When "Spiritual" isn't cutting it...

"God dwells within you...as you. God's not interested in watching a performance of how a spiritual person looks and behaves. The quiet girl who glides silently through the place with a gentle, ethereal smile...who is that person? It's Ingrid Bergman in "The Bells of St. Mary's" – not me. God dwells within me...as me."

~ Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

Being an Astrology Coach and often referred to as a "Spiritual Life Coach," I can easily fall into a trap of feeling like I have to somehow "rise above" my humanity, that it's "my job" to seek the good in all people and situations. Much of the time, I am pretty good at that. I do get a lot of the ways to create my joy, and I live a pretty joyful existence. I can feel a lot of balance, peace and gratitude in my daily life.

But here's the deal: No matter what I do for a living, it is not my job to be spiritual. It is my job to be me...real, messy, learning, growing, struggling, striving and sometimes thriving...me. This goes for all of us, actually. What I see so often in myself and in the people I'm blessed to support is this sense like we "should" know better. We think we are "better than" our anger, or hurt, or jealousy or fear. We find ourselves taking things personally or being upset with someone and we say, "The loving thing, the spiritual thing, would be to simply do the work, question our thoughts, to release our fear, do the forgiveness thing, to be kind and loving, and let it go. Yes, this is a beautiful approach to life and relationships, and sometimes we just have to cut ourselves a break. In order to get to the forgiveness part and the loving kindness part, I have to own that this junk I'm feeling in the moment is real and it's not going anywhere until I'm real right along with it.

Over the past few weeks, I've been dealing with some intense grief as I go through my own death and rebirth cycle with a significant relationship in my life and ultimately, with my relationship that I have with myself. I have felt so many emotions and I've vigilantly questioned my thoughts and revealed to myself places that I've been creating an unhealthy story. I've been like a bounty hunter for limiting thoughts that are causing my suffering, blasting through them to find what's true. I find myself today still processing this grief and when thinking about blogging, I thought, "I can't STILL be writing about my grief! I should be over this by now! What's wrong with me?! I'm a Spiritual Life Coach, for goodness sake!" My ego self seems to think that being a Spiritual Life Coach makes me something other than human, me thinks. :) The truth is that whether I were in the line of work that I am or not, I would still be hard on myself in this way.  Should's and ought's and woulda-coulda's seem to find a way of creeping in no matter who we are and what we do.

Today I'm doing more to make peace with my grief. I've put away my AK-47, seeing as how it's been exhausting being a spiritual vigilante on this mission to liberate my mind. Yes, I have all kinds of tools, and I've learned a lot as I've pulled them out in an effort to nurture myself. Now, I'm making peace with thoughts of anger and jealousy. I'm making peace with the part of me that has been resisting this whole process and telling me how I should be feeling and acting. I could argue with reality or I could just be real. There have been times that I don't feel like seeing the good in this situation or in certain people. There have been times when I've been a blubbering, snotty mess. I've placed love outside of myself. I've held my breath hoping that certain outcomes that are out of my control would magically be IN my control. I've been afraid. I've struggled to see the big picture. I've felt completely out of balance. I've felt completely UN-spiritual.  And guess what? It is in that space that the growth-work is happening. 

I've been thinking a lot about one of my favorite books and favorite films lately, Eat, Pray, Love. Liz Gilbert's journey through Italy, India, and Spain, completely capture my life's work to nurture my relationship with myself and help others do the same. I've been single since January and LOVING my growth and loving how balanced and happy that I've felt. Then the grief came and I found myself questioning if everything that I've learned has been for nothing, if that sense of balance was an illusion. There is a particular quotation from the movie that comes to mind to me right now. Liz is so upset with herself because she has fallen in love and gotten completely out of balance with herself. She goes to her teacher, Ketut Liyer, and expresses to him her fear that she is losing herself in love, and this is what he says to her: "To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life." I would go so far as to say that to lose balance for any aspect of life is part of living a balanced life. So here I am, feeling out of balance and completely un-spiritual--and I'm actually right where I need to be, in balance with all that is.

By surrendering my need to stop myself from trying to control outcomes--even as I've seen myself creating suffering for myself--I lean into the greater balance. I've created much more suffering for myself in times of trying to be spiritual instead of just letting all the nitty, gritty, catty parts of me show their head. Make no mistake, I am still doing my best to curb the destructive nature of these emotions--I'm not burning buildings or destroying lives, no hate mail has been sent. I'm also not beating myself up so much when I think or feel things that my spiritual self would otherwise deem as "base." Grief sucks, fear sucks, and here I am. I love myself more because I know how hard I work at being good. I love myself because I am human.  

It feels good to simply breathe that in.

With Great Thanks,

Melissa Simonson
Founder & CEO of JoyDiva™
Own your worth. Own your wisdom.
CELEBRATE who you are! 

Ready to start cherishing yourself while actively creating more joy and confidence in your life? Claim your FREE Self-Love SuperStar Kit here:  www.joydiva.com

©2011 Melissa Simonson