Positive Energy Guide

“Brother, stand the pain.
Escape the poison of your impulses.
The sky will bow to your beauty, if you do.
Learn to light the candle. Rise with the sun.
Turn away from the cave of your sleeping.
That way a thorn expands to a rose.” ~Rumi

Some of my worst moments occur when I feel forced to squander countless hours trying, for example, to download a year of financial information that some mandatory update has eaten, and telephone “help” no longer supports the platform I just repurchased. With the thousands of people in mind who are in the same position, being treated to casual cruelty, irresponsibility, and the company’s rhetoric about their lack of support for the products they inflict on the public has reduced me to shouting. It’s the helplessness.

I know this is trivial. The triviality makes it worse. Stress from major life events at least seems meaningful. Real trauma is vitally alive. It demands transformation. In contrast, dry and useless waste of precious days is like death by a thousand paper cuts. Meaningless stress deadens us and erodes societal well being.

Inability to accept the mundane increases my pain. Aiming for self mastery or contribution offer a sense of choice about some part of the experience, adding some meaning. When I am willing and able to practice this it reduces my distress.

One of my spiritual goals is to be able to remain in my heart—or at least avoid spiking my cortisol—in frustrating, trivial circumstances. It helps me to take a strong stand for everyone who may have to deal with the same thing. I seek to enroll anyone who may be able to make a difference in the way that company does business, asking them to help reduce meaningless planetary stress by advocating positive change during meetings, and by notifying policy makers. Breath practices help me too. 

We may be unable to control circumstances, but we can at least gain some influence over our responses to them.

When we do not participate in the ways that ARE possible, we suffer more.

Looping back into our several-post topic of spirituality and suffering:

When we feel that God will cause us suffering, I think we must ask ourselves What we take God to be. (Please substitute your own word or concept if you don’t like the G-word.)

When we experience ourselves as separate from God, we can be messed with by God. When we feel we are an integral part of God, like a cell within the whole of the body, we play our part. We are impacted by the whole but it is not doing anything TO us; we are part of it.

Someone once said to the spiritual leader, Hazrat Inayat Khan, “I don’t believe in God.”

Inayat Khan replied, “You haven’t experienced God. How can you believe in something if you have not experienced it? Wait until you have some experience and then believe.”

Inayat Khan also said that god is a vibration, and that we create that vibration. We bring it forth from within us as an ideal, and train our energy to resonate with that ideal, making it real by bringing it through us into the world.

No matter what we believe or what we call it, we can practice bringing love into the world. It’s not easy, but it is inherently worthwhile.

Working with love and forgiveness AS ENERGIES invites expanded and redemptive experience. Working through the mind is less efficient. We need to FEEL it. When we are willing to love ourselves during our moments of distress, and to forgive ourselves for our wounds, we move toward happiness that transcends circumstances and conditions.

What do YOU resist, and how does this resistance ultimately increase your distress?

Can you identify some way to create a sense of choice or freedom within your experience?

“Because true belonging only happens when we present
our authentic, imperfect selves to the world,our sense of belonging
can never be greater than our level of self-acceptance.” ~ Brené Brown

Exposure to energies that promote rapid spiritual growth almost inevitably brings us up against the that prevent us from sustaining those energies within ourselves. When we are passionate about transformation, we view this as an opportunity to stretch ourselves with respect to these limitations. We are, however, rarely of one mind about it. When the going becomes painful, we are apt to view these challenges as an affront. Here we are, doing our best to be all that we can be, and it feels like we’re being tested or tormented, let alone receiving support.

One of my readers brought up what she aptly calls “the universal 2-by-4.” I would like to speak in part to those who have experienced sudden awakenings and transformational life experiences which they were not actively courting. My reader was brave and authentic enough to admit that she felt resentment toward God after having such extreme experiences.

I understand. In the face of this kind of experience it is easy to feel resistant to growth, fear of more pain, angry, and stuck.

About twenty years ago I went through an episode of acute spiritual agony. I was mad at God. Even if one kills one’s self, I reasoned, one could not escape suffering because it is nearly impossible to step off the Wheel of death and rebirth. I did not recall choosing to participate, maybe back at the beginning of being a distinct, individual soul, or agreeing to the intensity of the challenges. I resented that so much learning comes through distress. Why not through love?

Whatever we believe and however we couch it, intense suffering can bring up rage. On the bright side, rage can assist with transformation. It focuses a huge amount of energy. Rage itself is life-affirming. We do need to use this force toward positive ends.

While I do not hold with rigid belief, I do believe that the urge to grow is part of our nature. We experience fulfillment through growth. We experience fulfillment by cultivating our hearts, and meaning through involvement with The Greater Whole.

The more we feel separate from God, others, the Universe, etc, the more we suffer. When we feel at One with It, we feel better and are more likely to experience meaning. If we cannot feel it now, we can aim to remain open.

Life is what it is and does what it does. We want to think it could be “fair.” We attempt to apply logic, to hold life to human standards of what should and should not happen. These standards were usually taught to us as children. Sometimes we regress when we cannot understand Life with our minds.

Apparently The One Being That embraces Everything does not maintain our biases against suffering and death. Much that we can experience directly, through our hearts, cannot be rationalized or explained. This includes the paradox of Divine Compassion.

Life is a big fat mystery. It full of paradox and both-ands. It does not and will not conform to our expectations. When we resist, we hurt more. I can understand resenting that.

The more I do practices that increase my ability to remain in my heart the more I experience myself as participating instead of feeling done-to.

How do YOU feel about using difficult circumstances to grow?

What brings you a sense of having a choice?

To progress in our Inner Work, we need to be willing to observe
our resistance to reality, our attachment to our self-image,
and our fear. (Understanding the Enneagram)

This narrative follows and completes my story about grappling with the enigma of suffering:

Working in tandem with and being close friends with a powerful a clairvoyant, clairaudient healer I learned a great deal about energy. Unfortunately, when I began to confront him about various breaches of ethics, he did not address them and we parted ways. We had come to count on one another’s assistance in clearing our energy if we became too compromised to scan ourselves. Doing advanced energy healing without this safety net made me hypersensitive to energy.

Through Qi Gong, I was learning how to protect myself from energy that did not belong with me. At the same time, I was becoming even more sensitive, outstripping my ability to keep myself safe. Fortunately, ongoing work with several advanced healers and the accumulated results of my Inner Work were reaching critical mass. I learned how to cultivate positive energies to assist me both in staying clear and in clearing myself if I became compromised. Now I was able to strengthen my energy fields, effectively ground myself, and manage external energies. I quit having creepy energy experiences.

Before I began this blog, I wrote what would have been a long book. I intended to reach out to people who felt isolated owing to unusual energy experiences. I wrote autobiographically, to model the skills and attitudes I was developing in order to stay balanced and clear while encountering all manner of bizarre and unnerving energy phenomena.

I imagined people passing my book along to friends who had become isolated or felt crazy dealing with paranormal phenomena without support. After all my work I realized that publishing it might make me the go-to person not only for intuitives, but for those who were mentally unstable or ill. It is not my life work to serve in that particular front-line trench.

At this point I pursued and later co-taught some Gurdjieff-based spiritual work. It was very practical, emphasizing Inner Work rather than God. It felt good to engage in transformative work without worrying about belief. I withdrew when one of the main proponents of that work, a powerful narcissist, began to mess with my energy. He had asked me to co-author a book and I had declined.

Several years ago I was drawn to meet a spiritual teacher I had seen briefly when I was twenty. To my shock, I realized quickly and unequivocally that he was my Teacher. I had long before given up even the remotest desire for a spiritual Teacher. The several teachers I initially worked with were like stepping stones, without a deep inner link, full conviction, or any sense of permanence. My Teacher was not looking for students. I had to assert myself in a spiritually classic manner to forge a real connection. (How I managed that is a different story.)

Now I am extremely fortunate to have an absolutely genuine, astonishingly congruent Teacher. Treating each person as unique, he suggests specific spiritual practices to address distress and imbalance that stand in the way of experiencing spiritual Unity.

I used to fear that God or life would torment me in this way or that to make me grow. At first I formulated and reformulated several questions to my Teacher, seeking answers to make sense of suffering. His responses were the only things he has ever said that to me that didn’t quite strike home. They never in the slightest rubbed me the wrong way—which is a minor miracle. Neither did they satisfy.

Since then my experience has changed. It’s as if I absorbed the question into my growth, and don’t find myself circling in that particular eddy. Understanding encompasses more than the mind. Some questions are uprooted only through direct experience. My questions about suffering were formulated from a perspective that has begun to dissolve. It is not that I don’t have moments of fear, distress or overwhelm with the intensity of life. But such moments have less purchase on me. They have begun to dissolve into the Whole as I experience greater unity with Life.

Who do you know who accepts life as it is—including the trauma and atrocities—yet is able to remain genuinely positive?

What do YOU do to cultivate positive energy?

When it comes to learning to manage energy, let alone coming to grips with suffering, there isn’t a quick fix. I find myself drawn to share some personal background before proceeding with other commentary. This will take two posts:

In my twenties and for eleven years, I was intensively involved with a different branch of the mystical school with which I am now linked. A leader’s serious abuse of power caused me to leave that school. Oddly, an independent teacher from a path I had never heard of sent a student to find me. This was before internet and occurred totally through Guidance. This teacher did fairly extreme (and fascinating) work with me for about seven months. When our stint came to completion, I became involved with a different spiritual group for seven years.

That group does a powerful fire ritual during which participants throw something they want to renounce into the fire. They caution that this act can put in motion difficult processes necessary to bringing about renunciation. Determined to learn through joy rather than suffering, I threw “learning through suffering” into that fire. Whether or not I was fully in belief, I thought I’d give it a sincere try. My next seven years were even more difficult than the previous. I asked experienced members of the group how to come to grips with suffering. Few engaged my questions. No one shared anything useful, just platitudes or party lines.

During a spiritual camp I had an episode of agony, through which I encountered rage with God. I have heard it said, and agree, that engaging with God in rage maintains a relationship and is cathartic—which creates more possibility than does withdrawing. I did not find it loving to set up Creation so we learn through suffering. I wanted OUT. For those difficult hours I felt acutely that even suicide was futile because one would simply find oneself back on the Wheel of Life, probably in less salutary conditions. I let these feelings arise but did not dwell on them later.

For three years I led a committed small group. We met in secret to evade attendance by superficial persons who permeated the local chapter of the larger group. A significant trauma dismantled this group.

During this period I became involved with a man who began to use spiritual rhetoric in an attempt to force me to caretake him. When the title of a book called, “God Talk and Domination” jumped out at me in a book store, what he was doing suddenly became clear. I practically developed an allergy to spiritual talk.

At this point I was feeling rather defensive toward God. I avoided spiritual groups for more than a decade. I had withdrawn from belief. Sometimes I felt that I had lost faith, and yet I could sense it hiding, way down deep and private. This faith was not “IN anything.” It stands like a spinning top that rights itself if pushed over. Paradoxically, this faith—for lack of a better word—was completely hidden beneath a wry unwillingness to fake anything or take anything ‘on faith.’ I came to sense that real faith could not be shattered (it was like water), or lost (it was part of me), or influenced by conditions and circumstances (it did not stand upon them). This was not faith that something or someone would somehow save me, but a kind of internal compass that drew me in a wholesome direction.

I became flexible enough to support people in their spiritual processes, no matter what belief systems they engaged.

When I carefully took stock, I realized that in dismissing belief systems and spiritual practices because I did not fully buy in to groups’ dynamics, politics and rhetoric, I had a deficit of positive energy. Without intentionally bringing in positive energy, I was being exposed to the “stuff” body therapy clients were releasing. These energies were creating unpleasant experiences—whether or not I “believed in” them.

“The distress I am feeling is the engine that drives me forward.” RR

Have you ever been angry with God, or do you reject whatever “God” might be because the enigma of suffering is confounding?

What does “faith” mean to you? Can you locate faith as a resonance or vibration instead of a concept or belief?

It is challenging to approach the topic of feeling that God or the Universe is causing us suffering. I don’t want to be glib about this, or to dodge it because it is so difficult to write about without rhetoric, platitudes, or too much to believe. I find myself with a number of different things to say about this topic, in different contexts. I truly hope you find my reflections useful.

Much of the suffering we go through through is due to attachment, reactivity, old wounds, rigid biases about what “should be,” and so forth. It is useful to differentiate between:

• Distress that has been there all along, now surfacing into awareness (an opportunity for greater personal freedom)
• Distress sourced to mistaken opinions and beliefs about live (an opportunity for positive disillusionment)
• Distress that might be referred to as karmic, related to unavoidable life events (long term lessons that require integration over years)
• Reactivity and resistance because we don’t like the way things are (calls for developing greater acceptance of Life)
• Pain caused by lower-self resistance to the higher-self bringing in more light/awareness (ugh. Good luck, fellow Travelers! We’re in an unprecedented planetary growth spurt and the going is intense!)

The latter can be viewed as suffering that is brought about by spiritual pursuit. It hurts, yet at least when we incur suffering in pursuit of something of real value, it has inherent meaning.

This type of distress, when it is real, is an indication of achievement. We have managed to make a significant enough change in our energies that it is invoking internal resistance. It IS possible to regress in our trajectory of growth. An established habit of intentionally selecting the Highest Possible Option in the moment serves well during this kind of juncture, as does access to genuine Guidance.

If we are not on board with the changes we are going through, and experience no sense of choice, our distress is exacerbated.

We may also suffer when we are calling out for help and do not receive it. Sometimes we need to formulate ourselves through grappling with a particular challenge over time, alone. This is especially painful when we do not understand the purpose and direction of our growth, and feel we have not chosen this course.

It is possible to have chosen a course unwittingly. When we pray for greater understanding and compassion, for example, we may have experiences by which we learn them. How else are we to fully comprehend if not through direct experience?

When we are suffering, it is easy to feel uncomfortable or even annoyed by people who lack sufficient understanding to be in rapport with us. Trying to manage relating to people who don’t ‘get it’ when we hurt is emotionally frustrating. We may protect ourselves from disappointment, frustration, or shame by withdrawing from superficial or hyper-positive people, by whom we may be judged. It’s okay to crawl under a rock for repairs.

When I share positive experiences, values, directions to focus on, and highly positive experiences, I feel concerned about inadvertently pushing buttons for those of you who are in pain. (I’m trying to get over that.) Being positive can be scary because it can alienate people for various reasons. Those of you who know me know that I am all about wholeness. I have limited patience for people who adopt an external attitude that appears positive without doing their Inner Work—particularly if they regurgitate memorized platitudes when I am in distress.

The most positive and integrated people I know can and do stand fully in rapport with those who have been shattered by atrocities. They do not act “nice,” sugar-coat anything, or withdraw from distress, their own, or that of others.

Do you differentiate between different types of distress?

If so, how does that serve you?

We learn from experience. Some experiences take years to integrate. Quality guidance quickens our ability to integrate them. Coming to grips with and discovering—or creating—value from any kind of trauma often requires additional life experience. We re-chew and digest what has happened, while learning thorough other life events that gradually put them into perspective.

The parts of myself that I feel the best about, which ultimately bring me the most joy, developed by working to integrate difficult or painful experiences.

If we cannot yet understand the meaning, value, or purpose of our experience, this does not therefore mean that our experience has no purpose or value.

It is an error to impose a belief system on others, telling them that this or that is the reason or purpose of their experience. We need to come to it on our own. Sometimes we can offer our own understanding and experience to others, and if it fits for them, it helps to develop valuable perspective.

I don’t believe in making up some kind of meaning like a platitude. Meaning surfaces from the heart, through assimilating direct experience.

Whether the oyster is happy to have built a pearl, or whether the oyster feels resentful about having been invaded by sand in the first place, we do not know. In any case, it is often beneficial to examine our relationship to resistance.

It is wise to distinguish between unhealthy resistance and the kind of hesitancy that arises when something is not right for us. The later may come from instinct or internal guidance. This process is similar to telling the difference between an unhealthy food craving and the feeling we get when our body is pulling for something like salad or protein. The sensations are different. It is an advantage to learn to discern when something really doesn’t feel right for us, and notice how this differs from resistance to wholesome things that do serve us. We do this through the function of Sensing. Thinking will become circular and confusing.

For the most part, resistance makes life more difficult. Initially, as we are forming a distinct sense of self—ideally as a teenager with our parents—resistance helps us to identify who we are in contradistinction to others. It can assist in learning not go along with things that do not serve us, like saying “no” to an offer to take drugs.

When we resist what life itself throws our way, resistance has little to offer. It almost always prolongs pain and difficulty. Yes, resistance can be a crude source of power like tenacity, but as we heal we find we can hang in there or say “no” without perceiving something as “other” and reacting against it.

Even if we were drowning, certain there was no way to save ourselves, it would be of benefit to focus on love or spirit during these last moments, or to become curious about the process of Transition. Kicking and tensing up increase distress. Acceptance cannot be forced. We arrive at acceptance through due process. Almost all of us can improve our experience by learning to relax non-useful resistance.

The above is hard to do when we’re afraid of being hurt. I’ll address other aspects of this in the next five posts.

When I can create peace within my own body by working with my energetics, I become less reactive and resistant to circumstances. I have more choices. A mundane example: When someone in a car drives behind and pesters me, if I can practice staying in my body and breathing into my abdomen or heart, and focus on my experience, I can keep from letting the other driver disturb me. This is very hard for me since I’m so sensitive to energy. If I can achieve peace even for a few moments, I gain a feeling of freedom rather than frustration and anger. More choices show up when I aim for inner peace.

Peace gives us more power. And peace gives us the space to use that power with discernment.

When consumed by resentment and frustration, I am unable to access the power to notice my available choices. Then I might feel victimized by circumstances. If I dissipate my energy in anger or resentment I am too busy to discern exactly how I might optimize my experience, to whatever extent it is possible.

It takes a lot more time to cultivate our thoughts, feelings and insights around major life experiences, to become able to accept What Is enough to create peace. But, we really have nothing better to do. Thrashing around makes things worse. There is nothing wrong with thrashing, but it makes life still harder.

We do have free will. We do not HAVE to develop. Growing to develop greater mastery helps us to optimize experience and improves our lives.

What do YOU resist?

How does your resistance bias the way you experience related events?

What is going on inside when you resist positive integration?

We lay groundwork for energy mastery and spiritual states through ‘hands-on’ practice, developing focus, intention, and receptive awareness. Exposure to people who are spiritually advanced, however, is the most direct way to cultivate spiritual energy.

At the in-depth meditation and spiritual dance retreat I attended in January, I had the inestimable opportunity to sit right close to my Teacher throughout the meditations.

On the fifth day I became keenly aware of the energy coming into his crown chakra, connecting him with his own teachers and their teachers, informing his energy and guidance. In this group, direct connection is encouraged, with all illuminated Beings and with one’s Teachers.

While I have known about this energy link for years, I had acted as if carrying it myself was an ideal or an abstraction. I liked the idea and feel of it, but didn’t have a solid grasp of just how to tap in to that myself. Nor did I exert concentrated or ongoing efforts in that direction. I considered being established in that energy something to grow into eventually. This horizon continued to recede without my becoming any younger. So I set about to realize the link to a greater extent.

Sitting beside my Teacher being actively curious about that link was somewhat unsettling. The boundaries seemed complex. I opened to him to totally attune to his energy, directing my attention to feel the energy above his head. It did not feel right to seek to enter that stream of energy directly. I wanted to avoid being invasive or distracting. I wanted to learn to run that energy myself; to connect with the same sources. I noticed my Teacher feel me as I touched his energy with my mind. A stab of concern ran through me. I relaxed a small part of me that wanted to take or to have, knowing that attachment would destroy what I was looking to create. My intentions were respectful and this pursuit was honorable.

Several minutes later we circled up for the next practice session. My Teacher said to the group, “As they say, these states can’t be taught— they must be caught.” While I was reeling, realizing that we was addressing what I had just done, he said else something to the effect that those who are open to it and ready for it ‘catch’ the transmission of energy.

“In the Krishna story,” he concluded, “this is referred to as ‘stealing butter.’ Baby Krishna had a tendency to steal butter.”

This term should not be interpreted to construe that stealing energy is okay. My Qi Gong teacher used to suggest copying it. Instead of trying to use him as a source or to steal the energy he was running, he suggested using ‘copy and paste’ and learning to match it.

Trying to learn by listening to words alone can generate assumptions about what an unknown experience might be like. Preconceptions interfere with actually experiencing. We may miss an important experience altogether, seeking things that match our concepts.

Other than happening upon them by grace or chance, we gain access to spiritual states by seeing, feeling, sensing, and intuiting them as they are modeled by someone who has established them within their energy systems.

We grow quickly by learning to carry our energy the way advanced teachers do when they practice, by learning to match their vibration.

Spiritual and martial arts traditions often have a lineage or a line of teachers going back through time, through which aspirants can connect with the energy of those who have mastered advanced states. We can attune to the energy of developed Beings by exposing ourselves to their lives and hearts through concentration and study. Person-to-person contact is more direct.

Have you ever tried to intentionally reproduce a certain kind of energy?

What happened?

What are the implications of being able to intentionally generate or connect with positive energy?

I experience “subtext” (people’s unvoiced, private thought) like being in a room with a radio station playing in the background. Some of people can tune that input out, while others find it intrusive.

How we response to subtext can depend on which ‘station’ is playing, and on our state at that moment in time. Our ability to tune things out depends in part on our ability to concentrate. The better we are able to concentrate, the more choice we have about what to let in and what to tune out.

When someone is emotionally important to me I am more attentively tuned to them, so their subtext stands out more. Subtext can indicate that a sensitive topic has arisen, and the person is readying to address it. This attracts my attention. When I am entirely comfortable and trust the person not to withhold communication, I find it easy to wait for what they might bring forth. When I feel uncertain or shut out, I may find myself anticipating with discomfort communication that is not simply being shared.

As I consider intuitive communication I find myself wanting to share several stories from a recent meditation and spiritual dance retreat.

My spiritual Teacher communicates through intentional “text” (unvoiced yet direct communication). He broadcasts his intentions, and any energy he decides to share, with lucid congruence between energy, body, speech, and emotion.

During practice sessions he models different inner states by palpably producing their energy. He also broadcasts intention when demonstrating clear boundaries. If he were, for example, walking along and did not wish to be disturbed, even an insensitive clod would find it daunting to interrupt him. A friend described this: “It’s as if he has a huge ‘do not disturb’ sign on his back.”

During lunch at the retreat, he and I were sitting at the same table. A young man across from us was saying that he could meditate and work, but could not exercise, because his emotions would come up. The rest of this story is is embarrassing, but worth sharing. I was very tired at the time, and felt like I was going to get drawn in and start to explain how important it is to be in touch with one’s feelings. Having finished eating, I wanted to get up and go, but I did not want to be rude.

“I’m probably the wrong person to say that to,” I told him, “since I bring people’s buried emotions.” Missing my implication, he began to explain his situation in detail. I wasn’t sure how to get out of this without shutting him down.

My Teacher had one bite left on his plate. I thought, I’ll just wait until he’s done and get up when he does. A moment later he stood up as if to leave. As I in turn stood up, he immediately took his seat once again. The food was still on his plate. I hope I didn’t gape. As I scuttled off with my plate, I saw him look to the young man saying, “Have you considered some form of movement therapy?”

He had made it so simple. I was struck by his economy of words, grasp of the situation, and practical compassion.

I said to him later, “Thank you for helping me escape at lunch.”

He said, “So you’re one of those people who find it hard to turn away when people need too much from you?”

“Yes. I handle it pretty well at work, but the boundaries can be confusing in social situations.”

We had a kind-of repeat the next night. I was exhausted during the evening program and wanted to leave, but did not want to offend the speaker. When I glanced in his direction my Teacher stood up as if to move toward the door, then sat back down. I left.

Now it’s up to me to remember and apply this Zen lesson in all appropriate circumstances, to be fully present or take body with me wherever I’m thinking about going!

It is stimulating to be in situations in which my own text and subtext are as clearly consequential as direct speech.

I suspect that what we do not say aloud is always of consequence. Usually it’s just less obvious.

Do YOU remember being in circumstances in which someone was apparently aware of whatever you were thinking?

What was that like for you?

Contemplate this statement: “Personality is a vehicle for development of the soul.” (source unknown)

We use our dilemmas, quandaries, incapacities, dramas, faults, power struggles, and areas of blindness right alongside our strength, beauty, positive will, aspirations, compassion, creativity, and generosity. These attributes bring one another into focus and develop awareness. Our difficulties hone, exercise, and strengthen positive motivation, bringing us closer and closer to accepting the realities of life as it is.

Through full engagement we gradually come to an unconditional enough acceptance of Life to truly Love.

When we are smart, we use our suffering wisely; to build consciousness, consolidate insight, and develop comprehensive values.

I get to say these things because I walk the walk. I had an intense day yesterday, the dregs of old wounds active, painfully on the brink of a huge energy shift. It was physically and emotionally painful. Yet I did the Work I needed to do, so today I am more alive and inspired than I’ve been in a few months. My experience felt like some sort of initiation, and my energy systems are different. I could have wasted that intensity and cast myself into a lingering unpleasant condition by failing to call forth my better values to make healthy choices.

Our potential experience of divine perfection coexists with our humanity. It does not obliterate our humanity. In other words, we become able to experience divine perfection right alongside being flawed and having foibles. The one does not interrupt the other.

Every stage of human or spiritual development confers a different set of challenges.

As we progress spiritually we gain greater and greater self mastery. This does not mean that we cease to have challenges. If you’ve ever used sandpaper to make wood smooth, you will have noticed that once your surface is as smooth as you can get it, the next finer grit initially scratches it up and makes much more dust. The end product becomes smoother, subtler, and more refined. The same holds true doing Inner Work. As we refine ourselves we initially find more to do. We may seem like a mess, yet we are improving through the process.

Like wood, we also have knots. Our characters, natures, and egos have hard patches that don’t sand well. We may require a file. Other people and difficult life circumstances are required to address our knots. Certain people and circumstances can be like files. It is important not to feel that we are flawed because we have knots.

Powerful people usually have intense energy and personalities. Some lives and purposes require ego strength to manage their challenges.

Having a difficult personality can feel like a permanent flaw. When we can view ourselves with an understanding of what we need to learn and the burdens we carry for soul purposes, we see why we require strength.

Challenges also increase as does our strength. I remember complaining to my spiritual teacher in my twenties, saying, “The stronger my back gets the more they heap upon it!” He laughed and said, “Well then the load remains about the same.”

A weak personality can be just as much or even more of a hinderance as a powerful one. Our challenges may be less obvious to others, and our flaws may be harder to put a finger on. Weakness shows up less dramatically than unrefined power. Errors of omission cause different problems than the errors that we enact boldly on the stage of life.

My eighth grade choir teacher used to say, “If you’re going to make a mistake, make a loud one!” Similarly, the spiritual teacher Meher Baba said that when we make mistakes whole-heartedly we learn from them effectively and are less likely to repeat them. Bringing ourselves fully into what we are doing is practically always the Highest Option. When it is not, we probably need to do something else.

What are YOUR myths about spiritual growth?

How do you hold yourself back from full self expression?

Working with a spiritual teacher several decades ago, I remember getting really scared. I was thinking: “If I REALLY open my heart I will have to give everything to the poor and live like Mother Teresa.”

That was my concept about spirituality.

A dear client felt afraid to take her next step in personal and spiritual development. As we looked into this fear, she formulated its underpinning as something like this: “If I become perfect, I will have to give up getting angry, and therefore will have to do what my husband wants me to do and give up the control I feel through my resistance.”

Most of us fear transformation. Faced with the possibility of profound change, we often have an underlying, anxious construct like: “If I become like _____ I will have to _____, and therefore ______.”

Such constructs and resulting predicaments stem from unexamined assumptions, driven by fear. Either/or thinking often plays a part. The initial premise is usually an inaccurate assessment, which leads to an unrealistic extrapolation about a frightening and fictional future.

Noticing and investigating rhetoric or propaganda from our less-developed inner sectors is essential to successful personal and spiritual development.

Here is a line of inquiry for investigating fears and conflicts about inner growth:

• What are you actually afraid of?
• Is this fear warranted?
• How does this fear indicate a conflict of values between different parts of yourself?
• What part or value is most important to your life satisfaction?
• Can you intentionally choose your most important value and go with it?
• What inner resources would serve you in doing so?

Let’s walk this through with the fear I began with:
What are you actually afraid of? I was afraid that I would be compelled to sacrifice myself entirely in order to have spiritual validity.

Is this fear warranted? No. In actual fact, my issue has been with over-giving; too much sacrifice. My spiritual path has actually helped me to give in healthier ways.

How does this fear indicate a conflict of values between different parts of yourself? Part of me wants to give everything, while part of me is survival-oriented and selfish.

What part or value is most important to your life satisfaction? Balance and healthy adjustment are more important to me than either sacrifice or selfishness.

Can you intentionally choose your most important value and go with it? Yes, and I have been practicing. When I begin to feel too self-sacrificing or too selfish, I make adjustments.

What inner resources would serve you in doing so? I understand that very life time has different requirements for balance, and that the things that serve my soul bring about real happiness.

When we become fully loyal to our most comprehensive values, we resolve mental conflict and can use our values to navigate life challenges.

A few more thoughts about scaring ourselves with ideas about growth:

• States of awareness that we move toward in the process of healthy development are rarely the way we imagine them from within our current limitations.
• We usually enter new states having developed the foundations that support them.
• A new state may require adjustment, but after adjusting we feel better than we did before.
• We usually develop new stages of awareness gradually, and must work to stabilize them so we do not regress. This process is like adding drops into a bucket of a waterwheel, which begins to move slowly once its weight hits critical mass. If we do not keep adding water it may come to a stop.

Spiritual work consists largely of learning to be able to accept and tolerate WHAT IS. This includes ourselves! We are not attempting to transcend our humanity, but to integrate it within the Whole.

Do YOU ever scare yourself about doing the things that are most important to you?

If so, how do you construct or deconstruct your rhetoric about it?