The Feeling Is The Message

The Feeling Is the Message
  
We think the content is the message.
 
I write a lot about the principles behind our experience of life. Universal Mind, Universal Consciousness, and Universal Thought. So much so that my iPad just gave me all three as prompts to type as soon as I put in the word principles. That’s funny to me.
 
It can be relatively easy, in a conversation about these three elements, to get heady or concerned about definitions. What is Consciousness again? How does Thought work? What is my thinking versus the principle of Thought?
 
While fun, useful, and always (to me) interesting, this is limiting in that what we are actually looking for in this conversation is a feeling.
 
The feeling of being alive. The feeling of the core of life. The feeling of simply you. It’s a feeling. A feeling.
 
The message is a feeling.
 
If you read what I write or any other teacher, guide, writer in this conversation about life and there is no felt feeling of calm, groundedness, possibly disruption, or insight, then it’s a lovely conversation in an academic sense. But not a transformative or life-changing conversation.
 
As my daughter put it when she was 10, "Well, this changes everything."
 
The feeling is the message.
 
In my work, I sit with people, and we have a conversation that changes lives. A conversation that changes everything. It’s a transformative conversation where the feeling is the message, and you are able to find a space inside of yourself where, when we look out at our lives from this space, everything is different.
 
And everything changes. Effortlessly. With elegant ease. It’s as if you’re not even really trying. Which I used to feel guilty about (because it felt so easy), but is now delightful.
 
The feeling is the message.
 
Marshall McLuhan is very famous, where I am from, for coining the phrase “the medium is the message”. He was a professor of media studies in the 1960s at the University of Toronto. He was looking at the different ways you could convey a marketing or persuasive message.
 
The medium IS the message. A telegram is urgency. A handwritten, mailed letter is a quiet cuppa tea and a slow conversation. A TV advert is an evoked feeling. If you drink Coca-Cola, you will feel confident and have fun on the beach, too. A radio ad is another type of message. Usually more informational rather than a felt feeling of an experience.
 
In a conversation about how we are made and how life works, the feeling IS the message.
 
It’s the feeling of aliveness that allows a person to access insight more easily. The feeling allows the body to open up and let go. Healing happens. We can stop trying so much and live from who we are with grace and ease. Our cells start to do a happy dance. It's a knowing that you can access at any time. It's the quiet calm inside you that creates smooth presentations, increased performance, and wins medals or sports events.
 
And a lot of fun adventures tend to happen along the way.
 
It’s a feeling. That’s how you know.
 
It’s the feeling of life itself. It’s peace at the heart of everything, for no reason. It’s a fierce joy just because you are alive.
 
Why does this matter?
 
When you are in a feeling like this, our operating system operates in an effortless flow. We don’t have to plan or think or figure it out ahead of time. Or even try hard. We can flow. We simply are.
 
This feeling is my absolute priority in everything I do, from being with a coaching client to baking a cake. When you are in the feeling, everybody’s best self shows up, and great things happen. Performances are inspired. You give wonderful presentations. You can lead your team with heart and smooth knowing. You can lift more weight than you thought. Relationships deepen. Love shows up. All boats rise with the tide. Solutions to problems arise out of the depths. Some problems vanish into thin air because they never really were. You feel like you have superpowers.
 
The real joy of it, for me, is that we all have superpowers. No one is left behind, by design.
 
These changes are so commonplace in my transformative coaching practice that I take living from a gorgeous feeling and magical stuff showing up for granted. At the same time as being immensely grateful that life is so wonderfully designed and we are so wondrously made.
 
We are literally made for life.
 
Would you like to live a more wonderful life? That you can, at times, take for granted?
 
You absolutely can.
 
It’s a feeling.


With Love, 

Sara Joy
 

Upcoming Events

Save the Date! Immersion Retreat - September 19, 2026
We are hosting our annual Immersion Retreat at Ignatius Jesuit Centre on Saturday, September 19, 2026. Mark your calendars to join us for an expansive day of peace and joy.

More Content Like This

Wondering what Sara Joy is seeing fresh and new each day? Check out the Daily Muse - https://www.liveyouralivelife.com/daily-muse

Insight Cafe Podcast Ep 58 - A Deeper Feeling of Life with Sara Joy O'Neill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR5NZjZGn_c&list=PLkZYwci8aKNAvSc28uXDmGm3tr9bUUW09&index=58

From Freaked Out To Freed Up Podcast - Navigating Life From The Inside Out - A conversation with Sara Joy O'Neill https://youtu.be/eWkFfhbHFeY

Growing Pains With Andrew Heckman Ep 23 With Sara Joy O'Neill - *Caution: Explicit language, alcohol, and cannabis use. Watch the conversation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5Wl_F4LLUQ&t=9s or listen to the conversation: https://open.spotify.com/episode/7ksYWvIBvgU37vSbYUHSDz?si=tmyoY9FzR_e6wCnQGgBTlg

Wildspire Podcast: Bliss and The Bigness of Who You Really Are With Dr. Sara Joy O'Neill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-s1Ms-ke_40