Aligning With the Inner Self

"I want to feel my life while I'm in it."

Meryl Streep

We move through life witnessing both success and defeat, courage and fear, and happiness and sorrow.  During these segments, we are frequently focused on how to move forward and disallow our selves time to actually feel any depth of emotions.  We don't want to be stuck in our emotions.  We don't want to be carried away by our emotions.  If, however, we do not allow our selves to truly feel we are not aligning with our inner self, Divine Spirit, or wisdom to guide us. 

Using success for example.  If we experience success and ignore our true inner emotions, we may not realize are loneliness, lack of passion or sense of being in the wrong place.  Just because we become successful in a certain arena, does not mean it is the the arena for us to perform in for the rest of our lives.  Even if the success is the result of a long held goal, we may discover it is not where we truly resonate.  On the other hand, while experiencing success, we feel buoyant, joyful and continued passion, then by recognizing these emotions, we are validated and encouraged.

When we avoid our inner self, our feelings get repressed.  They do not simply go away.  In sorrow, people will tell us to be brave, get over it, and prepare for a new life.  We need to allow time to check in with our sadness, our loss, or vulnerability.  We need to feel these emotions deeply so we can begin the process of healing. 

A few years ago, I was with a trusted mentor.  I shared a childhood story with her I had told many times over the years as I thought it was so funny.  The story involved my self and an exchange with an adult.  After sharing the incident I was laughing heartily, but the mentor challenged me.  She said, "I see you regard this as funny, but how did it make you feel?"  Silence followed.  No one had ever asked me this question before and I was truly caught off guard.  I realized only in that moment it made me feel horrible.  When I stopped crying, I knew I would never tell the story in the same way again.

Human beings walk around life with a back pack.  When they come into contact with an emotional reality they don't want to deal with, they throw it in their back pack.  This works fine until one day the back pack is so filled with repressed anger, rejection, abandonment and/or other negative experiences, we are so off balance we fall.  It becomes time to remove the back pack and to sort through it discarding all of the old rubbish.

When we stay in alignment with Divine Spirit, our inner self is flowing and free no matter what the outer world brings to us.  We can face our challenges with a spiritual force (trust or faith) allowing us to embrace reality, feel our emotions, and move through life fully experiencing the union of body, mind, and spirit .