It’s not easy to be here at times. The world is in a pretty scary place right now. Climate change is upon us with full power, wars are raging and some nations seem to have lost their moral compass completely. In this world we are supposed to live our dreams and manifest a life from the soul. A challenge that many fail to reach, not only because of the state of the world but also due to personal trauma and lack of support from their surroundings.
Nevertheless, it is time to step into the body and stand up for what you truly believe in. The world needs YOU to be here, now. We desperately need more people to step away from superficial spirituality and dive deeper. Question, evolve and express, and then do it all again. It never ends, personal development. But during the process your soul can find moments to truly be here, fully, and that is so precious and so worth every step of the way.
In the spiritual community I see a lot of talk about abundance and money, which is completely natural. We are triggered into survival issues because of the state of the world. And of course all of us deserve a life in flow and prosperity. But it is worth nothing if the soul is not present in what you do.
Spirituality should be about opening the heart and being fully alive. This can be scary and difficult. But it is the only way to manifest the world that we want to live in and the life that we dream about. Life is relational and relations grow most powerful when based on something that is real. And when you are real, truly you, beyond the masks and the behavior patterns, love becomes the answer to almost every question.
In that love lies the answer to all of the challenges that we face. It is in the flow of compassion that we will find our way out of this mess. The more of us that step into this flow, the more the life of abundance that we dream of can come true for many. And since life is relational, we will feel better the more others feel safe to be who they truly are. From that dynamic, societies will rise that supports the dreams of its citizens. And it all starts with you.
If you read this, you are probably on the spiritual path and I challenge you, us, to take it deeper and to be more fully now. No matter the costs. The price for not doing so, now, will be higher. Abundance and a dream life can come to you in the process, but the focus needs to be love, compassion and complete presence first. From that, true power arises. From that, YOU can become.
An eight fold map on how to follow the heart and create the best life for yourself.
1. Something Wants to Exist
This is where creation truly begins: with a longing, image, sensation, curiosity or quiet inner pull.
2. Listening to the Heart
Distinguish the heart’s voice from pressure, fear, fantasy and the desire to prove something. Do this through putting your hands on your heart, then let your mind smile at it until it smiles back.
3. Creating Safety for the Wild
The heart is wild, but the nervous system may experience change, visibility and power as danger. We do not silence the wildness; we make space for it. Do this by dancing wildly to your favorite songs for 5-10 minutes. Then dance slowly. Let your body arrive, emotions be felt. Feel free to continue dancing as long as you like!
4. Follow the Joy
Joy is guidance—not constant happiness, but the subtle feeling of aliveness that tells us where energy wants to move. Find your joy by putting a smile on your face and see what happens.
5. Let It Be Imperfect
Creation needs permission to emerge before it is polished, explained or judged. We discover what we are creating by creating it. You do not need to be sure of what you want to walk a path. Just start walking.
6. Allow Yourself to Be Seen
The fear of visibility, criticism, success and becoming different from the person others expect us to be might come up when allowing yourself to flow with a wish. Change is scary at times. If you feel this, just sit with the fear and embrace it. Allow yourself to feel it until it subsides. Connect again with your heart through the practices above. Breathe. And realize how your next move will change you and how that is alright. Change is constant. You are free to be yourself in every moment!
7. Creation Is Relationship
We never create entirely alone. Creation happens between ourselves and the world, Spirit and matter, inspiration and action. We create together with billions of people, animals, spirits, guides, life on other planets… Quadrillions of pieces of True Love is an expression that I tell fairy tales about. Connecting with your heart will connect you to your true will, which will flow with the creation of the life that you truly want together with the forces that supports you.
8. Give It Life
How to move from inspiration into an embodied form—and then release what we have made without trying to control what it becomes? I can recommend simply breathing and then going about your day. Take care of the dishes, be mindful when doing so, focus on how clean everything gets, the beauty of it. Let go! Give yourself credit for taking care of your everyday business. You rock!
Allow your Larger Self take care of it for a while. Let your vision dance with forces unseen while you focus on something else. This will lead to aha-moments, in which your next step will become clear.
Discipline is important on a spiritual path. When people hear the word discipline, they may imagine strict routines, extraordinary willpower and someone performing every spiritual practice perfectly before sunrise.
And partly, this is what is needed to stay on target. But not in an amount that overwhelms. It should nourish!
I am not perfect. I have never been perfect, and I do not believe perfection is the goal.
For me, discipline is most of all remembering what I have chosen. It means staying on target. And my deepest target has always been freedom. More precisely:
To be free to love.
First, you must know your target
Discipline without direction can become another form of control.
You can become extremely good at following rules without asking where those rules are leading you. You can meditate every morning, perform complicated ceremonies and follow every piece of spiritual advice you receive—and still become more rigid, frightened or disconnected from your heart.
Before deciding how disciplined you should be, ask yourself:
There is no shame in discovering mixed motives. We are human beings, and our intentions are rarely completely pure or simple. Spiritual practice can be influenced by fear, ambition and the desire to feel special, just like anything else.
The important thing is to keep looking.
My target has always been freedom. Not the freedom to avoid responsibility or remain untouched by other people, but the freedom to be fully alive and fully capable of loving.
That direction gives meaning to my practices.
Begin the day by returning to yourself
If you want to work spiritually in the way that I do, I believe it is important to begin the day with a few practices.
They do not need to be complicated. The purpose is not to complete an impressive spiritual checklist before breakfast. The purpose is to return to yourself before the demands, emotions and expectations of the world begin pulling at your attention. For example:
Meditate. Even if it is for 3 minutes. Breathe. Become aware of your body and energy. Connect with your heart. Remember what you serve.
These practices create a point of inner orientation. They help you notice what belongs to you, what you have absorbed from others and what is still pulling you backwards into an old story.
Without this return, it is easy to spend the entire day reacting.
Discipline gives you a moment in which you can choose.
Recapitulate and reclaim your energy
Recapitulation has been an important part of my spiritual path.
We leave pieces of our attention and energy in the past. They remain attached to conflicts, relationships, regrets, old identities and moments we repeatedly revisit in our minds.
Part of us may still be trying to change what happened. Part of us may still be having an argument that ended years ago. Part of us may remain trapped in an old fear, waiting for a different outcome.Recapitulation does not mean denying the past or pretending that painful experiences did not matter.It means meeting those experiences consciously and reclaiming the life force that is still bound to them.
You remember.You breathe.You feel what is there.You release what no longer needs to control you.You call your energy home.
This is rarely something we do once and finish forever. The past has layers. As we grow, we become capable of meeting experiences from a different level of awareness.
The purpose is not to erase your history.
It is to become free enough to live now.
Become more fluid every day
One of the purposes of spiritual practice, in my opinion, is to become increasingly fluid.
Rigidity is tempting because it creates an impression of safety. If we can define everything as right or wrong, spiritual or unspiritual, success or failure, we do not have to remain open to uncertainty.
But life is fluid.
Reality moves. Relationships change. We change. Something that was true for us ten years ago may no longer be true today. Something that helped us survive one period of life may prevent us from living fully in the next.
Fluidity allows us to respond to what is actually here.
It does not mean having no values or allowing ourselves to be pushed in every direction. Water is fluid, but it is also powerful. It can change direction without losing its nature.
Spiritual fluidity means remaining deeply connected to your core while allowing your understanding, expression and path to evolve.
You can be committed without becoming rigid.
You can have a direction without trying to control every step.
You can change your mind without betraying your soul.
Discipline is the practice of returning
You will lose your centre sometimes.
You will become distracted. You will react from fear. You will fall into an old pattern, forget a practice or spend far too much time inside a thought that makes you miserable.
This does not make you a spiritual failure. The discipline is to return.
Return to your body.
Return to your heart.
Return to what you know beneath the noise.
Perhaps you will need to return a hundred times in one day. Then returning a hundred times is your practice. Perfection says that you should never lose your centre. Discipline says that when you notice you have lost it, you come back.
There is far more compassion in this understanding of discipline. It makes room for our humanity without turning our humanity into an excuse to abandon what matters.
Staying in the heart is not always soft
My strongest discipline is to stay in the heart.
This does not mean maintaining a pleasant emotional state at all times. It does not mean smiling while someone mistreats you, avoiding anger or saying yes when every part of you is saying no.
The heart is not weak.
Sometimes staying in the heart means setting a boundary. Sometimes it means speaking a difficult truth. Sometimes it means leaving. Sometimes it means refusing to participate in something that violates your values.
Love can be gentle, fierce, joyful, grieving, protective or wild.
Staying in the heart means continuing to seek the place within you where love, truth and freedom can exist together. It means asking love to guide your power. It means refusing to let fear, pride or the desire for control become the unquestioned ruler of your life. And when you discover that you have left the heart, you return.
Again and again.
Remember what you serve
Spiritual discipline is not about becoming superhuman.
It is not about becoming the strongest, most enlightened or most fantastic person in the room. It is not proof that you are better than anyone else. It is the choice to continue moving towards what matters. Meditate because it helps you listen. Recapitulate because your energy belongs in the life you are living now. Release what confines you. Practise becoming fluid.
Return to the heart whenever you notice that you have left it. And remember your target.
My target is freedom.
Freedom inside myself. Freedom in relationship with life. Freedom to experience the mystery without forcing it into a fixed belief.
But most of all:
The freedom to love—and to remain free while loving.
The so called Law of Attraction is widely popular these days, preaching that you can create the life that you want through changing your attitude and beliefs. Visualization is another feature, as well as affirmations and the like. Followed by action, changes in these areas are said to change your life, sometimes completely.
Although I do not deny that changes in these areas can deeply transform the way you live and bring magical transformation into your life, I am critical of the way that it’s being taught, as I’ve written about in two earlier posts – Love creates reality and I believe in magic but remain skeptical towards the Law of Attraction. Now I’m back to utter some thoughts and critique on the so called first Law of Attraction – “like attracts like”.
Like doesn’t always attract like
The “like attracts like” rule dictates that a certain vibration, for example positivity, will attract more positivity from the outside. While I believe that this is sometimes true, I don’t believe this to always be the case. To make it simple, let’s start with look at the opposite, a negative vibration, like sadness. A natural response to sadness is compassion, which is a positive vibration. Just like a human being, the Universe and your guides, ancestors and other beings as well as creatures are perfectly able and ready to react to for example sadness with compassion and comfort. Maybe even a happy surprise.
Sometimes love provokes a negative response
A person who is for example on a spiritual journey and through that deepens their capacity of loving, might actually trigger others around in their traumas and receive negative responses to their loving vibration. And the Universe or your guides, etc, can react with more difficult challenges as you deepen your spiritual journey. This is then not a punishment, but a challenge to grow.
So even if sometimes the “like attracts like” does apply, sometimes I think that it really doesn’t, and this is important to know when practicing manifestation and magic.
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