Step 1 - Understanding Spirituality

Before we can understand what spirituality is, we must first understand what spirituality is not.  Spirituality is not religion.  Spirituality is partly what you believe and mostly how you live your life. We begin all beliefs with what we have learned through our environment and from others. Ask yourself:  Does what I have been taught feel right to me?  Does it fulfill me? Do I live in love or in fear? If what you have been taught does not feel right, if it is not fulfilling or if you life out of fear, you are ready for growth. 

Everything you have learned in life, everything you have experienced has made you who are you today. Good things, bad things, wonderful and horrible things – all of these have shaped you. You are never a victim of circumstance, but a master of making your life what it is to be.  You use your knowledge and experience to manifest things into your life. Your knowledge and experience give you choices of how to progress with each step along the path. Some of these teachings, you have accepted as truth because they resonate with your soul. And conversely, some of these teachings you have not accepted because they do not fit with your soul. They did not fulfill your inner void where the spirit of the Divine can only go. When we begin accepting that we are truly spiritual creatures who are here for a spiritual purpose we move to a heart-centric mode of spirituality.

Step 3 - Heart-centric

Heart-centric is when we truly begin to feel a sense of belonging, excitement, and start to truly commit beyond Sunday service, or saying a prayer when we are “in need”.  Heart-centric is having faith where there is nothing else to hold on to. It is about claiming the gifts of the Divine and doing all the things we should to be a good person.  It is about taking that next step, that leap of faith to walk the path we should walk.  We begin to believe that when we pray, we are truly heard by the Divine and the Divine answers us in time based upon his will.  We also fail miserably at times blaming the Divine when things do not go right, or we do not get what we have asked for.  We blame the Divine when things go wrong can come from anger or a sense of despair.  Life is a journey.  We are born, we grow up, we experience good things and bad things, wondrous things and horrible things.  We get sick, we experience healing, we grow old and we die.  None of these things is something God does to us.  It is part of the life process. 

Step 4 - Soul-Centric

Soul-centric individuals do not “know”, they do not “believe”.  The “are”. A soul-centric individual does not act with faith, does not walk in faith, they are faith. These individuals do not look for God they are one with God. They do not take an us – Him mentality. They do not look at the path as a group of actions that they hope will one day get them to Heaven. Soul-centrics live every moment knowing that they are the blessed child of God.  They do not doubt this fact.  They do not blame God or get mad when things do not go the way they believe they should.

Step 5 – Grow Up

If you have children, think about the last time your child was sick and you had to give him or her medication. Did they fight you? Did they get mad at you? Or your child wanted something they should not have or were not ready for. Would it not have been wonderful if your child would have taken your answer, your telling them no, or telling them to do something with the attitude of “okay – you know best”? Then why do we fight God? Why do we question Him when things do not go our way? It is time to grow up and stop being children in our spirituality. The good news is that God does not get frustrated with us.  I do not think God gets mad or upset when we doubt or whine.  But, I do think it demonstrates that we are not necessarily ready for what we may be asking.

Step 6 – Accepting What We Receive and Accepting It for What it Truly Is

Everything in life is a blessing - even the big ugly monsters in front of us.  We always grow and learn (sometimes painfully) to become more of who we should be.  Sometimes we experience trials and frustrations because it will help someone else down the road.

There was an ant once who needed to find food for his family.  So he went on a journey and was walking along a path when he came upon a rock.  He looked at the rock and realized he was too small to climb it.  He was down in a rut which he could not climb out of.  He looked behind him then back at the rock.  He prayed “Oh Lord, move the rock.”  He had faith.  The rock was going to move.  So he waited all day for the rock to move.  It did not move.  He prayed again, more fervently than he had prayed the first time (because 2 prayers are always better than one – since the first one did not work – right?)  He waited all night for the rock to move.  Again, it did not move.  When the sun rose the next day, he became so frustrated he turned around and went home.  When he arrived home, he prayed again and asked God “Why did you not move the rock?  What kind of God are you?  Do you not love me?”  God laughed.  This made the ant even angrier.  God then said, “You asked me to move the rock.”  The ant said “Yes.  And you did not answer me.”  God said, “It was not a rock, it was candy bar.” 

The rocks in our path are only obstacles when we choose to make them so.  But the ant was so busy looking at the obstacle that he completely missed the blessing. So how many blessings have you missed because you saw them as obstacles?  How many times have you discouraged someone else because you told them their blessing was an obstacle? Many times we do not accept blessings because we do not believe we deserve the blessings. 

Step 7 – We Get What We Ask For

Now, I know you may be thinking – “look at this.  I did not ask for this” - on a variety of things in your life. But, if it is in your life – you asked for it and the Divine gave it to you.  God gives us what we ask for. We can ask for things by focusing on the things we do not want.  Try this next time you are driving. Focus on no red lights.  You will find that you tend to his most of the red lights. Then try by focusing on only getting green lights.  You will tend to find that you get mostly green lights. But you say “I have prayed about it”.  Let’s say you actively worry for 2 hours.  You prayed for 30 minutes – you worried for 2 hours.  Which has the greater time allotment? 

Step 8 – Know Yourself

Light switches – We hit that little flipper thingy (technical term by the way) and we expect the light to come on.  It just does.  I only sort of understand the mechanics of how the electricity flows into the looped current and makes the light work but my faith says that when I flip that switch, the light will shine.  Sometimes I think that many times when we struggle with or against things, there is a switch that gets flipped and we can deal with the issues at hand.  Before that switch flips though, we are in the dark, bumping into things and sometimes a little scared.  Now something as mundane as flipping the light switch for life can be translated into all our daily lives with all of our daily problems. First we have to get to the root of the problem – find the light switch.  For every concern you have, ask why.  Ask why do I overeat, for example. I overeat because I’m bored. Why am I bored? I’m bored because I choose not to have a hobby. Why do I choose not to have a hobby? Because I have not taken the time to do a hobby. Now fix that issue.  This may be oversimplifying the process and not every hurdle can be fixed quickly.  However, once you do get to the root of the symptom, you can start planning the recovery.

Step 9 – Throw out the Negative

Negativity breeds negativity. This is a fundamental truth in life.   I had a lady I worked with who would come to work every day in the worst mood.  She would share all the things that were bad about her life, the world, politics, religion with us and you could see people’s moods drop.  She was a negativity breeder.  She relished in it.  When I realized that, I found that having her in my life was a detriment to my happiness.  I stopped hanging out with her.  Even when she asked me why I no longer had lunch with her and I explained as gently as I could that I could not handle her negativity, she did not understand.  She was programmed for negativity and she chose not to leave that comfort zone. What are the things in your life that cause negativity?  There are several things you can do about it. Live with it.  Stay where you are and choose to live in the negative zone. Fight against it.  However we use negativity to fight negativity.  Two wrongs never make a right. Rise above it.  Realize that you do not have to live in the negative zone.  You do not have to accept the negativity nor give it any power. 

Step 10 – Understand Your True Value

So what is it all about?  How do we fit in this big expanse we call the Universe?  Truth is, it does not matter how we fit into the big expanse.  The truth of the matter is that it does not matter whether we are great or feel insignificant in the scheme of things, what matters is how you live your life.  How you touch other people – for good or ill.  How you leave this world – with lessons learned or lost.  When we feel we are at a loss of control, God seems to stop being seen as a part of us. Sometimes, when it gets really bad, God gets the blame for what is wrong.  Do not just sit there and try to convince yourself you have never done that. Now for fitting into the Universe – if I am doing what the God and Goddess want me to do, then I am fulfilling my place in the universe – correct?

Step 11 – Find Your Path and Walk It Daily

Everyone has a different path to walk.  Your relationship with God is different than anyone else.  It is special, perfect and just for your.  No one can tell you what your path is supposed to be. It does not matter what path you choose.  There are many faiths in the world that you may or may not agree with.  Many times it is the culture the person grows up in that determines their basic path. What matters is the relationship with the Divine.  How you live your life.  What you do with the precious time you have upon this earth that matters.  Many times we spend so much time quibbling over whose religion is the right religion that we miss the relationship portion entirely.  Growing and being a truly spiritual person can be a little scary.  It is easier to rely on religion, ritual, and someone else telling us what to or not to do, what to wear, what to believe, than to find our relationship with God. 

Step 12 - Wake Up Now!

We are all spiritual creatures, even those of us who believe in nothing at all.  We still find spirituality and inspiration in music, art, nature, and the smiles of babies.  A look at a sunset makes us realize there is more to life than the daily grind.  We each have our level of spirituality that we walk in this lifetime.  Once you realize that there is more to you than just flesh and bone and intellect – something that hungers for a connection with the Divine – then you begin the process of “waking up” and taking your place in the Universe.

Lastly, only accept the things in life that make you stronger, teach you and help you.  If they are not spiritually beneficial to you, tell them to go away.  Keep walking the spiritual path.  If it cannot eat you, let it go.  You do not have to accept anything other than what you choose to.  Do not forget - you are special.  Do not let anyone (past, present or future) ever make you believe differently.