Resetting Your Internal Compass

Do you have moments of feeling like your internal compass has somehow gone whacky?  To say it’s been compromised sounds awfully proper and not sufficient to describe some of the topsy-turvy feelings.  The election last week, for many people, was dizzying … not only did some of our compasses go haywire, our natural gyroscopes lost their ability to know up from down.  Things we “held to be self-evident” just aren’t so anymore.  I don’t know anyone who isn’t feeling at least a bit disoriented, some feeling lost, some fearful, some really excited that change is in the air and many more that are unsure, uneasy and apprehensive about the unknownness of the future.  The truth is, the future is always unknown, however, most people feel that it is at least somewhat predictable based on their past experience.  With so much in flux, many are experiencing confusion and frustration.  Some are angry.  Anger consumes a lot of energy – energy that can be re-directed to beneficial purposes.  In these tumultuous times, we have the perfect opportunity to remind everyone we know that we do have choice as Viktor Frankl said, ”Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”  We get to choose whether we will allow anger to consume us or if we will harness all that energy and put it to good use.  We are filled with possibilities and now is the time to express them!

Because changing times can be so unsettling, strengthening our spiritual grounding can make a huge difference in how and how effectively we move from disorientation to clear and effective choices of direction.  Let’s start by re-affirming the Truth we hold to be self-evident – the Truth that cannot be altered by any circumstance or situation.  Right now is the perfect time to re-set your internal compass:

We are not human beings in search of a spiritual experience.

We are spiritual beings expressing in human form.

As spiritual beings, we are inseparable from one another.

In human form, we sometimes forget our oneness.

We are one: Together we live, survive and hopefully thrive.

And together we sometimes struggle and suffer, and only subsist.

Intuitively we get that there is only one and to move forward we must consciously join together in life-affirming ways

It’s good to question ourselves to see if our choices are moving us in desired directions: Will the result of this choice expand or contract me?  As Tom Crum states, “I can make myself bigger or smaller by what I choose, and that makes all the difference.  By bigger I don’t mean what the ego might mean, but rather bigger in integrity or love or compassion or understanding.”

Our “duty” is to discard the stories that are swirling around, address actual current circumstances and then collaborate with others to insure that all the people in this amazing and resilient country can be bigger in integrity, love, compassion and understanding.  We must proceed as if limits to our ability do not exist so that the freedoms for which I am immeasurably grateful can be fully experienced by all people.  We are called to be honest observers who reveal creative solutions and then have the courage to put them into action.  We commit to always keep in mind that with the privileges of our citizenship, we are honor-bound to remember how our country came to be and embrace the words inscribed on the base of the Statue of Liberty:  “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”  These are our people.

Viktor Frankl reminded us,  “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”  In this time of turmoil,  we need to release partisanship and embrace some tough questions like “how can we use the compassion and creative genius that is imbued in each of us to resolve differences and make this a better world?” The work that is shifting the world begins within the consciousness of each individual which then expresses outwardly to alter and uplift family and community, then country and the world.  And … it begins with and within each of us!  We look around and we see chaos.  We go inside and draw on the peace and power of Spirit in and as us.  We look out again and  remember CHAOS ALWAYS EVOLVES.  It does not devolve.  This is the perfect time to transmute the energies of turmoil into productive energies for positive change.

We look to the “peaceful transition of power” with confusion … some with fear.  We know that as we lend our prayer support for what is best for our country and the world, day-by-day shifts are taking place.  Many hope that in the same way that many campaign promises have been rescinded, that many campaign threats will also fall within the “he didn’t mean what he was saying” category as well.

Catherine Saux wrote in the November ’16 Science of Mind Magazine:  “We may not be able to choose everything we experience, after all, we are sharing this world with a few billion other human beings, each of whom is co-creating circumstances along with us.  … we always have the right [and the power] to choose how we experience what comes to us, and that make all the difference between freedom and bondage.”

WE RESET OUR COMPASSS BY REMEMBERING WHAT WE BELIEVE …

We believe in Oneness … that there is only One Creator by whatever name aligns with your tradition.  It is perfect, whole and complete.  There is no “God and” anything.  This belief is the foundation of our conviction that we are inseparable from one another and that we are called to be a stand for all (ouch) others.

We are faced with a conundrum – we recognize ALL as expressions of the Divine regardless of their behavior

One that requires that we separate the behavior from the being –

Oneness is at the being level

Behavior is at the human/egoic level

One that demands that we remain clearly FOR what is life affirming rather than against anything

One that insists that we stand WITH any who may be marginalized

One that is committed to my most comprehensive interpretation of the Golden Rule:

To not allow anything to be done to anyone that we would not have done to ourselves.

We know the Power of Gratitude, so now is the time to engage it:

Make the commitment that you will consciously seek to find something you appreciate in EVERY SITUATION

Be GRATEFUL!  … in ALL things give thanks!

This entry was posted in Latest News, Ministers Musings on November 23, 2016 by CSL Metro.