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The Journey Toward Wholeness

10/26/2021

Spiritual teacher Gary Zukav says, "The journey you are on is toward wholeness." Do you agree that this journey we call life is toward wholeness? And what does that really mean?

Author William P. Young says, "The movement toward wholeness is when the way of our being matches the truth of our being." So, you might be wondering...what is the truth of our being? According to William P. Young, "The truth of our being is that which is everything that is true about God."

I believe that love, peace, forgiveness, grace, and compassion are true about God. I believe that God is everywhere and is in everything, that God is ... infinite and eternal, accepting and welcoming, creative and a creator, love and goodness, patient and merciful, and the perfect giving being.

If these are the truth of our being, then matching it means being in alignment with these truths. Being in alignment, being in integrity with these truths is wholeness.

I believe that Jesus was a human example of what is true about God. Jesus exercised generous amounts of empathy, compassion, love, peace, unity, forgiveness and patience. He exemplified how we should treat each other and live our lives. This was demonstrated clearly in how Jesus treated social outcasts. Social outcasts during the time of Jesus were prostitutes, people with sickness, lepers, people who didn't believe in the main religion, tax collectors, people that had diseases, and people that were considered unclean.

Throughout his ministry his actions were consistently aimed at the inclusion of people that were outcasts. Jesus included women, children, foreigners, sinners, the "unclean", outcasts, the sick and even outlaws and murderers.

How do we treat social outcasts in our time? This can be a challenge can't it? It challenges me at times. What would Jesus do? The movement toward wholeness is when the way of our being matches the truth of our being.

William P. Young also says that, "The process of transformation is not about becoming something that we weren't. It's about unveiling what we were the whole time. I think we are made in the image of God and we were very good creations before anything got broken, but it all got covered up by all of this crap." There are things to uncover and to unveil. The process of the uncovering is the transformation, the journey.

So how do we uncover all of this so called crap and unveil what we were the whole time? It's a matter of exposing the lies. The lie of I am separate from you. The lie of I am not enough. The lies of I am not good, I am not smart, I am not worthy. It's a matter of exposing the shame. Shame for not being perfect, for making mistakes.

The journey of this thing we call life is an unveiling and a learning of lessons that bring us toward our wholeness. It takes self-awareness and a whole lot of practice and more practice. It takes doses of self-compassion, self-forgiveness and self-love. It takes massive amounts of empathy and than even more empathy, and a sprinkle of love, and a dash of compassion blended with some forgiveness, some patience, and a cup of gratitude.

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Courage Is Fear Walking

10/19/2021

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I often hear people say, I don’t want to try because ...

I don’t want to feel disappointed.
I don’t want to be judged.
I don’t want to fail.
I don’t want to look incompetent.

… I just want this feeling to go away.

As psychologist, speaker and author Susan David says, “You have dead people’s goals. Only dead people never get unwanted feelings or get inconvenienced by their feelings. Only dead people never get stressed, never get broken hearts, never experience the disappointment that comes with failure. Tough emotions are part of our contract with life. You don’t get to have a meaningful career or family and leave the world a better place without some discomfort. Discomfort is the price of admission to a meaningful life.”

Fear is the emotion at the core of these thoughts. To be courageous doesn’t mean to overcome our fear. Courage is not the absence of fear. It doesn’t mean you’re not afraid. Courageous people take action regardless of their fears.

As Susan David states, “Courage is fear walking.” It pushes you to resist the impulse to shy away from the things that stir up your innermost anxieties. Courage is the catalyst that inspires constant movement forward. It’s tiny pieces of fear all glued together.

I invite you to be fully alive by embracing courage as a tool to walk with fear. Stop playing it small and safe, instead embrace the price of admission to having a meaningful life. What baby step can take this week to move in the direction of your hopes and dreams? Identify it, no matter how small, and take action toward accomplishing it in the next few days. Bring your fear along with you on the journey.

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What Are You Disciplined To?

10/12/2021

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Do you consider yourself to be a disciplined person? Do you want to be more disciplined? A few years ago a wonderful nugget on discipline was shared with me, it goes like this...The question is not whether we are disciplined, we are all disciplined. The question is, what are you disciplined to? This hit home for me. It's true isn't it? We are all disciplined, it's just what are we disciplined to that's the question.

This was powerful realization for me. At times I've considered myself to not be a disciplined person. This simple shift gave me a whole new perspective. I am disciplined, it’s not a matter of me being disciplined, it’s more a matter of what I am disciplined to. These simple little perspective shifts can be super impactful. They cause us to look at something from a different point of view, a little bit different angle, and sometimes that’s all we need in order to catch ourselves and to create a positive shift.

Am I disciplined to watching TV or am I disciplined or to exercising? Am I disciplined to social media or am I disciplined to visiting with a friend? Am I disciplined to eating out or am I disciplined to planning and making meals? Am I disciplined to reading the news or to reading a book?

This week I invite you to reflect on what it is you are disciplined to and whether those items are serving you. Do you desire to create a shift and discipline yourself toward something different? Something that might bring more positivity, passion, meaning, or impact?

Fall is a great time of year to let go of the things that aren't serving you and say yes to a new discipline. Shake up your routine and blend in some new disciplines!

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Premature Death

10/5/2021

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Do you feel empty? Does your life feel void of passion? Are you moving at a breathless pace, trying to keep up with the culture of busyness? If you are, I hear you, I see you, I recognize your pain. So many people are depressed, anxious, and lonely... struggling with addictions and strategies of numbing and anesthesia...anything to ward off the feelings of emptiness.

In the book The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller, the author discusses the many forms of grief and unpacks how deficient our culture is at healing and the soul work of grief.

Weller writes, "Facing our emptiness is the key to our freedom. Emptiness saturates our culture. Addictions, consumption, materialism are symptoms of this condition. They are attempts to cope with the unbearable feelings of barrenness. To feel empty is to live in the wasteland near the gates of death. This is intolerable to the soul. We were not meant to live such shallow lives."

He goes on to say, "Many of us suffer from what I call premature death, in that we have turned away from whole portions of our life. We have adapted to a pattern of ambivalence, neither in nor out of life, but living in a state of suspended animation...I think most people walk around possessed by the dullest parts of themselves; this, the worst state of possession is called normal."

We long to feel that we are needed to in order for the world to keep happening. Weller believes that the absence of this remains as a persistent grief in our psyches, that we have become spiritually unemployed. He suggests that instead of asking, "What do you do for a living?", ask:

What is the gift that you carry in your soul?
What have you brought with you into the heart of the village?

Spiritual employment is feeling valued for the gifts with which we are born, it affirms our worth and dignity. By simply being who you are, your place in the village is confirmed. This feeling of grounding and acceptance is essential to finding and maintaining a feeling of emotional intimacy with life, with one another, and with our own soul.

I invite you to consider reading Weller's book. It's a beautifully written work on grief and healing.

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The Journey Toward Wholeness

Courage Is Fear Walking

What Are You Disciplined To?

Premature Death

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