What does spiritual transformation actually mean? How do I get there? How do I expand and grow?
“All the Spiritual lessons you will ever need can be found in Nature.” Karunamayi
I am drawn into my garden this summer to tend my flowers, and I notice that some flowers are not blooming the way others are. So I give them more fertilizer, more water and pray for more sunshine.
After awhile, I notice that intervention has helped some plants, but not all. There is one particular plant that has no blooms and the leaves are beginning to curl up and wither. Suddenly the lesson comes in the form of a question. Do the roots have enough room to expand?
I begin to check and discover something interesting. When I dig deeper, layer by layer, I discover the truth. I remove the top layer, the beauty bark, which is used to cover up what’s underneath and make everything look good! The next layer down is weed barrier. It is used to prevent anything that I have not purposely planted, from growing. The weed barrier does prevent weeds from taking over and choking the plant; however, if it is too tight and the beauty bark is too thick, it can also prevent the nutrients and water from getting to the roots, thus killing the plant. When the beauty bark and weed barrier are so thick, these ultimately prevent the light from getting to the roots of the plant.
I begin to remove the weed barrier to discover that the roots of the plant have also been prevented from growing and expanding. They have become stunted due to the barrier and the beauty bark. As I remove the barrier, I begin loosening up the soil around the roots to give them more room to grow. Now I can fertilize, giving them the nutrients they need to expand and blossom. As the roots receive the proper nutrients, the leaves can receive the light and actually send this down to their roots for expanded support.
I water and wait to see the results. The results are amazing! Within just a few days, the leaves uncurl and are no longer withered. Then flower buds begin to appear and within a week, beautiful blossoms are showing with rich colors of deep purple.
So what can be learned from this in terms of how we can expand and grow? What is your beauty bark covering up? The beauty bark can represent the facades you may use to pretend things are just fine when underneath perhaps they aren’t. How much energy do you spend “covering up” what is just below the surface? Then deeper than that, what is your weed barrier? What do you cover up at an even deeper level to control the wildness within? Do you keep your true feelings repressed, only to then become depressed, withdrawn and nonproductive? What defenses do you use to keep people from supporting you?
True personal expansion involves removing the beauty bark, pulling back any barriers to expanded personal growth and allowing yourself to truly flourish. The most important lesson from this is that our roots represent our support system. If the support system is not strong or we don’t use it when we have it, then we wither and don’t blossom, just like the plants. When our root system – our support system – is strong, then we can receive all the nutrients we need to grow. This is the only way we can receive the light that is always available to us.
The personal transformation work that we do teaches us to dig deeper to discover what blocks us from flourishing in our personal as well as in our professional lives. It is powerful to look below the surface to discover who we really are and what we are truly capable of growing into. As we remove the beauty bark of our shadows (such as playing the good little girl or boy, the perfectionist, the know-it-all and other facades), we become more real and discover more energy to thrive. Through this work we learn to release many of the defenses (weed barrier) that were originally designed to keep perpetrators out but ended up keeping everyone out. With fewer defenses, we can open up to trust and to attracting people who really do want to love and support us.
This is spiritual transformation. Without the barriers and facades, we now recognize and trust our own spiritual connections. We recognize the light and can truly let it in.
Love, Diane Zimberoff
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