A Framework
The Importance of Disgust
The Importance of Disgust
It can be a kind of compass.
Disgust is one of the most primal human emotions. Its evolutionary function was to help us avoid things that were noxious or toxic. Clearly something that disgusts us could be food or another creature, but it can also be people. Like most emotions that are unpleasant, many of us have been socialized to suppress disgust. Yet because it is such a primal signal, suppressing disgust can leave us disoriented: exiled from our core sense of knowing. In this framework we explore what disgust is, how to work with it, and some of the intelligence we can gain by tuning into it when it arises.
Related Practices:
This is part of the larger project of: Feeling Your Feelings. A practice central to all of this is Emotional Yoga. It is related to Digesting Your Experience. It is connected to Learn to Set Clear Boundaries. It is part of deepening your Grounding. It can help you Find Your True North. See Working with Betrayal and Other Emotions You Don't Want to Feel. Because it is such a primal and powerful emotion, cultures that have moved away from welcoming the stranger, toward aggression toward the stranger, have learned to weaponize disgust. We explore this in the film Building Peace.Video: Distill | Photography: Stein Egil Liland | Licensed from Pexels.com, used with permission.