You Can’t Numb Selectively

You can’t numb selectively... The erotic teaches us that if we numb one area of life, all of life is affected. You can’t experience truly amazing sex if you are numb to your feelings. And you won’t feel all of life if you are numb to your sex. It’s the nature of interconnection. We operate as a whole, not boxed off parts (as convenient as that would seem at times, or as useful as it is as a short term response to trauma).

Right now, there is no one right way to feel. Some days (moments) I am feeling inspired, even excited for where this breakdown of reality as we’ve known it could lead. Other days (moments), I’m immersed in how scary and unpredictable the immediate reality is. Usually, there is a mix of both. There is room for both enlightenment and endarkenment in every moment. Trying to push aside one in preference for the other only causes numbness to the breadth and depth of life. I think of how many stories I’ve read from war zones that tell of love and hope in the time of despair. There is beauty in darkness. And darkness in beauty. It’s all appropriate. So my practice right now is to open to all of it. The practice IS of opening. Whether it’s opening to darkness or opening to light. The more I fully open to one, the more I can fully open the other, because my state is simply open. So my question becomes, what have numbed to, what have I refused to feel - whether desire or terror or appreciation or despair - and then to feel that too.