Personal Development
The Guiding Principle
The area of spiritual psychotherapy is holistic in that optimal health refers to the balance of the mind, the body and the spirit. A difficulty in one of these three domains signals an imbalance that will impact on the other domains. Clearly, health is more than the mere absence of illness.
The search for optimal spiritual health is often termed the way of the peaceful warrior. Specifically, the peaceful warrior has a clear sense of purpose in life, feels guided and supported by a higher power, has a positive, loving spirit that embraces the oneness of life, feels an inner peace and is on the path of self-actualization.
By developing a heightened awareness of the purpose of life’s challenges and experiences, the individual is actually creating an instruction manual for life. Once the manual is devised, the individual can then gain a sense of mastery over any of life’s challenges. Furthermore, sages believe that shifting one’s consciousness to a higher level enables one to participate in the transformation of the human condition all over the world...
There is growing scientific literature supporting the mind-body-spirit connection. Spiritual psychotherapy (also referred to as holistic health or mind/body/spirit medicine) is not so much an alternative approach, as a complementary one. It is perfectly compatible with standard medical treatment and can be a powerful way of augmenting it, not challenging it or replacing it.
The Approach
East Meets West
This approach is based on spiritual/existential/humanistic psychotherapy that incorporates the fundamental principles drawn from Jungian psychology, Buddhist philosophy, energy medicine, consciousness studies, Native American ideology and Ayurvedic and Chinese Medicine. Via the integration of these approaches, it is hoped that the individual seeks the necessary tools that empower them to take charge of their health and lives.
The Process
Creating a space for awareness of the present moment via the
modalities of breathing, focusing, meditation or imagery.
In order to work from a place of inner peace, the individual must be mindful of the present moment.
Awakening intuition. (Read more...)
Once the mind is quieter, and the focus is on the present moment, one’s creative, intuitive, and self-healing abilities heighten. It is then that we learn to pay attention to the various voices of the intuition. We observe our body’s inner wisdom (manifesting as physical signals, inner guiding voice, or dreams) or the universal wisdom (synchronicity events, environmental cues, the mirroring messages from the people around us).
Being at the source of one’s life. (Read more...)
Living and making decisions from inner strength and a loving spirit rather than a reactive fearful disposition can significantly impact our quality of life. Living as a creator will attract many positive benefits including positive supportive relationships, financial abundance, optimal energy and health, as well as general good fortune. Living one’s life from this powerful state will also enable us to experience positive states such as peace, joy, confidence, clarity and success. Understanding how the spirals of the vicitim and the creator work will not only provide us with a sense of meaning in life, but also enable us to develop an awareness of why certain events happen the way that they do. We then become more receptive to recognizing the synchronicity in our life and are able to transform the challenges of daily life into a means of spiritual growth.
Acting from spirit. (Read more...)
Being able to differentiate between ego and spirit (or between fear vs. love) is key to recognizing how and what to do that will essentially fulfill one’s soul. Often working from ego brings us much into materialism, self-doubt, self-criticism and negative mood states. It often leaves us feeling empty inside rather than fulfilled. However, operating from spirit encourages a stance of unconditional love towards all, and frees the soul. At this point, we become less judgemental, more forgiving and feel more inner peace.
Changing recurrent negative life patterns. (Read more...)
At difficult times in our life, we may feel that we are cursed when we experience the same type of negative event over and over. The root of that experience is often a negative core belief that we are holding on to from earlier in our life. This belief is so ingrained in us that it manifests into reality. If we don’t catch it or replace this way of thinking, then we are likely to re-experience the pattern in different situations or with different people, often much to our discontent. Seeing that most of these core beliefs are longstanding we need to work at an unconscious level and transform these recurrent patterns.
Developing connections with different aspects of the self. (Read more...)
The process of personal development seeks to bring us in touch with many various parts of ourselves that serve as guides to understanding our current situations, feelings and behaviors. Some of the key aspects include the inner child, the inner guide, the inner healer, the inner judge, and the inner male/female. Once we learn how to access these guides, we can develop an inner sense of security, overcome our childhood wounds and facilitate a recovery of health.
Manifesting the life that you would like to have. (Read more...)
Once we have clearly defined our goals and ambitions in life, the power of the conscious and unconscious brain can be harnessed to facilitate their realization. These therapeutic tools can include: commitment building, autosuggestion, creative imagery, projection of energy fields. All these tools are fun and exciting to use and provide us with a sense of control of our lives, especially when we manifest our dreams!