Stay Connected! How You Can Keep the Faith in Challenging Times
When asked about the certainties of human life, how would you answer? The comedian in you might reply: “Nothing is sure but death and taxes.” It makes a clever quip. When you think deeply about it, though, you might say that the greatest constants are change and challenge. Cycles of change are built into the cosmos—from the seasons to the tides to the movement of the stars. And challenge? What are the challenges you face every day from the small mishaps in your personal life to the global scale tragedies you hear about in the news and witness on television? Even if change and challenge are constants in our world, it doesn’t mean that you can’t live your life with a joyful and open heart. All you need is to create some powerful constants of your own!
What’s constant in your life? It’s all the things you love, all your values, and all that you believe in. You have a unique set of gifts and talents, and you are here to use them. Exploring who you are and what you can do is the first step in preparing yourself to embrace change and weather challenges. I have faced a dizzying array of changes and challenges in my life—things I never would have believed possible. Somehow all of them have fed into my spiritual growth and development and opened the true path I am meant to follow in this life. Just in the last twelve months, I’ve experienced everything from physical challenge (falling off a cliff!) to heart-wrenching changes (wrapping up a decade of weekly contact with my online Hay House Radio listeners). The changes and challenges of my life have made me the spiritual teacher and energy healer I am today. The same can be true of you as you open the door to your own true calling.
The challenging times you face today—and the world is supplying plenty of them—can become the components of your spiritual growth and your joyful future. As you pick up the pieces that change creates and meet the challenges ahead, you shape the future. By finding your constants and using them to stay connected to all that helps you heal, thrive, and grow, you fulfill your unique destiny. Your ability to face challenge and embrace change can become the keystones of your spiritual toolkit.
Here are some ways you can stay connected in challenging times:
Maintain your spiritual practice. What keeps you grounded in uncertain times? When your day (or your life) is threatening to go off the rails, what do you do to pull it back together? Here’s where your deep knowledge of your beliefs and values comes into play. Meditation is an ancient practice used to calm and focus the mind and bring your complete self into balance and peace. If you have a meditation practice, lean in and see if there is even more joy and comfort to be found there. If you still need to create your meditation practice, find an experienced teacher to guide and support your efforts. Your yoga and exercise regimens also offer the chance to ground and center yourself. Prayer is another way to reach out and connect yourself to Source energy. Do you dance, sing, write, paint, or use other creative activities to stay connected? Tough times are no time to postpone your spiritual practice. Its purpose, after all, is to help you through such days. Plug in to the ultimate power of Source!
Let the truth set you free. Part of discovering your loves, values, and beliefs is being completely honest with yourself. A daily journal is the best tool I can recommend for opening your heart on paper, for giving yourself permission to be truthful. Over many years, you may have built up layer upon layer of stories about yourself—many for your own good as you perceive it. How many of these stories are true? Do they really serve you any longer? You can use your journal entries to record your feelings as they occur and examine them to test their truthfulness. Have you been honest with yourself? Discovering the truth about your feelings and coming to terms with them gives you the power to forgive yourself and others. Forgiveness, based on your truth, opens the door to the healing power of self-acceptance and self-love. Clearing the channel for connection to your inner self helps you connect to others and to Source.
Join hands and serve. The changes and challenges you face in your life can be the tie that binds you to a community of like-minded friends. Your challenges can also equip you to be of service to others who are feeling the wounds that you have already survived. When you make spiritual study, classes, and workshops part of your practice, you cross paths with seekers on the same journey who become part of your healing community. Joining together in community strengthens your power to form life-sustaining connections and also to serve the world. No matter what seems to be going terribly wrong in the world at large, imagine how good it feels to spend a morning packing lunches for the homeless, teaching an adult learner to read, or visiting a nursing home patient who never leaves her room. By simply joining hands at home, you help build connections that can heal the world!
For the past 10 years I have been so fortunate to share my love of all things energy healing with you on my weekly Hay House Radio show. While this Tuesday will be my final show at Hay House… it’s absolutely not a goodbye.
I’ve been busy at work building a platform and a show format that will revolutionize the way we can connect and interact: face to face, on a weekly basis and available for you to listen and watch live or on your own schedule in a variety of formats.