Over the past several years, I've spent hundreds of hours exploring experiences, with myself, Alex, and those with whom I work. From this, certain observations - or 'teachings' - have emerged, which I've summarised below. If you resonate with what is written here, I imagine you'll thoroughly enjoy a session.




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Oneness

No words can accurately describe the experience of oneness. But, I can help point you towards experiencing it now.

Withdraw your attention from the mind, and focus on the heart. Notice the sensation of breathing. Gradually, begin to expand your awareness to include more than breathing - perhaps the sound of trees rustling, a tap dripping, your toes upon the floor. Gradually, expand it to include all you see, hear and touch. Notice how they are not separate experiences, but one simultaneous happening.

Notice how, in this state, there is no time and space - no me and the experience. There is only... one.


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The Felt Quality of Experience

Whether the experience is of a TV show, country, person, animal, or idea, all experience has a felt quality.

I refer to experiences that are dense, heavy, constricted, noisy or mind-y as 'low quality', and those that are spacious, light, expansive, peaceful, or heart-y as 'high quality'. High and low do not equate to 'better' or 'worse'. There is no 'better' or 'worse' experience in reality - these are opinions/judgements/positions that exist only in the mind.

Different people will have different experiences of the same thing, and will therefore relate different quality experiences.

Someone who is peaceful, for example, will experience a death metal concert as low quality, whereas someone who experiences a lot of mental noise, and who are fans of the music, will experience it as high quality. The death metal concert is the same in both cases - only the experience of it changes.

This relates to the work of David R. Hawkins, a prominent spiritual teacher. He mapped the human experience along a spectrum, from Shame (low) to Enlightenment (high), and defined how a person relates to God, life, oneself, others, etc differently, depending on 'where they are' on the scale. I recommend taking a look at his Map of Consciousness, and his book: Power vs Force.

I suspect anyone who experiences empathy, who has any degree of clairsentience, or who can relate to being highly sensitive, will experience 'felt quality'.


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Thought, Speech, and Action as 'Senses'

Several people have mentioned to me the heaviness they feel with respect to doing and saying 'the most loving thing'.

In response to this, I suggest they consider thinking, speaking, and doing as 'senses', rather than anything fixed or absolute.

Much like you might use your hand to 'test' the temperature of water before bathing in it, you can use thought, speech, and action to 'test' the lovingness of an expression before you accept it as 'aligned with love'.

Looking at it this way, nothing you think, say, or do becomes serious or heavy, but simply the 'tools' you are using to explore, experiment, realise, clarify, and come to know what love is - and isn't.



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Cause and Ownership

No form (person, organisation, country, gender, culture, etc) is the sole owner, author, creator, nor cause of experience.

For example, if a reaction happens, no single person or event 'caused' it to happen. With some investigation, it can be seen that all events arise out of a certain set of conditions, which gets ever wider the more context is included.

Connecting with (exploring, sensing, clarifying) an event, rather than conjuring a fictitious cause or causer of it, is how true understanding emerges.



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Feeling Better

Feeling bad about yourself is the ego feeling bad about the ego. Awareness sees the ego, and doesn't mistake it for itself.

Lighter, more spacious states can be accessed as soon as heavier, denser states (and their associated thoughts) are relinquished. All that's required for this is an openness to relinquish.

What is being relinquished is not necessarily the state, but the marketed benefits of being 'in it'.

The marketed benefits (only viewed as benefits to the ego) may include being right, being wrong, being wronged, being alone, being misunderstood, being powerless, being no one (as in, not one)...

Regardless of what the ego claims to be true, feeling 'better', as in lighter, is always what 'you' want.

Spending time with someone (in imagination or 'physically') who experiences a lighter, more spacious state than the one you currently occupy, allows access and acclimatisation to that state.

Or, put another way, those who are peaceful and lighthearted can help you feel peaceful and lighthearted, if you are open to peace and lightheartedness.



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The Mind

Most people identify with the contents of the mind. Their mind, their ego, their ideas, their wants, their fears, their story...

The narratives of the mind are layered and many, and become most noticeable when written and spoken.

No narrative is real, in that all narratives separate awareness from experience. All narratives carry a felt quality, and can be sensed as lower or higher quality, relative to peace (no narrative at all).

The lower quality the narrative, the more distant and unrelated it is from experience. Such narratives can be easily identified as they are vague and noisy. In these, it can be observed that nothing concrete is actually being pointed to.

Examples include:

Everything happens for a reason, maybe we're just different, I do that because of my ADHD, he's barking because he's a watchdog, respect my needs, I need space, privacy is important, emotions are beautiful, honour your feelings, respect nature, I feel like I don't belong, I'm processing my emotions at the moment, that's not fair, I deserve more, I have the right to feel, I can't trust myself, I don't feel safe, it's important to be humble, express yourself, open dialogue is key, what's your story?, tell me about yourself, it's important to have boundaries, invest in yourself, meaningful conversations are what life's all about, live life to the fullest, I shouldn't be doing this, it was the kind thing to do, he was friendly, he just has lots of energy, she's just curious, she has a strong personality...

Beneath these narratives is a felt experience, that is neutral, impersonal, and impermanent.

Uncovering experience - connecting directly with it - is a major aspect of spiritual development.

Consciously choosing words to accurately describe experience, while remaining aware of any listener's interest and/or understanding, is key to connected communication.

Many times have I assumed that I'm having a conversation with someone, only to realise while I'm listening, that there is no conversation (and thus communication) taking place. Rather, what I'm experiencing, is a person looking in my general direction, while their mind talks vaguely to itself.



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What Hinders Transformation

Most common in today's society is explaining, excusing, justifying, and blaming upon others (or oneself) what's experienced.

This pattern arises out of three core assumptions:

These assumptions hinder transformation; instead of awareness connecting with experience, it is absorbed in the mind - cut off and separated - caught up in explanations about why 'what is' exists.

For example, a person may experience ungroundedness - in other words, their consciousness remains primarily in the mind, jumping rapidly from one point of focus to another. They identify this state as unpeaceful. Then, so quickly it is barely recognised, the mind personalises the experience and judges it as bad. Spurred by the idea of badness, and not wanting to be judged, they go to a doctor who tells them 'it's just how their mind works', which makes them feel a little better. They get diagnosed with ADHD, and believe they 'have ADHD' (something fixed). This becomes the explanation, excuse, and justification for the ungroundedness. Rather than connecting with what they originally identified as an unpeaceful experience, and exploring how they might experience greater peace, they come up with a narrative about the experience, which keeps them 'trapped' inside it.

Those who experience the greatest transformation, and thus experience the greatest and deepest degree of peace, are those who are drawn to connecting with experience, as opposed to explaining or excusing it.

Most humans don't experience this draw to connect with experience - they simply have no interest in it. Many are still exploring the experience of separateness - which, of course, is simply 'what is'.



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Emotions

Emotions are made up of sensations and thoughts.

Sensations are felt, and may be described as pressure, warmth, tightness, heaviness, or a rush of energy through the body.

Without a thought, a sensation is just a sensation, and is impersonal, neutral, and temporary, like any other experience.

It is common to mistake another's emotion for one's own if you are highly sensitive. It is also common to create a narrative, and thus an emotion, from a sensation. And, it is very common to make an emotion more severe by reacting to its presence.

All of this drama can be avoided by focusing on experience, including the presence of sensations, and not giving much attention or weight to any narratives about them.

There's so much 'going on' that the human eye cannot see - so don't assume a sensation is 'yours', just because you can feel it.

Instead of focusing attention on even labelling the sensation, or attempting to find out where it came from, there is always the option to simply remain aware of it, and enjoy the experience of not knowing.

If you wish to find clarity or understanding through an emotion, as in, you wish to distinguish between what was observed and what was the narrative, this guide may assist.



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Incongruence

Incongruence is when felt experience clashes with what is being presented. It is an aspect of separation, and its presence can be sensed.

Incongruence, or the misrepresentation of reality, is present in most interactions and environments, including the majority of settings presented as spiritual, loving, or high frequency. This is noticed more and more, the more congruent one becomes.

An example of incongruence is passive aggressiveness ('mixed messages'), whereas an example of congruence is anger (one clear message).

At one time or another, most people with whom I've worked (including myself), have mistaken the sensing of incongruence in something as an emotional reaction to something, and have responded to this with the assumption that they 'need to be more accepting' of something.

For many, identifying incongruence, and not mistaking it for something else, is a major aspect of connection.



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Flowing with Life

Flowing with life is connection in action. It is living in the moment.

It is sometimes misunderstood as being passive, avoidant, or unengaged, but the phrase actually points to an experience of being and doing in alignment with.

In a state of connection, you can sense what thought, word, or action most flows and aligns with a given situation.

Living life through a rigid set of rules contradicts flow, as what is aligned varies greatly based on the context of each moment.

For example, let's say your girlfriend gets frustrated, and the narrative in her mind makes 'you' the cause. Depending on the context - including her willingness to relinquish the state - peacefully listening and offering a hug might be the flowiest thing to do. In a different context, perhaps one where she frequently gets frustrated 'at you' and rarely recognises her reaction without justifying it, communicating a firm energetic 'no' - expressed audibly or by physically removing yourself from the room - might be the flowiest thing to do.

Another example of flowing might be eating when you're hungry, and in other moments, not eating, and simply experiencing the sensation of hunger.

Sensing what flows and doesn't flow can be sensed through 'testing out' different thoughts, words, and actions.

Part of coming to sense what flows is first identifying assumptions through which one might be unconsciously living, seeing, and responding through.

Assumptions that may be held by those who are openhearted, sensitive, but undiscerning include, that...:

It's polite to always bring a gift, apologising is always the loving thing to do, smiling at people in the street is nice, not responding is the same as ignoring, if someone is speaking to me that means they're connecting with me, it's rude not to answer a question, because they teach they must know, because they are modest and humble they must be at peace, most animals (especially dogs) are peaceful and loving, it's good to be honest, it's not spiritually evolved to smoke, it's lazy to watch TV all day, it's important to spend time with your family and friends...

All of these assumptions conflict with lived experience, and thus hinder connection with it.

Not assuming, and instead experiencing, sensing, exploring, and reflecting, is essential in coming to know what connection, and 'being in flow', refers to.



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Relating to Others

Connection is obscured in most relationships by the narratives the mind learns and maintains.

A relationship is made up of the energy fields of the people within it. The nature and quality of a relationship can be sensed and felt directly.

There's no such thing as 'mum', 'friend', 'boss', 'child', 'girlfriend', 'pet owner' - these are ideas and roles that people play; they only exist in the mind.

What can be experienced is a person (or animal's) state of being: whether they are connecting or separating, loving or wanting, offering or attempting to take, receptive or closed off, connecting with you or connecting with their opinions and beliefs, open to or absorbed in...

Guilt, fear, and/or a sense of obligation often prevent a person from disengaging with those who experience deeply separate states, for example, those who might attract a diagnosis of narcissism or histrionics.

A common response that often arises in the minds of those who are openhearted, sensitive, but undiscerning is: 'I might be able to help.'

Much time, effort, and energy can be spent listening, offering, reflecting, asking, clarifying, or in other words, trying to help people that, despite any claims they make, do not want help, but ego-validation.

True, a spacious energy field can help another transform, but only if the other is receptive to it. Most of the time, a spacious energy field is threatening to someone who experiences a great degree of density/ego - and when faced with it, they either run away or attack, unsure what to do with the peaceful silence.

Knowing this appears to come out of a process that every openhearted person 'needs to go through', in order that they know in an embodied way, that nothing can be done to help someone who doesn't want it. Being peaceful then, is the only thing one can do - which isn't really doing anything.

Once this is embodied, being with and/or moving away from deeply separate states becomes light, easy, and effortless, as there is no niggling doubt that 'I could be doing something' or 'I could have done more'.

Identifying and questioning assumptions about what it is to be loving, helpful, nice, present, a good person, etc., can greatly assist an openhearted person with experiencing freedom from separation - when freedom is what they seek.



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