The Spirit Self

Disconnection fromourspiritself is only amisperception because ourspirit self is always unconditionally connected to us. Consider this: if someone we know were to tell us that we are truly magnificent beings, most, if not all, of us would have a hard time believing this compliment. We’d think that our friend offered this comment because he or she is smitten with us or wanted something from us, and we might also think that if this person really knew us he orshe wouldn’t be praising us so highly. Without believing it within our selves, we would not be able to open up and connect with the truth of what our friend is saying.

The same is true when ourspirit self attempts to remind us of our magnificence. Untilwe believe what ourspirit self already knows is true about us, we will have a hard time connecting with our spirit self. There will be moments of clarity when we do connect, but to become one with our spiritself—to ―awaken‖—our personality selfmust already believe, agree with or accept our spirit self’s knowledge of who we are. We accomplish a true connection to our spirit self when our personality self believes what our spirit self knows.

Let’s explore howknowledge differsfrombeliefs. Here’s an example: If you’ve measured and weighed yourself, you have knowledge that you are a certain height and a certain weight. If, however, you don’t have a measuring tape or scale, you might believe that you are a certain height and weight, but that’s merely your belief, not your knowledge. We have knowledge of some things, but many of the things we think we know are just our beliefs.

Our personality self is made up of beliefs. Our spirit self is made up of knowledge. The spirit self knows that we are love and is unconditionally patient with us while we work toward becoming conscious of our true identity. As we correct our mistaken beliefs and allow ourselves to know how absolutely loving we are, and have always been, we feel more consistently connected to our spirit self. As this happens, our experience of being connected to everyone and everything expands as well.

There is a phenomenon in which some people, fearful of feeling their emotions, become out of touch with their bodies. This is because our bodies are the means through which we feel the vibrational drum of our emotions. Therefore, by suppressing our physical sensations, we suppress our awareness of our emotions. Unfortunately, suppressing our physicalsensations as a way not to feel our emotions means that we also lose touch with the signals that are needed to stay physically healthy. This disconnect from both our bodies and our emotions, and therefore from the beliefs that created them, keeps us from being able to correct, heal and connect to ourspirit self. It is a dangerous situation that can lead to both mental and physical illness.

Here’s an example: When one of my clients, ―Joan,‖ was between the ages of three and six, her mother entered her into every baby and child beauty contest available and would not allow her to eat much in fear that she would gain weight. Joan remembered always being hungry. When Joan started school, she would stealfood and eat everything she could get her hands on.

This fear that food is fattening stayed with her into her adulthood, and Joan’s relationship to food was guilt and fear-ridden. She wouldn’t eat because she believed food made her fat, yet after nine to sixteen hours of not eating, she’d be so hungry that she’d eat whatever was available, and lots of it. Joan now suffered from a binge-starve eating imbalance that played havoc with her metabolism. She was obese, hypertensive and pre-diabetic.

When working with Joan, I saw clearly that she could no longer physically perceive her body’s hunger signals. Fortunately, however, the sense ofsafety that she developed during therapy helped Joan explore her fear of eating and helped her become aware of the beliefs she needed to question and change. It took close to a year before Joan was able to reactivate her body’s hunger signals. This was an important part ofJoan’s ability to reconnect with her body and eventually lose weight and balance her metabolism.

When we suppress our emotions and suppress our physical signals as well in order to avoid feeling our emotions, we eventually weaken our body and open ourselvesto psychosomatic illness.Psychosomatic illnesses are real, physiological conditions brought on by the mind.

We have found so many different ways to disconnect from our pain. I believe this is because we have so little understanding of the great gifts our spirit self wants us to receive when we connect to and resolve our pain. Connecting to our pain can be scary but worth the health, happiness, peace and joy we receive by doing so.

In the next chapter, we’ll take a look at exactly what self-love is, helping us get ever closer to the center of our own hearts.