Does your soul feel its worth? Solstice Blessings 2017

This season can bring a wide range and mixture of feelings. If we're quite lucky we experience the true joy and celebration of the season to our depth. But many of us look forward all year to this happy time only to miss most of it in busy-ness. Or we go through the motions less than enthusiastically, wondering 'what's the point?' Perhaps some part of us senses we're not actually getting the unnameable something we really want but presumes that's what it means to be an adult. "Christmas is for the kids after all," we say.

What if you could slow down a little and take some time to sense what your deepest heart truly wants this year? You can. Make an appointment in your calendar if you must. 

It's worth it. You're worth it.

The niggling emptiness many of us feeling during or after the holidays is an opening, a doorway to the rich potentials inside of you. The happenings of this season (even the most mundane) are symbols inviting you to step through that door that Rumi reminds us "is round and open." The guided meditation above and inspirations below are designed to help you cross the threshold and tap into that richness that is you. 

May you, your loved ones, and all the children of the world experience the blessing of unshakably knowing true worth. May your definitions of who you are based on what you do, how you look, what you've accomplished or not, how much money you have or don't...fall away. May what's always there, invisible in the background come forward. And may you experience yourself as the simply exquisite drop of grace you are. 

 INVITATION: Embodied Enquiry Exploration

These questions are a continuation of the guided enquiry in the video above.

1. What are you drawn to (or repulsed by) about the spirit of the season this year? Do you have enduring favorites?

2. Which sights - favorite colors, kind of lights/decorations, scenes, places, people/faces, art...?

3. Sounds - songs/hymns, instruments (winds, bells...), human (children's laughter, adult merriment...)

4. Activities - parties, volunteering/tithing, gift giving, gift receiving, spiritual traditions, hearing/sharing inspirational stories...?

5. Tastes - foods (salty, sweet, bitter, tart, sour, pungent, spicy), family recipes/traditional foods, new tastes...?

6. Touch - people, nature (plants, flowers, land forms), animals, objects...?

7. Textures - smooth, crunchy, coarse, creamy, velvety, satiny, soft, hard, squishy, woody, metallic, watery, shiny, airy...

8. Qualities - effects of libations/spirits, singing, giving, receiving, gathering, sharing, such as belonging, love, joy, inspiration, gratitude, generosity, fullness, comfort, centered, peace, expansion, openness, clarity, warmth, compassion, goodness, trust, letting/go, surrender, hope, steadfastness, sweetness...

9. What is the most important tangible gift you've asked your loved one(s) for this year? What experience will it give you?

10. What is the invisible gift your soul would most like to receive this year? What will most support your soul's fulfillment on your hero's/heroine's journey of life next year?

For all the above let your right brain and loose associations run free with the symbolism of each answer. What's the name of the gift you asked for? Brand? Do you want precious gems? Might they be a symbols of a deeper desire for your own jeweled-nature, your value/preciousness? 

See if the symbols you discover speak to what's important to your heart during this season of light. Is your heart full of love and joy or heavy with burdens, sadness, unworthiness, lostness? What does it want to open to?

Feel free to share what you wish of your enquiry in the comments below.

Would you like to join me for a free virtual group meeting to harness the power and potential of the themes that arose for you? Contact me here and let me know. 

Soul Healing Teaching

from Adyashanti

This unexpected gem came across my path this week and it's a pleasure to pass it on to you (under $5 during Sounds True's sale). It's one of the most accessible, deep, and powerful explorations into the roots and healing of unworthiness I've seen.

Healing the Core Wound of Unworthiness

May it soothe and brighten your soul. 

"God with Us"

Rev. Teresa Cowan Jones

I received the following from my dear friend Teresa as part of her holiday message to those of us in the Sacred Space community she co-founded (SS is a compassion-in-action learning and service organization in Tucson).

It arrived as I was reflecting on how many of us carry conflicting feelings about the "God" of our religious upbringing. Many of my clients have been deeply wounded in the name of religion and part of our work together to help them reconcile their hurts, anger, doubts, and disbelief with their love of truth.  

If you resonate with this conflict and have Christian roots, I hope Teresa's perspective is a support for your reconciliation. As usual she speaks with eloquence, sensitivity, and intention to unite as she shares her own reflections and the inspiring sermon she gave last year... 

"Of course this week as a follower of the Christ Spirit, I’m reflecting on the meaning of Christmas and wanted to share my heart with all of you as I’ve sought different meanings than the popular version of Christianity that was taught to me. So, I share a sermon I gave last year at Painted Hills United Church of Christ with the hope for both better understanding of my own path and a tradition that continues to be transformative to me. I also share it in hope that it forms a unifying theological ground, a way of being a Christ follower that honors the Divine in all the world’s wisdom traditions. I wrote this initially for a Christian community and use the word “God” herein to mean the creative energy of the cosmos, the ground of all being, the Mystery of which we’re all a part and which sustains all life. If interested, you can read it here.

Making (even) Hatred Sacred 

Whether its the felt sense of excruciating unworthiness (self-hatred) or getting caught up in the divisiveness of our times (hatred of "other") we all experience the darkest of feelings sometimes.

Rather than further the rejection by joining against "other" and projecting our own hatred outwardly, let's direct that power to standing with each other to welcome the darker feelings we all naturally carry from the hurts and fears of being human.

If talk of God, joy, goodness, and light makes you seethe this year may you experience loving holding for that too in Rumi's poem.

A black sky hates the moon. I am that dark
nothing. I hate those in power.
I'm invited in from the road to the house,
but I invent some excuse.
Now I'm angry at the road.

I don't need love. Let something break me.
I don't want to hear anyone's trouble.
I've had my chance for wealth and position.
I don't want those.

I am iron, resisting the most enormous Magnet there is.
Amber pulls straw to it. That makes me angry.
We're molecules spinning here, four, five, six of us.
What does that mean, five, six?
I'm angry at God.

You don't understand, being out of water.
You resemble the sun? I hate likeness.

-- Version by Coleman Barks & John Moyne
These Branching Moments
Copper Beech Press, 1988

Photos by Patrick Hendry, Felipe Roman Pradena Castillo on Unsplash