Week 10 - Feel the Way

"Ask your question. Feel the answer.
Ask, feel. Ask, feel. Ask, feel.
OK?"
~The Universe


Many months ago, I signed up to receive these little daily emails from "The Universe" (via www.tut.com). They're cute, they're quirky and most of all, they're thought-provoking. The topics cover anything from the power of attraction to developing presence -- more or less the kinds of things I think we all stand to gain from regular, daily meditation. More than anything, they're good reminders to me most days to keep up with my meditations, to keep mining my own experience, and to keep seeking to connect deeply with my own inner wisdom.

In my experience, this process of discovery called meditation comes down more to questions than answers. Now I know a thing or two about the importance of embracing the questions in life -- it's like what they say about change being the only constant, only most of the time, questions are my constant. If I didn't embrace them and the act of asking the question itself, I can't imagine where I'd be...besides in a constant state of frustration. I think that's part of what meditation does for us -- gives us an opportunity to ask what is pressing on us and see what, if any, illumination comes.

This past week when I received the above message in my email from The Universe, something clicked for me. I thought a lot about how I've been asking my questions and how I've been sitting and waiting, patiently or not, for the answers. And mostly, I realized I've been focused on listening...hoping I'd hear something. Right? Listening to the heart -- I've taken this in its most literal sense.

Well, this is great for the mind...because how can you tell whether your mind came up with the answer or whether it came from intuition? I've been so caught up in the idea of asking the question and listening for the response that I realize I have missed out on something key -- the importance of feeling the response as another means of connecting with intuition.

We grow up in a society whose belief structure is traditionally based upon the idea that something exists if and only if we can see it, if we can prove it with numbers and statistics -- only this is fact. Only this is valid. Only this is real. Feelings are intangible, they're relative and worse than that, they're messy. They can't be quantified and in this "rational" way of being in the world, feelings are not to be trusted. Most of us were taught, overtly or not, not only to set our feelings aside, that they need to be contained and controlled, but even to disregard them entirely. Why wouldn't we learn that trusting our mind is a much safer bet if this is the unspoken condition to gaining the acceptance that every child craves?

But what if our body and how it feels has more information to share with us than we realize? We sometimes forget that we are whole beings made up of a body, mind and spirit -- shouldn't we allow ourselves to be informed through all of these aspects of ourselves? If we continue to distance ourselves from our bodies and their wisdom, what is the result? Respect the mind, certainly...but not at the expense of our feeling heart.

In most of my posts I write to varying degrees about the continual discovery of what meditation is and isn't for me. It seems that the concept of feeling for the answers eluded me. What I've learned is that developing a connection with our intuition isn't only about listening. It's also about being able to sense and feel what's right for us in given situations, and to trust those feelings. I know I've spent most of my life learning to put all my trust in my mind -- through meditation, I hope to re-learn how to feel as well. And to trust the wisdom of those feelings.

So in my meditations this past week I've been practicing not only listening for the answers, but bringing my awareness to how I feel in response to particular questions. Still, the answers may or may not come. Or more accurately, the answers will come in their own time, in their own way -- in a way that is unique to me.

We all have our own way of connecting with our intuition, the universal wisdom within is. Our job then is to show up and notice how we each best take in information and open ourselves to receiving information in those ways. For me, remembering how to feel my way to the answers seems promising. I guess only time will tell...//