Developing a Better You

Category: Spirit (Page 24 of 49)

3 Metaphors for Healthy Spirituality (Part 1): An Introduction

This one’s tricky.

My spirituality is incredibly important to me. I’ve worked steadily at developing it for forty-one years (I mark my start at age ten). It provides a solid foundation for every aspect of my life, and brings me peace, meaning, joy, love, adventure, comfort, guidance, hope, and my deepest sense of identity.

But…

I have readers from across the spiritual spectrum, from those who identify as very spiritual to those who’d say they aren’t spiritual at all. Of those who are spiritual, there is a wide variety of religions and spiritual paths represented. And I respect that. A lot.

So while I love sharing what I’ve learned on my own spiritual journey in hopes that some may find it helpful, I want to tread very lightly. This is simply my experience. Even now, what I believe continues to evolve as I encounter more of life and pursue the Great Spiritual Mystery. (And it is a mystery. If you’re too sure of your answers, that could be a sign that your Spiritual Truth Box is too small.)

My spiritual worldview has been developed over decades. It’s very freeing and helpful to me. But that doesn’t mean it’s right for you. My hope is simply that what I share shines a little light on your own path, whatever that may be. Take what’s useful, and toss the rest.

In this series of posts, I’m going to share three metaphors I learned from author and teacher Richard Rohr that have been extremely helpful to me in recent years – The Cosmic Egg, The Three Boxes, and The Tricycle. They provide simple but powerful frameworks for spiritual and personal growth. Ways to understand and navigate some of life’s most confusing seasons. Methods for getting unstuck on the journey to our best selves.

One of the many things I love about these metaphors is that they work for almost everyone, regardless of where you’re at on the spiritual spectrum. They align with nearly every religion or spiritual perspective, and even with most perspectives that don’t include spirituality at all.

Next week, I’ll tell the story of my own recent spiritual struggles. In the following weeks, I’ll share the three metaphors that helped guide me through that difficult season. I hope you’ll join me on this journey. If you do, I think you’ll discover some very helpful tools along the way, and you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

The Personal Growth Exercise You’ll LOVE Doing: Fill Your Life With Beauty

I was crying over the TV show Britain’s Got Talent. For those who know me that will come as no great surprise. I’m a sentimental sap. But from a pure talent perspective, the performance that turned on the water works was pretty poor. So why was I crying? Why was the audience going wild? Why did one of the normally stoic British judges break down and weep? Take a look for yourself…

Did that strike you the way it has so many others? I think the secret of this performance’s impact lies in this quote:

There are only two things that pierce the human heart. One is beauty. The other is affliction.

SImone Weil

We human beings are emotional creatures. We’re made to feel deeply. But the pressure and drudgery of daily living often flattens our “emotional experience” curves into a relatively narrow range. Bright colors fade to neutrals. Uncontrollable laughter becomes a bemused smile. Deep heartache becomes an ongoing sense of mild disappointment.

As Simone Weil observed, two things that can wrench the emotional limiters from our hearts are beauty and affliction. Affliction tends to come along with enough regularity on its own and, while it does tap into our deeper emotions, not many of us would choose to seek it out. So that leaves us with beauty.

Simply put, we need it. A lot of it. To experience the fullness of life that I believe we are meant for, we need heaps of beauty to compensate for the affliction that life brings our way. It needs to be planned for, worked at, chased after. The enjoyment of beauty must be prioritized, budgeted, and indulged in.

Author John Eldredge notes the uniqueness of beauty:

We need not fear indulging here. The experience of beauty is unique to all the other pleasures in this: there is no possessive quality to it. Just because you love the landscape doesn’t mean you have to acquire the real estate. Simply to behold the flower is enough; there is nothing in me that wants to consume it. Beauty is the closest thing we have to fullness without possessing on this side of eternity. It heralds the Great Restoration. Perhaps that is why it is so healing—beauty is pure gift. It helps us in our letting go.

John eldredge, “The journey of desire: searching for the life you’ve always dreamed of”

I think that’s why I was crying over a mediocre performance by a group of elementary children. Their sense of abandonment was inspiring. Their unbridled joy was contagious. Their teacher’s pride in and commitment to his students was moving. It all touched something deep inside of me that whispered, “This is how life is meant to be.” And in that, it was beautiful.

So how will you experience beauty today? Wander a park, stroll an art gallery, savor a gourmet meal, see a play, listen to music you love, read a great book, watch an artfully made film, have a deep conversation with a friend. Embrace beauty. Drink it in. Open your eyes, mind, and heart to beauty in her many forms. If you do, you’ll take another step toward Becoming Yourself.

This post was originally published in May of 2019.

The Surprisingly Inclusive Symbol of Christmas

Sometimes shorter is better.

I’m embracing that idea for this week’s post. Also, the words of others often say what I’d like to say better than I can. So I offer you the short, powerful words of theologian and mystic Howard Thurman (1900-1981) on the inclusive symbol of Christmas:

The symbol of Christmas—what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is the cry of life in the newborn babe when, forced from its mother’s nest, it claims its right to live. It is the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stir with newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil.

Howard Thurman, The Mood of Christmas and Other Celebrations (Friends United Press: 1973, 1985), 3

For me, Christmas is a symbol of the deep love of God from which we all come, in which we all live, and to which we all will one day return. Whatever Christmas means to you, I hope and pray that you have a wonderful holiday season. Thank you so much for reading and being a part of this community. I am truly grateful for your company on the road to Becoming Yourself.

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