|
Now you are standing in the center of the road, at an intersection in your life, wondering what has happened and what you are to do next. Something that you identified with as your life is over. Someone you cared deeply for has died or has moved on in some form, or a job you thought was your lifeblood has vanished, or a home in which you thought you would end your life sitting on the front porch has been sold due to some financial blockage or shifts in your personal finance or in the times you inhabit. You feel a hole where your life used to be. You are standing in this empty space of the hole, and you are at an intersection.
Now envision if you will quite literally this intersection of your life. There is your past as you have lived it. That road stretches back behind you; you will never walk that road again. This reality may give you feelings of sadness or despair, or gratitude, or resentment for what did not take place, but whatever your emotional responses, that road is passed and past, both. Looking into the past of your passed road is what you are dealing with right now: the divorce, the death, the job loss, the shift, the aging process, the relocation, whatever your predicament is presenting itself as. It has landed you here in this crossroads.
Sit down for a bit and regard the terrain with love. Breathe out fear. Let it all be perfect, the path and the people and the life you have created and chosen so far to bring you here to this precise intersection where you now sit, perplexed or excited or lost or whatever you are feeling. You are here, here, here. In fact, here is the only place you have ever been, here in the moment, and here is where you will spend the rest of your human incarnation, so learning to inhabit your Hereness is a wonderful tool that serves you. And breath is the way. Take a deep full breath in and say, "I am here. And here is good. Here is safe. Here is where I wish to be and need to be right now."
This is the time of taking stock.
Read on for the rest of the book excerpt...
Taking stock comes from the early Western days of counting your cattle: who made it across the plains? Who got lost to the wolves or the rains or the crevasses? Who was born in the crossing? New beings are here that did not begin the trek; old ones have died. So now take stock of your past. Who has been born in you? Who has died in you? What constructs and forms that you thought of as your life are simply no more in place, except in your thoughts? Take stock.
Take stock without judgment or drama, if you will. Take stock with gratitude and with respect and honor for all that has passed. Remember in the prologue when you sat in the audience of the theatre of your life and saw your own play and cast and script enacted before you. Now see this play of yourself as you take stock of all that passed. Take stock with appreciation and release of the stock that are no more.
In the immediacy of being with the life situations that have fostered change, plopped you into this intersection, caused you grief and tears and drama and financial loss and upset the apple cart you were riding on and eating out of, in that immediacy there is a guiding wisdom that is YOU that is showing you the way. But you cannot find the way forward without sitting down at the intersection and reflecting. Taking stock of the paths you have walked grounds you to live forward in new ways. And living forward in new ways that are higher, clearer, a more refined and joyful and whole version of you is what this is all about.
Now do this. Go outside and stand on the ground, barefoot if your environment allows that comfortably, grounded on the earth surrounding you where you are, or on the cement or patio or whatever you have created as your current home. Face East, the direction of new beginnings. Breathe deeply and bring your palms together in a reverent prayer to all the past trails that you have walked, now encompassed in one grand path stretching before you.. There is no going back, but there is honoring and love and gratitude and respect, which keep the good of the trails you've walked alive and fresh and joyful in your heart.
Facing east, breathing, hands in prayer position, bow to the life you have led. Bow to the play you have created on the stage of your inner imagination. Bow to the characters, the scenes, the momentous occasions, the terrific failures, the dark nights and bright days, all of it. Bow and speak aloud: Thank you. It has been good. It has blessed me. All these possessions and experiences and beings have filled my heart with gladness or deepened me in ways my soul longed for that I could not have created on my own.
Bow to your enemies, those who hurt you. Bow to those who embraced you, for however long they hold you in their vision with love and value. Bow and give thanks and be free.
Here is an exercise for today. Find a quiet place that feels sacred and peaceful to you and take a journal with you. It may be a park bench, if you live in a city; or your bedroom, or some body of water you like to sit beside. Write a letter to your past. Address the letter "To my past". Say all you want to say. Give thanks to your past, give honor, and give love. Feel every passing emotion that arises in its fullness. And then regard the painful parts of your past and draw out your wisdom, your strength, your power and deepening that you have drawn from of these times. If you cannot yet find the gifts presented to you from those experiences, you have more work to be done to release resentment and victimhood, so do that healing work as you can. You want to stop giving your freedom and power away to places, people, and past events that no longer are taking place except in the reruns in your mind.
Finish your letter and sign it from your own Higher Self. Then read the letter aloud to yourself and see what you feel and have gathered from this experience of facing and honoring and drawing the gold from your own passed path. Lie down for a minute or two if you can and let this all sink in deeply.
Your ending today is an ending of the identification you have had with the past of your life. The death of those forms that defined you are your gift to yourself so that you can move on as a soul.
In the ending of the forms that defined your passed path, in the taking stock and counting who remains within you as "you", in the sitting down at the intersection of your life and taking time to see what has dissolved, you are gathering spiritual power. You are healing what remains to be brought into wholeness. You are doing work of the greatest dignity and spiritual power, facing loss, grieving, letting go. Don't let others of a lower frequency question you about where you're going in your life when you are in the intersection.
Those who live fully identified with forms and out of fear of not having will ask you things like: aren't you dating again yet? You have to move on. What job will you do? Where will you move? You can't just sit around. You have to take charge, make a to do list, join dating services, get going, get going, get going." This is not wisdom; do not allow these individuals and their projected fears about your life direct your feelings or actions. It would be the wisest choice not to allow them into your field of influence in this time.
Stand in your dignity at the intersection you have arrived to. Stand in your knowing of the great soul you are doing this work today. Stand in your open hearted trust that all is well right now, and all is going to continue to be well in the future. Stand in your Self. Stand in your Self. Stand in your Self and know who you are.
All that has passed in your life is showing you who you are by showing you who you once were. You can see the trail of light you have walked and see every bump, misdirection, potent choice, clarity, blindness, termination, initiation, all of it. You are in the place of great mastery and power as you stand formless or jobless or lover-less or homeless at this intersection. Stand up and claim your worth and know who you truly are, the one who has been travelling so far through all of these changes and forms and passages in your life.
This chapter closes with this affirmation for you to speak aloud and keep in your heart.
"I am (your name). I am in my dignity and my love and my power as I stand here in the intersection of major roads of my life, now coming together. I see my past and gather my power and learning and wisdom from all I have experience and from all the forms I created and endured, celebrated, lived through and embodied. I see the ending of all the forms that ceased serving me and I let them go with power and love, honor and dignity in their passing. I do not cling to who I used to be because I know the bright light of who I am, here and now.
I am coming home to myself. I am on my way. The path forward is going to be made crystal clear to me. I need do nothing but embrace my personal intersections right now with presence and authority, with courage and self honor. I am a light to my life and to those who know me, and my entire journey is polishing the light. I am here and I am whole, right now. I thank all that has been so far in my life."
-Excerpted from Beyond Change: A Guide to Spiritual Awakening in Life Transitions by Christine Warren. Copyright; All Rights Reserved.
|
