The body center of intelligence, like the other centers of intelligence, can be fueled by the ego. Yes, if unchecked, the mental structure of the ego can overtake the body. The unchecked ego has many distortions of reality which impact the body positively or negatively. And, as can be the case with all three centers, the body center can also be in direct coherence with the soul. When the body and soul are in sync, divine energy fuels the body center.

There is another momentous power within loss. It does not announce itself with fanfare, but once we recognize it, our lives are transformed. 

Loss carries an immense power. It can undo us, weaken us, stab us, and at times make life feel almost unbearable. And yet, loss also holds another kind of power… the power to shape strengths within us, that we might never have known otherwise… strengths that become part of who we are.

Our body, even as it breaks under loss, is learning how to endure more life than it ever has before.

The heart feeds on love, faith, and hope. Hope engenders the ability to anticipate the future. Indeed, it helps us realize that there will be a future. If there is a future, hope helps us trust that we will show up for it. On the Enneagram of Soul, hope activates Sacred Creativity. Yes, paradoxically, loss and grief have their own way of evoking hope by stirring creativity in our hearts. In the act of creating, we find meaning and express it. When we dream, wonder, envision, and put our ideas into motion, we are full of life… we do not have the time or interest for self-pity or emotional paralysis. Hope empowers us. 

Our hearts carry a full range of emotions, some are directly experienced and others are pushed back or repressed. But emotions range from profound sadness, such as that experienced during the death of a loved one, all the way to the ecstasy experienced when our child is born. We keep all emotions in our hearts. But when loss floods our heart with unending grief, fear, anxiety, deprivation, uncertainty, and even meaninglessness, it can feel like a stab, like something ripped from our heart— or like our heart is darkened, or empty.

The mind that suffers the deepest grief is also the mind that that same grief can greatly empower. 

What if the smallest question you ask today becomes the doorway to something life-changing tomorrow?

“Wonder Bread” was born from wonder itself. At the International Balloon Race in the early 1920s, Elmer Cline stood beneath a sky alive with color with hundreds of hot air balloons rising, drifting, and shimmering. He was awe-struck. That single moment of astonishment didn’t just pass; it imprinted on him. It gave birth to a name, an image, even a national product. Wonder became something people could hold in their hands.

It is a wondrous day, simply because it is still unfolding.

What if the questions you carry are not meant to be answered, but to make you more aware?

What if one glance through the smallest window could become your portal into the largest truths?

When your thoughts begin to spiral, wonder is a sure way back home.

Welcome to this week’s Daily Reflections on the Power of Wonder. 

What if the part of you that you think you have outgrown… is actually the truest part of who you are?

The true pilgrimage does not end when we return home. In many ways, that is when it finally begins.

Sometimes the greatest insight of a pilgrimage comes from the stranger we meet along the road.

A pilgrimage is never only about the destination. Often, it is the fellow travelers who transform the journey.

People often describe new chapters of life as a “walk.” Someone might say, “Since I began this walk with my new venture, my eyes have been opened to many things.” We use that language instinctively because, deep down, we know that life moves forward step by step, like a walk. Yet any walk can become a pilgrimage when it is taken with spiritual intention.