Emotional Connection to Life
In my past life I was a very logical person where everything could be explained by reason. But now in this lifetime, I know this is not true – yet the habit of being logical and critical still remains to annoy me. So my purpose for this life is to find a deeper emotional connection to life. This could be expressed through the arts in some form, helping other people, or in finding a cause that I can believe in. It has been said that you must "have faith in the cause you are serving." Serving a cause gets you more in touch with feeling and leads you out of your logical world and brings you more into your heart.
Any or all of these efforts should awaken me more into feeling and lead me away from my overused logical strategies. In other words, it is spiritual awareness that I need to cultivate to make my soul happy and lead me to feel that I am following my deeper desires. However, how this plays out in my life is determined by the particular attitudes that I have been born with presently. I have been given a lot of emotional energy this time to assist my purpose, and I am still carrying too much of the logical baggage.
I have discovered that there is more to my inner life than my reasoning or just what is around me in my physical world. But habits are strong, and my rational side has been in command of my life for a long time, even though I am seeking to change this tendency. In short, I have always demanded logical perfection and sought to understand everything from the base of reason, but now my soul longs for life – for more beauty, more awareness, and more emotional self-expression and a deeper emotional connection to others. This is because I have been too preoccupied with the details of life, trying to get everything right, to be perfect to the point where this developed into a kind of mental rigidity. Even though in this lifetime I may be open mentally and always in search of some form of truth, my habits obstructs my search for wisdom and understanding. I have come to the conclusion that everything cannot be explained logically. There are other realities in my psyche that need to be explored.
I realize that everything cannot be explained by logic – that there is a spiritual reality beyond my reasoning mind. I try to feel things more. Sense them through my feelings. This is why some form of art would be very good for me. This will awaken a deeper understanding of life and bring me to a deeper level of awareness of my personal reality. Of course, there is nothing like a warm and loving relationship to get me out of my head. As I learn to judge people less, perhaps I will understand them more through my feelings of empathy and compassion for them. And learn to accept and love myself.
Sit in a quiet place alone with a rock placed in front of me. Breathe deeply and slowly ask myself, "What is this thing in front of me?" My first response may be "It’s just a rock, stupid." But then I have realized that I have only given a name for that object in front of me. So I have to try again and search deeper to find out what this "thing" is. My challenge is to find out what it really is. I may find that it is energy, molecules, hardened sand, a slow vibration or impulse, but do I still know what it is? If I do this intently for at least 15 minutes I might discover something remarkable. I want to discover what this is.
It is possible that I may have to spend several sessions trying to find out what this object is. I have to let my intuition teach me and I will find some wonderful insights. These discoveries have to do with my true purpose for being born. If I stick with this practice for a few days, I will understand the message. My discovery can be my joy and will put me emotionally in touch with my life purpose. I may just discover where I belong.
So in doing this, I hope to overcome the limiting influence of the logical mind and open up to feeling. I will begin to let go of my critical and judgmental attitudes and live in what some of the great masters have called "divine ignorance." The rock exercise could teach me the lesson that we really don't know what anything is. Therefore, we realize that we do not have perfect knowledge about anything and cannot live our life in a mental box.
Open up my mind to unlimited possibilities that far exceeds the boundaries of reasoning. Welcome to the world of "unknowing."
Copyright ©2003 April L Livermore 2001
