Issue No. 3

Dedicated to helping you learn how to enhance your life by honoring your soul and spirit while living day to day.

Article

Spiritual Fitness Saboteurs aka "The Grinches Who Steal Christmas"

Well, I must say last month my "Grinches" sabotaged my intention to write this newsletter, so two months have passed since I last communicated with you.  The great news is this has given me a perfect entry into this month’s topic: how we sabotage our Spiritual Fitness.

In the first couple of newsletters I wrote that our Spiritual Fitness depends on our paying attention and listening to our bodies, thoughts, emotions and experiences in the present moment.  It is not so much about doing as it is about being.  It means honoring our soul’s intentions and being at choice as best we can, in each moment.

So, what happened to my best intentions?  They were there; I heard them; yet, I allowed myself to choose to fill my calendar with other activities which, while important, were not addressing my intention to write.  I got way too busy!  All the while, that still small voice of my soul - persistent little bugger it is - kept urging me to sit down and write. And I kept putting her off.  The next thing I knew was almost mid-December!  

Has this ever happened to you?  Best intentions unfulfilled?

Dr. Seuss’s "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas" is a wonderful metaphor for those parts of ourselves that undermine our attempts to exercise our spiritual muscle, that place in us that connects to our internal divinity, our essence. Some of the strategies these grinches (aka gremlins, saboteurs, Itty Bitty Shitty Committee, etc.) use include, in no particular order:

Ignoring, deflecting, minimizing, rationalizing, judging, worrying, obsessing, conforming
Resisting, making up stories, fear, projecting, assuming, procrastinating, over-achieving,
Protecting, defending, justifying, criticizing, gossiping, comparing, self deprecating,
Over-spending, controlling, overtly choosing not to pay attention to the soul. 

They deliver messages that tell you things like:

You have to, should, better, must, It’s all his/her/my/their fault,
It’s not enough, I’m not enough, There’s not enough, More is better,
Later, later, later, Tomorrow it, he, she, they, I will be different,
That’s the way it/he/she/I always is, I/you/he/she/it don’t matter, no one cares, I don’t care, I’m not important, he/she is not important, why bother, etc., etc.!

I am sure you could add to these lists!

These habits, beliefs, behaviors, thoughts and strategies reflect parts of our psyche that are often unconscious.  They develop as survival and coping mechanisms when we are young; protective strategies for surviving in the world.  They are part of our human experience, no one escapes having them.  They are often parts of ourselves, we don’t like, as Debbie Ford writes in "The Dark Side of the Light Chasers".  We pretend they don’t exist, ignore them, don’t confront them and life goes on.  However, they can provide us with very useful information about ourselves if we choose to acknowledge and look deeply at them. 

 Through the practice of presence, exercising our spiritual muscle, we become aware that these are aspects of ourselves, that there is a part of us that can observe them without identifying or attaching ourselves to them.  As this awareness grows we develop the capacity to choose to be curious about and embrace them or to continue to deflect, ignore or reject their existence.  The beauty of this process is that it is wholly directed by the soul.  We are given exactly the awareness we need in each moment to grow in wisdom, self understanding and self acceptance when we allow the process to unfold and stay with our selves. 

When we hold all of our experience as sacred, we begin to see that these entrenched parts of ourselves really are seeking love, discipline, forgiveness, acceptance, confrontation, acknowledgement and accompaniment.  When we can give ourselves this response, from the place of presence, we stop allowing the "Grinch" to steal the "Christmas in our souls". We experience even these parts from that precious, joy-filled, loving, peaceful place that exists at our core.  We awaken to our essence, our passion.

This holiday season, a time when the busyness in our lives can become ever more hectic, do something different! Exercise your spiritual muscle!  Begin to notice who is choosing your activities, gifts, parties, food, drink, etc.  Is it the voice of your Grinch? Or is it the voice of your soul? Listen to this voice, see what it needs, attend to it and choose consciously and from presence.   Presence is the best present you can give yourself and those around you!  It is priceless!

Readers Respond!

I love hearing about your journey in Spiritual Fitness!  Please write! We help each other when we share!

In response to last month’s article, Life Coach, Reggie Odom, wrote:

"Wonderful newsletter! I just did the exercise. The gremlin saboteur of my spiritual fitness got really scared, shaky about not having time for this, needed to get a big piece of work to get done this afternoon; it silently screamed. So glad to have your reminder!

Thank YOU, Reggie!