Our bodies know first

I was recently told of a scientific study in which recordings of a persons voice were played for the person, among other voices.  Sensors were attached to the body, including the head, and the impulses of the brain and body were recorded as the subject listened to the recordings.  The purpose of the study was to see when the body and the brain recognized one's own voice.  The results were fascinating - the body recognized one's one voice before the brain did.

This is radical and so very important. 

This culture tells us that we can't trust our bodies, that only our rational minds are trustworthy.

Then, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky show us that our brains are actually "predictably irrational."  Their work on the psychology of judgment and decision-making, resulting in the field of behavioral economics, show that our brains are irrational, hypocritical, and lack symmetry as we make decisions.  We actually make decisions with our bodies first, and then justify them with our minds.

My regular energy practices show this at work also.  Over and over I see how energy underlies everything - and by that I mean everything.  It's fascinating to watch it in action - to watch how energy attracts or repels, under the surface of our conscious awareness.

Yet.  It can feel so hard to trust the impulses of the body.  We override the information, the truth, we receive because it is inconvenient, not socially smooth, scary.  We have no idea where it would lead, and it is unpredictable.

Agreed.

I think this is what the last 2 years have ultimately been about.  Coming back home to myself.  Learning to hear the truth.  Then learning to trust the truth.  Following a kernel of truth through to the end, when nothing about the path makes sense.  Trusting in the Great Creator.  Trusting in the fall.  Trusting in the process.  Giving up certainty (which isn't very certain after all).  Prioritizing and orienting my life around the sacred - this sacred world, this sacred body, the bliss that makes no sense.  Seeing the culture for what it is, and what is isn't.  Re-wilding.  Becoming more alive in sunshine.  Hearing the truth in my soul, and honoring it above all else.  Learning to trust my body.  And so much joy.

Recovering my own identity.  

And, ultimately, a turning away from people. 

Asking (complicated) people (with emotional needs of their own) to validate my emotional needs, was childish and immature.  Paralyzing.  Trying to doing the same for them, when I was caught in my own emotional weather patterns, was like a whirlwind of agendas conflicting in a tornado.  So loaded.  Unreliable, unsustainable, capricious.  Exhausting.  And, it was like asking yellow to validate blue in in the dark.  It burdens other mortals with fulfilling my needs and vice verse - something I was unwilling to do for myself.  It burdened my relationships with an agenda, whether overt or hidden. 

It is ultimately better, more reliable, and more fulfilling to look to the All Sustainable Source of All for my bliss and truth and fears and needs.  The Great Creator can handle it.

This has ultimately resulted in a freeing of the relationships in my life.  An enjoyment of who people are, unburdened by what they can do for me.

These two years have seen a "giving up" of so much - my health fell apart, many friendships passed, and my job - including so much of my identity.  Just about the only thing that has stayed the same has been my precious family.  But even that has morphed and changed.

​But underneath it all is the most precious of findings - a path back to my sacred soul, my Beloved, and myself.

Amen.  Amen.  Amen, amen, amen