Connecting to Spirit

Every soul that is currently experiencing life on any level begins and ends as a whole. Our essence ? the very core of our spiritual being ? remains One with God. We always have been, and always will be, a part of 'the whole' that is the God-consciousness level.

Our soul essence, which began as whole, remains whole throughout the soul growth process, and will still be whole when the growth process has been completed and we no longer leave the whole to pursue our own life studies.

It is not that we, as spiritual beings in physical form, must learn something new in order to become whole, regardless of what aspect of our growth we may be working on. It is not that we need to make a 360 degree change in direction from the way we are living our lives now.

What we DO need to do is get in touch with our inner self, which is always connected through Spirit to our soul essence, which is part of God. Our inner self always understands the true purpose of our life, and looks at people, events and circumstances as the learning opportunities they were intended to be.

That objective perspective about life as a learning experience is sometimes very different from the perspectives we have developed over the course of our lifetime. The perspectives that drive our day to day choices are usually based on our emotional responses to what we have experienced, and are usually driven by one or more of our lesser aspects (emotional, intellectual and/or physical) instead of by Spirit.

On a conscious level, with no connection to our soul essence or God, life seems to be a very emotional experience. We have no choice but to think our way through the never-ending situations that arise, and all that thinking usually has a detrimental effect on our physical bodies. For many people, life is really not a very pleasant experience at all, with it's continuous struggles. It's not unusual, in the human factor, to spend most of our time looking back with regret and/or worrying about what will happen next. Surviving the present moment has become our priority in life.

God never intended life on any level to be a struggle. God provided every life form on every level of existence with everything they needed to be happy. Not just happy, actually ? it was intended that every living thing exist in the blissful state of being One with God. The structure under which the souls were intended to learn their life lessons was one that accommodated growth through connection on a conscious level to the soul essence itself, which would guide the souls to self-awareness by walking the life path in a state of Grace.

When Man chose to separate himself from God by closing his connection through Spirit and allowing his conscious mind to become his driving force, he gave up that state of bliss in favor of experiencing the mental, emotional and physical repercussions of his choices on a full-time basis. He became a physical being, instead a spiritual being in physical form.

As physical beings living in a physical world, we have developed behavior patterns on every level in an effort to make life 'feel better.' Most of these behavior patterns have been developed as our way of responding to what life brings us. If we experience a good deal of emotional trauma, we may decide not to be emotional anymore, and close our emotional aspect down. We may find that there are certain things that we choose not to think about, because they cause us worry and distress. We may avoid certain physical activities because they cause our bodies pain.

We become who we need to become to survive life as physical beings in a physical world. We give little, if any, thought to the more abstract issues of life. Who has time to think about spiritual things when the physical, intellectual and emotional things in life are all-consuming? Very often, the way we respond to life is in direct conflict to the way we believe life should be. The way we think about life is what drives the way we feel about life, and it is the way we feel about life that determines how we respond to it.

These external behavior patterns are often in direct conflict with our inner truth. It's not what we say, but what we do that determines 'who we are and what we believe in' at any given moment. When who we are being is different from who we intended to be, our lives are filled with stress and discomfort on every level.

It is for this reason that our inner voice - our own inner understanding of what IS proper conduct, what IS our personal value system, what IS our personal truth - becomes the only determining factor in deciding what it is that we need to integrate into our being and what it is that we need to eliminate because it is not valid for us as individuals.

Because we begin as a whole, we never lose touch with our soul essence. Our soul essence is always very much aware of the Universal Law on which our personal belief system is based, and it is our soul essence that becomes the directing force in our life when we allow our spiritual aspect to become the primary aspect that directs the lower self.

Because we begin and end as a whole, everything that we encounter in our personal growth process is familiar to us. The more open we become to past life experiences - other cultures that we have experienced and other belief systems that we have lived by - the more we come to realize that everything has a somewhat familiar ring to it and we can remember - vaguely - when we were that type of person, or followed that type of doctrine, or we applied that type of truth to our day to day existence.

With a little bit of effort, we can - vaguely - remember whether the effect of that application was positive or negative, whether it contributed to or detracted from our soul evolution process - which is, after all, focused into bringing us back to that level of wholeness where we began. It is when we allow our soul essence to replace the physical self as the driving force in our life that we once again enter in the state of Grace that was our birthright.

Lois Grant-Holland is a Life Path Focus Counselor offering Life Path Focus Sessions, Karmic Astrology Charts, Channeled Guidance, Intuitive Readings and Classes and Workshops to spiritual seekers on all positive paths, and is the site facilitator at The A.N.S.W.E.R. - (The Seeker's Resource Guide to Alternative, New Thought, Spiritual Growth, Wellness and Enlightenment Resources.) You can visit her website at http://www.loisgrantholland.com