Tag Archives: Spiritual Journey

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 YOUR HEROISM

Posted on October 31, 2012 | Leave a comment

“Insights from myths, dreams, and intuitions, from glimpses of an invisible reality, and from perennial human wisdom provide us with hints and guesses about the meaning of life and what we are here for. Prayer, observance, discipline, thought and action are the means through which we grow and find meaning.”   Jean Shinoda Bolen

Recently I prepared a presentation on “Are You the Hero or Heroine in Your Own Life.”  I’d been thinking about the hero’s journey as presented in Joseph Campbell’s work, and in many ways I could relate to this archetypal male journey.  I chose not to live a traditional woman’s life in many ways and went out into the world, primarily to become a dancer and follow my passion.

The Heroine’s Journey to Wholeness

But with so many years of living behind me now, I realize that the pattern of my journey was different, and a friend recommended I read A Heroine’s Journey by Maureen Murdock.  I don’t know how I could have missed this book, but it was amazing.  As I read it, I felt I was reading about my own life and particularly my journey as I presented it in my memoir Awakening to the Dance: A Journey to Wholeness.  On the cover of Murdock’s book, it is described as “a woman’s quest for wholeness.”  Well, no wonder I could relate to it.

We Are All Heroes and Heroines In Our Own Lives

The concept that I emphasized in my presentation was the idea that we are all heroes or heroines in our own lives.  In both the male and female journey, we go out into the world at some point and experience a series of trials in trying to achieve our goal.  Both the trials and achievement of the goal (or boon) test us in many ways.  Even when we achieve our goal, we have to face the disconcerting feeling deep inside that makes us ask, “Now what do I do?

Male and Female Journeys Are Different

In Campbell’s masculine journey, the hero must take what he has learned or gained back into the normal world, integrate it into life and share it with the world.  It may be spiritual wisdom, a new technological discovery, or simply a new understanding of some issue in his life.

In Murdock’s description of the feminine journey, the heroine, who may have had to subdue some of her feminine traits, develops her masculine attributes in order to achieve her goal in the world.  This causes the mother/daughter split, which may not be an actual split with her mother but with herself.  She must reconnect her feminine side, heal the masculine within that is also out of balance, and integrate both aspects within.  And to be balanced, she must learn to take care of herself as well as care for others, an aspect of life that challenges many women.

Beyond the Goal Is Integration and Sharing

This ability to learn from life and share what we learn with others is, to me, the key and most important aspect of the journey.  Through our trials we learn valuable lessons.  We expand our lives and our spirits when we share what we have learned and that contributes to the sense of community we so much need to create and grow.

I do believe we are all heroes and heroines when we feel called in some way and follow that call.  Whether or not we meet society’s standard of success is not what is important.  It is what we do with what we learned on the journey that matters.  Does it uplift us or the people around us?  Does it make us more whole?  Even if we have not achieved what we hoped, can we see that our attempt was heroic?

Dealing With “Failure”

After I left my university job in Nebraska because I could not live with the extreme cold, I looked for another full-time university position for several years without finding one.  As each year passed, I felt more and more like a failure although I had limited the places I was willing to live, thereby limiting the possibilities.

In the meantime, I found several studios or colleges where I could teach one or two classes of dance.  It was scary to be self-employed, but it pushed me to learn about publicity and tax issues and to expand the range of what I taught.  I became more creative, teaching a class to help people learn how to see and learn movement and another class created to help musicians develop more body awareness.  I took a part-time job at an art school to create a financial base.

Most of all, I learned I could survive without “a job,” and that tremendously increased my self-confidence.  I learned to take care of myself in a way I never had before. Instead of feeling like a failure, I eventually began to feel like the heroine in my own life because I did something I didn’t know I could do.  Like the hero, I answered a call, overcame the challenges, and became more whole and confident as a result.  In doing so, I was able to share my passion with others and hopefully inspire them.

Every person’s journey is unique.  What seems like a simple task to me may be a huge accomplishment to you.  Every time I see someone without legs competing in a race, I am in awe.  In fact, I am also in awe of most parents.  Helping form another human being is complex, messy, and beautiful.  That much I’ve learned just from teaching.  I certainly think my mother was a hero, for my brother had polio and I had a heart murmur most of my childhood.  Just keeping us alive and growing toward health was an amazing achievement.

So, make a list.  What are all the heroic things you have done and are doing in your life?  What about all the things you’ve done that you didn’t think you could do, but because you had to do them, you did?  And if you can’t find anything you think is heroic, go deeper and give yourself more credit for the things you have done.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                                     ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles:  Urgent message to Mother (Earth) – Jean Shinoda Bolen  (video), The Hero, Heroine and Writer’s Journey,  Meet Maureen Murdock

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AWAKENING TO BE SPECIAL

Posted on October 10, 2012 | 2 comments

“How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being.”  Oscar Wilde

What do you strive to be:  a “normal” human being or someone special?  Have you started developing your special talent or are you waiting for someone to tell you you’re capable?

We Need To Feel Special

We all want to be special to someone, don’t we?  While I may laugh at Oscar Wilde’s comment about women, I have to admit that in a relationship with a man, I want to be important and special to him.  I think most women feel this way.  We want to be “the One.”

In our families, we want to know that we are valued by our parents and siblings.  We all need to feel important to someone, but the truth is that no matter how many people think we are special, unless we think we are, we won’t experience that we are special.

Children Need To Be Encouraged To Develop Their Talents

Ultimately, we have to see and respect our own specialness and see that it’s a good thing.  As a child I was very creative.  I designed my own paper doll clothes and wrote stories.  At about thirteen, I wanted to be a dress designer, but my mother discouraged me because that would be too competitive.  At fourteen when I took an art class at school, my teacher characterized my latest drawing of a phoenix amid crumbling and fiery Greek columns as unusual (weird, in other words).  I got the message: art wasn’t my thing.

Fortunately, my mother encouraged me to become involved with drama which I enjoyed and which led me to become a modern dancer.  But no matter what I did creatively, in my family it was more important to be practical.  It was okay to have fun with these creative things, but not to take them too seriously despite the fact that my parents had artistic talent.  What mattered was making money, not following your passion.

Don’t Wait For Other People’s Approval

Eventually, I gave up trying to gain their approval and just followed my own path.  Even if others couldn’t see it, I knew how much work and courage it took for me to become a dancer.  I knew I was special even if others didn’t.  I knew in the overall scheme of things I wasn’t a great dancer, but it didn’t matter.  It made me happy.

You see, my ex-husband saw me as an ordinary person.  He thought my dancing was a childish pursuit I would eventually tire of.  My hard work and accomplishment meant nothing to him because again, practicality was all he valued.  It hurt to finally understand how “unspecial” I was to him.  But I learned a valuable lesson.

We Are Each On A Special Journey

We are each special and unique in our own ways.  Our most precious quality may be something no one else can see, but we know about it and must honor ourselves.  To expect the world to see how special we are may not be realistic.  All we can do is express who we are, and if we are true to that, we will eventually draw to us the people who do appreciate who we really are.

This week two people who are reading my spiritual memoir Awakening to the Dance: A Journey to Wholeness told me that they couldn’t put it down.  One man read it in three days.  It’s nice to know that all the hard work I put into the book is paying off because the point to writing is to move and entertain people.   But it would never have happened if I hadn’t believed I was special enough to do it.  Do you know how special you are?

What gifts have you not developed because you are waiting for someone else to tell you that you are good enough?  Why not take the first step today?  Let me know how it goes.  Namaste.

©2012 Georganne Spruce                                                  ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles:  Wayne Dyer Talks About Being Yourself (video), The Path to Unconditional Acceptance, Our Talents Are Our Gifts – Use Them Well

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AWAKENING TO SPREAD GRATITUDE

Posted on October 3, 2012 | 1 comment

“Feeling gratitude and not expressing it is like wrapping a present and not giving it.”  William Arthur Ward

What are you grateful for this week?  Have you expressed your gratitude to those who have been generous to you?

Accepting Transformation

It is fall again and the sound of acorns falling from the oaks onto my roof is an on-going percussive song.  There are plenty this year, and the squirrels will become so fat they’ll look like the little stuffed animals at the nature store.  The dogwoods and maples are already turning hot pink, red and yellow, foreshadowing the blaze of color that will blanket the mountains in a few weeks.

This is my favorite time of year.  The air cools to the perfect temperature for hiking and art walks.  I begin turning inward preparing for the transformation into winter.  Much is changing in my life and I am so grateful.  The “Releasing Your Fear” workshops that I do are expanding and I now have two more scheduled.  I have posted more information on my workshops page.

Receiving Gratitude Is A Gift

I had a booth at a networking fair last weekend at Crystal Visions and had the opportunity to meet some wonderful people who are light workers and artists.  They raffled off one of my books, and the woman who received it emailed me to say how grateful she was.  She knew receiving it was in Divine Order and she looked forward to what she would learn from it.

Grateful—that is the word that comes to mind today.  I am so grateful that I am at last doing the work I really want to do and that my gifts are helping others.  After spending years working to release my fears and through that process freeing myself to believe what I have to teach will help people, I am now able to facilitate this growth in others.  As I hear the individual stories of the way this work is benefitting those who attend the workshops, I am reminded about why this is so important.  It can remarkably change our individual lives, but it can do more than that.

Releasing Our Fear to Empower Others

It is impossible to ignore the political crisis in this country.  The real crisis is not really the economy.  It is the inability of our leaders to work together because they are afraid that they will give the other side an advantage.  It is their fear of losing their power that undermines their ability to solve the country’s problems in wise and equitable ways.  Because this fear is so dominant in their minds, it blocks their ability to think clearly and act in the best interest of all.

So, the energy we put out into the world can change this.  The more we can release our fears, the more we can experience love and joy and think clearly to find reasonable solutions to our problems.  We need to look around us and support what is good and working well and the people who are making that happen.  Tell them how much you appreciate them.

The Power of Gratitude to Uplift

Among the many things for which I am grateful this week is a letter I received from someone I’ve known for years and who is aware of my workshops, writing and the other work I do within the community of which we are both a part.  Although we have always respected each other, I had no idea that he appreciated the way I think, that he thought my comments in a particular setting were “rich and fertile.”   What a wonderful gift this letter was!

So I encourage you to do what my friend did.  For whom are you grateful?  Write that letter and lay it out in clear language.  Let someone in your life know what you value about them today.  It could transform their life.  It will certainly transform their day.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                                     ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

  Related articles:   Managing Your Fears – Eckhart Tolle Video

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AWAKENING TO OUR GENIUS

Posted on September 19, 2012 | 4 comments

“Everyone is born a genius, but the process of living de-geniuses them.”  Buckminster Fuller

How many times have you been told your brilliant idea was foolish?  How often are your child’s creative ideas disregarded at school?  How often is an innovative idea ignored by those in power?

Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I attended a play last week about Buckminster Fuller, the genius who created many structures based on the geodesic dome.  He was a man with fascinating ideas, including the idea that humanity would someday use renewable sources of energy, such as wind and solar power, and the idea that we have the technology to feed all people on the planet.  Does this sound familiar?  He was a man dedicated to discovering what one individual could do to help humanity.  He died in 1983.

Genuises Follow Their Passion

I’ve always been drawn to Fuller although I don’t understand many of his theories, but like many geniuses he lived out his passion without succumbing to the pressures of being “normal.”  He also taught at Black Mountain College, near where I live, where the innovative choreographer Merce Cunningham spent some summers.  They both had a passion related to the use of space.

Monet, the Impressionist painter, was full of passion like Fuller.  Nothing could stop him.  Despite poverty, war, and the lost of his wife, his soulmate, he continued to paint, even in the bitter cold of winter, no matter how many times his paintings were rejected.  And because of that we now can experience the joy of viewing his paintings where light and shadow play in ways no painter before him had ever captured.

Monet Impression Soleil Levant

Monet Impression Soleil Levant (Photo credit: Christopher S. Penn)

Following Your Passion Leads to New Insights

So what really constitutes genius?  Fuller also said, “I’m not a genius.  I’m just a tremendous bundle of experience.”  There’s no doubt that experience makes it possible for us to understand and create more because we develop more skills.  But I think what constitutes a genius is one who has a vision and follows it relentlessly.  That passion to discover and understand pushes us beyond the normal limits of human curiosity, and it is there, beyond reality, that we discover what no one has seen before.

After seeing Fuller’s story, I was left with this thought.  How many of the young geniuses in our schools are we losing?  Does anyone notice the quiet kid doodling in the back of the room when we celebrate athleticism and extraversion above all else?

Do We Encourage the Geniuses in Our Schools?

For several years, I taught gifted high school students in the New Orleans Public Schools.  These students had IQ’s of 130 and above.  I also taught in a small town in New Mexico and in other school systems there.  I substituted in North Carolina schools as well.  What I observed in these schools in contrast to what I saw in the private schools where I had taught in my early teaching years was shocking.

The students in the public schools did not see themselves as being capable of meeting any but the lowest standards.  They often had difficulty getting into college or technical schools because, despite their intelligence, they didn’t believe they were capable of much or simply lacked basic skills.  In some instances, they were so bored that they made little effort, or they hid their intelligence in order to fit in with their peers.  And no teacher dared challenge the status quo because they were afraid of being fired by administrators who wanted to keep everything within the safety of “the box.”

We Need to Love Intelligence

Fuller believed that all children were born brilliant, but that education and society destroyed their creativity.  I’m afraid I tend to agree.  We are obsessed with conformity and were particularly obsessed with it in the 1950s when I was growing up.  I was told many times that the creative things I wanted to do were inappropriate for me.  I was supposed to get married and have kids, not have a career, not design dresses or become a doctor.

Although I hope we are past the sexist attitudes of an earlier time, I feel that extremely intelligent and “nerdy” kids are facing a huge challenge.  They are often the ones who are bullied.  They are often ignored or their unusual ideas are laughed at.  They are often not socially at ease.  But they are also the ones like Steve Wozniak who may create the technology we need to save the planet.

We are facing a critical point in our development as a human race.  We need everyone’s creative ideas to solve the problems that face us, and our educational system and attitudes need to change to respect those with innovative and unusual ideas.  The development of new technology that will allow us to save the planet and feed the hungry requires two things:  creative thinking and technical skill.  Learning these skills should be the priority in our schools, not learning how to give the right answers on standardized tests.

Spiritually Healing Ourselves Will Heal the Planet

So, what does this all have to do with spirituality?  Everything.  Unless we can be who we truly are, develop and experience the talents we bring to this earth, and share our talents with humanity, we cannot truly be whole.  Fuller was often ignored during his life and suffered many setbacks, but he always stayed true to who he was.

If we are to experience wholeness, we must not only heal the limitations in ourselves, but also heal what is wrong with our society.  We must learn to respect the diversity in each other, not just ethnically, but mentally as well.  Because, if we can learn to accept more diversity and new ideas, we may discover the geniuses who will save our world.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                     ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles:  Happy Birthday, Buckminster Fuller, Interview with Buckminster Fuller (video), (PLEASE READ THIS – Are We Failing Our Geniuses?

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DANCING TO YOUR OWN CREATION

Posted on August 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

“Mind is like the wood or stone from which a person carves an image.  If he carves a tiger or dragon, and seeing it fears it, he is like a stupid person creating a picture of hell and then afraid to face it.  If he does not fear it, then his unnecessary thoughts will vanish.  Part of the mind produces sight, sound, taste, odor and sensibility, and from them raises greed, anger and ignorance with all their accompanying likes and dislikes.”  Bodhidharma

 

Responding to Change

How much responsibility are you willing to take for what happens in your life?  Are you creating your life or do you always defer to the ones around you?  What guides your choices?

This has been a very wet year where I live, and I am grateful I don’t live in the drought-ridden part of the country.  As a result of the dampness, a large number of large mushrooms have sprung up in my front yard which is very shady most of the day.  One of them was huge, eight inches across, and several others of two varieties were almost as large.  I’d never seen these before and had no idea if either the squirrels or I could eat them, but I don’t know mushrooms, so I thought it wiser to just admire them.  The squirrels weren’t interested either.

The appearance of the mushrooms, which I think are lovely in their own way, is just one example of how conditions to which we are accustomed may change and surprise us with their uniqueness or beauty.  But change can also be disconcerting, and how we experience it depends on what we think about the change.  We create our perception of what is occurring.  Instead of being afraid that poisonous mushrooms were appearing in my yard, I chose to appreciate their beauty and the opportunity to learn about something new.

Being in Charge of Your Own Thoughts

So many things influence how we think:  our social environment, religious or spiritual beliefs, family or cultural codes of behavior, and past experience.  In some way, we have all been programmed that certain things are good and others are bad.  But as we become adults, we have the opportunity to reprogram our minds.  We can make the decision to be the one who is in charge.

In order to truly be in charge of our lives, we must choose to be in charge of our thinking, for our thinking creates our emotions and together they determine what we create.  The quote from Bohdidharma makes this very clear.  You create what is in your mind and have a choice to hold on to that thought or to release it.  The question you must answer is:  What is the best for you or others affected by your decision?

Release the Resistance Fear Creates

Often we feel fear in our response to something new in our lives.  Will that new boss value the work we do?  Will a parent’s death destroy the family togetherness?  Will marriage take away our independence or bring us more love?  It is always best to release the psychological fears we have before we make a decision.  Fear creates resistance and blocks our ability to see what is best for us.

So, when that tiger or dragon first appears in our thoughts, we need to center ourselves, find that place of quiet in our hearts, and say to our minds, “Release this fear.”  Name it if you can, breathe deeply, and let it go.  These psychological fears have no value for us.  Repeat this gently until the negative image you have created releases.  It is yours to reject.  Then, in the quiet, ask Spirit or the Universe to fill your need and be willing to wait, knowing that what you need will appear, if not then, later when the time is right.

Releasing Your Fear Workshop

This process for releasing fear is what I teach each year in a workshop, “Releasing Your Fear.”  In the workshop, we delve more deeply into the mind and how it works and how to practice this technique so that it is truly useful to you.  If you want to learn more about the September 9 workshop, click here.

Creating Your Joyful Dance of Life

Dancing to our own creation means that we choose to be the choreographer of our dance of life.  We can choose the steps we like best, improvise until the right phrase appears, and practice what flows best until the dance that truly brings us joy appears out of our own creative mental process.  It is not some creator out there who is in charge of our dance, we are.

When we get stuck, instead of creating tigers and dragons, we can envision the positive outcome we want and take the steps to go there.  If one step doesn’t work, we can try another, and eventually the right one shows up. We only have to have the courage to release our fear of what is new, unfamiliar and unknown, focus on what we truly want, and believe we are capable of creating it.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                                            ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles: The Answers Are Within, Law of Attraction Journals, Abraham: Accept What I’m Feeling (video), Abraham Hicks: Thoughts (video)

 

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AWAKENING TO LISTEN

Posted on August 22, 2012 | 1 comment

“When we talk about understanding, surely it takes place only when the mind listens completely—the mind being your heart, your nerves, your ears—when you give your whole attention to it.”   Jiddu Krishnamurti

In conversations, do you wait with irritation when a person talks too long or are you able to sit, quiet within, and really listen?  Which do you value more, listening or speaking?

Speaker or Listener?

I’ve always been a big talker.  I love discussions.  But recently, something has shifted in a deep way.  In fact, it shifted gradually over the years, but I’m just now really understanding the value of this change.  There was a time when, during a conversation, my attention was mainly on getting my chance to speak as if speaking my thoughts out loud gave validity to them that just thinking did not have.  I suspect I even fidgeted a lot waiting for my turn.  I can even remember composing what I was going to say rather than listening and reflecting on the words of the person speaking.

Perhaps part of this was my need as a teenager and young adult to overcome my childhood shyness and conditioning that a woman was supposed to defer to others.  It made me nervous to speak during a discussion, and when I finally became comfortable with it, my ego probably enjoyed being the speaker too much.  With time, though, and experience as a teacher who had to listen to her students, I came to value listening more. As I progressed on my spiritual journey, attending workshops and reading, I began to listen more to my interior self instead of my ego.

Telling Our Stories Creates Loving Bonds

In the South, where I live and grew up, passing our stories on to the next generation is a way of life.  Perhaps that’s why we have had so many incredible southern writers.  As I child, I often sat at my parents’ or grandparents’ feet listening for hours to their stories.  I captured a sense of these times in my poem “Mysteries.”  Those stories were how I learned about my own heritage and how people lived before me.  The telling and listening created a loving bond between the generations.  I was taught that listening to others was a form of respect.

Ego Cares Only About Itself

When we are unwilling to listen to others, it is often because our ego has another agenda.  We judge the speaker as someone whose words won’t be helpful to us. One time I was facilitating a very large group discussion, and one man, fidgeting with impatience, decided I was allowing a woman to talk too long.  He suddenly announced to the group that there were too many people not getting to talk, took over my role, and called on someone he wanted to hear. Despite his perception, we still had plenty of time left for everyone to speak.  I was shocked by his behavior, but before long I slipped back into my role as facilitator without confronting him.

Listening Enhances Our Spiritual Journey

I’ve recently joined a spiritual discussion group where most of the members are excellent listeners and also are deep thinkers.  We use a process where we each speak a couple of minutes in response to a question, and we do this for two rounds.  Then we may ask each other questions and respond to what another has said.  This orderly process works well because it allows each person an opportunity to speak and be heard and allows for spontaneity.  Each person feels respected.  Because we are only allowed to speak once during the two rounds, it forces us to be listeners for most of time.  It gives us time to really process what we are hearing and reflect on what may be helpful to us.  As a result, I’ve found others ideas illuminating and stimulating new ideas that enhance my spiritual journey.

Listening Expands Us

Dr. Karl Menninger said, “Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force.  The friends who listen to us are the ones we move toward.  When we are listened to, it creates us, makes us unfold and expand.”  When I read this, I realized how true this is in my life.  The people who are my friends really listen and, in turn, offer their perspectives to whatever I share with them.  Because they are really listening, I feel valued by them, and I value their friendship by listening closely to them when they speak.  We learn and grow and expand together.

As a result of meditation and other spiritual practices, I have now reached a point where I listen more carefully and patiently to others.  When someone goes on too long from my point of view, I try to recenter to continue listening to them.  If I am really not interested in what they are saying, I remind myself that they deserve to be treated respectfully regardless of what they are saying.  My ego may protest this choice, but my heart and spirit know this is the one I need to choose. I go within and try to listen from my heart.

Listening Increases Understanding

By listening, I am often able to understand others who seem quite different from me.  I may not agree with their philosophy of life and how they handle situations, but understanding why they are different helps me to accept them.  Refusing to listen to those who have different views only creates a polarization—the kind that is now destroying our world.  When we allow our egos to control what we hear, we shut out any idea with which we don’t agree, but when we listen from our hearts, we are able to hear humanity speaking and remember that we are all One.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                        ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles:  Spiritual Inflation,  Sifting Sand, Facing A World in Crisis: What Life Teaches Us in Challenging Times by Krishnamurti 

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AWAKENING TO A CLEAR PLACE

Posted on August 15, 2012 | 3 comments

“The more you have, the more you are occupied.  The less you have, the more free you are.”  Mother Theresa

Do you always do your spring cleaning?  Is your life cluttered to the point that you feel it controls you rather than you controlling it?  How much are you willing to simplify?

I just finished reading Cheryl Strayed’s book Wild.  It is the story of her trek along the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert to Portland, Oregon, traveling with only the pack she could barely carry on her back.  While the book touched me in many ways, her journey, living months with only what she could carry, particularly resonated with me.

Letting Go of the Old

Since spring, I have had an overwhelming desire to clean out the clutter in my life—not just the physical stuff, but activities I no longer enjoy as well.  I had to skip my usual spring cleaning this year because writing my book was so intense and time-consuming that I had time for nothing else.  Now at the end of summer, it has become almost an obsession to get the cleaning out done.

When I feel energy pressing against me in this way, I know it’s a signal that I need to pay attention and take the step it is pushing me toward.  There is something good around the corner that I must make room for.  I must clear out the old and make room for what is to come.

The irony is that my house is not cluttered.  I have a lot of books in bookcases with paintings and stones placed around, but they are all arranged neatly and not excessive in number.  Even my closets are neatly arranged, but I have a large number of files containing information on the past that I no longer need.  So why am I having such a difficult time letting go of this?

Letting Go Creates Fear

Letting go creates a vacuum and that often feels uncomfortable.  It may feel like a loss and remind us of painful losses we’ve experienced, and we may feel fearful about what will replace the stuff, or friend, or activity we have released.  So, part of letting go of the clutter, in our houses or our minds, is letting go of the fear that we will need it, or not find a friend or activity that is more beneficial to replace it.  My fear almost always is the same—I’m afraid I might need it again.

Clearing Clutter Allows Us To Grow Spiritually

H. G. Chissel, a feng shui practitioner, says, “Clutter is a physical manifestation of fear that cripples our ability to grow.”  We can’t grow when we’re stuck and attached to the past.  What we need now in our lives may be very different than what we needed five or ten years ago.

Why do I find it so difficult to let go of the medical files from the years when I had chronic fatigue?  When I explored this, I discovered that I was afraid I might have a relapse, that the new doctor might need these files.  But this is irrational because I’ve been free of the condition for over ten years.  I know what caused it and what cured it.  I live a life based on that knowledge and am very healthy.

We draw to us what we focus on, so the best way to insure that I don’t need those files is to let go of them, to affirm that I know I am healthy and know I will not be ill again because I have changed the circumstances that created the illness in the first place.  Hanging on to old ideas like this only keeps us attached to it, and, as Chissell said, “cripples our ability to grow.”  Just as Cheryl Strayed had to let go of emotional as well as physical burdens on her journey, I have had to do that in my life and chronicled that spiritual journey in my book Awakening to the Dance: A Journey to Wholeness.  The more I have been willing to let go of what no longer serves me, even if letting go is painful, the more I am freed to find what truly serves me.

Creating A Place For What We Need Now

When I envision having cleaned out all the extra stuff in my files, I feel weightless and excited because I feel free.  I am surrounded by light and am joyful.  There is now space in my life for new activities, new friends, contemplation, and new stories to write.  This space I have cleared makes room in my life for what I need now.  It is a transition from the old to the new, and I am excited about the new things that will come into my life because I trust that what I need will come to me.

What have you let go of lately that was difficult to release?

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                                                ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles:   Clear Your Space Inside and Out, 5 Items to Remove From Your Life Right Now

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AWAKENING TO THE GUIDES IN OUR LIVES

Posted on July 18, 2012 | 3 comments

“Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”    Rumi

Who have been the major guides in your life?  What have you learned from them?

Throughout the last year and a half, as I edited and prepared Awakening to the Dance: A Journey to Wholeness, I became more aware of the many transformations that took place in my life because of the influence of other people.  Some were pleasant experiences; some were not; some were lovely and disappointing. 

I’m not sure I believe the old saying, “Time heals all wounds,” but I do believe time gives us the ability to see those old experiences in a more enlightened way.  As we grow and learn, we hopefully come to a deeper understanding of our lives and the lessons we’ve learned from our life challenges.  At this point in my life, I have a whole basket of thank yous to hand out that I would never have viewed as good things at the time they happened.


Being Thankful For the Chaos

The summer after my divorce many years ago, I studied dance with Erick Hawkins. His gentle classes were just what I needed, and I learned more than one life lesson from him.  I wrote about the first awareness, concerning an injury, in the post “Body and Soul As One.”  The second awareness occurred as a result of a comment.

Hawkins in El Penitente, 1930s

Hawkins in El Penitente, 1930s (Photo credit: Wikipedia)Hawkins.  

“That summer, Erick Hawkins was my spiritual teacher. One day, he said that in Zen one said, ‘Thank you’ when things were at their worst. The idea was profound—that we should be thankful for all experiences because we could learn from them and become more aware. Although I learned to have more respect for myself after the injury, I wasn’t yet able to see what positive things I had learned from my divorce. So I thanked Erick Hawkins for opening my heart and showing me how to have compassion and respect for myself as well as for others. I could even say, ‘Thank you for the chaos of my life,’ having faith that someday I would know what good sprang from it.”

Forgiving Ourselves and Others

Now, many years later, I can see how badly matched my ex-husband and I were, and how we were so unprepared, at that stage in our lives, to give each other what we needed in a relationship.  I no longer blame him or me for the hurtful choices we made, but I did learn how a good relationship requires the kind of communication we didn’t have.

Feeling Gratitude For What Is Good

It was many years before I really embraced Hawkins advice, but now part of my daily gratitude practice is being thankful for the difficulties that arise in my life.  I say, “Thank you for this difficulty and the valuable lesson I will learn from this.”  I have learned that nothing is meaningless and trust that the opportunity to learn lessons is everywhere.

The next relationship I was in, I chose a man who was an artist and whose spiritual life was entwined with art like mine.  I wrote about this relationship in the book as well.

“In the quiet of an early Sunday morning, I reread the letter from Neal that had arrived the day before. Embracing me with his words, he said I was very dear to him and that he found pleasure in my mind, smile, laughter, and movement. How lucky I was to have found a fairly liberated man, but a part of me was afraid to surrender and love him completely because losing him would then be unbearable. The spiritual bond that our art created between us was deep, for sometimes he thought he was me—that was the only way he knew to describe it, as if we had developed from the same root. We hurt in similar ways, we grieved in similar ways, and we celebrated in similar ways. When we danced or made love, a sheer, pure pleasure flowed through us. We could appreciate silence, share it, and not feel ill at ease. Even with hundreds of miles between us, I felt his touch.”

The relationship lasted for eight years.  At times we were just friends; at other times, we were lovers considering marriage.  There was joy, laughter, and tears, but despite our powerful connection, we parted.  Although we loved each other, he didn’t really want what I would call a relationship, and I could not live the way he wanted us to live. Despite that, the list of positive things I learned from that relationship is endless, not the least of which was that I could be loved for who I truly was.

Letting Go And Finding A Better Life

These are only two examples of the many guides who have passed through my life and taught me who I am and how to live with more joy and meaning.  When I began to write my memoir I was searching to understand why I was experiencing so many negative things.  Now I can look back and say, “It was time for me to move on and I wasn’t moving,” so the Universe made it impossible for me to stay where I was, and I am so grateful.  Without that push I might not have come to North Carolina, I might not be writing, I might not have the life I love.

What is one of the important lessons you’ve learned from a guide in your life?

I hope you will want to read more of my story and how I used my spirituality to grow and change. Awakening to the Dance: a Journey of Wholeness is now available as a paperback at Create Space and as an ebook on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  The paperback is also available on Amazon in this country and some European countries.

I will continue to the Wildness Series as I have time to interview some wonderfully wild people I know.

©2012 Georganne Spruce                              ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

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STOP AND SMELL THE FLOWERS

Posted on June 27, 2012 | 1 comment

“There is pleasure in the pathless woods; There is rapture on the lonely shore; There is society, where none intrudes, by the deep sea and music in its roar:  I love not man the less, but nature more.”   Lord Byron

I’m taking a day off from writing the blog to be with nature and myself–to nurture and balance and find new inspiration.  May you have a lovely day, and maybe take time to revisit one of my previous posts under “Recent Posts” or “Topics to Explore.” Be good to yourself today.

 

ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

 

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