Expressing our Emotions

Yesterday, I had an acupuncture appointment with a young woman whom I have known for nearly twenty years. In the time I have known her, I have come to know her brother and parents as well, although it is her mother to whom I am the closest.

This young woman and her family are people I consider very important in my life and I care deeply for them. During my appointment, we conversed about many things while the needles were in. Eventually, we began to discuss the value of emotion in Healing; not only the emotions of the Healer, but of the recipient of the Healing as well.

Something about that conversation opened a part of me that I felt had to be discussed, and I mentioned how difficult it seems to be in our society to verbally express affection without being misunderstood. There are less than five women aside from my mother and partner to whom I can say “I love you” without fear that they will think I am being too bold or worse, trying to be sexually forward. And in North America, for a man to say that to another man would elicit great homophobic outcries, although there are a couple that I express these emotions to since they are amazingly good friends and understand that my words express my gratitude for their friendship.

My friend and I as Healers, -- she as an acupuncturist, a Reiki Practitioner, and other modalities I don’t remember, and I as a Reiki Master -- both know the value of Love when it comes to Healing. Many of the “New Age” (ancient wisdom) modalities are based on imbuing the client with a sense of being loved, unconditionally. It is this feeling of Love that gives the client a sense of well-being and inner Peace from which to allow the Healing to grow. So often that Love is not articulated verbally rather than implicitly sensed by the client, yet what is so wrong with saying it? All the great religions of the world teach Love and Compassion as the most important principles, and yet we are so reluctant to speak of love to any but the most intimate of our friends, and even in saying that I am reluctant to let it go to print because of the word “intimate.” Why would I be reluctant to use that word? Because I don’t want to give the impression of physical intimacy when the intimacy of which I speak is emotional.

I guess it boils down to language and how it’s used and what certain words have come to mean in our society. Again, I am not too hung up about telling my friends I love them, but only if they can take it in the way I mean it. If it would make them uncomfortable, it doesn’t get said...

Which is a shame.

~Still Wandering...