Tuesday, September 16, 2014

The Intuitive Language of Feeling


From my book, Solving for X, in Chapter 5 – Considerations, I’ve included some information about how to use the body’s language to begin to understand the truth of a situation or encounter we face.  The body speaks a language we are not taught to readily understand.  We intuitively know but until we turn up the volume a little bit on the wavelengths you are receiving, you won’t hear the message or understand it when it comes to you. 

We have so very much to consider if we are even remotely interested in the patterns and themes that are messages to us from us about what it is we are working on in this lifetime and attempting to discern our life’s purpose.  As you’re living the day to day, you can’t really see the messages coming to you about your own lesson plan until you know they are coming and learn to spot them as they occur.  Nothing is truly ever hidden.  It only seems to be.  That’s part of the fun of this enigma of living life.  It’s like walking around in a maze and all you see is this turn or that turn without at all having any ability to grasp the whole of the experience you are having or potentially, that which you are truly attempting to transcend in terms of lessons.  There are several ways to get through the maze such as trial and error, finding and trusting your internal intuitive guidance system once you’ve learned its language or, you can rise above the ‘maze’ a little and begin to see the corridors, openings and dead ends with a little more clarity.

I’m going to go into each of these three processes I mentioned to give you an idea about how each works and how understanding them can help you understand your messages, life plans and that which you most intended to learn.  Keep in mind that these three processes can work in stages, separate and apart or jumbled together.  It doesn’t really matter the order but that you recognize how they operate.  These are just a few ways that are most obvious and there can be more.  But, let’s start with a few and see where that takes us, shall we?

Trial and Error Process
As we are unconsciously aware of our existence, we move through the trial and error process. In a way, going back to the Zombie Apocalypse, we are living like zombies until we begin to understand a little more about who and what we are as well as how life works.  But, this trial and error process…it is about helping to wake us up here in this beautiful dream of Life on Earth.  As we work through this state, we keep trying the same things, meeting the same kinds of people and trying to perform the same activities over and over again with the same results.  Before we realize it, we keep ending up with the same challenges, the same disappointments or if you’re really in tune with All that Is, perhaps you are humming right along perfectly successful in life.  The trial and error process is likely how most of us operate unconsciously creating our lessons as we go.

This is an effective process so long as you at some point learn to do one thing.  That one thing is learning to identify the patterns and themes emerging in your life and discerning whether or not they are bringing you what you truly want and need or if they just seem to keep bringing you the same unhealthy or unhelpful things.  I’m reminded of a quote attributed to Albert Einstein that basically intimates that the definition of insanity equates to the performance of the same activities over and over again and expecting a different result.  We do this in life unconsciously in an almost zombie-like fashion until we begin to understand what we’re doing and that perhaps, just isn’t working for us or, well maybe, there is a reason.

My kids crack jokes about the Zombie Apocalypse which sends the mind reeling through all the zombie movies that have ever been made.  Ever wonder about those movies?  I’ve watched them and always saw a less gruesome parallel between the movies and waking life. But as I think about that further and our Trial and Error Process of existing in life unconsciously aware, I realize that for most of us our actions do represent the Zombie Apocalypse.  When we move through life without thinking and just continue to act or react, we cannot become aware of what we’re doing or why.  I am not here to judge the zombie-like experience and I use it here to make a point.  Until we become aware in our consciousness of what is happening around us, why it’s happening around us and that we are actually creating it, we’re trapped a bit in a zombie-like state.

But, I did say that the trial and error process was not a bad one and it isn’t.  To make it work to your advantage, you do at least at some point need to become at least a little bit more awake enough to see the things that you’ve done over and over and discern whether those actions and outcomes have brought you what you most desired.  If they did, great!  If they did not, why not?  How can you tell?

We have to start with pattern analysis.  In my book Changing Perspectives, the Journey is the Destination, I devoted nearly an entire chapter to pattern analysis.  I’ve excerpted a portion below to explain my meaning:

What I recommend to you is that you take a little walk back in time to yesterday, last week, last month, last year, ten years ago, young adulthood, childhood, etc.  What patterns exist over the span of your life that were repeated over time with negative results? 

Specifically, which of those repeating patterns fed negative circumstances and thoughts in your life that manifested in undesirable ways?  If you’re not sure what I mean, how is your relationship with your significant other, those in the past, your friends and your family?  Do those relationships foster feelings of love, caring and reciprocal and unconditional love?  Are those relationships balanced in such a way that you feel like your life is improved by other individuals or do you feel like some of those individuals are dragging you down like wearing cement shoes in the middle of the ocean or literally sucking the life right out of your veins?  That’s a sure fire way to tell.  Think about your past relationships and even present ones; look for patterns.  Once you find one or two or even more, categorize them if you can.  Write them down.  Talk to a friend.  Go see a cleric, counselor or someone else you know that could help you take an objective look at the negative patterns that formed in your life that resulted in negative consequences for you.  You want to understand those things that helped to form a perspective that you find no longer serves you. (66)

Believe it or not, those emerging patterns speak volumes about what parts of your life purpose are.  Consider the maze analogy again.  If you kept finding dead ends and just can’t find the cheese, one way you could try to get yourself to the goal is by remembering which paths lead to dead ends.  By identifying those, you can modify your trajectory, choose different turns when different directions present themselves and then you may eventually get to the prize!  This doesn’t have to be just one path that you take but can be part of all three of the methods I’m going to share.  This one could serve as the beginning.

Intuitive Internal Guidance System
Believe it or not, we all have an intuitive internal guidance system.  I’ve had some of my clients tell me that they had not one ounce of intuition.  I explained that as human beings we all have intuition.  Physics has proven through study and other sciences soft or not have also studied that human beings must have the ability to predict the future in order to survive.  In fact, part of our biological and conscious operating systems must rely on our ability to intuit or simulate the future probabilities in order to preserve life and limb.  When we learn how to understand this language of body-mind-consciousness and how it is actually speaking to you every moment of every day, you can begin to learn to rely on it to guide you as you move through life. 

This is much like a foreign language at first and it isn’t an easy language to understand but it is a language like any other, say like geometry, French, etc.  Learning the language is important if you wish to develop this guidance system further.  And no, I’m not talking about becoming psychic although I don’t discount that some individuals may very well be quite psychic.  Being an intuitive myself, I see it more of an ability to quickly take in information readily within the environment, filter it quickly through mental simulations and energy-body feeling and then return with the most likely outcomes (otherwise read, keen awareness).  In this approach, which likely not all will agree with, I posit that the consciousness we hold is much broader than the limited aspects of brain-mind thinking and that from the metaphysical level of the soul and spirit our consciousness can operate through energy, vibration and feeling (again, do not read ‘emotion’) and provide us a mechanism to test thoughts, experiences and concepts as either good or bad for us given the lessons we intended to learn or the things we intended to transcend in this life.

I am going to repeat a little exercise I included in one of my other books, So It’s Over.  Now What? to try to help you get more in touch with how this Intuitive Guidance System works:

To understand how this works . . . I have to teach you how to “feel” the difference between your neutral state and the state where your body-mind-spirit is not neutral and picking up on external sensory data not in alignment with your higher good.  I will tell you this takes practice though because normal anxiety can sometimes feel the same as what I’m going to describe to you.  Hopefully I can walk you through how to tell the difference . . .

If you are not familiar with meditative practice it is very simple and requires only a quiet place where you can sit peacefully just noticing your breathing and your thoughts with intent to calm the mind, body and soul.  You can research the Internet and find a number of good practices for meditation.  I’d like to teach you a simple exercise that with practice, may help you become much more in tune with how your body’s “feelings” communicate to you and translate into vital information for you when you are engaged in human interactions.  For this, you will need to engage in a meditation:

Practice a meditative session where you engage in cleansing breaths and progressive relaxation.  This means that you take maybe five slow deep in and out breaths and then continue breathing and relaxing each part of your body from the top of your head down to your toes.  Take as much time as you need to bring yourself to a very relaxed and peaceful state.

As you do the above, notice thoughts as they arise but don’t judge them.  We’re not interested in thoughts at this moment so there is no need to judge them.  Conserve your energy for feeling and I use the word as an action and not an emotion.  When you have achieved a calm meditative state, I want you to place your focus on how your solar plexus (also known as the solar plexus chakra energy space) feels.  The desired state to begin this exercise is one in which the solar plexus chakra feels calm and neutral.  Now, imagine a moment where you felt very happy.  See the image in as much detail as you can (sound, visuals, touch, taste, etc.) and feel the joy or happiness of that moment.  Now turn your attention to your solar plexus area.  Notice how your solar plexus area feels. 

Now, return to a calm centered and peaceful state and just breathe.  I want you now to call to mind the last time you felt anxious.  See the scene and the events surrounding it in every detail you can possibly recall.  How does your solar plexus area feel now?  Does it feel different than when you imagined the happy moment?  Just notice the difference. 

Return to a calm centered and peaceful state and just breathe.  I want you now to call to mind the last time you were accused of something you had nothing to do with.  See the scene, hear the words, allow the feelings of incredulousness to rise.  Now notice how your solar plexus area feels?

When in a calm and peaceful state, calling to mind a happy experience may give you a sense of joy or quick and pleasant vibration in your solar plexus area.  Calling to mind an anxious experience may give you a sense of dread and an unpleasant inconsistent vibration in your solar plexus area like maybe too many butterflies, maybe even a sinking feeling.  Calling to mind an experience that left you feeling incredulous may give you a sense of sinking, twisting dread in your solar plexus area.  This is the one you want to pay attention to.  If someone is speaking to you and you are feeling that sinking uneven sense of twisting dread vibration in your solar plexus, you are being manipulated or there is either a lie you are being told or telling yourself about what or who you are experiencing.  Another way to think about it is whenever you feel that sense of obligation to do something your heart isn’t in, you’re likely being manipulated.

It may take some time to be able to feel your body’s detection system but it does exist and if you learn how to feel it and pay attention to it trusting it’s truth and learning to differentiate how different experiences feel for you in that space or even other places in your body, you will know when you are being manipulated even if the other person is denying it.  If you are being manipulated for money, or being lied to or otherwise being used, your body can sense it and it will start to trigger it’s systems for self-preservation.  The same is true if you are lying to yourself about something, in denial about something or engaging in behavior unhealthy for you.  Your body, mind, heart, soul and spirit never let you down.  It’s just learning to understand the language that takes patience and practice (just like learning math – yikes).  It can be done.  It’s important to avoid manipulations that are harmful to your person, your emotions, your bank book, etc.  You are equipped to protect yourself if you can learn how to do it.  (39)

Rise Above Approach
This approach is simple and can really make a lot of difference either all by itself or used in combination with the other two processes or methods noted above.  This process requires only that you seek to understand the truth of something but using pure logic and maybe even reason.  I will say that this process is not as easy as it might seem and also takes quite a bit of practice and quite honestly, patience.  When trying to understand messages and themes that are arising in your life, you sometimes do have to put your focus on the outside world at least for a moment but you must do so with the intent to understand.  It will cost you something though.  It will temporarily cost you the lowest level of your egoic consciousness at least temporarily.  Don’t worry, nothing of value is ever lost when you temporarily set aside your egoic drives to achieve this or that.   

To rise above something, you must literally rise above it.  Sometimes the ego sets off these psychological urges to engage in something or with someone at the same level of something or someone who is coming at you.  When mired in this kind of ‘gravity’ you are completely unable to rise above a situation to see, with clarity, what it is that you are truly dealing with.  In this state you cannot truly see, hear or feel anything accurately.  All you can feel are the egoic emotions that are truly a very limited set of parameters from which to define interactions based on your own thought processing systems.  There are more ways to see the truth than just relying on our past experiences, assumptions, perceptions and emotions (even if all of these are a natural function for us in physical form).

The process actually begins quite simply in that rather than reacting to a situation before you and I would consider this method in terms of understanding messages coming to you specifically from human to human interactions, you stop and begin questioning whether your feelings are valid AND why the other person may be acting as they are.  The same is true of a situation you are facing.  You need to be able to quickly determine whether or not your perceptions and reactions are valid. Some sample questions, “Does your (insert relationship descriptor of a person here) really hate you?  Is the world really against you?  Do you really have bad luck or bad karma?

Think back to the maze for a moment.  If everywhere you turned you always seemed to reach a dead end, you might quickly jump to the conclusion that there is no way out.  Given your recent experiences that formed this perception, it’s understandable to see why you could jump to this conclusion.  The process of rising above a situation requires that you stay away from an emotional state and instead query the data to determine it’s validity and then try to understand the true source of what may be happening. 

Are you perceiving something personally or negatively that may possibly not be intended that way (even if you could find 100 people that might perceive the situation the same way as you)?  How do you know?  Are your assumptions valid?  Do you have unconscious  malware running inside of your thought processes that are skewing your perceptions?  How can you be sure?  How would you know?  You could shift your perception and assume positive intent, alternate sources or you could validate whether what you perceive as truth is actually true.  Rising Above a situation means that you actually take the time and make the effort to rise above the situation through gaining knowledge, testing your perceptions as if they were a scientific hypothesis and then potentially altering your ‘potential’ conclusions and then your actions.  Think again of the maze, if you realize that there is a way out and you just haven’t found it yet through potentially a series of wrong turns, you have arrived at your dead-end, you can go back, retrace your steps, make different decisions and find the cheese! (45)

All of these processes described herein are designed to try to show you different ways you can begin to discern the messages and road maps showing up in the outside world without your conscious cognition entirely.  When you can begin to learn how your own body communicates with you, you can allow the body to help you know the Truth of a matter or situation when the egoic mind is busy trying to run simulations based merely on its perceptions alone (which won’t always tell you the truth).  It’s important to test your perceptions and beliefs about the various situations and people you encounter so that you might begin to understand your life’s themes and purpose.


 Rev. J.L. Harter, PhD, M.Msc., B.Msc., Author, Blogger, and Spiritual Counselor, Editor of the JMCC.  See Bio section for more information.

© 2014 Rev. J.L. Harter, PhD, (photo and words)