Showing posts with label living. Show all posts
Showing posts with label living. Show all posts

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Your Soul's Purpose


We all have a divine purpose deep within our souls yearning to be expressed. Some of us ignore it and create distractions to take us off course, some of us deny it, and some of us passionately embrace it, allowing our lives to flourish and flow with what we know to be our truth. We are all born with this innate knowledge of our personal purpose. The challenge is to stay in tune with your soul as the years and life experiences pile on.

It's not unusual for me to ask a client what their life's purpose is and they simply answer, "I don't know". What I suggest to them is that they do know, they need only sit long enough with themselves to feel what resonates within their life path. It often takes some silent soul-searching, mixed with meditation, before they see the light. And when the light hits, all chapters of that person's life miraculously fit together like an artful masterpiece.

I've always known that my calling is in the field of mental/emotional health, but what I've come to realize lately bears a deeper meaning beneath it all. At times in my life when I felt I was taken off course I was actually experiencing the pain I needed to feel in order to help others heal. In hindsight, every painful choice was an act of courage so that I may fulfill my purpose here on earth. I am grateful for every challenging experience in my life for it has brought me full circle to joy, reminding me that I never fell off track, I simply rode among the mountains to become stronger. And in this strength, I continue to fulfill my divine purpose.

In the big picture, we are all here to love and be loved. That is an essential realization as you begin to explore your soul's purpose. First and foremost, loving who you are, regardless of chirpings from the outside world of naysayers, will illuminate the path to your truth. Once that is clear in your mind and heart, you can then begin to explore your divine purpose. Sit in the quiet, connect to Spirit, and breathe in all that you are and have been. Accept it ALL without judgment and allow your chapters to flow. What is a common denominator for you? How have your experiences brought you to where you are today? What are you grateful for? These are a few questions you can ask yourself as you ponder your purpose. Be mindful of every question, practice patience, and it will come.

You might be wondering, why is there a need to explore any of this at all? All I can tell you is I know when I'm living on purpose, and I know when I'm not. The universe aligns with me and flows smoothly when I'm reaching for my meaning. And when I'm not, the universe lets me know that, too. Deep in your heart and soul you know what is right and true. We all feel happier inside when life flows and our hearts open up to the sky. Even in dark times our spirit sees the light through our difficulties. Our soul knows this truth, and when our minds catch up it is a powerful burst of love energy.

After all, in the big picture, we are all here to love and be loved.



From the Author of ‘Living, Loving & Unlearning: A therapist’s guide to healing and living authentically from the inside out’. www.CynthiaBrennen.com

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Cynthia Brennen, LMSW,
Contributor, Author. Please see Bio section for additional information.



© 2014 Cynthia Brennen, LMSW

Friday, February 6, 2015

Full Forgiveness is Felt in the Heart



                 
https://cynthiabrennenlmsw.files.wordpress.com/2015/01/246630_494001357285520_1592394644_n.jpg
Recently, I had a client who told me she forgave her mother but she still had some residual feelings that were gnawing at her every time she thought about their relationship. My client asked, "Does that mean I haven't really forgiven her?" After thinking about the many years I've sat in my therapist chair listening to countless stories of pain and enlightenment, as well as my up-close and personal experiences with forgiveness, I've come to this conclusion. Forgiveness is a process. It begins in your mind and has a need to settle there for a while in order to give your brain a chance to accept and embrace what is to come. We know that forgiveness is mainly about healing yourself, especially your heart. When we release from another's hold on us it really is freeing, and extremely empowering. When the mind ultimately believes in the truth of its forgiveness it begins to travel to the heart. I explained to my client that she is preparing to travel further into her forgiveness, but first we must work through some of those residual issues and release. Once released, we then do the inner work to fill those gaps that never got filled in childhood. It is never too late to learn to nurture yourself, but first you must truly let go of the resentments seething inside and realize your healing is solely (and soul-y) up to you now. Whether your parents did the best they could, or they didn't, it's time to let that go and give yourself a fresh start.

Once your mind assimilates into forgiveness and journeys to the heart, you will feel a peacefulness you haven't felt before. Your soul smiles knowing that you have received the message of love that stands before you. All feels right in the world because all resentments have been lifted. You've let go and blown the heaviness of your burdens into the universe, reaching the completion of full forgiveness.

So when my client asks me if she hasn't really forgiven because she still has some residual resentments, I simply look at her and say, "Your mind just hasn't caught up with your heart yet." And her soul smiles.


From the Author of ‘Living, Loving & Unlearning: A therapist’s guide to healing and living authentically from the inside out’. www.CynthiaBrennen.com





Cynthia Brennen, LMSW, Contributor, Author. Please see Bio section for additional information.


© 2014 Cynthia Brennen, LMSW


Saturday, October 25, 2014

The Process of Unlearning


The process of unlearning. A concept that may sound a bit strange to you at first, especially since so much emphasis has been put on learning throughout our lifetime, but if you consider the expectations put upon us by influential people in our lives, you may begin to understand the meaning behind this reversing process.
When we entered this world as babies, with the purity of our untouched souls encased in our bodies, we were completely free.  Free of judgment, expectations, and totally accepting of who and what we were.  We flailed with joy, extending our limbs out from our soul to feel and experience the world around us. We cried when our tummies were hungry, we needed a diaper change, or a good burp to let out some air.  Pretty simple.  Then piles of learning came upon us.  We needed to learn a plethora of skills just to survive in this world.  In addition, the teachers in our lives taught us what they thought were important; often beliefs they were taught and so on down the line. The question remains; is what our teachers were taught attributes that resonated with our personal soul?  Very likely, some did and some did not.  Your challenge today is to dig down deep into your soul and tune in to what resonates with your authentic self.  As you do this you will strip away the layers of all those expectations you piled on to please others.  Anything that doesn't feel comfortable in the pit of your gut is worth reevaluating in your life.  I use the metaphor of peeling away the layers like a banana peel, discarding one strip at a time.  As you do this you create room for the real you!  What would you add to your life as you strip away the old?  Listen to the whispers of your soul and you will begin to live the life you came here to live. Fulfilling your purpose here on earth.
The more you become the purity of your soul the happier you will feel walking your earthly journey. Enjoying your own path as you extend your natural love and positive energy out to others. Just as you were meant to be, living in the vastness of simplicity. To be true is to be you.
*Excerpt from ‘Living, Loving & Unlearning: A therapist’s guide to healing and living authentically from the inside out’. www.CynthiaBrennen.com



Cynthia Brennen, LMSW, Contributor, Author.  Please see Bio section for additional information.

© 2014 Cynthia Brennen, LMSW

Sunday, October 5, 2014

No Problem




Why does it seem that we have so many problems in our lives to deal with?  It sometimes seems we have way more to contend with than we can possibly handle and this can result in anxiety, stress, insomnia and even depression.  Giving considerable thought to these symptoms and their multiple and varied origins and knowing how within our Consciousness we create, I wonder if it is just something as simple as “we’ve got it all wrong.”  We watch how our lives are supposed to be from television, books, movies and even what those around us represent to us as the best case scenario for living and finding happiness.  But what if we realized the truth that these things are only idealized potentials and that if we strive for someone else’s ideal of the perfect life or happiness, we may actually find ourselves quite disheartened?  That isn’t what we’re here for.


We haven’t come all this way in our evolution and development to settle for someone else’s perfect version of what our reality should be, I think.  Look around you and see what this approach is getting us.  Every day we’re becoming more aware of the growing symptoms of personality disorders.  Even the DSM V sites more psychological disorders today than ever before.   The DSM is, “The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) … widely known as the bible of psychiatry and psychology,” (n.p. Tartakovsky, psychcentral.com).



Now, having cited this I realize that perhaps this knowledge is simply a part of the deepening of our understanding due to the increasing availability of information more quickly.  However, certain disorders or behaviors still seem to be on the rise such as those in the anti-social or sociopathic category.  But what if we’ve still not even scratched the surface of the true problems that ail humanity?  Consider this if you will, I have posited before that the Ego is the Veil.  Meaning that I lean towards the theory that our egos are that part of our consciousness that meets physical reality.  If there is a bigger part of our Consciousness that remains not in physically manifested three-dimensional reality, then maybe behavioral issues stemming from the ego are an unintended (or unconsciously intended) consequence of our being here, generally speaking.  So, if we begin from this premise that the ego is the reason we are in the physical, and when in the physical, we don’t understand the whole of our true Conscious capabilities, I could understand how some could wax either more sensitive with the realization of the possibility or it’s opposite, not sensitive at all in the absence of the realization of the possibility.  I see all of these things as coping mechanisms related not just to life and our experiences from childhood but that sometimes the level of discontent and ill-behavior grows simply from our lack of understanding of what it is that we are.



So, we have an ego that projects our focus here were we are physical, experience the physical, encounter egoic emotion and if we remain aware, we can still experience the ethereal.  Now, those of us still engrossed in entertaining that the physical is the ONLY reality may never awaken to the ethereal components of our larger Consciousness and they may begin to label, make-fun of or find other ways to hide out in pure science or psychological bad behavior alone to prove their own ego’s version of reality and all that will seem to do is perpetuate this ill behavior we so often see demonstrated within humanity.  I’m a compassionate soul and have to believe there is a reason for this behavior, for this seemingly limited thinking and why some of those in the know may find our make-up and lack of awareness quite convenient.  I’m not going to dive into conspiracy theories here.  I dare not put any good energy towards that.  I can neither confirm nor deny the existence of those with supreme knowledge and those who are lost to that knowledge (at least temporarily).  What I do know is that there is a collective of memories, thoughts and knowledge available to humanity.  At any time one can merely observe their own thoughts to realize we are not so simply defined.  We cannot even completely define consciousness itself unless we begin to break it down into very small, agreeably identifiable component parts (we can’t do that yet, at least not entirely).  Even if were able to identify all of the component parts, due to the process of individuation of focus (materialization of our consciousness in the third-dimensional world), the challenges of living we’ve all been through in our own unique ways would have us view the findings only through the perspective of our own life experience. The way we are generally made up would have us believe our own perceptions as truth whether or not that truth was provisional.



I have learned in life that we can experience so many problems, challenges and pain as we try to make it through the day living up to ideals presented for us to hold and believe in.  But what if the things in our lives are not problems to solve at all?  What if that concept or framework of operation is the problem and prevents us from truly knowing ourselves and the beauty that life has to offer?  What if we fearlessly engaged in serious inquiry of the origins of our own beliefs, understood them and then realized there is no need to fight for someone else’s version of reality or even defend our own?  What if you discovered that the way things are here as we see and experience them right now is just exactly the way they are supposed to be?  What if you knew you had a choice in terms of labeling, judging, hating, dividing, conquering or accepting, holding compassion, understanding, allowing and appreciating the diversity of life here and the full scope of potential experiences you have in order to better understand your life lessons?  What would that do to your problems?  Would that put them in a different category that might cause you to react differently towards?  Would you begin to see the behavior in others that drives you mad is not the impetus for you to engage in a campaign to change others but to seek greater understanding and wisdom within yourselves?  The irritating factors that occur to us from others does not exist so that we can allow the frustration to take up residence within our heads to our detriment.  On the contrary.  They are messages only to remind us that we have a choice in how we view things, even if we have to struggle a few days to gain a more positive perspectives.



So much is possible in this world.  If we could shift our perspectives we could endeavor to engage in more richly rewarding discourses and interaction with all of life here on planet Earth…here in the Earth School.  We could see the world with new eyes, hear the music of life with new ears and feel the truth of everything with a sensory perception unaided by limited psychological labels for experiences.  We could transform misery into beauty in the span of a heart-beat if we but took the time to learn how to stand in the center of the light of our own beautiful Consciousness and realize that we are one in so many ways.  Or, we could just continue with the drudgery, the pain, the bleak and stark expanses of some of the roadways of life.  The choice of perspective belongs to each of us alone.  That’s the beauty of life I suppose.  There isn’t really a wrong way or a right way.  I think being here at all has the consequence of symptomatic expression of “malware” we’ve had unconsciously installed in our minds from very early on.  I’m referring to the beliefs that were created about ourselves and the world that came from outside in and remained resident in our psyches without our understanding it was that very same "malware" that we have always operated from.  That "malware" skews our vision and makes the truth awfully difficult to perceive definitively.  I guess maybe that part of the fun is learning to spot our false premises and then striving to transcend them.  It is in the journey that we find our greatest rewards and not necessarily in the attaining of a destination, thing or whatever it is you can think of.   

In a way, we are already very Consciously Aware and Awake, we just have chosen not to acknowledge that yet or maybe we haven't yet learned how to remember that fact.  Each in his or her own time, I continually remind myself and remind myself with much gratitude.  I love life and humanity.  The beauty and diversity of existence here is just beyond words.  It’s miraculous, amazing, inspiring… even on those dark nights or during dark seeming times.  Things change, we always grow and everything is forever in motion.  It's not a problem.  It's just life.



Referenced Work:



Tartakovsky, M. “How the DSM Developed:  What You Might Not Know  Psychcentral.com Web.




Rev. J.L. Harter, PhD, M.Msc., B.Msc., Author, Blogger, and Spiritual Counselor, Editor of the JMCC.  See Bio section for more information.



© 2014 J.L. Harter, PhD