Body-Mind-Spirit 

Where’s Spirit? 

We are all body-mind-spirit complexes.  Many of us are aware of the fact that we have a body and a mind.  Less of us are aware of the fact that we have a spirit.  Conceptually it may seem obvious to us that we have a spirit however experientially many of us may not be making direct contact or have direct knowing of our spirit.  In fact often times when we do make contact with our spirit we may experience a few moments of bliss and then our minds comes plunging in trying to make sense of it all or even deny, forget, or flatten the experience of spirit altogether.  

Why is it that even when we have been on a spiritual seeking path for many years that spirit remains an elusive mystery to us in our direct day to day experience?  Why do we continue to attempt to rationalize spirit and put it in some kind of box to make sense of it?  Our minds so badly want answers and want to feel safe, secure and like they know what is going on even when they don’t.  Because we have the tendency to heavily rely on and believe the thoughts that our minds create as the sole reality there seems to be no way around this.  The mind believes that if it can just figure spirit out then it will know what spirit is.  This would be equivalent to the body trying to sense the mind and through sensation know a thought.  A sensation however cannot know a thought, just like a thought cannot know spirit.  Meaning you can’t use your mind/thoughts to know spirit.  Your thoughts can think about spirit, this is called conceptual spirituality and where most spiritual seekers hang out, but a thought cannot directly experience and know spirit.  

Just like the mind can see what might be helpful for the body, which the body can’t necessarily see on its own, the spirit knows what is helpful for the mind (and body) more so than by their independent faculties alone.  Spirit is that next level of ourselves which many of us are waking up too.  Its that intelligence which moves us into alignment and greater coherence once we make direct contact with it.  As our awareness finds spirit, spirit is revealed to us and becomes active in our day to day lives.  What then does it take to bring greater awareness to the spirit aspect of ourselves rather than being so heavily dependent on the body-mind aspects of ourselves? 

Bringing spirit into greater awareness

Beliefs, worthiness and self-commitment

In order to bring spirit into greater awareness for your direct experience of it you must first investigate any stories and beliefs that you have about spirit which don’t support your capacity to perceive it.  Our beliefs are our filters.  They color everything we see and thus everything we will experience.  Even if we have thoughts about liking spirit or thinking spirit is real, our beliefs will trump those thoughts.  Many of us don’t even know what we believe because we haven’t ever really investigated ourselves to discover it.  Once we do find value in this self-investigative process we will begin to see ways in which our beliefs don’t support the direct perception of spirit.  If you don’t directly experience spirit at all times you can bet you have some beliefs that aren’t supporting your capacity to know spirit.

Another thing that often interferes with our direct experience of spirit is our sense of worth.  Many of us feel incredibly unworthy of spirit.  Substitute the word divine, God, or love for spirit and you may find some of these unworthy feelings arise.  If you feel unworthy of spirit you will be unable to perceive spirit, or anytime you begin to experience it, you will find some way to deflect or push away the experience.  Often people will go into their head to try and figure things out as a defense mechanism to prevent themselves from having to feel unworthy of spirit.  Allowing yourself to feel the unworthiness, rather than go into your head or flatten out your experience in some way, brings you closer to the experience of spirit.  

Lastly where you place your value and focus is of prime importance.  If you only conceptually value spirit and get some sense of personal identity or validation from being a “spiritual” person this will not lead to the direct experience of spirit.  You must create a hunger so intense inside of you to know spirit.  This is how you will begin to stably experience it at all times.  Until that is your sole value you will find yourself distracted and more focused in your body-mind reference point of self.  

Many will get tastes of spirit, but few will commit whole heartedly to a life where spirit is in awareness 100% of the time.  Without this commitment the value gets placed on other things and experiences which take precedence, and suffering continues as you don’t yet know yourself.  It takes a full-hearted commitment to want to know yourself completely.  When you do you activate the pure potential of life to emerge through you into a myriad of infinite expressions and into this play of forms we call creation.  

Dr. Amanda Hessel, Chiropractor, Network Spinal Analysis & Somato-Respiratory Integration, Boulder, Colorado