In last month’s article “In a World Often Scary, Why Being Vulnerable is Essential” I wrote about how critical courage, compassion, and choosing to be vulnerable is for realizing happiness and success in your relationships and contemporary life. In this fourth and last article on the art and science of contemporary life, I share how learning to discern, decipher, and delight in wisdom, guidance, and support from more than our 5 senses is essential as well.
Multi-sensory intelligence is the information we receive, transmit, and process through means other than our 5 physical senses. Here in the West, we consider our 5 physical senses the means for gathering and distributing information, whereas in cultures older, sensory intelligence includes information from the heart, the soul, and what is encountered in the physical environment. Shamans, medicine women and men, and healers of many traditions know we are more than our minds, and use their knowledge and skills with multi-sensory intelligence to create results not thought possible.
Every person I have worked with had multi-sensory experiences, yet has been reluctant to trust them although sheepishly admitting to them. So what is difficult about trusting information from other than your thoughts? Habit, belief, and conformity…..the habit of not trusting yourself, the belief in only thoughts being real, and the conformity to what has always been as what is possible. As my clients will attest, only when they trusted themselves and the information they were receiving from within themselves did they realize they had Lymes disease vs imaging symptoms, did they realize a happier marriage than ever before, did they realize their happiness through clarity in their choices.
Learning to expand what has power in your world, what informs, guides, and supports you, is essential for living in a world awash in information yet lacking essentials for all people. Your mind is fabulous yet it is but a fraction of the intelligence you have at your disposable as a human being, an alchemy of physical matter and infinite spirit. Accessing the greater range of your intelligence and creativity requires your willingness to trust your experiences, to discern your body’s wisdom, and to decipher important wisdom within your emotions.
Honoring the power of your multi-sensory presence (from Latin meaning “being at hand”) is essential in a world where technology is often confused for solutions. Your power of presence is not only your physical presence; power of presence is becoming conscious your presence is an essential (from Latin meaning “in the highest degree”) part of wherever, with whatever, and with whoever you find yourself in life. For life is not what happens to us as much as realizing life is a dynamic we are co-creating…an essential update for contemporary life.