Posts Tagged ‘Alignment’

Impeccability

Sunday, May 1st, 2011

I first encountered the concept of impeccability several years ago, while reading Carlos Casteneda’s accounting of his work with his mentor Don Juan. Don Juan claimed the first requirement to becoming a “man of knowledge” is impeccability, establishing it as essential in accessing one’s personal power. Because this was a new concept to me, I’ve pondered it, explored it, and come to see its importance.

According to the dictionary, impeccability means to be perfect, to be unblemished. Yet humans are prone to error, so what does unblemished mean in human terms?  To be free of flaws and bruises, like a peach picked carefully and handled gently?  Who could possibly live up to such a standard?  Who would want to?

I agree impeccability means perfect. I also agree with Don Juan that it has more to do with personal power than personality. I think it means becoming aware of your power, in terms of emotions and energy, understanding the nature of that power, and using it impeccably.

The power itself is always unblemished (although it can be used in destructive ways). When you access your power and utilize it toward your best good and the best good of others, you become impeccable. Here are some ways to explore your impeccability, your relationship with your own power.

Self-Consistency

Self-consistency has two parts:  self and consistency.

Self is you as you have been, as you are, and as you will be. When you understand and honor the past, present and future aspects of your life and your path, you have self. Since other people, outside influences and your sometimes-skewed interpretations of your experiences affect the person you are, becoming your true self may be one of the major challenges of your life. Sometimes you may wish you lived in a vacuum so you could be free to just be yourself, but experiences and relationships are the way we grow, a way we can test ourselves. Learn what works for you and what doesn’t by testing what you think and by observing the results of your choices.

Consistency is alignment with your self. Alignment requires constant intention and attention. First you have to know what you want and where you are going, and then you have to pay attention to your progress. Just as a pilot has to monitor the course, a carpenter has to check each angle, and a business has to watch its balance sheet, to stay consistent means watching for errors and correcting them as quickly as possible.

When your path, your desires, your energy, and your truth are steady and congruent, it’s easy to hold firm to your intentions. If you are wobbly in yourself, it’s much more difficult to remain consistent and stay impeccable. Try asking yourself these questions to help correct the wobble:

  • “What is the ideal outcome for this situation?”
  • “What do I want from this situation?”
  • “What kind of person do I want to be?
  • “What is there for me to learn in this situation?”
  • “What do I have to give in this situation?”

Know yourself. Know what’s true for you. Be as consistent as you can to yourself and what’s true for you, and you become more perfectly you. Your power grows, and you hold it more surely. While some choices may shift you slightly off course, impeccability grows whenever you practice course-correction.

Connection with the infinite

You already have access to the most powerful and positive partner there is. This partner is at hand to guide you, sustain you, assist you, enlighten you, and empower you. You can depend on this partner to answer your call no matter how faint your voice. This partner is eager to help and asks nothing in return. This powerful partner has many names; address it with the one that resonates best for you:  God, your higher power, the universe, Spirit, the ancestors, The Goddess, The Source.

Of course, the connection comes with a few conditions. These conditions are like the keys to a lock, and if you cannot or will not insert the key and unlock the door, your powerful partner is unable to enter. The conditions are:

  • You must choose what you want.
  • Your choice must be true for you.
  • Your choice must be un-conflicted.
  • You must be ready to receive the results of your choice.
  • You must be willing to hear your partner’s suggestions.
  • You must accept your partner’s help.

Through connection with your partner, your impeccability grows, your personal power increases, and what you’ve chosen becomes inevitable.

So how do you acknowledge this partner and open the channels to accept this empowered relationship?  It’s very simple.

  • Know you are not alone.
  • Be as true to yourself as you possibly can.
  • Honor yourself and respect others.
  • Employ love as your healing energy.
  • Employ happiness as your creative energy.
  • Employ gratitude as your receiving energy.

When you are impeccable, as soon as you say, “This!” your partner will say, “Yes!”

Forgiveness

Accessing your power and keeping your power strong are the two challenges of impeccability. The first comes with becoming true to yourself and linking with the universe. The second comes by strengthening the integrity of your self, and this means looking at integrity the way an engineer would (to keep the system from warping or deteriorating) or as a potter would (to keep the vessel from leaking).

One of the biggest drains on a person’s power is resentment. When you attach negative emotion to experiences from your past, your resentment becomes a leech. The stronger your resentment,  the deeper it can burrow into your soul and suck your power. The best way to shed such a power-leech and regain your impeccability is through forgiveness.

Forgiveness is often a five-step process, and while you can leap straight to step #5, you may find greater value in working through the leading steps.

  1. Become neutral. Acknowledge the facts of the situation. Acknowledge the other person(s). Acknowledge yourself and your part. What was, was. What is, is. It happened. You can’t change it. It’s over. When you keep wishing something could have been different, you’re grabbing fists full of your own power and handing it over to those you resent. Regardless of how much time has passed since the situation, you continue to cede your power to others.
  2. Extend recognition. See the other person(s) as real, as human, as acting according to what they know, what they believe, and the skills they possess. Recognize their intentions are for their version of best good. Recognize you did the best you could with what you knew, what you believed, and the skills you possess. When you accept the intention of best good (on their part and on yours), you start plugging the holes from which you have been leaking power.
  3. Provide acceptance. This step removes the energy from what the other person did and focuses instead on what you gained. Look at what you learned, how you grew, the insights you acquired. When you can look for the strengthening of your soul rather than any losses you incurred, when you transition from resistance to welcome, you begin to replenish your power.
  4. Be grateful. Let the acceptance of what you gained grow into thankfulness. You’ve already found the value in the experience, now appreciate the other person(s) for providing you with that experience. Say, either to the other person or in your own mind, “Thank you for giving me ______.” (My thanks to my wonderful friend Claire for this wisdom.)  Fill in the blank with whatever insight, strength, freedom, opportunity, new choice, and/or increased power you gained through the challenge they provided. In this way, you fully receive their gift to you, and you become aware of your power in new ways.
  5. Bless others. Blessings are given from power. When you ask for a blessing, you request it of someone (or something) with more power than you possess. When you bestow a blessing it comes from the realm of your own power. In order to bless those who might mistreat you, harm you, impose upon you, threaten you, etc., you must be centered in your own power. Every blessing you bestow not only benefits others, it increases your impeccably. Blessing others strengthens your power and increases your access to it.

Intentionality

The word intention indicates a choice.  When you choose, you become intentional. Most people, however, make choices with clear intention. The more clearly you know what you want, the more intentional you become; the stronger your intention; the more you empower your choices.

To transform a want into a choice requires intentionality. Consider these factors:

  • What you want must be true for you.
  • You must be ready and willing to be true to what you want.
  • Your must give your attention to what you want (both time and focus).
  • Your actions must align with what you want.
  • You can empower what you want with enjoyment, tranquility and/or confidence.

To be true to what you want, make sure your reasons for wanting it are true, your emotions are aligned, you understand any costs involved and agree to meet those costs, and you don’t want something else more.

You can give your time and focus to what you want through meditation, concentration and/or practice. Feel it. Visualize it. Affirm it. Practice it.  Imagine yourself in possession. Experience it as a done deal.

Perform the necessary actions to bring about what you want. If you want to write a book, sit down and put words on paper. If you want to earn a degree, enroll in a university program. If you want to increase your bank account, save instead of spend. Some intentions do not have such specific action requirements, but most do. Do what is required.

Become impeccable with respect to your intention. Keep your power strong and focused. Let the refiner’s fire strengthen your integrity.

Alignment

To build and hold impeccability, the two most important alignments are with yourself and with the infinite. Both have no limits, and you will continue to develop and refine these alignments as long as you exist.

Because you, too, are infinite, you can never fully know yourself while in a finite state. Every life experience reveals more of your character, every choice expands your possibilities, every achievement increases your power, and every lesson broadens your wisdom. Therefore alignment is a continuous process. Monitor your alignment and correct your course as needed by:

  • Reviewing your values
  • Acknowledging what’s true for you
  • Strengthening your intentions
  • Reinforcing your motivations
  • Listening to your intuition.

With every course correction, every realignment, you become more and more impeccable.

The infinite is unwavering, ever-powerful, and always there. Because it is an invisible force, however, you may occasionally forget how available and constant it is. During those times when your link with your omnipotent power thins, it’s up to you to reinforce the connection. Remember. Reach out. Receive.

Empowerment and enlightenment are like the sides of a ladder. Without both uprights, the rungs fall away. The upright post of empowerment is logic, the upright post of enlightenment is wisdom. Some situations in life require more empowerment, some more enlightenment, so your best alignment comes when you combine them.

When you are out of alignment or your integrity weakens, you are likely to leak personal power and thus your impeccability becomes bruised. Conversely, the more consistently you correct your alignment the more impeccable you become, and thus your personal power strengthens.

Tags: ,
Posted in intentions | Comments Off

Recognize Your Truth

Sunday, March 13th, 2011

A while ago, I wrote an article called “What’s true for you?” Today I’d like to expand on that topic by exploring some of the aspects that comprise personal truth.

Your Life

Quite a number of facets comprise your physical life experience. You have biographical data:  name, age. parents’ names, place of birth, place of residence, etc. You have biological data:  height, weight, hair color, and all the other factors governed by your DNA. You have educational experience with accumulated academic knowledge, and you have a job history with acquired professional knowledge.

You have a personal history that includes the places you’ve lived, the people you’ve loved, the illnesses you’ve endured, the accidents you’ve survived, etc. And you also have a personal history that didn’t happen, such as the places you haven’t lived, the schools you didn’t attend, the people you didn’t love, the jobs you didn’t take.

So how many of these facts, figures, choices and experiences are true for you?  How many of them may not necessarily have been true for you, but helped illuminate what is true for you?

Perhaps you’ve worked jobs you weren’t suited for. They helped you learn how important it is to employ your skills, talents and preferences in your work.

Perhaps you’ve loved people who weren’t a good match for you, whether it was the boy in third grade who chased you around the playground every recess, or the cheerleader girlfriend who liked you because you were on the football team, or an emotionally unavailable spouse. They helped you understand yourself, recognize your vulnerable areas, realize what matters to you in a relationship.

You may or may not have grown up in a home that recognized your worth. Either way, what did you learn from the experience?

You may or may not have been given a name that fits you. Have you learned to like it?  Have you changed it?  Either way, what have you learned about self-labeling?

You may or may not be living in an environment that nurtures you. What inner power are you finding in that environment?   What would you like instead?  Why?

There’s an old adage that advises you to bloom where you’re planted.  The wisdom of this advice lies in the opportunities for personal growth provided by the circumstances of your life. Regardless of location, you can make the most of any situation. When you’ve gained all there is to gain, or when you feel the call of another place, you can choose to transplant yourself.

If, however, you uproot yourself before you’ve learned what that situation has to teach, you’ll just take yourself with you. Pretty soon the new situation will provide the same frustrations, challenges, disappointments and pain as the old one.

An exploration of the situations of your life can help you discover ever-deeper levels of who you are. You become clearer about what you want and why you want it. You gain understanding about yourself within relationships.  And you understand the service you can offer to the world.

When your life is true for you, you resonate with it. You experience more peace, better health, greater abundance, and deep inner joy. Choose a life that is true for you, and be true to the life you have chosen.

Your Value System

Many religious apologists claim moral and ethical behaviors derive from a belief in a deity. Atheists who choose the high road believe morality motivates simply because it produces better results than immorality.

Whether you acquired your moral sense from the teachings of your church or from an observance of natural consequences, the results are the same. Some behaviors and qualities of character work better in society and inspire you to better choices, some create conflict in society and lead to personal chaos.

There have been many teachers throughout history, some religious, some not, who have offered advice about which behaviors and character traits produce the best results. A search on the Internet will produce myriad lists, systems, discussion boards, and advice columns.

These lists of values, virtues, ethics, and qualities are more likely to illuminate what’s out there, what’s possible and what others believe than expand your own self-understanding.

The virtues and qualities that are true for you will pass your own personal tests. Consider the following challenges:

  • You understand what the virtue or quality means to you. For instance, what does honesty mean, or compassion, or temperance, or humility?
  • You observe the value it adds. In what situations does it add value?  Are there situations when it might confuse rather than enlighten?  Is it ever neutral?
  • You decide if it’s worth the effort. To what extent does it come easily to you?  Are you already living it?  Is it difficult for you?  Is some aspect of it is not true for you?
  • You recognize its value to you. Does it strengthen you?   Or do you feel disempowered by it.

No one is born with a fully developed values system – not even the saints; we all have to develop our own. Your personal value system does not include every trait or quality someone at some time has considered a virtue. Very likely it does not even include every quality you’ve been taught to believe is a virtue.

You have a values system, whether you have been conscious of it or not. However, if you’ve adopted one that is not true for you, you will experience confusion and self-doubt. If it is true for you, it will enhance and empower your life.

Your Intuition

You have an inner voice that speaks truth to you. It’s been called many names at various times including:  your conscience, the holy spirit, your spirit guides, an angel, your spirit animal, the ancestors, etc.

This voice obeys several rules in its communication with you, including:

  • It responds to and with whatever emotional energy you’re emitting.
  • It speaks in the languages you are most familiar with – your spoken languages, of course, but also the languages of your thoughts. It arises from your frame(s) of reference and uses your metaphors, your analogies, your symbolism, etc.
  • It works from within your worldview. If your worldview is narrow and specific, so is your inner voice. If your worldview is curious and expansive, so is your inner voice.
  • It is limited or not-limited by your sense of your own self. The truer you are to yourself, the truer the messages you receive from your inner voice. If you are confused, conflicted, or specifically focused, your inner voice must speak from wherever you are at a given moment.

Let’s consider each of these rules.

Your energy. When your emotions are positive, you open a clear channel and the messages come through without interference. Negative energy acts like static, interrupting and distorting the messages of your soul, sometimes making it difficult for you to discern them, sometimes obscuring them completely.

Your language. Sometimes you may hear your inner voice as an actual voice speaking verbal words. More often, you will get an idea, or feel the need for caution, or know it’s time to act, or just know one choice is better than another. Sometimes your inner voice uses something you’ve already focused your attention upon to give you a message to yourself. Your work or your avocation may be the metaphorical structure for the lessons of your life. For instance, a doctor who explores caves will think in different images and use different metaphors than a landscaper who knits.

Your worldview. If you think the world is flat, your inner voice will work within that framework in providing you with truth. If you believe people are out to get you, your inner voice must work within that context. If you see the universe as your partner, you inner voice will be able to speak to you with the wisdom of the ages.

Your self. You intuition can communicate only within the scope of how well you know yourself and how much you trust yourself. The truer you are to yourself, the better you know yourself, and the more open you are to knowledge and growth, the more straightforwardly your inner voice will be able to speak to you.

Your Desires

We live in a time and a society where more choices are more available than ever in the history of mankind. From almost every angle, we are encouraged to imagine, to dream big, to acquire. While this kind of encouragement helps us explore what’s possible, it rarely includes the disclaimer:  “You can achieve anything you want, as long as what you want is true for you.”

Not everything you might put on a Dream List would necessarily be something you truly want, or would work for, or would pay the price for. Your true desires, however, are not only within your reach; they want you as much as you want them.

Here are some of the ways you can differentiate a true desire from one that is not:

  • A true desire will not have a “should” attached to it.
  • A true desire comes from your heart.
  • You already have the talents (if not the skills) to achieve a true desire.
  • A true desire will fit within your value system.
  • Your intuition will always inform a true desire.
  • The universe is always your eager partner when you pursue a true desire.

One of the ways you can recognize a less-than-true desire is to examine why you want it.

Reasons that often indicate a need for re-alignment with a desire include:

  • If someone else thinks it’s a good thing for you to want.
  • Only to make money or to acquire fame or power.
  • Because it’s tradition.

Such reasons are not stop signs, more like yellow flags. If your desire meets the go qualifications listed above, and you can make someone else happy, or make money, or get famous, or conform to tradition, terrific. Such motivations can easily be within your value system and be true desires of your heart. The important thing is this:  Make sure what you want is true for you, and make sure you can be true to it.

A true desire is not necessarily easy. It might be damn challenging. Pursuing a true desire with your whole heart will always bring rewards greater than you imagined when you began. You might not get exactly what you thought you wanted, but whatever you achieve will exceed your wildest imagination.

Your Service

You serve your world, your community, your fellow human beings, and yourself in many ways. You serve with your attitudes, with your energy, with your talents, with your efforts, and with your intentions. Sometimes you give your time, sometimes your money, sometimes your emotional support.

However, not all of the kinds of service the world needs will be true for you. The world needs doctors, and you might be a musician. The world needs musicians, and you might be tone deaf. The world needs both warriors and peacemakers. Humankind needs both scientists and mystics. Communities need adventurers as well as homebodies. Families need nurturers and breadwinners. You need to give the service that is true for you.

Some forms of service are particularly well marked as “service,” such as volunteer work, donations to charities, ministering to the poor, and anything identified as charity. Other kinds of service are much less noted, but of equal value:  spreading good cheer through a smile or a touch, laughing together, staying connected, showing respect and appreciation, receiving gracefully, extending unconditional acceptance, etc. By such actions and attitudes, you raise the energy level of wherever you are, of whatever you are doing. When you lift someone’s spirits, their energy expands, and together you send more goodness into the world than either one of you could alone. This expansion of good energy becomes exponential, as each person carries it from the starting place to the next person, the next activity.

In this way, being the truest person you can be becomes the greatest service you can give. Being true to yourself expands you energetically, and as your energy expands, your goodness reaches more people, and goodness embraces people in love, which frees their good energy. Good energy always has more power than negative energy, so in this way you expand peace and love in the world. In this way, you serve yourself, your neighbors, your community, your country, and the world itself.

Choose Congruence

Each of these factors – your life, your value system, your intuition, your desires and your service – can reveal the truth of you to you.

Observe them. Become mindful of yourself. Recognize your emotions, and acknowledge the results those emotions bring into your life. Do some emotions bring your closer to your truth?  Do some put distance between you and who you have the capacity to be?

Quite likely, if you are in misery or struggle, you are not aligned with what’s true for you. Conversely, the emotions that produce calm, cooperation and/or oneness, increase your congruence with your own truth.

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Congruence, Intuition, Values, service | Comments Off

Becoming Congruent

Sunday, February 6th, 2011

As sentient beings, we approach everything from three directions at once.  We view them through our emotions, we think about them, and we act – not necessarily in that order.

Our best results come when these three tactics work in harmony with each other, when we’re congruent.  In fact, you can recognize the areas of your life where you are congruent by looking at your results.  If you’re getting what you want, you’re in alignment.  If you’re not getting what you want, one of these forces doesn’t mesh with the other two.

Alignment begins by making sure what you want is true for you and that you can be true to it.  Your congruence with what you want is the first step of alignment, but sometimes being true to what you want can be challenging.  Even when it feels true and you know it comes from your heart, you’re beset by doubts or objections or experiences that deny the possibility of attainment.  Then it’s time to search out your impediments and remove them from your path.

Identify the Impurities

For a good way to I way to identify your obstacles and objections here’s something I call The “But” Exercise.

Write your intention at the top of a piece of paper.  For instance,

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance.

Then turn your statement into a compound sentence with the word but, and finish with whatever fear, belief, or doubt comes up.  Since you probably have more than one fear or doubt, repeat this exercise at least 10 different ways.

If you’ve been working with an intention statement on a daily basis, it’s very likely some objections have been intruding.  This is your chance to commit them to paper:

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance,

  • But I’m stuck in a job that barely pays the bills.
  • But every time I try to feel abundance my stomach tightens up.
  • But the economy’s so bad, where would any new money come from.
  • But I’m farther in the hole than I’ve ever been before.
  • But money is the root of all evil.
  • But the rich only get that way on the backs of the poor.
  • But I have to make sure everyone else is okay first.

If you discover more than ten obstacles, keep going.  Perhaps you know your strongest doubt already, so it comes up first.  Continue anyway just to probe for anything else.  If you’re not sure what’s stopping you, this is a good way to release your subconscious.  Maybe you’ve got such an array of doubts you could find twenty without batting an eye.  However it is for you, this is the first step toward dissolving your objections and becoming completely congruent with your intention.

This exercise may take some time.  You may need to come back to it a couple of times.  Stay open and receptive.  You may discover some old beliefs embedded in your subconscious.  You may be able to articulate a persistent fear.  You may be confronted by an attitude or opinion that surprises you.  Write them all down.  If you resist your resistance, you give your obstacles permission to block you.

Now, with your list in hand, read through the buts and select the one you perceive to be the strongest.  Which one do you believe hinders you the most?

Dissolve the Obstacles

And now, dissolve the obstruction.  For clarity’s sake, I’m going to number the “steps,” although in practice they often overlap.

1.  Write your complete, compound statement on a fresh piece of paper (your original intention and the but you’ve decided to dissolve).

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance, but the rich only get that way on the backs of the poor.

2.  Examine your statement for implications and connotations and take note of what you find.  There’s quite a lot embedded in this example, including disdain for the rich (and a reluctance to become one of them), fear of becoming manipulative and exploitive, and identification with the poor.  Your own statement may be equally loaded.

3.      Consider what you would like to believe instead.  Perhaps you already consciously accept something else, even while your subconscious holds onto an attitude or belief that clearly doesn’t serve you.  You might find it helpful to think of neutralizing the old belief.

  • I can be rich and loving at the same time.
  • Some of the richest people in the world are also the most generous.
  • Money is merely a form of energy, and all energy can be used for either good or bad.
  • Creative endeavors produce as much wealth (perhaps more) than exploitive endeavors.
  • While exploitation exaggerates the difference between rich and poor, cooperation benefits everyone.

4.      Work with your list to come up with a statement of belief that strongly replaces the old one:

I cooperate with and empower others in every way, and we all prosper.

5.      Envision this as true.  Feel it as true.  Let it expand within you until you can observe your supportive and prosperous relationships with everyone.  What emotions come up for you?  What emotions do you think would most actively create this?  Love?  Delight?  Enjoyment?  Gratitude?  Serenity?  Generosity?

Remember, all emotions are creative.  You create according to the emotions you experience and generate.  Whereas Victim emotions create pain and suffering and Interpreter emotions create struggle, Observer emotions create calm, Partner emotions create opportunity and Creator emotions connect with your best good.

If some latent Victim emotion continues to reside within you, no matter how illogical or convoluted, that emotion retains the power to block what you want.  However, it’s impossible for any Victim emotion to reside in the same space as any Creator emotion.  You can neutralize fear, hate, anger, jealousy, etc. with love, kindness, peace, joy, etc.  Always.

To eradicate Victim or Interpreter obstacles, identify an emotion one step up the chart and choose to feel it instead.  Then identify an emotions one step up from that and adopt that one.  Keep going until you can access one of the Partner or Creator emotions.  Then incorporate one or more of those emotions into this new statement.

I lovingly cooperate with others and generously empower them, and we all prosper.


6.    Now replace your original but with and to form a new compound statement.

With delight and gratitude I enjoy unrestrained financial abundance, and I lovingly cooperate with others and generously empower them, and we all prosper.

Align

Your new compound sentence may sound a bit cumbersome.  When you recognize the parts of your statement and their importance, you can abridge the statement while retaining the power of it.  Your statement encompasses the following:

1.    What you want. In the example I’m using, this is abundance.  Yours might be an improved relationship, greater health, a successful business, wholeness, making a living with your talent.

2.    Why you want it or the service you’ll provide. The example circumvents the belief that when some win others lose and focuses on win-win.  Your motives can be personal or broad.  If your own peace of mind is more important to you than world peace, focus on your own peace of mind.

3.    The emotion(s) you’ll use to create what you want.  In the example, the emotions are delight, gratitude and love.  Yours might be peace, enthusiasm, vigor, or anything from Partner or Creator mode.

By understanding these parts, you can sit with your intention without using any words at all:  imagine what you want, evoke the creative emotions, feel it as a done deal.   It’s impossible to know when or in what manner your intention will manifest, so relax and observe.

I provide one-on-one coaching in Personal Power and Manifestation.  Please write to me at kathy@kathyjacobson.com

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Congruence, Creator Mode, Interpreter Mode, Observer Mode, Partner Mode, The Law of Attraction, Victim Mode, intentions, manifestation | 7 Comments »

Wholeness and Enlightenment

Sunday, January 16th, 2011

Several months ago, I posted an article titled What’s True for You.  I presented ways you could identify what’s true for you or not true.  Basically, the pursuit of something that’s not true for you is usually motivated by Interpreter mode emotions.  Since Interpreter mode results in struggle, if you are experiencing struggle, you are in some way out of alignment with your own truth.

Today I’m going to expand on that theme, focusing more on what is true for you.

Imagine a circle divided into three wedges.  Imagine the wedges represent your thoughts, actions and emotions, and the circle represents your wholeness.  When the wedges are intact and united, the circle is complete and you are congruent.  This congruent circle represents your wholeness.  When you are congruent, you are complete.  You are also  the captain of your soul and connected to the infinite.

While I designated the three aspects of wholeness as thoughts, actions and emotions, they can as easily be called:

  • Empowerment: Using the infinite power within you.
  • Mastery: Mastering yourself, your purpose and your intentions.
  • Enlightenment: Listening to the truth of your heart.

Today, I’m focusing on enlightenment.  Only by listening to the truth of your own heart can you be true to yourself, and only by mastering yourself and your purpose can you access the infinity of your inner power.

Enlightenment

I first heard the term “enlightenment,” in high school in reference to The Age of Enlightenment, a period during the eighteenth century when Western philosophy focused on reason as the stronger legitimacy for authority than inheritance.  Seemed pretty enlightened to me.

When I began to hear the term used in connection with spirituality, my sense of it grew foggier.  It seemed to mean an esoteric connectedness, achieved only by a few and only through intense meditation and after years of practice.  I puzzled over that one for years.  It seemed to deny the enlightenment that comes through the process of gaining wisdom.

When you consider listening to the truth of your heart, do dozens of questions arise for you, such as:  How do I listen?  How do I distinguish my voice from all the other voices in my head?  How do I know if what I’m hearing is true?  What exactly am I supposed to listen for?  Do your questions continue to pile on from here?

The following factors may help sort through the mix and find more of what’s true for you.

Your Values System

Many religious apologists claim moral and ethical behaviors derive from a belief in a deity.  Most atheists and agnostics who live according to a moral or ethical code, claim morality produces better results than immorality, so a values system is simply logical.

Whether you acquired your moral sense from the teachings of your church or from an observance of cause and effect, the results are the same:  some behaviors and qualities of character work better in society and inspire you to better choices; some create conflict in society and lead to personal chaos.

All human beings are strong in some areas and weak in others, and your true values system will not include every trait or quality someone at some time has considered a virtue.

If you find a certain quality to have value yet believe you do not currently possess it, you have the power to choose it.  Decide firmly that it is something you want to incorporate into your life, and visualize what it represents to you.  Say, for instance, you want flexibility.  What would more flexibility bring into your life?  Less stress?  More peace?  More room to maneuver?  Focus on the results of flexibility – the peace, the room, the freedom, the lightness.  Feel  those qualities in your meditations and practice them in your life until they become a done deal.

Similarly, if a certain quality is not true for you, or if you are not aligned with it, you will experience confusion and self-doubt.  You have the power to un-choose it, to stop trying to force fit it into your life, and thus see yourself and your true values more clearly.

When something is true for you, and you are aligned with it, it will enhance and empower your life.  Your task, then, is to become more aware of what is true for you and become more attuned to it.

I encourage you to make a list of the qualities or virtues you believe you possess  – or would like to adopt.  Journal about each one and what it adds to your life.  Observe the emotions that flow within you as you write about each one.  Any that are not true for you will probably evoke emotions of judgment and struggle.  Those true for you will likely evoke Partner or Creator emotions.

Your Intuition

You have an inner voice that speaks truth to you.  It’s been called many names at various times including, your conscience, the holy spirit, your spirit guides, an angel, your spirit animal, the ancestors, the still small voice, etc.

This voice obeys several rules in its communication with you, including

  • It responds to and with whatever energy you’re emitting.
  • It speaks in the language you use.  Your spoken language, of course, but also the language of your thoughts.  It uses your metaphors, your analogies, and your symbolism.
  • It works from within your worldview.  If your worldview is narrow and specific, so is your inner voice.  If your worldview is curious and expansive, so is your inner voice.
  • It is limited or not-limited by your sense of your own self.  The truer you are to yourself, the truer the messages you receive from your inner voice.  If you are confused, conflicted, or specifically focused, your inner voice must speak from wherever you are at a given moment.

Let’s consider each of these rules.

First, your energy.  When your energy is positive, you open a clear channel and the messages come through without interference.  Negative energy acts like static, interrupting and distorting the messages, sometimes making it difficult for you to discern them, sometimes obscuring them completely.

Second, your language.  Sometimes you may hear your inner voice as an actual voice speaking verbal words.  More often, you will get an idea, or feel the need for caution, or know it’s time to act, or just know one choice is better than another.  Sometimes your inner voice uses something you’re already focusing you attention upon to give you a message to yourself.  Your work or your avocation may be the metaphorical structure for the lessons of your life.

Third, your worldview.  Your inner voice wants to speak to you in expansive ways, to encourage partnership and creativity.  The less you judge the world, the more you release your intuition to speak truth to you.

Fourth, your self.  You intuition can communicate only within the scope of how well you know yourself and how much you trust yourself.  The truer you are to yourself, the better you know yourself, and the more open you are to knowledge and growth, the more straightforwardly your inner voice will be able to speak to you.

If there is an area of your life where you don’t fully trust your own judgment, I encourage you to choose to become more attuned to your inner voice in that area.  Practice pausing to listen before any decision.  Stop.  Become calm (see Clarify Your Intention).  Review the possibilities as you know them.  Listen to your inner voice.  Proceed without haste.  At first you may not recognize the difference between instinct and impulse, so simply watch what happens.  You will begin to notice when your instinct speaks truly, and as you trust it, it will speak more often.

Your Desires

Your true desires are not only within your reach, they want you as much as you want them.

Here are some of the ways you can differentiate a true desire from one that is not:

  • A true desire will not have a “should” attached to it.
  • A true desire comes from your heart.
  • You already have the talents (if not the skills) to achieve a true desire.
  • The universe is always your ready partner when you pursue a true desire.

A true desire is not necessarily easy. It might be damn challenging.  Pursuing a true desire with your whole heart will always bring rewards greater than you imagined when you began.  You might not get exactly what you thought you wanted, but whatever you achieve will exceed your wildest imagination.   (See Expand Your Possibilities.)

Your Service

Some forms of service are well-marked as “service,” such as volunteer work, donations to non-profit organizations, ministering to the poor, and anything identified as charity.  Other kinds of service are much less noted, but of equal value:  spreading good cheer through a smile or a touch, laughing together, staying connected, showing respect and appreciation, receiving gracefully, extending unconditional acceptance, etc.  By these actions and attitudes, you raise the energy level of wherever you are, of whatever you are doing.  When you lift someone’s spirits, their energy expands, and together you send more goodness into the world than either one of you could alone.  This expansion of good energy becomes exponential, as each person carries it from the starting place to the next person, the next activity.

In this way, being the truest person you can be becomes the greatest service you can give.  Being true to yourself expands you energetically, and as your energy expands, your goodness reaches more people.  Your goodness embraces people with love, which frees their good energy.  Good energy always has more power than negative energy, so in this way you expand peace and love in the world.  In this way, you serve yourself, your neighbors, your community, your country, and the world itself.

You can of course, continue your forms of traditional service, donating money, volunteering, and ministering to those in need, especially if they are true for you.  To multiply the service you provide with your hands and your wallet, bring your good energy, your joy, and your love into the doing and the giving.

These are a few of the ways you can listen to the truth of your heart and bring your emotions into congruence with your thoughts and actions.  I believe enlightenment follows congruence.

For personal guidance in bringing your thoughts, actions, and emotions into congruence, please contact me directly by emailing me at kathy@kathyjacobson.com

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in Beliefs, Congruence, service | Comments Off