by Annika on November 17, 2009
Why do deeper feelings matter? They’re the greatest remedy to stress, for one thing. Stress takes a great toll on peoples’ mental and physical health. When we tap into the world of deeper feelings, the mind re-sets itself. There’s a rhythm to everything in the universe – everything moves in a wave-like pattern. When those waves are stalled in the body by too much sitting, too little movement, we get disease. When they’re stalled in the mind, we get stress, and over time stress can turn into insecurity, anxiety and worse.
Your mind is always functioning in one of two ways – its actively going after thought, moving around your personal world of data, analysis, past and future, or its receptively settling into the here and now. You’ll know how your mind is functioning by how you feel. When you settle into the present, even for a moment, you get touched by the world of deeper feelings. You relax, sigh, perhaps notice that the sun is coming out, there’s a beautiful scent of fir trees in the air, or that the silence of that moment holds you close. When your mind moves back into its more effortful function, that awareness disappears, and your feeling state will be neutral. If you stay in your perosnal world of thought for too long, you will begin to expereince stress, and eventually various forms of distress.
We Are Always Getting Prompts: Everyone has a core of innate health and wisdom, that sends out quiet thoughts to help keep you on track. Its that same voice, or thought, that appears quietly in your mind when you’re leaving the house and “umbrella” passes through your mind. You think, no, its sunny out, and leave without it, only to be drenched in a downpour later in the day.
That same quiet wisdom is giving you prompts all the time about how to keep your mind in its natural rhythm of moving in and out of the present. When you’ve been hard at work, using your personal world of thought , you’ll have the thought, ‘take a break.’ It’s up to you whether you respect or ignore that thought. If you listen to it, you might take a short walk, or close your eyes at your desk for a few minutes, or do whatever else occurs to you in the moment to take your mind out of current function and let its return to its natural rhythm of rest and be receptive, then retrieve or analzye data. Again, if you ignore it, you’ll know it by the way you feel – you will begin to feel stressed and tired, or notice that you’re having arguments with people, or making a lot of mistakes at work, or being inefficient at your tasks at home.
Deeper Feelings Help People Function at their Best:
Deeper feelings fill you with joy and well-being. People’s minds naturally become more inspired and creative. You become more productive and successful. And because your own feeling reservoir is full, you have more to give to others. You’ll be kinder to your children, and get along better with your spouse. You’re more likely to have the time and energy to check in on a sick neighbor, or volunteer at a food bank. You become more interested in making our world a better place.
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by Annika on October 21, 2009
A Couples’ Story: Sally and Sarah have been learning the prinicples, and it has changed their marriage. A couple in their mid-30’s, they had been married for 7 years. Their relationship was up and down, due to lack of communication and fighting. Whenever they would get into a disagreement, they would talk and talk, trying to sort it through. The more they talked, the more their relationship would spiral down. They had tried couples’ counseling before, and it had only made things worse. The more the therapist pointed them in the direction of their problems, the worse they felt about themselves and the more they fought. It was to the point where they were losing optimism about being able to make it as a couple.
The first thing that hapened after learning about the 3 spiritual prinicples discovered by Sydney Banks, was that Sally got more lighthearted, and Sarah became more confident. “I never realized before how much I keep things on my mind that weigh me down,” Sally said. “I’m feeling so much happier! I was completely happy for 4 days in a row – that hasn’t happpened ever in my life that I can remember. Then I went back to work and started to get down again, until I noticed that I was thinking heavy, serious thoughts, and then it lifted and I l felt great again. This is amazing to me.” Sarah said: “It used to be whenever I was mad or upset with Sally I would pretend that I wasn’t, because I didn’t want to upset her. Now I have the confidence to feel the way I feel without worrying about Sally so much. I don’t take it out on her, but I’m not afraid to tell her how I feel.”
Affter this initial progress, the couple had a honeymoon period of enjoying their relationsip more than they could ever remember. And then they had their first big fight. “I had been saving money for over a year so that we could have another child, and I went into that account and discovered that Sally had taken out a good part of that money and used it for a bill, without telling me. I was so upset – she knows how hard I’ve worked to save that money, and how very much I want to have another child. I couldn’t even talk to her for the rest of the day. But things went so differently when we talked about it! Normally I would have approached her very upset. But I waited, because I now know that wouldn’t work. She asked me if I was upset before going to bed, and I said I was, but that I couldn’t talk about it at that time. I waited until the next day, when I was feeling more calm about it. When we found a good time to talk, I asked Sally about the money, and instead of getting all upset and angry about it, the way she normally would, she said ‘of course I can see why that would upset you.’ Then she explained why she needed to draw on that money for an immediate need, and how she had more money coming in to replace it. I couldn’t believe how easily we resolved this. Of course what she told me made sense, but if I hadn’t waited until I was feeling better, I wouldn’t have been able to hear that. Something that would normally have dragged on for days or weeks was over within a day or so. Its like a miracle! Sally: ‘It was hard for me when Sarah wouldn’t talk or be affectionate before we went to bed that night. But it was different from before. I could tell that she wasn’t being cold or mean, and that made it easier for me to wait. Then when we talked about it it went so easily! It wasn’t even an arugment. We were back on track with our relationshp in no time! This is like a miracle for us – we are so happy!” Sally and Sarah say that they now have a confidence in their relationship that they didn’t have before, and confidence in their future together.
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