Soul Connections is the monthly newsletter of the Seat of the Soul Institute community. The intent of Soul Connections is to support you in creating authentic power and spiritual partnerships. Our vision is a world of seven billion people creating harmony, cooperation, sharing, and reverence for Life.

  

Dear Spiritual Partners,

Have you noticed how difficult, if not impossible, it is to grow spiritually without relationships? Anyone can be patient, understanding, caring, and loving when one is around to irritate, annoy, or distress them. Living alone, for example, can make spiritual growth seem much easier than it is but sooner or later, usually sooner, someone will say or do something that you do not like and painful emotional reactions will overwhelm you. What will you do then? Of course, there are times when living alone can be healthy, but spiritual growth now requires relationships of substance and depth. Whether your relationship with your parent, child, co-worker, friend, or intimate partner is the most difficult for you (offers you the greatest opportunity to grow spiritually), the Seat of the Soul Institute will always help you see each of your relationships as an opportunity to change your life.

We are happy to be on the Journey with you.

MESSAGE FROM GARY:

Relationships and Spiritual Growth

All relationships can help you to grow spiritually if you use them that way, which means if you are creating authentic power. They activate parts of your personality that are grateful, appreciative, patient, and caring. They also activate parts that are angry, jealous, resentful, and frightened. Creating authentic power requires you to be aware of which part of your personality is active in the moment and not act on the parts that are angry, jealous, resentful, and frightened, and act on the parts that are grateful, appreciative, patient, and caring. It also requires you to recognize the difference between experiences of gratitude because someone does something for you that you do not want to do for yourself, and for example, gratitude for your life, the people in it, and flowers in the spring. In short, creating authentic power requires you to be able to recognize the differences between love and fear, and choose love no matter what is going on inside you (such as feelings of anger, jealousy, etc.) or what is going on around you (such as things you want and things you don’t want).

When the people you are in relationship with are also doing this, that is a spiritual partnership. The partners are each committed to challenging (not acting on) parts of themselves that are angry, jealous, etc., and cultivating (acting on) parts that are grateful, patient, etc. They do not wait for one another to do the things that make them appreciative instead of angry. When they become angry, they experience their anger and choose in that moment not to act on it, even while they are feeling it, no matter what the other(s) is doing. They support one another in doing the same, when the other is open to being supported. This is a spiritual partnership, and it is the most rewarding and challenging relationship possible. Try it for yourself. The next time you are blaming someone for what you are feeling, stop, feel what you are feeling, and then act instead from the most healthy, grounded, and loving part of yourself that you can access, for example, a part that is appreciative, patient, or caring. You will see how difficult and liberating that is. And you will have a new appreciation for yourself and your spiritual partners.

If you are open to experimenting with these ideas, read Spiritual Partnership: The Journey to Authentic Power and experiment with what you learn.

 
UPCOMING EVENTS
GARY ZUKAV and LINDA FRANCIS return to Canada!

Calgary AlbertaThe Gift

A 2-hour conversation with Gary Zukav
Friday, September 9,
7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

An expansion of perception unlike any before is emerging in millions of us. It illuminates our lives and capabilities in new ways, calls us to new goals, and reveals new paths. We are able to see ourselves and our lives from a new perspective, and the vista that opens before us is filled with opportunities that did not exist before. We are able to see that every interaction and circumstance is an opportunity to create bliss, even experiences that are painful. This expanded perception transforms every experience into a choice between contraction, limitation, and pain and expansion, freedom, and joy. Join Gary Zukav to learn about The Gift and how you can use it.

For video and to register visit: The Gift

SPIRITUAL PARTNERSHIP - THE JOURNEY TO AUTHENTIC POWER

One-Day Workshop with Gary Zukav and Linda Francis

Saturday, September 10, 2011, 9am - 5:00 pm

If you want to create or deepen your relationships but are sometimes swept away by destructive emotions, such as anger, jealousy, vengefulness, and fear, this workshop is a must for you. Gary Zukav and Linda Francis show you how to transform your relationships with your intimate partner, parents, children, co-workers, and friends into meaningful empowering dynamics. Learn to create satisfying relationships of substance and depth. Use your emotions, including the most painful such as anger, jealousy, anxiety, and vengefulness to create clarity, forgiveness, humbleness, and love. See for yourself why no other relationships are as appealing or transformative as spiritual partnerships and how to use them to change yourself in unimaginable ways. This workshop is for couples, individuals, families, and friends. Don't miss this remarkable transformative day.

For video and to register visit: The Gift

NOTE FROM LINDA: A Woman’s Perspective on Authentic Power

MY SPIRITUAL PARTNERSHIP WITH GARY ZUKAV

I have been in a spiritual partnership with Gary for almost eighteen years.

Our relationship started out as a spiritual partnership. By that I mean we began speaking about the most important things and the most difficult things from the very beginning. You may say, “That's great, but you had the author of The Seat of the Soul as a partner.” Or you might think, “Fine, but my relationship isn't a spiritual partnership and I don't see how it could ever be one.”

My spiritual partnership with Gary is assuredly different from any relationship I've ever been in, especially with a man. However, my relationships with women were not what I would call spiritual partnerships, either.

These last eighteen years have been the most difficult and joyful of my life. The difficult part was committing to change myself rather than trying to change Gary, or anyone else for that matter. Actually, the really difficult thing is making that commitment moment by moment, especially when I feel that I'm right and he is wrong or I'm to blame, etc. It is very difficult for me to feel the pain of these parts of my personality during those times, to feel their sensations in my body, be aware of their thoughts and intentions, and not act on them.

Choosing to act from healthy and loving parts of me instead indulging what these painful parts want me to do gives me a joy that I never knew was possible. My passion for creating authentic power, for changing myself, has helped me see myself so differently. For most of my life I was unaware that I could act from healthy and loving parts of me, especially when I was upset and unhealthy and frightened parts of my personality controlled me.

My ever-deepening understanding of authentic power and spiritual partnership keeps opening me to a creativity that supports my spiritual growth and my ability to support others in their spiritual growth. I am so grateful to share these words with you and to support you on our website and any other way that I can.

"Our fundamental relationship is soul to soul."
 - Gary Zukav, Soul to Soul
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