Live Through and With Your Whole Self

AUTHOR:
MAE

​All ailments, disbalances stem from our emotions one way or another. How, I will be explaining below; but that does not mean they in themselves are causing us ailments, in fact it is the other way around, we are causing ourselves ailments, by not honoring our feelings.
 
The body is a vessel, designed to keep running in the best possible way and in as much balance as possible. We are not the body, but the Soul that inhabits it. The Soul is not material, thus it does not have "material problems and disbalances", the material disbalances and problems come as a result of a non-material disruption that is encountered by the Soul. The Soul is our true self, the Soul expresses itself through feelings. Feelings are what drive us, and make us "human". Our feelings are what controls our Will, which in turn controls our actions, which consequently invokes our intellect for thought, (intelligible thought, not “free floating random thoughts” which are known as ‘Waswasa’ – the whispered provocations of the Devil, Shaitan, more on this coming soon).
 
In the early years, one acts out of pure imitation, as the years progress, the Will takes charge and one acts out of their Will. If this Will is suppressed, challenged or threatened, thus not allowing it to be, the fire of the Will gets dwindled. The Will is at the core of ones’ self. A dwindled Will, thus core, means a dwindled self. If the Will is not allowed to grow and become strong, one becomes but a fraction of themselves. They no longer act out of their Will, instead have to switch over to acting out of their intellect far sooner than they should have needed to. Their thoughts become their main driving force for their actions. Their Mind develops, but their Soul-self is left neglected. When this happens we grow up with a sort of hollowness inside of us. No matter what we may do or achieve, the satisfaction does not reach to the core of us, it stays on the surface and we are often left troubled and dissatisfied with life despite “worldly successes”. When a big part of us has not had the opportunity to be developed it is this lacking that we are yearning to fill, but are unaware of how to do so, or that it even is the case. This dis-ease lives within us and eats away at us and our vitality.
 
Ordinarily if given the right space and time our Will and Soul does develop and later as we get older and "wiser", our Mind too develops. We then allow our Mind to take the wheel, we start listening to and actioning what the Mind calculates through its experiences the "better" course(s) of action, which is healthy. But when we get plagued with a conflict of the Emotional actions and the Mind’s actions this is where dis-ease begins. The longer this dis-ease sits within us the more it makes a more "permeant pitch within our being. This then manifests into a disease state, with or without pathological changes.
 
This does not mean that one needs to be passive and vanilla with everything in life, in fact that in itself will still result in dis-eases. And all of this is also not to say that one should completely make away with Intellect, thought and the development of them. No, they are also necessary; for without them we would remain very child-like, living purely in and out of emotions.
 
It all comes down to balance. Just as there is a place and need for the Mind to take control once it has developed, there is a real need for there to remain a space for the Emotions to still take charge and rule. When either side is suppressed or given sole charge for too long and too often that is where the problems begin…
 
 
Imagine a delicate multi layered set of scales all balanced upon each other, if you add a weight to one side of one scale this will make that scale disbalanced and in turn the others that are connected to it setting off a chain reaction of readjustments until a new "stable" condition is reached. This "stable" condition will be balanced as best possible so that the whole structure does not come tumbling down, but the balances will not all be in there original "optimal" positions. Until this weight is not removed everything cannot go back to their "resting" optimal positions. Over time if more and more weights keep getting added on parts of this delicate structure more and more deviations will result from the original optimal position.
 
This is what happens to us in life, as more and more we live through our Intellect and less in touch with and honoring and respecting our Feelings; more and more imbalances make home within us, leading us to more and more dis-ease and eventually "diseases".
 
To thrive in our Earthly life we need to develop our Mind, but all the while still nurture and nourish our Soul. When we start living too much out of our Mind and in the material world, then we risk not acknowledging and nurturing our Soul enough. This can be seen when no matter what we may do or achieve, any happiness we gain is short lived. Because happiness is an expression or our innate emotion, joy. When the happiness is induced by the intellect it is short lived, but when happiness is expressed as a result of our Soul experiencing joy, then it is deeper rooted and not dependent upon any material circumstances, thus longer lasting and experienced as what is known as “contentment”.
 
 
Although it must be pointed out over here, that there are some emotions that stem from the Intellect, like fear and anger. Fear results from our thoughts (mainly and often from the Waswasa thoughts), its roots live in the Ego, just like that of anger. They are a consequence of one's Ego being threatened or challenged. Fear and Anger are the two extremes ends of the Ego’s expression when it encounters stimuli. Our Ego is a part of ones’ Soul-self that gets developed as ones’ intellect gets developed: it is best described as our Mind’s persona; it is an acquired facet of our Soul’s self, developed as a result of ones’ Worldly Journey, (which is why despite its development it can still be allowed to be “let go of” in a healthy way – more on this coming soon).
 
When the Ego faces any perceived threat or challenge, in interest of self-preservation, it acts out with a number of different emotional responses. These emotional responses are not the same as the emotional actions that come from our Soul, as their origin is from the Intellect. They are not innate to the Soul, but are acquired emotional actions that have been developed from and with the Ego, as a result of the stimuli that a Being experienced in its Earthly journey.
 
For example one person may be found to live completely in and out of fear, where another is completely “fearless”. It is not that the latter is reckless; no its Ego, in its journey so far, has not felt threatened to the point where it needed to develop its sense of fear very much; and the former may have experienced much adversities where its defence mechanism has kicked in and developed its fear emotion to such an extent that it has completely taken over.
 
Let me explain with another example: If you observe a new born baby sleeping, its expressions are mainly that of joy or sadness. Over time if the baby feels its' self or its' safety threatened then it slows develops its acquired emotions of fear or anger depending on the environment and circumstances.
 
Often it is not our acquired emotions we suppress first, but our innate ones. Because our acquired emotions stem from our Ego and once it starts to develop it has the main driving wheel, thus the first emotions that are suppressed are our innate ones, as our Soul-self gets pushed aside and ignored. Then if our Ego gets repeatedly threatened, then it too can start getting suppressed and sidelined (and with it our acquired emotions), which is another defence mechanism of its: submission and surrender in-order to prevent annihilation; and we become but a slave to our outer world, “living” life more like a robot, going about our daily life without much of ourselves actually living and being present in any of our actions. We become passive and vanilla in life. This is what we see described as: being here, but not present. Because your material self is here, but your spiritual self, your soul self is not. No prizes to guess that this too is not a healthy way of living. Our Earthly journey is not for us to surrender and became a slave to our surroundings/circumstances, it is for us to develop ourselves, our light, our gift and bring our offering to the World.
 
If we live in balance and nurture and develop all aspects of ourselves that is when true Wellness can be achieved.
 
Although it is much harder to develop your Will and Soul-self at later stages in your life, it is not impossible. The more you allow quietness in your Mind the more better you are able to connect with your Soul-self. Bring stillness within to help settle the waters, once the mud settles things can become more clearer.
 
Fear lives in the Future, and Anger in the Past; what we need is to live in the Present and for that all we need is internal stillness and quiet.
 
May we all find, keep and act out of our stillness; for then we will have truly arrived into the Present.