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You can move beyond old-paradigm "New Year's
resolutions" to "Spiritual Growth Intentions" Allowing the TRUE desires of your heart to become real.....
Dear Friends, I’m up very early this morning tuning into Spirit and writing for you.
I guess that you might even say it’s still the “middle of the night” (at least for some).
I
awoke at around 4 am, just in time to do a few minutes of mantra-chanting at what is considered to be the most ideal time
to say your mantras or affirmations (4 am). In fact, the Hindu religion even has a special name for this
time…..they call it the “Brahmamahurta”. My inside joke with my husband is that the
reason that it is called this is because it “hurta” the Brahmas to have to get up so early to chant their mantras
(smile). In
any case, I’m not nearly as devoted as the ancient Brahmas were, so I rarely make it up for the “Brahmamahurta”
hour (unless it’s one of those times when I got so inspired writing or meditating that I just didn’t go asleep
at all…but that’s different). So when I do wake up in time for the “Brahmamahurta”,
I savor it. I just love this time of day. It is still and quiet and so ripe
with possibility. No wonder the ancients thought it a good time for chanting your mantras and prayers
into the cosmic womb of creation. Last night (or to-night, depending on how you want to look at it) was Telechat Club night for
me, which meant that me & other members of the club gathered for one of our twice monthly “Telechats” via
telephone. These Telechats are part live meditation, part class, part group spiritual coaching, and also
part spiritual-community gathering and sharing. *Anything* can happen in a Telechat Club call, as I usually
just try to stay open to be moved by Spirit and by the shared energy of whoever shows up on the call. I try not to “force”
or even “direct” the call too much, but instead just show up and see what happens. The only
real “direction” I insist on is that we usually have a selected “sub-topic” for each call, which usually
relates back to the larger “theme” that we are focusing on during one of our four month units. Currently, we are
in the “Healing Heart” unit, and the sub-topic for last night’s call was “Awakening Your Inner Healer,
Part 2”. At least, that was its technical name. With it being the New
Year and all, it just so happened that we ended up flowing into a focus on tuning into our deepest desires for spiritual healing
& growth, and connecting with our “Spiritual Growth Healing Intention”
for 2011. We did this “connecting” through a process of live group meditation. We visualized
the “road of destiny” before us, felt this road loop around into a circle of eternity with ourselves at the center
of the creative wheel, and then we allowed our true “spiritual growth desires” to swell up in our hearts.
These “spiritual growth desires” extended outward from our hearts, like sparks or spokes, traveling into
the cosmos and piercing the veil of time-space to merge with the cobblestones of the “road of destiny” itself. After a few moments of merging
with the “road of destiny”, each of us then felt our “spiritual growth desires” or “healing
intentions” come swirling back towards us from the circular “road of destiny”, riding the spokes of the
wheel back to the center. There, we encountered our “spiritual growth desire” not just as an
abstract construct, but as a tangible picture, image or symbol. In other words, the desire revealed itself
to us in its astral or energetic form. It also began
communicating with each of us by revealing to us a succinct word or words that encapsulates its vibrational essence. Through our group meditation,
we were able to breathe these symbols of our “spiritual growth healing desires” into our hearts, thereby bringing
the spiritual essence of our desire back with us into the physical world. What I have just described to you is a process that
you can use for yourself to get in tune with your own “Spiritual Growth Healing Desire”. You
can do your own personalized meditation to help yourself connect with how it is that you really desire to grow and
evolve in life. In other words, you can connect with your true heart’s
desire. This will help you to begin to make progress towards bringing that desire into the physical reality. I do want to clarify that a “Spiritual Growth Healing Desire” (or “intention”) is different
than a “resolution”. There is a relationship between the two in that both are
attempts to focus your energy towards a desired goal. However, there are BIG differences too.
 For example, resolutions often have a material-world basis, and usually focus on
“doing” or “having” a certain thing. In contrast, your “Spiritual Growth
Healing Desire” is more likely to be centered on “being” in a certain state, or “feeling” a
certain way. From the metaphysical point of view, you might say that “resolutions”
focus only on “effects”, while “spiritual growth healing intentions” deal with the causes or
astral forms behind the effects. Let me give you an example to help clarify.
Let us say that you have
a goal to lose 40 pounds. You are making this resolution because you know that it would be best for your
health to lose this weight. Also, your human-self would like for its physical body to look a little bit
different, and be able to move more easily. This is a resolution, because it focuses on outer
world effects. (I might add that it certainly could be a worthwhile resolution, although still
just a resolution nonetheless.) In contrast, let us say that your desire is to feel “comfortable
in your own skin”. You want to feel at peace with yourself, and you especially want to feel at peace
being in your body and this physical experience. You are not specifying any certain thing that “must”
happen before you feel at peace in your body, for you know that peace is an inner condition that is not necessarily
dependent on outer circumstances (although of course, you are open to making any positive physical-world changes that you
feel led to make to help amplify your experience of inner peace). This goal to feel “comfortable
in your own skin” or be at peace with your body is a “Spiritual Growth Healing Intention” or desire.
It focuses on an inner state of being and not an outer-world effect. Of course, if you
begin directing your energies towards being more at peace with yourself and your physical body, you will probably start to
notice some changes in your attitudes and behavior. And these changes
in attitude and behavior eventually lead to manifesting your “Spiritual Growth Desire” in very tangible ways. For example, many years ago when I was becoming more at peace with my physical body, I gradually
began to feel the urge to implement more health-centered practices for myself, such as eating more fruits and vegetables,
taking better care of my teeth and gums, increasing the amount of yoga I did each week, and eventually, losing about 20 pounds.
All
of these “health-centered” practices that I just mentioned would have been worthy goals or “resolutions”
in and of themselves. However, I wasn’t doing them because I set a New Year’s resolution to
“do yoga every morning” or “lose 20 pounds”. Instead, I was focused on a desire
for spiritual growth within myself to become more at peace with my own body, and comfortable being in the physical experience.
All of these other things arose naturally and organically as I attuned with my heart’s truest “spiritual
growth desire” at the time. At least for me personally, I
find that setting a “spiritual growth desire” or “healing intention” works much better than trying
to focus on a “resolution”. Resolutions are so narrow and defined.
Probably this is part of their strength. And I will say that resolutions can be good for clearing
up minor problems in life (for example, “I resolve to clean out the upstairs closet in 2011”). But
many resolutions also set people up for feelings of *failure* and *dejection*. Whenever you start
building your happiness around the attachment to a specific outcome in the physical world, you are playing a dangerous and
potentially self-abusive game. This is like the proverbial building-your-house-upon-the-sand
dilemma that Jesus spoke about. What happens when you don’t get that thing that you wanted or weren’t
able to achieve the desired outcome? Or what if you do get it, but then you lose it?
This has never happened to any of us, has it? (smile)
CLICK HERE to read just a few more thoughts on the benefits of tuning into your "Spiritual Growth Healing Desires & Intentions".
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