Keep it Real

I have finally found my mantra for the year. Every year I write down a quote or something by which I aim to live. I write it in the front of my diary as a constant reminder of my intention to effect change within myself.

Now you're probably laughing because we are halfway through the year, but for me, my New Year is the day after my birthday, 17 April, so in effect I am only one month into my new year. 'May' always depicts strategising, refining old ways, discarding what hasn't served me and choosing new challenges for myself. It's a month of 'out with the old' and 'in with the new'.

I have been mulling over the balance between my physical journey and my spiritual one and wondering whether it isn't easier to cop out of all our earthly obligations and levitate off to another plain in super-spiritual mode. In spirit mode we have no earth bound duties or do we?

I don't know about you, but often I can be engaged in a light hearted conversation and I'll find myself wishing we were talking about something more meaningful, more spiritual. I very often find the daily chores of earth living tedious and repetitive with little meaning. I fantasise about being free of my earth body and all its entrapments.

Yet I am pulled in the other direction, having to shop and prepare balanced meals for my family, mother duties, wife duties, work and trying to instill good values into my two young men and glowing with pride when someone compliments me on what well mannered sons I have. Sometimes that rare praise is all it takes to bring me right back down to earth, to realise the importance of what this physical journey is all about. Life is a journey and not a guided tour.

We actually have to get stuck in waist deep and wade through the currents and whirlpools, sometimes swim across the current, other times just go with the flow. Perhaps we have to tramp hard to free ourselves of the thick mud or the sinking sand. Life is something that requires constant work, planning and strategising.

Isn't that what we chose when we decided to come back here?

Isn't it just the easy way out to try and find the escape route to spiritual pastures?

As much as I long for the freedom to just be floaty and free, I also enjoy the challenges that life places before me.

If we didn't exercise our physical bodies and challenge them with weights, we'd lose bone density. Similarly, if we don't get earthly emotional and mental challenges our spirits don't grow.

So this is how the payoff line from a popular beer commercial came to me.... KEEP IT REAL!

I giggle when I think of the geeky guy about to try on the red Speedo with his tall, dark angel standing beside him cautioning him to be real and stay in the present. I have to be honest with myself when I ask myself, "Am I real? Am I fulfilling my earthly requirements on this incredible journey or am I flitting between worlds?"

I definitely flit. When I am hankering after spirituality I am not real. I realise that when I am so spiritually connected (that I am dangling from the clouds), I am no worldly good to those around me. I do have obligations and commitments and chores which are my spiritual exercises and I need to focus on getting them right.

We do have an obligation to look after our physical bodies, care for those around us and be charitable.
These are our Spiritual exercises. After all we are Spirit beings having an Earthly experience.

So my prayer for us today is that we find meaning in our life journey. Let's not minimise any chore no matter how insignificant it may seem and

LET'S KEEP IT REAL!

from the heart

Nicolette