Basic Requirements for Genuine Spiritual Transformation
 by Sandra Michaelson

Spirituality is not separate from our everyday lives. It does no good to try to saturate oneself in feelings of oneness or develop psychic powers if one's life is full of conflict and turmoil. The practice of spirituality requires that we deal with the realities of our life, which include our feelings, thoughts, and self-limiting behaviors.

Spirituality involves a harmonious balance between the expression of self-interest and concern for the whole. It means the adoption of an attitude called appropriate selfishness. This refers to the ability to care about yourself, how you are treated, and what happens to you. Most of us act selfless out of the desire to impress others or to feel needed by others. Or we act selfishly out of fear and ignorance.

The spiritual way expresses the truth of your experience rather than some moral pattern you learned in childhood. If anger is present, feel it, but learn why it is present. Authentic anger is better than a pretended smile. If depression is present, acknowledge it and learn where it comes from. Your feelings or thoughts are not good or bad, they simply are. Adopt an attitude of curiosity about your negative feelings. If you cannot be authentic with your negativity, then you cannot be authentic with the positive.

What does it mean to accept yourself fully? Self-acceptance involves the ability to own and accept whatever you are experiencing or feeling, including negative feelings, without shame, judgment, self-condemnation, and without holding others responsible. Self-acceptance means accepting our mistakes, negative traits, and quirks, as well as acknowledging and giving ourselves credit for our positive traits and accomplishments. It means exploring the reasons why we do not accept ourselves and owning our resistance to accepting ourselves.

Becoming your own authority first involves seeing the extent to which you have relinquished your authority. To become your own authority, you have to recognize the precise ways you allow others to control or influence you. It also means valuing yourself, believing in yourself, and trusting your own opinions and perceptions. Why is it so hard to value ourselves? Mainly because as children we felt that our genuine self-expression was not valued by our parents. What we felt and thought, it seemed, didn't matter to them. It was more important to please them. We now fall into the habit of devaluing ourselves in the same manner we were devalued as children. We can't access the truth and the authority that comes from our own being.

Spiritual growth is an emotional experience (not an intellectual exercise) in which you come to know yourself intimately--your positive and negative traits, thoughts, and feelings. It requires a spontaneous non-judgmental way of relating to yourself and the world.

As an exercise, become for one day a non-judgmental observer of yourself. Observe your feelings, thoughts, behaviors, and interactions with others. Try to discern precisely what you are feeling or interpreting and where that feeling comes from in your past. Watch how you categorize people and evaluate them. Notice how you regard others, checking out their possessions or seeing them as better or less than you. Notice your readiness to blame others or an outside situation for your reactions or behaviors and how caught up you get in the other person's behavior.

Notice how much time you spend on a) concerns about others, b) feeling bad about yourself, c) bemoaning what you are not getting, d) feeling controlled or trapped, e) experiencing rejection and criticism, f) wallowing in past grievances or emotional injuries, g) fantasizing the future h) worrying and imagining catastrophes, i) focusing on lists and chores.

It is challenging to accept whatever is happening without censoring or editing our thoughts and feelings. Eventually, with practice, we will observe how we interpret what is going on around us.

We get to know ourselves intimately by understanding how we see the world, ourselves and others through the lens of our past conditioning. Overcoming this conditioning means understanding how our ideas, points of view, and rules are heavily influenced by our past. It requires an emotional correlation of our present-day feelings and expectations with our past childhood reactions and experiences.

When you no longer personalize your environment, you automatically shift into neutral. When you watch your behaviors, feelings, and interpretations, and understand where they come from and how you have been holding onto them, a detachment results. Things will happen before you, in front of you, but not to you. Distance gives you the ability to perceive more objectively. You move through your life in a state of alert awareness and accept whatever life brings. You have no rules to follow, no rules to oppose; nothing to fight for, nothing to fight against.

A liberated person has moved past seeing himself as the innocent victim of his parents and family dynamics. He accepts both his strengths and weaknesses. He becomes honest not because someone told him he should be honest, but because honesty happens on its own accord. He becomes curious about things, curious about how others feel, and why they respond the way they do.

His life becomes a reflection of what he believes. He is able spontaneously, without fear, to generate love and express that love to those close to him. These qualities are not pretended or performed. They evolve from within naturally.

(1) You have all the resources and wisdom you need to resolve your issues.

(2) Habits or patterns are not fixed, the future is open to change. Personality and character are fluid rather than fixed structures.

(3) Present obstacles are opportunities for new insights and creative forms of self-expression.

(4) Each of us is author of our own interpretations and responses to our circumstances. What matters is what you do with what happens to you.

(5) Feelings are not problems to be fixed or gotten rid of. Feelings are to be understood and acknowledged with compassion.

(6) There is no good or bad, no right or wrong. Our experience of ourselves and who we are just is. As detached observers of ourselves, we see situations and events as neutral.

To balance out the misplaced faith in positive affirmations, here are some of my favorite negative affirmations. These are intended humorously, of course. But listen closely and you will learn something important about yourself.

Rule No. 1:

Never be happy or satisfied with what you have.

Always remember that others have more than you.

Be sure to discount the nice things that do exist in your life.

Get into the habit of feeling gypped, short-changed, and treated unfairly.

Write a list of all the things you are missing out on, as well as the needs that are never met.

Compose a poem entitled, "Never enough."

Rule No. 2:

Always expect others to see you as bad or inadequate.

Look into the faces of others only to see what nasty things they are thinking about you.

Look at others with the same judgmental attitude you are sure they look back at you with.

Beat others to the punch by disliking them first.

Rule No. 3

Take any disagreement from others as a personal rejection of you.

Be aware that others are deliberately out to get you or ruin your life.

Each week collect as many feelings of rejection as you can, and stash them in your grudge file drawer.

Keep score of all the people who offend you and keep records on how others let you down.

Discount any praise you receive.

Worry daily on whether or not you are measuring up.

Rule No. 4

Fantasize on all your worst-possible disaster scenarios.

Worry daily about them coming to pass.

As often as possible, make mountains out of molehills.

Revel now in the possible loss, shame, failure, or destruction.

Reaffirm your belief that the world is going to hell and others are sick.

Rule No. 5

Feel guilty for the slightest misdemeanor.

Feel shame for the smallest misdeed.

Believe what others say to be the Gospel Truth.

See and do things their way.

Never speak your own mind.

Don't even know your own mind, then accuse others of controlling you.

Finally, trust everyone but yourself.

Rule No. 6

Stay wrapped up in your own little world.

Feel that things aren't supposed to work out.

If some good happens, don't worry, something will soon come along and take it away.

Believe that you'll never get any better.

Or, be convinced you are already perfect--It's others who need help.

Believe there is no such thing as happiness.

The nice thing about these rules is that you don't have to follow them--they follow you. They won't allow themselves to be forgotten until you become more aware.