by Alan McAllister, CCHt PhD-phys
We are often taught to think of ourselves as our ego, our conscious mind, which inhabits a physical body, which sometimes has emotions. The body allows us to experience the physical world around us and to act upon it. We identify strongly with the body, but usually more so with the mind, our sense of self, our plans and hopes, expectations, concepts and memories. For many of us, in most of our lives our conscious mind handles things for us pretty well. But it does have limits.
Sometimes if we push these limits strongly it may break or fracture. But today and every day, even in ordinary circumstances we are also handicapped by this limited view of ourselves. We are so much more than just a mind in a body that sometimes feels things.
Some morning take the time to really feel the water in the shower as it flows over you. Listen to the sounds it makes. Smell the soap. Be aware of your body, all the aspects of mind that are tied to the body. Thank them for handling the details of the most complex organism we know of. Be aware your senses and of the bodies sensations. Bringing your mind back from racing already through your day. Allow yourself to really enjoy being a human in a body taking a warm shower.
This is the base layer of mind. Step up now to your emotions. Many of you are already there and function naturally in your emotional body. But there are still places you don’t like to go and places you are challenged to give space to. How much of us, both light and shadow is under the surface emotionally? Too much joy can be as threatening as too much fear. But there is great knowledge and wisdom here.
Most of your experience this lifetime is in the emotional associative memory. Allow yourself to remember other showers, other times you felt water on your body, other times you were warm (or cold). Follow the chains crisscrossing back into the past. Like nuclear particles decaying in a shower of sparks in a scintillator, each chain activates others, by association, on and on.
In the sum of these pathways there is depth and wisdom, experience and knowledge. These levels of mind remember how to play, how to relax, how to love. Other parts of yourself that were assigned to tasks many years ago, are waiting to be assigned new tasks that serve you better. Even the hurts and pains carry within themselves the knowledge of how to complete, to release. The wisdom of the body to heal itself is true on many levels, when we listen.
Now, imagine you are holding a ball between your hands, perhaps about 3 inches across. Feel the ball. Or take the sense of water flowing down your arms and let it jump across the gap in your hands. If you intend it, there is something there. Feel into that in a different way, and you are feeling the energy of your being. Allow yourself to begin to feel your whole energy body, as the water washes away any tension down the drain. Breath into it. Feel the ball, and yourself, expand and contract with the breath.
Your energy bodies carry a whole different level of wisdom, a new way of being and feeling in the world. This is information that some level of your mind is always receiving. Only when it becomes very strong, a hunch perhaps, or a sense of something do most of us listen to it. Perhaps we wind up meeting an old friend, or turning a corner to see a beautiful sunset, or it may save your life. We can learn to hear it all the time.
Some of you already have a relationship with your higher self, angels, or guides. There are levels of mind that exist “above” our normal consciousness, which we access in meditation, or in nature, or under extreme circumstances, when the conscious mind has the good sense to step aside.
These levels are always there, if we are not to focused on our busy lives, on figuring things out, on thinking our way through. They can help us when we are troubled, you are never really alone, let your essential self comfort you. They may warn us or help us to heal. But they are also a source of joy, creativity, and imagination. They can help us to create lives well beyond our conscious imaginings, all the time.
We all have so many resources, that we are mainly not trained to be aware of or tap into. Playing with them in the shower, or on a trail or even in the office, and you will develop them. Having the intention is the key. Playing is how we learn. Know that you are much more than you think, and you have resources along the way.
Blessings and enjoy the journey.
(© 5/2008)
