How hungry is your soul?
In the same way our body needs nourishment, our soul-consciousness needs to be looked after and given proper attention. It is also in need of nourishment.
I have realised through the years of accompanying people on their psycho-spiritual journey that soul nourishment is often overlooked.
For exemple, when we eat we concentrate on our senses of taste and smell and we may select our food using our sense of sight, we may be attracted by the colour of a fruit or the appetising look of a pastry. We will take in the food and hopefully get a pleasurable experience from it.
On our soul level, we need to feed ourselves in the same way ensuring that all our senses (sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste) are being nurtured with positive experiences.
We collect information through our senses. They are our windows to the experience we call life and in a fact they are our filters to the experience we get.
We need to become more aware of the importance of our senses in the re-harmonisation process of our life experiences.
Holiday time may be a good place to start this re-harmonisation to make the most of your time-out. A few days away from the routine to rest and replenish our energy. This is a great opportunity to optimise our positive soul nourishment.
The exercise is about consciously creating a database of positive nourishment and keeping a stock of it. In time of stress or depleted energy on a grey day back home it will be easier to tap into the database of positive nourishment and re-aligne ourself.
I remember when I lived in a big city all year round and had only 2 or 3 weeks of holiday in the Greek islands per year – I needed to get as much Greece in me as possible in short period of time.
I used to meditate either on the beach or in the middle of nature – under an olive tree was one of my favourite spot. The purpose of my meditation was to create a positive memory of the sensory experience. I used to focus on the emotions of joy, peace or gratitude which were generated by the experience. My memories would link a sensory experience to positive emotions – this is programming for times of need.
Negative feelings may pop-up during the meditation. Just acknowledge them but don’t dwell on them. We can acknowledge or deplore a situation at the same time that we can filter it out of our system – negative emotions cannot feed us beneficially. It is important to focus on the link between the sensory stimulus and the positive emotions.
Cascades of chemicals and electrical impulses flow through our brain when we connect with positive emotions. This also strengthens our immune system and give us more energy.
Exemple of my favourite sensory meditations
sense of sight – I like to focus on the powerful colours of the sunrise or the sunset. You may choose one or the other, depending on your lifestyle.
I am more likely to witness sunsets myself – but this is a picture of the sunrise I had taken recently from Koumana area in Patmos island. Each time I am up early enough to enjoy this experience I always feel part of a daily miracle.
My being is filled with gratitude ‘I am grateful to be alive’.
sense of taste –
I would go alone like on a secret journey to choose a fruit that I personally harvest from a tree or a plant and simply enjoy the magic of this gift, concentrating on the texture and the flavours.
A middle-aged american lady recently visited the island and asked me for a fruit in season she may find on a tree – she wanted to experience for the first time in her life eating a fruit directly from a tree. How revealing is this! Our lives are so removed from nature, from a simple experience that many take for granted.
My being is filled with abundance ‘I attract abundance in my life at all levels’
sense of hearing –
This is an easy one for me as I simply love hearing the sound of the waves on the beach. This is calming and emptying my mind. When I see people packing into their beach bags a book on WWII, magazine full of gossip and a radio, I wonder why they need all this negative noise with them.
My being is filled with peace. ‘I connect with inner-peace and create a space of silence in me’
sense of smell –
Living in Greece provides a wonderful source for natural scents, especially in the evening when the flowers exudes their strongest perfume. My favourite is the glorious jasmin. I have planted two on my terrace, to ensure the scent gets to me whatever wind is blowing.
My being is filled with excitement. ‘I enjoy life and expect the best’
sense of touch –
A simple experience I try to repeat most days of summer is drying my body in the sun and feeling the wind blow on it. Feeling caressed by the elements is very sensual and gives me a sense of being cared for.
My being is filled with safety and benevolence. ‘ I am loved and safe’
I am sharing this exercise to inspire you to create your own – wherever you are you can open your senses to positive experiences.
This may look simplistic. However, re-programming our senses is a key to harmonising ourself. We are being pro-active in acknowledging all that is around us as gifts from the universe and we are filtering out the negativity from our life.
Once you have worked on all your senses in this way, at a later date, you will be able to re-live the experience by getting back to the time and place using your imagination and re-generating the positive emotion.
When this exercise is repeated long enough, the senses get refined and allow for a higher level of perception…
The sense of sight becomes clear-sight or clairvoyance
The sense of taste becomes clear discernment
The sense of hearing becomes clear-audience
The sense of smell becomes clear-intuition
The sense of touch becomes clear-sentience
‘When I admire the wonders of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands in the worship of the creator.”
Mahatma Gandhi