I have always seen the recognition of our feelings as a way of connecting with our true and authentic selves, rather than seeing them as something we need to “overcome” in this life. 

Life without feeling, to me, is a life only half-lived, and to abandon the texture and colour that feeling gives to life, is to deny the depth and beauty of our own existence.  (I talk about this in much more detail in my DVD “The Emotional Aspects of Healing“)

Many spiritual teachings aim to go beyond feeling, to a place of joy, peace and surrender - and as I have spoken about before, this is a wonderful inspiration and guide - but not necessarily a way to live every day.

Our feelings can have very important messages about the way we are living our lives, and to work on bypassing the feeling rather than understanding it’s core, we can miss important signposts for our life.  In one of my favourite books “Riding Between the Worlds” by Linda Kohanov, she writes about this subject:

“…yet this is precisely the behavior that many religious leaders and holistic healers promote, as McLaren found during her search for a more soulful way to approach her feelings.

In order to “be more spiritual,” she strained to be emotionless and non-judgemental,” to “have only joy in my heart.” But this proved to be a dead end: “I saw quite clearly that happiness and joy could become very dangerous if they were trumpeted as the emotions of choice - as the only emotions any of us should ever feel.

I can’t count the number of people I’ve seen whose lives imploded after they disallowed the protection of anger, the intuition of fear, the rejuvenation of sadness, and the ingenuity of depression in order to feel only joy.

In short, I’ve found throughout my life that what we are taught about emotions is not only wrong - it’s often dangerously wrong.”

Part of healing is reclaiming our ability to feel and understand the wisdom behind our “negative” feelings.  In my journey as a practitioner, I am quite certain that healing can only take place when we explore this side of life, and that food, herbs and supplements will only take us so far down the healing path.

Just something to keep in mind as we explore this fascinating roller-coaster called life!

For most of my life I have had a passion for not only physical healing, but for healing on an emotional and spiritual level as well - and that has led me to all sorts of discoveries and insights over the years.

One area that I have had enormous trouble with myself though, is learning to feel and indentify my true feelings - versus what I think I “should” feel in a certain situation.

For various reasons that I won’t go into here, I grew up doubting my own feelings and always believing that what I felt was “wrong”.  So getting back in touch with my truth and not doubting what I feel, is a continuous journey that at times I travel well, and at other times I definitely don’t.

Just lately it came up again where in a certain circumstance I have ignored my true feelings and pushed them aside, in favour of choosing to believe what someone was telling me about a situation, rather than trusting in what I was feeling about it.  As it turned out, my feelings were spot on, and it was another reminder to not ignore those physically based sensations that you might call intuition, sixth sense, or just a feeling.

So rather than beat myself over the head about it, (well OK, when I stopped beating myself over the head about it!) I decided to explore the realm of Equine Facilitated Therapy - where horses are utilised to help us connect with our more authentic feelings and emotions - horses do not allow us to mask our truth.

Having grown up with horses and having a deep connection with them, I have been interested in this area for quite some time.  Horses are very good at picking up what is called “emotional incongruity” a term used to describe the act of hiding one emotion by trying to feel something else.

The horse will not let you get away with that, and will sense the truth behind the mask and will feel off balance and unsafe in your company.  When working with a human facilitator who is experienced in the nuances of equine behaviour, they can assist in translating the horses interactions with you, to assist you in recognising your patterns of incongruence.

It is a fascinating area and one that I could write about in depth - but suffice to say that I had my first experience of this work yesterday, and it was very interesting.  Already I have gained some insights that are quite valuable and I felt a raise in my energy that came just from interacting with such magnificent creatures.

Of course there are many ways / techniques / therapies to help us connect with our feelings, but I just know that this is going to be one of the most enjoyable! 

I will keep you updated on my progress with my equine tutors, and will write more about this area of healing in the future.

Last night I went to a talk by Dan Millman, author of the classic book “The Way of the Peaceful Warrior”, as well as many other inspirational writings.  I first read this book in the late 1980s and it encouraged me to think very deeply about the themes presented in it.  It became one of my favourite books, and I have read it many times over the years.

Two of the interesting topics that Dan mentioned in his talk, were the concepts of spirituality and enlightenment, and what it means to bring these ideals into our lives. 

People have varied impressions of what these concepts mean, and to many they see living “spiritually”,  in association with being a monk in a monastery and spending life in devotional meditation.

And in regards to enlightenment, one definition states that it is “characterized by the extinction of desire and suffering and individual consciousness”.

Which is why I have never aspired to be “enlightened” in that particular manner. 

To my way of thinking – we are here on earth as humans, with a complete range of feelings and emotions, desires and dreams – and to deny that, to aspire to leave those parts of our humanness behind, is to deny who we are in this world.

The range and depth of our feelings is what gives our world colour, texture and meaning.  If we transcend our very human feelings, then we are transcending what it means to be human.  If we weren’t meant to experience ourselves being human, then why are we here?

Dan spoke about a concept that I have been familiar with since reading his books 20 years ago, and that is about practicing spirituality whilst living in the real world.  As he says, it is easy to be “spiritual” whilst living as a monk, but try being “spiritual” when you have a full time job, family, mortgage, and the daily demands and pressures that we all face. 

Practicing the concepts of love, kindness, compassion, gratefulness and joy in these circumstances takes a strong and focused individual who will be constantly challenged.  This person gets the opportunity to “practice” these higher principles daily, in a way that the monk is never challenged to.

To me, everyday spirituality, living gently in the world rather than removing yourself from it, is something very worthwhile to aspire to.  We can use idealistic notions of transcendence as inspiration and guidance, rather than as a rule to live by.

That doesn’t mean that we stop growing and working on healing our stuck negative emotions and the harmful patterns we can get into – but it can mean losing the idea that you can’t experience spirituality and enlightenment in your life right now.

Even though it isn’t always easy, embracing the rhythms of life, the highs the lows and the moments of perfect grace, brings with it a deep sense of peace and gratefulness for all that it means to be human.

And that for me, is what enlightenment is all about.