Blessings all,

As many of you know I am streaming "Sunday Night Alive"  on Facebook and YouTube Sunday evenings at 6pm EST. My program  is dedicated to Practical Spirituality - topics which provide the tools to walk and talk our spiritual journey with power, poise and confidence. I am happy to synthesize and broaden these topics for you each week on this blog.   Enjoy this topic from Sunday, February 5th.

Color Outside the Lines
(In Search of Real)

Do you remember as a child how fun it was to get a brand-new coloring book and a box of crayons?  I clearly remember my mother’s instructions. “Color inside the lines!” The picture with the neatest lines always received praise and made it onto the refrigerator door.  The others?  The messy, ugly, sloppy ones, where the lines were not neat made it into the trash. It is here we might have learned to live life in the ‘right’ way, the ‘neat’ way, the ‘controlled’ way.  We live inside the lines of life, established by ourselves or the norms of society primarily to assure that we are liked, respected, and praised for following the rules and playing the game of life properly.

Unfortunately, this indoctrination to how life should be lived, may have affected your life in such a way that you find yourself trapped inside those lines. Traveling from birth to becoming a functioning adult, the coloring book of life got created in an unconscious agreement between you and whoever the people in your life happened to be.  In those first 20 years the rulebook of life according to you got written.  The problem is that the coloring book you call your life may be at a minimum causing you some unwanted consequences like boredom, depression or addiction, and at maximum, completely suffocating the brilliant and beautiful, difference-making, world-loving BEING that is the real you.  You get enough of us who are living lives that are inauthentic, and not a true representation of what is inside, the consequence would be, and is, a dysfunctional and symptomatic society.

In my work, what is most important is the discovery and restoration of authenticity. This is an experience of feeling ‘real’ and of knowing that what is inside is being reflected appropriately on the outside.   To me, it is the exhilarating experience of being untethered from the erroneous ideas and false beliefs that ran my life for many decades. More of us need to become untethered.

From existential philosophy the word authenticity is defined as  ‘relating too or denoting an emotionally appropriate, significant, purposeful, and responsible mode of life.’

This is an interesting perspective because it points to the idea that an inauthentic life would be emotionally inappropriate, insignificant, without purpose and irresponsible. For the most part when I look into what people do in life, I would agree that inauthenticity is reigning supreme!

Another definition, “made in a way that faithfully resembles the original.”

I like this definition because in our faith tradition I would say to anyone, “You are a unique and individualized representation of the Divine. Because of that fact, you are whole, perfect and complete already.” Thus, if we were all moving through life resembling the original self before the world messed it all up - love, peace, compassion and all of the other Divine qualities would be expressed and experienced. Just like when you buy a Rolex watch in Central Park, you want the real thing, not a knock-off.  We want to be the real thing and not a lesser version of ourselves - right?

We are not on earth to compete, accumulate, struggle or suffer.  It may seem like that is what life is about and what is important, but it is not.  We are here to revel in the awe and wonder of the beauty of our environment and to ‘play’ with each other for the purpose of growth and experience.  We are here to love.

Maybe in Reality with a capital “R” there are no hard lines, borders, or rules?  Maybe all of the restrictions, limitations and borders aren’t really there, and you can choose to live in any way that you wish providing you harm no-one, including you.  Go wherever you want to go. Just because your mother made you make your bed every morning before you left the house, doesn’t mean that you have to do it. The making of that bed is not tied to your worthiness. Try coloring outside the lines and do not make your bed and then watch what happens inside you. 

This week, we are exploring  what it might mean to begin to color outside the lines in your life. Divine discontent describes the longing of the soul to be more, express more, have more.  Sometimes coloring inside the lines of our life, may make your life pleasing to others, comfortable to you personally but nonetheless lacking in peace, joy, awe, the wonder and fulfillment that comes from singing your real song.

Our lives do become habitual.  We do establish patterns of behaviors that become ruts in our road - personalized hamster wheel of life. We are not taking about anything being bad.  Living a mediocre uneventful life because you are afraid to take a chance, afraid to aggravate your loved ones or afraid of rejection –is a predictable life, the antithesis of a life of unlimited possibility. This has nothing to do with any external measuring stick.  It has to do with your answer to the question, “Are you happy, satisfied, fulfilled and pleased with your life?” or an even better question, “If you were on your deathbed tomorrow, are you satisfied with how you have chosen to live --  or would you do something different? I think the ultimate point is to do that something different now.

The mandate is to feel brave enough and safe enough to be your true self.  To compromise less.  To create a life where you are celebrated rather than tolerated.  To live in such a way that you are a positive and generous force for good in the world. And to take care of your body temple so that you have a vehicle suitable for the joy ride.You can start out with small declarations of independence.  Small ways of coloring outside the lines you think you have, and the lines others have imposed on you.

1. Do something different today
2. Respond to a situation differently that you or others expect
3. Surprise yourself in some new way
4. Change how you look
5. Stop trying to get people to like you
6. Tell the truth to yourself and others
7. Stop doing things that bring you no joy or happiness
8. Start doing things that do
9. Get your nose out of other peoples business (NOMBA means ‘none of my business anyway’)
10. Go on vacation someplace you might have never gone

“Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.
They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
Everything else is secondary.”
~ Steve Jobs

These are just some ideas of actions.  Add your own - you do know what they are! The "T"ruth is that with all things, you ultimately are empowered to create a context of authenticity for your life simply through a powerful and committed declaration. “I will be authentic and true to my self all of the time, no matter what”.  This is how we co-create. We bring forward  the "whats" in life. The job of the quantum field of unlimited possibilities is to work out the  “hows’. It actually works that way no matter whether by default or by intention.  We have an opportunity to get out of the rut, get off the hamster wheel and color something new for ourselves and the world.  Have fun with it!

This concludes today’s message for Living A Life of Spiritual Power
Next week – "Claim Contentment" February 12th 6pm
Until then, Love, love and more love, Rev. D

“Here's to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently. They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them. Because they change things.
They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.”
~Rob Siltanen