Open

I'm starting this post without a clear idea of how I want to express my thoughts.

Verbal communication is a linear medium. Sometimes it's difficult to describe three-dimensional thoughts and feelings in two-dimensional words. There's so much that I want to get across all in one sweeping impression. The sequential nature of writing is frustrating.

A year ago I wrote a post describing my rudimentary psychic abilities. In the past year, with the spiritual protection of the loving force I know as God/J.C., I have felt relatively protected from the onslaught of emotional input that used to overwhelm me every day. However, those impressions not entirely gone. And they can still be temporarily overwhelming.

I've worked hard to try to understand how I am meant to respond to this type of input. I do believe that I have a gift, but it can feel like a curse when I don't handle it properly.

The first strategy that ever helped me at all was praying, so I continued to pray each time I felt overwhelmed by negative emotions. When there was a strong likelihood that these emotions were primarily originating from someone else, I would pray for "us", whether that person was a close friend or a stranger on the subway train.

That tactic helped. It was better than doing nothing at all. I was significantly more comfortable, but definitely felt that there was room for improvement. I still had many experiences of wishing that I could jump out of my own skin and run away from feeling other peoples' crap.

I believed the problem was that I didn't always pray very well. Sometimes I didn't feel like praying at all. Sometimes the words wouldn't come. Sometimes I felt awkward and self-conscious. I was trying to figure out the right words to say, but I couldn't find them.

A series of events began recently which led to an epiphany, which I believe is the answer I've been looking for since last June.

On July 19 the musical group I'm in lead the worship at my church. For the first time, we totally rocked the house. I haven't had such an incredible musical high since, no pun intended, high school. People were jumping to their feet, clapping, holding their hands to the sky, and some were even weeping. (From joy, you skeptics!) I was swept up in the intensity, and my heart flew wide open.

Since then not only have I been unable to contain my own emotions as strictly as usual, I have been much more susceptible to other peoples' feelings. Also, my thinking has been less linear. I have developed a hunger for the creative arts; poetry, music, and other things that don't make rational sense.

In the end, the problem became the solution. My real problem was that I was trying to think my way to a heart's solution, and that's impossible. My problem was that when my heart opened it felt so uncomfortable that I tried as best I could to close it up tight again. But really what I need to do is open it wider.

It came to me this morning, as an intuition. Instead of labouriously constructing a prayer from my head, I opened my heart and loved. When I was confronted with waves of anxiety coming from a nervous sales rep, I pictured myself physically embracing him with unconditional love.* Yes, it was a little distracting. I missed some of the sales pitch. But I was so uncomfortable feeling all his nervousness, I wasn't focused on the conversation anyway.

It worked for a while, so I stopped visualizing the hug and went back to listening. Within a minute, the anxiety was back. So I went back to my virtual hugging. I hugged that lucky sales rep (psychically speaking) for twenty minutes. Finally he was comfortable enough to relax and talk to me without constant energy-realm reassurance. It was pretty cool.

He reacted perceptibly each time I went back to the imagined hug. I was sitting completely still in my chair, just looking at him. Nothing changed except the energy. But each time he would get slightly distracted from what he was saying, and had to take a moment to recoup his train of thought. There was definitely something happening there.

It worked so well that I tried it on someone else I work with, to similar effect.

Finally, I get it! I couldn't, before, because my heart wasn't open enough. But now I see: I was coming at it from the wrong angle. I'm not supposed to start with prayer to get to love. I'm supposed to start with love, and from there prayer will flow naturally. If I care about someone with all my heart in a given moment, I won't have any trouble finding the words to ask God to love them, encourage them, and provide them with whatever it is they need to heal and grow.

I don't know if I'll be able to maintain this level of open-heartedness. But if not, I'll be asking God to take me back to it. This is the direction I'm meant to go in, and I'm so glad I figured out my next step. Incidentally, I've also been doing some simple exercises to practice clairvoyance, and the results are good. I believe that's another part of my gift that I'll be meant to use for God's work when the time comes. But that's another story for another day.

*It wasn't sexual, you skeptics! I'm smarter than that. If there were any chemistry in the air, I wouldn't be doing any hugging, energetic or otherwise. I don't need to play with fire like that. Life's complicated enough already.