How it Feels in the Heartland

The Heartland and Egoland are metaphors I am using to refer to the different inner worlds (or states of being) I find myself in from time to time.

Carol Anthony and Hanna Moog, in their Oracle of the I-Ching, write of Cosmic Harmony and the 'parallel reality' ruled by the collective ego.

Though not endorsed by Anthony and Moog, these Rough Guides of mine are about my experience of how life feels on the inside – which is, after all, what really matters - more than anything that can be seen from the outside, or any possessions or 'achievements'.

There is all the difference in the world between how it feels to be in the Heartland and how it feels to be anywhere else.  When I am off-centre, off balance, I soon find myself in the egosphere (ego’s fear). How life feels to me, day to day, depends on my inner attitude to my feelings, and to events.

I, like many people here in the West (and possibly in other cultures too) have spent a lot of time looking at myself, as if from outside – comparing myself with others, wondering how I am seen or understood.

I have learned that when I find my way into the Heartland, all this self-consciousness evaporates.  All my obsessive self-commentating, recording and speculating stops, and I find myself just being - acting, thinking - naturally and without obstruction.  At these times, I feel part of things, not shut out from real life, or from myself.

If I feel under pressure - perhaps from feelings I haven't yet fully registered, or owned up to - I can find myself heading away from the Heartland.  Then I begin to feel more self-conscious – squeezed, constricted and constrained, more panicky, more prone to vehemence.

When I 'catch myself on', as the Scots say, and spot what's been getting to me, once I attend to my feelings, I can head back towards the Heartland. As I do, I feel less pressure, and a growing sense of inner spaciousness and neutrality. There is no rush, and there is detachment and humour.

When things are happening, in the Heartland, they happen kindly. However much energy is involved, no-one gets hurt.

In the Heartland, there is freedom from jostling.

The Heartland feels like a vast open space, where we have access to everything, to all our awareness – and where it all feels friendly, flexible, free – and there are endless possibilities for play.

In another image, the Heartland is like a garden where there’s nothing to be done but enjoy it. All I have to do is let it be, watch it grow, live slowly and gently in it, savouring its generosity of space and time, relishing the relaxation it brings, and the twinkle of detached, compassionate humour – for my own and for others’ failings.

Here in the garden of the Heartland, I feel more and more like myself, true to myself, welcome and at home.

Here, I can give myself time to notice the details of situations, and my responses to them, I can let things come to my attention, listen without fear to the music of my inner senses, as the springs of enjoyment and creativity bubble and flow with emerging meaning and connectedness – all without effort – naturally, as it comes.

The Heartland rests in balance and in harmony, in clarity and neutrality. Nothing false is here. Even thinking about unsettling events or ideas needs to be spotted and stopped, let go of.

There are times when I am here in the Heartland (I may be gardening, or writing, or walking along a beach, stopping to pick up stones and shells, or singing, or enjoying a conversation with a friend, or staring at the sea) when I lose track of time. Half an hour, an hour – just goes by. It feels like I enter time.

N.B.  Please be patient - the song kicks in after 14 seconds of silence.   I'm still learning!

This makes me think of images of river and ocean. The river represents the ever-onward flow of life, which we can trust to carry us.

Over the past twenty years or so (!) I have been learning to stop resisting life, to stop fending off my feelings. Please excuse a bit of wordplay now -

                resistance to life is futile; resistance to evil is vital.

Giving up resistance means I don’t get entangled so often as I used to in the 'overhanging branches' of ifs and buts, or sucked down into the currents of untenable situations, or stranded on mudbanks of guilt, regret and fixed ideas.

In terms of the watery image, the ocean is our origin and destination, our beginning and end, signifying our true nature.

The river flows – while the ocean, though it breathes, tidally, in and out, and has its incessant heartbeat of travelling waves, and is unfathomably alive – the ocean is at rest.

Song:  Easy like the Sea

When I ‘enter time’ – and lose track of ticking time – I visit what I am a tiny part of, what I belong to, in my molecules (more truly than in my mental constructs, including the myths and stories of my culture, and of my own personal life). I find myself – or rather, lose myself – in an inner place, or condition, of vibrant energy, effortless harmony and beauty, in the self-renewing source of infinite potential – in life itself.

Talking of myths, I was intrigued, when I lived in Zimbabwe, to hear stories of spirit mediums / healers who had (it was said) disappeared for several years, and when they reappeared in their communities, spoke of spending time underwater, in the river, with crocodiles – being taught the arts of healing.

The sense of  ‘timelessness’ I have been describing, that I associate with the Heartland - the sense of being in the presence of reality, the unnamed reality that underlies and encompasses the everyday - reminds me of this African description of entering the water, to re-emerge made wise and effective. (See Of Water and the Spirit – Malidoma Some.)

When I ‘get it’, when I tune in to life’s wavelength, everything has a lightness to it, a freedom – nothing jabs or entangles. I can sense everything constantly in transformation, alive, made of energy as I am myself.

In the Heartland I learn to enjoy things as I feel them – to gently savour them, without clutching or clinging, or abstracting about them, or monumentalising – making a big deal of them.

power and abstraction - big deal, big monuments

Life is continually filling my heart with fresh things – moments, encounters, experiences, insights – when I let my mind and heart be open, life can flow on through me.

In the Heartland, I can safely let go of my 'position'– there’s no need to anxiously clutch my arguments, or memorise my lines. All that matters is tuning in, being in harmony with myself, with reality.

In the Heartland, there’s a sense of permission, to go the way that feels natural to me (to you) without judging myself or feeling judged – with freedom, in neutrality, to simply proceed – go on, do the next thing.

As life proceeds, I find my heart is able to encompass more and more of what happens, and what has happened, in my life, and it seems to me that this is how life works - with everyone who is on their own Path also learning, and gaining the self-trust to release more and more of their feelings from the stagnant storage tanks of unconsciousness or denial.

New frameworks of understanding emerge – new ways of looking at my life, at the life I share with those around me, at life in the wider world.

It is possible to observe this same process of gradual expansion and deepening of awareness at work in our Western culture.

The personal is indeed political,

(as feminism taught)

but the political is also personal.

There has been a slow - but also, sometimes, an astonishingly speedy - growth of acceptance, at a public, political level, of previously derided, excluded and stigmatised people, ways of life and values.

Many areas of reality which were simply denied before - many truths - are now accepted as valid (even though they still stick in many a Western craw!)  Truths about everyone’s equal value, and right to be themselves without fear of discrimination, for example; about the possibility that those in positions of power might be abusing that power (police, clergy); about the effects of our industrial society on the earth, or about the incorrectness of our Western attitudes to other cultures.

Song:  Eco-guilt

These slowly dawning realisations matter. (See The Inner Journey)

In the Heartland, things fall into place. We meet the people we need to meet, just like that. There is a parking space (if we remember to ask – ‘They like to be asked’, as a wise friend told me.)

There is no need for effort or strategy, it’s all laid on – more than we could have imagined.

In the Heartland is true security.

Reality is not threatened by human self-deceptions, or by human fears.

When I am centred, and while I remain at home in myself, I can be fully open to the world around me, I can be aware of disturbances and even violent events which might previously have knocked me off balance – and, without batting them aside, or being drawn into their vortex – I can remain true to myself, responsive rather than reactive, and unperturbed.

Awareness can co-exist with serenity. Detachment is not indifference to suffering: it comes when I manage to unhook my heart from the ego-Velcro, so I am not swept off into fear, or anger, or other automatic, ego-controlled reactions, when I encounter ego in others.

In the Heartland, I am not alone, excluded or abandoned – not left to get through my life without help. This has been my experience, at any rate, so far.

There is a world of difference between being here in the Heartland and being in the egosphere (where I still find myself spending time!) – it is another world, another life. Here in the Heartland is where things are happening, and where just about anything can be transformed into good food. This is the kitchen.

When something disturbs my tranquillity – as something quite often does – here are a few of the things I do, to get back here, back to my Heartland.

- hang on! take note of my feelings! steady up

- take time to sit still, step back.   Give myself some space

- lay out my feelings honestly – censoring nothing, but staying aware of any ego stirrings - which have a different 'tone' to them from my actual feelings. 

Remember: ego loves to dwell on other people’s actual or imagined bad or insensitive behaviour, loves to go over and over any unsettling exchange, and speculate about other people's unworthy motives.  In other words, ego is a malicious gossip!

- Focus on the feelings I am feeling now, on what my inner senses are telling me, not on the ‘event’, the conversation or encounter (because ego feeds on all that finger-pointing ‘he said/she said’ stuff.)

- ask for help

- wait – listen – notice what emerges in response, to help (fresh insight, feelings released, a phone call, a tiny event, something I happen to notice . . .)

- accept the easing that comes (usually almost immediately) - recentre, regroup, relax into the new freedom from entanglement

- say thank you for the help received (gratitude itself is a helper)

Gestalt therapy also focuses on how we feel in the moment, and helps people to recognise the tightenings in the belly, or flutterings in the chest, that indicate something wrong – as well as the strengthening, energising feelings that come when we’re in harmony with ourselves.

Spending more time in the Heartland has improved and refined my sense of humour, helped me to develop detachment, and a bit more capacity to see myself  with detachment too.

Being in the Heartland lets my heart be open, and gives me a taste of how life actually is, on the inside.

Spontaneity and the Child’s Eye View

When I was a child, it often seemed to me as if grown-ups were speaking in code. They repeated certain phrases like passwords, told the same jokes and anecdotes over and over again. To my astonishment,they seemed to enjoy telling, and hearing the same old formulations, again and again.

I remember distinctly how refreshing it was whenever an adult – a family visitor, or a teacher in class - responded freely, to the moment, just said what they thought, as it came to them – without attaching a ‘tag’, a false laugh, a little saying.

What I was registering - accurately, as children do - was the difference between people being present and open to what is happening, and people living behind barricades of familiar phrases and role-plays, protecting themselves from the uniqueness of each situation with ‘coverall’ responses.

Now I've spent a few decades as an adult, I understand all too well how people come to resort to cliches and habitual responses, rather than risk real life, moment to moment.

When I am in Heartland, being true to myself (to my feelings), I respond naturally, spontaneously and appropriately to what’s going on in the moment - perhaps particularly around children, if they are being spontaneous and not playing some attention-seeking game.

This appropriateness, or congruence, is informed by my feelings (my ‘gut-nav’) and is my true and proper protection against ego. In the Heartland, my attitude to people and situations is not fixed by memories of the past, or according to some abstract religious or moral principle.

Using my ‘gut-nav’ is like having an inner compass, where the arrow is swimming in mercury, constantly feeling where true north is, and adjusting accordingly.

In the Heartland, as in nature,

nothing is fixed,

and nothing is chaotic.

Love is a bringer of inner order –

fear, of inner disorder.

Inner Intimacy and Space

In the Heartland, there is intimacy without pressure and without presumption. There is no crowding, no need for compromising or deal-striking. Here, boundaries remain intact, and associations are voluntary. No one is manipulated into doing things that feel wrong or risky.

Intimacy does not only happen between people. It happens within the psyche, and describes the trusting inner relationship I can develop and come to depend on, when I feel at home in my heart, when I listen to my feelings. (See Intimacy and Solitude, by Stephanie Dowrick)

In my inner life, much that happens is ‘for my eyes only’. (For people who pray, these things are ‘between them and God’.) Those around me will sense transformations in us without being told about them – indeed, this is the way things work.

It is essential to my inner security and wellbeing to be able to refrain from discussing my feelings and insights, from seeking approval or feedback about things that are properly my own business.

This need for non-exposure relates to the privacy of the confessional, and of the therapeutic relationship, as well as of friendship, and of marriage or partnership. To feel secure and in balance, I need to feel confident that I am not throwing myself away.

Self-Exposure and Stress

There is something very dubious about the way people's feelings are exposed and publicised - for profit and entertainment, by the press and TV, or in the name of ‘consciousness raising’, or 'salvation'.

Unless we have been desensitised by overexposure to exploitative news reports, we can sense in our bodies that something is ‘off’, when people grieving and in shock are pushed and prodded to describe their feelings for the microphones and cameras. It feels distasteful, unnecessary and unhelpful - intrusive and abusive, even.

Reporters who chase ambulances, or are filing stories from places where bad things are happening to people ('disaster zones') can themselves be affected - have their feelings twisted - by overriding their natural feelings or concern or respect, in order to 'get the scoop'.

Also, current self-assessment practices in the workplace arouse ‘stress’ – i.e. fear – and undermine authenticity and wellbeing.

If I override my feelings of distaste about such invasive behaviour, by watching and listening to its products, letting prurient interest hook my attention – or if I participate in intrusiveness myself – I fuel fear and ego in my psyche, and render myself more susceptible to my own and others’ nonsense.

In other words, when I engage in intrusive and insensitive behaviour, I allow myself to be exiled from my home in the Heartland, where such things don’t happen.