Spiritual growth requires becoming aware of everything you are
feeling and using your will to change yourself instead of trying
to change others. It takes courage to experience your emotions
because many of them are painful, and it takes courage to do
something you have not tried before or really applied yourself
to doing before.
Courage is using your will to face your own fears instead of
trying to change everyone else. That is the new courage. It is
not the recklessness of a daredevil, or breaking thirty bones in
your body while rock climbing (which an acquaintance of ours
did), or parachuting at night with combat equipment (which I
did). It is the courage to do what you need to do in order to
keep your commitment to yourself, especially when your commitment
is to experience all of the frightened parts of your personality
and challenge and change them instead of indulging them or
running from them.
When you are in a power struggle, for example, and you know you
are right, you are impatient, judgmental, and angry. Will you
continue the struggle until you win or until you and the other
are both fatigued and more distant than ever, or will you
challenge the part of your personality that does not care about
the other and stretch yourself beyond the limited perceptions of
the frightened part of your personality that is determined to be
victorious? Choosing love at that moment requires more courage
than most feats of bravery that you can imagine (such as rock
climbing and night parachute jumps).
P.S. I am excited to announce that my new book, Spiritual Partnership: The Journey to Authentic Power, is coming out April 27. (In writing this book, Linda and I refined the ever-evolving Spiritual Partnership Guidelines. I invite you to print out a copy at: http://www.seatofthesoul.com/guidelines.html.)
I will update you next month.
|