THE PRICE OF HIDING: HOW HOLDING BACK COULD BE MAKING YOU SICK
I understand it seems ironic, writing this from sabbatical (the first I’ve ever taken in my life). But resting feels natural, as if finally exhaling after decades of holding my breath. In this rare moment, retreating feels the opposite of holding back. Something wild and green is stirring beneath the sparkling snow surface this winter. I let the dark, cold soil and ineffable silence now embrace me and trust myself to not hold back when golden rays beckon me to stretch and bloom.
Taking time to withdraw and reflect is a powerful way to be our own healer. This sacred time helps us find rhythmic unison with ocean tides, earth, sky, and the miracle: life. What often emerges after a serene repose is bountiful ingenuity and newfound passion.
Yet there are times when withdrawing and holding back can become a comfort we dare not betray with self-sparked light or sound. Years pass, and we find we are still in the same place of irresolution, before the first step toward our Original Essence.
If you have ever tried to quell an overflowing cup, you know that holding back costs more energy than letting what is in motion flow. Knowing energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed or transferred, where would the energy you spend holding back go if you decided to flow?
Energetically speaking, the main cause of spiritual, emotional, mental, and physical illness is stagnation. Just like not exercising enough, emotions, such as resentment, can lead to stagnation. If left to fester, stagnation becomes the known experience of the total being, makes us sick, and makes us lose the memory of what flowing felt like. It could be helpful to sometimes wonder, is holding back making me sick?
Deciding to not hold back isn’t always simple; it could be that there is a little work to do first. Taking a personal inventory of where there is stagnation in your life may be a more viable place to begin. Are you eating the same foods, watching the same shows, sitting down too much, and speaking up too little? Have your spiritual practices become draining? Have you been holding a grudge? Have you been trying to control what you could never grasp? Are you weary with burdens that don’t belong to you?
Lastly, what is your relationship to greed? How about generosity? Because holding back the expression of your Original Essence, that unique thread that only you can weave into the web of life, could be one of the greediest acts possible, while sharing could be the most generous. It is wise not to underestimate the impact of even the tiniest acts of originality.
You don’t have to begin in mastery; that could be in ten thousand hours from now. It is perfect to begin addled, chaotic, and strange. So long as you begin.
I suggest you keep your heart healthy…
Swept clean of jealousy, resentment, judgement, and vacant fears.
Supported by water, song, dance, laughter, green food, rose, hawthorn, violet, and forget-me-not.
And when the heart feels immaculate, grateful, and healthy, close your eyes, look within, and listen, closely and well, to that rhythmic miracle: life, so wise. Every answer you need about where to go, what to do, and how to get there, your heart has imbibed through your soul’s experience. Listen. Remembering silence is also an answer. Remembering healing requires patience, presence, and perseverance. Keep listening. Keep flowing. You are doing well.