When was the last time you felt truly alive, and what would it take to feel that way more often?
The topic of “aliveness” has been coming up fairly regularly in my coaching sessions recently. People feeling flat, disengaged, a nagging sense of discomfort that all is not right in the world. They have a longing – a yearning, even – to feel more alive. But what does that even mean?
To be honest, I struggle with it as a coaching topic precisely because it’s so hard to define – and perhaps means different things to different people. I’ve heard it described as being in flow at work, looking forward to the day ahead, feeling interested and engaged in life. They “know it when they feel it” (travelling to a new place, hiking or biking outside, attending a rock concert), but how to capture that sensation, bottle it up, and feel it more frequently?
Perhaps it’s difficult to deconstruct “aliveness” precisely because it’s not a cognitive exercise. It’s a feeling in the body – of exhilaration, of lightness, of blood flowing freely and expanding with breath. Like cleaning out all the dust in the attic, opening the curtains, and letting in the light. Indeed, you know it when you feel it.
One potential opposite of aliveness is numbness – not feeling anything at all. We put up a shield to protect ourselves from feeling what we don’t want to feel. The problem is, our shield numbs us from feeling anything – the lows AND the highs.
More and more, I’m working with people on allowing themselves to feel again. To remember they have a body, not just a brain, that contains so much information. To notice when they feel heavy, and to find the wisdom in that heaviness. To feel the anger, the fear, and the sadness they have been suppressing, so that they can process and release it. They often report feeling much lighter afterwards. The more we can release what we have been suppressing, energetically, the more choice we have in how we want to live our lives in a way that feels true to us.
For this week, I chose a poem by my friend and colleague Mieke Jacobs. Mieke’s poetry always stirs something up inside of me in a way that other poems do not. Most poems bring me a sense of peace and clarity – Mieke’s poems challenge me and call me to attention. They bring me that elusive feeling of aliveness. As you read it, perhaps ask yourself what it would look like to orchestrate your sole prison break and stop overlaying someone else’s life with your own? May we all rise to a new dawn.
