Are You Digesting Life Properly?
Have you ever had something come up in your life that feels eerily similar to an issue you've dealt with in the past?
A while ago, I entered into a business partnership that was all wrong, and while my intuition was sending me alarm signals the entire way, I chose to ignore them. Sure enough, the partnership had to end, and it wasn't a pleasant experience.
Something came up recently within a completely different context, but it had the same icky texture. Since our brains like to find commonalities and make sense of new experiences, my brain immediately declared, "This situation is just like that other one was, which means it's horrible and you need to get out!"
In some ways, this is really helpful - I was noticing some of the same intuitive signals, and I've learned my lesson well enough now to pay more attention to them.
But something else was happening: it became clear to me that I hadn't fully digested the first partnership, and without doing more emotional work there, it would shadow opportunities to collaborate with others in the future.
I wasn't able to determine whether this new opportunity that came up was actually right or wrong for me without revisiting and dealing with the old one.
angel Kyodo williams is a Zen priest, writer, and visionary who recently spoke at the Sister Giant conference. While there, she shared an analogy that really stuck with me. She said that people who don't meditate are going around eating and consuming life, but they're not digesting any of it.
That is the truth.
Without consciously digesting our experiences, we end up having spiritual diarrhea, constipation, or all sorts of maladies in-between.
Our bodies are amazing, aren't they? We consume food throughout the day, our bodies take what they need in order to nourish us, and then they eliminate whatever's left over and ready to go.
Most of us don't even have to worry about this process - it just happens automatically, and it gives us the energy we need to enjoy life.
Digesting our experiences is just as important as digesting our food, but many of us have to learn how to do this - it's not always something we're taught.
But how do we digest intangible experiences and the thoughts and feelings that come along with them?
When I realized that old pain was informing how I felt about this new opportunity, I got quiet and asked myself some questions: what was the old story I was telling myself, what still hurt, and what was I ready to let go of?
Then I journaled about it so that it got out of my body and onto paper, where I could see it more clearly. This is the digestive process that works for me, but here are some others you could try:
- Create rituals of processing and releasing. Maybe you write something down on paper and burn it, hike up a mountain and imagine releasing that thing at the top so you're free on the way back down, or you toss rocks into a lake.
- You could burn sage or incense after you've examined what the experience(s) meant to you, what they taught you, and what about them can be eliminated.
- You can process things out loud with a loved one or support person.
Whatever you do, I hope you'll just start by being more aware of your emotional and spiritual digestion, because it's so important.
When our bodies don't digest things slowly enough, we can't absorb the nutrients we need. When our bodies digest things too slowly, we get stopped up, which causes pain and an inability to take in any more food.
So it is with the things that we experience in life. We need the time to process and draw out lessons from what goes on in our lives, but we also need to release them and move on in time to receive new experiences.
If there were a continuum between "Digests Experiences Too Quickly" and "Digests Experiences Too Slowly," where would you fall?
Is your spiritual body in balance, able to take in and eliminate regularly?
If not, consider what you might be holding onto that's ready to go or savor your next experience and see what nutrients can be drawn from it.