The Hidden Gift

We attract an opportunity as a means of learning a spiritual lesson, not as a mean to simply make money or get a promotion. If we focus on the superficial manifestation of the lesson, we will miss the real reason for an event taking place in our lives.

But if we miss the real reason for the events in our lives, we will feel powerless against what seems to be a whimsical destiny. Things feel as if they happen randomly to us. We feel as if we didn’t have a choice. But this is never the case: we always have a choice to feel one way or another at every given event.

Visualization in which you see yourself as in a film on a white screen. Look at your life, the people in it, the things that you own, the feelings that you get as you interact during your day. As you look at the picture of your life, do you feel happy and contented? Or there is something missing? And if you feel that there is something missing, can you name it?

Sometimes we think that we are a failure because we live in a society that rewards productivity. But we have to start realising that our value is not in what we produce, but in what we are – precious human beings.

This exercise will highlight all the gifts and things that you are now grateful for but which you were not aware that you had before, and that now you have discovered or noticed.

Does this bring you a new perspective about your life?

In this exercise we want to look at our bias over our qualities… or defects. For instance, we can consider that we have a defect, when in fact, with a little bit of conscious care, we could turn it into a quality.

Putting together the previous exercises, write a paragraph in which you summon, combine or summarize your positive features and blessings.

In view of your new perspective, state the direction you would like to give to these gifts, what you would like to accomplish, how you would like to use them.

Your Totem is an archetypal energy, a building block of your new future, so any time that you need reassurance of where you need to go or how you need to deal with a specific person or situation, come back to this place and talk to your Totem again.

In this exercise we are going to attempt to settle the past, old scores with people who didn’t do right by us, so that we can clear it, integrate it, and move on from it… by releasing the possible baggage that we may be carrying and start all over again.

This is an exercise on moving on.

Following on the previous exercise, now we are going to play the Devil’s advocate. Take the people in your list that you found you had unresolved issues with, one at a time, and do the following:

Imagine putting yourself in their shoes. Imagine that you are them, that you feel like they do, that you work at their job, that you had their childhood…

The idea here is not to feel sorry for them, or even try to forgive them just because we think that we should (or because it should be the right thing to do, or because of what other people would think of us if we didn’t…).

This is other people talking in our heads!

The idea is to try to understand the reasons why they acted as they did. Perhaps they were limited somehow due to their circumstances, backgrounds, family environment…

And by all means, we are not trying to excuse their behaviour, not forget that it ever happened. The Universe will bring them into balance by the Law of Cause and Effect (Law of Karma) when the time is right for them.

But this is not our concern because this is their path, not yours.

This exercise has as an objective to learn to accept ourselves, our life circumstances and others as they are, without trying to change them.

You may already be aware that our relationships with others mirror our relationship with ourselves at some level.

When we focus on something that we do not like about others, or we insist and demand that they change, it is because there is something that we do not accept about ourselves.

As we practice personal development tools, such as mindfulness, meditation, journal-writing, connecting with nature, and so on, we expand our hearts to accept ourselves as we are.

When we reject others, we are in fact admitting that we are not loving unconditionally. So, in this exercise, we are going to try to find the point of self-respect, which is a result of unconditional self-love.

In general, we (people) are very resourceful at shifting responsibility when it comes to finding the reasons why we cannot do what we would really like to do. In our minds, there is always someone or something which prevents us from reaching our dreams.

If we really think about it, we will notice that, like the fox which couldn’t reach the grapes high up the tree and decided that they were too green to eat, we also make up excuses for our perceived lack of power, endurance, focus, persistence or motivation to achieve our goals.

One thing that starts the ball rolling in the right direction when it comes to walking towards our dreams is trust: sometimes a leap of faith is all that is required.

Throughout the process of growing spiritually, we reach a point when we realise that we no longer want to tolerate or put up with certain things, situations or people. This realization normally takes place at our lowest point: the point of make it or break it.

But it also takes place at the point when we are ready to make a leap of consciousness, a quantum jump into the integration of our personal power.

It is like a test of our determination, intention and progression.

Sometimes we take life far too seriously. We worry and get stressed. It is understandable due to the pressures in our lives. But we still have the choice to react in one way or another to the same external situation.

And laughter is one of the best medicines to lighten up the heart and to unravel a solution to a problem that we previously thought insurmountable.

We are part of the natural world. The Universe wraps this natural world within its energetic mantle. This field vibrates with the frequency of love.

So, basically, we are love.

We need love, we demand and expect love. We want and require love, and we can’t live without love.

For a grown-up to take away his or her love from a child is the equivalent of disowning, starving and shrinking that child, that energy field made out of love. Because, if you have noticed, healthy children give their love unconditionally…

It is only later that they learn to use love as a commodity with which to manipulate the adults in their life.

There are times in life when we ask others for advice and counsel because we are scared to take a decision that we know we must take, or need to change a behaviour, or need to do something that we keep postponing…

We hope to hear what we would like to hear and not the reality we fear, but unfortunately, when we actually give up on taking the difficult road with the hope of making a problem less painful and easier to resolve, we lose the strength that comes from making a decision and committing to it, regardless of what anyone else may have to say about it.

Decision-making is like a muscle: when we do it regularly and train ourselves to be decisive, we get better at it and we get fed a good dose of self-esteem in the process.

Loyalty is a beautiful word. It makes us feel that we belong to a group or society with whom we share the same values, people with whom we share life and help each other in times of need.

When we function well with this group, we feel that our integrity is intact.

This is loyalty to others.

However, what about loyalty to ourselves?

I believe that there are three kinds of people: the first kind will push herself to carry on despite a negative situation around her; the second kind will give up the fight and sit down in apathy, feeling that the world is crumbling down all around her.

But there is a third kind of person who we could say has developed her emotional intelligence and is able to detach from the situation at hand, at least enough to be able to function in a positive manner despite the problem.

If we asked this kind of person, I am sure that she would admit to have a daily spiritual practice of some kind.

The external world will always provoke us, in good and bad ways. It is life.

But we have the choice to merely take the bite and react, or take control of our psyche and create emotional strategies of success.

We have to realise that, when others target us, they are merely projecting their own insecurities, and they are only reflecting their own inner strategies of survival… or their lack of them.

Fear is a paralyzing, confusing, negative emotion that makes us shrink, shiver and want to disappear. It makes us feel that we would want to do anything else in the world except facing that which produces the fear.

Often the fear we feel is towards an idea of what would happen given a specific set of circumstances if things didn’t work out well for us. We imagine and visualize surreal scenarios of horrible outcomes, and we can literally feel our hearts beating fast, as well as other physical reactions like sweating, twitching, crying… You get the picture.

I think that, at that moment before the event we fear, we simply fear fear itself.

The objective of this kind of visualization is to reduce a memory or negative feeling into a more manageable one, giving it a shape, a form and a voice, so that we can actually engage with it in a face-to-face basis, thus we can integrate it into our being.

Stop to realise that this feeling of fear or these particular fears that you are visualizing do not have a personality of their own. They can’t really do anything to you. They are simply there, lingering like a shadow, not really moving.

The ship of my life started to veer over 24 years ago as I stepped onto the spiritual path, and the destination is closer every day.

I have been making small, gradual changes that have now led me so much closer to where I wanted to be, and so much further from where I started.

I feel that I have used my life so far to the best of my ability and certainly haven’t wasted my time.

If you are like me, you will find yourself at a certain point investigating aspects of this possible future scenario and even make a draft of a plan. I have considered the possible resources that I would need and a time scale, and I make sure that I keep living my dream in my mind and in my real life so it stays alive.

I nurture it with my thoughts.

The scenario is that if you put time into daring to dream, to think the impossible, to keep a focused mind on what you really desire and then continue to do your daily tasks, what you are actually doing is tapping into the higher consciousness of the Universal mind. As you look at a bigger perspective on a regular basis, it goes without saying that your reality will also expand.

It would be impossible not to!

We surround ourselves by things that serve a purpose. Some of them have a practical utility, others we keep due to an emotional attachment.  The secret is to keep the balance.

Some of us gather more than we need: we keep things just in case we will need them for a rainy day. Some of these things may not be in a good working condition, but we do not seem to gather the courage to dispose of them.

And some of us overload ourselves with things. This makes our energy heavy. We literally are incapable of moving forward due to the weight we drag. Others, however, do not gather enough and feel that do not have what they need, having to ask others and developing a mentality of lack and scarcity.

At certain moments of our lives, our minds are not strong enough to explain the reasons why we were in a specific situation, and our minds alone can’t find a way out either. It is in then that we ask our God for help.

Surrendering to the great encompassing force of the Universe implies the death of our Ego: it must take its rightful place, which is to help us to observe and absorb information from the external world, but certainly not attempt to direct our lives, since it lacks the necessary perspective or higher wisdom required to do so.

Every action comes first from a thought, a vision or a dream. The mental picture or inspired intuition is the seed, the action helps the seed grow into its full maturity.

The Universe rewards action, but we can’t act without clarity of purpose. And for every action there is a reaction, so when we act before we are healed, it is very likely that many of our actions will backfire – showing us the areas of work still pending.

So many of us spend our lives thinking about doing something; yet, not actually doing anything about it. There cannot be a reaction if there is not first an action.

I am always of the belief that it is better to do something and then regret it, make a mistake that I can learn from, than never trying at all!

Plan to make a list of the steps and actions that you are now committing to in the short term (a couple of weeks or months) and / or you can make another table for the longer term (6 months, one year or even longer).

QUIZ:

This is the last lecture in the course. I give you four questions that you can answer to consolidate what you have learned and I give you the two books on Practical Spirituality and the Inspirational Quotes taken from the book in the resources tab.

1. What have been your main learning points during this journey of spiritual development?

2. Do you think your life is better today as a result of learning these strategies for success?

3. What will be your next step on this path?

4. Would you change something in this course that you think could have helped you a little more?

Dr Ana García PhD (Metaphysics or Philosophy of Spirituality) is an author in the fields of Integration of Consciousness and Human Potential. A Communication Specialist with a DTM (Distinguished Toastmaster in Communication and Leadership) and a Master's in Education and Languages from The Teaching University of Derio (Bilbao, Spain), Dr Ana is a Polyglot (Spanish, English, Basque, French, German and Korean), a Cambridge on-line course architect in French and Spanish for The Academy Hout Bay and she is the owner of Stargate Institute of Consciousness, an educational forum for discussions on personal development, advanced spirituality, metaphysics, healing, vibrational energy, emotional intelligence and Increase strategies to succeed.

WHAT IS REIKI?

The word Reiki primarily translated means “free-flowing energy”. The first syllable Rei means “spirit, soul, or subtle influence of the cosmos”. The second syllable Ki means “life force or life energy”.

When you receive a Reiki treatment, you may feel deep peace, relaxation, the release of physical or emotional pain, and a sense of well-being.

Using Reiki for distant healing is very powerful and quicker than most hands-on sessions. 15 minutes of distance healing is the equivalent of 1 hour of hands-on healing.

Drink water during the day to help toxins flux out. Write down your feelings, emotions, dreams, sensations, pains, energy levels, etc. Anything out of ordinary, your body giving you an indication of the energy moving and how it is being reabsorbed. After each session, leave your energies to settle down before deciding whether you would like to continue with further healing.

This video was filmed in the beautiful Green Point Park in Cape Town, South Africa, on the 7th February 2021. I was as if guided by Spirit to go that day and create the film. The park was empty, which I didn't know. In fact, it was really opening to the public the following day... I had visualised beautiful music in a beautiful setting, as close to nature as possible, with the text from my quotes. The result was this video. I really hope you enjoy it. (Music: Credits to www.FesliyanStudios.com)