The Divine

Tiny Little Steps

Sligathly — Sat, 25 Sep 2021 14:10:06 +0000

Every day there are new people joining us on the spiritual life path. These are wonderful new souls excited and full of wonder at the opportunities laid out along the path far beyond where they can see. Most of these newcomers have a reason for joining the path. Maybe some sadness, pain, or trauma. Maybe they fell in love and want to join in the practices with their significant other. Whatever the reason, all new people quickly reach a question…

What do I do?

It seems like such a simple question with what should be such a simple answer.

However this is not the case for most newcomers. Newcomers are bombarded with all this information about spirit guides, and the akashic records, and astral traveling, astrology, tarot, oracle, scrying…. It’s enough to make an expert’s head spin!

So for the newcomer who is genuinely interested in the path and seeking a way to move forward, we offer this simple advice.

Take tiny little steps.

You see, the spiritual path is lit up from the light within each of us. You have that light in you right now! The fact that you are here, the fact that you are starting on the journey, that is light!

At first, our light is small. Like a single candle, only the darkness just next to you is illuminated as you walk. Take tiny little steps into the area you can see. Maybe start the 10 second project and add the meditation practice to your day. 10 seconds is not a lot of time and is a small step inside the area you can see. It is not this giant leap to leaving your body and learning the ultimate truth of the universe…. It is a small step you can take to grow that light within yourself and illuminate more of the path.

Whichever step you decide to take, whether that be meditation, oracle cards, affirmations, tarot, or any other piece of the spiritual path, remember to take it slow at first. There is a reason all spiritual masters are old people. It takes much time, dedication, and consistency to grow our inner light to the size of a master. Many new spiritual path walkers want to jump from day one to master overnight. This is not possible. Take tiny little steps and you will too be seen as a master on this path. It is the childish youth who take leaps and bounds when moving forwards to try and see ahead and move faster. The wise older generations pick their steps with care and stay sure footed knowing they will get to their destination.

10 Second Project

Sligathly — Sat, 25 Sep 2021 14:09:11 +0000

Have you ever wanted to meditate but were not sure how to get started? Maybe you know how to meditate but sitting still and quiet for a long time is impossible? For anyone who has been having trouble getting into the quiet meditations, this one’s for you!

The 10 second project is a year long process of going from not meditating to a full hour per day.

This process is simple!

Every day, you set a timer and sit down, close your eyes, and focus on your breath for the duration of the time.

Day 1: 10 seconds.

Day 2: add 10 seconds to 20 seconds

Day 3: add 10 seconds to 30 seconds

And so on and so forth!

After doing this every day you will have meditated OVER AN HOUR at the end of the first month.

By the end of month 2, 10 minutes per day

By the end of month 6, 15 hours of meditation time under your belt.

And at the end of the first year, you will have completed over 92 HOURS of meditation!

Practice anything for 92 hours and then tell me you are no good at it lol!

If you have any questions, comments, or would like a community of support on your meditation journey, join us HERE.

What is Shadow Work

Sligathly — Thu, 26 Aug 2021 17:52:51 +0000

Shadow work is a phrase that is used a lot these days in the spiritual community. We all want to do it! Shadow work is supposed to help get rid of all those negative emotions and feelings buried deep in the shadows of your past. It brings you to a place where you feel light and energetic! A place where you feel like you are ready to take on the world and the little things don’t bother you.

We have all seen these people. Those which exude happiness. The ones who are always bubbly and smiling. Maybe we don’t want to get to the point where we annoy everyone with our year round christmas spirit… but I certainly want to feel happier and less annoyed every day. Don’t you?

So what exactly IS shadow work?

Shadow work is the process of examining and integrating your emotions into your present and future growth.

Or in small words for people like me… shadow work is finding a way to make peace with all the icky stuff inside.

Now how do we do that?

1) Spend time reflecting on and examining your emotions.

This is the first step because we cannot work on things that we cannot see. To find your emotions try these activities:
Think of a time when you were being criticized.
Think of a time when you were unfairly blamed for something.
Think of a time when someone close to you was unexpectedly upset.
Think of a time when you judged yourself.

With each of these memories, take note of your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, and any physical sensations (tight muscles, tingling, warmth or cold, etc.)

Once you can identify your emotions, we can start working with them!

2) Ask for the perspective of others

Oftentimes we see ourselves one way, but others see us another way. This is not about being right or wrong, but simply being able to see and acknowledge different points of view. Having this broader view of ourselves is incredibly important when integrating our emotions as it gives us an opportunity to step outside ourselves and get a bird’s eye view of the situation.

Start with people you know and trust. Maybe a long term friend, significant other, or family member. Ask them to tell you about their experience when you were going through an emotional time. A few example questions are:

How did I act/treat you during this time?
Did I seem to be sensitive to your feelings and emotions?
Did I act out of the ordinary? And how?

Getting the perspective of another person allows you to relate to yourself in a new way that is impossible from your own internal experience.

3) Observe

After spending some time working with the past, it becomes time to work with the present. Start using the new insights and understandings you learned about yourself and your emotions in the first two steps to observe your feelings and emotions as they arise in daily life. This new perspective will help you change and direct how your thoughts and emotions flow through you.

4) Add space to your life

Now that you have begun to observe the feelings and emotions that come up in your daily life, add a bit of space between the emotion and your response. Simply take a moment or two to let yourself feel and process the emotion which has come up, with no judgement. This space allows us to change reactions into responses and is the first major milestone on the shadow work journey.

As your emotions come up, ask yourself a couple of these questions:
Where do I feel the emotion in my body?
What is the name of this emotion?
Have I had this emotion before?

Asking these questions creates space between you and your emotions.

5) Understand why

The most visibly transformative part of shadow work is understanding why. This is the point in the shadow work process which everyone is trying to reach! When we understand why we feel the way we do, we gain the power to choose our actions. Up until now, we have been reacting and examining those reactions. Once you understand why, you choose your actions when emotions arise and that choice is called a response.

When you see people who never react to negativity, this is the step they have mastered. These people understand why they have the feelings they have and respond to those feelings in a way that makes the rest of us stare in awe.

To master this skill, take everything you have done up to this point in the shadow work, and lay it all out in front of you. Here you are creating a space between everything you feel, do, and think, so that you, the you that is behind all the other stuff, can play detective and understand what is going on below the surface.

Examine each piece of the puzzle individually. Really take your time and study it.
Then study how each piece fits together.

We call this process “shining light on the shadows”.

As you learn more and more about the puzzle, there will be more and more light shining upon the pieces. When they have been brightened enough, they naturally leave the shadows and integrate into your growth as tools which allow you to guide and control your thoughts, feelings and actions.

6) Practice!

The final step of shadow work is to practice. Keep doing shadow work on a regular basis. The more you practice, the easier it becomes and the faster you will shine light into the unconscious darkness.

If you follow these 6 steps, your shadow work journey will be one of continuous growth and expansion leading you to a happier and brighter life!

What Fire Teaches Us About Life

Sligathly — Sat, 21 Aug 2021 18:27:36 +0000

People have wondered, “Sligathly, why do you always start the fires on top of the coals of the previous fire?”

The fires are always started on the coals of the previous fire to demonstrate a very desirous life principle.

When building a fire, it is helpful to have used coals as these start burning very easily and continue to put out heat for a long time. Just like starting a fire, starting a life is much easier when the previous generation has given us a way to start off quickly, or “with a head start” if that is how you’d like to say it.

This requires a conscious effort with the previous generation.

At the end of every fire, if we were to simply let the coals burn themselves out, we would have no coals to help with the next one. So to have the ability to easily light a fire again, we must take steps to preserve the coals at the end of each fire. To do this we follow simple steps.

These same steps can be used to preserve the knowledge, learning, and understanding of a previous generation to help the next.

First we choose when the end will come. This is a conscious choice, not an accident.

Then we make sure there are enough resources to last until the chosen time with the required amount for helping the next generation. When we are talking about a fire, we must make sure there is enough wood to continue burning until the end, but not so much that it cannot be turned to coals before being extinguished.

When speaking about humans, we want to preserve enough of what we have accumulated to give the next generation what they need, however too much can be more of a burden than a help just as a large piece of wood is a burden to lighting a fire.

Once we have ensured that there are enough resources to complete the current goals, and just enough will be left for the next generation, we complete our time and move on to the next activity. With a fire, this means simply pouring water over the coals to extinguish the flames.

With humans, it means reaching a point where we stop the main tasks of our lives and simply start to do after life activities. We give what is necessary to the next generation. We use up the extra resources we have. We make sure that we are comfortable and happy. Then we settle down and relax for the remainder of our days focusing on the opportunities that are coming.

The last principle this process teaches us is that of remembering the old without causing harm for the future.

With the fire, each time we light the coals, that generation is gone. It only lasts to help the fire immediately after it. We remember the many many fires that have been built in the pit as this is what gives the overall character to the fire pit, but the actual coals all disappear each time we light a new fire.

Similarly, we ought to remember the many many people and processes that have happened. This is what we call “culture”. But to try and hold on to the past for many generations will only cause struggle and make a mess. Think about the coals of the fire. If we were to try and keep coals from the original fire to light every other fire, it would need to be a lot of coals for one, and for two, it would make quite the mess for whoever is tasked with safeguarding them. And more complications arise from that.

With humans though, we have a tendency to try and hold on to what that one person from two or three thousand years ago said. It gets passed down from generation to generation getting messier and messier, losing the original context and becoming less and less helpful. Exactly as lumps of coal would do.

The fire teaches us to remember the original fire. It teaches us to hold onto the practices which were started generations ago. And it teaches us to let them be in the past, growing what we can during the present, and preparing the way for the future.

Following these life lessons, is a way to grow society generation after generation while making great strides to keep the fires of our lives burning strong and vibrant forever.

The Goal of Meditation

Sligathly — Thu, 12 Aug 2021 14:29:15 +0000

As we have discussed previously, meditation is “focusing your mind for a moment”.

But why?

What is the goal of focusing your mind for a moment?

Unfortunately, the full understanding of the answer will only come once you have practiced, however, we can get an idea from other experiences.

When people start meditating, they do it for a variety of reasons. There is usually an end goal in mind at the start.

But then we have to back up for a moment and ask ourselves “are we ready to reach the end?”

The answer for most of us is no. And that is ok! So far, there are claims of 2 people who have reached the end goal of meditation. Buddha himself, and Jesus Christ. No one else even claims to have gotten there.

So then what are we doing with meditation?

We are laying the groundwork!

If you want to do anything in life, you first need to lay the groundwork and put in the mundane daily effort to get to where you NEED to be, so you can go where you WANT to be.

This starts with learning how to focus and becoming an expert at it.

In hockey, do they teach how to shoot a goal, or how to hold the stick first?

In driving, do they teach you how to set the gps, or how to use the gas and brake pedals first?

When learning to paint, do you learn the fine details of the masters, or how to hold a brush first?

Most people get into meditation seeing the masters in their meditative state. A great example of this is the Shaolin monks! In their meditative state, these incredible human beings are able to do superhuman feats like take a spear to the throat!!!

But they did not start there. These are people who have mastered the skill of focusing and then have directed that skill to a specific task. The same as a hockey player who masters control of the puck so they can score a goal. The same as the race car driver who mastered the gas brake and steering so they can drive at 200 mph safely. The same as Leonardo da Vinci mastered the brush stroke before painting the last supper.
Now it is time for you to master the skill of focusing so that you can direct it to achieve your goals.

That is the goal of meditation. It is not to calm anxieties, it is not to quiet the mind (this is impossible so don’t even try), it is not to look hip on instachat or snapogram. The goal of meditation is to perfect your ability to focus.

The secret to happiness

Sligathly — Fri, 08 May 2020 21:00:57 +0000

What is happiness? How do we achieve being happy? Why do so many people seem to seek happiness and can never find it?

To understand where the happiness problem comes from we first need to look at the definitions of a few words. (definitions used are from oxford)

Let’s start with happiness.

Happiness- the state of being happy. Okay, so what is being happy?

Happy– feeling or showing pleasure or contentment.

Oh… this is going to take a minute.

Pleasure- a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment.

Contentment– a state of happiness and satisfaction.

Satisfaction- fulfillment of one’s wishes, expectations, or needs, or the pleasure derived from this.

Enjoyment- the state or process of taking pleasure in something. OR the action of possessing and benefiting from something.

So with all these definitions we find that happiness is achieved in 2 different ways.

The first is automatic and you have little to no control over it. Happy is feeling pleasure, pleasure is feeling enjoyment, and one of the definitions of enjoyment is simply benefiting from the possession of something.

For example, I possess and benefit from lungs. This means I get “enjoyment” from my lungs, which, by definition, means that I get pleasure from them, and thus causes me to be happy, by definition.

So technically, everyone is happy at all times unless they are currently dying.

If “by definition” is not the type of happiness you came to this article to read about, let’s talk about the second way happiness is achieved. (If it is, congrats! You just finished reading)

The second way to achieve happiness is through satisfaction. The “fulfillment of one’s wishes, expectations, or needs, or the pleasure derived from this.”

The obvious answer to how to achieve this is by collecting things that fulfill your wishes, needs, and expectations. And yet there are so many people who have everything in the world and are still not happy. Why is that?

The simple answer is because expectations, wishes, and needs change over time. As we have one wish met, another is waiting to be thought of. When someone meets our expectations, we create more expectations. And when we have all of our needs met, we grow as a person creating more needs for us to have fulfilled. It is an endless cycle.

The less obvious answer requires a bit more thought to understand.

If being happy requires that my wishes, expectations, and needs be fulfilled, unhappiness, requires wishes, desires, and needs.

If we are able to eliminate our wishes, expectations, and needs, we will eliminate the pieces necessary to be unhappy. Once unhappiness is eliminated, all that will remain is happy.

It sounds a little backwards, but let’s use an analogy to better understand how this works.

Happiness is like a dark room. Unhappiness would be the opposite of that, or a lit up room.

We have wishes, expectations and needs. Any one of these is enough to create unhappiness.

Imagine these as 3 lights. When we have wishes, expectations, and needs, the lights are all on. If we get our needs taken care of, it flips the switch to off. The room becomes darker, but there is still plenty of light. If we get our wishes taken care of, it switches off the second light. When our expectations are met, the third light goes off. And for a moment, we are in a dark room. This is our obvious answer. Get things to satisfy us. But we quickly find out that we need more food and water to satisfy our needs, so that light is always coming back on. As we grow we desire more things (knowledge, experience, companionship), so that light is always coming back on. And no one has enough information to accurately predict the future, so any expectations are sure to not be met sooner or later and that light will come on. This leads us to a never ending cycle of trying to turn off one light after another while prioritizing which light needs to be shut off first.

The less obvious option is that we can start unscrewing the light bulbs. When we learn to accept everything for what it is, we no longer have expectations. Mastery of this acceptance is the same as taking out the light bulb attached to that switch. With no light bulb, there is no light.

When we master loving everything that we have while not desiring anything we do not currently have, we unscrew the second light bulb.
This leaves us with our needs. Yes, this light will always continue to come on. We will always need to feed ourselves, wash ourselves and make sure we are safe from the elements, however we can minimize these needs through lowering our wishes and expectations. This allows us to stay in a much darker room on a regular basis.

So you see, happiness is not a process of achieving more and more to bring happiness to you. Happiness is always there, just like the dark room is always there…. We just need to turn off the lights of unhappiness to behold the happiness of the dark.