Why hasn’t my life changed?
By Barbra White
God wants to express as you. You are made in the image and likeness of God. Your True Self holds the energies of love, beauty, wisdom and joy that are waiting to be lived as you. So if all of this is true, why does your life look the way it does?
Are you spiritual and seek to live “in the flow”, yet wonder why your life has not changed? Are you working hard to “love yourself,” yet not seeing changes in your body, relationships or career? This may be because you have confused spirituality, “going with the flow”, and loving yourself with numbing, laziness, complacency, and narcissism. I understand this information may be hard to hear, but if you desire real change, please read on.
Numbing: directly experiencing God or Love requires feeling the painful emotions. Letting go of your false identity can be scary, challenging, and hard. Living from your true amazing self takes years of inner work and guidance from a skilled mentor. For many, this information should be freeing. Too often I see people on the spiritual path feeling like they have failed because they haven’t manifested their dreams or still feel like they want to die. Manifesting your dreams requires letting go of timing and outcome, discipline, inspired action, and support from others. What wants to “die” (addictions, lack of forgiveness, avoiding the pain, arrogance) may still need to die.
The pain is the bridge into your greater self. Numbing with pharmaceuticals or marijuana will prevent your growth. “Studies have shown antidepressants given to those 29 and younger increase suicide rate. There is no blood test for depression…. meditation, exercise, and good diet changes brain chemistry.” -Marianne Williamson, Tears to Triumph. Afraid to feel and numbed out on pot, pills or food… we lose our connection with our soul. “You can’t experience what scripture means if you have not felt to the depth of your pain.” -Father Richard Rhor, Falling Upward.
New-age bliss bunnies or religious fanatics who talk about Love or God but do not FEEL or experience God or Love in their everyday ordinary life are similar. “There is a difference between drinking water verses just knowing its chemical components.”
-Michael Beckwith, www.AgapeLive.com. Both religious fundamentalists and the new age spiritual seeker suffer greatly from not doing the psychological healing needed to taste God in one’s being.
Our society is very wounded. We have an epidemic of lack of connection to each other, to nature, to our food, and to the true essence of what it means to love. The road back to wholeness is possible. Collecting the pieces of our broken souls is possible.
Laziness: Living in the flow includes self-discipline. Truly living in grace, flow, and the realm of miracles requires you to have a daily practice and a disciplined mind. Michael Beckwith coined the phrase “bliss-iplines” back in the nineties. If you don’t work out, your body will become weak. If you don’t have a daily spiritual practice, your mind will become filled with the world’s hate. If you don’t direct your thoughts, someone else will. Too often I see people who call themselves “spiritual” but have no spiritual practice. A person who calls themselves a musician would play his or her music. Right?
Self discipline is self love and if practiced will ignite confidence. When you have kept even a small agreement with yourself you feel safer to express in the world.
Religion can provide a foundation or container for a profound spiritual practice. Yes, at the same time this container can also become a coffin. “Those who had painful childhoods have a mania for order and certainty. They did not have a starting ‘container.’ Our obsessive search for certitude is the root of fundamentalist cruelty.” -Father Richard Rhor
However, as humans we need structure to tap into our creative genius. My friend who is a famous musician said, “I had to learn and follow the musical principles to find my true gift.”
“Learn and obey the rules very well, so you know how to break them properly.” -Dalai Lama
Hearing your heart’s calling takes work. Spiritual growth takes work. It takes a warrior’s heart to self-accept and love others. Real inner growth is challenging and anyone who says it is not… is trying to give you a temporary quick fix. Realizing your profound magnificence requires deep humility.
Self discipline does not mean perfection. Mistakes will happen if you are growing. Perfection is impossible if you are growing closer to God. What does not grow, dies. Perfectionism is ammunition for attack on self and others. Real self acceptance means loving both the dark and light parts of yourself. “It is easier to try to be better than you are, than to be who you are. Do not try to transform yourself…..Move into yourself…..As long as we try to transcend ourselves…..reach for the sky…..we are heroes carved in stone” -Marion Woodman, Coming Home to Myself.
Being you is enough. Spiritual growth can become another trap to “be better.” The impetus for spiritual growth can also be fed by our materialistic “you must produce to be valued,” achievement-based society. The process of surrendering to what is already within you goes against our cultural drive. Don’t give up. Punitive thoughts will cause you to do it again. Forgive yourself and grow with a curiosity about your process.
Complacency: Have you taken the time to catch the vision for your life? Have you let go of what you hold onto so tightly to create space for the idea that God has for your life? In counseling people for many years I have found that people know what it is they need to let go of, but they choose not to. Then a temporary amnesia falls over them and they wonder why their life has not changed. The prison becomes complete as they complain about others to distract themselves from what wants to emerge in their lives.
Narcissism: Self-love includes loving others. What you push against in another, becomes activated in you. You cannot find your alignment if you are judging others. You cannot find your inner peace if you are condemning others or yourself. You have the choice between the grievance or the miracle. “Your self-hate will disguise itself as self-love” –A Course In Miracles. It is a huge shedding of self-hate to choose forgiveness verses proving your point.
People are in tremendous pain. If they realized that the pain is a gift and that the way through the pain is the way out of it… then their pain can lead to great things. Life has pain, but suffering is optional. We also need more support: spiritual practice, nature, community, and a mentor. Don’t believe the John Wayne industrial growth society pathological individualistic b.s. that you can “do it alone.” Interdependence or asking for help, is not weakness, it is a sign of strength. Yes… only you can be responsible for your happiness, but also don’t forget; we are one.
Change is possible, yet it is a daily step-by-step practice; following through with the little whisperings in your heart. Feeling the pain and doing the inner work even when you “don’t feel like it.” Choosing to be kind even when you know you could say something. Asking for help even when you really don’t want to. Making moment-by-moment choices to show up fully to each person and every moment–Asking, “How can I serve this person in front of me?” verses “How can I get…”. All your dreams are possible, if you do the work.
Barbra White
Barbra has a masters in transpersonal psychology and ecopsychology, Diploma of homeopathy, Reiki Master, and published author. She is a gifted intuitive, spiritual life coach and Earth Angel communicator. 734-455-1438 | www.AcceptedAsIam.com
