Jane Elizabeth Hart, author of Spiritual Power Tools, would often say in her classes, “Love is the answer. What is the question?” She was reminding us that every day provides opportunities to love—and not just the easy ones. As her students, we would ask her, “What do I do about this person? What do I need to do to forgive and release them from my life?” At times, underneath such questions was the ulterior motive of either making the person change or wanting them out of our lives altogether! Jane Elizabeth would respond with the bottom line answer: Love. This was our direction: That no matter how much processing, forgiving and releasing we do, our action step is still the same: to love unconditionally, without judgment or hesitation. Her question became a tool in the midst of difficult interactions. We could ask our selves, “If I were coming from love, how would I act?” At Christmastime, there is an energy of love which opens our hearts to giving and receiving love. Let your Christmas intention be to share love freely, especially with those more difficult characters in your Christmas story. Love is the answer. What was the question? There is a fun song on the internet called “You Are a Pirate. The words are, “Do what you want ‘cause a pirate is free / You are a pirate / Yar-har-fiddle-de-dee / Being a pirate is alright with me / Do what you want ‘cause a pirate is free / You are a pirate” then repeat, continuous loop-style, ad nauseum. The song originally comes from a children’s television program in which the town villain disguises himself as a pirate to lure the children away from their good behavior. He makes being a pirate sound fun with his happy pirate song and promises of freedom from discipline and rules. The children, of course, enthusiastically take their places as his crew mates. Who doesn’t want freedom? On the spiritual path, one of the skills we learn is distinguishing between short-sighted egoic impulses and the true promptings of our soul. We start learning this by more closely observing the thoughts and feelings that arise and incite us to act. When our ego pulls us toward personality freedom, often it can excite us and feel good on a short-term basis. Ego pulls don’t take into consideration the needs of those around us or long-term consequences of our actions. We can liken this to the pirate from the song, and the children who happily followed along. Soul freedom leads us toward greater responsibility for what is ours to do this lifetime. It also aligns us with our higher potential. Hmm…Not as enticing at first, is it? Paramahansa Yogananda, the great Indian mystic, once said, “The mind is so powerful, it can make you taste salt and think it is sugar, and when you eat sugar, it can make you think you taste salt.” Our ego pulls are the salt that tastes sweet at first, but then we feel disappointed when we discover it wasn’t what was in our best interest. Our soul promptings taste a bit salty at first, but as we stick with them, how sweet it is! Everything flows better when we are aligned with our soul responsibilities! How much time and energy do you spend following the piratey impulsiveness of your personality self? How long does that satisfy you? The children who followed the pirate to his false “freedom” (and were subsequently captured) quickly learned that the rules they ran from actually provided structure so they could play more freely! Likewise, our intuition is there to help us learn the best structure and steps to take to free our souls from ego-captivity, allowing greater energy to flow into a more joyful expression of who we truly are! How many of you make New Year’s resolutions each year? I stopped making them years ago, when I finally felt disempowered enough to end the madness, since I wasn’t following through with them anyway! Daniel Goldstein, a research scientist, says “It’s not that your goals are impossible to reach, but that you lack the self-discipline to stick to them. It is physically possible to lose weight, it is physically possible to exercise more, but resisting temptation is hard.” He goes on to explain that we have two parts of us, our present self and our future self. Who is in control? Our present self that often wants immediate gratification! So what can we do to defend our future self that wants the positive outcomes of our goals? The wonderful news is that life is always providing us with opportunities for change right NOW—and in every NOW moment! Instead of imposing behavior alterations on ourselves at the beginning of the year, why not make a commitment to embrace the changes that arise throughout the year? Often, not exercising is not the problem, but not feeling worthy of this self-care is. Eating too much is not the problem, but that which you are avoiding in consciousness is. Let your commitment for the New Year be, “I embrace the changes I need to make throughout 2012.” Believe me, you will be aware of what those changes are as they arise! And, you will be supported, because embracing change when it comes is participating in the process, instead of controlling how it happens. Give this new resolution a try for 2012: “I let my resolutions come to me!” Happy New Year! |
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AuthorLynn Barrette, LCSW Blending psychology with spirituality, I offer tools for forgiveness, acceptance, meditation and relaxation, and positive parenting solutions. Categories
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