Charge yourself with being responsible for yourself, for how you live your life and how you act in the world. To be in charge of your own life is to take full responsibility for it, to make choices that benefit the whole, and to find the way to live each day from a place that is heart centered and right. Your own choices do matter. So get right within yourself and you will get everything else right as well. As within, so without.
Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne
The question arises: “Who is the You, that never disappoints your Soul?” That you is your personality. And what is the personality?
The personality is a combination of the ego self, which is largely identified with life in the physical body; the subconscious mind, which stores the wisdom of many lives lived; and the High Self, which supports the intention for growth in this life.
The Soul itself is the subtle body that has spawned many lives and many personalities. Each of these has collectively gathered experience and knowledge that contributes to the Soul’s growth. Those prior lives are all connected to the subconscious mind and are reflected, as well, in various ego states and characteristics of the physical body.
The personality’s life in a physical body is the Soul’s investing of its energy in the quest for growth. For growth to happen, the personality must have the free will to set up its own experiments and make its own discoveries in the life it is in, all of which ultimately contribute to the growth of the Soul.
The Soul grows through life experience, not through a personality seeking refuge in simply being good, whereby suppressing into its shadow the fuller spectrum of life’s desires. Although, even such an attempt at a virtuous life is a life of experience that benefits the Soul.
In this case, the Soul discovers that such a one-sided life creates the karmic necessity of another life that can more fully experience the shadow held in abeyance. The Soul does not judge any life to have been a wasted or failed life. All experience is golden and treated with equanimity by the Soul.
Critical judgment issues from the personality. Perhaps its value is to create a restlessness that spurs the personality to stay on point with its core mission in this life.
The ego, however, with its limited knowledge of, and limited connection to, the subtler dimensions of its being, as well as its reason for being in this life, tends to overly judge itself in the context of its achievements and failures in this life. It lacks the richer perspective of its Soul, which appreciates equally all experiences in life.
Growth for the personality requires the maturation of its judging function. The shamans of ancient Mexico were particularly helpful in this respect, in their dictum to suspend judgment. They discovered that self-criticism had the effect of immobilizing one’s vital energy, which is essential to achieve expanded awareness.
It’s not that shamans don’t face the truth of their actions and their consequences; they are in fact ruthlessly insistent upon facing the truth. However, shamans do not define themselves as failures, or as good or bad people. They acknowledge their faults and mistakes and make adjustments in their life to avoid repetition. Or they continue to repeat the same behaviors, accepting the need to finish with a “bad” behavior so that they can then be freed to move on.
Shamans laugh at themselves and are in awe of their blind spots and sheer stupidity. Shamanic wisdom knows that the key to spiritual advancement is complete acceptance of self in every action, thought, and feeling experienced through an entire life. How can we advance to new life if we cannot fully accept ourselves and our entire lives lived?
That acceptance must equally extend to every person who has harmed us in our life. Refusal to accept anything that has happened to us will automatically generate a seed of karma that will attempt acceptance again in another life. Refusal to accept freezes our energy and blocks our advance.
To advance we must free ourselves of any notion of victimhood. Although we may have been victimized, the key is not to freeze ourselves in the self-definition of victim. Acceptance requires full mastery of every fact of our life, however tragic. The Soul does not judge. The Soul values every experience equally. May the personality be guided by this wisdom.
Carl Jung established that there are two ego functions that judge in order to navigate this life: thinking and feeling. Thinking employs the rational mind, and logic, to determine the truth. Feeling uses feelings to actively determine the worth of something. Both of these functions support the ego’s understanding and valuing of life experience.
To exercise these evaluative functions is necessary to navigate life with objectivity. But the emphasis in these functions is to understand and make decisions, not to condemn and define the self with judgments of inferiority, inadequacy, and unworthiness.
The Soul is never disappointed with us. Can we internalize this insinuation from above, and rise to the level of never being disappointed in ourselves and others? This erases no facts or responsibility but does advance us fully in love, through total acceptance of everything.
From a path of heart,
Chuck
Remember your past to secure a more open, honest and flowing future. Past events, known and unknown, forgotten and remembered, can weigh upon you mentally, emotionally, and physically. In recapturing memories you offer yourself the opportunity to free yourself of the burden of them. In recalling memories, in reliving and releasing them, space inside you opens up to receive more beneficial units of love, pleasure and happiness, and for your emotions to be more positively occupied and engaged. To exchange the old depressed energies of memories with energies of new life is an experience like no other; it is life-affirming and life-giving. Seek to remember, and strive to release old beliefs, old ideas, and old perceptions of yourself. In this manner, find freedom and the ability to open to new experiences of life as well.
Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne
Remember to stay grounded in the real world, even as your mind takes you off into fantasy. Groundedness is practical, as it keeps you focused on what needs to be done, where to put your energy, and how to live your life. Groundedness will keep you safe and sound, alert and aware, so that every day is a day you can declare a success. Even while you stay grounded though, remember that you are also a spiritual being with unique energy skills that you can use to heal yourself and to heal the world. In this manner there is a uniqueness to being human that many are not aware of, the power of the human spirit to enact healing within and without. So, even while you stay practical and grounded, explore other possibilities, especially your ability to heal and be healed.
Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne
Cycles of change are so apparent in nature, as the seasons change, as day turns to night, as the moon and sun rise and set, as autumn turns to winter. Change eventually comes, bringing first much needed respite then much needed new growth and new life. The human being also goes through natural cycles of change while in human form, most dramatically seen in the the small babe changing to an adult over the span of two decades. Change makes way for what is to naturally come. Concentrate on that, prepare for what is to naturally come so that there is no shock when the next big change arrives, when the next natural step in life appears. Be ready.
Sending you love,
The Soul Sisters, Jan & Jeanne