I am sure that you’ve probably heard the term “a teachable moment.”
Well it seems that my life has been full of teachable moments, both for myself as well as for those individuals I’ve been coaching and guiding on their spiritual journey’s.
As spiritual beings, presently having a human experience, I often think about earth being one big classroom and living life is our curriculum.
We’re always learning, always growing, even during those times that it doesn’t feel like it.
And yes, sometimes we get stuck, it’s part of the process.
But we don’t have to remain stuck for very long.
I was recently in a discussion with someone and we were talking about this very thing… getting stuck.
Sometimes, certainly not always, we get stuck immediately following some type of crisis in our lives.
Feeling frustrated and a little stuck herself, the person asked me, “How do I know that I’m making progress with my spirituality?”
Enter the teachable moment…
Most of the time teachable moments are, well, you know, in-the-moment when something is happening.
Even though this teachable moment came after the fact, I think you’ll get the idea.
I told her that I can best answer her question about “making progress” by using a real life experience.
So I asked her to describe to me the crisis she’d recently experienced.
She did.
Then I asked her: “In the face of the crisis, tell me how you responded… What did you say? What did you do?”
After she told me what she said and did, here’s what I taught her which also answered her question.
Although I don’t recommend creating a crisis in your life simply to measure your spiritual progress (I’m not even a fan of that term), a crisis can certainly give you an inside-look to gauge if you have internalized some of your spiritual learning’s.
You see, it’s often during a time of crisis when we are quick to react.
When we react, we fall back or lean on what is second nature.
How we process a given event in our lives influences how we will respond to it.
If we processed a situation from a higher spiritual perspective, then our response will most likely reflect some of things I have come to call Higher Attributes.
Things like: peace (inner peace), joy, love, courage, faith, self-control, forgiveness, compassion, humility, abundance and wisdom, to name a few.
Or…
If we processed a situation from a lower perspective, then our response will most likely reflect some of things I have come to call Lower Attributes.
Things like: conflict (inner conflict), despair, fear or hatred, helplessness, doubt, guilt, resentment, indiscriminate judgment, pride, scarcity and narrow-mindedness, again, to name a few.
You see, progress, if you want to call it that, is really simply building (or re-building) a solid spiritual foundation.
This is so important.
So important in fact that you’ll want to build your foundation on purpose and not merely by default.
The spiritual foundation we’ve built and put in place, is without fail what we will lean on during the next challenge in our lives.
The nature of the spiritual foundation we leaned on during a time of difficulty is the answer to the question:
“How do I know that I’m making progress on my spiritual path.”
How do we truly know the nature of our current spiritual foundation?
We can reflect on what we thought and how we reacted during and immediately following some form of difficulty.
Be honest with yourself, you deserve it.
What are you leaning on?
Whether your spiritual foundation reflects Higher Attributes or Lower Attributes, I encourage you to only observe it.
Don’t judge it. It is what it is.
If you’re happy with what you have to lean on, that’s great.
If you’re not, then you now know the work to be done moving forward.
Although counter to what many of us actually do, ideally the best time to work on building a solid spiritual foundation for yourself is when you’re not in the middle of a crisis.
That’s when you’ll need to lean on what you have built.
But life isn’t always “ideal,” is it…
What I observe usually happens is that most of the leaps and bounds in our spiritual growth takes place in the time following a crisis.
After we’ve had enough.
The crisis itself splits us wide open and we’re ripe (and thirsty) for new learning’s to enter our lives.
It’s during these times that we seek transformation in our lives, for example the tried and true wisdom found in programs like The Inner Light Group or other similar programs.
By the way, my friend answered her own question about her progress when she realized that most of her thoughts and actions reflected some of the Higher Attributes.
A big smile spread across her face 🙂
Please take just a moment to reflect on this message; reflect on what you’re leaning on, then move forward from here.
As always, I wish you the highest and best on your spiritual journey. Let me know if you need any help or guidance along the way.
May Peace be with you and in you, my friends!
