It occurred to me recently that you can’t feel alive without feeling. That may seem obvious on first blush, but allow me to offer you the opportunity to get red in the face as often as possible.

Attempting to feel alive in your head will keep you feeling dead. It’s like planting a piece of bark and expecting a tree to grow.

Thinking bypasses feeling and is a poor substitute. Thinking can be a spark that sets a fire but you’ve got to feel the heat of the flame in order to gain, otherwise thinking, alone, is a zero sum game.

Feeling is something we have been conditioned to dismiss. The stiff upper lip crowd can provide all the evidence you need. They attempt to override their feelings with rules and advice, and with a public face, encourage you to avoid that which feels nice. They also attempt to avoid the downside of feelings, and in the process remain divorced from their body.

If you are human, you feel. The extent to which you attempt to curtail those feelings is in inverse proportion to how alive you feel.

Feeling alive requires a dive – into your feelings. You won’t talk yourself out of them. They keep knocking on your door until you let them in.

Allowing your feelings into your housing is so much more than rousing. They provide an aliveness that you can otherwise only talk about.

Invite your feelings to come in to play. I can guarantee that you’ll feel a mix of both joy and sadness in the process, with the upside being that the mannequin known as you will feel alive, and you’ll be able to author your own book called: “Feeling for Dummies.”

Let your body feel. It’s a guaranteed way to become real.

All the best,

John