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The Long Term Benefits of Personal Development and Spiritual Growth
Posted: 4/26/2009 | Spiritual Growth Comments
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There are definite long term benefits of working on your personal development as well as your spiritual growth. Often times our experiences don’t reflect a sense of progression from A to B to C, meaning it’s not exactly a linear progression. Even though sometimes we might think that nothing is happening, just the same our inner landscape is changing.  If we have spent time and effort doing the reading, therapy, personal growth workshops, meditation along with the other endeavors involved in becoming our best self, we will have success. Now success may not look exactly like we thought it would, but if we can step back and notice how our lives have changed we can usually see a positive difference.

 

As a psychotherapist I’ve heard many times from clients that they thought all of their suffering would quickly disappear if they did all the “right” things. They said that they did their affirmations, went to psychotherapy, read the books, did the12 step programs, practiced EFT, meditated, prayed and still they felt sad or abandoned at times. Sometimes we all forget that when we are in pain it hard to see the larger picture. Remember this is progress not perfection. As we grow, change and mature our definition of suffering changes greatly. We actually feel emotional pain differently. What would have sent us into a tizzy or had us shut down now just needs a deep breath when it happens in order to feel OK.

 

The body, like the emotions, mind and spirit, experiences positive cumulative effects when we are more integrated. Deep memory of that integration when times are challenging will allow us to bounce back more quickly.

 

An example of the body remembering those cumulative effects is when I was younger I danced, sang and acted professionally. Because I’m a former dancer, my body responds more quickly getting into shape. I still have to have to discipline to go to the gym but when life gets in the way for awhile and I don’t have time to go to the gym, my body is very good about remembering how to move and my muscles remember what it is to be in shape. This is an example of how being in shape is cumulative over the years. Now as we age, the body may have a harder time finding the past effects in some ways. However, the older I get “getting in shape” emotionally and spiritually actually gets easier. This doesn’t mean we won’t sometimes have difficult feelings but we all gather our wisdom muscles if and when we do our inner work.

 

If we regularly weave into our lives doing a spiritual practice, continuing to engage our minds along with challenging our belief and emotional systems, living a content and balanced life is possible. Please remember you are worth the time. The culmination of the long term benefit is having more peace, happiness and more contentment.




Comments:

CindyMO       Posted: 4/28/2009 12:18:02 PM

Love this blog!
When I was younger I had what seemed to me as many overwhelming challenges. More on my plate than I thought possible to handle. Most of these being the things in life that you are not able to change.
I had to find a way to cope.
I had to take a step back from my life and look in from the outside to find ways to stay emotionally healthy.
For me that was learning to look at each challenge individually rather than lumping them into a pool that seemed to always overflow.
It was much easier to deal when I took these responsibilities one by one in my mind.
This was a learning process and took time but now that I am older I look at my past as a wonderful learning experience. There seems to be very little that I can''t let roll of my shoulders.
My spirituality has always been there although as you have said, it has gotten easier with age.
I am now in my 50''s and most of my friends are just beginning to have some of the challenges that I had years before.
They call me and I can now help them to see what took me years to learn.
Don''t get me wrong, the phone still rings quite a bit. I just listen and let them know how I got through those times. They get solace is knowing that I understand as they try and find their own answers.


seajayess       Posted: 5/11/2009 10:06:32 AM

I came across your site because of comments of yours that came up re: Susan Boyle. To me, Susan Boyle is authentically beautiful while the audience members and judges who rolled their eyes and said "yuk" are truly the uglies of the world.
Truly beauty is in the eye of the beholder but
people who judge others by looking down their noses will never see it.





  
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