Soulful Thinking

I’ve been incredibly frustrated with myself and my way of experiencing feelings lately, the feeling side of me does not fit in with the logical world.  For example, take music.  I feel music rather than hear it.  It is an experience of immersion rather than one of learning.  The music comes in through the ears and heart and suffuses my entire being.  Or love.  I know that love is a verb, there’s a book, and everyone says it’s so.  Yet I’ve had difficulty with this because although I absolutely believe in living the verb, I still perceive it from the heart, a feeling.  Am I odd?

Or maybe just a girl.  Perhaps most women think with the whole body, at least that is my guess, because it is the way I myself think.  If I were only to think with the mind, I would use information that I get from what I read and what I hear only.  But when I think with my entire body, I take in all of the information from the environment, not just what I see or what I hear, everything, even what is not seen, even that which is invisible or barely noticeable.

There’s something profound about using one’s whole being to perceive the world, to interact with the world, to understand the world, but oh it does lead to conundrums and vulnerability.  There are moments, for example, during my meditations where I have overwhelming feelings of connection with God and with my loved ones.  There are other times where I get a sense of foreboding, and when I have acted on these feelings they have turned out to be almost prescient.

I’m sure that most of us have had this happen, but because of the way that I perceive the world these events seem more real to me and occur very often.  I’m not saying that thinking with the body is superior, because I myself do not entirely understand how it works or why it works, but one thing that I do know is that in the end my instincts, my intuitions seem to be complimentary rather than superior to the strictly data-driven-left-brained-male-dominated way of thinking.  I desperately wish I could be more sensible and intellectual.  But I think that serendipity falls into place somewhere in this body-thinking realm.  Who knows?  I have tried hard to think in that left-brained male kind of way because I want to protect myself, my heart, but things just don’t register that way for me.

The notes I handle no better than many pianists.  But the pauses between the notes, ahh, that is where the art resides. ~ Artur Schnabel