communication. It is an attempt to convey internal and external world, but the external world appears terrifying when filtered through culture. But then there are books, luscious and ocean like. It was a dichotomy which should have been the clue that I was off the path.
I never was a journaler, not that I didn’t write but it was papers, essays and poems. Only recently have I started writing about my emotions, thoughts and feelings. That eventually lead to morning pages which I have begun at the beginning of the year. I also have have a little over a year with a practice group, a spiritual salon of sorts.
The mix of daily journaling and weekly deep communion has fundamentally changed my understanding of language. This has been super charged by Martha, JBT and Brene’s Atlas. I am still reverberating from the revelation that perfectionism is a function of shame.
I realized that both written and shared language are both communicating to others because I am multiple parts. Thinking parts, feeling parts and my soft bodied animal. Communicating to myself has allowed me to have the clarity and confidence to communicate with others. The reflection of other open humans has allowed me to see myself. A circle, a cycle not an on and off switch. As I learn to listen and communicate to my selves, esp my body everything becomes easier and softer.
FYI after my 19 day quarantine my boys, husband, 12yr son and my cat all spent an hour in a big group cuddle. Of course your body misses hers. Indulge as long as her busy little body will let you.
Love the piece! Tech Q: I downloaded the substack app and now the reading voice is someone else’s? Is that right? Or maybe I hit an option w/o knowing it. All that to say, I miss your beautiful Aussie awesomeness!
Rowan, I have come back to this post multiple times. I’ve wanted to have the exact language to tell you how much language has helped me heal. When we let our souls breathe, when we speak truth out loud or in written form, language has the power to heal us. We can only be known as much as we share with the world. Language and art can take me to a place where I feel seen and heard. It’s the layers beneath my skin that I wish to share. Language is beneath the skin.
And in a purely creative lens, language can allow another to visit such unique places, of which could have only been fully explored within the consciousness of you. The sharing of ones inner life with another. It’s beautiful.
Thank you for sharing your language and self with us! (Oh and the laughter on bewildered between you and Martha, infectious!)
Ahhhhh. Thank you, Ro! The infinity loop between language and wordlessness just got a little less fuzzy thanks to you. I know I thrive when I have both, as and when needed. But I sometimes have judged my need to use words to get to the heart of things. People will ask me my opinion on something, and my first reaction is that I need to write about it to know what I think! All my swirlings go inward when I write, to the crux of the matter, rather like a stone being thrown into a pond ... but in reverse. The ripples move to the centre, and all is still once more. Thank you for illuminating this process for us.
THIS resonates deeply.
Words are literally us pouring our entire being out.
It's how we connect our FEELING states with one another.
It's how we create community.
It's how we, as you so eloquently stated, PROCESS our own experience, making sense of the cacophony of sensory input that is being alive, so that we can move forward in any way.
It's how we find ourselves. It's how we find one another. Over and over again.
Communicating our own experience, even to ourselves, it seems to be THE way of organizing so that we can understand, and therefore act accordingly.
I've had SO many experiences of being totally mixed up inside - experiencing diverging feelings that don't match thoughts that don't appear to match what I'm witnessing, feeling like I have no idea WHAT'S going on or what I feel - only to find myself having TOTAL clarity on the other side of taking 10 minutes to write or talk it out with someone. I've often wondered why I can't do this with 'just my thoughts' - but there does seem to be some sort of secret sauce in the EXPRESSION of the words.
That compassion piece as well. It's basically the key to all growth as far as I'm concerned.
We need to express and make sense. And we NEED to know that we are not fundamentally bad, wrong, flawed or at fault. That what we're feeling and experiencing is valid. That we are GOOD. From that place of SAFETY, it seems that we can then do whatever needs to be done.
When expression happens void of that compassion, that's when I think we can get even more stuck, mixed up and trapped in loops. It also makes it a lot easier TO express AT ALL when we are in a safe container.
We are all doing the best we have with what we know. We MUST explore in order to learn more, in order to do different. And we must explore in safety - validation and acceptance not necessarily physical safety - because to us acceptance = love = we're going to be ok. That's when we do our best problem solving - when we feel like we're going to be ok.
I love these words, your communication and the ability to communicate back.
<3
Thanks Rowan.
I started writing morning pages again, after a summer break. My summer was full of mercy but since the cold started I’m taken on spells of pain and it’s hard to accept that my body is consumed by the pain. If it goes on too long, I get anxious and angry. Writing about it, helps my process of accepting the mortality of my body and seeing the grace I get, too.
Hugs Josh, I am sorry about the pain. I have to get a transfusion for my immunity every other month. I have a painful reaction and then am tapped for a few days. Martha introduced the Gathering Room to The Way Out by Alan Gordon. It has a technique help w neuroplastic pain.
I have been practicing for a few months and it has transformed my experience with these transfusion. Not only can I control the pain once it starts, I don’t require multiple days to recover. If there is a possibility that some of your pain is neuroplastic it is worth a read.
Lovely words!!!
The birds are flying about within the shadows of the sun after the rain.
In my human sight, I see they have no worries, concerns or issues to ponder.
Curious, I wonder how it would feel to inhabit that life, flying free.
Caught in my thoughts of failure and success today.
Lost in the past as if I have overlooked a gem or something missed.
Breathing deep, I know all is well in this moment of anxious thinking.
Perhaps language is the way out at times and others to fly in silence as the birds
I find peace and compassion in your words.
All the best!
Perhaps not a perfect match to this Inventure, yet speaks to the humility of humanity.
“Welcome, Prince,' said Aslan. 'Do you feel yourself sufficient to take up the Kingship of Narnia?'
I - I don't think I do, Sir,' said Caspian - I am only a cat.
Good,' said Aslan. 'If you had felt yourself sufficient, it would have been proof that you were not.”
- Conversation between Aslan and Caspian.
c.s. lewis
Beautiful. And perfectly timed for today. Just: thank you.
I've always said that the reason I journal is to introduce myself to myself. By doing so, I found that 'self' needed to be pluralized. So many identities, so little time. I resonated with "my inner swirlings tend to calm down a lot once they’re identified. " and that "Language is never exact..." Because of this, I have been exploring distinctions, nuances, roots, etc. of words with such hunger of late, that I am no longer capable of good conversation. I am constantly interrupting with "what do you mean when you say..." I think this may be a place to practice 'wordlessness' a little more.
As a life long nerdy introvert who spent much of my life in my head language was both my succor and my torment. Language at it’s base is a form of communication. It is an attempt to convey internal and external world, but the external world appears terrifying when filtered through culture. But then there are books, luscious and ocean like. It was a dichotomy which should have been the clue that I was off the path.
I never was a journaler, not that I didn’t write but it was papers, essays and poems. Only recently have I started writing about my emotions, thoughts and feelings. That eventually lead to morning pages which I have begun at the beginning of the year. I also have have a little over a year with a practice group, a spiritual salon of sorts.
The mix of daily journaling and weekly deep communion has fundamentally changed my understanding of language. This has been super charged by Martha, JBT and Brene’s Atlas. I am still reverberating from the revelation that perfectionism is a function of shame.
I realized that both written and shared language are both communicating to others because I am multiple parts. Thinking parts, feeling parts and my soft bodied animal. Communicating to myself has allowed me to have the clarity and confidence to communicate with others. The reflection of other open humans has allowed me to see myself. A circle, a cycle not an on and off switch. As I learn to listen and communicate to my selves, esp my body everything becomes easier and softer.
FYI after my 19 day quarantine my boys, husband, 12yr son and my cat all spent an hour in a big group cuddle. Of course your body misses hers. Indulge as long as her busy little body will let you.
Love the piece! Tech Q: I downloaded the substack app and now the reading voice is someone else’s? Is that right? Or maybe I hit an option w/o knowing it. All that to say, I miss your beautiful Aussie awesomeness!
Rowan, I have come back to this post multiple times. I’ve wanted to have the exact language to tell you how much language has helped me heal. When we let our souls breathe, when we speak truth out loud or in written form, language has the power to heal us. We can only be known as much as we share with the world. Language and art can take me to a place where I feel seen and heard. It’s the layers beneath my skin that I wish to share. Language is beneath the skin.
And in a purely creative lens, language can allow another to visit such unique places, of which could have only been fully explored within the consciousness of you. The sharing of ones inner life with another. It’s beautiful.
Thank you for sharing your language and self with us! (Oh and the laughter on bewildered between you and Martha, infectious!)
With LOVE and kindness,
Rae
Ahhhhh. Thank you, Ro! The infinity loop between language and wordlessness just got a little less fuzzy thanks to you. I know I thrive when I have both, as and when needed. But I sometimes have judged my need to use words to get to the heart of things. People will ask me my opinion on something, and my first reaction is that I need to write about it to know what I think! All my swirlings go inward when I write, to the crux of the matter, rather like a stone being thrown into a pond ... but in reverse. The ripples move to the centre, and all is still once more. Thank you for illuminating this process for us.