Wednesday, 14 July 2010 16:45
Written by Nirmala
My friend wrote back to clarify his question about the relative truth of a fear or projection:
I was thinking more in terms of making a decision about something. For example, if a job comes your way, but you feel contracted about it; you don't know whether that contraction is because of feedback from the Heart, "not much truth here for you", or whether it's arising from a fear of change, "I'll have to move", or from old wounds, "I'm not supposed to make money, poverty is more comforting and familiar".
Another example, you're invited to someone's house for dinner, and before they even ask you have an intuition that you need to be busy with something else that you have no mental attachment or desire for. And when they do ask there is a contraction, and though your mind is saying, "yes, yes, what fun", your chest is saying "no way". Could be Heart guidance, could be some aversion or fear.
The second example, because of its "out of the blue" nature, might be easier to say that it's Heart. The first example seems much more ambiguous to me.
By the way, per your example of fear of being homeless, I've been homeless, and it was a very rich and creative time. I might have some fear if it came up again, but I know what a rich adventure it can be.
And this is how I responded:
Thanks for clarifying your question.
The art is to catch what is happening right as the contraction starts. Are you purely thinking of taking the new job? Or are you thinking a judgmental or fearful thought about it? Some of our thoughts are so automatic that they are almost unconscious. It can be a challenge to catch what is actually happening in awareness at the exact moment of the contraction.
I was working with a woman once who took too much care of everyone else, and I asked her to hold the thought, "It is OK to take time for myself". She reported that she felt a big contraction. I was surprised so I asked her exactly what had happened and she said, "I thought, 'It is OK to take time for myself', and then I thought, "That would be so selfish' and then I felt contracted." She was contracting in response to the thought, "That would be so selfish." Her heart hardly had time to respond to the first thought before the second thought came.
So it helps in making big decisions to slow it down, take it one possibility at a time, and also give yourself a lot of time to see what the overall climate of truth is regarding the decision.
However, it also turns out that our decisions are not really that important. From the perspective of our soul, it is not that big a deal where we work or live, or what we do, although the Heart will still register a relative difference between any two possibilities if there is a difference (sometimes two choices are equally true). Ultimately, the greater value of sensing your heart in this way is that when a truly big truth arises such as a profound sense of your connectedness and oneness with everything, you notice the dramatic expansion of your Heart and so you are assured the big truth of oneness is true beyond any of the usual concerns in daily life.
You may find that the joy is in exploring the truth itself, not in where it gets you....especially when you already know that it is fine if you end up homeless!
