The Words We Use Shape the Way We Live

There’s something subtle, yet profoundly powerful, happening all the time, often without our awareness.

Words.

Not just the words we speak out loud, but the words we use internally to describe God, the Universe, spirituality, religion, and even ourselves. These words don’t simply communicate ideas. They land in the body. And depending on how they land, they quietly shape our state of being.

Before the mind decides whether it agrees or disagrees, the body already knows.

Knowing vs Thinking
From the perspective of awareness, we already know everything - not as accumulated knowledge, but as being.

Awareness is impersonal, effortless, and omnipresent. It is the unchanging background in which every sensation, emotion, belief, and thought appears. This is your true nature, not the personal character, not the story, not the mind trying to figure life out.

When words like God, Universe, Religion, or Spirituality are spoken, they don’t land on awareness itself.
They land on the body-mind, where conditioning lives.
And that’s where expansion or contraction happens.

Expansion and Contraction: The Body’s Honest Language 
Expansion often feels like:

• ~Softening
• ~Openness in the chest or belly
• ~A sense of ease or familiarity
• ~Rest
• These are all powerful states of being!

Contraction often feels like:

• ~Tightness
• ~Pulling away
• ~Subtle bracing
• ~Holding the breath
• These are primal states of being.

Neither is right or wrong; contraction isn’t failure. It’s information. It usually points to an old meaning - a learned association that the body hasn’t forgotten, even if the mind has moved on.

Religion and Spirituality Are Not the Same 
Religion often hands us definitions before we’ve had a chance to feel what those definitions mean.
For many, the word God carries inherited layers:

• > Authority
• > Punishment
• > Obedience
• > Judgment
• > Conditional love

Spirituality, when lived rather than believed, begins somewhere else entirely.
It begins in direct experience.

Until you are allowed to discover what God, Source, Presence, or the Infinite means to you, in the body, the mind and body can feel out of sync.
You may say one thing intellectually while the nervous system quietly says another.

That dissonance isn’t a problem...
It’s an invitation.

God Incarnate: Clearing the Misunderstanding 
When it’s said that every one of us is God incarnate, this isn’t pointing to the personal self.
It’s not saying the character is divine.
It’s pointing to the same impersonal awareness that is looking through every set of eyes, animating every body, appearing as every experience.
The misunderstanding happens when the mind hears this and tries to own it.
Awareness doesn’t need ownership.
It simply recognizes itself.
And recognition doesn’t happen through belief - it happens through noticing.

Why Words Matter More Than We Realize 
Words like God, Universe, Source, Creator, Presence, or Infinite Being are not the thing itself.
They are pointers.
And some pointers carry emotional weight that others don’t.
If a word causes contraction, it doesn’t mean the word is wrong.
It means the body has a history with it.
When that history is seen - not analyzed, not fixed - something naturally loosens.
Awareness doesn’t judge contraction.

It simply notices it.
And in that noticing, an invitation is offered:
An invitation to expand…
or to contract.
The choice is yours.

Relationship Begins With Recognition 
If you truly want a relationship with God, the Universe, Source, or Presence, it cannot be built on borrowed language.
Relationship begins with recognition.
Recognition that you are the awareness in which every word appears.

From here:

• You don’t need the right terminology
• You don’t need to fix your past
• You don’t need to resolve every contraction

You only need to notice what opens…
and what closes.

The Infinite doesn’t respond to language.
It responds to being seen.
And awareness is already seeing.

A Gentle Invitation 
The next time a spiritual or religious word arises, pause.
Before the mind explains, notice:

• What does the body do?
• Does it soften or brace?
• Is there space—or resistance?

Let that noticing be enough.
Because when awareness leads, life becomes very simple.
And simplicity…
is where truth quietly lives.

Sensei Nancy Mueller
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