What is feeling and how we can harness it for peace and prosperity?
Of the three basic forces within us, feeling, for me, is the most elusive and mysterious. The development and harnessing of feeling is also not explicitly emphasized in many spiritual paths as much as the development of the mind and body. Further, in the “self-help” and “personal development” field the mind-body connection is often emphasized at the exclusion of feeling. The feeling aspect is buried and the development of emotional health is implied as a by-product of mind-body work. I want to suggest that development of mind, body, and feeling simultaneously is essential to the development of spirit, soul, or human consciousness and in fact our spirit, soul, and/or consciousness is underdeveloped because of this misunderstanding. This is something we will explore on peace4prosperity.com.
As with thoughts, feelings can change instantaneously based on our reactions to inner and external stimuli, especially the things we see in the world and what people say to us. Feelings can also linger for days, so that we are stuck in a funk that seems impossible to shake. Before I delve deeper into my perspective on the nature of feeling and how it functions, let me state upfront that I differentiate feeling from emotion. I define feelings as self-centered forms of energy manifesting in the body. They express my needs and desires; my likes and my dislikes. As much as I think they are about other people; they are really about myself in the self-centered world my lower self inhabits.
Feelings manifest themselves physically in the body. For me, my feelings express themselves principally in my solar plexus and radiate throughout my body via the nerve nodes. Most often my feelings manifest in my chest, neck/throat, and face. And, most importantly, they are automatic reactions over which I have little control. They merely happen, as I mentioned, in response to internal and external stimuli in my environment. And often I don’t notice them until after they have already begun to express themselves. For instance, “that place gave me a bad feeling.” Or, “The view from here is amazing!
The more I become familiar with my feelings from an objective viewpoint, I also see that they are habitual forms of energy expressed in the body in response to the world around me and how I interpret it.
Emotion, on the other hand, I define as energy that I direct with conscious intention outward from my heart into the world. In my best moments, it is energy I send out to help others; to show them love, compassion, sympathy, or empathy. As I grow up and become more aware of and responsible for the energy in my body and how it manifests, I am learning that emotion is a powerful and positive form of nonverbal communication that is the key to higher states of consciousness.
The other tricky thing about ordinary feeling is that it is intimately linked up with thought and the body. For instance, my thoughts often trigger my feelings and vice versa. Over the years I’ve learned that my thoughts and feelings are often in opposition. I think about something I should do, but I feel I don’t want to do it and there’s a struggle between the thoughts and feelings, which can cause anxiety. Moreover, thoughts and feelings can be hard to tell apart. And in describing how we are, I think we often use them interchangeably as if they are the same thing. I would argue they are not and we must learn to differentiate them and ultimately separate them to experience real freedom and will power.
At the same time, the body is the playground of the feelings. They are inextricably connected and manifest so quickly that they are hard to track. To begin to take feeling as an energy form and consciously direct it away from the body with intention is challenging. At peace4prosperity.com, we will continue to study, review, and share resources about feeling and emotion–with the view that we are on a lifelong journey of self-discovery and that we will learn, and refine what we find.
However, for this week, set the intention to become more familiar with your feelings. Test the hypothesis that feelings are a form of energy, distinct from thoughts, and that they manifest in the body due to our reactions to your environment. They are most often characterized as liking or disliking something. See if this true for you.
As we did with the mind and body, I encourage you to do regular check in with your feelings this week. Further, find out whether there are patterns or themes that emerge in how you feel. To do so, pick at least three times during the day to check in with yourself–to see what you’re feeling. For example, set the intention to check in with yourself in the morning, mid-day, and in the evening, before you go to bed. At those times, sit somewhere quiet where you won’t be distracted, turn off your phone, and take 10-15 minutes to write down whatever you’ve been feeling for the last 10-15 minutes. Do this every day for one week and set a reminder if you have to. After one week, write to me and let me know if you were a) able to do it every day; b) what themes, if any, emerged for you; c) where you’re feelings manifest physically in the body; and d) anything else you learned about yourself.
One word of advice: simply record what you’re feeling. Try not to judge yourself or interpret what you’re feeling too much. Approach it like a scientist who is taking notes on a subject of observation. You’re experimenting with yourself in the laboratory of life and it’s important to simply record what’s going on without getting too involved with the subject. This approach will enable you to be more objective and truthful. In fact, write about what you’re feeling about in the third person. For example, “He (or she, or it) was feeling sad about the argument he had with his sister last week. This reminded him that he owes his sister an apology.”
I encourage you to check out our resources for books, talks, and other media that can support your journey of self-exploration. These articles in particular will share additional perspective on how to harness emotion to create a more peaceful and prosperous life. My exploration of feeling/emotion is also intimately connected to my investigation of the mind and body, those other two fundamental aspects of the human being, which we research and write about on this blog. Once you explore and become more familiar with these three basic facets of the human being, we will investigate how to link them within oneself harmoniously to achieve higher states of consciousness.
Good luck this week and keep me posted on your progress here.