Become better at feeling
Dissolve not Solve problems
By Alison McEvoy, interview by Paul Congdon
Peter Crone is widely known as a ‘mind architect’. Listening to him speak recently with our Publisher, Paul Congdon, it is easy to see why.
We operate within structures of thought and emotion which guide our actions, our understandings, and our relationship with ourselves and with others. Listening to Peter dismantles what is untrue, unstable and provides no genuine foundation for our journey through life encountering love, money, relationships and more.
THE NATURE OF LIFE
The veil many of our parents create to shield and protect us from knowing the hardships of life during our early years was abruptly pulled back for Peter. He lost his mother at age seven, and his father by age seventeen.
This encounter with loss, death and grief led him to the experience of a “a real surrender to the nature of life itself… that, as the old adage goes, ‘no one is getting out of here alive’.”
Peter forged a path through the pain and grief he experienced in the wake of these losses. He came to a profound understanding which he continues to evolve and share with thousands of people across the world.
‘CAN I BE WITH THIS?’
“Pain is an inevitable part of being human. It is unavoidable to some degree as part of the human arc…but suffering, to me…becomes unnecessary.”
Pain is a part of life which helps to mould us. Pain is often good medicine, if we can embrace it.
“Psychological and emotional resistance is necessary…we need some adversity, some trials and tribulations to be able to pull off those scabs that hide the divine, limitless, timeless, boundless being that we are… As they say, smooth seas never made a good sailor.”
Suffering, on the other hand, is distinct from pain. This is one of Peter’s core teachings. It’s one I’ve struggled with throughout life. At times I’ve managed to embrace my pain and mitigate the suffering. At other times, I’ve full on attempted to deny, distract myself from, or wage war on my pain…leading to immense suffering.
Suffering is only inevitable to the extent that we are taught to avoid our pain. Peter teaches us to be “big enough of a being to allow for all of it”. The question he learned to ask himself in the face of adversity was ‘Can I be with this?’
BEING BETTER AT FEELING
How can we ‘be with’ our pain? We can allow and feel our tears come and go, our anger rise and fall, our hurt or jealousy or insult…sting then heal. All this pain, just as with anything in our amazing human bodies, can heal itself if we create the right conditions. For emotional and psychological pains, this right condition is ‘being with’.
If you’re feeling – you’re doing it right, because “it’s not about feeling better, it’s about being better at feeling.”
“The absence of resistance to it is what mitigates the suffering. The suffering is the resistance to life…we still have feelings, but they are more natural as opposed to things we are trying to avoid or escape. That’s where you can still have the feelings, but you’re sort of ok with it because you’re not resisting it. You’re actually in harmony with life.”
BREAKING THROUGH TO ‘BEING WITH’ FEELING
One evening, after listening to Peter talk, I lay down with the sole intention of feeling what I was feeling. A summer heartache was lingering, and the situation was in the process of a ‘long goodbye’. For the first time I experienced the voices, the thought structures that were causing my suffering and keeping me from being with my pain. This, in turn was keeping me from healing and moving on.
Listening to Peter, the ‘mind architect’, had created a temporary scaffolding in my mind that I could stand on. It stood apart from this voice and allowed for the slow crumbling of the structure. In place of it I am now building a place of self-love and self-compassion to stand on and rise from.
What lay in between me and my pain was a series of judgements and criticisms. Thoughts denying me, making me wrong, stupid or ridiculous to feel what I feel; ‘For God’s sake, how could you let ‘that’ hurt you? Why can’t you just get up and ‘be strong’? Why do you care about ‘this’ so much? Why would you go ahead and let ‘that person’ get you down?’ The berating was continuous, repetitive and circular. Untiring in fact. All this resistance to my feelings had been keeping me stuck.
This emotional ‘unavailability’ to myself was living in my shadow. I implicitly understood that I had met this ‘special someone’ to mirror it back to me – which they did, splendidly so. And no, we don’t always have to learn the hard way. People like Peter Crone are dedicated to supporting humanity in transcending as much suffering as it possible. Life will do its part and “present you with people and circumstances to reveal where you’re not free” however we do well to work on becoming conscious creators in our own lives at the same time as dealing the hand life gives us.
LEXICON OF LOVE
One arena in which we are presented with such opportunities for freeing ourselves is love.
Peter invites people to step into conscious creation by rising in love.
“…there is a falling. There’s a falling from grace at times where it becomes messy, it becomes blind and to begin with it can become quite lustful. But it is nonetheless a catalyst for our growth and whatever we needed to see. The love that I would invite people to consider is the rise in love…that we use love in the purest form which is a deep acceptance of all things to do with that other being…who they are, warts and all. It’s a profound, truly unconditional acceptance of another being.”
“It doesn’t mean we want to be with that person…but we grant beingness to other humans… If it’s not unconditional, then it’s not love.”
In a world of ‘block and move on’ this be a wonderful way to rise in love each and every time, even as you move on from that person. Where so many of us are choosing to step out of life, out of this challenging arena of relationships, Peter gives encouragement and hope that while we may need to love and leave some behind, finding a meaningful relationship is worth it.
“I have met those who through hurt, resignation, cynicism, heartbreaks one after the other, decided that well, no, I don’t need love anymore. I’m totally happy by myself. And whilst I get it…I think the joy of life, the juice of life is through companionship…even rougher seas of discontentment and disharmony with somebody so that you can grow…I think in order to be a powerful human, you need some turbulent weather. And for sure the best was to get that is in meaningful relationships.”
Peter has a wonderful podcast, free resources and a variety of specifically aimed programs and workshops available online to delve into. Come join me!
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