Path to Joy

Today I heard a story in a class I am taking that reminded me “to be present in the heart”. So, what does that mean?  I realize I spend so much time in my head that I need constant reminders to move from my head to my heart.  So, for my very first blog, I’d like to begin with this story. It’s a guided imagery first developed by Dr. Carol Woman.

Imagine for a moment a time before your birth when you were wandering the heavens as a disincarnate soul.  You were immersed in the beauty and peaceful harmony of paradise when a call went out for volunteers to incarnate in bodily, human form. A small blue planet in the far reaches of the Milky Way galaxy was experiencing a crisis and was in need of souls who were willing to incarnate in a human body to help out in Earth’s time of need. 

You made the decision to volunteer.  You next met with the Incarnation Committee to discuss with its members the part you want to play and the work you want to do.  You made a covenant at that time to do the work you agreed to do.  But there was a catch:  Not only were you to serve, you were also required to grow.  It was your job to increase the intensity of your light and to grow in wisdom and in stature as well as to serve.  You next had to make a series of decisions that would perfectly situate you to be of maximum service and to develop a custom-designed learning curriculum for your soul to assure its maximum learning potential.

You had to decide what particular set of gifts, talents, and abilities you wished to bring with you to contribute to life on Earth and to the human family; the dreams and aspirations that would lead you to your destiny to fulfill your earthly covenant; a date of birth determining an astrological configuration that would give you clues to your soul’s earthly purpose and destiny, a place on Earth, a climate zone, a region in which to reside, a racial and ethnic form that would enable you to best express yourself; a socio-economic class that would provide you with the challenges and benefits you need in order to learn and serve; a spiritual tradition with its particular set of rituals and practices that would support you; a gender with its attendant opportunities and challenges; a particular set of parents that would provide you with their particular strengths, with qualities that you could draw upon and with a designed set of difficulties that you would experience with them in order to learn, grow, and prepare you for the service that you are to perform; your siblings and your relationship to them in age, plus the companionship and the conflicts with them that would provide you with important lessons and resources; and, finally a name for yourself.

Once these decisions were made, you were free to incarnate and begin your earthly mission, forgetting all that went before, but with time, you would slowly but surely begin to rediscover why you are here and how wisely you chose because every factor in your life has perfectly positioned you for the service you are to perform and has maximized your potential for learning and growing. 

Having heard this tale, I now challenge you to reflect on your own life. Take some time to let this story sink in.  What is it like for you to imagine that you—and only you—chose the circumstances of your life?  And you chose them with the intent to learn and grow into a more perfect you and as a means of being of service to humankind and the planet upon which we find ourselves.  Make a chart of the key experiences in your life—some of which you may label positive, others you may label negative—but knowing that ALL of these experiences have brought you to this right here, right now moment. How have each of these experiences molded you into the person you are today?  Can you look at each of them with an attitude of gratitude?  Can you see each person and each situation as your teacher?   In next week’s blog, we will explore our Divine purpose in more detail.