In times of stress what do you do to uplift your spirits? Do you ever find yourself being pulled down into negativity and the heaviness of life? We have the choice to either get sucked into the muck of life here on earth or we have the opportunity to take another path. That is the path of conscious choice. Rather than become a victim to the negative influences around us, we can choose to stay in a positive frame of mind.
If this sounds a little like a Pollyanna complex and a way of just sticking your head in the sand you are probably like a lot of folks who think that we cannot control the way we react to things. When things are hard we are supposed to go around depressed. Right?
We definitely live in sobering times. Things are serious on Planet Earth. It is precisely because of this that learning to react in positive ways to negative events is so important. When we succumb to the overall heavy atmosphere that we live in we have nothing healing to offer those around us. If we want to be of service, then it is essential that we learn to maintain an inner light.
All of the world’s religious traditions speak of enlightenment—which in its most basic form is having a light within oneself. I like the view of Christianity that speaks of having the living Christ within. When we ask the Spirit to live within us we are inviting Light Itself to be at home with us. This is accomplished by invitation and practice.
Spiritual practice is a daily learning to allow the light to live within us and a learning of how to be in the world in a new way. Thus, when we are faced with negativity we have an arsenal of resources to fall back on. Anything that helps to lift our spirits like music, spending time in nature, reading inspirational material, meditating, praying, or reaching out to others are all things that can help us to turn a negative into a positive. This is spiritual alchemy.
By learning how to go within and feel the presence of the Spirit in your heart you will learn to connect to something higher than yourself and the hard times that you may be going through. When you make a conscious choice about how you are going to react, you are taking a step towards being a lightworker in the world. You are then on your way to becoming a powerful agent for healing on our planet.
If this sounds a little like a Pollyanna complex and a way of just sticking your head in the sand you are probably like a lot of folks who think that we cannot control the way we react to things. When things are hard we are supposed to go around depressed. Right?
We definitely live in sobering times. Things are serious on Planet Earth. It is precisely because of this that learning to react in positive ways to negative events is so important. When we succumb to the overall heavy atmosphere that we live in we have nothing healing to offer those around us. If we want to be of service, then it is essential that we learn to maintain an inner light.
All of the world’s religious traditions speak of enlightenment—which in its most basic form is having a light within oneself. I like the view of Christianity that speaks of having the living Christ within. When we ask the Spirit to live within us we are inviting Light Itself to be at home with us. This is accomplished by invitation and practice.
Spiritual practice is a daily learning to allow the light to live within us and a learning of how to be in the world in a new way. Thus, when we are faced with negativity we have an arsenal of resources to fall back on. Anything that helps to lift our spirits like music, spending time in nature, reading inspirational material, meditating, praying, or reaching out to others are all things that can help us to turn a negative into a positive. This is spiritual alchemy.
By learning how to go within and feel the presence of the Spirit in your heart you will learn to connect to something higher than yourself and the hard times that you may be going through. When you make a conscious choice about how you are going to react, you are taking a step towards being a lightworker in the world. You are then on your way to becoming a powerful agent for healing on our planet.
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