So where have we been together?
We've been through growing life and an introduction to this series.
We have been together through spiritual refinement and what it means to wait well.
And these concepts are going to be continuing to appear on deeper and deeper levels as we dive in deeper into this series.
Because today we get into today's episode,
Today's magic.
So let's just feel into this for a moment.
What comes after spiritual refinement?
Or rather blended because as I said,
It's not like we end one race and then begin another.
Although in today's age and society,
It really does feel that way sometimes.
It can feel like there's no ending and no beginning between phases or seasons of life.
It can just feel like we're running from one thing to the next.
But in reality,
Things are quite blended.
Melting,
Spiraling together,
Being stirred in this pot of life.
I really do believe that was the design,
The intention of the design.
And energy itself moves like a spiral.
We see this in many spiritual wisdom teachings and it's kind of like two clouds or two seasons coming together.
I often used to give the analogy of pouring two different colors into a glass of water and just watching those colors blend together.
There is this feeling of collision between phases of life.
So what collides with spiritual refinement?
What becomes of this lesson or these lessons,
This time spent in solitude,
This time taken to release your plan for God's plan?
How does that blend?
I really find that this is the space where we find deep,
And deeper integration.
Because as I mentioned,
Refinement doesn't really come to this halting stop.
Its wisdom blends with our internal systems of integration.
Because when you think about it,
That's what it's really all about.
It's about our becoming.
It's about our character building.
Are character shaped,
Becoming more and more akin to God's character and likeness.
The space where your internal landscape has shifted to become more aligned with the authenticity that you were born with.
And when we think about authenticity,
I like to think about.
.
.
Beauty.
And what is the purpose?
Someone once said,
That One of the core purposes of the design of life is really about beauty.
It's really about this unfolding,
Right?
Like when you think of a flower blooming,
A flower just is,
It blooms.
For what purpose?
And we have these ups and downs.
So it's not all just for joy or love.
But there's this beauty in an unfolding,
In the ups and downs,
In the in-between moments.
And the various phases of life that we go through.
And what happens is.
We.
Become more and more.
Like,
Closer.
To our purest state.
I believe our most natural state if we allow that unfolding.
If we allow a shaping of our values.
And when we think about values,
Values are.
These deeper traits,
These systems of embodiment that become part of our identity.
What are we all looking for all the time when we buy?
You know,
That Peloton,
Maybe Peloton's not as,
As cool as it used to be,
But now it's like,
I'm seeing vibration plates everywhere.
But what are we really after?
We're after the identity shift.
We're after the.
.
.
The identity of being healthy.
Which is why when we sway too far from our internal values,
For example,
If health is one of our core values,
We have many others.
Or our values become compromised in some way,
We really do start to feel off.
We start to feel a sickness from it all.
Values like spirituality,
Contentment,
Family,
Success,
Respect,
Integrity,
Loyalty,
Self-discipline,
Trust,
The list goes on and on and on.
We all have these core values.
And when we think about the phase that we're coming out of,
The lessons,
The learnings.
The phase itself is not to be wasted.
The pain that we may have felt.
The process of everything that we've gone through.
Because when we don't take the time to integrate,
When we allow what was before to kind of be wasted in a sense,
Not to blend,
Not to integrate,
Just to kind of move on to something else.
Oftentimes we find we get caught up in a spiral and we often repeat the same mistakes.
And then we start to feel frustrated with ourselves again.
And often that frustration can find itself blaming others,
Finding circumstances to blame.
Because it is really hard.
To really truly and honestly look at ourselves.
And the role that we play in that process.
And we also have to find grace too.
So what am I talking about here?
Isn't just going from a period of transformation to a period of transformation your whole life?
Isn't that kind of.
.
.
Doesn't that seem kind of boring?
Doesn't that seem kind of exhausting?
I guess it really just depends on how you look at transformation.
Because all states,
Like if you think of physics even,
All states of matter,
Essentially are always moving.
And transforming from one state to the next.
Our state of being is really no different.
And when we think of it more as a way of life.
We can actually begin to embrace the design a little bit more.
The more we stop fighting the design,
The way of life,
The more at peace we become.
And we actually start to see the value in the design.
The value that we have as human beings to learn something,
To be in a quiet state,
Solitude,
Spiritual refinement.
And then to take that and integrate it in new and exciting ways.
And then to discover what was it all really for.
That every intention,
That every declaration,
That every resolution has purpose.
Because what happens when we feel like we don't have purpose in our life?
We actually end up tending to get depressed,
Right?
If you talk to people who are clinically depressed.
As an example,
A lot of what they'll say is they feel like nothing really has any meaning or nothing really has purpose.
We also don't want to go into a state where like every single little thing has meaning that we have to define with our brain.
Because some things have meaning and purpose.
Very hard to define,
Don't need to really be defined,
Need to be experienced,
Need to be lived.
And so this space.
This space is where we integrate our spiritual life into our daily life.
Our Sunday church life becomes every day of our life in a sense.
We don't want to just go to church on Sundays to connect with God and then never again.
We don't just want to baptize our children and then not teach them what it means to have a relationship with God.
We don't want to just say a prayer when we are in complete desperation or in need of something or in need of some kind of help.
Because then it's like we are not in control.
And although we're not in full control,
We're in control in terms of co-creation,
Like there's so much beauty there to be experienced.
It's more of a conscious way of life,
Conscious living.
It's where.
There's this built-in sense of living more intentionally.
Where we can let go of dogmas.
There's a lot of shame and a lot of weirdness around religion,
I find.
Or no religion at all?
Where can we just find balance being?
In the center.
Connecting to love,
Our identity.
Creation.
Spiritual integration is really this beautiful capacity that we have.
To integrate our experiences,
The spiritual,
The physical,
The mental,
The emotional It's this blending and coming together of our inner beliefs,
What we believe to be meaningful,
What we believe to be sacred,
What we believe to be true.
Our core values,
Some of which I named earlier.
And there are so many,
So yours may differ or what you prioritize at various times in your life may change,
Your daily actions that you align,
Your conscious action,
The steps you take,
How we treat ourselves,
How we treat others,
How we make decisions,
How we count on our own discernment,
Not an AI tool to tell us what to do every second of the day.
How we tap into our own inner wisdom,
How we move through challenges and successes.
We don't want our actions to be separate from spiritual wisdom gained.
We want our walk here to be fully integrated for there to be no separation between these different parts of ourselves.
Oftentimes we find that our physical lives are very separate from our emotional lives.
Our spiritual lives may be non-existent in some cases,
Or Maybe taking over.
To a sense.
We want these things to be balanced and aligned.
So we can embrace the full experience of being here,
Being a spiritual life force in a physical body with the ability to think critically and move through various emotions.
We especially don't want there to be separation between us and God.
If we're going to be co-creating or else life just gets very difficult.
And many spiritual wisdom holders,
Prophets,
You know,
When we think about the King himself,
Jesus,
Was sent to be the bridge for that separation.
When we think of Jesus,
We can think of him as an embodiment of God.
A walking presence of God on this earth.
Because without Jesus,
We wouldn't really have like a face.
A walking embodiment to show us the way.
So maybe the reflection here today connecting on this is where do you feel that separation?
Do you feel it in your spiritual life?
Do you feel it in your physical?
Do you feel it in how you express your emotions?
Or how you use your mind?
And are these things aligned and where is that bridge needed?
What might you want to immerse yourself a little bit more in so that you can have that integration?
What intention might you set to guide you through your year?
What kind of energy would you want to open yourself up to?
And be selective,
You get to be selective.
I would say be selective.
Because that intention has the power to guide your entire year.
And I've seen this time and time again.
You cannot put a price on how strong an intention can be when you really believe it deep in your heart,
When you surrender to it fully,
When it becomes something that crosses your mind on a daily basis.
When you submit yourself to I don't know and you just lean in.
When you allow yourself to be guided and when you allow yourself to take that first step.
Jesus often said that I ask nothing of those who choose not to follow me and everything of those who do.
No one's forcing you into a very specific spiritual life.
That's your journey.
That's your discovery to uncover.
I have my examples,
Which have drastically changed over time.
In fact,
I'm sure much of it depending on where you are in your spiritual journey might make you feel a sense of peace,
Or might make you feel a sense of ick,
Might make you feel uncomfortable.
But that discomfort is the best thing.
For all of us.
And the opposite is also true.
You can feel the deepest peace and love that you've ever felt in just hearing resonance in someone else's words.
Because to live separate from your spiritual life is like living without air or water.
You will always be seeking and you will always be not understanding why you're not finding.
The same is true for physical.
If you're just a highly spiritual person,
Who never really wants to experience physical life or connecting with people in your community.
You're actually going to miss a key source of spirituality in a sense.
You can't really separate them.
You'll feel like something is missing.
Again,
If you are someone who avoids emotions.
Something will be missing from your experience.
And so we want union.
Versus separation.
And right now we're going through what I would call the biggest epidemic of all time.
The loneliness epidemic.
This one runs deep,
Friends.
We don't even notice that it's happening,
And it's happening.
And you know,
When we wonder why,
We can think of our relationship to technology.
And the unnatural world becomes greater.
And becoming greater than the natural.
The unnatural world becoming greater than creation,
The creator.
When that happens,
We start to lose ourselves in endless seeking and never really feeling fulfilled because we're getting these dopamine hits.
Right,
We're getting these dopamine hits that are telling us,
Okay,
We're getting some connection here.
We're getting some of our cup filled.
But the design is limited,
Right?
Because it's,
It's been developed by.
A source that is finite.
The people who develop technology as an example.
These are finite sources.
Of limited capacity.
But when we think of a creator or a larger source,
Or a larger universe,
We begin to see that there is,
When we think of our universe,
We think of infinity,
Right?
There is no end.
And so when we tap more into our natural world,
Creation,
The creator,
We don't really find the need to seek because all of the things that we are seeking,
To some extent,
End up finding us in some way.
And we receive that fulfillment in very small ways.
In very small doings,
I guess you could say,
That have very large impacts.
Like the feeling that we feel when we're walking through this enchanted forest or standing on the top of a mountain.
And our relationships are very much part of the natural world.
As I've shared many times before,
A very famous line from Ram Dass is,
We are all walking each other home.
So we really do need one another.
Just like we need our spiritual life,
Our physical life,
Our mental and emotional life,
Which all contribute to our health.
And there's such a.
.
.
Contentment,
I would say too.
In not getting everything that we want.
And you're like,
But I want everything that I want.
There can be such a gratitude that comes with knowing we have everything that we need and that we're being provided for.
It doesn't mean that we don't do anything.
We still have to do things.
Small intentional actions.
We start to begin to see that we are being provided for in all the other respects that we typically tend to worry about.
And having that most beautiful feeling in the smallest moments.
Those feelings that feel like they could hold the whole world.
And there's this sense of energy that does hold us in those moments.
This sense that something has changed and shifted us forever,
Not only in that moment,
But for a lifetime.
Growing life.
Spiritual refinement.
Integration character shaping.
Becoming.
So begin to notice friends,
Begin to notice,
Begin to reflect on what you value the most.
And if you don't know where to start,
The best place to go is to just look up a value list online.
And start to write down from that list some of the things that are really important to you.
And even just that act of going through that process.
Is going to do something to you.
It's going to.
.
.
Run in the background,
And when you're out in your daily life,
You're going to start to see whether you are aligning with those things that you said are important to you.
And then begin to notice again.
What actions do you take that actually align with these values and which do not?
Because you don't really have control of other people's actions,
Right?
But you have control of yours.
Sometimes it can almost feel like we don't,
Right?
We pick up our phone automatically now because we have like this program running in the background.
To give us those dopamine hits.
Not even realizing it.
But we want to be more conscious in our life.
And we get that opportunity to choose once we become more aware and focused.
Practice non-judgment too,
It's really important.
Practice non-attachment to what you feel like you don't have or you lack.
You can learn from different spiritual traditions,
Practitioners that speak to you on the path,
And you can also be willing to let go of those teachers that no longer align with the values that you have in this moment in time.
My teachers are always changing.
Always changing.
Because my values change.
What I prioritize in a given month,
Year,
Day,
Moment change.
They do for all of us,
It's just sometimes we don't notice it as readily because we have other things at the forefront of our attention.
Importantly,
It's really important to learn and then to act in life's small moments when you're washing the dishes,
When you're putting your children to bed,
When you're at work,
When you're driving the car,
When you encounter a stranger who needs that smile,
Or a struggling family member that you've known all of your life.
It's really in those small moments.
Setting an intention not to judge so harshly.
Because it's all part of the design for us to be able to learn in this way.
And it's really not what you don't have.
Trust that all of that is inside of you already.
And the discomfort that you feel when you're asked to act in alignment.
Is you aligning with the very thing that you think that you don't have?
And sometimes depending on what it is.
We end up getting that thing,
Or we end up getting the character trait.
Through the journey of receiving what we actually need.
Because let me tell you,
On a very deep level,
It's like what I was saying before about you know,
Vibration plates and Pelotons and all of these fitness equipment and it could extend to other things tech and things that we really don't need.
I remember my husband telling me a story once of when he went to Jamaica and People were saying,
Come and buy something that you don't need.
And it makes me laugh a little bit because We're not really seeking those things.
We're seeking the feeling of becoming the person who uses that exercise equipment.
Who develops the character trait to become disciplined to exercise more frequently.
We.
Idolize basically our becoming.
But we associate it.
With the thing.
With the item that we think that we need.
And it's not to say,
Like,
All of these things are tools.
It's not to say don't use them.
But understand that on a deeper level,
It's the character trait,
It's the who you are becoming when you use the thing.
That is most on a deeper level driving the desire.
Maybe when we tap into our values,
We Realize we value loyalty.
But somehow were disloyal to a friend or family member along the way.
Maybe when we tap deeper,
We realize we value family.
But we have a very hard time staying patient.
And not getting frustrated when we have to give up some of our personal time to spend time with family members who need us in some of their harder moments.
Maybe we value love?
And what it has to offer us on all the levels of spiritual,
Mental,
Emotional,
Physical,
And we say we want that.
We want to reach new levels of intimacy.
But on a deeper level,
We feel like we have no idea how to get there because we've never had good role models when it came to the dynamics of love early in life.
And it freaks us out because it's so uncertain and so unknown.
But what a journey.
Whatever it may be,
It's all a journey and We usually don't get exactly what we expect.
Because our expectations are so limited.
And if we only opened ourselves up to what is possible and align our actions accordingly,
On what this journey could look like from belief to value to aligned action.
Because Each and every day,
That's what it is.
We have these deeper beliefs,
We have these deeper values,
And we're taking action.
Sometimes consciously,
Sometimes unconsciously.
We want this to be more and more conscious so that we can align our actions and tap into that deeper fulfillment.
Really and truly remembering that this is a journey.
Of integration of our identity,
Of our relationships,
Of our character,
And of our becoming.
I'll give you.
.
.
Other example.
Oftentimes,
We like to set intentions.
I like to set them in the beginning of each year.
One.
I usually pick one.
I used to pick a number of different intentions,
But I have found so much power in just focusing on one.
It's not to say you don't have micro-intentions throughout a given year or other things that come up that you're focusing on.
I usually like to choose one these days to just continue to come back to because if there's there's always that one thing that could be your barrier.
That could be,
If I could overcome this.
It would open so many doors and avenues for me in so many other ways for other things that I value.
And so.
.
.
You can really do this at any time in the year.
I like to do this around New Year's.
But then I don't jump into goal setting right away.
And let me tell you why.
I feel like it's like an unfolding.
It's like an unfolding,
So when you set an intention,
And you let it unfold,
It gives you time to breathe.
Reflect,
And really.
See and start to integrate.
What it is that you're intending to do before you do it so you can actually act consciously.
So as an example,
Every year we put in an intention for the year in a time capsule.
And we reflect on past intentions.
So we usually state one thing that we're grateful for for the previous year,
And then we set one single intention.
As a family.
And we have our own.
Sometimes they're connected.
Usually they are,
In different ways.
Interesting ways.
And then we just let it simmer.
Because in all honesty,
A new year,
Depending on where you are in the world,
Can mean very different things.
Here in Calgary,
Canada,
A new year is in the dead of winter.
So starting a whole bunch of new things,
Setting all these goals,
Go,
Go,
Go.
I feel like that's just such a recipe for failure in the sense that probably the reason why a lot of New Year's resolutions don't even continue on past.
Two,
Three months.
And so what I'm typically doing from that time that I set that intention until I would say about spring.
Is reflecting.
So say my intention is I want to be more focused,
I want to be more,
I want to have my intent,
I want to reclaim my attention span here because our attention is being pulled in many different ways.
And I'd actually be more productive.
I'd actually get to spend more time in the values that I value.
Instead of being pulled in every direction.
With companies,
With social media,
With various things that are trying to pull my attention.
They want my attention because they want money.
Right they want to make money so they want my attention on what they've got going on what they they want to sell Right?
But maybe I want to be more of a conscious buyer.
Maybe I want to start with what I need,
What I value.
And so my intention is to reclaim my attention.
Because I value my attention.
And so for that first little bit between winter and spring,
What does that look like?
It looks like.
.
.
Reflection.
Refinement,
Quiet.
It's a revisiting of that spiritual refinement.
Because deeper integration will come.
Deeper goals will come.
Deeper aligned actions.
And so it might be look like taking inventory of what is my attention like?
Right really looking at it like okay i actually pick up my phone without even being consciously aware that I do,
Why do I do that?
I notice that I get really drained during this period of the day.
Does that have anything to do with just being too active with blue light and being on screens?
How do I communicate with a lot of the people that I love?
Is it.
.
.
Eye contact.
Through deeper forms of connection like doing creative activities together.
Eye contact,
Prayer.
Meditation.
Cooking.
Or is it primarily through a screen?
What parts of that do I want to reclaim?
What parts of that are automatic and what parts of that are me being very conscious?
Take inventory.
Spend the time.
Because the integration when it comes will be even deeper,
Will have a more profound impact on your life.
When you allow the design.
Set the intention.
Allow it to percolate.
Let it be something that's present in your life every day.
And do what you need to do to keep it present.
If you need to write yourself a little sticky that says your intention or something.
Everyone kind of has their method but Allow it to be present in your daily life.
Allow it to slowly align with your deeper values.
Deeper aspects of your values will reveal themselves over time,
And then you can actually say,
Okay,
This is the specific goal that I want to set.
Around my intention or the specific goals.
So that I can achieve some of these key outcomes.
And then even again,
Practicing non-attachment with those key outcomes.
This is the realm of outcomes that I would love.
But I'm also open to how good this could be.
I'm also open to how hard this could be as much as we don't want it to be hard.
But hard because.
.
.
It'll give me the depth.
And train me in a way.
That I can.
Become that person with that character.
Who I want to become.
Because the truth is,
The more our character.
.
.
Aligns with our authenticity.
The gift we were given on the day we were born.
The more our character actually becomes like our creator for this source of beauty that we're all connected to.
And honestly,
The more fun that we have in the design.
The more fun that we have designing,
Co-creating our lives.
No matter what life brings.
Our cup gets expanded for holding deeper and deeper versions of our highest values.
And this,
My friends,
Is the greatest gift.
