Everyone has feelings. Sometimes you feel sad, or happy, or stressed, or overwhelmed. Feelings are how your body, mind and intuition guide you to make better choices. Connecting to your feelings means stopping to recognize them and explore what is causing them. It does not mean that you need to express every feeling you have out loud. You can keep your feelings to yourself if you want to, or share them if appropriate. The important thing is to step back from your emotions, name them, and dig deeper to find the real cause.
For example, suppose you find yourself angry at your spouse. It is a good idea to take a moment. Stop. Breathe. Ask yourself why you are angry. You will likely tell yourself a story about what they did that made you angry. Next, ask yourself what you are afraid of. All anger is rooted in fear. What are you afraid of? You might be afraid that you are not important. You might be afraid that you are not useful or needed. Be brutally honest with yourself. When you can, you might express to your spouse that, “when you do X, I fear that I am not important to you.” (fill in the right actions and fears). Being honest about what you feel, and more importantly why you feel it, is critical to a connected relationship.
When you are disconnected from your feelings, your feelings will control you. If you would rather be in control of your feelings, you will need to connect with them, not ignore them. you will need to sit down with your emotions and really understand them. This becomes faster with practice. Many emotions are rooted in something to do with validating our current definition of self. We want to define ourselves as important and we fear that we are wrong. Fear in particular is often associated with something counter to our definition of self. We fear, at the root of it all, that our definition of self is wrong; that who we think we are, is not true. This fear of being wrong about ourselves leads to a defensive anger. Can you see how there are layers to your emotions? Digging deeper reveals the truth. Shining a light on the truth makes it dissipate.
These feelings are trying to tell you something. Just like your gut instinct or intuition is often trying to tell you something you need to know. Similarly, your energy is trying to tell you something. Some people find connecting to their energy hard to do. Initially, you may not feel energy in your body. That is OK.
Everything in the universe is made of matter and energy. Think about your phone or computer. It has a screen but it also has electrical energy running through it that ultimately makes it work. Without the electricity, it would be lifeless. So would you. You have energy running through you too. Without it, you would be lifeless too. Connecting to your energy is the first step in recognizing a vast amount of information available to you about your body, your life and many other things. Connecting to your energy at this stage means learning to recognize it and be aware of how it changes. To connect to your energy, consider the following…
Emotions move your energy. Think about when you feel really happy. There is a feeling in your chest like your heart is full. That is, you heart is full of energy! Think about when you feel nervous or fearful. There is a feeling in your stomach. Your emotions are moving the energies in your gut to get your attention.
On a sexual note, think about the feeling of an orgasm (solo or with someone else). You might feel a burst of energy that moves up and through you. Either way, it feels like release. It is a release of energy. So you can see that you have been feeling your energies all along. To connect to them with more awareness, try the following…
Body Scanning – sit, quiet your mind, and scan your body from the top down, or from the bottom up. Just think about each part of your body and how your body feels. Do you have some tension in the muscles, or maybe some pain from an injury? Notice that when you put your awareness on a tense muscle, it tends to relax. As with all things in this life, shining a spotlight on the issue makes it dissolve away or makes a solution apparent. For areas or your body that are not tense or in pain, ask yourself what they feel like. You may notice small sensations that grow as you focus on them. This is your energy. You may feel it more in one area than another. That is OK. You may notice that you feel it more in specific locations up the front of your body. These are your chakras. For now, just explore and sit for a minute with what you find.
Reiki / Energy Work – When body scanning is not enough, or you just want to try something new, you might accelerate your connection to your energy by enjoying a session of Reiki or other energy work. It is important that your first experience be hands-on. Some energy practitioners are adept at sending energy from a distance but you may not feel it if you are not yet connected to your energy. Hands-on techniques are much more effective for sparking your awareness of your energy. This might look like a massage session that includes energy work, or a session that focused on purely energy work such as Reiki. Be open to the experience and let it show you that there is so much more out there to explore and understand about yourself and this existence.
Once you connect to your energy, you might forget about your feelings. Try to remain cognizant of both. For a while, include body scanning in your mediation/prayer practice to improve your connection to both your feelings and your energy. See where it takes you.
