Contentment comes from the hard work of fully knowing the self in the deepest way and learning to be fully present to life without resentment or regret but understanding that everything that happens is a result of your own intentions to grow and evolve. Find your feet every day upon the solid ground of your life and remind yourself of that intent, along with reminding yourself of your intention to connect with and fully allow your spirit to ground itself in your life as well. With spirit known and in alignment with physical self, contentment comes easily into play.
You have autonomy and the ability to choose, every day, how you wish to live your life. Once adulthood is reached your decisions are your own, your attitudes are your own, how you decide to express yourself is up to you. Thus, you are in charge of the person you become each day as you interact in the world. Your inner world also comes into play because what’s going on inside you affects how you behave. Get to know yourself well so that your life has balance and so that it is healthy inside and out.
Be honest, especially with yourself. Don’t hide from the truth or uphold a dishonest opinion simply to not lose something. If you are living a lie then you have already lost. There is a saying—Live Your Truth—and that means coming clean and being honest with yourself. Honesty requires a fierceness that dishonesty lacks. Consider how you are living your life now. Are you being honest with yourself? If not, what will it take for you to turn in that direction and be utterly open and honest about everything with a fierceness that you have never tapped into?
Focus on staying upon your intended path, the one that your spirit has pointed out to you, that feeds not only your ego but also your soul. It’s easy to follow ego alone, to go for what it wants and to forget that you are more than that or that anything else matters. But when you turn from ego, what else is there? Only the most important aspect of your makeup—your spirit that longs to connect and live life with your ego, to share in the glory and the defeat, the highs and the lows, and to grow by experience. Turn more often in your spirit’s direction and ask it for guidance as you seek balance and as you yearn for something new. It will not disappoint you!
It begins with deep calm in the body, the soul’s physical extension into this life. The true father of all modern somatic therapy, Wilhelm Reich, brought intimate attention to the opposition between natural impulse and defense in human musculature.
The suppression of sexual and aggressive energies, as well as powerful emotions such as sadness, is executed through what Reich called bodyarmoring, the tensing of muscles that freeze the free flow of instinctive and emotional energy.
A tense throat constricts the vocal expression of emotion. A tense belly and solar plexus create a wall that short-circuits the natural energetic current of tender emotion, natural reflex, and instinctive movement that issues from the lower half of the body.
Love is the energy of union and wholeness, the glue that binds together all of creation. To embody it we must soften our armored muscles.
The standoff between impulse and defense creates pools of charged energy, which in turn generates fears of an uncontrolled tidal wave of chaos and eventual loss of control. Indeed, a cathartic release, such as a deep cry or scream, might be necessary before a natural balance between expressive and receptive energies can be established.
One can directly speak to the body and receive a response. “Stomach, relax and release tension,” or “Shoulders, let down, release tension,” are suggestions to the body subconscious that result in immediate relaxing of rigidity.
Be gentle and accepting of small increments of release with each suggestion. Allow the body to gradually let go and adjust to the influx of freed energy. As the body musculature releases, invite and allow the breath to flow gently, expanding and opening new channels. The key word here is gentle. Follow each gentle breath with a slightly more deepening next gentle breath. Force nothing; gently widen the channel over time.
On the mental plane, Carlos Castaneda’s suggestion to suspend judgment is foundational. When we judge we create separation; this is good, that is bad. Thoughts, feelings, sensations and intuitions that are ‘bad’ are suppressed, and the body responds by rigidifying against them; they are not allowed.
In a shamanic recapitulation, or in an end of life review, as reported consistently by many who have experienced near-death experiences (NDE’s), the salient feature is total acceptance of every experience and every person one has experienced in life, regardless of their abuses and failures. This is the mood of love embracing everything with equanimity.
Boundaries may be absolutely necessary in this life but love knows no boundaries, all is accepted. Love and boundary can coexist. That was Christ’s golden message: Love All!
Total acceptance of self and other, of every aspect of life lived, and lost, is the path to embodying the mood of love.
