I had a 'truth ache' this week

I smelt a spiritual bypass

I feel fiery this morning. In Jeff Brown’s words, I’ve had a ‘truth ache’ the last few days! And listening to one of the Sacred Leader’s debriefs today allowed me to receive what this prodding and poking has wanted me to see.

I read a post this week by someone I know who was sharing gratitude at the realisation that he’s come to a place in his life where ‘acceptance of what is’ has become his makeup.

I smelt a spiritual bypass.

On one hand being in ‘acceptance of what is’ is absolutely necessary. If we are in judgment of what is, that inner and outer experience or circumstance that we are in judgment to has power over us. If we want to shift and transform anything, the first and necessary port of call is acceptance of what is.

But it doesn’t stop there.

If it does stop there, which is what I felt in that post, there is no agency to experience what that undesired circumstance is inviting us into in its contrasting reality and in the bigger picture.

At our first gathering of the new graduate program Sacred Leadership a few weeks ago, the key premise that we worked with was that there is fire and strength found in absolute vulnerability. Absolute vulnerability means absolute vulnerability - not pushing or rushing things away but being with all that is there to feel and acknowledge as uncomfortable as that is. And an acceptance of what is in this absolute vulnerability is vital. When I watched the sacred leader’s video this morning debriefing her week this is what she allowed herself to feel and that included significant overwhelm and discomfort.

But the buck doesn’t stop there. And if it did as I felt in my friend’s post, the strength and fire of what she would let in would be totally amiss.

Spiritual bypassers who have a dodgy relationship with ‘acceptance’ and ‘detachment’ lack fire. In fact they unconsciously redeem not the sacred power that is found on the other side of absolute vulnerability, but a sense of powerlessness. And the more they repeat this relationship, the more they find themselves in undesired situation after situation.

We don’t surrender to what is, to all the feelings, discomfort, overwhelm, uncertainty, doubt, confusion to lose our sense of agency. We surrender into it because inherent in this is a power not of the psychological kind, but a power that is sacred. This sacred power if you like has our soul’s purpose imprinted in its DNA. Encoded in it is who and what we are to experience in our fullest, most authentic selves. Encoded in it are the ripples of impact that organically flow by being our fullest, most authentic selves.

To receive this, trust and faith that there is a bigger picture unfolding is necessary and we can’t rush that either. And when it arrives, it is sweet.

When we were on safari in Kenya a month ago, we learnt so much from nature. As much as it hurt to watch the lions slowly kill a buffalo, there was no apology by the lion to do so. That moment of absolute vulnerability and death would feed not only the lions, but the hyenas, jackals and the vultures. We felt honoured that nature would show us the circle of life. That buffalo didn’t surrender into an acceptance of what his. He continued to fight for his life.

Whilst we don’t need to ‘fight’ for our lives, we are gifted with a sense of agency and powerfulness to ‘live’ the most meaningful life we’ve been offered to experience. It’s an active decision rather than a passive decision that we have the power to make. I have seen too many spiritual bypassers live a very limp, unrealised life on the endless merry go round of seeking. That is not the point of being here.

I was fuelled to write this blog on this Saturday morning. It does take the courage of a lion to live with this level of trust and faith. And most importantly it takes a decision to do so - the decision to not only be in acceptance of what is, but the decision to experience the fire and strength found through the experience of absolute vulnerability.

I trust that I wrote this because some of the readers needed to read this today.

Have a beautiful weekend.

Gisele

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