Loneliness and Feeling Empty by Katie Davis

Questioner:

Last night, I felt so desperately lonely. I hate how I feel when I get that way. I just felt out of control and I couldn't stop crying. I guess that I don't really have a question. I just wanted to report that once again I got completely stuck. I mean really stuck. I think that I am making some progress and then this happens all over again.

Katie:

How do you feel right now?

Questioner:

I feel fine right now, but last night was really horrible. I was just shaking all over.

Katie:

I understand that you are telling me the story that last night you felt horrible and now you tell me that you were also shaking all over. Compassionately, I embrace and forgive how you were feeling last night, however honestly,I am not concerned with this story about last night. How do you feel right now?

Questioner:

I feel fine.

Katie:

You answered rather quickly. Was that mind answering my question? I want to really know how you feel, please take a quiet moment and deeply sense. Will you go inside and check it out? Are you feeling an emotion right now? How does that emotion feel in the body?

Questioner:

OK. Well, actually right now I don't feel much of anything and I guess my body feels kind of tense, but other than that I am OK.

Katie:

You are not crying right now, so the fear that you could not stop crying didn't last, isn't this true? You are not shaking right now, are you? Your body feels tense, but you are no longer shaking. So the both the crying and the shaking were impermanent. Crying came and crying left. Are you open to releasing the body tension? Just take a deep breath and relax from the mind's time. The tension comes and goes as well.

Will you note that for next time ... and I am not suggesting that there will be a next time. If you get stuck by thought and you begin spiraling into suffering, is it possible to simply note that it is not permanent. I understand that it feels uncomfortable, but is it possible to simply accept for the time being that sometimes suffering still appears? Most of the suffering is from your resistance; from trying to push it away; from being afraid. Can you simply surrender to the temporary fact that you are experiencing emotional pain? Just allow it to be as it is.

The emotional drama all begins with thinking. If you can become conscious of the thoughts sooner, perhaps it will be easier to shift your attention to presence. Your body is reacting in sadness to your own thinking. We take full responsibility in this. It has virtually nothing to do with any other. Do you see this? The identification with negative thought is causing the sadness. Can you see that it is self-inflicted?

The reason you and I meet is to discover what is prior to me and my thought; me and my feelings. What is prior to the idea of me? What is prior to the "I" that is the body that is experiencing an emotional reaction because of your thinking? What is prior to virtually all experience ... both outer and inner? That which is prior is absolutely permanent, completely free of all coming and going; absolutely indestructible. That permanent freedom is who you are. In this realization, we realize the diamond of joy that is causeless.

Katie Davis Website: www.katiedavis.org

Awakening and Joy of Being by Katie Davis, Author, Awake Joy

For spiritual awakening, I am suggesting that you leave your life story alone for awhile and focus your attention on the storyteller. Meanwhile, I will offer pointers toward the permanent surrender of this perceived individual identity, who is inseparable from who you are, but not who you are. In this manner, you have the opportunity to realize unfathomable fulfillment in the Truth of Being.

When you are identified with the story, you believe that outside circumstances cause your emotions to change. For example, someone does something that you either love or hate, so you feel either happy or angry. This translates that if you are happy, someone can also take it away or if you are angry, someone else should fix it. By surrendering your true power in this manner, you helplessly ride the waves of emotion as they endlessly rise and fall. You remain subject to the merciless push and pull of the emotional aspect of the mind.

At first glance, you begin realizing that your conditioned attitudes about past situations are conditionally linked to certain present emotions through your thinking. Based on past experience, this conditioned linkage is the actual cause of your emotional storms. This is self-inflicted suffering. You cannot learn the joy of being, but you can become aware of how you deny this Truth through self-observation. You can even become aware of the instant that you choose to do so. Meanwhile, deep within, constant joy is without cause or condition. My invitation is to look deeper than the storyteller and its storyline for joy’s discovery ... the pure joy of being.

Katie Davis Website: www.katiedavis.org