January 25, 2011

~ lovingly presented by Ellen Anderson ~

All living organisms respond to their environment. At a microscopic level, even the smallest organisms move toward life-supporting substances, such as nutrients, and away from life-threatening materials, such as toxins. This is a fundamental response embedded in every aspect of being.

At the human level, people respond to life through the choices we make when presented with life experiences, situations, opportunities, and challenges. A life in alignment with Soul is about making choices that are life-affirming - saying “Yes” to things that inspire us and make our hearts sing. We are beginning to understand that such life-affirming choices are good for our physiology as well as our spirit.

The challenge we face is to operate from joy and freedom rather than from fear and contraction. Humans are blessed and burdened by complex mental processes. We may feel excited about soul-infused options that challenge us to step out into the unknown; opportunities that would help us grow and expand and assist in creating a soul-filled society. Yet we may choose to circumvent such life-affirming opportunities by choosing the familiar and predictable, playing small, and trying to stay safe.

In the beginning, most of us don’t know how to make soul-informed choices. The trauma of my divorce is my best personal example. My marriage came to an end while I was completing my graduate degree. I have come to see it as “the worst” and “the best” thing that could have happened to me. It seemed like “the worst” because of the ongoing tears and grief I experienced that I thought would never end and which, in fact, took five years to dissipate. I have come to recognize it as “the best” because it initiated deep questioning and soul-searching into the meaning of life and my part in it, the launch of a soul-driven life. At that time, I didn’t yet know how to say “yes” to life.

Divorce felt like a loss and a failure, as if a dark cloud had taken over my life. Having never before experienced such deep pain and loss and thinking of myself as a “good” person, I couldn’t understand how this could have happened to me; I was catapulted into a tail-spin of confusion and self-doubt. What a blessing that turned out to be. I went from thinking I had all the answers to believing I didn’t have any answers, any control, or any beliefs. I wandered around in the darkness, the tears, and the confusion with no clue as to what to do to handle the flood of emotions that threatened to overwhelm me day by day.

Trained as a chemist and physicist, I had primarily relied on thoughts and planning to get me successfully through life. However, planning provided no comfort in the depths of despair, and thoughts led me round and round in circles of confusion. The pit I was digging grew steadily deeper and hopelessness began to raise her furry head. Sages have spoken of “the dark night of the soul,” and I was pulled kicking and screaming into its depths, not even previously acknowledging the existence or a soul or of a soul path implied by the idea of a dark night.

I can’t say that a light finally appeared; things were much too murky for that. What did finally begin to surface was a choice or rather a “noticing” that eventually led to a choice. It appeared in the guise of conversations with or about others who had experienced divorce and its aftermath. I began to recognize that I was not alone and that others had trod similar steps to those I was taking moment by moment. I began to realize I might make it through after all. I also began to notice that some people were still embroiled in and battling the emotions of divorce sometimes 20 or 30 years after their divorces had occurred while others were free and focused forwards rather than backwards in their lives. Battling took the form of anger, resentment, bitterness, and judgment about the other individual and/or about life experiences. By contrast, freedom expressed as acceptance, peace with the past, sometimes appreciation, and always a sense of having moved on.

My soul woke up and recognized that there was a choice and the choice that presented itself was in terms of continued bondage or an opportunity for peace. I really had no idea of how to get to peace, it hardly seemed possible as buried in grief and loss as I was. However, it became increasingly clear what I didn’t want – years with no end of suffering and resentment, griping and complaining at what life had delivered, and feeling trapped in past, sorrowful experiences – in short, becoming an embittered, sour grouch. So the soul choice became not a “Yes” to something I could imagine but a “No” to what I didn’t want to experience or become.

I began to realize that choices presented themselves in every moment, and when I became aware of blaming my former husband, railing at fate, or cursing God, I could say “No” and make the choice to not squander my precious time and attention on the unalterable past. This was not easy at first because I felt totally justified in thinking that everything that had happened to me was “wrong,” that I deserved better, and that life was totally unfair. Nonetheless, I persisted in my soul-inspired “No” to complaining, and like the small rudder on a large ship, unperceptively at first and then with growing momentum, my life began to turn from sorrow and complaining to focus on what were the opportunities in the moment. The first rays of sunlight penetrated the gloom, and life began to take on purpose, meaning, and joy again. The worst experience of my life began the adventure of a soul-driven life experience. I had chosen a life-affirming direction for my life.

This “No” was an essential form of saying “Yes” to my soul’s inspiration. Sometimes, our most soulful response is to move away like microorganisms moving away from toxins, in my case toxic and embittering emotions. The ultimate goal seemed too distant and unimaginable; however, the response was from a deep space of wisdom yearning to be free. In similar ways, “No” may be the perfect response when we become overly busy and our soul asks us to slow down; when someone asks for assistance and we sense they are best served by relying on their own resources; when we are balancing time spent with work, family, and self; in short, whenever, the “No” serves our greater expansion and joyful expression in life.

Another response to life is what could be termed a “Maybe” period, a time of exploration, dabbling, seeking. For me personally, having lost certitude, I began to respond more fully to an inner voice, a soul-driven guide encouraging me to try new things, explore unvisited avenues, and widen perspectives.

Trained as a physical chemist and immersed in the joys of the mental aspects of life, my traumatic divorce experience had catapulted me into a morass of feelings, and I began to explore the emotional aspects of life.
Jungian shadow work was a highlight of my psychological explorations of emotions. Carl Jung, a contemporary of Sigmund Freud, proposed that a person becomes his/her “true self” by claiming and integrating aspects of personality that have been buried or hidden. The “shadow” contains qualities that are unconscious and disowned. They may include dark shadow characteristics, e.g., “negative” qualities we see in others and don’t recognize in ourselves, or golden shadow characteristics, e.g., hidden “positive” aspects that were devalued leading us to abandon them. I learned that when I had a strong emotional reaction to someone or something, it was wise to look into ways in which I refused to see, accept, and honor those things in myself. I began the important process of moving from my head to my heart and valuing both the emotional and mental aspects of life.

My interest in Jung also introduced me to archetypes, which are collections of energies around specific words or ideas; to the collective unconscious, which is the universal nature underlying mental processes, and to active imagination and free association, which are means of communicating with the subconscious and unconscious. All of these ideas enriched my life; however, most the most important change was applying them to my personal life situation and not just exploring them mentally. Emotional energies are messy in contrast to mental energies that allow us to look at things from a distance. I was invited into the more complex and non-analytical aspects of humanity, invited to become comfortable with uncertainty and ambiguity. Life had ceased being simple and explainable; and the reward was a richer, more colorful life experience.

During this exploratory period, I also felt drawn in a spiritual direction. I had lost meaning in life, so I began searching in new places. I found teachers that stilled my mind and expanded it at the same time. I was astonished and curious – typical traits for a scientist – and I wanted to learn more. I began attending Satsang (which means association with truth) and connecting with a more expansive expression of life as well as a deeper aspect of myself. I experienced Oneness – a sense of connection with all beings and all Life – and judgments began to fall away being replaced with a sense of infinite peace. I knew that Life was bigger than individual self and personal experiences. I began to trust in something bigger than myself.

It was curious to me that I was drawn into both messy emotions and peaceful spirit during my extended “Maybe” period. This time was characterized by increasing discrimination and soul-guidance of what was valuable for my personal growth and evolution. It included developing trust in my own discernment and in hearing the still voice within telling me something was valuable for me to pursue. Saying “Maybe” to life provides soul with ways of softening how we may have defined and limited ourselves in the past, introducing new options for consideration, and inviting us to expand our boundaries and include more expansive and freer expressions of who we are becoming. Soul-driven “Maybes” lead us into new and exciting adventures, experiences, and opportunities.

I would love to say that when I got to the point of saying “Yes” to soul it was with a clear and unambiguous gusto and enthusiasm; however, the truth is much more complicated. I had found Bill Bauman and the Center for Soulful Living, and I was responding more regularly and consistently to soul guidance. I knew I was called to do mentoring with Bill; I could sense that a lot was happening than I couldn’t explain rationally – all sorts of wispy, outside-the-mental-realm stuff; and I was absolutely not willing to go back to a simpler, more understandable life if it meant leaving the richer, peaceful, passionate life I was experiencing when I allowed myself to be led by soul.
Soul-driven, however, that was another thing entirely. The idea of giving up control, even if illusory control, and letting soul make all important life decisions; I didn’t even want to think about it. When it did come up, I remember feeling terror and panic; however, I also knew the inexorable was approaching step by step - an enormous being ready to devour me whole. At the same time, in some deep, existential place, I sensed that my deepest desire and deadliest fear were bundled together.

The first inkling that I couldn’t defer and delay forever arrived during a silent retreat at Joshua Tree in 2008. In the silence my mind became quiet enough to hear that it was time for me to retire from government service at the Food and Drug Administration. I remember saying: “Wait a minute, that’s a pretty big change for me to make; I want a sign that this is really what I’m called to do!” and then when two signs showed up in quick succession, I surrendered to the inevitable.

As an inveterate planner, I began to plan for - - - I didn’t know what. How does someone plan for the unknown? My mind took over the financial and paperwork part, something it is very good at. My heart took over the emotional transition, so I could feel both the tenderness of leaving and the excitement of the new. My soul provided reassurance when doubts arose.

A little over a year later, I was attending the Center for Soulful Living (CSL) Zion Retreat in December 2009 and was on track to retire the end of the month. I still did not know what retirement would hold. Although I do not customarily feel a lot of energy; nonetheless, near the end of the retreat, as Bill Bauman was giving blessings, I felt a blessing coming to me; it felt enormous and somewhat overwhelming. Somewhere deep inside, my soul rose up and said: Say “Yes”. Simultaneously, something deeply primal felt the enormity of the approaching opportunity and reacted in terror and went skittering off to cower in the corner. I remember sensing that this was a pivotal moment in my life, a soul decision, and a moment calling forth trust since I didn’t even know what I was being asked to say “Yes” to. Despite the ambiguity, I had reached the tipping point, and soul was saying “Yes” through me. So I honored the “Yes” while I sat with the ambiguity. Most of us like our lives to be neat and tidy, and with the benefit of hindsight we often report our experiences in simple and orderly terms. My observation has been that my life – maybe yours too – is complex, sometimes confusing, and always an adventure.

The next day at the CSL Board Meeting, I learned what the blessing, the opportunity, and the “Yes” represented. CSL was metamorphosing into its next stage of evolution, and I was being asked to take an active role in the transformation. Bill and Donna Bauman, CSL’s two founders, announced they would be stepping down in twelve months, and the Board was asked to explore what we envisioned for CSL’s future. The invitation was offered for me to consider stepping in as the next Executive Director. The “Yes” that I had accepted at a soul level was being offered in the physical realm. The one clear sense I had was that if I did not say “Yes,” I would regret it for the rest of my life.

I am writing this a year later in January 2011 just after the transition, having said “Yes” multiple times in the past twelve months. Officially, I have been the new Executive Director for less than two weeks. It has been a whirlwind of twelve months of transition activities, sometimes glorious and sometimes challenging and with no end in sight yet. In spite of and in the midst of the busyness, I know that my instincts were clear and true, and saying “Yes” was the deepest expression of my soul’s wisdom. I love the CSL community and the opportunity to assist these incredible and soulful people in discovering and taking their versions of soulfulness into the world. I love that this is my expression of soulfulness. At this particular moment, I feel overwhelmed and a bit frazzled as new things show up moment by moment for me to learn. A soul-driven life does not necessarily mean that all aspects will be “easy.” It is in overcoming and advancing that we grow, learn more about who we are, and discover our purpose, our delight, and our destiny. The “Yes’s,” “No’s,” and “Maybe’s” are all valuable when they come from soul wisdom.

Each soul-driven life is a unique and beautiful expression of the Light within. My path is not yours. Discovering my distinctive dance with Life has taken me meandering on detours and flying along interstates, exhilarating on the peaks and descending to the depths, weeping at the tragedies and celebrating the triumphs. The courage to say “Yes” in any of its myriad forms is an invitation to the adventure of a soul-driven life, a life that is a well-lived, life-affirming gift from the Universe.