03/21/2025
THE MYTH OF “RISING ABOVE”
There’s a story we cling to, a comforting myth about healing - that it means “rising above” our vulnerable human hearts.
That spiritual awakening is some kind of “shedding” of our humanity, and a realm of untouchable stillness.
But this story is a lie.
Peace is not the absence of feeling.
Strength is not the absence of trembling.
In our rush to transcend, we silence our anger in the name of kindness, mask our grief with spiritual smiles. We dismiss our fear as illusion, our wounded hearts as the ego’s noise. And we call it all love.
We follow gurus who claim to have ended suffering. Lost their egos. Transcended their pain.
“I never get angry”, they say.
“I only have loving thoughts”.
“My ego vanished in 1964”.
In chasing enlightenment like this, we abandon the messy truth of our own aliveness.
But what we suppress does not disappear. It lodges within us, in the ache of our chests, the tension in our shoulders, the restless beat of our hearts. The shadows we deny grow louder and darker.
The pain we avoid festers in the deep.
Neuroscience tells us that chronically suppressing our emotions activates a stress response, flooding our bodies with cortisol, inflammation, fear. Over time this can weaken our immune system, disrupt our sleep, and increase the risk of all kinds of illness.
The body remembers what the mind tries to forget.
True healing is not an escape from this mess of earth and sweat and trembling, but the courage to step into it all. Not a rising above, but a rooting down.
To touch the fire of grief.
To liberate the roar of anger.
To stand in the trembling truth:
I am not okay, and it is so damn okay.
Healing is the painful sob that cracks you open, the soft rain on your face in the early morning, the earth beneath your knees when you fall.
Healing is the raw, holy ache of being alive.
You are not broken for feeling life so deeply, friend. Your sorrow, your fear, your shame - they are not mistakes. These are invitations from God.
To awaken is not to transcend, but to descend, consciously, into the depths you once decided you could not bear.
And yes, the descent may shatter your old illusions. Your old life. But beyond the breaking lies a strength you have not lost, a wholeness that comes not from escaping pain, but from holding it so close.
No more pretending. No more forced smiles.
Let the anger rise. Let the tears fall.
Let your pain soften you, until it cracks you open to grace.
Let your trembling truth speak at last.
This is what it means to be fully, fiercely alive.
- Jeff Foster
