By Lisa Cedrone
When we look within, we can find our true path—the one that will lead us to the perspectives necessary to expand our consciousness.
There are as many different ways to experience and define the world around us—our reality—as there are people on planet Earth. That’s a lot of viewpoints!
When we stop judging others and relying upon external sources to provide all the answers, we have the opportunity to look within to seek personal truth. Here we can find our own unique spiritual script, the one we helped write for ourselves at a higher level to provide the necessary life experiences and vantage point to allow our consciousness to evolve.
In the field of journalism, we call this the angle of the story. As a writer, one needs to go out and collect information on a subject and then funnel it into a story from a purposeful and engaging perspective. During the learning curve to become a good journalist, many suffer from “kitchen sink syndrome.” They gather a large mountain of information and then feel that every tidbit should be included in the story—“everything but the kitchen sink.” What results is a body of work that rambles in so many directions that it never reaches a destination—a logical conclusion. The skilled writer, on the other hand, knows that less is more—when that less is a wealth of wisdom carefully mined from that mountain of facts, statistics and information. And a lot of blood, sweat and tears goes into the process behind the scenes.
Successfully crafting our own spiritual journey is much like learning the ropes to become a seasoned journalist. As a seeker of enlightenment—one undertaking a pilgrimage to understand the true nature of reality and how we co-create within it to accomplish our mission in life—we often become overwhelmed with options, opinions, rituals and instructions.
It’s a vast universe of information to explore—one growing exponentially thanks to the global reach of the Internet—and engaging in the research process also puts us at risk of developing “kitchen sink syndrome.” Perhaps we keep adding spiritual books to our library until it becomes so overwhelming that we cannot decide which ONE contains the instructions, or path, we should follow. There is always another source out there to evaluate, so we become perpetual seekers paralyzed from gathering data until our brain is filled to capacity with—you guessed it—everything but the kitchen sink. At this point, we can become confused and disconnected from the higher power guiding us (our soul, Higher Self, superconscious, God, guides, or whatever name we use). We may start to think that the answer is out there, instead of within our heart center.
So how do we find our true path—the one that will culminate in the perspectives necessary to expand our consciousness?
Albert Einstein reveals the answer for us: “The only source of knowledge is experience.”
We can read and learn about spiritual paths, but until we actually walk one with integrity we will not step from darkness into the light of Spirit.
Don’t get me wrong: I am a strong advocate of comparative studies; it’s how I found my own personal truth. I needed to objectively evaluate many traditions to gain a personal understanding of how our universe operates and our purpose within it—but this was only my primer.
To truly achieve positive, life-changing results, I had to wholeheartedly engage in applying these fundamental spiritual teachings in a way that agreed with my deep heartfelt beliefs and leave behind the voices of others echoing through my mind.
What happened when I did this? I was able to evolve from disinterested agnostic to an appreciator of the human Spirit and the Divine. I stopped focusing on what I thought was wrong with every spiritual path and started finding the common threads that remained when I looked beyond cultural idiosyncrasies and dogma.
No doubt, I needed this exercise to find a personal faith that would allow me to walk a path of direct spiritual experience. The important point here is to stand in your own integrity and find your own truth within. Nobody else can do it for you.
Lisa Cedrone currently serves as the editor of Transformation Coaching Magazine and was the executive director of the C. G. Jung Society of Sarasota from 2016 until 2022. She is a mentor and teacher with a passion for sharing the experience, strength and hope from her own life-changing near-death experience and recovery journey. Lisa also spent 15 years as an editor and editor-in-chief for two of the largest business-to-business publishers in the United States. Her universal worldview changed following a profound near-death experience in 2002, during which she was given the opportunity to come back to our world and finish her learning journey in this life. For more information, email Lisa at Lisa@DragonFlyNation.com or visit https://www.DragonFlyNation.com.