Category: Digging Deeper

Deeper Dive into Personal Integrity

For myself, I try always to self-examine and self-reflect when something gives me pause. It may come through world events, my spiritual journey, questions of personal integrity, or simply something that causes me to stop and wonder.

I have been doing some clearing lately, both internally and externally, and during this time something came up that caused me to reflect more deeply.

Someone left a simple comment on one of my posts:

“Actor?”

I didn’t understand what they meant, so I asked. I received no response.

Since I am always open to examining my words, what I share, and even my own integrity, I decided to explore the possibilities of what that question might mean.

Why?

Because when I share my journey, I try to be truthful about my experiences, my realizations, my faults, and even the places where I have struggled.

I do not always immediately succeed in aligning with or embodying a new understanding. I share that too, because I hope it helps others recognize that this is a process. We are not expected to suddenly become perfect because we have received a new realization. We are simply asked to do the best we can each day to live what we have come to understand.

So I asked myself:

Am I acting? Am I saying one thing while failing to do my best to embody the truths I share?

As I reflected, I knew the answer.

I am trying every day.

Some days I do better than others. Some days I recognize my misalignment quickly, while other times it takes longer.

But I am trying.

To me, that means I am not pretending to be something I am not. I am walking through the process of becoming more aligned with what I understand today to be true.

That brought me to another question: What does it mean to live in integrity with our truth?

I realized long ago that truth, as we understand it, can change.

Our truth is often relative to our experiences, beliefs, awareness, and resonance in a particular moment of our journey. What I understood as truth ten or twenty years ago may not be what I understand today.

We can become stagnant and refuse to consider other possibilities, or we can remain open and allow more to be revealed as our understanding deepens and our perspective expands.

I have shared this throughout my writings because my journey has continually changed me—and as I have changed, so has my understanding.

I do not expect anyone to believe as I do.

Each of us has to discover our own truth in the moment we are living. If we remain open to deeper understanding, new doors may open and reveal something we were not previously able to see.

I am on this journey with you.

I am not here to tell anyone what to believe or how their journey should unfold. I simply share some of what I experience and the possibilities I discover along the way, in case something within them might be helpful to someone else.

Then another thought arose.

Is the process of embodiment, in some ways, like being an actor?

Perhaps we first receive a “script” describing what it means to live as our Presence. Then we begin practicing the words, the qualities, and the way of Being until eventually they are no longer something we are consciously trying to remember.

They become part of us.

For instance, I have sometimes been given three virtues at a time to work with more deeply in my daily life.

That caused me to wonder:

Should I act more peaceful, more patient, or more allowing even when that is not what I am feeling inside?

The answer was not as simple as I first thought.

For me, it begins with mindfulness.

When I recognize that I am no longer peaceful or centered, I can consciously return to that inner place of stillness. From there, I can look at what has caused me to feel out of balance or out of alignment.

I can acknowledge it.

I can work with it.

I can clear what is ready to be released.

Then, as the energy shifts, I am able to return naturally to the flow.

Sometimes this happens quickly. Other times it takes considerably longer.

But I have realized that the transformation begins with the simple recognition:

I am out of alignment, and I choose to return.

Perhaps that is the difference between pretending to embody a virtue and practicing embodiment.

Pretending says, I must appear peaceful even though I am not.

Practice says, I recognize that I have moved away from peace, and I consciously choose to find my way back to it.

Eventually, through awareness, intention, and practice, what once required conscious effort begins to become our natural resonance.

We are no longer acting peaceful.

We have become more peaceful.

We are no longer acting patient.

Patience begins to live within us.

And perhaps that is how embodiment happens—not through perfection, but through returning again and again until what we practice becomes what we naturally express.

Another lesson I have been learning is not to judge myself so harshly when I fall out of alignment.

Judgment does not help me return.

Awareness does.

Compassion does.

The willingness to begin again does.

So after all of this reflection, I still have no idea what that person meant when they wrote, “Actor?”

But perhaps I no longer need to know.

I am grateful for the question because it caused me to pause, examine myself, and dive more deeply into my understanding of personal integrity and embodiment.

Sometimes even a question we do not understand can become a doorway.

I don’t know whether any of this will resonate with anyone else, but I share it for your own contemplation and discernment.

May your journey become a little lighter as you remember:

You are loved.
You are worthy.
You belong.

Keep moving along the path.

You do not have to see the entire journey from where you stand today.

The path will reveal itself as you walk it.

Healing, Clarity, and Resonance

“You have all the time in the world, but not a minute to waste.”

These were the words that began my day. I might have said “in the Universe” or “in Creation,” yet I think of what lies beyond this earthly experience as existing beyond time as we know it.

Then came the gentle direction:

Breathe, center, and listen.

Allow yourself to Be. Then write from that center.

I had been contemplating whether it was time to exit stage left, concentrate on my writing, and stop blogging. I asked within whether this was the path for me moving forward.

Over the past few years, I have shared my journey and experiences here so that others who are having doubts or feelings of unworthiness might recognize that they are not alone. My intention has never been to gather followers or suggest that my journey is the only way. It has been to share what I am discovering as we move through life together.

Sharing my truth and experiences has not always been easy. I have spoken before of what I call the “witch wound”—the fear of being seen, judged, or rejected for what I experience and express. It has taken courage to bring those parts of myself into the open. Yet that very sharing has become part of my healing, bringing greater clarity and a deeper alignment with my Presence.

Those who have read this blog for a while have seen me share choices that brought difficulty, as well as choices that opened the way to greater understanding. My experiences are unique to me, but something within them may help another person find their way through a struggle of their own.

Our choices influence how we experience the journey. They can help us recognize the resonance we hold and whether we feel aligned with the creative flow of Oneness. Each choice reflects where we are and what we are ready to explore in that moment.

We can choose again when a direction no longer serves us. Even then, the experience may have helped us learn, grow, or recognize a limitation we are ready to release.

I am learning to trust the timing of what unfolds while remaining attentive to my part in it. As I become clearer within myself, I may recognize an opportunity or understanding that I could not see before.

Healing, clarity, and resonance.

These are the deeper waters I have been exploring over the past couple of weeks. Earlier, I worked with grounding and Peace as the baseline. Patience, truth, and courage helped me stop striving and settle into the stillness where I could listen, align, and allow the flow.

Now I am seeing more clearly how that journey invites me to face the shadows and wounds that still ask for my attention. As I meet them with compassion, clarity becomes possible. Through that clarity, I experience a deeper resonance with my Presence and a greater openness to the flow.

Through it all, the remembrance remains:

We are always loved. We are always worthy. We belong within the Oneness, even when we cannot feel that connection.

Why do I return to certain thoughts again and again?

Because each time I meet a wound with understanding or release a limitation, a familiar truth can reveal another depth. The words may be the same, yet my capacity to understand and live them has changed. I share them again because someone else may also be ready to hear them differently.

Our wounds take different forms. One that many of us may recognize is the wound of abandonment. We may experience it as feeling alone, different, or somehow outside the circle of belonging. We may wonder whether something is wrong with us or whether we are worthy of love, care, and connection—with other people or with the Creator, however we understand that Presence.

In my spiritual understanding, this sense of separation relates to what I have called the veil of amnesia: the forgetting that accompanies our entry into earthly life. I see the journey of remembrance as an invitation to discover our creative power alongside the love and wisdom with which to use it.

Yet feeling separate does not mean we have ceased to belong.

The wounds we carry can cloud our recognition of that belonging. As we become ready to meet them, we may find greater clarity in our thoughts, emotions, our relationship with our bodies, and our spiritual understanding. We begin to experience greater harmony within ourselves and more freedom to Be.

This is a gentle unfolding. There is no need to judge ourselves for what still hurts or to force a release before we are ready. Our worthiness does not depend upon how much we have healed.

I am reminded of the petals of the Oversoul or Presence that I shared in the Gateway writings. We move along the spiral, stepping onto another petal, and sometimes arrive at a place much like a switchback on a mountain trail. From there, we can see both where we have been and something of the path ahead.

With this broader view, we may notice something on the trail below that asks for another look. We return to it with greater understanding and compassion before continuing onward. Revisiting something does not necessarily mean we have failed to heal it. We may now be able to meet it at a depth that was not available to us before.

So, I will continue sharing.

Perhaps something in my journey may still offer another person encouragement, recognition, or a moment of clarity. We are traveling together, seeing from different perspectives and moving at our own pace. This is not a competition.

I believe we each carry a teacher within. Still, it can help to hear another person say, “I have struggled here, too,” and share what they are beginning to understand.

Within someone else’s struggle, discovery, or moment of release, we may find a piece of the puzzle we have been seeking. And in sharing our own, we may offer that same gift.

Sometimes, knowing we are not alone gives us the courage to take the next step.