As a New Zealand male on my journey to discover my true emotional connection, I appreciate how far I have come, yet I learned today how much further this road will take me. Many years ago, I had the common yet now more outdated New Zealand stereotype attitude of “Take it like a man. Men don’t show emotions!”

Yesterday feels like such a divine gift on my journey to discover the true power of the heart and emotions. It was one week after doing Teal Swan’s one-day workshop. During the workshop, she said she could run it fully online, but this would not enable a community of like-minded people to come together and connect, forming a new ongoing ecosystem of support. This was my biggest gain: the new friends and incredible after-experiences that followed.

When I share this blog post on Facebook, some friends will again wonder why I am sharing such real vulnerably about my discovery of new fears and the surfacing of new insecurity. The first minute of the following Teal Swan video sums up why I seek to fully uncover any unconscious suppressed fears. To reverse the habit of turning any negative into a positive, my old pattern of hiding in the head. Whatever we suppress will show up again and again.

The big gain from meeting this amazing network of phenomenal people was yesterday in the park! It was an optional gathering of people who attended Teal’s workshop. One magical person had come up with the idea and organised blindfolded dancing for this particular meeting in the Auckland Domain.

On the day of this gathering, I was unsure if I would attend. It was nice to tune into my emotions and share them with the organiser, then I decided to attend. What a gift it was! The dancing was blissful, not caring how many cars passed along the domain road, slowing down to watch us. They seemed too slow and were all looking at us. Even without blindfolds, we just had energising music going, and all 6 of us seemed in tune with each beat, moving almost lost within the sweet rhythms of the tunes.

It was nice to connect again with the diverse array of beautiful souls attending. Then as I started to sweat, I thought it was time to remove the t-shirt. Some doubt entered my head, and then thoughts of whether I would be judged. Little did I know this was not even the start of a deep dive into self-doubt!  

Then an amazing gift of pure presence from another male who was also showing a few signs of sweat on his shirt. He observed while we danced, as we paused from dancing briefly. He said, “I can see you are in your head.” Wow, knowing it was, in fact, true as at that point I was thinking, would I make this choice, shirt or no shirt! What would others think? I felt confident about removing my shirt, yet some fear was present. Would I seem like an exhibitionist? Then I let go of that thought and moved free again from thinking as I dropped into the music again. Then, soon after he returned, he offered me a very powerful message that I could not previously see, yet I had also felt it, mostly at a hidden unconscious type level.

I soon discovered he has such a gift to tell when somebody truly speaks their truth, which for me turned out to be such a profound gift. A talent that I am not sure if he fully appreciates this power yet. I know he admires some similar traits in another amazing young lady who was part of this group and is also opening her gifts in this area as a new career. His gift seems to be that he can fully understand if somebody is talking authentically from their heart, even when the person speaking believes they are being fully present and real. He seemed able to look deeper and tell the difference if people were talking more from the head, as I sometimes did. I can often sense if a person is totally in their head and suppressing emotions, as this is my journey and the area of my expertise, but the feedback I was getting seemed very different from my gift. It was the opening of an emotional blind spot that feels so critical now for my growth.

So thanks to my new friend for sensing and describing that I am “still holding onto the side of the pool. Not yet taking the deep dive emotionally to a place of total inner truth.” I already know I am at a level of emotional comfort at a plateau that I have been aware of yet unable to understand. Even after more than 10 years of emotional journeying, having released huge blocks of anger and sadness and had huge growth by connecting emotionally. This significant emotional growth was after having originally been very in the head, which had been an escape from anxiety and depression during my first year away from home at University when I had turned everything into a positive. Even after years of significant growth, I think of myself as emotional authenticity, yet this friend helped me uncover my current stagnation. A new layer that I could in some way feel, yet not understand or touch until then.

As a result, today, I allowed myself to feel fear and sit in sadness more rather than using my toolkit of emotional integration methods that help clear shadow patterns to get new growth. Opening my senses and finally appreciating my unconscious fear of the unknown. The fear of deep water, the fear of claustrophobia that recently scared the living bejesus out of me when getting into a plastic orb ball, that feeling of complete terror and panic. And maybe the biggest of them all is the unconscious fear of really showing up and standing tall, standing out to make a massive impact on this planet, which at some unknown level does hold as a fear. Therefore, today felt like the tip of the iceberg as I uncovered new unknown fear and sadness. Today’s awareness feels like the start of a new, deeper journey, so I feel such deep gratitude from the bottom of my heart for the gift of presence and divine insight that felt so powerful to me, opening further inside.

So the next inner journey begins. As a Sports Mental Skills Coach, I tell clients you don’t get what they want. You get what their unconscious stuff creates. Yet by definition, we are non normally conscious of this, as I have just discovered, hence the power of somebody else to shed light on the shadows. I knew I had not been feeling the same clarity in my outlook. Often, I can sense energy or emotions around me, yet I have felt lost for months. I know my unconscious stuff was creating my future, but only today feel ready to bring the shadows that dawn into the light. It seems strange that I am excited by consciously awakening to a new fear, as I know that my emotional body is like a muscle; before starting my emotional journey, the only range of movement was in the positive range. I used to think I had to be positive to be loved. Hence, I turned everything into positive and unknowingly suppressed negative emotions. So now a new stage awaits, after many years of emotion unblocking, a technique I do by myself when a non-positive emotion occurs, to open up the unconscious blocks that create this feeling trigger, new uncharted bounds await.

So now my journey is being ok with uncovering a new fear of not being good enough, that I may fail, and the associated disconnected, disowned pain hidden within that started to surface today. Let the journey begin even though these feelings do not feel great as they come up. Gone are the days of living in a disconnected, isolated, emotionally positive-only state. Hence, today’s blog is only my second deep dive into expressing my truth and being more open to it! To challenge myself to be fully exposed to the truth and vulnerable is part of the core of true freedom to be and make a bigger impact on the world. Yet these small steps today feel like a new phase of growth inside.