Emerald Energies - A Delightful Spiritual Retreat

Staying Open
Kypris

September 25th, 2006

Pain is a powerful motivator, and I will do almost anything to be free of it. Unfortunately, as a child I was not taught to appropriately deal with negative emotions. I learned to dull my emotional reactions and “check-out” so that I wouldn’t feel pain. This gave me a very high tolerance for emotional pain, and over the years this translated into an ability to excel at doing things I really hated. This looked great from the outside, but turned into depression, anxiety, and a lack of joy on the inside. You see, the price of this high tolerance, this “checking out” was a complete inability to feel true happiness, joy, or well-being.

Finally, my anxiety became so painful that I needed professional help in dealing with it. The feelings I’d been distancing from for so long just couldn’t be contained any longer, and were manifesting as nausea, panic, and other even less pleasant physical symptoms. My therapist told me that I needed to journal, talk about my feelings, and even pound on pillows if necessary. At the time it seemed an odd approach, because I wasn’t aware of any repressed feelings, but I dutifully did my homework because this was the only option she gave me. With the homework, all sorts of feelings began to surface, and I began to realize I’d been sitting on a powder keg of emotion most of my life, and this was why I would explode into anger at my spouse and my child so easily.

This initial discovery happened years ago, and the journey of uncovering and connecting to my feelings has taken many twists and turns since then. What I’ve been bumping up against lately is the need to be open to pain so that joy can also flow through me, to stay open to my feelings no matter what they are. A wise friend of mine said to me recently that feelings are like the weather—not always convenient, but not worth trying to control or be upset about either. So I’ve been doing my best to experience my feelings that way, to let them wash over me when they’re like rain, and to let myself be filled with their radiance when they’re like the sun.

The more I stay open in this way, the more I am able to feel deep joy, and what a gift this is! For the first time in my life, I am feeling moments of joy so intense that they bring tears to my eyes. It takes a lot of courage and strength for me to flow with my negative emotions this way. I find that my daily practice helps me to find that strength to be fully in the moment and to open up to feeling more completely. I meditate each morning and sense into the places where feelings are stored in my body, my chakras, and do my best to breathe into these places while I allow the release of anything that no longer serves me. This releasing and connecting to spirit has become a practice I do throughout the day, usually by just stopping to take a breath and feel deeply whenever my emotions begin to stir within me. For me, experiencing my feelings is the practice. Every day I breathe love into myself from spirit, and remind myself that even the most painful feelings are opening my heart, and that they never last for very long if I don’t contract myself around them and keep them from flowing through me. Letting the negative feelings flow out creates space for me to allow joy to flow in, through simple gratitude for the little things in life—a beautiful flower, a magnificent sunset, or a kindness from someone in my life. Living fully in the moment and in my feelings lets me appreciate each moment much more fully.

We were created as human beings to experience the entire range of human emotions. On the tantric journey, we learn that being in the moment means surrendering to whatever we feel in our hearts, whether working, playing, praying, making love, or caring for our children. This surrender to spirit holds us while we keep the heart open to let everything, all experience, flow through it. And joy and love become larger and larger until it has no limit.

Namaste, Kyrpis

Shamanic tantra is a spiritual journey into a passionate creative life that includes a full and rich sexual connection to God. Initiated on this path by a powerful shamanic healer, Kypris has journeyed in search of spiritual wisdom, beauty, and the open heart through many places on Mother Earth: walking the witch-hunting hills of Salem, MA; bathing in the healing waters of Tahiti and Hawaii, and making love to the austere deserts of Sedona and Anza-Borrego. With the roots of her spiritual practice in Wicca, Kypris was led to tantra through visions of Aphrodite and Shiva, and transformed through solo practice of ritual, energy channeling, bellydance, and yoga. Led to her tantric partner by a powerful shamanic dream, Kypris practices tantra today in tandem, and works as a spiritual coach, healer, and teacher. Kypris holds a master's degree in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, as well as a master's degree in Counseling Psychology, and is an initiated HeartWisdom Tantric Priestess. She is the author of the forthcoming Journey to Sexual Wholeness, The Six Gateways to Tantric Sexuality.