Spiritual Growth: The Potency of the Season

The last few weeks of the year offer us a rich opportunity for contemplation and reflection as well as a fertile time for planting new seeds to grow in the upcoming year.

To offset a bit of my tendency toward impatience, I love to use the time frame of a year – all of the seasons – to notice how I’ve changed and grown.  And then, to set my sights on how I would like to continue to uncover and express more of me in the year to come.

If you’d like to join me, here are some of the things I love to
consider . . .

With little judgment and criticism and lots of curiosity and generosity, what were the highlights of 2010 for you?  What made those events meaningful to you?  In what areas did you grow the most?  Breakthroughs?  Transformation?  What new discoveries did you make about yourself?  How did you express yourself more fully?

As you look forward to 2011, what excites you the most?  As you imagine your conversation with yourself a year from now on December 28, 2011, what thrills you to have brought into reality in your world?  What makes that important to you?

Spiritual growth of making ourselves as we desire.

At age 15, I made this plaque for my grandma – apparently already aware of our spiritual growth potential!

What qualities of being would you most like to cultivate in the next year?  Is a theme or a focus calling you?

In Mike Dooley’s new book, “Manifesting Change,” he says it couldn’t be easier.  Get clear on what you desire, move in that direction and let the Universe handle the details.

My two big commitments for 2011:
– Deepening self-love
– Expanding self-expression

I’ll be taking time this week to write down some specifics of what I desire in 2011.

Care to join me?  

Spiritual Growth: Solstice Lunar Eclipse

Here in the northern hemisphere, the darkest day of the year is amplified this year by the lunar eclipse that begins tonight, Monday, December 20, at 10:27 pm MT.  This is the first solstice lunar eclipse since 1554!  Nature is offering us a rare, powerful opportunity to use her lunar and solar energy to co-create the world we desire.

Take some time tonight and tomorrow on the Winter Solstice for positive prayer, ritual, meditation, reflection and contemplation.

Spiritual growth of using the energy of the Solstice Lunar Eclipse to bring our desires into reality
Using the energy of the Solstice Lunar Eclipse and the Winter Solstice to bring greater awareness of peace, love and connection to our actions . . .

Make beauty, make love, make music, make new heart-centered ways of being.  Send blessings to those around you and all around the world.

As we welcome a new season, a new year, a new decade; may we consciously choose new ways of thinking, new ways of being, new ways of acting.  

Choosing:
– Love
– Peace
– Acceptance
– Openness
– Connection
– Joy
– Abundance
– Courage
– Lightness
– Laughter
– Harmony
– Ease

Refraining from:
– Fear
– Conflict
– Judgment
– Close-mindedness
– Separation
– Rejection
– Scarcity
– Safety
– Heaviness
– Seriousness
– Dis-ease
– Struggle

Use this powerful time of transition and change to make positive plans for you and your life and to hold a new vision for the world . . .

Deeper Learning: Victim or Creator/Owner?

This past weekend I attended a workshop in which I gave myself two workshops for the price of one!  The first workshop was the one I signed up for: A two-day course on understanding men that I attended with my sister, Cathy, and niece, Alisha.  The workshop content was life-changing and I loved sharing the experience with Cathy and Alisha.

The second workshop involved my experience of the workshop facilitator.  She seemed like a combo dictator and preschool teacher.  I don’t respond well to either of that combo.  I felt like an angry victim because I was committed to creating a new experience with men from the workshop material and I loved learning with Cathy and Alisha. And, I hated the rigidity and condescending nature of the environment and facilitator.

One of my key growth areas this year involves being a Creator/Owner rather than a victim in every situation.  So, here I had created this incredible second workshop – just for me – to practice my learning. 

Conscious relationship, spiritual growth of choosing creator/owner rather than victim.
That poignant spiritual growth moment in which I actively choose to rise above my inclination to believe I’m a victim and consciously choose to create whatever I desire . . .

After reflection and debriefing with several of my favorite professionals, I realized that as I took myself out of the role of victim with men, I then transferred that role to the workshop leader.

I was fairly shocked (and then relieved) to see how committed I have been to having a villain in my life.  If I hadn’t needed a villain in the workshop room, I’m sure I still would have found the workshop leader’s rules overly rigid and juvenile.  I probably would have been annoyed.

Way beyond annoyed, I instead felt traumatized.  I had a bit of a meltdown Saturday morning and another Sunday afternoon.

Back to being a Creator/Owner rather than a victim.  I signed up for the workshop to learn new ways to create empowering and fulfilling relationships with men.  Apparently my second agenda involved becoming viscerally aware that I no longer need a villain – man or woman – as a main character in the story of my one precious life here now!

I continue to ask myself:
– What do I choose to create?
– How can I do that – even here?
– What is going on that feels like victim to me?
– How can I transform that now?

Affirmative Prayer: Ecstatic Union

As I start to look “over there”
to find my happiness,
I take a deep breath and pause.

I open my eyes more fully
as I begin to breathe more slowly.
And I see.
I feel.
I know.
From deep within.
Ecstatic Union.

Ecstatic Union with my breath.
Ecstatic Union with myself.
Ecstatic Union with the Divine.
Ecstatic Union with All That Is.

Ecstatic Union with what is right in front of me.
Ecstatic Union with whomever is right in front of me.

Affirmative prayer: Ecstatic Union, connected to All
Ecstatic Union: Present in this precious moment to all that is . . .

Ecstatic Union with the silence.
Ecstatic Union with every noise.

Ecstatic Union with the darkness.
Ecstatic Union with the radiant Light.

Ecstatic Union with what I would love to run from.
Ecstatic Union with what I’d love to hold onto forever.

Ecstatic Union.
I need not look “over there.”
I am.
Ecstatic Union.

– Ann Strong