Emotional Perceptions

This phase is gaining knowledge of how emotions give us the illusion of who we are and who we are not. We wait for the connection with the spiritual side where consciousness and awareness of thoughts merge with the self. How we think, feel and perceive ourselves to be gives power to our thoughts that organize the reality that surrounds us.

An important step in connecting to your consciousness, you should be aware of the factors that determine your life and how they relate to your current life situation. This is not an easy exercise. Searching for the surface answers is one thing, realizing the depth at which they go is quite another. This depth takes the most soul work with the greatest rewards.

"Philosophy of Life"

A "Philosophy of Life" notebook dedicated to this soul adventure is recommended at this point. This is merely an exercise in awakening for you to pinpoint your own emotions now. Write each influence on individual pages with at least 5 pages in between the main subjects. If you keep an E-book in Word, .txt file or other, there is no need to accommodate extra pages as space will expand as needed. Write down what comes to mind, what you think, what you feel. Pay attention to how your body reacts when you go through each question. In the following exercise focus on the reoccurring themes in your life and where the primary importance is on the following:

independence     anger     fear     love     hate     addictions
control    approval    sex    revenge    perfectionism    pity

Ranking Influences

• Assign and rank each of the above themes in order of importance. 1- 12
• What 3 areas (or more) influence your life the most?
• In each of the categories write why these are the most influential.
• List people in your life that you associate the above feelings.
• Explain in detail why you chose those people.
• How have these themes added or hampered your life?

For each influence list all of the positive and negative qualities you can think of.

• Write down all the emotional factors that you feel have hampered your life.
• What role do these aspects effect your life?

Has the items on your list stopped you from doing something you wanted?

• Do they play a major role at work, at home and at school?
• How have your feelings affected your relationships and family life?
• Explain childhood events, experiences, activities that are important to your sense of who you are currently.

Excerpt from Who Be You
by StarStuffs

"You will have to do two things to achieve Soul contact: trust, and leap into the unknown. Both choices will be seen as desperate by the mind that clings to limiting belief. These old beliefs get their strength from the mind's powerful need to reinforce its ideas of reality...This is basic survivalist experience, and not a path to life. Are you wanting to break those chains?"

"It is a re-training of the way you think, and the way you respond to feelings...Why is it such a struggle? You all keep secrets from yourselves that need to be brought to light in order to heal. The reason you hide from yourselves is to avoid the pain of healing. Fear of grief causes you to bury emotion, and it is precisely this that creates the struggle! Despite what you may fear lies within you, there is no reason important enough to avoid total self-honesty. It truly is the path to freedom, health and prosperity. There is nothing to fear, but..."

Body and Emotions

The body itself is a dynamic system that reflects our thoughts, emotions and feelings and can be correlated to physical discomforts, illnesses and diseases. Our emotions have a direct correlation to all of life's experiences. Starting as children we learn through experiences the various behaviors which program us with feelings and emotions. Psychologists have determined that early childhood is a pivotal time for emotional development and that we learn very early in our lives how to cope with our surroundings and adapt in some form the reactionary attitudes of our parents. These behaviors carry through childhood into adulthood. We shall analyze behaviors in the following Wisdoms.

Our emotions are one of the greatest sources of personal power and energy. Emotional states are based upon the stimuli that we perceive at any given moment. We react to others in ways we associate with previous emotional responses. If we can be aware of our emotions and understand how we came to feel that, we will understand more of our true selves and not an old out-dated perceived notion of who we think we are. We can take great strides in our spiritual development by understanding our emotions. But what of the body's reactions to these emotions?

The body remembers emotions and traumas even though we may not consciously be aware of it. We may develop subconscious and psychosomatic illnesses when specific situations arise. Perhaps one may harbor a deep emotional trauma that is connected to a shoulder, knee, or other body area and cause pain when the subconscious aspect is triggered. In some circumstances, the physical body may be suffering from past-life physical and emotional traumas harbored as a karmic ailment for various reasons. In other situations, the body reacts as a learned response as in blood pressure rising, head aches, becoming nauseous, fainting, rashes and hives.

Thoughts are truly amazing energy packets. If thoughts and emotions create illnesses, then thoughts and emotions can create wellness and harmony. One of the numerous and most notable study was conducted by Dr. Davidson who studied the effects of Buddhist practices and the brain. He found within the brain's neurological circuits in those that meditated were better equipped to handle emotions and behaviors to make them happier and calmer people.

The links between emotional states and well-being to physical attributes and wellness is ever increasing by modern studies.

Thought is a great dynamic force with tremendous power. An simple atom radiates an electromagnetic field or EMF. A molecule radiates yet a stronger EMF. A large number of molecules form a cell in which the human brain contains at least 200 million such cells. These atomic waves seem to include the emotions and are thought to be superimposed within the EMF frequencies. These vibrations are sent out into the physical world extending outward into the "non-physical" world. The historian Arthur Koestler refers to this as the capacity of the human psyche to "act as a cosmic resonator". Thoughts paired with Intent equals a very powerful mixture of "mental stuff".

To reiterate for importance, "Thoughts and emotions happen as a result of you interactions with the world based on your perception of past experiences. It is how you perceive this world of events that form our thought processes that become reactions and behaviors, unconsciously or consciously. Your thoughts create your feelings, emotions, behavior and what you attract and magnetize into your life." If we are aware of our emotions and aware of actions tied to those emotions we have an opportunity to transform our perceptions of ourselves and the world around us.