Sole Work - Walking the Spiritual Path

For the past several years I have struggled with getting (and staying) fit. Ok I admit it, the struggle has been longer than just a few years. As a kid, instead of playing nicely with the girls, I fought with the neighborhood boys. I attempted to join their fun and received new scars weekly in bloody games of soccer. I was always the last one picked to play on the kickball team and, as the catcher of my 5th grade softball team, I pummeled the pitcher in the head with a fast ball. Uncoordinated in team sports, I succeeded only at baton twirling which was fun but I barely broke a sweat. After failures in group sports I thought I’d try running so, a few years ago I attempted to train for a half marathon. I ended up limping home in tears and thought I’d never exercise again. (I couldn’t even MOVE after that, much less exercise!)

Over the years I’ve used walking as a way of getting out of the house, of ‘warming up’ for more vigorous exercise and just to hang out with friends. This year, walking has turned into much more for me. Walking allows me to integrate mind, body, and spirit in a way that I’ve not experienced before. Athletes speak of being “in the zone.” I see that I too am an athlete and that walking can be vigorous and can provide my body with the movement it craves. Walking has allowed me to reclaim fitness goals that I had given up on. I think I’ve finally found something that I can be good at and stick with long term!

“Movement in the body brings movement in the mind. It is a natural alchemy. So many of us seek this kind of movement in our lives, a fusion of being and doing.”— Carolyn Scott Kortge from her book, The Spirited Walker

These days, our lives are set at an incredibly frantic pace. We have so much on our plates that we fear we'll never get everything done, and we wonder when we'll find time to do those things that bring us pleasure. Even when the world seems to be spinning out of control, walking can restore our sense of inner peace. Time seems to expand, giving us a chance to slow down, to relax, to appreciate ourselves and our lives.

Even when we are just going out for a walk, we are hardly ever just walking. We carry our mind around with us when we walk, so we are usually absorbed in our own thoughts. I have come to see that the sole work of walking has turned into soul work. I have even nicknamed some of my walks with particularly insightful friends "walk and talks" where we process life together and use walking as a metaphor for moving forward in life.

And then there’s walking alone which frees us up for some internal dialogue. I’ve learned to turn off the cell phone, take off the headphones and stop drowning out the natural world. When I allow myself to hear my own thoughts and resolve any internal conflicts, I am at peace in the sanctuary of my mind. Moving meditation, or spiritual walking is a wonderful way of grounding ourselves in our own presence.

"Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. If one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right." Soren Kierkegaard

Even if our job is wonderful, our family is healthy and our future seems bright, we can lose touch with the deepest part of ourself unless we slow down enough to breathe deeply, to still our thoughts and to observe the natural world with a sense of wonder. Walking with awareness provides us with an opportunity to connect with the surrounding nature and our "inner nature". Then we are able to tend to the trinity that we are made up of - mind, body and spirit. In creating a balance among all three, we enhance the quality of all areas of our life.

Use a long walk or hike to come home to yourself. If you don't go within you’ll go without!

So often we walk hurriedly, rushing from place to place in a state of mindless detachment. Spiritual walking is a form of meditation in motion. Pick a route that will allow you to practice mindfulness by fully engaging your senses. Feel the hard pavement or soft grass beneath your feet, drink in the aroma of the honeysuckle as you pass by and make a mental note of what flowers are in bloom. Notice the feel of the wind against your face. The rhythm of walking helps us to quiet our minds and from time to time we may receive inspiration or gain insight into some troubled area of our lives.

Plan a walking retreat.

You can use walking as a sort of mini-retreat. I'm not talking about going away for a week or even a weekend, unless you want to, of course. I'm suggesting that you set aside a few hours, or even a full day for an exploration on foot - far from the demands of work, home, and family.

First, choose a date on your calendar and mark it as your "retreat day." You want this day to be yours, for your personal walking adventure. Next, identify a place that you want to explore on foot. If you enjoy being out in nature, call your local parks and recreation department to request maps of your area. If you love looking at homes and gardens (one of my favorite kinds of walks), think of a neighborhood that you'd like to see up close. You want to spend your time walking, not driving so try to choose a location that's not too far from home. If you never have to get in your car, that’s even better.

The hour-long neighborhood walk that I take ends in a long slope that leads to the street that I live on. I listen to my body tell me, “we can’t do this, we’ll never make it home.” I hear my own inner demons loud and clear and then I bid them farewell using positive self-talk. As I approach the top of the hill I recount what a wonderful walk it was and how strong I am becoming. I’m glad it’s over, yet I’m already looking forward to the next outing!

I am grateful for spiritual walking. For me, it is a new route to wellbeing, a merger of muscle and mind. Infusing my exercise routine with spirituality has turned a good walk into a God walk!

Awakening To Your Higher Self

Perhaps you've been curious about all the buzz around about the movie "The Secret." Maybe you are ready to learn more about the Law of Attraction (LOA) and how it can literally change your life. Whatever drew you to this page, you are here by Divine Appointment. Keep your mind and heart open to what message the Universe has for you.

Now is the time! We live in cutting edge times when we are discovering exactly how powerful the human mind is. It is time to pay attention to what feedback our life is showing us about where are focusing on.

If you are like me, you probably have some very good questions about how to put the Law of Attraction into use. Having studied the law of mind action with Unity for close to sixteen years, it's finally sinking in and I am able to verbalize it for others to learn. Having it broken down into simple steps will help you create less of what you don't want and more of what you do.

Get clear on what you want. A lot of times this means first getting clear on what you *don't* want. This is where a lot of people get thrown off. They spend more time focusing on what they don't want than what they do want. And some people just take life like a victim, not realizing the power of co-creation, this is what is called living by default. I know, I did it for the first twenty-five years of my life. When we pay attention to what doesn't feel good and shift that into an empowering question, "What do I want instead?" or "What do I really want?", we shift our focus and energy to a new point of attraction. It is that clarity that begins to draw to us our next experience.

Once we figure out what we want, we need to ask for it! I am sure you've heard of the phrase "Ask and you shall receive". It really works. This truth is found taught in many ancient teachings from Plato to Buddha to Jesus. Feeling that we deserve our good, we claim it by asking. Our asking may be in the form of prayer, goal setting, treasure mapping, intending. Our asking is letting the Universe know that we feel ready to be, do, or have our desire.

By now, our good is knocking at our door. The Universe has done its part. Letting it in is our part. Unfortunately, this is where we fall down on the job. We don't even answer the door! Or perhaps while the pizza was on its way, we doubted that it could ever bed deliverd to our front door and it got sent back. OPEN THE DOOR, enjoy the pizza. Revel in it, give thanks, pet the cat, whatever feels good, just appreciate your life and even more good will come to you.

This ought to get you started or be a nice refresher for the using Law of Attraction in your life. Now that it has been revealed in the movie, "The Secret" and featured on Oprah, it's going to be everywhere! Now is the time to put these ancient teachings into practice. Feel free to browse my website to learn more and make sure you sign up to receive The Divine Idea Ezine.

Law of Attraction in Action

Would you like to be able to experience more of what brings you joy in your life? Do you have unmet wants and desires that have left you feeling unfulfilled in some areas of your life? Were you taught that it is our desires that make us unhappy? Become empowered, learn to use the law of attraction as shown in The Secret!

Desire is a beautiful thing! It is desire that birthed this world, and it is desire that draws us together to create new life, both physically and metaphysically.

Imagine for a moment that you have a genie in a bottle, a secret potion or wand, that gives you the power to zap into manifestation more of what you wish for. The truth is, it doesn’t take a genie in a bottle, a magic wand or a secret potion, although these are fun ‘reminders’ of the awesome power that we hold! We are Divine Beings!

The Bible says we are made "in the image of God" and that “what we reap we sowed.” This means we, like God, are creators! I’ve heard it said that God helps those who help themselves. We must learn how to help ourselves by co-creating, along with God, that which we desire by developing faith and applying focused thought. The best way to pray then is affirmatively, to visualize what we desire as if it is already in our experience, and to give thanks in advance, knowing that what we need and desire is available to us. To pray effectively, we pray affirmatively. A powerful prayer is one of gratitude. The more we count our blessings, the more blessings come to us. Our thoughts and prayers really do create our experiences!

Another way of saying this is to use creative visualization. Creative visualization is the technique of using our imagination to create more of what we want in life. I’ve heard some people say, “I can’t do that, I don’t visualize anything!” There is nothing woo woo about it. You are already using visualization techniques every day - every time you think about what to have for lunch or what you might want to do over the weekend, or even while remembering a special person in your life, you are using your creative imagination! Visualization is the basic creative energy of the universe, which we use constantly, whether or not we aware of it. When we aren’t aware it is called creating by default. When we are setting conscious intentions, we are deliberately co-creating with God, or the Universe.

You may have heard the saying, “Thoughts are things.” Our thoughts, beliefs and feelings are real! They are alive with the spiritual substance that makes up this world. Our thoughts are energized and powerful. Everything we experience in "reality" has its beginnings in the non-physical. Every thought we think is a seed and every time we think the same thought over again, we water that seed. When we think thoughts filled with emotion, we fertilize those thoughts. The more intense our desire, and the degree to which we believe it is possible, the more likely it is to come into our experience and the faster it will manifest. The law of the soil and the law of the mind are the same.

The world is filled with evidence that supports our beliefs. In other words, optimists are confirmed in their optimism, and pessimists are confirmed in their habits of thought also. An optimist expects things to work out somehow, and because they give their attention to what they do want with expectancy, this is what manifests in their experience. The pessimist, on the other hand, generally also creates what they habitually worry about. When pessimists learn how to alter their expectations and beliefs, they too can more deliberately create what they are wanting in life.

I truly believe that everything works towards our highest good, we just need to trust the Universal Laws working through us and use our experiences to expand our consciousness. Let’s use the Law of Attraction to make the world a more joyful and loving place!

"If you could begin to feel appreciation for the fact that desire exists and anticipation about its unfolding, rather than disappointment that it has not manifested, your energy would clear up by 95% and your manifestations would begin to flow to you so much more easily." --Abraham-Hicks

Good Grief

If tears are an indication of how special my relationship with my mother was, I cry with pride! I’ve come to see grief as pain with a purpose. Interestingly enough, as I cared for my mother in my home the last several weeks of her life, much of what I had learned through spiritual teachings about death had gone out the window. It seemed as though I were losing her forever! At times, I wallowed in sadness and self-pity.

Living life in slow motion, I gazed off into my own inner space, sobbed, and occasionally argued with that part of my mind that did not want my mother to go. Even what I had learned about self-care was not accessible to me since I seemed to exist ‘in a fog.’ I wasn’t getting enough sleep and I felt scared and alone; but not for long!

I finally came to rest on the spiritual foundation that has carried me this far in life. What a respite those teachings became as I was able to see my grief as a journey of spiritual unfoldment. Grief is a normal and natural reaction to loss yet our society seems to hurry along the feelings around transitions that take time to heal. We grieve what could have been and what we feel ‘should’ have been, along with not being able to see our loved one again, on Earth anyway!

The grief that I felt was really just me focusing on the idea that her life was ending. Using Spiritual principles, I was able to then focus on the truth, which is that Spirit, which is who we really are, is eternal! She too, would live on…

I feel like a large part of me died along with my mother. Maybe it was a part of me that was ready to be put at rest. Her death has created a void in me that I can choose to fill as I’d like. As I open up even more to greater spiritual understanding, I am learning to trust the whole process of life, including death.

I have come to see this “mourning after” as a time to heal, to heal unprocessed sadness in my life, including disappointments from relationships, jobs ending sooner than I would have liked, losing beloved pets, and moving from town to town as I grew up. There are opportunities inherent in life's changes that are a gateway to greater personal and spiritual growth. The dynamics of change can be stepping stones to open up to the fullness of God’s love.

I received a card from a friend that said, “When the sea recedes, many treasures and gifts appear that otherwise never would have been noticed.” From a metaphysical or symbolic perspective, I can look at my mother’s death as being the sea receding. Her death, part of the natural ebb and flow of life, brought me many gifts.

Grieving the loss of my mother involved surrender. There came a point where I had to let go and let God, and what a blessing that was! I gradually remembered all that I had been taught around eternal life and the truth that she reemerged into pure positive energy as she “went home” to God. Another gift I was reminded of when, through “coincidence” I ended up in the office of a wonderful spiritual therapist, is that we are always being guided and we are never alone. Perhaps my grief is just God’s love washing over me. I can’t seem to get away from God’s goodness!

It is her death that inspires me to move forward and get clear about what I would like to experience in the next stage of my life. Similar to her spiritual ascension, I feel that I am reemerging into the rest of my life with a more grounded belief in the idea that the Loving Intelligence that created us and all of life is ever present, guiding and directing our ways.

God, you are the love that washes away what no longer serves me. During this time of grief, I ask that you wash away any limiting belief I have that would hold me back.