“People are afraid of themselves, of their own reality; their feelings most of all. People talk about how great love is, but that’s bullshit. Love hurts. Feelings are disturbing. People are taught that pain is evil and dangerous. How can they deal with love if they’re afraid to feel? Pain is meant to wake us up. People try to hide their pain. But they’re wrong. Pain is something to carry, like a radio. You feel your strength in the experience of pain. It’s all in how you carry it. That’s what matters. Pain is a feeling. Your feelings are a part of you. Your own reality. If you feel ashamed of them, and hide them, you’re letting society destroy your reality. You should stand up for your right to feel your pain.”

-Jim Morrison

Comment on Morrison from Client: He was always so profound. Too bad he numbed himself out with drugs and alcohol. Strange that he knew all of this yet still chose to hide from his own reality. Sometimes I feel like when you are a feeling person things aren't necessarily easier, which could make someone want to numb out more. But its all the more painful cause you know what you are doing. Anyway, just my random morning thought.

Comment from Marta: He couldn’t receive love or feel love in his own life. He knew life, but couldn’t feel it in a way that allowed him to be in life and love, fill his pain and void. It is a constant practice to stay in the body and locate feelings, needs and desires. I am happy that more and more you are choosing nurturance over self-destruction and criticism. However, having self knowledge and using the tools in an intimate relationship and in life is always new territory and creates different challenges. But it does start with knowing yourself. It is a discipline to be a feeling person, a different consciousness that most don’t have. It is an awareness and aliveness that makes you sensitive and passionate, but it takes learning what feelings are in the body and how to master them with grace and action — it’s life, you don’t have to get drunk, drug out, medicate, or live out addictions in order to live life. You have to learn to feel, express and receive life. And part of that is the pain of life that creates passion and compassion. Most do not want to go there. Pain is frowned upon as a weakness, or something to fix or get over. Many artists live their feelings through their art, not through their life. They use their art as an escape from life, but able to put into words and visions the exact experience and reality that most cannot see, hear or touch. The artist is a prophet, but like many artists and prophets they hold the pain, joy and aliveness of the world and can’t handle the enormity of their purpose and chose to go numb, because the physical experience of feelings is sharp and deep. That is why it is important to keep moving the emotional energy through expression, movement and reception to fill up the voids and emptiness.

Wild Child – Poem by Client

I am the wild child
kicking your insides awake
pounding to your beating heart
singing to your hungry soul

The one in the picture with the unruly hair
and mischievous smile
that hides pain like candy
in secret places only she can find
the one that searches for your love
in every face

Hunger pains
vibrate through my hollow stomach
Desperate to fill
your haunting presence
with anything
but your rejection

No longer silent
Alive
with pain
Heat
Love
and fire

Dancing
in the grass
under the star filled sky
calling for your attention
I am the wild child
No longer to be ignored

Wild child. Where does she live in your body? Can she be in an intimate relationship?

I think she lives in my chest when she feels stirred up and wild and sometimes she drops down to my vagina, but when I ground her she drops down to my stomach. Underneath the wildness she feels anger and sadness; grief in my chest/heart and anger in my stomach. I have been centering her for the past 24 hours. She is now calm and feels taken care of. I feel good about the past 24 hours and how much I took care of myself around the wildness. I really knew what she needed: nurturing and creativity and to get out of my head. I believe she can be in an intimate relationship. She just needs me to keep bringing her in and grounding her, and also paying attention to what her needs are and not to judge her. I think I get nuts in my head when I am avoiding being in my body and that’s when the child takes over. I have to continue to be vigilant about calming her with love and understanding.

Whom is this for — that’s a good question. When I was writing I was thinking of my Mom, so maybe I feel pain and sadness and anger for her. But then the child wants to come out and be self destructive, but I don’t want to be anymore so we are having a pretty good battle these days. The adult seems to be winning. I haven’t quite perfected it, but I’m a work in progress.