Ruth L Miller, PhD
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Getting Past Overwhelm

7/25/2020

 
​One of the folks in my circle let me know she was really deep in overwhelm… this was my response.  I share it in the hopes you may find something useful in it, too…
 
On the outside, it makes sense: you really have 2 kinds of jobs going, plus maintaining a marriage (which I believe ought to be recognized as a part-time job for the supportive spouse).
 
On the inside, though, is where the problem is. It sounds like you're trying to live your life using your personal energy, rather than the divine energy that is flowing through you. It sounds also as if you think you need to do big things to experience the divine energy. Both can lead to the kind of fatigue you describe.
 
To regain that sense of energy flowing, try this:
  1. before you open your eyes every morning, feel gratitude for the bed and the home and the food in the pantry and anything else that comes to mind.
  2. Take a long, slow, deep breath and feel the energy flowing into the body with the breath - then release it, imagining the energy moving in and through every cell as the air flows out.
  3. Then stretch, feeling the muscles responding and taking in that energy. Every day. 
Doing the stretch every time you change tasks during the day would be good, too.  You're just reminding the body what you know in your mind - that you are constantly supplied and supported by the divine.
 
The next step is to start to reframe your thoughts. In 2 areas:
  • Fatigue is often the result of things undone... we're keeping track of all that remains to be done. So,
    1. every time you accomplish something - however small - give yourself a pat on the back (virtual  :) 
    2. As you're getting ready for the night, congratulate yourself on each of the many things you actually did. Something like, "it's been a good day. I got the space by the door weeded, put 2 meals on the table, enjoyed them, and cleaned up after, a load of laundry is done, and my client today really could feel some changes, and we made good progress on that marketing idea."  Every day, every accomplishment.
    3. Then give thanks that it all happened and now you get the delight of a good rest.
  • Feeling drained is often a sign that we're not doing what we thought was ours to do. Sometimes you feel you’re not where you expected to be doing what you expected to be doing, nor are you in a community that you expected your community to be. All of that can take the life out of you. But you made the choice. Part of you says "made your bed, lie in it" and part of you is going "but this isn't how I wanted to be living my life!" That battle is exhausting and can lead to all kinds of symptoms. What would happen if you started thinking, instead, that this is a strange but very helpful stage in your journey toward living the life you have dreamed? What if you could measure the ways in which what you're doing now is a big step toward being and doing the life that you feel called to? NOT a diversion that is in conflict, but a part of the process of getting there?
 I think you'll find very quickly that the energy is flowing rather than blocked, and you feel much better about your life!
 

Stages and Steps on the Spiritual Journey

7/8/2020

 
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Hi there... lots going on around us these days...
​Here's the latest food for thought, hoping it may help make sense of how "religious" or "spiritual" people could "do such things.".   :).

   
  In modern-day America, a person is either religious, spiritual, or not. We tend to think that for someone who accepts religion or is “born again,” that’s all that’s necessary. The idea that we can mature in our religious or spiritual practice is almost unheard-of.
​

   Yet, across the millennia and across cultures, humanity has created and experienced lengthy training programs in order to advance to higher understandings and greater spiritual power—with the ultimate goal being what Christians call theosis, Oneness with God.

  If we look across cultures, and across time in Christian culture, we can trace the stages of development that each soul must go through. From the new convert to the saint, from the isolated discoverer to the most beloved mystic, in the lives of such as Augustine, Francis, the Teresas, Tolstoy, and Emerson, we can see a consistent progression.
   One version of these steps is described below, from the point of view of the people experiencing them.

STAGE ONE. Awe.
There is a power greater than me and all of us together—a power over all our lives. ("if what controls the world is like me or the powerful people I know, it’s scary!")
STAGE TWO. Appeasement.
There are ways to behave that seem to keep that power working for us rather than against us. (“We must sacrifice to experience atonement.”)
STAGE THREE. Explanation, Imitation, & Ritual.
Some of our behaviors have different effects in different situations; the power that runs things seems to have many faces, each with its own story. (“If we live that story, maybe we can experience the benefits of that special power; saints emulate Jesus, Mary, the Buddha, Mohammed.”)
STAGE FOUR. Relationship.
When we stop to really look at our lives our perception of who we are and what the world is shifts; we let go of fear and control as we enter the Silence—there, the power that has run our world seems to speak to us and guide us on a new path. (the prophet Abraham hears the Lord; Neal Donald Walsh has conversations with God; Esther Hicks experiences Source Energy)
STAGE FIVE. New Choices.
As we surrender old ideas about external power to rely on the new awareness of an inner Guide, we choose based on new standards. (We live what the Egyptians called the “10 words,” and Christians and Jews call Moses’ “10 commandments:” Or, we accept the Buddha’s “8-fold path:”)
STAGE SIX. Well-being.
Living from the new choices and going inside for guidance, we discover that all-that-is, every being, is one interconnected whole; to experience any is to experience all: mercy, justice, humility, generosity, compassion, acceptance are second nature. All is well. (We let go of judgment.)
STAGE SEVEN. Unity.
I am One with all being. I am all—all is that which I am. Call me Being (Essence, I am), for all-that-is exists thru and as me; I Am. (We step off the staircase of progress into joyful beingness.)
STAGE EIGHT. Power.
One Power flows thru and as all that is, expressing as me here, now, and thru me into all other lives and situations. All are healed, whole, holy, now. (We no longer desire, for our soul's longings are always manifest)
STAGE NINE. Infinity.
I am outside of space and time, containing all space and all time, yet creating this moment: now and now and now, again. I choose freedom, knowing it is life/peace for all. (We transcend material experience.)  
        
​   Reading the lives of prophets, saints, and mystics, we can see that, while all these steps are experienced, this is not an orderly progression. In fact, most people get a glimpse of a stage several steps ahead of where their normal thought processes are operating, then have a series of experiences that move them beyond their current state in the direction of those glimpses.
   More, we can see that the great attraction that most Westerners feel toward Jesus the Christ is that he appears, based on our understanding of the literature, to be the only human being to actually have attained and sustained Stage Eight and visibly move on to Stage Nine—in fact, most Christians would say that Jesus could do so only because he was the one Son of God. Hindus, however, would disagree with this idea, saying that while Jesus had, in fact, accomplished all that, they can name at least a dozen other men and women who have also done so, using advanced spiritual practices. And Muslims would say that the blessed Prophet Mohammed had done all that and more, by the grace of God (the Arabic word is Allah), rather than by any effort on his part beyond obeying God.
   This is wonderful because, both logically and from the words of those who have glimpsed those final stages, we realize that, in fact, it’s not possible to experience them without the grace of that ultimate Power—a merging is occurring, and it takes more than one being to make such a thing happen. Further, as we contemplate (which, in itself, is part of the process, coming from a word that means “time with God”) this realization, we begin to feel and know that we, too, are being called into that state, too.

   Then the real journey begins...
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So, in this time of falling-apart, when emotions are raw and so many people have dropped the "nice" masks they've been wearing to cope in our culture, we can recognize that we're all somewhere on the path, somewhere in an ongoing process, and we're all - truly - aiming for the same thing.

Thriving in These Times video presentation

7/1/2020

 
A few days ago the LightPath Center in Bend, Oregon posted a presentation I did for them on how we can respond to what's going on today in a way that leads to thriving, not merely surviving...

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