BURNING AND A-LOOTIN TONIGHT. -BOB MARLEY

You’re tired of how heavy life is. You’re tired of waking up and dreading the day to come. You’re scared of life, people, and yourself. You keep trying shit – the people pleasing, the next quick fix, the current addiction, the lashing out, or the self-imposed isolation – but it still feels empty. You want to be comfortable in your own skin. You want to be at peace with yourself – all of yourself. You want to be fearlessly you. You want to move lightly through life, even when shit’s rough. You want to know you are worth it and that you belong. You want to love and be loved. Somewhere inside, you know it’s your birthright to dance this wondrous life. 

COULD YOU BE LOVED? AND BE LOVE? -BOB MARLEY

All I ever wanted was to love and be loved – to be free to be me in all that I am and all that I feel. By a thousand cuts, some thin, some gaping wounds, I created, learned, and told myself a story that said, “Love means feeling, feeling means I get hurt. Love is scary, love is bad.” After that story dug its way into my brain, I put on psychic armour so I’d never get hurt. But that meant that even if I had the warmest, biggest hug, I’d only feel it through inch thick steel, imprisoned by my wall of protection. At least I was “safe,” or so I thought. 

RUNNING AND A-RUNNING AND A-RUNNING AWAY, BUT YOU CAN’T RUN AWAY FROM YOURSELF. -BOB MARLEY

Locked away behind my safety, I was being eaten away by emptiness. I longed to feel the fullness of life, but I wasn’t safe from the thing that kept me safe.

I tried surfing, if only I could live in a barrel. 

I tried video games, I’ll be a conqueror of the internet battlefields.

I tried girls, because it’s their job to make me feel enough, right?

I tried being alone. I tried surrounding myself with people.

I tried teaching, maybe fulfilling a rad purpose would do it. 

I tried therapy, perhaps I’ll collect enough coping strategies to figure this shit out. 

I tried Bob Marley, if only I could keep the feeling of his music going all day. 

I tried shrooms, no matter how high I’d blast off, I’d always come down.

I tried finding myself, new hairdo’s, new outfits, new personalities. 

I tried finding God, enlightenment, nirvana; hours of meditation, holy texts, days of prayer.

In all that trying, some of it kind-of, sort-of worked – like lifting the visor of the helm to let the sunshine through, or installing an internal cooling system in my metal suit, or teleporting to mount Kailash to sit with the nine sages – but no matter how much relief I got, I was still sitting in 100 pounds of armour. 

WE JAH PEOPLE CAN MAKE IT WORK. -BOB MARLEY

And then the documentary The Work slapped me upside the head. I was terrified at first. “Am I watching the real life Exorcist?” But my heart knew the truth: I was bearing witness to those with the courage to step into the fire – I watched the armour being burned off, put down, transmuted.  Something in me woke up. The film struck my armour and it rang out, a sound like a bell calling me home, a haunting sound, the sound of freedom.

Over the next few months, that haunting song tore down my defenses. I came face-to-face with my version of the collective conditioning – the conditioning that has us do anything but feel. Our collective conditioning in the war against feeling looks like…

Toxic shit: Being your local tyrant or Karen, joining the current fascist movement, consumerism hedonism, a mind that chants, “Me, me, me!”

Noble shit: Being a good person, joining the current woke-left movement, granola enlightenment, a mind that chants, “We, we, we!”

Even our attempts at feeling are used to run away from feeling: talking about feelings, collecting cathartic experiences as trophies in your great museum of feeling, becoming fluent in the lingo of feeling to become the local feeling guru, coping strategies to manipulate feelings, tricking yourself into thinking you feel by routinely expressing constrained-half-feelings. 

In and of themselves, many of these things are not the problem. The real test is fear. “Are you still holding back? Are you still pushing it down? Are you scared to feel this all the way?” Only you know the answer. You might fool others, you can try fooling yourself in the mind, but you can never fool your heart.

WE FOUND A WAY TO CAST AWAY THE FEAR. -BOB MARLEY

Eventually, the fear question became unavoidable for me. I found myself at a weekend intensive in San Francisco, seated in a circle of 9 people, teetering on the edge of feeling with a man from Inside Circle, a man who had done this work for decades as an inmate in Folsom Prison. He asked me, “What does that feel like?” And so I stepped into the place of no holding back, of no pushing down, of feeling all the way. I cast down the armour. 

This is what unfolded for the next hour:

On the ground crying,

Loosed an ancient roar,

Laughed like the Buddha,

My heart cries love, love, love!

I walked away having put down a weight I carried for decades – put down for good. 

Beyond the willingness to be armourless, there’s the practical things that went into the magic mix of feeling-freedom – things you’d find in the work of Mōhalu, carrying on the lineage of Inside Circle: 

  • A village of safety.

  • A space to slow down, breathe, speak from the soul, cry, yell, laugh, smile, and move the body.

  • Grounding the medicine in the body for the return trip home. 

Since then, I continue to step into the fire of feeling, into the place of no armour – and I don’t think it ever ends. Each time I take that step, I find my freedom. Each time different from the last. And as soon as my mind starts thinking it knows how this is supposed to go, I see that’s another form of armour. 

WHO FEELS IT KNOWS IT LORD. -BOB MARLEY

Freedom is in putting the armour down. I thought feeling was the enemy, but I’ve realized feeling was the bliss I sought all along. 

It doesn’t mean life never hurts or that things aren’t uncomfortable. I still fuck up. I still have crazy-ass thoughts. And oh god, it doesn’t mean that I’m some finished project, that I’ve completed life, got it all figured out, “Come all my disciples to learn at the feet of your guru!” I spit on that.

But what it does mean is that I don’t have to run anymore. I used to think the question was, “How can I fix, change, numb, or avoid feeling?” I now see the question as, “How can I live without running away from feeling?” And when I am true to that question, I find I am comfortable in my own skin, I can be me – exhale – thank God. 

Mōhalu’s work is to walk with people to the root level of feeling, busting through oppression (systemic or not). 

As a part of Mōhalu, I flow between all the shapes I take in life. At times, I take the shape of a braddah who needs you to lean on in the thunder and flowers of life. Other times, I take the shape of a sherpa in the underworld of feeling – I’ll walk with you, into the inner wilds, wherever you need to go. 

I am: Lion Who Roars Love.

FEEL THIS DRUMBEAT, AS IT BEATS WITHIN. -BOB MARLEY

If I caught myself right before I was about to leave The Shire, I’d say: 

You can find peace. You can find freedom.

You don’t need to know all of the how. The willingness to put down the armour is a big first step.

It may feel hopeless, forever doomed – it’s not. 

Yes, this is hard. Yes, this is scary. 

But scary isn’t the full story, on the other side of fear is unabashed wildness and wonder.

Deep within the feeling is wisdom and wholeness.

This is the kind of wisdom and wholeness that gets into your bones.

This is what you were always looking for. 

Positive vibration, one love,

Craig “Rasta” Dias