So often, when facing a challenging situation or event we ask the question "Why?" Today, I invite you to contemplate the power of a simple shift...and instead, ask, "How is this situation here to serve me?" "What opportunity am I being given in this here and now moment?"
From the human perspective, this has been a remarkably challenging year. As a family, we were faced with some of the most "undesired" circumstances one could imagine. As we recently wrapped up this interesting chapter I found it fascinating how many people inadvertently encouraged us to stay in a victim mindset by forecasting long term damage and pain into our lives.
"You need," "you better," "you must" statements were followed by a littany of culturally agreed upon perspectives of what happens, or can happen to people who are "victims" of similar events.
Although never discounting the advice, and understanding it all came from a place of concern, I was also inclined to come back to some of the core teachings of The Power of Our Way Medicine Wheel, namely, "One can not fully heal absent of love," "Suffering is a choice," and "Forgiveness opens pathways to healing."
I also reached into the depths of my own past experiences of turning away from the wisdom of the world before I could find myself living in the blessed reality that had been deemed impossible by all of "the experts."
See, when I healed from Lupus in 1997, I was given a gift of faith that no one, and nothing could ever take from me. I was also given the gift of a radical, life altering change in perspective regarding what is possible when we truly partner with the Divine.
The Power of Prayer When Partnered With Faith
Before I go any further, let me emphasize that I am human, not super human. I have moments of forgetting that I take full advantage of. Every day I am faced with countless opportunities to shift my perspective and be accountable to a perspective that is beyond my own, especially when it comes to what I bring to focus in prayer.
What has been most fascinating is the increased awareness that prayers born of patterned dynamics of suffering are coming from the self that is suffering in fear...not the Self that is stabilized in faith - a SELF that is willing to witness the playing out of its own conditioning into a consciousness of fear - and therefore be empowered to alter the trajectory of thought that would have lead to more suffering!
The moment we get stuck in a pattern of identifying something as a problem, a tragedy, or some impossible situation, we temporarily relinquish access to the INTELLIGENCE that observes everything from a perception of neutrality and opportunity.
Where we are praying FROM, influences what we are praying for...
Understandably, our state of being and consciousness (pain vs. comfort, fear, vs. faith, anger, vs. love, judgment vs. compassion) and the accompanying/influencing thoughts and beliefs influences the focus of both our prayers and our projections.
We can pray to manifest external changes (which may be focused on getting rid of something and getting something else) or we can pray for the internal changes that can support sustained change.
And, all significant change, for it to be sustained, requires a letting go....a letting go of the ideas and identities that have contributed to the perceived conditions that you wish to change.
Most significantly, what happens in the letting go is an allowing of the awareness that it is YOU than needs to be altered...so you can simply, and profoundly surrender to the essence of which it has merely been hidden!
The journey begins with an awareness that the focus of your desires--what you are asking for--is what may need to change first! Entertain the impact of moving from a focus on form to a focus on substance and open to the very real possibility that you, in the past, may not have asked for what will prove to be most potent!
Asking for what is most potent puts into motion a series of experiences and happenings designed to change YOU...not just the circumstance! On the surface, it may even appear that you are getting the exact opposite of what you were asking for. Yet, we know that often, we don't fully realize - or even notice - the deep internal changes until faced with another opportunity to have a different experience of a similar situation.
It is in these opportunities that we find ourselves reflecting..."Wow, in the past, I would have thought, felt, acted (fill in the blank) but this time, instead, I observed an entirely different reality!"
Ready for this type of shift? Click HERE!
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