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A Soulworker’s Companion

admin — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 14:15:59 +0000

A Soulworker’s Companion: A Year of Spirituality Discovery

Betty Clare Moffatt

ISBN 1-885171-11-0

From Using Soulwork:
“This book is meant to be a companion to you along your soul’s journey. The heartfelt personal stories are designed to help you access your own inner story, your own connections to Spirit. It is your book. These are your soul qualities. You can approach it in an orderly fashion, working through each week of the year. Or you can dip into this book at random, allowing your inner self to guide you to what you need next in your soul’s progress. You can write it, question it, ruminate in it, and memorize its passages. You can use it as a daybook, or start all over with it the following year. This book is a gentle companion, a fellow traveler, a friendly explorer.”

The main body of the book is divided into 52 weeks. Each week uses one of the following subjects for the year.

Acceptance, action, balance, clarity, cleanliness, compassion, congruency, courage, creativity,devotion, endurance, enthusiasm, faith, fidelity, flexibility, forgiveness, frugality, generosity, gentleness, goodness, gratitude, harmony, honesty,

hope, integrity, intuition, joy, kindness, learning, love, nobility, patience, peace, perseverance, power, receiving, resilience, respectfulness, responsibility,

self-discipline, self-reliance, serenity, service, simplicity, solitude, talents, tenderness, tolerance, trust, will, wisdom.

A part of one of the chapters: from the chapter about forgiveness:

“Seven Steps to Forgiveness:

1) Recognition and acknowledgment

We recognize a problem, situation, event, relationship, or emotion that alerts us to the need to forgive. We acknowledge the problem, situation, event, relationship, or emotion that needs forgiveness.

2) Desire, definition, and decision

We desire to forgive. We define the parameters of the problem, situation, event, relationship, or emotion. We then make a clear and conscious decision to forgive.

3) Meditation and prayer

We go within and with prayerful inquiry and an open, receptive mind, we ask for truth, help, and guidance in the forgiveness situation. We ask how best to proceed to heal the problem, situation, event, relationship, or emotion requiring forgiveness.

4) Inner and outer action

We act on the guidance we have received in prayer and meditation. We do what needs to be done to clear up the problem, (etc) that requires forgiveness.

5) Surrender and release

After taking appropriate action in the outer world, we release the

Entire the entire situation into the hands of our Creator. We ask for

Highest good of all concerned. We ask, “Thy will, not mine, be

done.”

6) Understanding and awareness

We look for an increased understanding of the dynamics that led to the problem, (etc) that required our forgiveness. We look for the spiritual lesson. We determine to go forward in forgiveness with

Increased awareness.

7) Healing and change

We accept that the situation has now changed. We accept that the lesson has been learned. We choose to look at the situation, and the world differently. We welcome healing and change through the process of forgiveness. We allow the energy of healing and change to spill over into other areas of our lives. We are changed. We give thanks.

Then, several questions for this subject are given. Also a quotation relating to the subject is included:

“Allow yourself to pray. Just as the many times human beings find themselves in circumstances where the hurt or the pain is so great that on their own power they cannot forgive, it is enough that they pray to be given the grace, the perception, the elevated Light that will allow them to forgive.” Gary Zukav (Thoughts from the Seat of the Soul)

The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart

admin — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 20:02:00 +0000

The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart (Companion to The Artist’s Way)

Julia Cameron

ISBN 0-87477-836-0

Amazon link

This journey to your creative heart begins with a chapter about setting out on your journey. The basic tools of morning pages, weekly artist date, cluster list, walking daily, walking an hour-long walk weekly, walking prayerfully, manifesting, and your creativity commitment.

The main chapters of the book take us to the kingdoms of: 1) story, 2) sight, 3) sound, 4) attitude, 5) relationship, 6) spirituality, and 7) possibility.

The last chapter deals with breaking camp. In this chapter, the artist’s tribal rules are given.

The tribal rules are:

Survival rule number 1 is acceptance. “I seem to want to be an artist.” Accept the fact that you’re an artist and stop second guessing yourself. Just do it.

Survival rule number 2: Don’t Judge It. Focus on process, not product.

Survival rule number 3: Defend your process. Sooner or later, you’re going to run into somebody who won’t want you to do it, or will want you to do it only a certain way. Consider the source. Are the making your art? Do what you need to do.

Survival rule number 4: Never Let Anybody Tell You What To Create. Create for you. Create something every day.

Survival rule number 5: Maintain Your Creative Health. Artists are athletes. Creativity is like distance running. Log ten slow miles for every one fast mile. Consistency—process—builds stamina, what horse people call “bottom”, what we may call the bottom line. This brings us to:

Survival rule number 6: Grieve Your Losses. In any creative life there are losses. Some of them are grievous. Only one thing makes them go away—more creativity.

Survival rule number 7: Create for Revenge. Be a spiritual midget. Skewer the bastards. Create right at them.

Survival rule number 8: Remember That the Part of Us That Creates is An Inner Youngster. Allow your creative child to have playmates and playthings.

Survival rule number 9: Find Your Believing Mirrors and Stick Close to Them. You deserve a cheering section.

Survival rule number 10: Ignore the Odds. We are all equally sourced in an abundant Universe. Our dreams come from the God within, and that God has the power to fulfill them. Trust yourself. Accept divine help from whatever human source offers it, remembering always that God is the Great Creator—and artists love other artists.

Journal to the Self

admin — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 19:39:55 +0000

Journal to the Self: Twenty-two Paths to Personal Growth

Kathleen Adams

ISBN 0-446-39038-0

Amazon link

Journal therapy has been popularized by Dr. Ira Progoff since 1966 with his Intensive Journal Workshop. Kathleen Adams has written a great addition for those interested in journal therapy. As she states: “The goal of humanistic journal therapy is a healthy relationship with self, and this book is intended to facilitate this development….In its very essence, journal therapy is a bridge into first our own humanity, and then our own spirituality. The road stretches before us, and our ultimate task is the journey.”

The Journal Toolbox from pages 71-189 has a large selection of ideas for journal writing. These ideas include:

1) Springboards: begins with a topic statement or question. Samples are quotations, questions, random ideas, and sentence-completions. Keep a list of springboards in your journal for those days you have not topic.

2) Character Sketch: a written description of anyone which can be used to work out conflict in your relationships. It helps us to see ourselves as others see us. She suggests thinking of character sketches as the “calling cards” of your sub personalities.

3) Clustering-is also called mind mapping or webbing. To begin, write a key word or phrase in the middle of the page and draw a circle around it. Then begin to free-associate. Circle each word and connect it with a line to the one before it. Continue until you have exhausted your immediate possibilities. When working on a large project, Adams suggests putting butcher or mural paper on the wall. I use a dry-eraser board.

4) Captured Moments: are these tiny moments of intimacy, yearning, beauty, despair, exhilaration. They are best written from the senses.

5) Dialogue: is an exchange between you and someone or something else, where you play both parts. Adams gives several suggestions of how to develop the dialogue. It can be with anyone in your life-past, present, or future; living or dead or not yet born. She writes that we create our own reality and that is also true that we draw into our lives the players who will help us act out whatever life script were starring in this season.

6) Lists: she suggests journal lists of 100 such as things I need or want to do, fears, things I like about myself, and things I’m stressed out about. She also includes 100 things to write a list of 100 about.

7) Stream of Consciousness: has as its purpose examining the subconscious and unconscious minds. One of the values of stream of consciousness is its ability to bring you to state of inner serenity and balance. Throughout the book, Adams uses guided imagery or meditation to help journal writers get into a writing frame of mind.

Steppingstones: “are those events that come to our minds when we spontaneously reflect on the course that our life has taken from its beginning to the present moment” according to Progoff. Adams recommends limiting your selection of Steppingstones to about 12 to 15.

9) Time Capsules: are entries that are periodic logs written on a daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, even yearly basis. Adams suggests that these brief entries will often tend to focus on the content of your life as opposed to the feelings generated by the content. You may select a daily time capsule, a monthly time capsule, an annual time capsule, or travel time capsules.

Finally, Adams gives topics du jour which is a journal technique that allows you to start moving mountains, one boulder at a time. Topics du jour allows you to keep an ongoing chronicle of your life at monthly intervals. She suggests creating 31 topics-one for each day of the month. You may also choose to do 16 topics with a specific topic such as biweekly business checkups.