The Gift of Disgust
Without Disgust there is no “high vibe”
The greatest truth meter is disgust.
This is why toxic positivity is so incredibly dangerous.
This is why spiritual gaslighting is so prevalent.
This is why the truthers get hi=jacked into the finger pointing “look what THEY did.”
Because no one wants to feel the disgust ….AND the deeper truth it’s revealing.
This is why you only listen to your “intuition” when it feels good or is just a story you’ve convinced yourself is intuition in order to bypass the truth inside of you screaming at full force.
Many spiritual teachers will tell you that if it feels good it must be good; this is a lie. They will tell you that if there’s a sign you must be going in the right direction, not always so. They’ll look for confirmation bias affirming there is no natural law/karma/justice to justify their own bad behavior instead of confronting it. They will sink into subjectivity as an excuse for not knowing the difference between right and wrong…. for not listening to the call of the conscience constantly poking them in the ear.
The truth gets turned off because it doesn’t fit under the pretty little label called “high-vibe.”
Because high-vibe is a catch phrase of popular culture that keeps you lying to yourself to avoid “negative” feelings…. thus, holding them all inside only to come out later in other ways…. which is definitely a vibe…. but not the kind being sold.
The American Heritage Dictionary defines disgust as:
disgust /dĭs-gŭst′/
transitive verb
To excite nausea or loathing in; sicken.
To offend the taste or moral sense of; repel.
To provoke disgust or strong distaste in; to cause (anyone) loathing, as of the stomach; to excite aversion in; to offend the moral taste of; -- often with at, with, or by.
When your body has something toxic in it, it naturally wants to expel it. It feels disgust in a sense. It knows something has entered the terrain that is not good for it and will give you an indicator that it is trying to get out. However it comes out of you, you know the ways, is your body assisting you in ridding itself of a harmful substance.
AND this in the physical sense will turn on the same alarm bell when something else is wrong in other ways, mentally, spiritually, emotionally.
I remember a time when I felt disgusted with a situation I was involved in, yet I ignored the warning signs, the red flags, the alarm bells until I started feeling physically sick and it dawned on me that before that situation, I was ok. Once I removed the situation from my life, the disgust left. It was a conscious awareness of my body speaking to me that I was going the wrong way.
In a different time, I told a friend I was feeling disgusted with myself, that I had not been as disciplined as I want to be and felt disappointment. To my surprise that friend became angry, saying things like, how dare you speak to yourself this way. I wasn’t talking “down” to myself in negative self-talk; I was simply acknowledging the truth of how I was feeling back in that moment. I was shooting straight; I was being honest. We can’t change what we aren’t willing to look at...it’s ok to say how you really feel even if the response is surprising. Feelings of disgust are a grand truth meter, an ally, not something to avoid, fear, squash down, run from, brush under the rug and pretend isn’t there…. because it’s there.
For me disgust shows up in the gut, the throat, and the solar plexus.
Dis-Gust
…gust, a gust of wind in the gust, a knocking down, feeling nauseated…
…the GUTs saying run Dis way…. not that…it’s a warning from toxicity…
Disgust is a gift, an opportunity to look at something, a warning to change.
It’s the weather alarm going off signaling danger.
Maybe the danger is from another person or situation…maybe it’s of your own doing…maybe it’s something completely unseen and irrational.
And this is where the freedom community gets stuck in the blame game of “I can’t believe they are doing that to us” because the real disgust is internally:
- That time you didn’t have the courage to stand up to tyranny
- That time you blamed “they” but really are mad at yourself for complying and consenting.
- That “leader” you put your hope and faith in that let you down
- That beLIEf that kept you in victimhood
The world gaslights if you draw attention to its grand display of disgust, because the displays are often normalized and celebrated as good.
Sitting in a pit of disgust and doing nothing about it is not healthy, BUT, listening to that little fire in the belly when it arises, is a true gift…..it teaches discernment….it’s visceral…a bone chilling kind of epiphany….the kind you know even when it makes no sense and no one will believe you….that’s disgust talking….that’s your window to listen to the most important and overlooked sanctum of your inner voice.
It starts subtly, in those moments we overlook something, justify behaviors (including our own) until one day we feel sick and are forced to make a change.
These are the times we must ask OURSELVES:
- Why did I ignore it? Funny, not funny, how we can see so much in hindsight.
- Why did I lie to myself about a situation, another person’s actions not matching words, or to myself…. where did I let myself down? Where am I willing to admit feeling disgusted with my choices without beating myself up?
- When I am always pointing the finger outward disgusted in other’s behavior, can I find somewhere in my own life that I might have done something similar that I’m not so proud of? Can I acknowledge it, bring it to awareness, find forgiveness and then work to not repeat that…. ever how small the situation may be like a little white lie…. or how large?
Disgust teaches us discernment.
It’s a truth meter for the feelers not afraid to feel emotions…. not afraid to ask, is this emotion even mine or is it manufactured? Is this disgust mine to work through of my own making or is there a greater warning to heed?
Disgust holds a lot of power. It’s what comes after disappointment ….it waits to see how you’re going to respond…IF you’re going to?
It’s ok to feel disgust…. about something you’ve done, about how you look, about another person or a situation. And then it’s time to take action for what is in your control and let go (or vomit out) the toxic shit that is not for you.
The next time you recognize it, just say it aloud, that’s disgusting.
We can’t change if we can’t honestly look at ourselves.
Everyone withholds information, tries to manipulate situations, even if unconsciously. We feel disgust when we don’t listen and become haunted by bad choices, even small ones. We know in our hearts when we do something wrong and it eats at us. We toss and turn when our integrity is mis-aligned, or we make a terrible mistake.
We’ve got to throw the high-vibe low-vibe crap out the window and get back to being real humans.
Our body holds intelligence that includes dialogue meant to be in our awareness, including our thoughts and heart in the conversation.
Let disgust have a voice…let disgust show you what needs to be purged from your life…let disgust be felt in its subtlety as not to blow up into something bigger and louder.
The FASTER you can tune in to this message when it arises, the less it will linger and become problematic.
There’s a lot to be disgusted about in this world, which is why we also get to alchemize it by living life beautifully, by honoring the sacredness and awe of being alive…in every moment we get to make choices for harmony and health or fall into the pit of the way of the world that is always trying to drive us away from the goodness, from the values we’re doing our best to live by.
All the emotions available to us are there for a reason…. the more we ignore the ones we don’t like to feel, the more the collective turns into one big pit of disgust.
Disgust is a strong word….it’s the puke point just prior to a purge…it’s the vapid viper that ignites righteous anger…it’s the ghost that hides in pleasantries of false politeness…it’s the excuses we don’t even know we’re making because we’re too busy to stop and notice.
The opposite of disgust is satisfaction. When we live upright in accordance with Divine Law, when we listen to our inside voice, when we live from the heart, that sense of satisfaction pours out in peace, contentment and delight. Unraveling the choices that lead to disgust through forgiveness, acknowledgement, and change allows stored emotions and looping thoughts to exit the temple of your being….an exhale that is long overdue…and the breath comes back and fills up the whole of your lungs….and you get to start anew.
High vibe isn’t about avoiding the negative, it’s about being real.
I never hear anyone talk about this topic…but I think it’s important and I know it’s more prevalent than openly discussed….interesting how discuss sounds like disgust, eh?
With love and irrational things,
Angela