Spiritual Beings having a Human Experience
This human part of the journey isn't for wimps
Sometimes these human parts of our journey are just hard. Last week I found myself wrestling with an unusual level of fear and angst. A loved one had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. Another loved one’s life was off the rails and I didn’t know if he was going to survive. Olive, my dog and agility partner, took an odd step and came up lame in a rear leg for a few paces. I was immediately super concerned not only for her comfort but because I have so much invested in our trip to the national agility championships in mid-March. To top it off some unexpected expenses came in and old rutted thinking around financial worry surfaced.
My thoughts kept spinning. What if the cancer has spread? Was my troubled guy still alive? Maybe this was Universe telling me I shouldn’t go to the agility championships? But I really want to go. Maybe I should stay home, save the money, keep working ….. Blah, blah, blah.
And then, I reclaimed my mind. One of the greatest gifts I’ve given myself in this lifetime is a spiritual path that helped me learn that we can take control of our thinking and even of our feelings. Thoughts and feelings don’t just have to happen to us; we can take dominion over our own minds and boy-oh-boy does life become a whole lot more peaceful and fun as we do. We do this through practice, because the more we choose to think in a more positive and empowered way the more readily those thoughts become our default.
One of my main spiritual practices is getting out into nature and sensing the creative force running through all life and this Earth that I love. Last week, feeling the weight of the issues I noted above, I took Olive for a hike instead of agility practice and after a while sat on a big downed juniper tree in the desert while she ripped around checking out every possible nook and cranny. I expressed gratitude for this incredible planet that has provided me every meal, every drink, every day of this human life. A hawk glided overhead and I said hello and reminded myself that I too am free.
Another main spiritual squeeze is A Course In Miracles. To elevate my thinking I reviewed a few of my favorite lessons:
· I am never upset for the reason I think
· I am not the victim of the world I see
· There is nothing to fear
· I am spirit
· I could see peace instead of this
· I am sustained by the love of God
· My mind is a part of God’s. I am very holy.
Whenever I’d notice my thoughts spinning around the challenges or worrying about possible future outcomes, I’d deploy the tried-and-true technique of saying to myself, “choose again” and redirecting to something positive. And, holy smokes, in next to no time my holy mind was either hanging out in the present moment or envisioning positive outcomes.
A few days later, a completely sound and joyous Olive and I were at an agility competition. While waiting for our next event, I was in the arena volunteering to help set the jump bars, etc. I sat in a white, plastic lawn chair, on the dirt and horse manure floor in the cold fairgrounds building, as other dogs and their humans ran through the obstacle courses. Suddenly I felt completely one with the All-That-Is, God/Source/Creator, and I knew that I was fully supported by that Source, my life partner, my friends, all of life itself. It was a full-immersion sense of wellbeing and joy. I realized in that moment that all previous feelings of fear and angst were a result of my having been in a consciousness of separation, feeling that I needed to solve problems from my little, human-only self.
The contrast between these two states of being – separate and small or One with Source and fully supported – is immense and profound. I know for sure I want more of the latter. I also know I have the ability to choose it.
We all have a choice, no matter what the experience is before us, to choose our thoughts and feelings. Here is a great short video by great New Thought teacher and Unity minister, Rev. Eric Butterworth, on this very subject.
As it turned out, my loved one’s cancer does have some treatment options and she is going to move forward. Olive hasn’t missed a step and we head out to nationals in four days. My troubled young man got arrested and I am relieved. He is alive and relatively safe and this may well be the intervention that saves his life.
Over the past few days, I’ve found myself singing the old hymnal, “It is well with my soul”. It’s probably been 35 years since I’ve heard the tune and though I don’t buy the whole “Satan” or “dying for our sins” thing (old programming I’ve now released), I find myself smiling that this has wiggled up from some old memory cell.
May you too feel that sense that all is well with your soul.
Love,
Cylvia
What New Thought Spirituality Is and Isn’t
Related to the post above, here’s a vid of my recent Sunday talk on What New Thought and Unity Spirituality is and isn’t. Vid is twenty minutes in length.
Life with Livvy – Perry or Bust!
Olive and I are set to leave in just four days for the National Agility Championships! I just gave Olive a dose of heartworm and tick and flea preventative meds – the bugs in the South are a whole different ballgame than here in Central Oregon. I’ve thoroughly scrubbed out the inside of the car, which we’ll basically be living out of for a couple weeks.
This final week we’ve lightened up on exercise (both of us), just doing moderate maintenance cardio and weights and light practices mostly focused on getting the contacts just right on the dog walk and A-frame. For those of you who aren’t agility geeks, contacts are the yellow end of the A-Frame, teeter-totter, and elevated dogwalk. The dog has to get at least one paw in the yellow before jumping off the obstacles. It’s a tricky thing.
I’m delighted to note that at our trial last weekend Olive was 100% perfect on her running contacts, including some tricky ones. She had clean runs in 9 out of 12 events.
Here is our Time to Beat run, which was really good and shows what an incredible jumper Livvy is (check out her huge jumps in the home stretch).
Here is our Jumpers with Weaves run. She is getting really good at staying in the weaves as I move further and further away to get in position for the next sequence of obstacles. Also, I have just recently added a “collection” cue which is proving really useful. On the jump toward the end where Liv had to wrap hard around to the finish line, I had my left hand out to show her we were changing direction right after the jump. What a great little lady!
Perry Georgia here we come! Yeehaw!
It is true! Being free to choose a point of view opens all options. This is in contrast to carrying around, for life, a set of viewpoints, like a bag of rocks.
Go Livvy Lot-a-dog!