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The ability to feel is indivisible.
Repress awareness of any one feeling and all feelings are dulled.
When we refuse to allow fear we correspondingly lose the ability to wonder. When we repress our grief we blunt our capacity to experience joy.
The same nerve endings are required for weeping and dancing, fear and ecstasy.
+ Sam Keen
When tears come, I breathe deeply and rest.
I know I am swimming in a hallowed stream where many have gone before. I am not alone, crazy, or having a nervous breakdown….
My heart is at work. My soul is awake.
+ Mary Margaret Funk
The Prophet said, “Let him groan, for groaning is one of the Names of God in which the sick man may find relief.”
+ Muhammad
LET’S BEGIN WITH groaning. Have you ever felt the need to groan? I have when someone does something that offends me, when I’m in pain from hitting my toe on the door frame, when I’ve experienced the excruciating pain after breaking my upper arm, and even when I hear a “bad” joke. It is consoling to me to think that groaning is one of the 99 Names of God in which the sick person may find relief. I remember Sister Thea Bowman, a Franciscan Sister from Wisconsin, telling her friends as she battled cancer that groaning was something her grandmother told her was very helpful when you are in pain. Try it, it might work for you perhaps even better than drugs or alcohol. And of course there is always prayer!
What about tears? I’m one who cries during touching commercials, sad movies, and beautiful sunsets. When I learn that someone dear to me has died, I usually don’t shed tears right away and can get through the wake and funeral without tears, but after that I tear up when something or someone reminds me about that person. Something else happens to me when I’m talking or sharing something that touches me deeply. My voice quivers and tears come to the surface usually quite unexpectedly. Some folks are uncomfortable when this happens and judge the person as needing some help. I think this is just another way to let the feelings come out rather than repress them. I know people who cannot cry or express their feelings, and someone actually told me that she envied me my tears because she couldn’t cry. I’m consoled by Mary Margaret Funk’s words—“My heart is at work. My soul is awake.”
Sam Keen’s words, quoted above, really impressed me with the importance of expressing our feelings and how often they affect one another.
Of course I’m sad when someone dies, and I may not feel joyful for a while. If I’m fearful all the time, it makes sense that I no longer feel wonder at all the beauty in nature and people surrounding me. It does seem to be true that repressing even our awareness of any one of our feelings leads to dullness of all of them. The reason for this phenomenon according to Sam is that, “The same nerve endings are required for weeping and dancing, fear and ecstasy.”
Let’s put these nerve endings to work and realize when we do so, “our heart is at work and our soul is awake.”
Sister Mary Thill is a Sylvania Franciscan Sister. She can be reached at mthill@sistersosf.org. ✲
