‘It Is Never Too Late To Be What You Might Have Been’ George Elliot

All living things are composed of energy, and that includes us. In amongst the bones, blood and tissue, is the nucleus of who we are; a personal energy system that houses our real identity and which is our one true emotional and spiritual blueprint. This nucleus, although it never leaves us, remains passive and only becomes energised and ready for action when stimulated.

This stimulation occurs in the form of outside influence; what we hear, see and/or physically feel, and our response to the stimulation can either be driven through thought, and therefore ponderous and fearful, or driven through feeling, and therefore spontaneous and fearless. Either way, the nucleus is forever at our disposal, poised and ready for action and it is up to us which path we take; although for many of us, that is far more easily said than done.

Unfortunately, we have all experienced, especially during childhood, countless occasions when we have been encouraged to use thought over feeling. As a child, being persuaded to work harder at a subject that holds no interest for us, for the sake of argument, let’s say mathematics. While we may eventually become proficient with numbers over time and with mental application, but it’s highly unlikely we will grow to love being an accountant.

Mankind has created a society where fear is easily created and in order to allow us to absorb and cope with that fear, we often undermine what we have been taught to perceive as our negative emotions by using lesser words in order to 'dumb down' feeling. Anger must only be spoken of under the guise of frustration, shame as embarrassment and fear as worry.

Eventually though, unless we choose to self- medicate with food, alcohol, or drugs, prescribed or otherwise, the suppression of our true feelings will begin to emerge but instead of finally seeing things clearly for what they are, we tend to experience what is called the see-saw of emotions and over amplify them. It then becomes second nature to build a portfolio of understated anxieties that are usually, but not entirely financially based. There is no limit to how intellectually negative we can be, and it is because of this negativity that we remain oppressed and cut adrift from our natural free-spiritedness.

As infants, we do as we wish. According to how we feel at the time, we laugh, cry, shout and scream without the slightest consideration to embarrassment or recrimination. We are in other words, perfectly in control of our emotions and free spirited.

As children we must do as we are told; ask nicely, play quietly and work hard, and because we are led to believe that those that teach us know better than us, and because what we are told is often delivered by parents and teachers that have over their lifetime followed the same patterns as they now teach, we are persuaded to believe that thought is more important than feeling, and apply ourselves to futures that while being financially viable, are more often than not emotionally unfulfilling.

As teenagers, stuck between the two worlds, the ideal we have for our self and the idealistic views of our parents and tutors, we understandably, become rebellious and antagonistic towards adults and even towards the concept of our own adulthood.

We lose our sense of individuality and become convinced that we are living in a world that is purely a case of sink or swim and so decide that it be better to be swimming with the tide rather than against it. It is at this point that we seek out jobs, that while putting an abundance of food on the table, provide little sustenance for our soul.

We become emotion-less and thought-full and the only emotion we can rely on being omnipresent is fear. Fear of failure, rejection and of being judged, and we continue to generate this fear purely because we are disconnected from our self.

So, how do we recover our true identity?

1. Be aware that when you are shallow breathing, you are in thinking mode. Now begin to breathe deeply.

2. Be aware that when you are breathing deeply, from your solar plexus, then you are in feeling mode.

3. Accept that you are not your thoughts.

4. Write down what it is that you would like to do today. Don't let what you have already decided that you HAVE to do interfere with what you put down on paper. Remember, you don’t have to change your previous plans, but it's more than likely that you are going to want to.

5. Later, when you have become more proficient at this technique, you can disregard the pen and paper and simply close your eyes, breathe deeply and you will connect directly with your intuition.

6. Your intuition can be recognised as a feeling that radiates, perhaps subtly, in the form of 'just knowing' or perhaps more noticeably, shivers, goosebumps, an increase in heartbeat, a quickening of breath and a feeling in the stomach, the manner of the feeling in your stomach will be exclusive to you, people describe it in many different ways. It is also often described as a light or loose comfortable feeling or a heavy or tight uncomfortable feeling; this is what is known as intuitive inspiration. Our 'gut feeling.'

6. Always remember that your intuition is a direct link to your soul's desire; intuition is feeling, thought is self control.

If you wish to have further advice or feel that your situation might be helped by one to one counselling please contact Mark McDowell via the website; www.markmcdowell-lifecoach.com