Finding The Silver Lining

It is possible to learn from every event, interaction, and occurrence in our lives - provided we have the attitude to do so. Good or bad, there is an opportunity for spiritual growth to be had. This track is taken from my course, ‘Questions To Heal Your Soul’, available now via my profile.

Transcript

Hello and welcome to the next session of the course,

Questions to heal your soul.

I invite you to take a seat or lay down and get yourself comfortable.

Close down the eyes if you wish and take three deep slow breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth.

I'm just going to take a moment to relax our bodies and open up our minds to potential possibility.

So as you're taking those slow calm breaths we're just going to scan the body and encourage each muscle in turn to relax,

To let go,

To just settle into the practice.

So just draw your attention to the muscles in the back of your head,

Just invite them to relax.

Now the top of your head,

Your face,

Unclench your jaw,

Release any tension in your shoulders and your neck and your arms.

And your hands,

Just releasing any tension you discover.

Taking slow deep breaths into any points of tension and encouraging those points of tension to relax,

To let go.

Noticing your chest,

Your belly,

Your groin,

Your upper back,

Your mid-back,

Your lower back,

Your buttocks,

Your legs,

And your feet.

And your feet.

Just taking a moment to scan your entire body for any points of tension,

Just encouraging those points of tension to be released,

To let go.

Take another slow deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth.

And drawing your attention to your mind.

We're going to open our mind up to possibility,

To potential,

To wisdom and guidance in the universe,

From God,

From our ancestors,

The muse,

Intuition,

Whatever place or space we draw our power from.

We're opening ourselves up with flexibility,

Possibility,

With suppleness,

With a look towards potential.

In a moment I'm going to ask you a question twice,

And then we're just going to sit in silence and let any answers unfold,

Not grasping,

Not guiding,

Just observing.

What if you looked at everything as a spiritual lesson?

What if you looked at everything as a spiritual lesson?

So the idea of looking at everything as a spiritual lesson evokes the potential or the need to pay attention.

It makes me feel like I'm no longer just a victim of circumstance,

That it's,

Or that everything that happens,

Good or bad,

Is more than just good or bad,

That there is learning and potential growth in every moment.

Even just contemplating the idea of looking at everything as a spiritual lesson feels freeing.

It sort of takes me,

The person,

Out of it and allows me as the object or the agent of change,

The process,

To come to the forefront.

Life becomes about the journey,

Not the destination.

Now I,

Like you,

Like everyone,

Have had issues and traumas and things happen to us that we just don't want to have happen,

That were bad,

That we wish went differently.

You know,

This is a factor of life.

It's never perfect.

It's been said that a good life would be a life that's 51% good,

You know,

If on average it's slightly better than average.

You'd want to come back and do it again.

Maybe that's pessimistic,

Maybe not,

But what this question,

Looking at everything as a spiritual lesson does,

Is that it allows us to take a win from every event.

Take something small from every event,

Every bad event,

Everything that goes wrong.

There is something to be learned.

Now I'm speaking from a place and a space of past trauma.

This isn't the medium to go into what I've experienced in the past,

But trust me when I say I haven't had it all too easy.

For context,

I moved out of home at 16,

Living off charity and government support,

So I understand a little bit of what it means to suffer.

But if I re-analyze,

If I look back and I try and find the spiritual lesson in those sufferings,

There's an abundance of knowledge to be grasped.

Don't get me wrong,

If you had have told me this at the time,

It would have been offensive,

Unless it was delivered to me from someone I trusted or in a place of deep wisdom.

But now enough time has passed and I can look back and I can see the lessons that I've learnt and that there's so much more to learn about myself,

About the world,

About the universe,

About spirituality.

If I looked back and took everything that has happened as a spiritual lesson,

Then that pain and suffering has produced something of worth.

It allows me to act,

To be,

To do,

To embody things that would put me in a place to help others,

To become a better person,

To make better choices,

To move forth in life with positivity and purpose.

If we turn this question into my day today,

Our daily life,

If we look at everything as a spiritual lesson,

What does that mean?

What does it mean to consider the warmth of the sun on my skin as a spiritual lesson?

That leads me into the idea of mindfulness and being in the present moment and living in the here and now.

If I notice that my mind has wandered off into anxiety or depression and focusing on the past or the future,

Worry,

Anticipation,

Annoyance,

All these negative emotions,

That very event,

Those very actions,

Those very emotions themselves become the spiritual lesson.

It turns me from experiencing,

You know,

Blindly experiencing emotionality to a detached observer with curiosity.

I'm curious about my emotions,

I'm not just feeling them,

I've stepped back,

It helps me to detach.

But if we take the positive moments as an opportunity for spirituality,

For a spiritual lesson,

It's like,

Okay,

In moments of deepest joy,

Deepest pleasures,

Deepest connections,

Where's the lesson?

What is the lesson?

What if I looked at those as a lesson?

It's like,

Okay,

These moments don't come about all the time.

In fact,

Moments of heightened positivity on average is quite rare.

I've talked in another course about the idea of using the mundane as meditation,

But if we consider here the idea that the majority of life is pretty much like a middle band,

Not too good,

Not too bad,

Just existence.

A lot of life is mundane,

But if we looked at the moments of heightened positivity as a spiritual lesson,

It teaches us to really be present for those moments of positivity,

Really experience that joy,

Really,

Really embrace the present moment totally and fully and thoroughly.

And what about those moments of mundaneness?

Well,

If we can make the mundane a meditation,

If I can learn to get the spiritual lesson from doing my dishes,

For example,

It's like as I'm cleaning the dishes,

I'm also cleaning my soul,

Healing my mind,

Making my environment a little bit better to live in.

There's something to be said about that,

Isn't there?

This question,

This idea,

What if I looked at everything as a spiritual lesson,

Also causes me to embody,

To prime myself to be in the moment,

To be in the idea of life as spirituality,

That it's not just here and now in the meditation session,

You're listening to this session right now,

Because you've decided to open up a nap and sit in meditation to contemplate.

But if you were to truly embody this question and take it off the meditation mat into your everyday life,

You're now bringing spirituality into your everyday life,

You know,

Your pet comes up to you,

That's a spiritual practice now.

An email appears,

That's a spiritual lesson.

What is it teaching you?

Well,

I can't teach you what the email or what your pet is going to teach you,

But there is a lesson to be had in there.

You know,

I turn on my phone and I find myself pulled to different apps.

If I look at that as a spiritual lesson,

It's like,

Okay,

I'm being,

You know,

Addicted,

There's an addictive lesson here to Maya,

To something going on.

So I ask you,

I encourage you,

What if you looked at everything as a spiritual lesson?

What if you looked at everything as a spiritual lesson?

So well done.

This brings us to the end of the session.

At the bottom of your screen,

You'll see an option to view the classroom or to ask a question.

Before moving on,

I invite you to take a moment to click through and share your insights,

To read the answers from other students and to hear my replies.

Remember to start your responses with session nine,

And I'll see you in the next session.

This is an opportunity for deep learning,

Further introspection and insight,

So please don't miss out.

I look forward to seeing you in the next session.

This track was taken from the course Questions to Heal Your Soul.

It's out now on Insight Timer and available via my profile.

I invite you to join in.

Reviews

Will start the course after listening to this. Just found at the right moment. Thank you 🙏

Really interesting, it was a bit of a meditalk - a meditation and a talk. I liked that format & I liked the way you delivered it, thank you ☺️