Food and digestion
My partner is watching a movie for a language class she is taking, and the movie - with its violence and sense of impending doom - does not sit so well with her. And at the same time, she is smart enough to see that it is less about the movie itself, and more about how she receives it.
The analogy with food and digestion seems quite close...
Any experience is food, and how we relate to the experiences is how this food is digested.
So if our coping mechanisms are not so well developed, then many types of experiences will be difficult for us, even traumatic. And the more developed they are, the more types of food are OK, or even nourishing.
Ultimately, any type of experience can be deeply nourishing, although this requires not only that we awaken to what we are (realized selflessness) but also a great deal of maturity in who we are, as an individual.
If there is only an awakening to what we are, then the experience just sails through us with few or no hooks. It is teflon land. But it does not mean that it is deeply nourishing on a human level.
For it to be deeply nourishing, we need to digest it also as who we are, as an individual. Use it to mature as a soul and human being, to become more deeply human.
Labels: maturing, who and what we are