HOW WOULD THIS FEEL IF I FELT IT?

We need to understand that learning to feel is the single most important thing we can do  – more important than anything else in the world and the best part is, it is accessible to everyone, no matter who you are or where you come from.

People say to me all the time that they want to find more clarity and focus, that they wish to find a way to living a life of ease but when I hear that, what I really hear is that they wish to be more connected to themselves and to the world around them. Because once we find that connection, we can understand that to struggle is futile, that to strive is wasted energy and that all we need is right there in-front of us.

The opposite of ease is struggle, the opposite of connected is disconnected – when we are disconnected we are in struggle. And the truth is so many of us are disconnected from feeling their body and this has created terrible problems in our world, because we have all got so stuck in our heads. When we cut the body off at the neck, we don’t get the vital information from the body that helps us make informed choices. As a result, the brain is misinformed; we may feel like we are lost in the wilderness, we may make bad decisions and we may feel like we are no good. You see the brain needs feedback from the the body in order to make wise decisions, in order to feel connected and present to the given moment. It needs feedback from the body which tells it how to react appropriately – for example do we need to run away from danger or can we rest and relax – if we live in our head then the nervous system may misread the signals and respond in a manner that is not conducive to easeful living.

So how do we come into the body? How do we come into feeling in a way that feels safe? Simply we attend  to the breath. The breath is something that we all have, it is not something that we need to learn and it is not one of those things that some can do and some can’t. There is no elitism in breathing, no prerequisite to being able to breathe, no conditions around breathing well and feeling. It is the human experience to breathe but what makes the experience richer is our capacity to feel. Learning to experience our body more fully through the breath can be life changing, it can also be challenging and confronting. In fact some say that to breathe fully is the single most courageous act that we can do. When we find a way to come into the body then we may be confronted with ways that we need to change, which is tough and we may chose to cling on to the status quo, to certainty, to old habits and behaviours but when you come back to the breath, those feelings come back and after a while they become impossible to ignore.

By attending to the breath, you give the mind permission to be quiet. Not turned off though, it’s more like shifting the gears in a car or a bike, shifting in to a different level of awareness. You start to pay attention, and you wake up. But do not get confused with thinking that when you become aware you are noticing anything that is new, no, all the stuff that you feel, it was already there but it was just being drowned out by the noises of the mind. So really all that is happening is that you are coming into awareness of your own truth.

Taking moments throughout the day to simply attend to the breath is key to finding more space within our lives, it is the key to dropping the struggle and to becoming more connected. Ultimately all we want is to feel more comfortable with the life we have and if tuning in to what we feel helps us to be more connected, more empowered and more at ease, then it has to be worth our while.

And so folks I shall leave you with the words of Alan Watts – a man who is way wiser than I am and I have listened to this recording many a time and it never fails to move me in some way.

What if money was no object – Alan Watts

In peace

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