This morning, I scrolled through old messages on my cell phone and discovered a long text from a friend I met at a dance competition. Three years ago, I struggled with changing partners and wondered how I would successfully make a transition. It seemed overwhelming and I was paralyzed with such a big decision. I perceived schedule changes and the uprooting of old relationships as a setback and not an opportunity for growth.
Often, when we are faced with decisions that impact our daily lives, we allow fear of the unknown to dictate our future. We spend too much time analyzing variables we have no control over and try to predict outcomes. The day I received Nikki’s text, I couldn’t see the big picture.
Nikki’s wisdom was profound. She watched me dance for years, and reminded me that long ago, dancing became more than showing up for practice and competing. It became a spiritual journey of the heart. She reminded me that the activities we are deeply enthusiastic about are always a vehicle for personal growth and positive change.
A Spiritual Journey is About Self Growth
A spiritual journey is about your personal development. It usually happens in a meaningful environment, such as your career, within your family relationships, in a sport or hobby, or any activity that carries most of your invested energy. The Universe wants you to carefully look at your emotional reactions and choices, and make sure you pay attention to the best and worst parts of yourself. Having angst over what to eat for dinner or when to walk the dog, doesn’t have the same impact on our personal growth as decisions surrounding what we are passionate about.
Situations we are fully invested in emotionally, financially, or physically offer the biggest opportunities for self-reflection. God wants to make sure we SEE WHAT IS and examine what positive improvements could benefit us. These circumstances are presented to us for our emotional and spiritual evolution. Unfortunately, the hardest lessons are attached.
Making Difficult Choices
Nikki’s text was also about parting ways with people. She encouraged me to be confident in the unknown future, and just surrender to it. She saw it as a blessing. Ending relationships is usually the last thing we want because it is our least comfortable zone. She said that it is always obvious when the time comes to part ways with another person. Meanwhile, we should trust God and just simply continue to do what we love. Our ‘love of doing’ is the constant undercurrent that flows underneath chaos and uncertainty. She said to be at peace, we must have a vision of surrounding ourselves with positive people who have no hidden agenda, are honest, and have our best interest at heart. If people don’t make you laugh or smile, she said, then run the other way. It is our responsibility to behave the same for others. This is when goodness happens for everyone.
The greatest spiritual teachers on the planet who have served humanity said that life is about relationships. If we are faced with deep pain within the context of a relationship, then we must carefully look at it. Just see clearly, without judgement. We must pay attention, and allow intuition to guide us. It we don’t, we are stunting our spiritual growth and negating whatever lesson is front of us. And when we gather the courage to make positive change, we uplift humanity and inspire others to make choices for their own personal growth. That is when the individual and collective spiritual journey matters and everyone wins.
Nikki reminded me that change is never easy, but inevitable, in all corners of our lives. When we choose to make change from an empowered and loving place, and do so with grace, style, and a big smile, we respect our spiritual journey. Without growing pains, she said, your vision of who you can be will never get any more fulfilling, and you will never expand the limits of what you can do.
This is the natural process our own self evolution.
Thanks Nikki, for this advice. Some texts you just don’t delete.
© Charlene M Proctor and The Goddess Network, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
For more affirmations, read The Women’s Book of Empowerment: 323 Affirmations that Change Everyday Problems into Moments of Potential.
