Shamanic Articles

Should We Try to Measure Progress on Our Spiritual Path?

4/30/2023

Many humans consider themselves on a spiritual path with a practice dedicated to that path. Those paths and how they look and feel are as unique as we are. There are plenty of folks out there living a spiritual life who do not think about it in that context because it is so intertwined with who they are, there is no separation.

I’ve always been a seeker, searching for doorways and paths that lead me to the Great Mystery, the Divine within and all around me. For years my spiritual life has been a path that I focused on, something I thought a lot about, and wanted to grow. Gradually I loosened the mental attention to it and it became embodied, less seeking and more being.

When we are living from our hearts, we are probably not thinking about the path that we are on being Spiritual. We are just living our lives. But then something comes up and we put ourselves in that context. Maybe someone asks us a question about our beliefs or asks if we have a spiritual practice. Or we are called to re-evaluate our beliefs and practices, realizing something doesn’t resonate with us any more. Sometimes we may just want a new way of looking at Spirit.

Sometimes our evaluations turn into expectations of what we think our spiritual path should look like; peaceful, sitting in stillness, unruffled by triggers, blessing all with unconditional love. Or perhaps we thought we’d be able to see everyones auras and hear angels give us advice every day. Maybe we thought we’d be able to heal the world by now.

I’ve lost track of how many times I have said I would be an excellent meditator if I was in a temple or ashram. But life is not like that and truly, most of us did not sign up for that. One of my teachers told me that anyone can meditate in loving kindness alone on a mountain, but doing it while juggling work, family, and the chaos of modern life is master level!

There is a lot of talk in the modern spiritual community about “leveling up” and progress when it comes to our practices and path. How do we as conscious seekers measure progress? Is it even something we can or should try to measure?

Instead of progress, which sets us up for a pass/fail kind of thinking, I’d rather think about it as an alignment. Am I in alignment with the current path I am on? Just asking that may be a sign I need to re-evaluate. But if I am not really sure, I look for a few familiar signposts that help me evaluate my current path. Here I list just a few main ones, but there are other subtle ones as well.

Trust - I have learned to trust my team of Spirit helpers, and to trust life. If I find myself worrying for days in a row, I know something is out of alignment for me spiritually. I can then backtrack until I find where I stepped off and regroup with my team.

Synchronocities - I have them every day. But if they are specific to reflect answers or confirmations to questions, topics or situations I’ve been thinking about or asking my Spirit team about, I feel supported, in alignment.

Non attachment - to me it means I can let things go without getting emotionally entangled in my own drama. It also means that I can be okay with the answer my team gives me even if it wasn’t the answer I may have wanted. And releasing others to their perfect path helps me to feel aligned on my own.

Connection - Realizing the big picture, the multi-dimensional web of life, and that I am connected to it all. I can sense it, and feel aligned in my place in that web and that my path is part of it as well.

Unconditional love - being able to access that state even when I do not agree with or condone the actions of someone or something helps me feel in alignment with my path.

Joy - finding joy, even in small things in difficult times, and being able to radiate it is a sure sign I feel aligned in my path.

I don’t always feel like I have all of these all the time, but together they work as a good indication to show where I’m at on my path. If it is where I want to be, then I feel like my practices and tools, my focus and intentions are working for me. I feel I am in alignment with my spiritual path. Until the next time I feel called to re-evaluate anyway.

And as always, I just share what works for me. I realize there are as many paths out there as there are people, and we may have different sign posts. Comparing our path to anyone else’s is not helpful or relevant. Everyone uses a variety of tools and practices to get along their path, and everyone needs to do what works best for them.

May your signposts be clear and your paths be meaningful!

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Spiritual Roadblocks - When We Feel Like We Aren’t Moving Forward

3/31/2023

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Every so often, we have the feeling that we are not moving forward in our spiritual journey. It may feel like obstacles in our spiritual development, like we have hit a metaphysical wall. Or it may feel like our path just dissolves into nebulous mist and we can’t see a way forward. We tend to think of these uncomfortable pauses as blocks.

Sometimes these blocks are distractions. We may have too many things we are giving energy to and so we lose our focus. I’m not just talking about things like Facebook and Netflix. I also mean things that are spiritual commitments that we think are helping us grow. Do we really need to take one more online class even from a teacher we love and resonate with? One time last year I realized that I was signed up for three different online classes running concurrently because one on chakras was free and I might want a refresher, one was with an herbalist that I really admired and the other was a shamanic topic I was really interested in. I didn’t get much done on any of them at that time. I still have access to two of them but it feels like they are just hanging out there like items on a to-do list. I realize some of that perspective is my mind-set. I need to decide if I still need to give my energy to them, and if I am going to approach them like a task or a resource.

In some cases we may have outgrown something in our lives and by keeping it, we keep ourselves in the same mind-set and energy we have had for a long time. We cannot move forward until we let go of what we have outgrown. This can be items cluttering the closets or garages that we haven’t used or worn in years, but also relationships that have a co-dependent element to them. And that includes community groups and organizations as well as individual relationships. If we have the idea that we are the one holding a group together and that if we left, it would fall apart, then that is a sign that maybe we need to drop our attachment and let it. It could give someone else the opportunity they have been waiting for to take a leadership role and even re-imagine it into something different and beautiful. And it gives us the space in our schedule to go on to create something else.

We also may have outgrown inner relationships to our mind-sets and belief systems. These can be much more difficult to drop than external relationships. These can take the form of habits, addictions, and limiting self-talk. Feeling dependent on anything, even if it is benign or beneficial, like needing to have a cup of coffee or tea every morning, can take us out of our power. That unempowered feeling can ripple out into other areas in our lives that have a big impact, like finances or relationships. And ripple even farther out leading us to believe that what we do cannot change the world. And as I have talked about in other articles, quantum physics proves that we can (and we must)!

To choose to have that cup of coffee or not, and feel good and enjoy either choice takes us out of dependency and into our power. We may be thinking, it’s just a cup of coffee, what is the big deal? Realizing that we have those dependencies and addictions is key. It is part of our humanness. And we have to ask ourselves the questions, where would I be freeing up my personal power if I did not direct it to those dependencies and addictions? What would that look like? What would that feel like? I can tell you from personal experience that our energy feels much lighter and that Spirit can work with us much easier. We have more clarity. This is especially true if any of our habits include things like cannabis, alcohol, sugar or other substances that overused can scatter or dull our energy body. And this also applies to any attachment we have, it could be shopping, collecting things, involvement in personal drama or collective drama or anything else that causes us to spend our energy with little helpful return.

Worthiness can be a big roadblock if we have trouble believing we are worthy of progressing on our path. I’ve touched a bit on this in past articles. The energy we spend doubting our worth and capabilities can be a drain and can be used in so many better ways. Doubt can also crystallize into fear that keeps us from taking that leap of faith that will lead to living more authentically and aligning to our soul’s purpose.

Sometimes our spiritual team just hits the pause button because we need time to integrate. Especially if we have experienced any big epiphanies, shifts in awareness, or even significant astrological transits.

In every case I mentioned, what we perceive as roadblocks are really places where we built in ways to step up to the next level in our journey of conscious evolution. These are gifts we give ourselves to look deeper, re-evaluate our goals and whether we are even still on the right path. We just forget that we are the ones giving ourselves these opportunities because we are used to externalizing so many things.

Maybe the next time we feel like we hit a roadblock, instead of feeling frustrated or confused, we can see it as an Ah-hah moment instead.

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The Faerie of Infinite Grace

2/28/2023

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I have been on my spiritual path all my life it seems, but with a focused practice for the past eighteen years. One of the biggest hurdles I have had to deal with on a personal level is worthiness, which manifests in me as doubt. I have made great strides in this area, however old ways of thinking sometimes arise. When that happens, I notice it, bless it and let it go as an old story.

Lessons continue to unfold and offer experiences that provide opportunities to unravel the old that no longer serves and to anchor the true resonance of authentic self.

The other day I was doing a shamanic journey about an issue I wanted clarity on for myself. In the journey I met a faerie being that emitted a bright rainbow colored light. It assisted me in recovering energy I had lost over the years and through many lifetimes. It was a sweet meeting, the faerie emanated waves of unconditional love and grace.

A short while later I looked out my window and was caught by the brilliant rainbow prism of sunlight shining through a drop of water on a tree branch. The whole spectrum of color in that drop was dazzling and alive, and aimed directly at my eyes. The first thought I had was that it was the rainbow faerie helper I had just met in my journey. They were stepping through the veil of the Otherworld and confirming that they were my ally and that the work we did was anchored. The second thought I had was wondering if I just saw what I wanted to see, if I manifested the coincidence.

I tracked these two thoughts in a non-attached way, finding it interesting that the first thought felt like the synchronicity of Spirit that I have had so many times on my path. And that the second thought felt like the old limiting doubt, that feeling of going along with the status quo even when it did not resonate.

I took a breath and felt into my center asking for clarity. I had a knowing then that felt like my energy was completely aligned and that the rainbow drop I just saw was indeed the faerie ally. This simple experience of looking out the window and receiving the message was another signpost along my path.

I imagined what it would feel like to have no doubts about my intuitive skills, knowing that I am worthy of receiving true messages, and of having faerie friends that show up in ordinary reality. I just sat with that for a while, weaving it into a daily intention.

What if we decided to live every day completely trusting our intuition? What if the recognition of our connection to everything becomes so much a part of who we are that we cannot help but live in Divine timing, never fearing, knowing that every moment is unfolding with infinite grace?

"Frozen Raindrop" by audreyjm529 is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

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Should We Try to Measure Progress on Our Spiritual Path?

Spiritual Roadblocks - When We Feel Like We Aren’t Moving Forward

The Faerie of Infinite Grace

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