Voice of the Spirit

All of us are used to hearing bold claims of great transformation and improvement occurring in our lives in just 5 minutes day:  Get the rock hard body you want, start your own lucrative home business, and become independently wealthy, only in just 5 minutes a day!

Is 5 minutes a day enough to truly manifest the positive and enriching spiritual journey we all yearn for?  When someone is singing in the shower dreaming of being the next Andres Bocelli, or occasionally playing alley basketball believing they’re following in the footsteps of Michael Jordan, it reminds me of devoting just 5 minutes a day to ones spirituality and well being.  It takes so much more to really live an evolved and enlightened journey, and I’d like to explore some of these dynamics.

Positive affirmations are a great tool for transformation.  One may spend about 5 minutes a day doing positive affirmations, but what about the other 23 hours and 55 minutes of our day?

The first step in living 24 hours a day positively is to take personal responsibility and accountability for our actions.  We must look at what we do, and never scapegoat responsibility for those actions and choices on others or circumstances.  In short, don’t try and play the victim role, a little or a lot.  You didn’t try and sabotage your coworker you’re jealous of by accident or because you’re a victim.  You chose to do so based on ego and competitiveness.  Qualifying this action by saying something like, “She doesn’t like me, I don’t like her and I want her out of here” is an excuse. 

Cheating isn’t “Oops I wasn’t thinking,” but a conscious choice of the will.   Many would defend, “I don’t like to cheat, but it was right there in front of me, and just couldn’t resist cause I’m a guy.  No one’s perfect.  I had to lie to my wife, because she’d divorce me if she found out.”  Keep in mind that most people don’t have the audacity to boldly proclaim, “Hey yeah, I just did something rotten and I’m proud of it!” 

There usually needs to be a rationalization, an excuse to make the negative actions and choices OK, often as in being the victim as victims are never to blame, as part of the definition of a victim is someone who is innocent.  This way, one doesn’t need to grow or take responsibility, as the excuse does that for them – it excuses the actions!  It’s sort of like the legal equivalent of mitigating circumstances in a sentencing hearing after a criminal court conviction of the defendant.  When any of us takes personal responsibility for our actions and choices and does whatever is necessary to atone for these actions and choices, we will be able to move on to a better life.  By living and learning, healing occurs as we improve the way we interact with others and the world around us.

Next, we need to watch our choice of words, and again, not make excuses.  “Oh I was screaming at him because he really made me so darn mad,” is a typical justification for negative words.  The “he made me” gives it away.  The person doing the yelling is claiming the other person made them feel a certain way, as opposed to simply saying, I take responsibility for what I feel and say, and I need to watch my words more carefully. A good thing to do in this instance is to use a positive affirmation to bless and neutralize these negative words.  For example:  “I bless the words I’ve said, releasing them to divine light and love where they return to their native nothingness.  All is forgiven.  My choice of words is now positive and loving!”  It takes consistent effort to speak correctly, but necessary to living positively around the clock.  Watch your words always, and through diligence and consistency, your words will heal and purify.

Also, we must try and redirect our thinking from being negative to positive.  How do we do this?  When we find ourselves thinking negatively, it is important to stop these thoughts dead in their tracks.  A good technique to accomplish this is to affirm something positive!  Replace the negative mind set with the opposite positive thoughts!  For example: If you’re feeling depressed about your love life, here is a good affirmation to say:  “My love life is blessed, and I meet my perfect divine life partner now!”  Also, don’t fight with these negative thoughts, as that fight engages a battle analogous to arguing with someone.  As the argument escalates, does anything healthy really come out of it?  In short, you won’t win this argument.  You may not be able to always choose your thoughts, but you can choose your words, which help to redirect our thoughts and reprogram our thought process and thinking!

Often emotions are overwhelming, confusing, and sometimes feel like a stampede of cattle running over us.  It is hard for any of us to control what we feel.  So how do deal with and heal our emotions?

First, acknowledging what we feel is healthy, and through that acknowledgment, we become aware of exactly what it is that we’re feeling.  How can we fix a problem if we don’t know what the problem really is?  But we should not swim in emotions.  Again,  we may not be able to control what it is that we feel, however we can definitely control our choices and actions.  More positive choices and actions lead to a better emotional journey as anything we do positively has a repercussion of helping us to feel better inside.  Becoming emotionally aware and healthy is perhaps one of the last, and potentially hardest aspects of living an enlightened journey.

As most of us have been on a diet at one time or another, think of the example of being on a diet.  You’re staring at that piece of cheesecake.  Should you eat it or not?  How about disregarding the calories and pretending they don’t exist – just for today, please?  Or maybe you’ll work out harder tomorrow to burn off those extra calories.  Ultimately, eating the cheesecake contributes to putting weight on, not taking it off, hindering rather than helping you to achieve your goals.

You might say, “But none of us are perfect, how can we really do this?”  Here’s how:  only focus on living one day at a time.  Yesterday is forgotten, tomorrow is a promise but not yet a reality.  All we really have is now.  By living and focusing only in the here and now, we can do it.  Start by just living one entire day from start to finish in a positive loving way.  And by mastering one day, we can master the next day, and continue to build our magnificent journey, not in just 5 minutes a day, but 24 hours a day, any day of our journey!

True guilt is guilt at the obligation one owes to oneself to be oneself . . . . False guilt is guilt felt at not being what other people feel one ought to be or assume that one is.

R.D. Lang