Spring and What's Next?

 

So once we have enjoyed the spring celebrations of Mardi Gras, St. Patrick's Day, Spring Equinox and Easter, then comes the sustained and persistent effort to cultivate those seeds that we want to have grow in our lives this year.

There are obvious applications to that if we are working on our bodies in the gym or taking on new responsibilities at work. but underlying everything else are those spiritual elements that strengthen all of those other efforts.

The spiritual quests that we explore are connected to the other important developments in our life.

Remembering every day to state our goals in a positive way keeps us on track. Stating our goals out loud in a positive way like "I am becoming more successful in my business, and more good opportunities are coming to me all the time. Every day more customers are satisfied with the service I provide for them. I am happy for the opportunities to provide these services and I am growing more prosperous every day by doing this."

These thoughts strengthen our determination to do what we do and keep us on track with a clear vision of our goal. The combined process of daily affirmations and positive thoughts combined with daily actions helps us to accomplish our goals. If you observe closely, you will notice that there is a difference between when you do this and when you do not. Because we are creatures of habit, sometimes we just forget to stick to our new habits and if we don't see something huge happen immediately we forget that these new habits, if applied persistently, will bring new results.

Positive thoughts like "I am happy to be exercising and strengthening my body because it feels good and helps me enjoy my life more. I choose the types of exercise that are fun and I look forward to doing it. I choose to do these things frequently and they increase the joy I feel in my life."

Similarly our pursuit of new spiritual quests is a path that offers us more riches and rewards as we travel.

For example, let's say we find ourselves curious about a subject like reincarnation and past lives, so we start to read about that. Then we decide that we want to experience a past life recall, so we contact someone who does that. Then we digest the life lessons we learn from that experience. It is a journey we choose from reading to experiencing and then processing the insights we have gained.

Or let's say we find ourselves curious about how to relieve stress, so we decide to try drumming, and we drum along with recorded music or we drum along with music we make up and we find that after a while, we are smiling and this exercise has lifted our spirits and so we do it a little bit every evening. Maybe down the road, we even decide that we would like to drum with other people and see how that feels, so we look for opportunities to do so. Once again, it is a journey from being curious and looking up something about it, to trying it out and then enjoying the results.

As we are exposed to more drumming, we may become aware that there are other spiritual traditions and activities that give rise to great drumming. But again, being who we are, we may just choose to keep this piece that works for us and skip the rest. But then one day, further down the road, we might start to ask some questions, and suddenly, there you are, trying something else new and different.

Dancing is another way for a person to find joy, stress relief and exercise, right in your own home, right after you read this. Simply put on some music you enjoy and dance to it, any way you feel like dancing to it. Within a few minutes you will feel how the movement alone lifts your spirits, and how inspired you feel to flex in different ways. Once you experience this, you will probably feel like doing it again. And after a while, you may find yourself doing this every day. Then at some point you may feel like going out and dancing with other people. Once again, it is a journey from the first time you try it until you feel like expanding the experience by dancing with other people.

After having heard about the Law of Attraction for a while, you decide that you would like to learn more about this, so you look up some Abraham-Hicks videos on You Tube and as you watch you find that some of their ideas resonate with you right away. They help you see things that have happened in your life in a new light and they give you some fresh positive thoughts to add to your daily routine. As a result, you notice that things are changing in your life and you are getting happier with the results. It is a journey that takes a while. You are happy watching the videos for a while, then the feeling grows on you that changing your thoughts can change your life, and you decide to see how far you can go with that. Maybe you don't do that at first because you think it is silly, and you argue with yourself that it cannot be that simple. But then one day, you really want to change so much that you decide to see what changing your thoughts will do for your life.

All of our quests take a while. You see, on an eclectic road, there is no driver to keep us moving in one direction toward the next level of achievement, so we find ourselves looping back around to those things that interest us most after some time has passed.

Even when simply adapting parts that we like from various traditions, there is a sort of evolution that takes place even before we notice it. For example, if a person simply goes to a kirtan session, which is the Hindu type call and response chanting, you will no doubt feel in an altered state, lighter and happier than you were when you arrived. And so you ask yourself, how can this be? How can just singing for a couple of hours make me feel this good?

And that experience might plant other seeds, such as the thought that music can also be a healing modality. There are people who include this in their healing practice. Now having this positive experience might be enough for many people. The fact that this is part of a whole variety of Hindu religious practices might be something that you don't really care to study further, but you enjoy the singing so you keep on doing that.

At some point, you may choose to explore this further or maybe some other aspect of that tradition, but for now, this is just a small piece that you feel comfortable traveling with. That piece works well when we use it, so that offers some satisfaction without further investigation.

The development of our spiritual path is a continuous journey. For example, you feel connected to a path of spirituality that embraces the concept of doing rituals every full moon. You feel very good about these rituals and you know that there is more connected to them about ancient gods and goddesses, dancing, singing in the woods, sharing food and wine. And having experienced that, you may feel that this is enough and that you are happy to do the full moon rituals and only mildly curious about what else might be connected to that.

Then at some future time, you ask about some other aspect of doing magic or ritual and then you open yourself to other possibilities. Or perhaps you simply make up something that feels right.

It is quite common for people to come up to me and say "I have had this deck of tarot cards sitting around the house for years and I keep thinking I will learn to do something with them. Or I have been wanting to work with someone to help me keep on track with my plans. Or I am wanting to learn how to heal, or I want to learn how to change my thinking. I'm feeling that now is the time. Can you teach me how to do that?"

Yes, I do. And your continuing your journey along your spiritual path is always rewarding. Sometimes we appreciate it even better after we have had some years of life experience and that makes the lessons even more powerful.

What we are doing when we do this, is looking further underneath the masks to discover what is underneath. Mysteries and excitement abound in our journey, just waiting for you to take a peek.