Tag Archives: Going Deeper

AWAKENING TO THE JOURNEY OF ONENESS

Posted on August 7, 2013 | Leave a comment

“The process of awakening is not one in which a definitive threshold is crossed and one is then enlightened, transformed, or ascended.  Spiritual growth is not focused on a destination, but rather, on the journey itself.”  Oneness, Rasha

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Do you feel you are enlightened?  Do you believe that your spiritual journey is on-going or that there is a goal you hope to reach?  How do you stay connected to your spiritual self?

I’m the sort of person who keeps lists and enjoys checking items off when I complete them.  It reinforces my sense that I have accomplished something.  I often wish that my spiritual journey were that neat – that there were various levels at which I could clearly see what I’ve accomplished.  But it just isn’t like that.

Remain Open to New Experiences

Enjoying the on-going journey of life requires us to remain flexible and open to new ideas and new experiences.  The reality is that even driving across country following a plan and a map we may have to make adjustments and take detours.  A rock slide, sink hole or flooded river may force us to find another route – to try to drive through this disaster would be insane.  So why do we think that our lives and spiritual journeys must follow a neat, unchanging pattern?

Many Practices Can Awaken Us To Oneness

If the journey is on-going, and by virtue of being a journey, it requires movement, how do we manage that?  Oneness states, “Know that the truth you seek is within you.”  Some find that connection through meditation, prayer, chanting, experiencing nature, or any number of spiritual practices.  All these practices can lead us inward to our own center where we are One with Oneness or Spirit.

Separation Is An Illusion

Of course, we never are separate from Spirit.  That separation is an illusion created by our egos when fear intrudes, and for the moment or for months we may lose our sense of connection unless we have a daily practice that keeps us tuned to the inner frequency.  But when we do lose that connection, finding it again is part of the journey too, and it is especially challenging in our busy world.

Looking down from the Blue Ridge Parkway near ...

Looking down from the Blue Ridge Parkway near Craggy Gardens. Photo taken with a Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ20 in Yancey County, North Carolina, USA. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Traveling the Blue Ridge Parkway, near my home, requires travelers to be flexible, especially this year with the torrential rains we’ve had.  Areas are often closed due to rock slides or portions of the mountain sliding onto the roadway.  There are often detours – the straight path is just not always available.   So, we have to travel alternative routes and eventually we are able to get back on the Parkway.  In the meantime, we see towns and landscapes we’ve never seen before.  We may find that those routes will lead us to other places we would like to go that we were not aware of before we took the detour.

A Spiritual Journey Leads Us Deeper

Our journey is like that too.  We have to be willing to embrace change when it appears in our lives.  If I were to draw a diagram of my journey, it would resemble a series of spirals intertwined.  I explored the mind/body connection through dance, meditation, how to release my fear, Unity and Science of Mind principles, and I’ve always been close to nature.  After exploring one area, practicing it, and finding the value in it, I would reach a point where there was still a longing for more or a question that could not be answered.

There were also moments of depression.  I would think, “I’m practicing the principles.  Why aren’t they working?”  But with time those principles became a part of me, contributing to my wholeness, becoming another piece in the puzzle.  There were many experiences of losing jobs, loved ones, and security.  Each experience forced me explore my core and go inward once again to the places where I knew I needed to do my deepest healing.  And when it seemed nothing could alleviate the sadness or disappointment, I would once again have to let go of my expectations and be willing to let go of what was not serving me and face the unknown.

Oneness Is Always At Our Core

But at our cores, Oneness is always there whether we are aware of it or not.  Because of that, we can always return to it.  We have to let go of our busy routines, our anger, our hurt—any resistance that keeps us from just being, because it is only when we are just being that we can truly find Oneness and heal ourselves in that silence and love.  These moments are the rest stops on the journey that renew us.  They are the moments when we are finally still enough to hear the guidance that has been trying to get through to us so that we know what path would be most beneficial.

Life is a process just like Nature.  The seasons change; each brings a different experience, and each experience brings us a new opportunity to learn, to explore, and to journey where we have never been before.  Where we are now is merely one experience of the journey, and there are many more to come that will bring us a broader and deeper understanding of our spiritual lives.

© 2013 Georganne Spruce                                                          ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles:  How We Can Grow Through Spirit, Edgar Cayce and Oneness, Oneness by Rasha

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AWAKENING TO LOVE THE SILENCE

Posted on July 24, 2013 | Leave a comment

“Keep silent, because the world of silence is a vast fullness.”  Rumi

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Do you enjoy the silence or does it make you uncomfortable?  Do you avoid silence or embrace it?  What have you learned from the silence in your life?

What Is Silence?

We often think of silence as the absence of something: the absence of noise or conversation or the space between actions, but Rumi suggests it is much more than that.  When I think of the silence in my childhood, I remember the many days when I lay in bed ill.  I did listen to the radio sometimes, but often I read or drew paper doll dresses, or watched the birds or our pregnant cat trying to balance on the thin branches of the chinaberry tree.  For me, silence was creative or thoughtful time.  I had a lot of time to think about life at a young age.

At that time in my life, I rarely felt lonely in the silence because my mother or grandmother was always in the next room.  It was only later as an adult after a divorce or losing a friend that the silence became a lonely place.  Of course, as an introvert, I always needed some silence for rejuvenation, but for years, I experienced had mixed feelings about silence.

Silence Can Stimulate Creativity

At times, when silence appeared, I welcomed it, especially when I was a high school teacher.  It was such a relief, for a little while, to be away from the noise of a classroom full of spirited teenagers, and have the space and time to do my own thinking.  Silence was creative time too, and out of that silence arose poems, essays, and dances.  When I needed to think or plan, I welcomed the silence and lack of distractions so I could focus on the task at hand.

Silence May Create Discomfort

However, when I had nothing to do, I often felt uncomfortable with the silence, like something was missing.  I was uncomfortable doing nothing.  Only when I was near Nature did the silence feel comfortable.  But living in a city for years surrounded by noise, rarely walking through the forest as I did as a child, I lost touch with what I had valued so much in childhood.

It wasn’t until I started to meditate that I began to love the silence again.  At first my monkey mind seemed impossible to still, but with time, the practice worked and led me to other spiritual practices that improved my life, like learning to release my fear and envisioning what I wanted to manifest.  They all had one thing in common – I had to sit in the silence and find the silence within in order for a change to occur.

Silence Is A Way To Go Deeper and Love Oneself

In the silence, I found a deep peace simply by being there.  I let go of my need to always be doing.  I began to experience just being, and let go of any judgments my ego tried to create to distract me.  In the silence, I became more connected to Spirit and the spiritual guidance we can all hear only when we are willing to be an open channel.

In the silence, where I did not need to prove anything or do anything, I learned to love myself, for I could feel Spirit’s love for me and knew I was lovable.  Feeling this peaceful love allowed me to let go of all the ways I felt I was inadequate and understand I needed to learn to love others more and release my  judgments of them.

In Silence We Become One With All

Now, I am able to experience all the richness of silence without any discomfort.  Sitting in the silence gives me the same pleasure as soaking in a warm bath. When my life becomes too busy, I long for the silence, especially the silence of not thinking.  In the silence, the interruption of bird songs, breezes, sweet thoughts, physical relaxation, and the release of whatever I do not need at that moment all heal the rough edges of my soul, and they remind me that what is out there in the world pressuring me is not what is important.

What is important is that I remember I am One with All, and from this place of peace, in the silence, what I need to know will come to me, and what I need to know to heal, will be revealed when it is time to heal.   As Ram Dass says, “The quieter you become, the more you hear.”

What is your experience with silence?  Please comment.

© 2013 Georganne Spruce                                                    ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

RELATED ARTICLES:  Eckhart Tolle – Silence and Stillness (video), Dive Into the Silence Between Your Thoughts, Awakening to Our Wildness, Being Authentic, Part 1,  Quiet Spirituality

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AWAKENING TO OUR SPIRITUAL HOME

Posted on May 22, 2013 | 5 comments

“Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts.”  Oliver Wendell Holmes

photo (2) Is home a place or a person for you?  Is it within or without?  Is your spiritual home different from your literal home?  Are you at home with yourself?

What is Home?

I live in the mountains of North Carolina where most people who live here are from someplace else.  Their stories of why they decided to move here are very similar.  They were drawn here.  They visited here and for the first time, they felt they were home.  Very rarely do I hear a story with any rational explanation.  Moving here was motivated by something deeper, something unexplainable and very spiritual. It isn’t just that they feel at home in a place; the home they feel is a community of like-minded people, the spiritual energy of these mountains, and the artistic and diverse people who live here.  It is a place that touches their hearts in many ways.

Home Is Not A Place

In 1999 when I moved to the Land of Enchantment, New Mexico, everything I needed to stay there fell into place.  There were many signs that it was where I belonged, and I was sure that it was my soul’s home.  But just as easily as things fell into place, things fell apart, and the five years I was there were extremely challenging.  On the other hand, I began writing seriously and found Southwest Writers, a wonderfully supportive organization where I met many successful writers.  The more I wrote, the more I felt at home in my own skin.

Make Your Home in Your Mind

Tad Williams has said, “Never make your home in a place.  Make a home for yourself inside your own head.  You’ll find what you need to furnish it—memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things.  That way it will go with you wherever you journey.” photo I spent much of my life looking for the place where I would feel at home.  I always seemed to have different ideas and values than the people around me.  I equated feeling at home to feeling I belonged.  The problem with all that was that I was looking outside for something I could only find within.

Edsel Ford, an Arkansas poet who was a family friend when I was growing up, once wrote:  “Love is to come home dying from the world and find life there.”  I often felt I was dying in New Mexico, but I learned to let go of my attachment to the outer and follow my inner guidance.  I learned to stand more firmly on my own two feet, and all that led me to understand, home was wherever I was and the life and light I sought was within me.

Our True Home Is Our Spiritual Core

What we feel inside at our spiritual core affects everything in our lives.  If we are at home in our own bodies and minds, we will experience peace.  If we love ourselves, we will love others and they will love us.  The physical place where we are won’t matter.  It will be just another experience in our spiritual journey.  We can be in Alaska, Africa, or Spain and feel at home because at the deepest level we are at home with ourselves and that connects us with all humanity on a deeper level.  We are all One.

Love Is the Center of Our Home

The physical place where we are may not give us the life we need, but the friends, the memories, the desires, the energy of love we find with others can make wherever we are home.  Growing up, my family lived in several places, but what made each house home was the presence of my family’s love for me.  Love is the place we feel safe and accepted.  It’s where we can be who we really are.  It’s the spiritual center within us that we allow to open and gather in all that is good and nourishing, and it’s the place where we connect with Spirit and experience the greatest love that is possible.

Even now that my dear poet friend and most of my family have passed on, their love still lives within me.  The love of friends far away and nearby feed the home within me, and I carry them with me wherever I go.

How do you experience home?  Please comment.

© 2013 Georganne Spruce                                                            ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5 Related Links: What Does It Mean to Live Spiritual, Eckhart Tolle On Being Yourself, Accepting and Loving Ourselves in Ten Easy Steps, One Path, Many Mountains

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AWAKENING TO A FULL LIFE

Posted on May 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

“You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.”  Mae West

Wamboldtopia

Wamboldtopia

Does your life feel complete?  Is it satisfying and fun?  If not, what is missing and what can you do about it?

Unlike Mae West, I believe we live more than one life, but I like the spirit of her quote.  Just because I believe I may have another shot at this earthly life doesn’t mean I don’t want this time to be great or that I’m willing to stop trying to create the life I want.  Right now, what I’m experiencing is what matters and I want to feel good about it.

A Full Life Is Based On Spiritual Values

What is a full life?  I think of it as a life that is satisfying and full of peace, love, and joy, my three favorite spiritual qualities.  It means I have good friends with whom I can share art, nature and good conversations and know there is a deep connection of love and respect.  It also means that I am following my passion in the work I do, and the activities I engage in bring me joy.

However, we are each on an individual journey and have individual desires and needs.  For example, I would feel deprived if I couldn’t view fine art often.  It touches my soul and lets me see into the soul of the artist.  But there are some people who never view it, who consider it frivolous or uninteresting, and feel no need to have it in their lives.

A Full Life Includes Love

To have a full life, we have to be connected to someone or something that we love, for the things we love feed our souls and expand who we are.  When I am around my nephews and niece and their children, I feel such joy because, not having children of my own, I had the privilege of seeing them become adults and now parents.  I’ve laughed and cried over them through the years and counseled and encouraged.  There is no doubt that my life would be less full without their love and my love for them.  So instead of feeling sorry for myself because I didn’t have children, I created relationships with them.

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We Must Fill Our Own Lives

We are the only ones who can fill our lives.  We decide what we will let into our lives and what we will reject.  To most people, having a full life is about what we have in terms of security, family, friends, or work, but it is also about how deeply we are willing to live.  What are we willing to do to make our life full?  Are we willing to be the hero or heroine in our own life and take full responsibility for creating the life we want? Or do we choose to be the victim of circumstances?

If your life does not feel full, what is lacking?  What are you ignoring that is too painful to look at?  Over the years, I’ve seen many people who are educated, financially secure, and intelligent who have ignored aspects of their lives that make their lives less than desirable.  I always wonder why they choose not to change what can clearly be changed. Perhaps they feel hopeless or are afraid that making the change would also have negative consequences in other areas of their lives.  There is always a reason why we are not the best we can be, and understanding the root of the problem may require us to look deeper with the help of a therapist or counselor.  It is important that, regardless of what limitations we feel exist, we are willing to take that first small step.

Good Change Requires a Shift in Thinking

Every good thing that has come to me has come after I made a shift in my thinking.  It is how we think about a situation that makes it possible for us to change.  When I was in high school I was fairly shy, despite my involvement in speech and drama.  In my senior year, the Thespian Society members gave me a Best Actress Award.  That was a huge boost to my confidence and led me to believe later, that if I could be that good, maybe I could also be good enough to become a modern dancer and dance with a company.

A few years ago, as a relationship was ending, I suddenly became aware of the fact that this man was so much like my father in his stubbornness and his inability to understand how his unwillingness to compromise created problems between us.  Like my father, he was emotionally shut down.  As I looked at him from this perspective, I saw more negative points of comparison.  It was startling!  How could I be so blind!  I thought I had worked through these issues.

We Can Learn From Positive and Negative Experiences

While winning the Best Actress Award was a positive event that motivated me, the ending of a relationship was a negative event, and yet, it motivated me to heal and let go of an old pattern that was limiting my life.  We can learn from the positive and negative.  Taking the time to heal these old patterns has allowed me to attract a man into my life who has none of my father’s negative characteristics.  The work that I’ve done in the last two years cleared out past issues and opened a space for a more fulfilling love to appear.

Wherever we are in this spiritual journey to experience fullness of life, we must know that we are meant to live in peace, love, and joy.  Our purpose here is to expand our lives through experiencing these qualities, and it is our responsibility to do the work that will take us to a fuller life.  May whatever you need for your journey, show up.

© 2013 Georganne Spruce                                                                 ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles: Nora Ephron’s Advice – Be the Heroine in Your Own Life, Be A Hero: Save Your Own Life, Make Now Count:  How to Live a Fun Life Full of Possibilities, How to Be At Peace:  Eckhart Tolle Seeing the Good in Life 

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AWAKENING TO BEFRIEND OURSELVES

Posted on May 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

“I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we will ever do.”  Brene Brown

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Are you as supportive of yourself as your best friend is supportive of you?  Do you have the courage to own your own story even if you don’t like it?  What are you willing to do to empower yourself?

I’m glad April is over because I don’t feel so guilty any more that I didn’t complete a project I promised to complete.  It wasn’t anything terribly important.  It certainly wasn’t earth shattering.  I doubt that anyone cared about it but me.  But I’m a person who values commitments and so I’m rather disappointed in myself.

I had joined the event called NoPoWriMo which meant that I committed to write a poem every day.  It didn’t have to be polished and it could be a first draft.  I only completed six poems.  Why?  Well, the rest of life intervened in ways I couldn’t ignore.

Opportunities to do events or publicize my book and preparation for a Release Your Fear workshop that I gave on Saturday took more time than I expected.  A wonderful new friend came into my life with whom I chose to spend some time.  Everything that pulled me away from writing the poetry was really good and more important.

Being More Conscious of Intuition

My error was apparent from the moment I made the decision to do this event.  My intuition said quite clearly, “This will put more pressure on you.  You don’t need to take on one more thing.  If you feel pressured, you won’t be able to write poetry.  You won’t be in the right frame of mind.”  Clearly, I should have listened, but my sometimes overly optimistic self said, “I’ll find time.  It will be a nice way to relax in the evening.”  Hah!

So, I failed to meet the goal I had created for myself.  Although this wasn’t anything that impacted my life in a negative way, it’s a good example of how I used to have too much of a tendency to over commit.  I would get so involved with so many activities and people that I would be exhausted all the time.  This felt like I was backsliding.  As an introvert, I must have my quiet time each day in order to recharge, but for years, I often didn’t leave enough room for it.

Loving Ourselves to Make Good Choices

The damage I’ve done to myself by pushing too hard or over committing is one of the stories I need to own.  I have a tendency in this area to make bad choices because there are so many interesting things I love to do.  But if I love myself, I have to be willing to say no, not only to myself, but to others as well.  Usually it’s easier to say no to myself; it’s much harder to say it to someone else.

Going Deeper to Awaken

Compared to many stories, my poetry experience is trivial.  For example, feeling we failed at relationships is a much harder one for most of us.  It is important that we take the time to understand why it didn’t work and the part we played.  When we can do that, we can learn to make better decisions and choices the next time.  But then, after the analysis and owning our part of the story, we need to love ourselves enough to forgive ourselves, knowing we did the best we could at the time.

At those moments when we are most disappointed in ourselves, can we give ourselves what our best friends would give us?  Elizabeth Gilbert once said, “Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.”

Eat, Pray, Love

Eat, Pray, Love (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Experiencing Friendship With Yourself

As your friend, you will listen carefully to that voice in your head that tells you you’re not good enough, and you will tell yourself about all the ways you are good enough.  You will have compassion for that hurt child within you who sometimes feels powerless to change what makes you unhappy.  You will empathize with your hurt self and reassure that self that things will be better and that you have the courage to seek out the hard answers.  You will remind yourself that you deserve the very best and that what you desire will come to you.

Our best friend

Empowering Ourselves On Our Spiritual Journey

When we hear these things from our best friends, it feels good to know someone cares so much, but when we can say these things to ourselves and believe them, we empower ourselves.  The bravest thing we can ever do is to look inside and openly observe our deepest self.  The next bravest thing we can do is begin the journey to fix what needs repairing.  These journeys may be challenging, but they will be more manageable if we learn to be our own best friend.

© 2013 Georganne Spruce                                                         ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles: Befriending Ourselves, The Art and Craft of Befriending Your Experience, Is it Realistic to Befriend Ourselves, Befriend Yourself 

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AWAKENING TO OUR JOY WITHIN

Posted on January 23, 2013 | 1 comment

“Find the place inside where there’s joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”  Joseph Campbell

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How do you create joy in your life? Do you feel it because something good happens to you or does it well up inside because of something you do?

External events Create Joy

For years, I experienced joy as a mysterious feeling that burst forth from within me because of an event in the outer world.  When I was in a play in college, I was given a role where I was the center of attention for a few minutes delivering a very funny monologue.  I was ecstatic when I discovered I could make an audience laugh.  Generally, I wasn’t a very funny person in my real life.

When I was chosen to dance with a modern dance company, I was filled with joy.  My dream had come true.  It’s true that my hard work took me to the place where I was good enough to be accepted, but it was someone else’s decision that stimulated my feeling of joy.

A man and a woman performing a modern dance.

A man and a woman performing a modern dance. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What if we could feel joy whenever we wanted to?  What would that feel like?

Internal Joy

It’s wonderful that we can feel joy about the good things that happen in life.  But there is a deeper practice and a deeper joy to be found within.  There are some days when I have no idea why I feel joy.  I just do.  Some mornings it just wells up from within the moment I rise to consciousness.  I don’t remember having a particularly good dream, and I don’t have any exciting plans for the day.  In fact, it may happen on days when I have to clean house and that isn’t a task I particularly enjoy.

Following Our Passion Creates Inner Joy

So, what causes the joy to appear?  I think there are two answers.  For some time now, I have been following my passion for writing.  When we are doing what we love to do on a regular basis, it raises our vibration and energy level.  We have something to look forward to.  We are doing something that is satisfying at the soul level and it connects our deeper self with our outer life.  We feel whole, we feel complete.  We feel confident we are on the right path.  Even ego feels peaceful.

If, despite the fact that we are following our passion, we are consumed with worry about whether we will succeed at this venture or doubt whether we deserve such good fortune, we need to understand that our negative thoughts will, no doubt, sabotage our success.  They will lower our energetic vibration.

Passion flower

Passion flower (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

Creating Temporary Joy

We can temporarily lift our vibration by doing things that make us feel better.  A little dark chocolate will usually give me a lift or going outside and listening to the birds sing.  Reading some inspirational quotes may help or reading from Oneness by Rasha.  Sometimes cooking a nice meal will do it because I’ve reached the point where eating healthy is an expression of self love.  But when we become mired in these negative feelings despite the good that is present in our lives, there is something missing at our core that we need to repair.

Creating Joy At Our Core

There is a deeper joy we can experience.  The joy that seems to well up from nowhere or for no reason comes from our connection with Spirit.  Only in the last few years have I come to understand this.  There were many steps on my journey to this place of comfort and wholeness.  First, I learned to release my psychological fears.  Through learning to meditate, I started to learn about mindfulness.  After I learned that our thoughts create our emotions, I learned I could decide what I wanted to feel about my experiences.

The Joy of Acceptance

But the greatest lesson was learning acceptance—to accept what is, to accept not knowing the answer, to accept that Spirit will guide me to my highest good.  I had to learn to surrender to Spirit what I could not solve, knowing that I would be guided to what was best.  And out of releasing my need to control everything, joy emerged.  It often wasn’t the joy of exuberance I felt at twenty-five or even at fifty-five.  But it was a soft, sweet, calm joy and it felt like love, and I realized that, in surrendering, I was stepping into a level of trust with Spirit and my deepest self that I had never known before.  This time, the joy I felt originated within me.  I could choose to feel joy regardless of the external events of my life.

It is this deeper joy that can heal all pain and create security when we feel uncertain.  It is part of the core of our spiritual selves.  May you find the path that will lead you to this place of joy.  It is within you.

What is the source of your joy today?

© 2013 Georganne Spruce

RELATED ARTICLES:  You Were Born for Joy – Wayne Dyer, 9 Tips For Finding Joy Within, Power of Positive Thinking: How to Find Joy Within

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AWAKENING TO SHADOW’S TREASURE

Posted on November 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

“It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are without any self-deception or illusion that a light will develop out of events by which the path of success may be recognized.”  I-Ching

Do you always avoid negative emotions and stuff them down inside?  Are you comfortable expressing all your concerns and emotions to those you love?  How much of who you really are do you keep hidden?

Finding Treasure in the Darkness

As we move deeper into winter, days grow longer and the darkness envelops us.  For many people, it is an uncomfortable time, but like every season, it may hold hidden treasure if we are willing to look for it.  Deep within our unconscious, we all have what Carl Jung called “the Shadow.”  As the weather pushes us indoors more and the light decreases, it is the perfect time for reflecting on what we need to heal and release.

Scorpio, the Transformer

Beyond the change of seasons, other influences are affecting us.  Scorpio, the astrological sign, urges us to dig deeply and explore the part of ourselves we prefer to deny.  It is a time when the changes we make can be transforming.  Visit www.astrodelight.com,  Belinda Dunn’s website, for some very interesting information on Scorpio’s influence.

Mercury Encourages Reevaluation

In addition, Mercury is in retrograde.  Okay now—don’t leave me.  Trust me—all these influences that appear so negative really are gold if we know what to do with them.  The good news is that Mercury goes direct again on the 26th.  I’ll be glad, believe me, because I’m tiring of all the phone calls it has taken to make one simple appointment.

Mercury is about communication.  When it’s in retrograde, it’s a good time to review and revise what we are doing with our lives.  It’s also a good time to clear out what is no longer useful.  It’s not a time to start something new, but it’s a good time to plan for the future.

Becoming Conscious of  Shadow Issues

While this period and its influences may make us uncomfortable, it’s a time when we can do some serious inner work.  When I read the I-Ching quote above, I immediately thought of Carl Jung whose thinking has always increased my understanding of human psychology.  In his book Psychology and Religion, he said, “Everyone carries a shadow, and the less it is embodied in the individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.  If inferiority is conscious, one always has a chance to correct it.  Furthermore, it is constantly in contact with other interests, so that it is continually subjected to modifications.  But if it is repressed and isolated from consciousness, it never gets corrected.”

Let’s say that it makes you angry when people are disrespectful to you, but you’ve been taught it’s unacceptable to feel anger.  How do you deal with that?  Most people repress it and keep repressing it.  When we do that, we tend to project the anger onto others in situations that have nothing to do with the situation at hand.  Our reactions to situations become distorted.  The wife who feels her husband spoke disrespectfully one day but said nothing may lash out at him the next day for forgetting an item at the grocery store.

What is kept unconscious will come out in other unhealthy ways or will manifest as illness, for the mind and body connection is very powerful.  Over a long period of time, these repressed feelings poison our physical and mental health.

We Must Release Fear To Become Conscious

If this is true, why do we choose to live so unconsciously?  Because we are afraid.  When we live this way, fear rules our lives, and only when we allow that fear to surface, can we really begin to free ourselves from it and heal.  To do that, we sometimes have to go against cultural norms.

In our Western culture, we emphasize having a positive attitude to an extreme degree; therefore, we are discouraged from looking at our Shadow and its fear content.  But denying our darker side rather than dealing with the related issues only prolongs the damage this dysfunction can do in our lives.  When we allow our buried feelings to become conscious, we can see what is going on, we can heal and release what is limiting us.  We create an opening where the light can come through, where new ideas and ways of living can evolve.

After the Darkness Comes the Light

It took me many years of releasing my fears to come to a point where I could actually publish my memoir Awakening to the Dance: A Journey to Wholeness.  But when I committed to that and faced all the fears that came up, I also committed to a healing journey.  It was very painful sometimes, but it led to a place where I am happier than I’ve ever been, where what is lurking deep inside isn’t scary any more.  And I know now that no matter how uncomfortable dealing with the fear is, releasing it will lead me to more light.

Be willing to go deeper and find the buried treasure within and transform your life.  Peace, Love, and Joy to you on this amazing journey.

If you are in the Asheville, NC area, join us for my “Release Your Fear” workshop at Crystal Visions Bookstore tomorrow night from 7-9:00 pm. $15 at the door.  Releasing your fear is a good way to begin retrieving your Shadow’s treasure.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                                     ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles:  The Hidden Value of Mercury Retrograde, Suppression and Repression, Memories, Dreams, and Reflections by Jung

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AWAKENING TO SEE OURSELVES HONESTLY

Posted on September 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

“The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.”  Pema Chödrön 

Do you know who you really are?  Do you like who you really are?  Are you willing to take responsibility and look honestly at the changes you need to make?

Self-analysis is a difficult process.  When we look closely at ourselves we want to see the positive: the good we do, our loving qualities, and our accomplishments.  That, of course, is the easy part.  When we start to look at our less than sterling qualities, we usually experience anxiety and may shut down before we even have the courage to open the door.

We Must Look At Ourselves Honestly in Order to Grow

It isn’t very helpful to beat up on ourselves for all the mistakes we’ve made and all the things we don’t like about ourselves, but if we are to grow and become more the person we want to be, we must find the courage to look honestly at ourselves.  Doing this with gentleness, as Pema Chödrön suggests, is the most effective way.

The moment when we are forced to look at ourselves honestly may very well be the most important moment of our lives.  If we are unable to be honest with ourselves, we will not be able to be honest with others because there will always be something we need to hide.   If we are willing to look at the dark and unpleasant side of who we are, then we have opened a door to changing and healing.

It Takes Courage to Make Changes

It takes courage to walk through that door.  Our greatest fear is that, if we change, the people we care about in our lives may stop loving us.  But if we are hiding who we really are, those people can’t love who we truly are; they can only love who we pretend to be.  The idea that we are being loved for who we are is a sham.

Many people in our culture take drugs to hide the pain of not living honestly.  Drugs mask our anxiety or depression and give us the illusion that we are all right.  I once had a friend who was always in conflict with her family; they had very different values.  She took medication for depression and would periodically stop taking it, but she would soon become depressed.  Having spent time being depressed myself, I shared with her the things I did to combat it.  My diet was healthy, balanced, low in sugar and alcohol, and I ate at regular intervals to keep the blood sugar balanced.  I also exercised every day.  I meditated frequently and monitored my negative thinking, reframing thoughts that did not need to be negative ones into positive thoughts to lift my vibration.  Was my friend willing to try any of this?  No? She thought the spiritual stuff was silly, and she tried to eat healthy, but…  In fact, I saw virtually no evidence that she was willing to do anything to change her life.

Love All of Who You Are

The truth is that all the negative aspects of ourselves that we stuff down and hide away cause anxiety, disease and fear.  How can we ever really feel good about ourselves if there are parts of us we must always hide?  Religion has taught many people that they are worthless unless they follow certain rules or that loving oneself is selfish, but in Christianity, the great teacher was Jesus who said, “Love others as you love yourself.”  So, how can we love others if we cannot love ourselves?  If we cannot forgive ourselves our shortcomings, how can we forgive others theirs?

Nurture the Child Within

Healthy parents love their children even when they misbehave.  They encourage their children to tell them the truth, and those children learn that there may be consequences when they admit they’ve behaved badly, but they will still be loved if they tell the truth.  We need to accept ourselves in the same way and tell ourselves the truth.  We cannot grow emotionally unless we are willing to take full responsibility for who we are.  We must nurture that wounded child within who is so afraid no one will love it if they learn who she/he really is.

Change Can Bring a New and Better Life

What I know for sure is that life changes.  As we change and grow, life adapts.  Sometimes, the greatest heartbreak turns out to be the most profound lesson we could ever learn.  Then that lesson leads us in a new direction where we are able to find new friends and a new life that support who we really are.  It is even possible that some of the people who love us now may still love us through the changes.

Steve Marboli said, “There is nothing more beautiful than seeing a person being themselves.  Imagine going through your day being unapologetically you.”

What are you willing to do today to become more of who you truly are?

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                                ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

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AWAKENING FROM THE HEART

Posted on August 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

“Your visions will become clear only when you can look into your own heart.  Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”   Carl Jung

Where are you looking when you envision creating something new in your life?  Where does the vision start?  What is your secret to manifesting it?

Dreaming From Outside

We all have dreams about what we want in life, but what happens when we try to manifest them?  And what does it take for us to bring them into reality?  According to Jung, it all starts in the heart.  In many instances, we “dream” of what we want.  We envision how our external lives would look with more money, our own business, a new relationship, or a different house.  We may imagine how we would look behind a lovely mahogany desk in a powerful managerial position, or standing in the midst of a major gallery with people all around us adoring our paintings.

But on a deeper plane, what is the core of this dream?  Does it fit with who we really are?  We may not even be conscious of the source of the dream or whether it originates from ego’s needs or from our spiritual source.  When I began studying dance years ago, I wanted to be beautiful like the dancers I saw, and I wanted to stop feeling weak.  Because we had to also create dances in the classes, I discovered it was also a way to be creative.  It fulfilled several needs for me, but most were external.

The Value of Going Deeper

As time went by and my body strengthened, I became more confident moving.  I was able to let go and dance from the heart, and when I did this, an uplifting energy and joy flowed through me.  I was operating from a deeper level.  I began to see the mind and body were connected and how they influenced each other.  The stress from daily life created tension in the body.  The tension blocked my movement and interfered with the flow that was so pleasant.  At this point, I was forced to look inside and awakened to realize the blocks were emotional and mental.  It was this awakening that led me to explore the spiritual practices that would release these blocks at the deepest level.

On the other hand, my experience as a writer has been quite different.  The desire to write tugged at my heart from an early age.  It was not a rational thing.  In fact, most of the poetry I wrote was about the love of nature or love relationships.  The essays I write now are almost always inspirational and initially flow from my trust that what comes from my heart will benefit others.

Creating from the Heart

Whatever we create from the heart level is more authentic because it comes from our spiritual core.  For example, following our passion is a heart activity. It awakens us to all possibilities.   We are most expansive when we open at the heart level where we can envision more than what we are able to view through the rational mind.

The heart has no hidden agenda, unlike the ego.  What we envision from the heart will have a clarity that will enable us to see what we really want to manifest because, unless our vision is clear, we will not be able to manifest what we really want.  It’s much like planting flowers or corn.  We wouldn’t just lay the seeds on top of the ground and expect them to sprout new plants.  We know we must dig into the soil and place the seeds there in that rich, dark place where they will germinate.  In order for our vision to grow out into the world, we must go to the heart where we connect with rich spiritual energy.   When we operate from this awakened place, the emotion that we use to manifest this vision will be genuine and focused and more likely produce what we want in a way that is also for the highest good of all.

Have any of your recent visions originated from your heart?  Were you able to manifest them?

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                                            ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles: Prologue to Awakening to the Dance: A Journey to Wholeness, Was Carl Jung A Buddhist?, The Spiritual Heart:  Your Inner Treasure, Manifesting Abundance Through the Magnet of the Heart

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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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