Where Spirit Meets Education
Thank you, everyone, for tuning into EduSpirit over the past year. In this video, I express my appreciation for your support and viewership.
I also talk about what it means to live in grace and with integrity as we take giant and courageous leaps of faith to BE who we truly are.
With much gratitude and love,
I haven’t written in awhile because, frankly, I have been questioning whether or not it is worth it to put forth so much of my own personal, spiritual energy into a public space. I am working on several manuscripts at the moment to document and disseminate my research and have let EduSpirit fall to the wayside because I haven’t wanted to invest much of my heart into a space in which I feel so vulnerable and raw.
Originally, when I created EduSpirit I understood it as a platform for ALL of us, particularly educators who wanted to share their heart-centered practices with other educators. I wanted to begin the dialogue and allow it to grow and blossom into whatever manifestation we deemed possible. But, as I plugged along with my videos, interviews, and blogging, I began to doubt what I was doing. I started to question whether or not my voice was heard and whether my efforts were futile.
Over the last week I have actively engaged in volatile dialogue with the Universe about the purpose of EduSpirit. My rantings (in the car ALONE, thank goodness) have gone like this:
Why did You edge me onto this path? Why I am DOING this? What is the purpose of this whole platform? Is there any impact of this work? Is anyone interested or listening? Should I even care? Why do You push me to do things that make me so uncomfortable and, better yet, why do I continue listening to You? And so on and so on …
The answers I have received are illuminating.
One answer given to me was through my husband and the dream he shared with me. His sharing went something like this (paraphrased):
“I was walking and saw a river. The river was muddy and deep. It elicited a feeling of fear in me as I approached it. Coming close to it, I felt compelled to reach down and feel into it with my hands. The water was dank, cold, and murky and, suddenly, beneath the surface, a hand jutted out of the water. It was pale, waterlogged, but strong. I instinctively knew what to do. I reached down and grabbed a hold of its forearm. As I pulled, a person emerged. It wasn’t just any person. It was me, but not me. It was my higher Self. On land, he stood before me. He was stalwart, formidable and full of peace. His intense strength juxtaposed against his gentle demeanor. I looked into his face. It was me, a mirror image. But it was also him, a better version of who I am on this Earth. He said he was working for me and putting energy into all the things I hope for and want in my life.”
This recounting reminded me of a morning daydream I had recently. This daydream unfolded in this manner:
I saw a toddler just beginning to walk. She was unsure of her balance and would sway and topple as she navigated the trail on which she and her parents were walking. The parents would grab a hold of her body and redirect her gait so that she would regain confidence in her next steps. The toddler would smile at her parents and grip their hands every time she felt unsteady. The parents would then tell her, “Good job, sweetheart. You’re doing great.” The toddler knew she could walk the trail and make it home with her parents by her side.
Over time, as the toddler grew into a young five year-old. At five, she found herself on the trail again. This time her parents were ten feet behind her. Now, as a kindergartner, her feet were steady, her gait was straight, and her stride full of confidence. As she danced and sang on the trail, she looked behind her. To her surprise, she was all alone. Her parents were gone. Suddenly fear overtook her. She panicked as her eyes moistened. Where did they go?
She stood on the trail bewildered and then realized she knew the way home. She knew her parents would be waiting for her and that they had not left her in danger. Instead, she was completely safe and was being given her first opportunity of full independence. She took a moment. There was pride in her heart. She had come a long way from the time when she was two and shaky in her own feet.
Yet, she longed to hold her parents’ hands. Even though she no longer needed their support to walk, she still wanted to feel their grip and to hear their voices tell her, “Good job, sweetheart. You are doing great!” And, for the first time, she was angry. Why weren’t they there with her? Why didn’t they stick around to hold her hand and tell her how great she was doing?
Then, it dawned on her, the only way she was going to know she had the ability to walk home alone from the trail that connected her house to the market up the street was to do so with no help, no scaffolds, no validation, and no support. She had to trust in her own Self and rely on her inner capacity to navigate the world around her.
***
Both narratives provide me with interconnected messages.
In both, there was a moment in which a leap of faith and trust was necessary for inner growth. To (re)discover or uncover his Higher Self, my husband had to reach beyond his own fear – reflected in the murkiness of the water – and literally pull out the purest essence of his own being. In the daydream sequence, the little girl had to sever old patterns that would keep her tethered to dependence. For her, coming into her independence and full essence meant she had to walk the path alone to reach the next step of her journey even if it meant not having her parents physically visible or present.
***
EduSpirit is a leap of faith for me. I am both the man who reaches into the muddy, mysterious depths and the young girl who wants desperately to know she’s on the right path, but who must trust her heart as she takes tentative steps forward. I wrote in one of my first blogs that I would allow EduSpirit to evolve in the way that it is supposed to. Now, I must hold true to and claim this proclamation. For me it is about surrendering to my Higher Self and knowing that she is somewhere on the sidelines cheering me on with, “Good job, sweetheart. You’re doing great!”
Always with love,
Lately I have had difficulty keeping track of time. The summer is passing by so quickly and each day is full of activities and things to accomplish. I have many self-imposed deadlines coming up and the prospect of getting everything done seems impossible. In the past, I would have felt anxiety and stress. I would be worrying about all the work ahead of me and feeling guilty about my upcoming vacation. I would be berating myself for taking on too much and not having enough time to enjoy my summer. A part of me would feel miserable and another part excited about the opportunity to get away from the daily burden of to dos hanging over my head.
Right now, though, I feel only calmness. It’s a detached state of mind where a part of me is observing all the activities I am involved in without feeling the rollercoaster of emotions I am used to experiencing. It is a strange sensation, especially because I realize I may not complete all the tasks I had hoped to accomplish by the end of summer.
Perhaps part of this sense of inner calmness comes from knowing that in twenty-four hours I will be on route to Spain to celebrate my fifth-year anniversary of being cancer-free. I am meeting up with my sister-in-law who is also a cancer thriver and who just completed radiation treatment. We are celebrating our precious lives and counting our many blessings.
As I have written about before, I experienced many dark nights of the soul going through my cancer journey. There was one night I will never forget. It was the night I spent in the darkness of my basement grieving the life I felt I was about to lose. That night I was gently, but firmly, shown two paths. One led to the end of my suffering where I would quickly slip away and out of my mortal coil to be one with the Light. I knew that if I chose this path I had little time to remain in the physical plane. Though I didn’t want to leave my husband, children, family, and friends, the exhaustion and pain I felt dealing with the cancer was almost unbearable. I was tempted to step onto this path and be released fully from the anxiety and fear that plagued me.
The other path, in some ways, was more difficult. It meant that I would have to choose life in a conscious and deliberate manner. Choosing life, for me, meant knowing I was fully responsible for all of my choices, actions, thoughts, words, and feelings. I felt the gravity of what choosing life would mean for me. It would mean no more bullshit. It would mean that I needed to step up to the plate, live in the present moment, and BE aligned with who I truly was. No more shrinking, backing down, or slinking into the periphery. By freely choosing LIFE I made the decision to no longer give away my power. I realized and acknowledged the incredible inner sovereignty within.
I remember thinking, “Oh shit. This is REAL.” I could feel the weight of my choice. God wasn’t playing.
By choosing LIFE I have chosen a more challenging path. The difficulties lie in making sure that what I say and do are aligned with the highest good. There’s a passage in the Bible (I just looked it up), Matthew 19:24, which reads, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” In my view, even with wealth aside, it feels impossible to enter the “kingdom of God” IF, like me, you believe that the kingdom is not so much a place, but rather frame of mind or level of consciousness. How can I walk through the “eye of the needle” if my consciousness is not pure, if my heart’s intentions are not aligned with the highest good? This question makes me check myself again and again. Do I honestly believe and feel that I am being true to myself – my higher Self – in my daily routines and interactions? In other words, am I truly walking the walk?
Though I believe, in my heart, that the kingdom of heaven is open to ALL of us, I also have an internal knowing that there are ways to open our hearts here on Earth that will make it easier for us to fully experience (and understand) the Light that is constantly being offered. Being aligned with our highest good – our greatest most divine Self – is a huge step toward receiving and integrating this light. I interpret this biblical passage to mean our ability to be our highest Self without judgment of others or self (our Earthly personality/ego). It is to BE who we came to be by stripping off the protective layers, carefully constructed or forcefully imposed, and to KNOW we are living our lives from LOVE, not fear.
As I prepare for my trip tomorrow, I feel genuinely happy that I am HERE on this physical plane and that I chose LIFE when I had the opportunity to do so. I am aware that every day is a new opportunity to align my thoughts and actions with my higher Self and to be able to ask if what I am experiencing holds the intention of the highest good. I am blessed to be able to have these internal reflections and am grateful to have a space where I can share my heart. I am counting my blessings and am conscious in this NOW moment of the gifts this LIFE has offered.
With much love,
EduSpirit 
You must be logged in to post a comment.