Enjoy this 8-minute read – or have me read it to you – via the recording at the beginning of my webpost.
In a lot of my conversations lately with friends, 12-step fellows, chronic health clients at my day job, and people I’m meeting through InnerWoven’s offering, the theme that keeps coming up is “longing.” We long for a way of life that doesn’t feel like a constant struggle. We long to be free of our discomfort and compulsions. We long to live closer to nature or to understand how to find our tribe and share our gifts. And sometimes we simply “long” without knowing exactly what for.
At a recent Wild Recovery gathering, three of us who live in urban areas and long to live closer to nature were joined by a fourth who is caretaker of a feministic nature retreat deep in the woods. We were surprised to find that despite living on the land, our new friend was longing to reconnect with the oldest, wisest trees that the deep snow has divided her from, and is struggling with resentment over spending hours a day in front of her computer to earn a income remotely. We realized that living in nature isn’t necessarily an antidote for a longing to reconnect with the wild.
I’m becoming really tired of the constant narrative in our culture telling us that our longing is something we can and should fill. This comes in blatant marketing campaigns for material products, lifestyles, and adventures. And it comes in more covert spiritual and wellness messages around healing, raising our consciousness, and achieving oneness. What these approaches have in common is that they see longing as something to remedy, as a sign that we have some fine tuning to do in ourselves or our lives, as a call to get to work manifesting our dreams. And that if we don’t or can’t, it’s a sign of our failure or of being defective in some way, even if that defect is presented in the cunning guise of our inability to trust ourselves.
“Heal. Transcend your suffering. Believe in yourself. And you will have and be everything you’ve ever wanted!”
But what if Longing is an essential part of human existence, just like our creativity, our story-telling, our grief and our awe? What if it is as important for us to embrace our Longing and our restless Discontent as it is for us to embrace our Love and Power?
I choose to relate to my longing like the Sufi’s do. When they sing, dance, and beat their chests it is a singular, passionate expression of their bliss and their longing intertwined, birth from having glimpsed their Beloved. Every ecstatic line of poetry is a love song to the Divine, from whom we are necessarily divided by our physical bodies, but to whom we can stay in contact through our sacred Longing. At the end of (or between) our lives, we may merge, but as long as we are human, Longing for reunion – whether or not we identify our desire as a spiritual one – is a part of our reality.
What if Longing wasn’t something to eradicate but something to honor as our bond with what is most precious and sacred to us? What if we shifted our focus from what we long for to the experience of Longing itself? What if we recognized that Longing itself springs from Love and celebrate our capacity to feel the breadth of life? What if we let our gratitude be a big as our longing? What if we let our longing lead us, not to a destination, but to a life lived as a love song, praising what we know we to be sacred, essential, and above all – real.
One thing I know for certain is that if we could do this, we would become immediately more difficult to manipulate. There’s an incredibly deep, grounding, and stabilizing power in knowing what you love, what you live for, and that you will never fully achieve it.
The other thing I’ve been hearing from people is about their fear of really opening to their Longing and the Grief that often accompanies it. They’re afraid of being overwhelmed by grief, rage, or helplessness. Sometimes the fear is so deep that don’t even know what they love or long for. What I’ve found as I’ve worked to reclaim and befriend all my parts is that it is only the small child is me who is at risk of being overwhelmed, because she has been consumed by pain and can be again. But I – what I truly am as a conglomeration of energies – am large and strong enough to encompass it all.
What I really fear, then, is not overwhelm, but loss of control. I have learned how to do what needs doing even when I resent it, to withhold my anger so I can respond constructively, to resist my urge to climb every tree I pass, and to find a kind word even when I’m heart-broken and exhausted because these things help me get along with others. When I’m not on my best behavior and fail to do these things, what I really feel is embarrassed, ashamed. I don’t want to be seen “losing my shit”. And I’m afraid that if allow those big feelings that I’ll lose my capacity to rein it in when I need to.
Really opening up to Longing is like opening to Grief and to Rage. They are wild things that overtake us, that work on us and reform us in a way we don’t control. We don’t know what will happen to us if we let go and let them take us, just like we don’t know what will happen when we head out to sea or up into the mountains. But if we don’t make space to surrender to them, we remain estranged from part of ourselves, the most ancient and arguably the important part. Our grief hardens into depression. Our rage deepens into hatred. Our longing gets stuck in addictive compulsive patterns that numb us to the vitality of life.
Through Grief and Rage and Longing, our wild animal body is simply seeking to cleanse itself with fire and water, as blood and lymph heal a wound. If we let them do their work, the dominant part of us has to step aside. It can feel a little like going crazy, but it’s worth it to stay really, truly alive.
Humans once used ritual space to let the wildness in these archetypal feelings emerge, teach, and transform us without compromising the structure of society. Wild Recovery requires us to find ways to do the same within ourselves, our routines, and – when we’re lucky – our relationships. Nature, for one, welcomes the honesty of our rawness. And when we really surrender, when we really let go and trust, it’s often surprising how quickly nature does its work; how quickly Grief becomes Joy and Longing becomes Power.
Often it only takes being in community with others who see these experiences as courageous acts of self-love. Then it’s simply a matter of learning and practicing ways to take our container with us so we can stay in conversation with the Wild in us through a “language older than words”.
Nancy
If you’d like to join a community that’s exploring how to reclaim our relationship with the wild within and around us, visit www.InnerWoven.net/Wild
If you’d like to journey to meet the wild in yourself – to hear your own voice in a new way – visit www.InnerWoven.net.
Amen amen africketymen! Your point about befriending/accepting our longing making us less vulnerable to manipulation really hit especially deep. I, too, am really tired of the narrative we’re fed (to sell us shit, whether goods or ideas) and I appreciate you speaking truth to truth, and truth to power! Your reminder that even those who live in nature aren’t free from longing was also timely and important to hear. I celebrate your voice and your longing!
Curious question — what do you perceive as the difference between overwhelm and loss of control? For me overwhelm is one form of loss of control. Interesting to hear your experience!
Ahhaaahhaa! Awesome! I’m so glad my realization about empowerment resonated with you. And I think that’s also why it’s so hard to do. Anytime I set myself against the human herd, ancient parts of me feel pretty wobbly. So then I have to find even more ancient parts to ground in! I find it both depressing and freeing to realize the escapes I imagine really don’t exist. That means I can stay where I feel rooted, but still be growing and transforming. Underground springs! <3 And I love your questions about overwhelm and loss of control. I've never really thought about it before, but what's coming to me now is that "loss of control" is a shift in perception and/or set of circumstances, whereas overwhelm is one of many possible responses to that. Some find loss of control thrilling - like roller coasters (which I find mortally overwhelming). I would also say when I feel overwhelmed, loss of control is a key part of it. If I am flooded with emotion and/or sensory stimulus, I can start to panic if I think it will continue to escalate infinitely. But if I feel a sense of control over my environment or responses in order to calm myself, it ceases to feel overwhelming and can pass. Thanks for the juicy lead. What do you think?
Awesome back! I’m glad my reflection sparked something for you! I relate to the “setting myself against the human herd” struggle. It also helps me to remember that especially as women, we’re extremely vulnerable — and historically ostracized, humilliated, put on trial, burned at the stake, tortured, raped, murdered — when doing just that, in even subtle ways. The body remembers!
For me, loss of control is one type of overwhelm. Therefore, loss of control is always overwhelming to me. However, I think I do experience kinds of overwhelm (sensory, tasks) that aren’t directly lack of control, but feeling or believing I don’t have control over these circumstances definitely triggers overwhelm.
Interesting points about overwhelm. I suppose my ideal is to be able to lose control and not feel overwhelmed, but that’s a work in progress. I had another drowning dream the other day and, semi-lucid, I remember relaxing and telling myself “It’s okay to inhale. This will all be over soon.” Yes – the body totally remembers! And when it shifts, everything else falls into place, I find. <3 And thanks for the reminder about extra barriers for women. I feel so androgenous inside my own skin, I forget how the world perceives and responds to me. 🙂
You’re so welcome! Your perspective is fascinating and sparks my curiosity. I appreciate that!
Also, what’s up with the water dreams?? I haven’t been drowning in mine, but there’s been lots of swimming and visits to the beach. Primal and archetypal!