personal responsibility
Lead By Example – A Message From My Guides
Many of you lead by example, without having to think about it. You obey traffic signals. You pick up garbage if you accidentally drop it. You hold doors open for others. You smile at strangers. You volunteer. You support local charities.
Entering the second month of this new decade, it might be a good time to re-think some old habits, and also lead from within.
For example, it may be a good idea to tone down those automatic, knee-jerk thoughts of annoyance, anger or retribution when someone pushes all-too-familiar buttons. Instead of allowing the cortisol and adrenaline to skyrocket within your body, think things through, before reacting negatively. Resist the urge to speak hurtful comments, even if your basic premise is sound. Find a constructive way to get your point across.
Sometimes it is tempting to jump on the bandwagon for likes and shares on social media platforms. However, if the topic is not kind, hold your tongue. Instead, be the person who can be counted on for level-headed discourse, without vitriol.
In general, be kind to others. Give people some leeway when it is evident that they are trying their best. Catch them doing something right, instead of watching for errors and omissions. Give recognition and praise where warranted. It can mean so much and does not cost anything.
Be kind to yourself too. Banish negative self-talk. Give yourself the right to be human and allow yourself to make mistakes, without chastising yourself for an unimportant oversight. If a serious error does occur, do your best to rectify the issue in a timely manner, with a ‘note-to-self’ that you have learned from the situation and will not repeat it.
Find Your Balance With Rest And Relaxation
As I made my way into 2020, with great intentions and resolutions, I found that my life was full of busyness, obligations and a calendar quickly filling up. My 2020 vision board was filled with new goals and dreams, and my employer was eager to roll out new duties and processes to an already demanding workload.
I felt hopeful for all the things I wanted to accomplish, ready to take on all of the manifesting and challenges with gusto. Determined to find balance. But, as I look back over the past few weeks, I realize that I was reluctant to get going.
I began to cut corners in my new workout regime, and my meditation practice was not as frequent and strong as I knew it could be. I was not focused on my goals and felt myself burning out quickly in all tasks. My plate was full and the harder I tried, I had to admit, I was just not into it.
I have been feeling absolutely overwhelmed by the huge amount of work I needed to catch up on. My workout goal has only been making me more tired. As I procrastinated on the items on my ‘to do list’ and the commitments piled up, I actually felt more paralyzed than motivated.
Instead of trudging further through the process in a reluctant mood, I then chose to make an abrupt halt for a few days and simply rest. Just rest. Took a break. Time out. I cleared all of my commitments and turned off connection to all work items. I had no need to get out of my pajamas for a few days. I ordered takeout and let any dishes and laundry wait for a while.
Roadblocks To Spiritual Growth
The spiritually aware person is by nature more open, attuned and sensitive to everything around them: spiritually, emotionally, and physically. Letting all that additional energy flow in can be empowering, but also exhausting.
You also may find yourself adrift and lacking in purpose when it comes to your spiritual development and growth. Maybe you’re asking what is your life’s mission, or purpose? This kind of confusion and procrastination is common when you are experiencing energetic overload, or not appropriately investing your time and energy. But the good news is, it can be overcome.
Guidance
So many of us struggle with the big questions: why are we here, and what are we meant to do? But there is no right or wrong answer to this question. Asking your spirit guides, a mentor or a community of like-minded people for help on your journey is usually a step in the right direction. Be open and honest when you ask for guidance, and accept that the answers may not always be the ones you are expecting.
Practice
Instead of practicing our spirituality, we often spend a lot of time reading books or watching instructional videos on how to do it. The truth is, you already have all the spiritual skills you need, or you’re able to intuit them. Instead, actively practice your spirituality each day. Don’t be afraid of failure or shortcomings, because there is no such thing spirituality.
The Key Is In Your Hands
I received a lovely necklace as a gift recently, with a beautiful center stone and a small ‘skeleton key’ at the bottom. A skeleton key is a type of master key in which the serrated edge has been removed so that it can open numerous locks .I’ve seen these keys before, and remembered vaguely the symbolism, but I decided to refresh my knowledge by researching further the significance of this symbol.
Katie Pifer writes that keys have had a variety of spiritual symbolisms attached to it “for as long as man has had locks. They are connected with gateways and portals, doorways to the unknown, knowledge, mysteries, powers, initiations, new ways, forbidden things and answers to curious questions.”
Keys symbolize our ability to gain access to those things of either a material or spiritual nature that are of the greatest importance to us. The key is an object symbolic not only of opening doors to new paths that align with our desires, but also closing and locking doors to those things that we wish to leave behind.
Skeleton keys are considered to be a more powerful symbol, since they can open many different locks. Thus, they have been perceived to be the powerful ‘keys to the Kingdom,’ or the key to that someone special’s heart, and so on.
Skeleton Keys are traditionally also worn as powerful amulets. It is thought to be good luck to touch a key when you are entering a challenging or dangerous situation, because keys are believed to keep you safe. They are also symbolic of transformation, freedom and liberation.
Cultivating Divine Patience
During difficult times it can be challenging to quickly change our circumstances, or get out of the eye of storm, because there is often a full plate of responsibilities to already deal with, like work, children and also self-care.
By learning to surrender some of worry and control to a higher power, you can begin to find inner harmony and cultivate divine patience which means you allow things to unfold in their own time.
Too often we want immediate gratification and answers right away, which can create added stress and anxiety in our interactions with others, since our focus is on the results instead of the process.
We forget that many times the answers are already within and all we have to do to access it, is to listen and become more receptive to what our inner voice is really trying to tell us.
The best way to tune into this is by elevating the environment you’re in by removing any negative influences or distractions that are causing imbalance. Even the act of cleaning or reorganizing a section can begin to shift our perspective, and create a sacred space for healing.
Afterwards, you can begin to get centered, quiet the mind and ask the spiritual realm what it wants you to know about your circumstances, so you can take the best course of action.
The World Needs You
The concept of spiritual awakening is central to most New Age teachings and modern metaphysical belief systems. This is because we can only create effective change in this world once we become aware, or conscious, of the world around us.
So, what exactly does it mean to ‘wake up’ in spiritual terms? Too many people believe that being spiritually ‘awake’ or ‘conscious’ is simply observing the challenges that are all around us. However, this is not the full implication of being aware from a spiritual perspective.
It is true that we must be able to see things more clearly and honestly, to be able to make changes for the better. But, being awake from a spiritual perspective is much more about personal responsibility than it is about just recognizing the challenges that exist on the planet.
Author and philosopher, Howard Thurman, said, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs is people that have come alive.” He makes a very valid point.
To be spiritually-minded is to recognize that we are the creators of our world and our own reality experiences. Every thought we think is being returned to us as experience. It is true that there are tremendous challenges facing our world today, but it is equally true that we are either contributing to those challenges, or dissolving those challenges through our own personal patterns.
Our thoughts and beliefs contribute to the war, famine, dis-eases, and other challenges the world is facing. Our thoughts can also contribute to global peace, abundance, and prosperity.
Choosing Peace Over Conflict
There will always be moments in life when we have to choose between peace or conflict. This was the case for me just yesterday.
About half an hour prior to the incident, I had taken my dogs for a walk in the countryside surrounding my home. Adjacent to the pathway we walked, there were a few men working in the field. I didn’t actually see them, but their car was parked up close by, and what I assumed was their lunch had been perched in a plastic bag in one of the olive trees.
Knowing that the curiosity of my dogs would be stirred by that bag of food, I kept a beady eye on them, particularly the two that were off-leash. Thankfully, the only thing my youngest dog appeared to be interested in was someone else’s medium-sized dog that was also in the vicinity of the workman’s feast. I’d assumed that this dog was with the workers, but on taking the same route this morning, I realized that he belongs to the actual farm there.
So, yesterday, after the walk, I was outside my house, when the worker’s car pulled up to my fence. Two young men got out and one of them asked, “Why did you allow your dogs to steal the old man’s bocadillo (a sandwich made with Spanish bread)?”
“They didn’t steal it?” I replied.
“Oh, but they did,” he said. “My friend here saw it happen!”
I took a moment and thought about how to handle this situation in the most peaceful and spiritually aware manner. It wasn’t such a big deal, but obviously the old man felt that he had been robbed.