Tag Archives: Going Deeper

AWAKENING TO A FULL LIFE

Posted on May 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

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

Wamboldtopia

Wamboldtopia

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

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

A Full Life Is Based On Spiritual Values

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

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

A Full Life Includes Love

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

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We Must Fill Our Own Lives

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

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

Good Change Requires a Shift in Thinking

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

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

We Can Learn From Positive and Negative Experiences

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

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

© 2013 Georganne Spruce                                                                 ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

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

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AWAKENING TO BEFRIEND OURSELVES

Posted on May 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

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

 workshop 011

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

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

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

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

Being More Conscious of Intuition

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

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

Loving Ourselves to Make Good Choices

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

Going Deeper to Awaken

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

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

Eat, Pray, Love

Eat, Pray, Love (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Experiencing Friendship With Yourself

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

Our best friend

Empowering Ourselves On Our Spiritual Journey

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

© 2013 Georganne Spruce                                                         ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

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

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AWAKENING TO OUR JOY WITHIN

Posted on January 23, 2013 | 1 Comment

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

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

External events Create Joy

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

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

A man and a woman performing a modern dance.

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

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

Internal Joy

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

Following Our Passion Creates Inner Joy

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

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

Passion flower

Passion flower (Photo credit: @Doug88888)

Creating Temporary Joy

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

Creating Joy At Our Core

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

The Joy of Acceptance

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

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

What is the source of your joy today?

© 2013 Georganne Spruce

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

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AWAKENING TO SHADOW’S TREASURE

Posted on November 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

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

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

Finding Treasure in the Darkness

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

Scorpio, the Transformer

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

Mercury Encourages Reevaluation

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

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

Becoming Conscious of  Shadow Issues

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

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

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

We Must Release Fear To Become Conscious

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

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

After the Darkness Comes the Light

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

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

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

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                                     ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

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

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AWAKENING TO SEE OURSELVES HONESTLY

Posted on September 26, 2012 | Leave a comment

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

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

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

We Must Look At Ourselves Honestly in Order to Grow

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

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

It Takes Courage to Make Changes

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

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

Love All of Who You Are

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

Nurture the Child Within

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

Change Can Bring a New and Better Life

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

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

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

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                                ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

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AWAKENING FROM THE HEART

Posted on August 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

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

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

Dreaming From Outside

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

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

The Value of Going Deeper

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

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

Creating from the Heart

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

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

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

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                                            ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

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

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DANCING WITH OUR IMPERFECTIONS

Posted on May 30, 2012 | 1 Comment

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

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

The Illness of Perfection

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

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

Living From the Soul Level

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

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

Blocks to Going Deeper

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

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

 Living from Our Spiritual Core

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

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

© 2012 Georganne Spruce                                                   ZQT4PQ5ZN7F5

Related Articles:

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

The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning

The Origins of Perfection

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

Posted on May 9, 2012 | 2 Comments

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

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

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

Fear of Letting go of Pain

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

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

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

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

“What if being healthy makes you more creative?”

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

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

Why We Won’t Let Go

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

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

Becoming Conscious of Our Shadow

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

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

All Spiritual Healing Requires the Journey Inward

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

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

What pain have you healed recently? Please comment.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce

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

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AWAKENING TO THE ONENESS WITHIN

Posted on April 18, 2012 | 3 Comments

“The moment this love comes to rest in me, 

many beings in one being.

In one wheat grain a thousand sheaf stacks.

Inside the needle’s eye a turning night of stars.”  Rumi

Do you often take the time to go within? Or do you stay stuck on the personality level serving ego’s needs? Who are you really?

I have always loved the cool quiet of evening. Perhaps it partly comes from growing up in a hot, humid climate trying to sleep without air conditioning. Snuggling into the coolness takes me to a peaceful place within, and, there, something deep within opens up. My muse may show up wandering through my mind with a new poem, or an insight about the day’s events may appear.  And at some point, a loving energy joins my reflections and I am One with All, just as Rumi describes in his quote.

Going Beyond Personality to Oneness

This place within is beyond personality; it is at the soul level. When we are at the soul level we are one with Spirit and we are one with all beings, “many beings in one being.” But how do we get there? In a world so focused on materialism and valuing what is external, how do we move into the deeper level?

In some ways, it just seems easier to not change. Change is scary.  If we change, we may lose what we perceive as the security of friends, family, or work. But this security is an illusion if we only live from the level of the personality, for “The truth of who you are is there within you.  Right now….It is not a state that you can ‘buy’ with obedience to any of the countless religious dogmas….” It is “through the vehicle of the original vision of some of those avenues, or through a path one blazes through the uncharted jungles of one’s own consciousness, that Oneness is experienced.” (Oneness, Rasha, page 321)

Releasing Our Attachments to External Definitions

At an earlier stage in my life, I defined myself mainly as a dancer. When I decided to move into another phase of my life, I realized I had become extremely attached to this definition.  I had to release it and look deeper for my real self. Many things helped: meditation, learning that controlling my thoughts would control my emotions, choosing to focus on the positive in life, learning to release my fear, and learning to let go of my attachment to daily drama.  I also explored psychology, especially Jungian psychology, trying to learn more about the way my mind and ego functioned.

Little by little, I stripped away the assumptions I had made and the ones others had made about me.  I began to ask the question: Who do I want to be? Eventually, I understood that I wanted to be a person empowered from within, so that the externals in my life could change without affecting who I really was. I think it helped that my life had always been pretty simple because I had never made enough money to spend excessively, and I grew up in a family where things were not the priority, people were.

 Clearing Out What No Longer Serves You

In order to go inward and follow the soul’s journey, we must carve out that alone time for our lives. We must learn to love that time. At first it may seem lonely not to be with people as much, especially for extroverts who gain energy from being with others, but quiet time is essential.  In that quiet, be honest with yourself. What comes up? If you don’t like what you see about yourself at the personality level, clean it up. Just like cleaning the closet, sort out what no longer serves your highest good. Throw away the masks and disguises. Gradually, expose who you really are to the world. Praise yourself every time you overcome your fear and take another step toward living from a deeper level. Find new friends and spiritual groups that are searchers like you.

Don’t expect everyone to like it, but know that having the integrity to be who you really are will eventually take you to that place of Oneness where the Universe is your home and all beings a part of you. The journey may not be easy, but through it, you will discover a love you never dreamed possible. How will you begin today?

If you would like to learn more about my spiritual journey, you may purchase my spiritual memoir, Awakening to the Dance: A Journey to Wholeness, as an EBook at Amazon or Barnes and Noble. You may also read sample pages for free at these sites. It will be available in paperback in a couple of weeks. I’ll post on the blog when it’s ready.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce

Related Articles:  Oneness (flash movie), Loss and Loneliness During A Spiritual Awakening, SanJAska: Your Work Has Only Begun

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AWAKENING TO DEEPER FRIENDSHIPS

Posted on April 4, 2012 | 7 Comments

“Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.”  Khalil Gibran

What is the most important thing you have to give others? Are your friends people who support the best or worst in you?  What do you share that makes a friendship meaningful?

There have been times in my life when I have had friends with whom I shared only superficial interests because they were not people who had an interest in anything deeper.  Any time I would start a conversation about the underlying meaning in a situation they would make a joke about it or ask me why I had to bring up that unpleasant stuff.  Not surprisingly, as time passed we drifted away from one another, looking for others who shared our values.

Connecting With Friends

However, for most of my life, I have often been blessed by having friends who share my values.  While we have fun and enjoy sharing superficial experiences, what makes our connection meaningful is that we have the need to go deeper, to understand the spiritual and psychological aspects of life.  We love to discuss books and movies and art.  We share the ups and downs of our lives.  We share a love of nature.  We listen deeply and speak from the heart.

Being a good friend requires the ability to give and receive.  What we need to give is often obvious.  A friend recovering from surgery needs us to run errands or cook food.  A friend going through a divorce needs us to listen and empathize with her feelings.  An elder needs help with yard work.  These are all tangible and important ways to help, but what is one of the greatest gifts we can give a friend?

Helping Others See the Good in Themselves

Disraeli once said, “The greatest good you can do for another is not just share your riches, but reveal to them their own.”  As a teacher, my most joyous moments were when I could help a student see how talented he was, or accept that his ideas were insightful, or develop the confidence to tackle a difficult problem or assignment.  This kind of caring is a gift that lasts forever, for it changes the other person’s belief about their own capabilities.

Helping another person to see her own inner riches empowers that person.  This is a huge gift—to help another see they are more loving, beautiful, caring, strong, insightful, sensible than they realized.  Deep friendships are about opening doors as well as listening with love. Over the last few years as I wrote my spiritual memoir, the support of my friends has been invaluable.  When I doubted my ability to write, they would point out a passage that really moved them.  They inspired me with their own stories of overcoming fears and obstacles.  They cheered me when I found the courage to overcome my fears and move ahead.

The Gift of Being a Loving Mirror for Our Friends

But there is another side to friendship too.  In order to open a door or allow our friend to open that door to areas we may not find comfortable, requires trust.  When we share our deeper feelings through time and they are received with love and acceptance, not judgment, we learn to trust that friend wants what is best for us.  It is easier then to approach subjects that are not particularly comfortable.

At a point in my life when I was having many challenges in my work, I noticed that it seemed people were avoiding me.  Puzzled by this, I asked a close and trusted friend to please tell me what she thought was happening.  She began by reminding me that she loved me, then she gently explained that I was very reactive and defensive, and often snapped at people for what appeared to be no reason.  I could feel my face turn red with embarrassment.  Was that really true?

As I sat with this idea, I knew it was.  I was constantly being criticized at work, so I was primed to defend myself, and this had spilled over into my personal life.  I loved my friend even more for her courage in telling me the truth.  As a result, I returned to my meditation and monitored my behavior so that I stopped alienating people.

We all need mirrors in our lives—people who will reflect back to us our best qualities as well as those behaviors we prefer to ignore.  Most of the important changes we need to make are at deeper levels, and only friends with whom we share true relationships will be able to go there with us.  Going deeper with a friend is the greatest gift of friendship that we can give.

How have you gone deeper with a friend lately?

© 2012 Georganne Spruce

Related Articles: How To Deepen Your Friendships, How To Be a Good Friend – Six Friendship Tips, The Dirty Little Secret Most Women Won’t Talk About, How to Choose a True Friend

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