States of Being

I've spent the greater part of my life trying to understand myself.

What I mean by that is I've always felt this greatness within me that was not expressed outwardly where others understood it too. Funny enough, someone just returned a book to me they borrowed, and on the page I opened to I underlined "The part of the brain that controls our feelings has no capacity for language." Read that again. No wonder this is such a struggle! This supports my point that there is so much we don't know about things that effect the way we think, behave or react. It's why being kind to yourself and allowing grace is important because we are subject to an incredible amount of invisible forces that take effort to learn. Like learning how to drive, the rules of the road and etiquette take practice to understand, and it's all system we are dependent on one another to cooperate within to make it work. Same thing in how we communicate, although I'm sure we could all agree cooperation is not what we are best at there.

How then do we share how we feel so we can understand and be understood by those around us?

This is where I had the thought about states of being, and how my physical, emotional, mental and spiritual states coexist. How they work together and the roles they play are an area I certainly will dive deeper to in the future...for now my foundational learning starts with this sketch I made representing how they relate:

sketch of thoughts 8.10.25

Our physical state is where I think our modern society places too much emphasis, and you can see it in the way value is placed on material things, vanity, and taking things at face value. We can point to something and say that exists. The same can't be true about someones feelings.

We look for objective truths. In this way I can see a cup and you can see a cup and we can say, "Yup, there's a cup" and have something we can both agree on/relate to/have a kinship about.

Our spiritual state is, whether you know it or not, where all of your beliefs, behaviors and opinions are rooted -- why you are the way you are either by nature or nurture. It's where you can find great joy in sculpting a joyful life or being a prisoner to your programming. It's an area I think our modern society/Western culture is wayyy under developed in, therefore a great cause of pain and illness.

We've gotten so out of touch with it because...we can't touch it. Our worlds are bombarded with the latest technology, marketing promotions, beauty trends...millions of distractions to process that unless we intentionally quiet them, our spiritual state struggles to get any stage time.

Enter our emotional and mental states. These are processing powerhouses doing insane work to bridge the gaps between our physical and spiritual states. Though they too are non-physical, they manifest in ways we can see like crying and burnouts. This is where I started to pay attention. Curiosity has led me down countless rabbit holes to ask WHY.

Why do I choke up with tears when presented with a conflict I don't have the answer to? Clearly it's something important to my spiritual self. Since I don't know (mental) the words/research/tools to explain it, it manifests through crying (emotions). PAY ATTENTION TO THESE EXPERIENCES. Our basic education means we probably aren't going to have the knowledge on how to navigate so many things, so listen to what your emotions are telling you. I cannot emphasize this enough. I can deep dive into this another time, but it is the best place to start, I promise. It's helped immensely on my journey to understand myself and this world.

Look at how many feeling there are (this is not even all of them) and they are all trying to tell you something. A wonderfully complicating nuance is they mean different things to everyone too.

Source: https://medium.com/age-of-awareness/how-to-use-wheel-of-emotions-to-express-better-emotions-8037255aa661

Someone may look at a cup and feel happy -- "Oh it reminds me of the trip I took to Mexico with my best friends! What a great time."

Someone else might look at the same cup and feel depressed -- "It reminds me of my family who right now is being persecuted."

Both are valid. They are the individual's experiences.

What we fail to do much of the time is

1. consider others and not just ourselves

2. ask others what something means to them (they might not share, or have even thought about it yet)

3. show compassion and respect, even if it is not how we feel

Gentle reminder / Red Foreman slapping you upside the head: we can coexist with others that we think and feel differently from.

Back in context with our states of being -- we really are so much the same spiritually. Our clear differences lie in the physical world. And our nuanced mental and emotional processing is where you can see where we are strug👏gle👏ing👏

In our human experiences we all pretty much strive for the same things -- peace, love, belonging, enlightenment, not to suffer...but what circumstances we were born into plays a HUGE role in how we try to reach that. Imagine being born in another country with limited rights and access to basic needs like water and shelter. You're going to think, feel, and act much differently in order to achieve those things.

So why I am I taking the time to write all of this and present you with yet more things to contemplate in an already complex world? Because it's been my experience that taking a step back when I feel overwhelmed, ask why, take time to learn more about it, practice it (over and over), and develop my skill to understand that topic, the result is a peaceful empowerment where I can navigate life experiences in a more enjoyable way while increasing my capacity to help others do the same.

This is a way for me for me to help steer humanity in a direction of healing.

And that to me is worth all this typing on a Sunday morning.