Learning how to make spirit centric decisions

I found during my own journey that learning how to listen to my feelings was critical to leading a spirit centric life.  For the first three decades of my life I confused emotional reactions to feelings.  One of the hardest skills for me to learn was to get in touch with my feelings, a topic I explored in my book.  Emotions are a reaction or a response to external stimuli that we experience around us, while feelings are rooted within ourselves and through our body / vessel.  

While I was going through my depression, I confused my emotional reaction to external events as 'feelings'.  As a result I experienced anger, rage, guilt, jealousy, disappointment and other emotional reactions to what others were doing or did not do.  I thought these were feelings and due to my own ignorance, I did not realize what I was missing.  

Working with a group of about 40 other individuals in an intensive group therapy setting, we worked hard to come to terms with what we were feeling inside and separate the emotional reactions to what was going on outside of ourselves.  This is a difficult process as we usually mask our feelings with emotions and it was difficult at times to differentiate between emotion and feeling.  

Anger for example is usually a mask for fear and is not a 'feeling'.  So when ever somebody got emotionally angry in the group, the work turned to identifying the feeling of fear so that the individual could then work on why the fear was there.  If the fear could be identified, then work went into figuring out if it was a rational fear, something to prevent imminent harm or death, or an irrational fear, something that has little or no risk but felt imminent.  

Once the majority of us in the room identified the root causes of our fear, then we could do the work to remedy that fear or come to terms with it.  As a result, the anger went away as it was no longer required to mask the fear out of avoidance or even ignorance.  Facing our fear and working through our perceptions was a common theme within the group.  This requires a great deal of conscious work as most of our emotional reactions are very unconscious and an automatic response.  

There is a term called 'emotional plague reaction' which is used to identify when people are reacting emotionally or unconsciously to events.  It is a term to indicate a disconnect or masking of their feelings at an unconscious level.  

However, once the individual has worked through their emotional reactions and rooted their healing with their feelings, then they can start listening to the body to do the next step of healing.  There is a wonderful booked called 'Messages from the Body' by Narayan Singh, which highlights the body's attempt to send a message to us regarding deeper emotional healing that must occur so that we can find optimum health and vitality.  

Deep emotional trauma is stored in the body if we don't process and heal it properly.  Our body holds onto it and tries to communicate to us what the issues are by manifesting symptoms.  This is where the allopathic medical system fails as they treat symptoms and don't bother to address the root causes.  By being consciously aware of what those symptoms are, we can do even deeper emotional work to heal those traumas and lighten the load on the body so that it can function as Creator designed it.  

At that point, it is much easier to then work on being consciously aware of how are body 'feels'.  These true feelings can guide is in our decisions, warn us of danger and serve us in ways that our intellect could never do.  Some people call it a 6th sense, gut instinct, second sight or being intuitive.  I believe these feelings are our Spirit communicating to our vessel and it is up to us to listen as Spirit can sense much more than our vessel can.  

I've found in my own experience, that my intuition has increased significantly after going through the emotional, mental and physical healing over the past 17 years.  Now I get feelings and insights often.  When I meditate, ideas come flooding through and I just let them flow, observing the ideas along the way.  When I am going through my day, I will get insights that just pop into my head or other parts of my body experience sensations and when I dismiss them, my intellect soon regrets the decision.  

Once the emotional issues have been worked out, our feelings become powerful and significant.  Being consciously aware of how each part of our body feels serves us well.  Now when we are confronted with decisions, I allow the intellect to work out the details, but how my body feels is how I decide whether to proceed or not.  

Being consciously aware of how my body feels allows spirit to then guide my life and the results have been amazing, rewarding and enriching.  When my intellect made the decisions years ago, my life was a disaster.  

This is how I make spirit centric decisions and it took a lot of work to get my body to a point where Spirit can express itself. It also took a lot of work learning how to listen.  Those with the eyes to see and the ears to hear!  

As a result, now I can see events outside of myself for what they are and not have an emotional reaction to them ... for the most part.  I'm still working on it all myself.  But Creator speaks to us at all times and I see messages from all over, not just through my body.  It is my job to be a witness so that I can tap into my feelings and guide my life and take advantage of the opportunities when they are presented.  

This is the start of exploring what Christ level consciousness is all about.  I would never presume to be an expert at any of this, but rather this is my current comprehension at this point in my life as I comprehend it through my own personal experiences.  I pray this helps.  

This is how I created the "Stewards of Terra Mater".  It was purely driven by my feelings.  I was moved to do it.