The cycle of transformation - ricknotesricknotes

We often think we face a choice of committing our energy to either spiritual work (meditation, ceremony, etc.) or to our personal healing. However from my experience the two go together in a larger cycle of transformation.

The overall cycle looks like this:

Spiritual practice – resulting in gaining awareness and courage; which is applied to:
Personal healing and restoration (reducing our internal “static” and blocks) – resulting in increasing our capacity for receptivity and connection to spirit; which increases our effectiveness in spiritual practice. We then return to #1.

When I engage in my spiritual practice there are days of insights, visions and other phenomenon, and there are lots of days when not much seems to be happening. Although we may “fuel” our practice through the offering of prayers, mantras, appreciation, etc. this seems to be a time of patience as our connection with spirit manifests within. Thus it is a time of holding strong and clear intent and opening and opening in greater and greater receptivity to spirit. A time of nurturing the inner feminine aspects of attraction and receptivity.

As our work progresses two significant things seem to occur that link us to the next phase of the cycle. Our awareness, of ourselves and the cosmos, increases, and we become more empowered. This empowerment manifests as greater confidence, not as inflated ego but as true courage.

This awareness and courage are the foundation for the next phase of the transformation cycle – healing our wounds, traumas, dramas, and ultimately our fears. This can also be thought of as restoring our selves to wholeness. This healing and restoration utilizes our newfound awareness of ourselves. If we are willing to focus this awareness inwardly we recognize where we are wounded, anxious or lost. Engaging in a healing or restoration process requires our courage and determination. Unlike the previous phase of transformation, this phase requires calling upon the inner masculine aspects of action and results focus. It is worth noting that many so-called healing processes that overly rely on external practitioners to fix us, endless talking, or other more passive approaches are less likely to be effective, or at best take a great deal longer to effect change. And change is the operative word. While the process is important, the bottom line is that inner change occurs and that we emerge as changed beings.

I think it is also important to recognize that this healing and restoration work requires great humility. Since the overall transformation process is a cycle, we often return to re-work personal “issues” at deeper and deeper levels over time. And this can lead us to approaching another “cycle” of healing with preconceptions, expectations, and often wondering if we will ever untangle ourselves from the issue. So, humility and persistence are required. (For example, I recall telling various friends and practitioners at least five times that I had completed my healing work related to my mother.) One psychological trap that stops the cycle of transformation is the belief that shifting our focus to personal healing and restoring (and working there as long as is needed), is a step backward or away from true spiritual work.

The results of our healing / restoration are greater receptivity, since our internal incoherence (the level of internal “static”) is reduced, we are less “dense” (entrapped in our fears) and more easily “pierced” by spirit.

It’s a bit like a bicycle. Pedal hard to move the back wheel of healing /restoration, and the front wheel of spiritual practice also spins faster.