Spirituality, Religion or here now?

Are you on a spiritual path? Do you follow a religion?

Funny things…….are words. Do you notice that the religion question includes the word “follow”? To you, this may be quite okay. To you, it may even be righteous and meant with integrity. And that’s okay. To me, it implies doing what someone else says and not being in my own truth. Which is right? I can’t say what is right for anyone. Who has the right to say what is right for someone else? You need to decide for yourself. Maybe it’s scary to decide for yourself? Maybe you don’t think that you are good enough to decide for yourself. But actually, you are.

To access your own right answer it is helpful if you can relax into your being. Because your mind usually can’t come up with answers. Well, your mind will try, but what is really happening is that your mind answers from the conditioning that you have experienced growing up. And the emotions that you have stored. Research has shown that when faced with a decision, the emotional part of the brain lights up first and then this is quickly followed by the cognitive /thinking part of the brain. To truly access what is right for you, it will be helpful if you release all the stored emotional patterns and ways of thinking. How to do this? (Come and see me!)  After all, there probably are plenty. You may have observed yourself and how you react/respond to situations. You may be aware that in the split second before reacting, that there is a decision made…………. If you can catch yourself in this moment, there is the opportunity to change how you respond.

Some people might say that I am on a spiritual path. I do have the word path in my website name! However, my spirituality is about learning to live in the moment, to be totally present so that I can make the choices from the very best part of me, to live from the stillness that is within. And this is nothing airy-fairy. This is real life. I recently had the opportunity of releasing some of the emotional stuff that I mentioned in my last article. Those beliefs that I had put in place when young about love being conditional and that I needed to work at being good in order to earn love. So now I am feeling deeply peaceful.

A spiritual path can be just as narrow as following a religion. Maybe you think you are following a path to somewhere. Maybe to freedom. But when will you get there? How can you know what is in the future?  Be here, right now. Because you are free right now….in your inner self. Right now, you can choose expansiveness and discover your own truth. Let go of the limitations that you believe are around you.

Letting love in.

Let me tell you a story: Recently I went for a walk in a pine forest with a friend. We walked a long way downhill. Through swampy ground and my gumboot had a leak….so I was getting a wet foot. Ugh! And feeling cross. Then we sat down. Looking up I could see the branches of the pine trees, and also the fronds of a tall tree fern. It felt like they were sheltering us, embracing us. We sat on some rocks. (old volcanic rocks placed there by the force of the earth) We sat in stillness and my friend prompted me to uncover what was going on inside me. I was super reluctant, in fact, it felt like there was no choice for me. I was either going to run away (rebel) or resign myself to staying stuck. No falling into and facing whatever emotion was deeper. In the midst of this a realisation arose – that I felt threatened by love. And secondly that the rebel or resign scenario is a pattern of mine.

So what to do with these realisations. What would you do? Are they familiar to you? Do you accept love offered to you?

For me, I realised that in my childhood, love was conditional. I had to earn it by doing as I was told, by being good, by behaving right. And so in growing up, I worked to earn love. I tried to gain approval from others. In my marriage I worked to earn love. I worked hard at keeping the peace so that I knew that I had earned love. And what is love, really.

Can you love yourself? Can you love the little child that is still a part of you? My little child was so confused. Afterall, our parents or those we live with when we are young affect our whole way of being. In order to feel truly secure and connected to others, we need to experience unconditional love. When we perceive that strings are attached then we set up beliefs about ourselves that do not serve us in truth. We may believe that love only comes when we submit to being controlled. We may believe that we have to behave in certain ways. We may believe that we are worthless on our own. And there are many more possible beliefs that could have been put in place on the same theme.

So how about you talk to the little you inside you, and show understanding and compassion. Maybe give her or him some resources to help him or her cope differently. Stop for a moment and let the love of the universe in. And if you were to show unconditional love to your inner self, what then………….