From Scared to Sacred

We all have our journeys in life to travel, we all have our paths to walk and we all have our very own (we would like to think) demons to slay on our path to ‘enlightenment.’

From scared to sacred is but a tiny maneuver, the tiniest shift in your consciousness, which can allow the true and awesome power of the Sacred and the Divine to cut through the fear of the scared. It is as miniscule a shift as it is to change the spelling of the words themselves.

You may think it is impossible and you may think it is too hard to do, but in reality the easiest thing in this world to let go of is fear. It is all too easy to walk around coming from fear and feeling scared. Most people live their lives that way, as if it were the norm to do so. Well, it is not the norm.

It is in fact abnormal to walk around, thinking that some devil, some demon or some curse is about to come and get you. That’s like people that refuse to sleep with one foot outside of the covers, because that monster under the bed might come and chomp off your exposed foot! Has anyone ever looked under the bed and seen this horrible monster? I think not. Yet we are more afraid of that unseen monster than we are some of the people we let into our lives.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear  – Matthew 6:25, The Bible

Pause to think about this for just one minute. “Fear of the unknown” has to be the biggest oxymoron there is out there. How can you fear something if you don’t know what it is? In all my years of counseling different people from every walk of life, I have yet to find someone to answer that question.

Divinity rests in trusting the true nature of Spirit. Spirit, in turn, knows no fear. Can you see? Divinity rests.

“But how do I rest,” you cry, “I have bills to pay, a mortgage to make, food to put on the table! I can’t afford to listen to your talk of Divinity and resting”, and on and on you go, not realizing that you are blocking the Divine from entering your life, by this very talk which you are serving up.

Stop right there for just one second, if you will, and let us pause to remember all the months and all the years you have told your mind this. Hasn’t the rent or the mortgage always come through? Haven’t you always had food on the table and clothes on your back?

Can you imagine, just for one minute, how much more you would have if you just stopped putting yourself in that hole; the one you insist on digging with every word that comes out of your mouth?

I put it to you that ‘enlightenment’ rests in every second. Each moment that we draw breath on this Blessed Earth is just that, a Sacred moment not to be confused with what we want to make it into, which is a Scared moment.

Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? – Matthew 6:26-27, The Bible

To live your life coming from fear of this, fear of that, and fear of the other, is to tell yourself that you actually do not believe good things can happen to you; that a contented and happy life is not your natural birth right.

The way to turn this around in your life takes constant vigilance over your mind, which can make your world a different place than what it really is. Your mind can turn the most innocent question into a teeming war zone, with you as the prime target.

Start living consciously. Every second. Every moment. Wake up, stop sleep walking through the precious gift of life, and get out there and do the things you want to do!

When you wake up in the morning, for example, what is the first thing that crosses your mind? Do you awaken your self with loving thoughts? Do you take time to stretch and listen to the birds as they chirp in the glowing light of the morning sun? Or do you wake up, groaning and dreading the day ahead before it has even had a chance to get started yet? The manner in which we go to sleep at night and the way we wake ourselves up in the morning has everything to do with the way our day unfolds.

“What about my boss?” you say, “What if he or she is in a bad mood, if I go in all happy it’s just going to aggravate them!” What if, what if. If I had a dollar for every ‘what if’ question I got, I’d be a rich woman by now.

You are responsible for no-one else’s state of ‘be-ing’, other than your own. Of course, if you have young children, let me be clear, you are responsible for them too, they didn’t ask to be here.

I have learned to live each day as it comes, and not to borrow trouble by dreading tomorrow.  It is the dark menace of the future that makes cowards of us – Dorothy Day

While trying to put salve on someone’s wounds, be they personal, physical or otherwise; avoid becoming their slave. There it is again – one word, same letters, completely different meaning. Be your own best friend. You are there with you when you go to bed, when you take a shower, when you are driving in the car on the way to work.

You are there with you during the best of times and the worst of times. Don’t you owe it to yourself to be loving and kind towards you, as much as you can?

We walk around hoping for most of our lives, if not all, for someone to come along and love us, as if this love is going to make things in our lives magically better somehow. The most important person in this life that you can ever love is you. All love comes from this space. All things that are sacred come from this space.

Do your best, give yourself your word that you will do all it takes to make you the focus of your gifts from the Divine. It is by doing this that you are then able to truly love others, as they are. It is only then that you can give your uniqueness, and your special gifts, to the world that is waiting for them to manifest. It is only then that you can stop living in fear, that you can stop being scared.

By making this promise to yourself, realize that no other promise broken again can ever hurt you. For you have taken the first step into turning the scared into the sacred, by the one simple step of being true to you. The rest can and will be taken care of. After all, the Divine has control over you now. What better life is there, other than one filled to the brim with Faith?