Feeling Connection

Lately, I have realized how happy I am with my personal practice.

I used to scour the internet and books for a routine. I also relentlessly asked my spiritual friends, yogis and mentors what I “should be doing” to connect to my inner-most Self. I rarely asked myself these questions.

These people have it together I thought. What they are doing is clearly working.
That’s what I should be doing.

When I was told that writing in a journal about emotions can be a really useful way to experience them, I gave it a shot. Over time though, I realized that I’m a very verbal person…. I often use my mind to escape feeling things. Writing was intellectualizing what I felt and was therefore useless in this specific endeavor. This was a frustrating realization and the level of irritation I felt only reinforced just how badly I needed this outlet.

I took several things into consideration while tweaking this exercise. I decided that this practice needed to: be convenient enough to do on a whim, access my creative self, not take long to accomplish, and be something that I enjoy doing.

Collage was the answer. My collection of literary magazines, old college text books, National Geographics, art collections and children’s books served a turbo-charged source of inspiration. I find so much of the life I experience between those pages. Slicing them apart and piecing them together in a way that *feels* right has allowed me to match the emotion that I feel in the moment. The amazing thing about this process is that I am able to drop right back into that heart-space when I look back through old work.

The following is a peek into my Book of Shadows: the mirror of my Soul.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A pocket of this blog will be dedicated to this Work. Some collages might eventually have some written context, some might not. Some of them may “make sense,” others might be totally bizarre. I love this Work because there is no right or wrong way to do it. The intention is to practice pure, unfiltered feeling.

How do you connect with your emotional Self?