Remain as attentive to what is going on inside your body as you do to what is going on outside your body, for the body itself is a barometer of the spirit. If you ignore the warnings of the body, both your physical self and your spiritual self will eventually suffer from neglect. There are many subtle things being communicated through your body from spirit constantly. If you begin to pay attention you will begin to notice them. Your body speaks to you all the time, sometimes subtly and sometimes loudly. It would do you good to start paying attention and taking the signs seriously. How your body speaks to you is unique so learn its language in order to know its messages.
Archetypes are nature’s crowning achievement. Our ability to survive is rooted in the activation of these evolutionarily sound, instinctual patterns of behavior etched in the fabric of the subconscious mind. Before humans had consciousness, with its ability to reason and make decisions, the automatic subconscious mind was the center of human decision making.
The guiding principle for the subconscious mind is association. If my senses detect a loud sound in the woods, images of a falling tree or an exploded firearm immediately come to mind. The subconscious associates the images to the sound, as action hormones are released in the body, which push for cautious investigative action.
With the birth of consciousness I can rationalize, that is, think about, the sound, and talk myself out of the need to investigate. My conscious will can subvert the subconscious story and call to action. Of course, through this suppression of the subconscious, a part of my mind may remain unsettled, but, as compared to primitive humans, I am not obsessively controlled by the absolute rule of the archetype.
Reason’s growing hegemony over the human mind is an evolutionary exercise that has produced mixed blessings. Scientists have proposed that we are now in a new geologic time period, which they are calling the anthropocene epoch, highlighting the overarching impact of human decision making upon the Earth.
It could certainly be argued, as does the Garden of Eden myth, that human beings should never have stolen access to the fruit of the tree of knowledge and instead stayed obediently within the rules and laws of the godly archetypes.
The subconscious, had it remained in total control, would never have allowed the kinds of duplicitous decisions that ego has made during its reign as CEO of the planet. The subconscious rules with the intention of survival. When it acts upon a suggestion, that suggestion has impressed it with its utility, due to its frequency of appearance.
Reason, of course, would argue that evolutionary patterns can be cumbersome and non-related to the challenges of modern life. Despite some truth to this argument, reason itself has been unable to use pure reason as a basis for environmental decisions. In effect, reason has acted like an imperious child, holding the keys to the kingdom in its own self-righteous hands.
The subconscious is the section of the mind where spirit and matter mate. From spirit issues a dynamic suggestion in the form of a word. The subconscious mind opens to receive the word, which it then magnetizes to attract matter and give birth to spirit’s intent in physical form. From this union, the word literally becomes flesh.
The will of ego can, and does, impress its suggestions upon the subconscious mind, subverting its creative potential for its own self-interest alone. The speed of communications nowadays, through social media, flood the collective subconscious with suggestions that are literally generating alternative realities, which are grounded only in the fact of their repetitive frequency.
In the meantime, the archetypes that once balanced the Earth’s ecosystem are flagrantly misfiring, or are being pitted against each other in battles for dominance. Who, for instance, defines modern masculinity? Are ancient archetypal patterns relevant to being a man? Should reason dictate the curriculum of identity?
The subconscious and reason are reconcilable partners. The bridge to this partnership is objective truth. The subconscious might very well be the most powerful section of the mind, but, by lacking critical thinking, it can be manipulated for less than positive intentions.
The ego has free will, its crowning achievement, but it lacks the ethical grounding to do the right thing. The home of truth is the heart. The Egyptian Goddess Maat is the Goddess of Truth, Law and Justice. Upon death, a person’s heart was weighed against her feather. Only a heart weighing less than the feather was a pure heart.
A pure heart, one that tells the truth, can weigh both the appropriateness of ego’s reason and a suggestion posed to the subconscious. Decisions from the heart center elevate the subconscious and the ego to be in alignment with the true needs of the Self, and the planet as a whole.
As individuals, we are most responsible when we bring heart to weigh upon the validity of our thoughts and the appropriateness of our instincts and impulses.
Let stress be your guide to relaxation, to calmness and to balance. When stress arises, dispel it with breath. Eradicate it with thought that is mantric, healing and soothing. Tell it to go away with firmness, for what is stress but a thought gone awry, that has lost its way and only needs to be told that it is not wanted, that it does not need to suffer in the land of the living, for stress comes from outside. Keep this in mind whenever stress is present in your life, that it is conjured by thought not conducive to a calm central nervous system. Breathe. Calm the body with breath. Calm the mind with breath. Let breath be your stress reliever.
Find your balance, your center in body, mind and spirit, that place where you feel calm, collected and stable, the place where your senses, thoughts and feelings are aligned and you feel at peace. From this centered and calm place look at your world, your personal circumstances first and foremost, and decide what needs to change, what needs to go and what needs to become important. From this calm and centered place, know that you have the power to do anything and that everything is possible. In every way, you are your own creator of your own world.
Concern yourself with what is going on inside as you weigh choices, make decisions and begin each day of your life. What is your body saying to you today? What is your heart implying as you pose your questions? How does your central nervous system react to your ideas? Tune in and listen closely to your body; it will tell you a lot. Learn how it responds as you ask it to guide you. It’s easy to let thoughts override how your body speaks to you, but it may not be wise. When in alignment, heart, mind, body and spirit, the four parts of the conscious self, will speak the same language, and that language is harmony. Harmony breeds happiness, contentment, and satisfaction that is deep and grounding, aspects that a healthy you will recognize instantly and want to seek again and again. Seek harmony first within, then radiate harmony out into the world around you. In harmony there is a balance that is unmistakably right.
