Our Spiritual Journey: Finding Our True Selves

Let people have their limitations. No one is meant to be perfect. No one exists to make us happy. We all have our strengths, and we all have our baggage. We all have our points where our behavior does not meet the needs of others. Let that be okay. We meet each other wherever we meet each other.  "No one is meant to be perfect." When we can acknowledge each other’s shortcomings and make room for them in our own lives and our own thinking, we can love each other far more deeply. We need to stop wishing someone would just stop doing something that bothers us.They don’t need to stop doing anything. Everyone is on their own journey. It is for us to love them and not to change them.Trying to change anyone only leads to their misery and our own.   ~Karin M. Keyes

     We have to be able to let go of the old to make way for the new. People can have such a hard time with the idea of loss.  We have already lost so much, we tell ourselves.   We have lost relationships, we have lost ourselves, we have lost countless things that were so very important to us.   This can make it so much harder to let go of what we have gotten used to, even if what we have gotten used to is harming us.    "We need to have the courage to let go of anything that is taking away  from our quality of life if we are to make room for what  really works for us."      We need to have the courage to let go of anything that is taking away from our quality of life if we are to make room for what really works for us. There is so much waiting for us to experience. There is so much that is in alignment with who we are today that we wouldn’t have been able to make happen years ago. We have grown so...

           The relationship that we have with ourselves is the most important relationship we will ever have.   We need to learn how to build that relationship.   Part of that process is learning how to trust ourselves. We need to take what we say seriously. We need to follow through on what we say we are going to do.     Even if no one will ever know if we followed through or not, we know, and that is the most important thing      If we tell ourselves we are going to make ourselves a cup of tea and then we never get around to it, it is sending the message to ourselves that we are not really very important. If we have an impulse to try something and we tell ourselves that we are going to do it, but then never push ourselves, it is sending ourselves a strong message as well. The same holds true if we say we are going to call someone, if we say we are going to relate something that we feel deeply about to another perso...

     Value your own true nature. There are so many sides to who we are. We are all so unique. There are things that move us and make us feel alive inside. There are things that we appreciate on such a deep level that other people might not react to at all. There are talents that we have gifts that we are given. There are things that we just know that other people don’t seem to be aware of. There are the things that nurture our souls that may range from having a cup of coffee in the stillness of the morning to climbing a  mountain.   "When our souls light up with our own joy and inner fulfillment, we light up the world..."      No one can tell us more about our own nature than we can. No one can tell us what will mean the most to us. We have to listen to our own souls and to build a relationship with ourselves. We have to bring in the elements of life that will allow us to thrive without looking to either side of ...

        There is no one in the world who is more important than you are.   Each of us has a responsibility to make ourselves happy. We are the only ones who can know what means the most to us.   There is an inner rhythm that each of us has that is unique to us, a certain balance with the universe. Let yourself move into the quiet place within you that connects to all that is around you.     "Feel yourself connect to what makes  you who you are, to what makes you feel alive."      Feel yourself being a part of the greater whole. Feel the hum of life around you.  You are a part of that. Feel yourself begin to wake up from that deeper core of who you are.   Let yourself take in the sunlight.   Let yourself listen when there is no one around you. What do you hear? Feel yourself connect to what makes you who you are, to what makes you feel alive.                  ...

             Be there for people.   Let them know you are there. People can put on such a strong front when, inside, they are crumbling.  They don’t know where to go or what to do, or how they got there, and they often feel so ashamed that this is where they are that they don't tell anybody. Questions of “How are you?” are quickly met with “I’m good” and sometimes even a funny story to illustrate that things are going well.   But inside, they are barely holding on.        There is no way for us to know what is going on with anyone behind closed doors or within their own minds. But if we make time for the people we care about, setting aside our busy schedule or our tendency to run from one thing to another, to really sit with them and listen, we may change that person’s life or entire experience of a painful situation. When we open our hearts with someone and let them know that, right at that moment...

Always be a student. There is so much to learn. There are so many people who have had such vastly different experiences from us and have a great deal to bring to our lives from those experiences. There are subjects that we may have an interest in, from spirituality to art to farming to any number of other areas.  Take fifteen minutes out of every day to learn something new. Find random subjects to expand your knowledge on. It hardly even matters what these subjects are. There is a whole world out there and within ourselves. By continually taking on the role of the student, we allow ourselves to be more present within ourselves and to remind ourselves that we don’t have all the answers.  "Take fifteen minutes out of every day to learn something new."  The benefits far outweigh the simple material we are learning. By being the student, we move into a place of receptivity where we can soften around what we have believed to be our limitations and to learn that no such limitat...

We often get traumatized in our relationships with others when we try to draw from their behaviors some definition of life around us, our own worth, or how we need to react in the future to avoid such pain. The reality is that people are either acting from a place of illusion, delusion, confusion about who they are and the nature of reality, or they are coming from an increasingly awakened state. Trying to draw reason from something that is not based on reason, but by a complete disconnection from reality will never bring reality-based answers.  "Trying to draw reason from something that is not based on reason,  but by a complete disconnection from reality will never bring  reality-based answers." When we can recognize that a person is living from a state much as if they were in the middle of a dream or nightmare, but not knowing they are in a dream or nightmare, we can know that we just need to leave it be. Anything we try to do or say will only be incorporated somehow i...

Don’t try to connect with people on the level of their personality. That is not who they are. What we project out to the world is not who we truly are within. It is a reflection of where we are in our growth and our consciousness at that particular point in time. Who we are is something far greater. When we can connect with someone with the knowledge that we can see them and honor them and recognize them as that which is holy, even if they are not aware of this within themselves, we can really begin to be present with others. "Connect with someone with the knowledge that we can see them and honor them and recognize them as that which is holy..." If we were to ask anyone who they truly are, they would probably not be able to tell us. But, they may be able to tell us what makes them glow, what makes them feel most connected to life, what they are discovering about the world around them and within them. We do not have to be a show of personalities. That is only a stage in our ev...

Don’t take anything that you try to accomplish personally. None of it is about you. You are already perfect in your creation; nothing that you do or fail to do will either amplify or diminish your being. We do for the greater whole, not because it is who we are, but because it is what they need. If we move into a place where we are open to the needs of the whole, we can forget ourselves as a manifestation of that in the process.  "You are already perfect in your creation; nothing that you do or fail to do will either amplify or diminish your being." The more we forget our own importance in the creation of our works, the more creation can flow through us rather than from us. Nothing valuable gets created from ego and remains in that state. It becomes forced and elicits a sense of fear. We do not have to earn our worth on this earth. We need to remember the worth of others and that we can bring to all of life something sacred and valuable that can help us to awaken into a highe...

Don’t go looking for something that will make your life more worthwhile. Let go of your aspirations for a moment. Let go of all the great plans and the expectations of what you might “be” one day, with a lot of hard work and discipline. We are already that. There is nothing to go looking for. There is nothing outside of ourselves that we need to seek. There is nothing beyond ourselves that we need to find. It is all within us.  "We are each both the drop of water in the ocean and the morning dew." In this allowance for who we already are, we can allow life’s expression to move through us and our into the world. We can know that we are a part of this beautiful whole, but still our unique selves. Imagine life’s expression moving through a drop of water in the ocean. There are billions of drops of water that make up the ocean, each one never really thought of in its separate beauty. But look at a drop of dew on a flower at the break of day. Or the way the droplets of water glist...

Live more often in the moment between two thoughts. Don’t rush to do anything when you find you aren’t doing anything. Sit with the stillness. Be with the absence of thought. Let your mind be blank and move into your senses. We are not our brains. Our brains are only a part of our entire makeup, and yet we frequently make them the focal point of our existence. There is no reason for this to be where we reside most of the time. Allow yourself to be with your whole body. Our senses exist in every cell of our beings. We do not connect with life from our brains. We connect to live through who we are, beyond our life stories, beyond our personalities. There is a state of being of which we are a part, an inseparable expression of the whole. As you experience that, you will experience the true meaning of life.    

Start each morning with something that lifts your soul. Sit outside and just listen to the birds. Listen to a beautiful piece of music. Take the time to discover a new and interesting story on social media that highlights the beauty of humanity. Talk a walk for no other purpose than to feel your body move and to be connected with the earth. Say a prayer for someone.   This is who we are. Every day is sacred. Begin each day with reverence and a sense of awe in being alive. Life is more magical and wondrous than we could ever know . ~Karin M. Keyes