Your calling has already found you.
I was meeting with my spiritual director recently and I said, “I feel like my calling chose me – like: it has me; I don’t have it.” I was describing the experience of feeling carried by something larger than myself, for a greater purpose (which is a huge blessing, by the way), and not having ultimate control in that process.
I’ve been thinking about that ever since, how I’ve come far enough now in life to understand that our vocations and callings are not something we have to struggle to figure out. I think we’re born into a purpose and that just by living our lives authentically, we can walk our way right into it, discover that we’re part of something larger, have been placed here for a specific and worthwhile reason for being.
A lot of the time we resist, insistent on trying to accomplish the way of our own choosing. I’m sure that sometimes the two are in alignment – what we want for our life’s mission and what life wants of us – but other times, and especially if our path is not meant to be a traditional one, not the way of the crowd, we try and go another way. The way our culture, parents, peer group, or schooling dictates for us. From the time we’re born, voices are constantly shouting “This is who you are.” Part of our life journey is to discover who we really are, what we have been created for, and what life wants to create for and through us. Then to have the courage to say to the world at some point, “This is who I am.”
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Affirmations, all i ever wrote, Art as Devotion, Digital Offerings, Facing Challenge, Faith, Grief, Love, Mindfulness, Peace, Personal Growth, Poetry, Prayer, Resilience, Self-care, Spiritual Practice, Spirituality, Uncategorized
New Offering: Affirmations & Prayers for Empowerment and Solace
It’s my joy to share this new digital download, Affirmations and Prayers for Empowerment and Solace.
This 26-page PDF contains the personal affirmations that have kept me afloat through all kinds of seasons. There are affirmations and prayers for grounding, blessing, self-compassion, navigating grief and sorrow, embodying power, calling in help, blessing, abundance, and protection. One of the themes threaded throughout the affirmations is embodied safety – body as home, as safe home – which makes them particularly soothing for survivors of trauma.
Continue ReadingFacing Challenge, Healing, Nature, Peace, Personal Growth, Resilience, Self-care, Spiritual Practice, Spirituality, Wellness
Rooted in the Source: Spiritual Connection and Resilience
One of the most important things you can do right now is to locate your true Source and keep drinking from that well. In “normal” (non-pandemic) times, we enter into our relationships and lean on each other to varying degrees, ebbing and flowing in that way based on who has energy to give, the dynamics of our relationships, how we manage stress, etc. But in these times, everyone is under intense, chronic stress in different ways. Everyone is a pot leaking water, and you are a pot leaking water, too – so if you need to truly be refilled and replenished like never before, you can’t look to another leaking pot. You have to go back to the water source.
Continue ReadingDancing with Fear
Everyone is dancing with fear right now. It’s unavoidable; it’s in the atmosphere; it’s a constant thread woven through the media reports we’re consuming to stay informed; and having fear is understandable given the haphazard, disorganized government response to the coronavirus in the U.S.
But the challenge of this pandemic is also presenting us with an opportunity – the opportunity to develop as skillful a relationship as we can with fear. If we can do that, we’ll have a strength and skill that we can continue to make use of even when this crisis is over. Here are some of my suggestions for how to do it:
Continue ReadingSurrender: Releasing Your Troubles to the Heart of God
Surrender can be one of the hardest things to do. Yet, it is one of the most powerful and effective spiritual postures there is. We are not meant to carry our burdens alone; we are meant to partner with God (the Divine, Spirit, Goddess – whatever you call your Higher Power or the Source of all Being) as we face the burdens of life, turning over our troubles to God regularly lest we become weighed down from trying to carry more than we are able to. Life involves challenge, which is hard on the spirit, so we must also have a regular means of release and cleansing for our spirit. Surrender is more than necessary.
We are not meant to carry our burdens alone.
The action of surrender is a choice. It’s an inner decision to release and let go, willfully handing things over to the God who loves us, to that which surely desires what is best for us. God can be trusted. And even if you don’t have trust in God, you can still surrender. It is not a feeling or some miraculous moment where the heavens will part, as much as it is a decision. You can keep on choosing it over and over again, as many times as you need to in order to maintain your peace. It’s an action we are meant to take regularly—even several times a day.
It can be helpful to use imagery or tactile methods to symbolize your act of surrendering. For example:
- Writing down the things you are surrendering on slips of paper and putting them in a special jar or container kept for that purpose. A “prayer jar” of sorts.
- Taking a walk and imagining yourself releasing your stresses or worries to the earth beneath you, or to the trees around you. Nature is the Great Mother and this practice brings healing.
- Using prayer beads as you recite The Serenity Prayer or some other prayer of surrender.
- Singing a song of surrender, such as the hymn “I Surrender All” or this one, one of my favorites.
- Doing breathing exercises where you imagine inhaling love or peace and then surrendering to God on your exhale.
Whatever the method, surrender often.
Whatever the method, surrender often. Many of us are carrying around (and being weighed down by) things we needed to surrender a long time ago. Outdated beliefs, untrue ideas about ourselves and/or others, pain from the past, baggage from past relationships, unprocessed loss, etc. The less we surrender on a regular basis, the more these things will build up.
We tend to resist surrender. Perhaps because the very act of surrender is affirmation of the uncomfortable truth that there is much we aren’t in control of in life. It’s often easier to believe that we are fully responsible when bad things happen in our lives (that it’s because we have failed in some way), because that idea at least maintains that we are in complete control. The truth is that we only have so much agency. There are forces beyond our control, things far beyond our understanding.
Do you want to access the peace of God? Surrender that which is beyond your control.
Surrender can be hard, but it ultimately brings peace. Do you want to access the peace of God? Surrender that which is beyond your control. One of the best prayers I’ve ever heard is simply: “You are God and I am not.” Surrender puts you in your rightful place in relation to God. We are not meant to live as if we have the full power of God. We are meant to do what we can and then release the rest to the Great Knowing, the Comforter, the one who longs to help us and give us peace.
