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December 30, 2010
 

Follow Your Soul's Path To Your Heart's Content

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Why do you have a spiritual practice? Why do you get up every morning to meditate, chant, or do yoga? Or vow that starting tomorrow, you will?

You practice because a voice deep within longs for the stillness and focus that spiritual practices give you.

This voice belongs to your soul. Your soul is the eternal part of you that connects you to All That Is.

Your spiritual practice helps you come into alignment with your soul. As you practice, you will come to know the voice of your soul. If you listen, you will hear what it needs for its journey. 

Developing a committed, steady spiritual practice takes patience and discipline. It requires the willingness to let go of goals and expectations and to allow your soul's journey to unfold.

Balancing the art of allowing–while simultaneously maintaining just enough structure, intention, and attention to creating a magnificent life–is acquired through the practice of listening to the voice of your soul.

By listening deeply, and following the guidance you are given, you allow your path to unfold just as it should.

The soul's journey is not about getting somewhere–it's about the path itself and having the experiences your soul needs to grow and heal.

There is much ado these days about "manifesting" and creating your own reality through intention. Realizing that you have the ability to create–to make positive things happen in your life–is empowering and can liberate you from feeling helpless in the face of difficulty or dissatisfaction in your life.

However, it is easy for the personality to get seduced by the power of creating and lose sight of the soul's path. When you are in "manifest mode," which "you" is in charge–your soul, or your personality? 

If you listen to the voice of your soul you will create the experiences you need. This may not always be what your personality thinks it needs, especially if the experience is unpleasant. The soul is creating in order to learn, grow and heal.

Over time, the committed practice of paying attention, moment to moment, illuminates the juxtaposition of personality and soul. You begin to see that you have a choice in any given moment, to embody and express the energy of either your soul or your personality.

When you consistently choose to be and act from your soul's perspective, you are no longer paddling upstream. You are in the flow.

Here are some suggestions to help you follow your soul's path:

  1. Practice. As the Nike commercial says, "Just Do It!"
  2. Trust that over time you will come to discern your soul's voice from that of your personality. 
  3. As part of your practice start noticing the connection between what you are doing, thinking and feeling, and what manifests in your life. Learn from your experience. 
  4. Keep posing the question, "what would my soul say, want, or do right now?" Listen deeply.
  5. Practicing in isolation can be hard. If you are having trouble staying with your practice, reach out for support. 
  6. If your practice feels stale or stuck, don't hesitate to get some help. You may be at a point on your path when a different practice would suit you better.  

Coming into alignment with your soul doesn't mean everything will be perfect. But you will be in the flow of your soul's journey and fulfilling your soul's needs for its experience and expression in this lifetime.

Most importantly, enjoy the journey!

Wishing you all the best in 2011!

Be Well,

Rebecca

"The Path" photo image by Jennifer Hopkins ( http://jenhopkins.com/about/artwork-2/ ) with a Creative Commons license.

 

 

 

 

Filed under  //   manifesting   meditation    soul vs. personality   spiritual path   spiritual practice  

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May 27, 2010
 

Finding Equanimity With Difficult Emotions

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Learning how to navigate emotions is one of the central challenges of the spiritual path. If we learn how to work with them, feelings can serve as a guide to the recesses of the soul.

Emotions can provide important information about external occurrences; for example, when danger approaches, fear is an essential emotion for survival.

Emotions can also become habituated and exaggerated responses to internal stressors. If you have a history of abandonment and loss, you might get anxious when your loved one doesn't get home on time. This response may be pretty familiar. And when it happens over and over, it becomes cognitively embedded and resistant to change. These ingrained emotional responses provide a great opportunity for some healing work. 

Perhaps the most important aspect of working with emotions is learning how to tolerate them. We are a "fix it" culture, and it is a well-accepted practice to "get rid of" our unpleasant feelings. Getting busy, getting numb, and getting high are a few of the common ways people cope with feelings.

"Clearing" emotions is another practice. Pranayama (breathing exercises), exercise and energy healing are some ways to release emotion.

Mindfulness practice cultivates the ability to be present with what is going on, no matter how much you don't like it.

Sitting in observation of your experience helps decrease judgement of your feelings and increase tolerance. Clearing your emotions tends to provide much quicker relief from unpleasantness and provides a more effiecient way to get at the core of what is going on.

Which is the right approach? The best answer is both.  

In the early stages of healing, there is usually a huge benefit to engaging in insight work and the development of emotional tolerance. Good psychotherapy combined with a mindfulness practice does both of these things. Learning how to identify, understand and sit with your emotions is central to healing, especially for those who have experienced trauma. These are the skills necessary for "doing life." 

Once these skills are mastered and you develop fluency with your unique emotional picture, learning to clear emotions may be an important skill to add. 

Here are some thoughts about how to work with emotions: 
  1. Notice where the feeling is located in your body. Spend some time experiencing the sensations associated with that feeling. Does it stay the same or change over time? Do any images come to mind? Can you identify thoughts associated with this feeling? Which occurred first, the thoughts or the feeling?
  2. Do you want to "get rid" of the feeling? When you have difficulty tolerating a particular feeling, can you observe what form of avoidance you use? With practice, are you able to notice the sequence you engage in around an unpleasant emotion?
  3. The sympathetic nervous system is intricately linked to our emotions. A key factor in managing emotions is learning how to deactivate the stress response. The use of breathing and relaxation skills are really helpful, especially when dealing with fear, anxiety and anger. 
  4. Finally, learn how to stay grounded when your emotions become intense. This helps you stay more connected to your experience, and allows your energy to naturally rebalance on its own. (See the 5-13-10 post, Getting Grounded, Staying Grounded.)
Engaging in this kind of process builds insight, compassion, and self-acceptance. With time, practice and help from those with expertise in this area, you can develop the ability to discern when to sit with a feeling and when to clear it.

Most importantly, listen to yourself when strong feelings arise. Allow your feelings to connect you more deeply to your soul and to your healing journey. It's all good!

Be Well,

Rebecca

 

"Stream" image by Jennifer Hopkins ( http://jenhopkins.com/about/artwork-2/ ) with a Creative Commons license. 

Filed under  //   clearing emotions   emotional healing    emotions   grounding   meditation    mindfulness   stress  

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