Our Built-in Spiritual GPS System

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Our emotions play a big role in our lives- butfor many of us the role they play is too much theimproper role of master of our behavior and not enough the proper role of trusted informant ofwhere we are placing the creative power of our attention and thus what we are in the process ofcreating in the invisible world of spirit and mind.Whileit may be fine for infants and little children tolet their emotions dictate their behavior, it is not a sign of a spiritually mature person to lettheirbehavior be at themercy of their emotions. On the other hand, even for most adults who havedeveloped a socially responsible level of freedom between emotion and behavior, it is the rareindividual who really understands how useful emotions can be in guiding them in the process of theirspiritual growth.

While the topic of emotions is a complex one, I will attempt toshare some clarity that I have come tounderstand about theproper function, purpose anduse of our emotions to aid in our spiritual growth.

Emotions Are Our Built-in Spiritual GPS System

I think one of the best analogies to understand the proper purpose and function of emotions is thatof aGPS system. A GPS system is a feedback device that tells us on a visual display where we aregeographically at any given time. If we've programmed a destination into it, it's job is to instruct usstep by step how to get there and to let us know if we're staying on course or getting off course. Ifwe get off course, the unit will recalibrate and start directing us how to get back on track. Wouldn'tit be great if we had a spiritual GPS systems that would do the same thing for us spiritually- help usget from where we are where we want to be spiritually? I believe we do have such a thing and wecome with it already pre-programmed with our final destination. That destination is a return to God-our Creator- but not just returning to where we came from like the proverbial river returning to thesea and being swallowed up in the sea with no more individual identity. Rather a returning as anindividual conscious being that has evolved spiritually as a direct result of being human andexperiencing life on earth and exercising free will to make decisions along the way- having thusfulfilled the purpose of coming into this life to begin with, and ready to continue on evolvingeternally.

So, how does this built-in spiritual GPS system communicate with us? Can we look on a screen andsee written directions for making important decisions? Can we listen to a voice telling us to take aright turn at the next fork in the road? Obviously it's not quite that easy. On the other hand it's notnearly as hard as most of us make it out to be. We don't need to consult spiritual gurus, have ourpalms or auras read by psychics, spend years studying in seminaries or earn an advanced degree intheology.

The communication method is something that we're all familiar with, but maybe haven't thoughtabout as serving the purpose of spiritual feedback. The method is our emotions or "feelings". Ifyou're like me, you may have taken on a belief at some point in your life that your feelings were anunreliable guide, were constantly changing and as such could not really be trusted. Instead yourintellect and logic were what could be trusted. Head over heart. While there is good reason to notallow our feelings to automatically determine our behavior, I have since come to understand just

how important our feelings are in giving us feedback on our spiritual direction and also just howmuch of a hurdle or smokescreen our intellect can become (if we let it) when it comes to spiritualgrowth.

Before going further in explaining how we can rely on our feelings to guide us through life and backto our destination, we need to first understand that feelings are a response or effect of underlyingcauses- they are not free agents generating emotions on their own- they are acted upon by othercauses . There are many different causes that can impact our emotions. Some are out of our control,but most are within our control- or at least we are capable of bringing them within our control. Somecommon emotional generators include our diet, fatigue and sleep patterns, intoxication, illness,injury, hormonal changes, biorhythms, subconscious childhood memories and associations, evenscents and music can be emotional generators that impact how we feel. It is precisely because thereare so many underlying causes that understanding what our emotions mean can be so confusing.

The important realization regarding emotions is that we can create a space between feelings andbehavior. We don't have to be automatic emotional reactors. Our emotions themselves are automaticreactors, but we are not our emotions. There are two extremes of reacting to emotions that arecommon- and both are unhealthy. The first is to deny and suppress them and the other is toautomatically externalize them in our behavior- to dramatize them- letting everyone else know whatwe're feeling. There is a third option- and a much healthier one: we feel them and observe and learnfrom them without acting out on them or denying them. Because an emotion is an automatic reactionof some underlying cause- we can look for that underlying cause and use the emotional reaction tounderstand better what might be going on in the deep unseen world of our mind and body. We arenot responsible for our feelings, we are only responsible for our behavior and as we grow spiritually,our behavior becomes less and less at the mercy of our feelings- but instead we learn to use themessages our feelings are communicating to make better decisions.

However, of all the causes beneath our feelings- the most dominant and important emotionalgenerator to understand is this:

THE THOUGHTS WE BELIEVE AND GIVE OUR ATTENTION TO.

Your Thoughts Are Not Yours, Your Attention Is.

Notice I didn't say OUR thoughts and beliefs, but the thoughts we believe and give our attention to.Hopefully this important distinction will become clear as you continue to read. In general, ourfeelings primary role is letting us know at any given time where the thoughts we're currentlybelieving and giving our attention to will ultimately take us if we continue to keep our attention onthem.

Chances are you've come to believe that feelings are just what they are- they have a life of their ownand we have little to no control over them. Now there is some truth to this as mentioned above- weare subject to moods and emotional weather patterns thathttp://www.panntira-gakuen.com/wo-way-radio-battery-tips-5-tips-when-comparing-different-two-way-radio-batteries/ come and go seemingly of their own accord. We can experience emotional stormsfollowed by clearing and peace, and come to appreciate the beauty of the natural cycle of it all-much like appreciating the beauty of natural weather patterns and cycles.

There are also very real cases of biological/chemical imbalances that can cause extreme feelings ofmania or depression or anxiety. I'm not here to deny these facts of life. If there are chemicalimbalances we can seek medical help to put us back on a level playing field with others. But it's still

a playing field and it's important to understand that we do have much more control over our feelingsthan we've previously been aware of. For the most part our feelings are a direct feedback responseto our thoughts- or rather to the thoughts we are choosing to believe and give our attention to.

This is a vital distinction. Chances are you've been brought up to believe that you control yourthoughts- that they somehow all generate from within you and you are responsible for every thoughtyou think. I'd like to suggest a slightly different reality to you and see if you can see the difference.Some of our thoughts do originate within us- we are thought creators and broadcasters. But we arealso thought receivers of all sorts of thoughts that were created elsewhere or outside of us. We arelike two way radios that can broadcast and receive thought frequencies.

We all know that invisible and inaudible frequencies are all around us- they are quite literally in thevery air we breath- we are like fish and our ocean is our atmosphere. With an instrument like a radioreceiver, we can tune in and amplify sound frequencies and hear them as music or talk on the radio.We can switch the receiving dial slightly and pick up an entirely different frequency with an entiredifferent message or sound. It is our ability to turn the dial and choose which frequencies to listen tothat we control- not all the thoughts. So when it comes to the thought spectrum it is our attentionthat is like our tuning dial. We don't choose all the thoughts that come into our mind- thousandscome and go on their own accord- each trying to grab our attention to give it life and bring it fromthe unmanifest realm to the manifest realm. So the most important part of this discussion is tounderstand the power of attention. That is the one thing we do have some control over.

There is an entire spectrum of thought energies- from the very negative and self focused to the verypositive and service focused. When we talk about levels of consciousness, we are really talking aboutlevels of thought energies that we give our attention to. A thought can come into our mind thatsomeone else is "more established" or "better off" than I am and I "should be better off than I am." Ifwe are unaware of our ability to focus our attention like a tuning dial on different thoughtfrequencies, we may automatically and unconsciously believe these thoughts to be true and our mindwill knock itself out trying to supply us with all the evidence that it is true and (here's the secondreally critical point) we instantly FEEL lousy. That's right- our feelings are our built-in GPS systemletting us know if we are giving our attention to low frequency thoughts or high frequency thoughts,thoughts that are getting us to our true destination or thoughts that are leading us way from ourtrue destination. So now instead of just having feelings that seem out of your control, look at yourfeelings something much more- understand them as instant feedback to what level of thought energyyou are giving your attention to at the moment.

Once you become awake to this truth, you instantly begin to exert more influence over your life. Youare no longer "asleep at the wheel." Becoming aware of this is a huge step in the right direction- butawareness is never enough by itself- action is required and daily practices to help us develop ourfeeling-GPS listening skills need to be put in place. For example, when you notice that you're feelinga negative emotion- like anxiety, fear, self-pity, guilt, anger or jealousy (all very common when wecompare ourselves to others in the wrong way), the first step is to be able to step back and seewhat's going on. "Ahh, I must be believing a thought that is trying to take me off course."

The next step is to try to identify the thought itself- bring it into conscious focus. To use our previousexample, it might be a thought like "I am not as good as my friend because he is more establishedthan me. I should be more established than I am. " It is believing (giving our attention to) thisthought that "I should be something other than what I currently am" that our feelings areresponding too. They instantly pour chemicals from our glands into our blood stream that make us

feel "yucky" like a warning bell sounding as if trying to say "Stop! Don't give your attention to thatuntrue thought- it's taking you down from where you need to be in order to see where you need togo. Down there in that low mood- it's dark, your creativity is shut down, your perspective becomeslimited, you make poor choices- you literally can't see with your mind's eye what God has in store foryou."

So what can we DO if we are now awake to what's going on and we FEEL a warning bell going offinside us? Even when we can see what's happening, we often feel powerless to do anything about it.But we're not powerless. There are two things we can do. Both are simple but not necessarily easy atfirst. But like all endeavors of mind and body, with continued practice it becomes easier and webecome more masterful. The first thing we can do is to deliberately shift our attention from thethought that we're getting negative feeling feedback from and move it to a higher frequency thoughtthat feels better. This will work for most thoughts that we haven't given too much of our attention toin the past. For thoughts that have really taken root and begun to grow like weeds in ourconsciousness, more drastic measures are required. We need to mentally challenge the truth of thethought and expose it as the fraud that it is. Both of these mental techniques are very effective, butto do them justice, they need to be the topic of their own article.

Author's Bio:

John Groberg writes on a wide variety of topics related to personal and spiritual growth. His sloganis Grow. By Choice. His articles draw out principles of personal and spiritual growth common to theworlds ancient wisdom and spiritual texts as well as many of the great philosophers, poets, andwriters of ancient and modern times. These principles are then put to the test in his own life with anemphasis on simple, sustainable practices we can apply in our daily lives to more effectively dealwith the stresses and struggles of modern life and to more fully realize the benefits of deliberategrowth. John developed a model called the Divine-Align-Shine model as a way of visually organizingthe principles, practices and the overall process of personal and spiritual growth. His writings arecataloged and organized on his website, http://johngroberg.com where contact information isavailable.