Seasons of Change is a biweekly column from Jayne Clark addressing different topics each season. Summer's focus is spirituality and intuition. Jayne Clark works intuitively with clients to help them resolve issues regarding relationships, loss, grief, health, and career path. To learn more, head to jayneclark.com.

What makes music so moving, a movie so riveting, or a piece of artwork so stunning? Is it talent? Is it dedication and years of hard work to perfecting the craft? Is it the commitment to always improving? Yes. However, there is still an active ingredient that turns something great into something brilliant and unforgettable: emotion.

We can have the best technique, talent, and opportunity to hone our abilities to perfection. But if they are void of emotion, our expression in the world will lack the energy that touches hearts and transcends all physical reality.

The same principal applies to our spiritual journey. We can read all the self-help books, analyze our repeated patterns, and meditate for hours on end. But if we haven't learned how to connect with the emotional aspect of our being in a healthy way, our lives will be limited to the mere experience of this physical reality.

What is an emotion?

Emotion is energy in motion. It is created when a thought and a feeling are combined.

That is why we can say all the affirmations we want, but if our inner feelings are not congruent with what we are thinking and saying, it won't work. We can say, "I am financially abundant and blessings flow to me freely and easily." But if we are terrified of being broke or never having enough, that affirmation will be void of bringing forth anything prosperous. Essentially, we play out more often what we feel versus what we think.

Our Sacred Path

If we have dysfunction in our emotional reality, it will hinder us in walking our sacred path and expressing our sacred gifts. It will also get in the way of hearing our inner guidance and trusting in our intuition. 

For example, how often have we had a vision for our lives that contradicted what others wanted for us? And how often did we allow other's expectations and opinions dictate our decisions? The experience of our lives directly correlates with our emotional health. We must be just as mindful in taking care of our emotional health as we are in taking care of our physical, mental, and spiritual health.

The Inner Feelings of the Ego and Our Divine Self

The ego will always indulge in the inner feelings of depression, anxiety, judgment, and hurt. It does this because of its belief in separation. The ego has its reality and thought system to defend—one that is very dense and breeds uncertainty.

Our Divine Self radiates the inner feelings of inspired, faithful, compassion, and warmth. It, too, has a thought system. Yet unlike the ego, it is based on truth, eternity, and wholeness. It is life-giving and easy on the heart.

How to Nurture Your Emotional Health

We can positively or negatively influence any aspect of our being through vibration. Thoughts and feelings have a tonal quality to them.

If we are feeling depressed, we can summon the inner feelings of inspired. If we sit quietly and repeat to ourselves, "the inner feelings of inspired consumes all feelings of depressed" and really allow ourselves to open to the inner feelings of inspired, we will begin to feel a shift in our emotional body.

The key is to let ourselves feel inspired even if we think we don't have anything to be inspired by. It's about allowing ourselves to simply feel the feeling of inspired or inspiration.

We can repeat the exercise with:

• the inner feelings of faithful consumes all feelings of anxiety;
• the inner feelings compassion consumes all feelings of judgment; 
• the inner feelings of warmth consumes all feelings of hurt. 

It's about really giving ourselves the opportunity to feel these positive inner feelings. This is a wonderful tool to assist us in shifting how we are feeling in any given moment. When we shift from a negative to a positive, our perspective naturally aligns itself allowing us to think the thoughts of our inner guidance.

It is helpful to think of our inner feelings as the feminine part of us and our thoughts as the masculine part of us. When we combine them and then surrender them to our Divinity, we have put ourselves in the posture of receiving exponential growth and enlightenment!

Image: Some rights reserved by boydoistink