sensing
Stepping Into Love With Faith And Trust
I meditate on moving by faith every day, creating a course of embodying inner trust. I step out into the fresh air and sunshine, surrounded by the artistic heart of God in nature, and I pray for the divine guidance of the day.
Day by day, step by step, the path forward is revealed. It is often shown and channeled to me in the simplest of ways: a whisper in the wind; a sparkle in the water; a bird dancing to her own song in the sky.
Each message received highlights an inner sensing and an external physical movement to integrate it into being. The course starts within, stepping into the sacred space of the self.
The power of movement to internalize a concept is profound. I invite you to take a moment now to literally step into yourself, the sanctuary of your soul.
Simply close your eyes, take a few deep breaths to clear and cleanse your mind, and then begin to mindfully move forward, consciously feeling the contact of the soles of your feet with the ground or floor beneath you.
Feel its temperature, its texture, and the firmness or softness of its support. Notice the articulation in your foot as the heel lifts, presses through the ball of the foot, rises, reaches, and then lowers again until the toes, ball, and heel touch down and plant into place.
Take three slow steps like this, imbued with the intention of traveling deeper into your true self through each one of them. Let the third step bring your feet to join one another side by side, marking your internal sacred space.
Allow yourself some still silent time to stand there, grounded in your own awareness. Keep your eyes closed, your attention inward, and your breathing gentle, as you feel the sturdiness of your legs, and the length and strength of your spine supporting you. Just be there.
Do You Follow Your Head, Or Your Heart?
As a practicing astrologer, I often assist clients who are facing the head versus heart dilemma. Should they go with what their head is telling them, or should they follow their heart?
“My head tells me he’s so perfect for me. He is my dream guy on paper, ticks every box. He has a successful career, earns a solid income. He is someone my kids would love, the male role-model they so desperately need,” a client recently explained.
“But my heart feels so hesitant, like its beating for someone else I haven’t met yet. He is a great guy, but there no butterflies. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand why my heart is yearning for someone different?” she lamented.
“I can’t afford to be picky and my friends and family tell me I’m crazy to even question this incredible guy who seems to tick all the right boxes, but doesn’t put a flutter in my heart!”
The question is indeed, why would one trust an illogical feeling that can’t be quantified and measured using the neat little pros and cons list of the mind? In my Astrology practice, I have see this conundrum play out many times.
Interestingly, I find this vexing situation is often related to a Mercury Square Moon aspect in someone’s chart. Such a person will often take one side over the other, usually the head over the heart, and this habitual battle can result in a lifelong pattern of bad choices.
Culturally we’ve also been conditioned to always choose reason over feelings. And what others think often also factors too highly in a personal choice that’s best made selfishly. In my opinion, relationships are one of the few areas in life where we get to be selfish, because if we choose someone who will not make us happy, everyone will suffer in the end.
We are often told ‘trust our gut’ for good reason. Your intuition or inner guidance system knows far more than you do! But like a muscle, we must build it up, we must work it, flex it, to clearly register the signals it’s sending us.
Tune Into The Guidance Of Your Emotions
I believe our emotions are an additional ‘sense’ we use as a means of interpreting our life experiences, in the same way the normal five senses enable us to perceive and understand the world around us. Our ‘emotional sense’ help us make decisions about our preferences all the time.
For example, I love chocolate. My sense of taste tells me that chocolate is for me! It’s a very clear and obvious signal from my taste buds to my brain. We receive and process stimuli all the time and our senses help us to ‘make sense’ of that input.
Your emotions are also giving you information about your preferences and if we listen and pay attention, we can gain a lot of guidance from it. Our emotions don’t just come from nowhere. They arise in direct response to stimuli or input, just like our senses do.
I have also heard emotions described as an internal guidance system, or our inner compass, which helps us decide what we want to create more of, and less of, in our life. We sometimes get confused though, because just like the other senses, we have different preferences.
For example, some people love coconut desserts, but I detest then. Not thanks, keep your coconut out of my chocolate! The thing is, I’m not confused about the fact that I don’t like coconut. I also don’t feel I have to change my preference because other people love coconut. And I also don’t force myself to eat it, just to make other people happy.
When one of our five physical senses tells us something we tend to listen, because it’s visceral. We feel it undeniably in the body. Emotions are no different!
When you are heartbroken, do you not feel it in your chest as a physical pain? When you are embarrassed, do your cheeks or ears not become flushed? Or how about when someone you love hugs you so warm and deliciously, all your muscles just ‘melt’ into that person? These are all physical responses the accompany our emotions.