Thoughts – feelings – needs

If we truly long for spiritual growth and sincerely use our time on this earth for our inner growth, we must utilize every opportunity that comes our way towards that goal. That means learning from our ability to think, to feel, to experience and also to need.

 

Breaking it down – starting from thoughts

Starting from our thinking power: Our tangible ability to contemplate, to ponder, to think freely, to research, and use common sense and question when things do not make sense. To be inquisitive and evaluative, discriminative and open.

Learning from our thoughts, the very wide spectrum of different kinds of thoughts that we have, is employing that basic and powerful human gift of thinking. Conceptual and abstract thinking, logical and systematic or spontaneous, this brilliant tool is to be appreciated and the best way to express gratitude for this gift is to use it with care. Using our ability to think in order to grow, from the range of thoughts we can entertain, allow or create. Rather than negating our thoughts altogether, seeing them as a problem or believing our thoughts blindly, our mind is to be used with respect, appreciation and wisdom.

Using our power of thinking is opposing the idea that the mind is the source of our problems. However, it is also rejecting the habit of automatically believing our thoughts, or fully identifying with them.

It sounds like a small matter, but until we learn to unmistakably distinguish between ourselves and our thoughts we may not notice that there is an “I”, and only then, that “I” has thoughts.

While our thoughts may be unconscious thoughts, and we may find we have no control over them, (such as repetitive negative thoughts), they may also be deep slow contemplations, which we choose to think and develop consciously.

Either way, once we can separate ourselves from our thoughts, room is created. Starting from a small, tiny gap. And that leads to the space of sensing ourselves in separation from our thoughts.

 

Not all thoughts are trustworthy

If we do find some thoughts to be important, they may turn into beliefs, convictions and things we value. We may choose to even identify with them. But, the key point here is to first of all allow them to be, in separation, out in the open, not limited to conventional ideas or impositions. Allowing that, but at the same time remaining in a state of not fully trusting them. Like anyone else, they too – our thoughts – must be proven trustworthy before we rely on them.

 

Feelings

So, we possess the ability to think, and we can make use of that tool to develop our intelligence. And while we may choose to identify with a particular thought, we still want to be able to clearly discriminate between ourselves and our thoughts; similarly, let us look at our feelings.

Feelings by nature are ever-changing: we feel sad, then something happens and we may feel excited, then nervous and then worried; this is a flow, just as the flow of thoughts.

Commonly, it is a particular thought that leads to a particular feeling. This feeling can be a body expression, a sensation, a change of temperature or tension, etc.

For example, one hears of an unfortunate event, the knowledge, the information received, leads to thoughts, which lead to feeling. It may be an emotional feeling such as sadness or anger or shame. Or, it may be a body sensation such as shivers, coldness, sweat, adrenalin rush or tiredness.

Our feelings are a wide range of experiences and emotional expressions. They vary dramatically in nature. Some of these feelings are very physical, gross and simple such as feeling hungry or feeling cold, an ache or nausea. And on the other hand they can be in reference to a completely different range of subtle and complex sensations that we feel; from sadness, remorse, enthusiasm, sorrow, pleasure, fulfillment, to loneliness and depression.

And yet – looking at all that which we can define as feelings, it can primarily be seen as a pointer to a need.

 

Needs behind feelings

All real feelings can be seen and interpreted as a calling, a signal, an arrow, an inner request to notice something that is going on in us. That something is usually a need. Needs are usually associated with something one wants, requires, but in essence they are our basic human expressions of life.

All our primal needs are universal. And yet our strategies to achieve or to meet our needs can vary, they may change and even turn out to be completely unexpected.

For example: one person may find living alone to be a strategy to meet their need for independence, while another may use a strategy of sharing accommodation with others, to fulfill that same very need.

Getting down to the root need is a key point for it can lead us to unlock a hidden and important yearning that is within us. Even if we find and discover, in a certain situation, that we are unable to attend to and satisfy a particular need, or that we truly do not know how to go about meeting a certain need – the basic understanding and clarity we receive from knowing what is going on within us, is a game changer. It is very comforting to own, and understand and confront which need of ours is not being met and long to be met. Furthermore, this understanding of our needs allows us to make sense of an expressed feeling and the rise of a thought.

Continue reading the 2nd part of this post: http://meditativeartschool.com/understating-needs