Robbins Hopkins

Spiritual Health: Being at Peace in Everyday Life

spiritual learning

GRACE?

I wonder what I really know about Grace?
It seems to elude me mostly
I like the vibration of the word
Yet I know so little about it

The flowery religious words
Do not speak to me at all
They basically obscure the clarity I seek
They seem entrenched in the past

By Mohamed Nohassi

Grace feels like active energy
It feels expansive and important
It feels a bit like I would like to be seen
It holds a knowing I would love to embody

Perhaps it is found in kind acts
Or in lovely blooming flowers
It feels like it might be in the
Sounds of music at times

I think it is something I am growing into
Yet I do not know the path forward
Maybe to live in Grace means to try
To be gentle and quiet sometimes

Photo by Kyle Johnson

Or it could mean to be thoughtful
Deeply attentive or grateful
Grace might live in the mountains
They always take my breath away

Grace seems to call me within
I know in being there, something shifts
Grace shows up when I walk along a beach
With the sand, the water and the beauty

Perhaps Grace is a call to wholeness
Always playing in the back ground
Always just elusive enough to be interesting
Just beyond one’s ability to capture it

I think of Grace as a special type of freedom
One I can grow or not, as it is up to me
Perhaps if I begin with my desire to know it
It will reveal itself, again and again

 

 

Humility and Sacred Journeys

I don’t remember when there had been so many miracles
That I had to change my way of thinking and living
I had to open my closed mind and make a different choice
And let the Divine Energy fill my place of knowing

For a long time, I stayed in a place of skepticism
Unable to fully put my energy and faith into a loving God
Unable to let my guard down and go with the flow
Unwilling to believe because I might be dead wrong

By Milada Vigerova

I suspect that the Divine was working on me a good long time
I remember when I was a small girl in church at communion
Making a scene when I was told I was too little to partake
I pitched a fit saying that “God was for all of us”

I felt snubbed and reacted with audacious fervor
Feeling truly mistreated that I could not taste God’s body
Perhaps I was already looking for proof of God’s energy then
And I had just been barred from learning more

Years passed and I called continuous daily pain to my body
I did not understand I was doing that or why
The pain in my body masked the denial I was working with
It gave me something to always deal with daily that was undeniable

Now I know about previous lifetimes of persecution and death
Due to my “knowing” of God and my lives devoted to that knowing
I was probably trying to get through this lifetime
Without sticking out because of my connection with the Divine

By Fallon Michael

Though in the end it was a futile attempt to fit in
Trying to be skeptical like everyone else around me failed
Miracles, love as power, and grace beyond understanding kept showing up
As an energy beyond my mind and a love that never fades

Life’s experiences demanded that I sit in Silence
Demanded I continue to seek peace and balance
Required me to experience present lives full of miracles
Past and present times of connection and deep knowing of God

So here I am, more tempered than I thought was possible
Continuously seeking to release all that does not serve
Living a single-minded commitment to expand consciousness
Knowing the journey is eternal and that arrival is elusive

No one could have told me the journey is the peace I sought
The releasing of all my fears and anger would free me forever
The determination to connect with Divine Source would be met
With the ability to share with others their journeys as well

Face Your Fears

Face your darkness
As much as you don’t want to do it
Do it anyway
It is calling you to your own true self

There is an inner knowing
Of the goodness and of the darkness within
Holding onto the darkness causes illness
Sorrow, pain, heartbreak, and suffering

Photo by Connnor McSheffrey

The only way out of the suffering
Is to face it down, command it out
Refuse to settle, name your fears
You are stronger than you can possibly imagine

You are made of the Oneness
Everything that is not going well
Is calling you to your own best self
To a different reality where there is peace

But you have to make the choice
For truth, determination, for love
And wholeness, some of every day
Don’t hide another day

Name the fears, one by one
Be ruthlessly honest with yourself
Do not take “I can’t” for an answer
Work daily to let one fear go after another

And work with Divine Source not against it
Name all that you are unhappy with
Call in the healing you need
Knowing it will come to you in perfect timing

If you are a beginner to this,
Give yourself some slack
Be sure to call in patience for yourself
Because this journey is eternal

Photo by Toni Oprea

Face the root fear of all unspoken fear
That your deepest fears are truly who you are
That if you go deeply you will find more darkness
That you are really profoundly flawed

Better to keep pretending
Because the truth will be awful
You might not be able to swallow it
You might drown while trying

Take a step back, this is truly inaccurate
Your set of fears is humanly created
They are illusions with no lasting heft
Merely thoughts you have given your power to

What awaits you is a new understanding of your magnificence
The unraveling of all fears and conditioning
The replacing of every single negative self perception
With profound grace and love for self and others

The fear you feel is the part of you
Calling for change, rebalancing
Re-centering, courage, and grit
Again and again, the call to your true self is eternal

You are more splendid that you can image
You have more love to give than you can ever grasp
Your life here is to discover the love that is your essence
Unearthing the fears reveal the doorways to lasting love and balance

Spiritual Living

There is a space beyond my mind and body where energy flows without hindrance. Where I am one with the Universe and we commune through energy alone. It is the energy of Love and Acceptance, the energy of Infinite Possibility and Grace. At times I have felt so connected, my body vibrates, totally alive with the recognition of Source Presence.  This tells me I count. This tells me I am a person of substance. This reminds me that I am always seconds away from checking in and touching to Divine Energy.

Photo by Paul Gilmore

I am not sure I could always live in that space. It is exhilarating and phenomenal. It moves me beyond body, thought, or encumbrances. It is all encompassing though eventually I am delivered back to this dimension, more peaceful and gentle, more centered and grounded. I marvel at these experiences. They come upon me when I least expect them. When I am seemingly just going about my business. They catch me like a practice in reverie, though without the thoughts and without anything of human substance. I am floating along in wholeness, existing in vibration.

These experiences remind me that I am more than my words, more than my convictions, more than this body. I am of the Oneness, eternal and always growing. I have a trajectory of being that eclipses all the negativity I have ever touched to. I cannot die and fade away into nothingness. No one really does that. I change states and keep on moving along. If I so choose, I can continue to explore pure Love, call it to myself, and  keep setting down all that does not serve me. I can face my demons and amazingly, they leave me. I can create the Peace I seek. I am always connected to Love and Wholeness, regardless of the the ever present darkness, visible daily.

So I belong and I don’t belong. I belong to a world of ever changing possibility. I don’t belong to the woes, slings, and arrows that continue to challenge me to make a choice for Love. Those are the trail signs helping me to follow the Light. I do belong to seeking and wonder. I do belong to an inner knowing of integrity with self and others. I do not belong to the suffering of the world though I touch to it daily. It is my choice not to remain there.  It is my choice to make another move towards clearing and balance, towards loving and forgiving, towards prayer and re-centering.  I do belong to the vicissitudes of life though knowing they are informed by the blessings of a spiritual path evolving the formation of my human self.

 

Peace Calling Loudly

You who seek peace find the road in fits and starts
Events occur that seem awful but are for your own healing
It can seem there is no how-to language book for Spiritual evolution
However, wholeheartedly seek peace and it comes your way

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez

Set down all expectations of what getting to peace looks like
Lasting peace lies beyond all challenges and inconveniences
Hides behind pain, frustration, anger, self-flagellation, and guilt
Explore within, listen deeply, and seek the root of the imbalance

Humbly accept that 10 times out of 10, the core imbalance is within you
Has been waiting until you can pay attention and get the real message
Waiting until all the needed previous healing has been addressed
Bringing you to the deep dwelling darkness, just waiting for healing

All your anger, frustration, rage, and irritation get you absolutely nowhere
Those feelings make up the endless stream of life’s drama
Those emotions are wearing to the mind, body, and soul
They zap your energy and motivation to be peaceful inside

Negative emotions manifest and challenge your very sense of yourself
They literally weigh you down as they barely vibrate, draining other energy
Causing push back, angst, and discord throughout your life
Manifesting as huge traumas repeating over and over again

They exist because the fierce emotions get your attention immediately
They cause a reaction that you can not ignore
Repeated anger, shame, fear, or guilt are impossible to ignore
They are ringing your doorbell, a call to pay attention now

Before inner seeking, you think the strong emotions are the right answer
Though they are the total opposite from the desired reaction
After thousands of strong reactions and draining feelings
A blessed few go inside to seek peace, answers, and release from being triggered

Photo by Indian Yogi Madhav

Wonderful, that is an awesome first step!
The inner landscape with a quiet connection to Spirit
Can help you truly understand the lessons waiting to be learned
The buried darkness manifesting as outer negative emotions

So if you have tumultuous drama in your life of any kind
This is actually a call to Silence, and inner seeking
It is a call to wake up to that which no longer serves you
It is a call to listen deeply to your inner knowing for change to occur

You can ignore these inner callings manifesting as conflict or mishaps
For as many lifetimes as you so desire
They will still be waiting for you, the next time around
Through ever increasing difficulties urging you to act

How many more lifetimes do you want to repeat the same problems ?
How may more conflicts and negative feelings are you going to endure?
Until you take a long, look inside to see what may be not be serving you
And  determine what you need to set down and command out of your energy field

New relationships, different work settings, new duds, or new surroundings
Will keep presenting the same tough issues, until you get it
Until you listen within for what is out of balance
Until you name the stuck unseen energy and command it out of your field

Resistance is futile
The same issues repeat over and over again
Throughout all eternity
Until you clear away the detritus and discover peace within