Definition of Feel used as a verb:
To receive information by touch
To receive information by being touched
To perceive, sense, detect, discern, experience, endure
Definition of Feel used as a noun:
A sensation of texture, grain, quality of an object or material
Let's begin this way and then proceed into Spike's Lesson on Feeling.
How different is this experience in your body?
You are leaving a gathering at a buddy's/friend's house. When you get to the door you exchange a hug. Your friend says, " thanks for coming" as they give you a pat on the back and a squeeze of your shoulder. You return the gesture with a similar pat and a squeeze of their shoulder. You each smile and part ways. Now, let's think about this experience and feel this exchange. Most likely no real emotion or physical feeling was exchanged. Your energy field was close to your body. Maybe not completely closed as though you had on armor - but maybe. It depends how safe/comfortable you feel with that friend. But I doubt the hug lingered. That would have been awkward. That linger allows a chance to really share is reserved for people we trust and in an environment we feel safe. Opening ourselves, opening our energy fields, letting down our protective armor, reducing our surface tension is a conscious choice. It exposes our vulnerable underbelly as Spike would say.
Most working dogs do not roll over and expose their underbelly to just anyone. You must earn their trust before they will allow you that close or allow themselves to be that exposed and vulnerable.
Let's talk a minute about this concept of surface tension. We are familiar with the phenomenon whereby a bug seems to defy all odds and walk on water. How can that be? Shouldn't they fall thru and drown? They don't because there is a thin layer of water molecules that line up on the surface of the water forming a barrier that prevents their legs from penetrating into the water. This is called surface tension. The barrier/tension of the closely packed molecules allows the bug to stay on top of the water and walk across effortlessly. If the bug is too heavy or the water is choppy the tension is compromised and the bug falls thru.
We, as humans, usually go through life protected in some manner. For instance, we might wear more clothing, keep our distance, construct walls around us, put on energetic armor, or increase our surface tension. All in an effort to protect us from the unwanted energies of people, places and things invading our space.
I am not implying that this is a bad practice. It definitely comes in handy. However, when and how do we lessen or remove these protections? How do we reduce our surface tension?
Allowing someone in is a conscious choice.
The first day I met Spike and he laid next to me on the floor at Christine's house with his back against my leg. I laid my hand on his side and I experienced him making a conscious choice to let me in. When my hand touched his fur then rested more deeply onto his skin it felt like my hand and his body were one. The surface tension was gone. I had been working, playing and petting many dogs that day and this did not occur with any of them. They allowed me to interact and touch them and even adjust them but their surface tension remained. Not with Spike. There came a calmness, stillness in that instance that I had never experienced before. I knew that if he trusted me to this depth that we had something special. I didn't realize that he was teaching me a very big lesson on how to open up and feel another being. A lesson that I would need when I found my partner in life.
To truly experience another being we have to reduce our surface tension and remove our protective mechanisms we have put in place. This is a conscious choice done when we feel safe and trust the other enough to expose our "tender underbelly". This is when the magic happens. This is when we can truly Feel another being and they can truly Feel us. Thanks Spike
