Baby Steps or Giant Leaps … Which? When? Why?

When are baby steps the best way to go?  When do they just not work?  Taking only baby steps can become a habit and shackle us to thinking small, being classic under achievers.  Spirit expressing as you is not an under achiever!  As Anais Nin declared, “And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”  What do you need to be bold?  When do you know not to be bold, not out of fear but instead because you have listened to … and followed …Divine Guidance?

What causes us to choose incremental, little steps

Is it a choice?

Is it habit? Conditioned reflex?  Fear?

Are we opting to allow circumstances to control us?

Are we drawing on the wisdom of Spirit that resides in each of us?

What causes us to opt for Giant Leaps?

Is it desire?

Is it that the level of discomfort has risen so high that we are compelled, even propelled, to do something different?

What is our decision process?

Do we have multiple processes?

What causes us to use one approach or another?

Many of us find thinking is easier in the silence, some of us awaken to wisdom beyond our personal experience that makes itself known in the silence.  Jack Fowler captured this well in his song, “In the Silence.”

In the silence, there is peace

In the silence, there is unspoken joy

In the silence, there’s release

From a world full of chaos and noise

So, I wait for these precious moments

When I hear all that could never be said

And right here, in this holy silence

I find God.  I find myself.

Current international conditions look and feel a lot like “chaos and noise.”  Uncertainty and instability seem to be the norm, and that’s when we need to remember to use the conscious intelligence that is imbued in us to remind us that we have tools – mental tools – to direct and select our processes.

We are expressions of Spirit.  That is Spirit is expressing AS human.  We cannot be separated from Spirit.  It is being each of us. We are an amalgamation endowed with the ability to use our intellect to choose our path of life and to draw on the wisdom of Spirit/Universe to guide us.

This is awesome to contemplate!  We are endowed with an intellect that has the power to choose at all times, in all situations, just how we will be.  We have the power to update and upgrade it any time we want and are willing to put in the mental energy and self-discipline to do so.

Ernest Holmes recommended that we, “Start with this simple proposition: The nature of God, of man, and of being is perfect, harmonious, whole.”  He was telling the Truth: our nature is Spiritual.

He further explained that we, “believe God is the Life Principle through which individuals derive their nature as intelligent, self-choosing entities…”

It is this divine nature that makes it possible for us to use our intelligence to immerse in and draw upon the One Mind:  The Mind that is both the Mind of man and the Mind of God.  This Mind is the essence of creativeness and the essence of goodness.  It is available to all.  Individuals can feel a connection to this intelligence as a deep sense of inner communion, as a spontaneous, irresistible union.  Individuals who have consciously entered into a spiritual path, who have opted to be grounded in their spirituality, clearly see and feel this Truth.

All of our challenges, regardless of their nature or size, share one common cause:  We have not accepted our full spiritual inheritance!  Instead, we have invited undesirable conditions and situations into our experience and then tried to combat them at their own level.  That’s a perfect formula for failure.  Who consciously wants to be a failure?  It’s time for you to wake up to just how incredibly powerful you are!

Living spiritually changes your life dynamically.  It totally alters not only how you experience life, but how others experience you.  When you really get the enormity of your potentiality, you awaken to the realization that you already have the ability to change what isn’t working.  That power has been latent in you forever.  This realization was one of the most powerful discoveries of my entire life.  You just need to work on the Art of Living Spiritually – it’s subtle, it’s gentle, it’s powerful beyond measure.  Change your thinking, shift your beliefs, experience life anew!!!

So we begin by putting all of this in perspective and reminding you of just how awesome and powerful you are.

What causes us to choose incremental, little steps

Is it habit or conditioned reflex?

How many times have you done something simply because that’s just the way I/we always do it?

This is living by default – brainlessly

Another name for “routine” is “rut.” A comical friend of mine once told me that “a coffin with the ends kicked out” You may not die physically from being in a rut, but you will become lifeless and might as well be dead.

Are we opting to allow circumstances to control us?

There are two habitual aspects to this

Recurring circumstances trigger old habits – laziness invites the old, trusted “easy way,” mindless default prevails

Circumstances that may be frightening, call in the “voice of fear” and s/he rather than clear thinking. We are literally “blinded” by that voice – the voice that takes command and make decisions for us based on past experiences, often exaggerated that can “paralyze” us

Singer/Songwriter, Jana Stanfield asks a powerful question in her song, “If I Were Brave,”   “If I refuse to listen to the voice of fear,

Would the voice of courage whisper in my ear?”  When we use our powerful intellect to choose how we are going to be in each situation, It, the voice of courage, whispers (and sometimes shouts) really good advice.  And, again come the big question:  Am I listening?  Do I trust God (Spirit in me)?  Do I have the courage to follow the guidance?

It’s all too easy to fall into the habit of thinking small … of tolerating “less than” simply because “history makes it so.”

Is it wisdom?

Sometimes the voice of reason steps in to guide us in relation to circumstances

Perhaps there is a very real danger

The question here is, who’s in charge? Is it the blinding, paralyzing voice of fear … or the thinking, strategic voice of reason?

How do we discern which voice is which?

It is a choice!

Many people don’t realize that it is a choice.

Some claim “that’s just how I am” and don’t get it that who you are – how you are showing up in the world – is totally a matter of choice.

Are we drawing on the wisdom of Spirit that resides in each of us?

Spirit in us, as us, is the direct link to the “wisdom of the ages” and an intelligence far greater than could possibly have been acquired in one individual human lifetime

How can we determine whether it is better to take baby steps of make a giant leap?

To an infant a baby step is a big deal

To an ant a mountain is not overwhelming, you just move it a grain at a time

Shifts in consciousness are made incrementally … a new perspective, a different vantage point, a presence of compassion, a sense of empathy

What causes us to opt for Giant Leaps?

Selecting the “right” approach can happen in an instant, using our intellect in light of Divine Guidance.

David Lloyd George suggests, “Don’t be afraid to take a big step. You can’t cross a chasm in two small jumps.”

Circumstance may dictate “move now” and Divinely Guided intelligence, says “one giant leap” … two small ones aren’t the answer here

Leverage what you know in light of what you intuit

Habitual thinking says there is one way to do something

Intuition opens to possibilities

Wisdom leans into possibilities bringing with it skills, knowledge, talent and abilities

Is the decision, simply, desire?

A decision cycle can be fascinating:

Very few of us, on a percentage basis, simply opt to move in a given direction

Most of us have to reach a level of discomfort that is sufficiently high that we are compelled/propelled to do something different, before we’ll act

Anais Nin: “And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”

What is our decision process?

Most of us have multiple, context specific processes

We assess circumstances based on feelings, beliefs, perceived outcomes – using our intellect …

We go into the stillness, sensing with every faculty, and open to Spirit in us, as us, guiding from within … and outside.

Numinous experiences of knowing without reasoning or knowledge

Discerning and entering “Wow!” … the wholly experiential sense of the Divine.

We recognize this Wow!  Sense – the direct experience –  is the essence of all shifts of Consciousness.  We understand how the tiniest change at the quantum level (immeasurably small) can result in an abrupt change, sudden increase, or dramatic advance.

Once experienced, you can never go back and pretend it never happened … why would you want to?  You have been altered forever, never to be the same.  How could you ever revert to making decisions based solely on the facts, on circumstances … on effect.  You are divinely designed to co-create your entire life.  All that is needed is latent in you, as you, waiting for you to awaken to your magnificent, pure potentiality.

A huge question makes itself known: “How then shall you live?

Do you remember, moment by moment that you are Spirit in expression

Do your behaviors align with that Spiritual knowing?

Do your decisions arise from that Spiritual knowing?

This entry was posted in Latest News, Ministers Musings and tagged #boldness, #choice, #courage, #divineguidance, #faith, #spiritualliving on April 16, 2017 by CSL Metro.

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