HE 4 D'S OF SPIRITUAL GROWTH

"Promise Yourself ... to be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. ...To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble."
-- Drawn from the Optimist Creed of the Optimist International Club

Reflect on this pathway for meaningful growth: 

DISCIPLINE - To create change in our lives, we need to consistently focus on what we want. 

DETACHMENT - Practice the art of detached observation. Let go of automatic defenses and patterns. 

DISCERNMENT - Seek to discern the lower from the higher. What is self-serving and what is soul-inspired? Discernment carries no judgment. There are no goods and bads. Remain as a detached witness. 

DHARMA "This is an East Indian word meaning "living your unique purpose." How do you find meaning and fulfillment in ways that are natural to you? How do you best serve and contribute to the world? 

"If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears."
-- Glenn Clark

A LIGHT LOOK AT LIFE'S JOURNEY

"Inside every older person is a younger person--wondering what the hell happened."
-- Cora Harvey Armstrong

"The hardest years in life are those between 10 and 70."
-- Helen Hayes (at 73)

"Old age ain’t no place for sissies."
-- Bette Davis

"Thirty-five is when you finally get your head together and your body starts falling apart."
-- Caryn Leschen

"If you can find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn’t lead anywhere."
-- Frank A. Clark

"I'm looking forward to looking back on all this."
-- Sandra Knell

FORGIVE THE HURTS

"Forgiveness will never fail to free you."
-- Jerrold Mundis

How do we forgive when we're angry and hurt?

As a first step, we can be willing to truly feel our anger and hurt. Honouring our feelings by being fully present with them helps to release the feelings themselves.

And it helps to remember that people only hurt others when they themselves are in pain. When we can recognize the other person's suffering, our heart can open in compassion. We can also remember that at some time or another, we too have hurt someone through our own unskilful action.

Only love can heal the rifts caused by a hurtful deed. Forgiveness holds immense power because it mends separation. It moves us towards the unity and love that lie at the core of our being. It is a fundamental part of the healing process.

"Forgiveness does not change the past, but it does enlarge the future."
-- Paul Boese

"God has a big eraser."
-- Billy Zeoli

USE YOUR POWER TO CREATE

"I am a child of God. I came from the womb of creation."
-- Tao Te Ching

Our grand business in life is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand."
-- Thomas Carlyle

We each play a role in the bigger game of life. In this bigger picture, life plays with energy and matter to expand, create, express and evolve. It explores new possibilities, realizes them and then reaches for even more. Life continually transforms what is into something brand new.

We choose how actively we take part in this cosmic dance. We can become mere spectators to life if we get stuck in old ideas that have lost their energy for us.

How much passion do you feel for your goals? Are you still being creative in how you work with them?

"Embrace fully your capacity to create, to think in unlimited ways, and to pursue everything that you have been wanting. Be flexible, open and willing to let the new come to you. "This can be the most joyous, prosperous, and creative time of your life."
-- Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer

TWO VIEWS

"... no matter what our difficulties may be, we recognize that there is a deep untroubled stream flowing below all surface troubles and that we are of one substance with that stream. The soul knows no difficulties."
-- James Thornton

Masters teach that we can experience two completely different states of reality at the same time -- from the personality and from the soul.

Author Pema Chödron talks about being hungry, cold and tired but at that same time deeply content. Ram Dass speaks of how the emotional heart can be breaking while we recognize that all is unfolding perfectly.

Allowing our soul to be present with the discomforts of the personality shifts our experience of the discomforts. 

"True self simply refers to the aspect of our being that is completely aware of its expanded nature no matter what we may be experiencing in our lives."
-- Martia Nelson

OPEN TO THE NEW

"All the people we call ‘geniuses’ are men and women who somehow escaped having to put that curious, wondering child in themselves to sleep."
-- Barbara Sher

How willing are you to learn something new?
How open are you to new perspectives?

Only when we're open can we really hear what's being said or really see what's happening or really experience the moment.

Openness demands that we be willing to move to places we've never been before. It asks us to continually challenge the foundations of our belief systems so we can test out new ideas. And to do that, we need to accept insecurity.

"The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn."
-- Alvin Toffler

FIND PEACE INSIDE

"All spiritual disciplines are done with a view to still the mind. The perfectly still mind is universal spirit."
-- Swami Ramdas

Getting into the habit of meditating, praying and/or resting daily helps us pull back from our preoccupation with the material world. In silence and solitude, we have an opportunity to pay attention to what's happening inside rather than outside. 

When we do this consistently, we learn to relax and to quiet and detach from our mental chatter and our turbulent emotions. As we begin to witness ourselves in personality, we also begin to experience our soul. 

"Meditation may require a lifetime to master, but it will have been a lifetime well spent." If you want to judge your progress, ask yourself these questions: Am I more loving? Is my judgment sounder? Do I have more energy? Can my mind remain calm under provocation? Am I free from the conditioning of anger, fear, and greed? Spiritual awareness reveals itself as eloquently in character development and selfless action as in mystical states."
-- Eknath Easwaran

ARE YOU HAPPY?

"It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere."
-- Agnes Repplier

Are you happy?

Don’t answer too quickly. Sit with this question for a long time and you’ll be introduced to brand new dimensions of who you are and of what matters in your life. 

"Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable."
-- Leo C. Rosten

KNOW THE FACTS OF YOUR FINANCE

"I've got all the money I’ll ever need, if I die by four o'clock."
-- Henny Youngman

Exactly how much money have you earned today? Exactly how much have you spent?

To master money management on the road to prosperity, you must know the details of how money moves through your life. Few people know the specifics of their finances.

Begin to gather the hard data of your earning and spending. You'll find knowing this information is surprisingly empowering.

"As you manage your money, you manage your life."
-- Dan Millman

"A lean purse is easier to cure than endure."
-- George S. Clason

A FOCUS FOR PARENTS

"Parents: persons who spend half their time worrying how a child will turn out, and the rest of the time wondering when a child will turn in."
-- Ted Cook

One of our responsibilities as parents is to become independent of our children.

Andrew Schneider notes that many of us feel inadequate as parents because we assume we are totally responsible for them, but we are not.

Schneider says, "Their soul is in charge of their lives, and nothing that you do can greatly interfere nor greatly help. Who you are as a being and what you model is the important reality."

How specifically can we support our children? We want them to feel nurtured and valued. We want to support them in learning how to provide for themselves. And we want to help them build good relationships.

"The most important thing that parents can teach their children is how to get along without them."
-- Frank A. Clark

"There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots; the other, wings."
-- Hodding Carter

HOW DO YOU PLAY YOUR ROLES?

"What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are."
-- Epicetus

When we are basically unconscious, we live according to social roles. We perform as sons and daughters, mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, employers and employees, as society expects us to.

As we grow in awareness, we gain the freedom to bring our own unique perspectives to these roles. We can express ourselves authentically and creatively, without letting our roles dictate how we should behave.

"Risk! Risk anything! Care no more for the opinion of others, for those voices. Do the hardest thing on earth for you. Act for yourself. Face the truth."

-- Katherine Mansfield

WHAT MESSAGE DID YOU MOST NEED TO HEAR?

"One word frees us from the weight and pain of life; that word is love."
-- Sophocles

In exploring the enneagram, Riso and Hudson have identified 'lost messages' that we needed to hear as children but didn't. The absence of these words may be at the heart of our most basic fear. And unconsciously we may still be seeking to hear these words from others.

Review the following messages and note if any one touches you more strongly than the others:

1. "You are good."
2. "You are wanted."
3. "You are loved for yourself."
4. "You are seen for who you are."
5. "Your needs are not a problem."
6. "You are safe."
7. "You will be taken care of."
8. "You will not be betrayed."
9. "Your presence matters."

"Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are -- chaff and grain together -- certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away."
-- Dinah Mulock

ON SELF-HONESTY

"No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be true."
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne

"You cannot fake a relationship and feel right with yourself or anyone else. Changing yourself to fit what you think other people want doesn’t work. Pretending to be someone other than yourself only broadens the distance between the person you are and the one with whom you’re trying to establish closeness."
-- Mary Manin Morrissey

"Just as surely as distress must follow self-deceit, healing must follow self-honesty."
-- Vernon Howard

"Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got."
-- Janis Joplin

THE FIRST STEP TO FORGIVENESS

"To get to forgiveness, we first have to work through the painful experiences that require it."
-- Christiane Northrup

To forgive, we do not have to say that whatever happened was okay. In fact, before we can forgive, we need to allow ourselves to really feel the pain of the experience. If we don’t fully acknowledge our hurts, we will continue to carry them subconsciously and they will drain our energy.

To forgive, we need to decide that we won't allow the memories of the event to poison us any longer. We're ready to heal this wound from the past and open to a fresh new beginning.

The blessing is that when we're really ready to experience our pain and we open to it, it usually fades away. By honouring our pain, we release it. 

"We must let ourselves feel all the painful destruction we want to forgive rather than swallow it in denial. If we do not face it, we cannot choose to forgive it."
-- Kenneth McNoll