Category Archives: Spiritual journey

The psychic therapist

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I once had a therapist who earned her living as a psychic before she switched careers and became a counselor. Her psychic skills were kind of handy when my ex-husband and I were going through marriage counseling, because identifying and articulating emotions was a real struggle for him. She could just “reach” in, dig around, and “pull out” some emotions for his consideration. When she narrowed down his options that way, he was able to identify how he felt.

Despite our efforts, my ex and I decided to end our marriage. Several years later, I was in a relationship with another man and went back to the same therapist. She insisted that he and I would end up together. But as time went on, it became clear that he was not right for me. Although I shared events, insights, and emotions that led me to believe that we were not meant for each other, she continued to insist that we were. So, I redoubled my efforts and kept trying.

In the end, my emotions and her psychic perspective on things were at such odds that I broke up with the guy and fired her. It taught me an important lesson. As tempting as it is, I don’t look outside myself for guidance anymore. That means no psychics, horoscopes, or other means of predicting the future. But it also means that I now heed my own inner guidance above that of experts, gurus, teachers, clergy, parents, and friends.

This is not always easy, and is something that I have to recommit myself to repeatedly–especially as I bump around in the dark trying to find my way. It is much easier to trust the sometimes loud and insistent guidance of others than it is to listen for that still, small voice inside myself. But I believe it’s what’s right for me. Fact is, I believe it’s right for us all.

Snakes, rocks, and hard places

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When I look back on my life, I have often known when it was time to move on because I felt squeezed out of a particular situation. This is how I imagine a snake feels when it needs to shed. I imagine things start feeling constrictive, uncomfortable, irritating, and itchy. At that point, a snake will actually seek out a rock or a hard place and brush its body against it to tear its skin. Then it’ll work at the tear until it’s big enough, find something to catch the skin on, and wriggle out shiny and new.

Snakes shed so they can grow, and because they grow throughout their lives, they shed their skin until they die. I think we shed so that we can grow, too. Today, I realized that I have felt the constriction, discomfort, irritation, and itchiness of a situation that no longer fits. It is time to move on–to wriggle out of this situation so I can emerge into a new one.

If snakes were to look in mirrors (and I’m sure fashionable snakes do), they would see in their reflection everything they will eventually shed. What they shed is their outward appearance, their physical identity, the way they and others recognize themselves in the world. When I have faced sheddings in the past, I have found it impossible to imagine who I’d be without my old skin. Who would I be if I left corporate life to become a parent? Who would I be if I got divorced and raised my son on my own? Yet the skin no longer fit, and I knew it had to come off.

For me, the worst part of shedding is the sense of spiritual disconnection I feel. Before a snake sheds, it is virtually blind for a period of time, because the skin over its eyes becomes cloudy. This I understand, because I have felt blind in terms of my source of inner guidance lately.

A situation that was known and comfortable has become constrictive and irritating. I feel blind to my inner guidance, and am instinctively seeking out rocks and hard places that will help me tear open an escape hatch in this old skin. Seems like a bad thing, but is it? I feel confusion, grief, and a sense of loss around losing something that was known and comfortable. And this spot between the rock and the hard place is painful. But who am I becoming? Freed of my old skin, what possibilities and adventures await me?

An unexpected visitor

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Most religions teach that we have spiritual companions–angels, guides, totems, the higher self–they have lots of names. I believe I have spiritual partners on my journey, but sometimes they feel like imaginary friends, and I just want one of them to sit at the foot of my bed and have a conversation with me like any two people would.

Sometimes, I can’t stand it anymore and beg for evidence–demanding something tangible to make me feel less alone. I have been doing more of that lately, while also asking for insight, guidance, and intervention without ceasing. Last night, I had the most amazing shift in perception, and this morning, I woke up and saw a pile of gray beside the shelter in the goat pen. On closer inspection, I saw that it was a great-horned owl.

I read up on how to rescue raptors on the Internet. Poke ventilation holes in a box, put a towel in the bottom, get another towel, and take the whole shebang out to the raptor. Then cover the raptor with a towel, wrap it up, and put it in the box. My 10-year-old son courageously took on the task, and soon the owl was in an undignified position on his back in the bottom of the box–defenseless against the affectionate petting of an enamored boy.

I took it to our local falconer, who immediately determined that it had a compound fracture in its left wing. He said he’d take it to the vet, nurse it back to health, and then determine whether it could survive on its own in the wild. If it couldn’t, he’d try to find a zoo or other institution that would take it in.

Great horned owl Great horned owl

There was something about having the owl only a few feet away and looking directly into its immense eyes that touched me to the depths of my soul. I feel blessed and less alone. The chances of this happening when and where it did are so slim that I feel I’ve been given the tangible gesture of spiritual solidarity that I craved. And tonight, I don’t feel quite as alone.

This has been a test of your inner guidance system

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You know that story about the guy who is in a flood and winds up on the roof of his house to escape the rising waters? Some people in a boat come by and offer to rescue him, but he turns them down, saying, “God will save me.” Then some people in a helicopter come by and offer to help, but he waves them away and says. “God will save me.” Eventually, he perishes in the flood, and when he gets to heaven, he says to God, “Why didn’t you save me?” God says, “Well, I sent you a boat and a helicopter didn’t I?”

This is the position I am in right now financially—sitting on the roof of the house, watching the floodwaters rise, and wondering how I’m going to get out of this predicament.

One morning last week, I finally collapsed a whole page full of money-related goals down to one: “I easily and effortlessly draw $100,000 per year through activities that bring me great joy.” Later that day, I was walking into a store and heard someone calling my name. It was a friend who said that a few people were gathering at a coffee shop next door to talk about a business and asked if I was interested in joining them. I abandoned my trip to the store, told my son where to find me, and joined the discussion. Sitting around the table were five people for whom I have great respect and one person I hadn’t met yet. I figured that any kind of business opportunity involving these people could be interesting and listened as one of them addressed the possibility of easily earning $100,000 per year. And then I heard the words, “network marketing.”

“Shit,” I thought. “Anything but that.”

However, I remembered the story of the guy on the roof in a flood and wondered, “Is this God sending me a boat or a helicopter? Will I one day stand at the pearly gates wondering why God didn’t save me, only to be told, “Well I sent you that network marketing opportunity, didn’t I?”

So I did it. I paid the money and joined up. And then I became restless. My mind raced. I couldn’t sleep at night and when I did, I dreamed about network marketing. In an effort to better understand it, I created a web site to explain it to myself and others. I started telling my story to people and meeting with resistance that mirrored my own. How could I ask people to sign up for something I didn’t understand, believe in, or feel good about myself? The whole subject introduced static into every conversation because of the existence of a hidden agenda.

Finally, it occurred to me: are the negative emotions that I am experiencing a legitimate message from my inner guidance system? Or are they a response to a limiting belief around network marketing that needs to be addressed? I had been assuming the latter. If my negative emotions are a message from my inner guidance system, my only choice (based on years of experience) is to heed that message. If my emotions are a response to a limiting belief, continuing to hold on to it makes no sense, and I need to clear it.

This is the most subtle and sneaky test of my inner guidance system that I have experienced yet. I am sitting on the roof. A boat comes by. I get in. It feels wrong. Now what? How can something dressed as salvation feel wrong?

As little sense as it makes, I cannot stay in the boat any longer. I put full faith in my emotions, ask my would-be rescuers to pull the boat over and get out. They can’t believe it. I can’t believe it.

Yet, here I sit on the bank. And you know what? My mind has stopped racing. I can sleep at night. I can have conversations with friends that have no static in them. Regardless of what happens, I have been true to myself, and that is all that matters. I don’t know whether another boat or a helicopter will come, but I know I did the right thing for me.

Forgiveness: mending the broken truths of resentment

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Today it occurred to me that there is no card in the Mixed Emotions deck for “Forgiveness.” So I made one using one of the five blank cards included with the deck.

I realized that I still feel resentment for things that took place long ago, and that forgiveness might be in my best interest because I cannot receive what I want when my hands are tightly clenched around something that I don’t want. I can only receive when I release what I am holding and empty my hands.

ResentfulIf I am holding tightly to resentments toward my ex-husband, for example, can I receive the soulmate that I long for?

If I hold on to feelings of resentment toward a businessman who deceived me, can I receive a working relationship that is based on ethics, truth, and integrity?

If I resent a parent for failing to provide, can I receive providence?

I went all the way back, year by year, and wrote down every resentment I had that needed to be forgiven. I forgave my parents for getting pregnant with my brother three months after I was born. I forgave my brother for being born. I forgave God for the simultaneous deaths of two friends in their teens. I forgave myself for encouraging Dad to go to the hospital, which turned out to be the beginning of his end. On and on.

I wrote about 30 resentments down on pieces of paper–I had no idea that I harbored so many. Then I burned them up one by one and asked my spiritual companions to clear them from every dimension of my being, both physical and non-physical.

I recently read and quickly purchased the book Old Turtle and the Broken Truth by Douglas Wood. A “broken truth” is a truth that is incomplete. In the story, a stone that said “You are loved” was found, treasured, and fought over–but no one knew that part of the stone was missing. The missing piece said “And so are they.” The point being that we are all loved.

Resentments are broken truths. Forgiveness makes them whole.

The illustration, by Kris Wiltse, is from the “Resentful” card, which is part of the Mixed Emotions card deck.

Synchronicities

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So, I was having a talk with my Spiritual Entourage (angels, guides, my higher self–basically anyone who would listen), about my worries the other day and said, “I want tangible evidence that you’re working on my behalf.” I was at a place where I had no interest in faith or positive thinking–I’d been doing that for months. I wanted proof that things were going to get better.

Then, at the beach, I found this cookie fortune on the ground:

You will soon hear pleasant news of a personal nature

I’ve actually been hoping for some good news–very specific good news–so it’s exactly what I needed to hear to put a little wind in my sails. Coincidence? Maybe. But it’s the second time in six months that that happened.

I was deer-in-the-headlights scared in November and took my son for a haircut. I got out of the car, looked down, and there on the ground lay a cookie fortune that said:

You will be fortunate in everything you put your hands to

Is this normal? Do people just happen to be miles from a Chinese restaurant, park their car in exactly the right place and look down just before a puff of wind blows away a little slip of paper that could make them feel better? That doesn’t even take into account the person who dined at a Chinese restaurant, opened a fortune cookie, removed the fortune, liked it well enough to keep it, and lost it right where I’d eventually find it.

I’m not exactly sure what conclusions to draw from this, but one thing’s for sure.

My Entourage loves Chinese food.

Spiritual loneliness, spiritual partnership

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve suspected that there’s more to myself than me. I’ve suspected that I’m part of something larger, that I come from somewhere else, and that I’ll return there when I die. I did not find comfort in these realizations. They just made me feel abandoned and Unsureled me to wonder how God/Source/Spirit/the Universe could put me on this planet, wipe out every memory I have of home, and then expect me to find my way back without a road map.

The isolation I felt was right up there with Jesus’ “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”  I surmised that finding my way home was the point of my journey, but I couldn’t understand why I had to make the trip alone.

When I was in the fourth grade, I responded to a hell-fire-and-brimstone altar call at a Baptist church, but by the time I reached my late teens, the road to Armageddon and the Rapture began to feel wrong for me. The tipping point came when I read the now out-of-print book The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity. After that, I still believed that Jesus was a revolutionary teacher who modeled all that we can achieve as human beings, but I no longer believed that he sacrificed his life to save me from a hell that I didn’t believe existed.Lonely

Having been a Sunday school teacher, youth group leader, Christian camp counselor, and RA (resident assistant) in a dorm at a Christian university, my decision was a shock to those who knew me. Losing their respect and friendship was extremely painful, but I had to be true to myself and tearfully headed in a different direction–alone.

Eventually, I found the road map that I was looking for in my emotions. When I listened to them, they guided me on my journey. I found people whose beliefs or teachings stretched my own, and who accompanied me on the path for a while. I came to realize that, if our journey is to be authentic, each of us must find our own road home. But I still hated the feeling of isolation.

Then, in the book Partnering with God, I recently read the following:

Love-familialThere are sayings you have used in the relationship between Spirit and humans for a very long time: It’s the concept of the sheep and the shepherd. And the humans somehow are equated with sheep, and the shepherd is God. Let me tell you dear ones, that the last things we want you to be are sheep! Empowered is what you are! Partnering with God has nothing to do with the shepherd/sheep relationship. Some of you have equated God with a parent, a heavenly father or mother; and you are the children. A nice picture, perhaps, but cast that away, for that is not the relationship we wish to tell you about. True partners are not in that relationship at all, and they don’t dominate each other in that manner–even in love.

Some have said, “I’m going to let go of my life and let God take over!” This is not what we ask for, dear ones. We wish you to let go of nothing . . . Some of you have said, “I’m going to surrender my life and let God have His will.” And we say NO! Don’t surrender! Instead, Commit!–not surrender. Commitment is to take charge of your life with a partner like God . . . . Oh dear ones, we promise to partner with you. For we love you beyond measure and we have been waiting for you to verbalize this [a commitment to partnership] to us. Our vow to you in this partnership is to love you throughout it all and never let you down. (Pages 62, 63, and 64.)Love-romantic

I loved the notion of partnering with God. This “marriage to the higher self” has addressed my sense of spiritual loneliness. I verbalized my commitment and wear a pair of triangular, as-above-so-below type stacking rings to remind me of it.

It gets even more interesting, though. I have experienced fear and worry lately, but now, in the context of this “marriage,” that is considered infidelity.

Anger has an agenda and love does not. It is against the very nature of your partner (God) to be angry, and yet it is there within you often! It is, however, infidelity to the very nature of a marriage with God. . . . It is against the very nature of your parter (God) to worry and yet it is there withing many of you often! It is also infidelity to the very nature of the marriage. (Page 68.)

What does this mean? It means I am not alone. It means that I can trust my Partner to take care of the things that I used to get angry and worried about. How big a relief is that?

Does this spiritual partnership make me a nun? Does it mean I can’t have a human partner? No. Foregoing parenting and partnership would rob me of growth that I couldn’t attain in any other way. Parenting my son has taught me more than any other experience, and I look forward to all that a life-long partnership with a man has to offer in the future. Partnering with Spirit simply means that I am no longer alone in my journey, and that I have a very powerful travel partner.

The illustrations, by Kris Wiltse, are from the “Unsure,” “Lonely,” “Love (platonic),” and “Love (romantic)” cards, which are part of the Mixed Emotions card deck.