Monthly Archives: May 2012

DANCING WITH OUR IMPERFECTIONS

Posted on May 30, 2012 | 1 comment

“The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.”  Anna Quindlen

I’m a recovering perfectionist.  I say, “recovering,” because I still often find myself attached to wanting a creation of mine or my own action to be perfect and have trouble deciding when it is good enough to reveal to others.  Editing my own writing can become an endless task.  I can always find a better way to phrase a sentence or a more expressive word to use.

The Illness of Perfection

About fifteen years ago, when I was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I visited my doctor’s clinic where I interacted with a wide variety of health care professionals.  I saw nothing wrong with my perfectionism until, repeatedly, the people there, one by one, told me the same thing: “Don’t be so hard on yourself.”  I remember sitting in the therapist office with tears streaming down my face.  They were right.  I was just too exhausted to continue living this way.

What the people at this clinic gave me was permission to be imperfect, something I had been unable to do for myself.  With the fatigue I suffered at that time, I began to understand that it was impossible for me to do everything I thought I needed to do if I wanted to heal.  I had to learn to love myself and my imperfection.  Accepting my limitations became a spiritual practice, and as a result, I began to let go of other’s expectations of me.  It allowed me to become more of who I really was.

Living From the Soul Level

When we can strip away other’s expectations from our lives and clearly look at who we want to be, we begin the authentic spiritual journey.  All that we discover about ourselves will show us who we truly are.  By discovering at the soul level who we are, it becomes easier to identify our true calling in life, and living with that at the center of our lives, can bring us tremendous joy.

Spiritual teachings tell us that we are perfect just the way we are, but we have all come to this lifetime with certain issues to resolve.  We see the repetition of particular themes and judge ourselves as failures instead of seeing how each repetition offers us the opportunity to further solve the problems those themes create.  The earth is a school where we are able to grow and learn, and all these “problems” that arise are part of the curriculum.  Spirit, our teacher, does not judge us, it only guides us.

Blocks to Going Deeper

Many people live in denial, blaming others for negative experiences.  By being unwilling to go deeper and by choosing to feed the ego’s desire to be right, they shut themselves off from that spiritual core through which Spirit guides us.  Being unwilling to examine our lives and understand our own motivations creates an extremely limited life.

These patterns are often created in childhood.  Because my parents argued, I always tried to be the perfect child so I would not create more dissention.  I believed that I would be loved only if I were good enough. And so these patterns continued into adulthood, stunting me in ways I was unable to see until a powerful event pushed it in my face.

 Living from Our Spiritual Core

 When a powerful event occurs, we face the real test.  Are we willing to do the work we need to do in order to grow beyond our childhood neurosis?  Only when we are willing to find that spiritual core inside that guides us to a higher path will we be able to let go of these negative patterns that made us feel secure in some way.  In touch with our spiritual selves, we can find the security that will allow us to let go and move on. When we truly accept that we are spiritual beings, then we can accept that everything that comes into our lives is in Divine Order.

Accepting what is, without judgment, allows us to accept that all our imperfections are in Divine Order.  In fact, the irony is—we are already perfect.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                                   ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles:

Are you a recovering perfectionist – How to Address Spiritual Superiority, 

The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning

The Origins of Perfection

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AWAKENING TO GROW

Posted on May 24, 2012 | Leave a comment

“The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.”  Wayne Dyer

Are you open to changing and growing?  Or do you try to keep things the way they are despite the Universe’s hints?

Growing Can Be Challenging

I’m a day late posting this blog because I needed to spend yesterday growing.  It wasn’t the sort of growth I like.  It involved downloading new software and learning to use it, and it was very challenging.  One piece, Scrivener, is what I believe will be a very useful piece of software that will make my writing and compiling books so much easier.  I’ve been putting this off because I didn’t want to deal with the learning curve.  But I couldn’t finish the paperback version of my book without doing this, so I took the plunge.

The second software was unexpected.  When I received the book file from my friend Brad Swift who formatted it, I couldn’t open it because it was zipped.  (You technical people know what this means.)  My operating system is supposed to have the ability to unzip, but, in fact, it doesn’t.  It has a bug in this area, so I had to download another program just for zipping and unzipping.  Isn’t that just zippy!

Oneness Will Bring Us Help

Fortunately, I had some good help—from Brad, who is a coach and creative thinker.  We tried everything to get that file open, but finally had to admit, something was wrong with my computer.   I also had a great tech, Jeffrey, from Scrivener emailing like crazy, analyzing and suggesting the next step.  It was a long day.  Sometimes I left the computer to cry, sometimes to scream.  I even stopped to read inspirational thoughts once.  That didn’t help.

Well, I messed up the downloads more than once, but fortunately I could delete them and try again.  I wanted to give up more than once.  My brain felt totally fried.  Despite a part of me saying, “You don’t have to do this now,” I knew I did.  I knew that if I gave in to that part of me that is the helpless little girl, I would be very unhappy with myself.

Awakening to Our Inner Strength

You see, as a child who was often sick, my overprotective mother often told me I was too weak to do something or that I would hurt myself if I pushed too much.  So, I felt weak and helpless for a long time until I began to dance and feel strong.  It’s at times like this that my little girl sneaks out again, and I have to remind that part of me that I have recovered from helplessness and can do this difficult thing.

We all have messages from the past that occasionally haunt us, but if we are willing to grow, we say, “Ah, there you are again.  Sorry, but I need to move on.  I’m grown up now.”  Just as flowers need good soil, enough sun and water to grow, we must nourish our own growth.  It may involve feeding our inner selves with meditation, a walk in the forest, or an inspiring book.  Or it may mean trying to do something we have no idea how to do and deal with the frustration and our deflated egos as we try and fail and try again until we succeed.

Having the Courage to Try

Despite my mother’s fears that I would hurt myself, she taught me a contradictory message that has been so powerful.  She insisted that there was no disgrace in failing, only disgrace in not trying.  If you never try, you’ll never know if you can do it, and you’ll always wonder.

My file is now unzipped with the document sitting beautifully in the new software as if it had been born to live there.  Do I know how to use this program?  Sort of.  But I’ll learn more, and I’m already envisioning how it will help me write my next book.  Thank you, Brad and Jeffrey.  And when this paperback is on sale, I’ll let you know because it is a story of growth, despite many challenges, and I hope it will help others to grow too.

How have you grown lately? Please share.

©2012 Georganne Spruce

Related Articles:  Eckhart Tolle – Facing Adversity, 5 Ways to Let Go of Resistance, A Constant Self-Growth, Awakening to the Power of Pleasant Thoughts

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AWAKENING TO THE LAUGHTER WITHIN

Posted on May 16, 2012 | 2 comments

“When people are laughing, they’re generally not killing each other.”       Alan Alda

Does it bother you when others laugh at you?  Are you able to laugh at yourself and especially the challenges in life?

Seeing the Humor in Life

I’ve been writing about Jung’s Shadow and dealing with difficulties lately, and to balance things out a bit, today I’m writing about laughter.  A couple of weeks ago, I had a pretty funny experience with a turkey.  I was working in the front yard and heard a strange gobble.  The female turkeys commonly wander through my yard, but this didn’t sound like them.  I looked around and spied a Tom at the bottom of my driveway, with beautiful red and blue coloring on his neck, gobbling and fanning his tail feathers and flirtatiously looking in my direction.

It was the first time I’d seen a Tom in the neighborhood and I blurted out, “You are one beautiful boy!”  He began walking up the driveway toward me.  I ran inside to get my camera and came back outside while he completed his slow strut to the upper, flat part of the yard.  Wanting to get a picture, I asked enthusiastically, “Would you show me your beautiful feathers again?”  He looked at me and unfurled his feathers.  I was shocked.

He continued walking across the yard a few feet from me, gobbling pleasantly and showing his feathers when I asked him to do so.  When I stopped taking pictures, he looked at me, sensing our little encounter was over, and wandered into the neighbor’s yard.  All afternoon, I heard him gobbling through the neighborhood.  I felt rather sorry for him because it was clear he was looking for a lady turkey, and the best he could do was to get the attention of a human one.

Sharing the Joy

Later, when I told the story to friends, it gave us all a good laugh.  Then one friend pointed out that this wasn’t the first time I’d attracted a turkey, but she hoped it was the last.  With this, we practically fell out of our chairs.  Although I don’t really think of my “exes” as turkeys, the joke was too clever, and laughing at myself felt very cathartic.

Releasing Ego Needs Enhances Our Spirituality

Laughing at ourselves is a good way to put the ego in its place.  For a second, my ego wanted to object to my friend’s remark, but some part of me, the wiser part, said, “Let it go—share the joy of the laughter.  I don’t know when I’ve laughed so hard or long, and the laughter washed away some emotional debris that had been building up.  My vibrational energy felt higher the rest of the evening.

Well into adulthood, I found it difficult to laugh at myself.  I was never a care- free child because of many illnesses, including rheumatic fever and a heart murmur that lasted until I was twelve.  There was often tension in the household with my parents arguing and also the fears created by my brother’s illness as well.  I was well into adulthood before I could laugh at myself and not feel humiliated if others made fun of me.

As the core of who we are is strengthened, we become more resilient.  Our confidence cannot be eroded by a friendly joke, and as we are able to see the humor in our life circumstances, we are more able to let go of the need to protect the ego.  We learn to let go of the need to be right all the time.  We learn to accept our own mistakes as human, fix them if we can, and move on, trying to be wiser the next time.

Being The Wise Fool

I have a great fondness for Shakespeare’s plays, for his wisdom is boundless.  His tragedies always include, among the characters, a fool who is usually part of the king’s court.  He entertains, but more importantly, he hides behind what appears to be his stupidity in order to confront the person in power with his own folly.  While others laugh at him, he makes fun of the king or opposes his actions in a way that entertains even the object of his ridicule.  As Isaac Asimov stated in A Guide to Shakespeare, “That, of course, is the great secret of the successful fool—that he is no fool at all.”  The fool is often the wisest man.  Humor often allows us to state truths that otherwise we could never express.

When we can play the fool and laugh with others, we raise our vibration and experience joy.  It is also a great defense against those who might use humor to hurt us.  If we can find the humility to admit we are not perfect and not feel defensive at another’s derision, we can sabotage their efforts to harm us.  Laughing at ourselves diminishes their power over us.  As Alda points out in the opening quote, laughter takes us to a positive place that tends to bring people together, not separate them.  Perhaps when the leaders of the world meet, they should begin their meeting with each offering a joke to remind themselves, We Are All One.

How has laughter served you well lately?  Please comment.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                        ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related articles: Dr. Wayne Dyer – You Are Not Your Ego (video)

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AWAKENING TO THE HEALING DANCE: RELEASING THE PAIN, PART 3

Posted on May 9, 2012 | 2 comments

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.  People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.  One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”  Carl Jung

How willing are you to be aware of your emotional pain?  Do you use pleasant experiences or material things to make you feel better or deaden the pain?  Do you have the courage to face and heal the deeper truth?

In the first blog of this series, I wrote about how our wounds often lead us to see what needs to be healed in our lives.  Although we see them as part of our emotional darkness, they are gifts.  In the second part of the series, I pointed out that we all need love in our lives and that it may come from many sources if we are open to seeing it.  Today, I want to write about the importance of letting go of our attachment to the pain we experience.

Fear of Letting go of Pain

Years ago, after a painful divorce, I began seeing a therapist to help me deal with the deep betrayal of my husband.  At the time, I was teaching modern dance and dancing with a company and choreographing.  As the therapy progressed, I began to feel better about myself and spent less time overwhelmed by negative emotions, but one day I became very upset during a session.

“Sometimes I’m afraid that getting ‘well’ will destroy my creativity. It’s changing something in me, and I don’t feel I need to create so much. I feel like I’m losing my creative edge.”

“How is it doing that?” my therapist asked.

“Because it’s the inner turmoil that makes me want to create. If I get well, I’ll have no reason to create!”

“What if being healthy makes you more creative?”

I only shrugged, but as I thought about this, I was unable to imagine how that could be so.

(Excerpted from Awakening to the Dance: A Journey to Wholeness)

Why We Won’t Let Go

We all have belief systems that keep us trapped in unhealthy places.  That’s why many people refuse to get help for their problems.  They’re afraid to discover what lies in their darkness or are so insecure that they cannot handle the idea that they have done something wrong or are not all right.  My mother is a good example.  She could not let go of the idea that she wasn’t a good Christian if she loved herself.  Her entire sense of worth was based on what she did for others.  She was a loving person in many ways, but very unhappy and took care of herself only so she wouldn’t burden others.

Sometimes, though, we take the risk, and in our process of changing, we begin to feel better and hit another layer of fear that limits our consciousness.  We may cling to our negative feelings simply because they are so familiar, just as we cling to negative relationships because they are known and nothing scares us like the unknown. Letting go of these attachments is often a big step.

Becoming Conscious of Our Shadow

Fortunately, though, after my divorce, I liked feeling better more than being in pain and decided that my ideas for dances could come from many sources, even the past negative feelings, for I could remember them, even if I no longer felt them.  I filed them away as I would any reference material and took responsibility for making myself happier.

Through therapy and through reading and attending workshops as a member of the Carl Jung Society in New Orleans for ten years, I learned to understand my difficulties and how to resolve them.  I learned about the value of what Jung calls, “the Shadow.”  It is that dark part of ourselves that we don’t want to see, but the less conscious we are of it, the more it harms us.  Becoming enlightened or conscious requires that we examine and heal it, for when we become conscious of the thoughts or experiences that have caused our pain, we can heal them, then let go and move on.

All Spiritual Healing Requires the Journey Inward

This spiritual journey inward may seem eccentric to some people who have bought into our materialistic society.  Eventually, the materialism fails to solve the problems.  The drugs that seemed to make us feel better become a destructive addiction.  All of the “cures” for our pain only create an illusion of temporary healing.  The only true healing takes place when we go within, and that is often true of physical, as well as emotional pain.  We have to bring it to the surface, heal it, and let it go.

We can free ourselves only when we become conscious.  No one I’ve read has written more clearly about our pain than Eckhart Tolle in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose in his discussion of the “pain body” and how to heal it.  I highly recommend this book. (See Links I Like at the side bar)

What pain have you healed recently? Please comment.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce

Related Articles:  Eckhart Tolle Releasing the Pain Body (video), Carl Jung’s Concept of the Shadow (related to life), Overcome Your Emotional Roadblocks

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AWAKENING TO THE HEALING DANCE: Feel the Love, Part 2

Posted on May 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”  William Shakespeare

Where do you find love in your life?  Is your only source other people or do you look beyond and find it reflected elsewhere?

We all need to experience love.  In every spiritual journey, love is the key element.  We learn about it through many experiences; sometimes in secondary experiences through which others have expressed their love.

Art Touches the Heart and Soul

A few weeks ago, as I walked through the entrance of an amazing garden, Wamboldtopia, I felt transported into another dimension, one which brought the ancient spiritual energy of the past into the present.  The energy of this place touched me because of the natural beauty, especially the bright red and iridescent lavender of blooming azaleas and the lush green of many kinds of plants.  But this garden was created by a wonderful artist, Damaris Pierce, to create a natural home for much of her art work.  As I wondered down the paths, I found elfish houses, graceful sculptured women, and the face of a Green Man, and through these, Damaris’ spirit and love of nature touched me.

Only a love deeply connected to nature would create this energy.  But that is what an artist does—connect with that inner source of spirituality, even if they don’t call it that.  That is why we feel uplifted after walking in the natural beauty of nature or through an art gallery where the art reveals the depth of artists’ souls.  When the two are combined, we cannot help but feel the love of Spirit visiting us through those creations.

Through Nature’s Creatures We Receive Love

Other encounters with nature can also activate our own loving source and bring it to the surface.  As I ate lunch today with the back door open to my deck, an older Siamese cat approached.  I had seen her in the neighborhood before and attempted to pet her, but she ran.  This time, I talked to her through the door with warm words.  Slowly I moved onto the deck, and she began to give me those double messages cats love to give:  you can pet me, no you can’t.  I sat on the steps and waited.  She moved closer and allowed me to pet her, then suddenly she jumped into my lap and started rubbing me with her head.  For a few moments, we were lovingly connected.

I am so grateful when I can connect with the creative energy of the Universe, for it is the very source of life.  We are all products of nature, all “kin,” as Shakespeare reminds us.  When I hear the birds in the morning, I am reminded how glad I am to be alive.  I am filled with laughter when the local turkey gobbler performs his dance for me.  I am inspired and irritated sometimes by the community of crows that negotiate in the trees outside my writing room.  Each is a part of life that reminds me I am part of the dance of life.

We Are All A Part of Love

It is this reminder that we are a part of nature too that can be a powerful healer lifting us out of depression or disappointment or loss, reminding us that we are more than just this life on this planet. That is why it is so important that we make time to connect each day with that loving, healing, positive energy. We are part of the Spirit that creates all life and that love will never deserts us.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce

Related Articles: Emerson’s Nature: A River Reading, Native Pride, Finding God   in Nature

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