Spiritual Evolution…Expand the JOURNEY

“Spirituality for me is recognizing that I am connected to the energy of all creation, that I am part of it and it is always a part of me.” ~Oprah  The Wisdom of Sundays Pg. 12

My life has taken me in some amazing directions in the past few years, and I have been thinking lately that there are probably big changes in how I relate to other people these days. I decided to re-read Oprah Winfrey’s book, The Wisdom of Sundays: Life-Changing Insights from Super Soul Conversations for my daily spiritual reading of short passages. I have really enjoyed this book! I loved her beginning chapter on Awakening, and I recognized myself through one of her stories!

Oprah was taping one of her Sunday Morning interviews with Carolyn Myss. I have met Carolyn Myss. I have heard her speak on the topic of healing, read her books, and listened to many of her CD presentations. She’s amazing, but for awhile I couldn’t identify with her rough and tough style of speaking. However, she always expanded my thinking. Oprah invited Carolyn Myss to be interviewed. Here is Oprah’s story:

“For the first few minutes, Caroline and I were totally engrossed in our conversation about spirituality and nurturing the soul. But eventually we reached a point where I noticed that the people in the audience were looking at us like we were speaking a foreign language.” Oprah went on to explain that they stopped the taping and asked if people understood what they were talking about. They did not. One woman bravely stood up and said, “No, we don’t. What do mean by spirit? Are you talking about Jesus?” Oprah’s answer was, “No, we’re talking about you.” The woman went on to explain that the word spirit meant something outside herself. I can relate. I too thought our spirit or soul was “out there” somewhere for a long time in my life. I thought you might enjoy hearing Caroline Myss’ thoughts on spirit.

“Your spirit is the part of you that is seeking meaning and purpose. That’s one way someone can relate to that. Another way to understand spirit is that it’s the part of you that is drawn to hope, that will not give in to despair. The part of you that has to believe in goodness; that has to believe in something more.”  ~ Carolyn Myss

Spirit…what does that mean to YOU? I can imagine we would hear totally different answers from ALL of you! Each of us have based our ideas and thoughts very often on our religious upbringing. And yet, there are concepts that are simply truths for EVERY human living on the planet! Somewhere we learned to separate our spiritual life, and move spirit away from the life we are living in our bodies!

We are ONE and that means we are a “blended being” with our human side and spiritual side! Suzanne Giesemann really helped me use that term, BLENDED BEING.  We are blended when I’m in this body I call Terry Larkin, but soul or spirit when we separate from this life.  I knew and understood spirit and soul from my NDE and yet, I still tried to separate the “term” spirit due to old patterns learned from our culture.

As I read Oprah’s story I realized that for some reason I haven’t taken time to reflect back on the change in ME in the last few years. Do people sometimes look at me like I’m from another planet when I speak?  They probably do sometimes! Since I’ve been trained in Reconnective Healing, I have walked through a door… a spiritual door into my own gradually evolving JOURNEY in life. I am awakening more and more. I can’t always define when or how it evolves into my daily living. I can say that the evolution through the awakening process is helping me become more significantly blended! And you know what? I smile more, I love life more thoroughly, I laugh…even when there are difficult times.

When asked, I always say that my NDE was the most powerful experience that has changed my life. That is a true statement, but so is living LIFE with the open mind that my NDE provided. It’s open to all of us…don’t die to get there or wait for a tragedy…just “open the door”! Heaven really awaits all of us to OPEN the door and bring heaven down here on earth!

Reconnective Healing is opening doors for thousands of people, and I’m realizing I have been a witness to so many of these doors opening lately! There’s a beauty and blessing in helping others. Each of us does that in our unique way. Our pathways can be so totally different.

I realize now that the joy, peace, love and compassion  built into my being can surface in my life in grandiose and fun ways.  But, sometimes  I am wrapped in a blanket of sorrow for the people I am with. And YET, LOVE remains the same…it’s the constant in our life! It keeps us in balance if we let that love move right in when we need it the most!

I am able to speak my truth very naturally and easily now in almost every situation…that’s a HUGE growth in me. When did this growth surface? I don’t know, I believe it was gradual so I didn’t even notice it until I really reflected on this topic in my meditations! I somehow know a loving response for any person, no matter where they are on their own journey in life. Awakening is so personal for every single one of us.

The deep connection shouts out to us in those “aha” moments we all crave and we wish they would happen more often. And yet, these moments aren’t always huge events, sometimes they are in the quiet of a very small moment; music, nature, prayer, and everyday life moments! How does it feel ? It feels like a magnificent, brilliant LIGHT moved right into a GAP that needed understanding!

How are YOU experiencing awakening in your life? This picture was taken on a quiet early morning walk, and I never saw it coming! It was just there. But, I did need to stop, notice, and enjoy the beauty of the moment. Love flowed right into me with amazing grace!

All of you are such amazing, beautiful creations of GOD. We hope you know how amazing and powerful you are as a BLENDED BEING. The more your spiritual self swirls right in with the imperfections of your bodily life to become blended, there’s an opening, and you realize the imperfections are an illusion! Just smile and tell yourself, “I am TOTALLY AWESOME!” When your body believes you and your heart responds, healing gets into the flow of YOU… as a blended being.