How Spirituality Makes Life a Purpose-Filled Journey (Part 2 of 2)

In the previous sensory balance post we began a two-part exploration of how the third of our four inner senses—spirituality—helps us imbue our experiences with meaning. Here are my additional thoughts on the sense of spirituality.

Reiki is a form of mindfulness-based energy work focused on enhancing life experience in all areas. It reduces stress, increases relaxation, fuels creativity, and fosters healing. I liken Reiki to a form of energetic mindfulness meditation or prayer with the Reiki practitioner serving as a consecrated channel for the flow of spiritually guided Universal Source energy to support insight, healing, and empowerment.

Though as a master teacher, I offer Reiki meditation programs, treatment sessions, and classes that train and attune others in the practice of Reiki, my primary focus is “walking the Reiki path.” That journey is eclectic, intuitive, and trans-denominational. As such, my responsibility is to keep myself free of fear as a clear channel for Divine love and light. In that sacred space, I always, and in all ways, facilitate the revelation and advancement of the highest good for all, in all, through all.

While I hold great respect and gratitude for the Reiki tradition and symbols, for me, the “magic” doesn’t reside in either. The ability to facilitate physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual healing lies dormant in each one of us from birth, waiting for the moment when we are ready to “remember,” reclaim our power, and step into our greatness. Invoking the Reiki symbols reminds us to employ the full range of abilities that always dwells within each of us. Every time we do so, we return home to our innermost truth of wholeness characterized by love, respect, curiosity, compassion, gratitude, faith, hope, prosperity, peace, and joy.

When we are free of all fear and aligned with love as our Source, our very presence raises the constructive energy of every being and situation we encounter. To that end, I begin each day with an affirmations-based daily practice. You will find the complete script of my practice in the appendix. I share it to inspire you to develop your own personalized daily practice through which you clear yourself of all fear, realign your energy and intentions, and dedicate yourself as a clear channel for love and light, with the commitment to learn your lessons quickly and gently and help others do so as well. You will also find more information about the art of Reiki in the appendix.

In December 2011, after much study, reflection, and meditation, I chose to become an ordained minister. As a spiritual celebrant, I am licensed to officiate at civil and transdenominational spiritual services of all types. It is my particular honor to preside over celebrations of major life milestones and transitions such as birth, coming of age, graduation, relationship commitment, home blessing, healing, and end of life. Serving in this way is a natural complement to the partner, teacher, and guide roles I already embody as a life coach, author, and Reiki master teacher.

I was sent to be the unique and precious Deborah Jane Wells cocreative expression of The Divine. I am not here to be an imitation of someone else. I am not here to fix you or turn you into an imitation of me. In the inimitable words of Oscar Wilde, “Be yourself. Everyone else is already taken.”

This way of living is the antithesis of the kind of selfishness many of us were warned against in our youth. This way of living involves taking responsibility. When each person focuses on aligning herself with love, respect, curiosity, compassion, and gratitude, the world will exist in a state of generous, effortless, gracious flow filled with faith, hope, prosperity, peace, and joy for all. While that may be my personal vision and mission, I also know it is very possible. I know it because as a life coach, author, and Reiki master teacher, I get to experience firsthand every day the dramatic transformation that unconditional love manifests in the lives of individuals who are becoming their own unique and precious cocreative expressions of the Divine. When love transforms your relationship with yourself, it can’t help but transform your personal life, your work, and the world. I know it. I see it. I live it.

When I remember who I am and Whose I am and focus my attention and intention on who I am being, what I think, feel, say, and do naturally aligns with the highest good. When I do not, it doesn’t. Before birth in human form, when we existed as pure Spirit, we knew this. Part of deciding to take human form involved agreeing to forget this truth for a time so that we could experience remembering it again as we made our journeys back to the wholeness from whence we came. All of the wisdom and courage we seek is embedded deep within our Divine Essence. Every time we choose fear rather than love, we strengthen the barrier between what we know at our core and how we are choosing to show up. Years of fear-based living can produce a seemingly insurmountable impediment to accessing our truth.

You may be skeptical, “If she believes all of this, how did she end up obese with a decade of severe clinical depression?” The short answer is that, when I forgot what I knew, it took me a while to remember. Otherwise smart people are sometimes slow to embrace emotional and spiritual truths. I’m living proof that academic excellence combined with considerable drive, intellect, and creative gifts does not automatically produce wisdom. In my case, I believe all that ability and accomplishment may have proven one of my greatest barriers. While I always believed that my gifts were Divinely Sourced and I had a robust spiritual practice for many years of my life, I still thought I was making it all happen and, most destructive of all, that my worthiness was based on the quality of my productivity and performance. When I finally encountered an external standard I could not figure out and could not meet no matter how hard I tried, it nearly destroyed me.

Being an overachiever, I tried overdoing a variety of things in a vain attempt to numb myself from the pain of failure and distract myself a while longer from finding the truth, which is that each of us is Divinely Sourced in love and therefore utterly and completely worthy in every moment no matter what we believe or how we’re performing. Many of the world’s great spiritual traditions share this same essential truth in a variety of ways: the Kingdom of Heaven is within.

I overworked—no vacations for years at a time. I overdid shopping, eating, drinking, and talking. I proved especially adept at overcollecting all manner of objects, my most impressive being a collection of more than two thousand Barbie dolls, complete with twenty different fully outfitted doll dwellings. That particular example was a failed attempt to recapture joy by re-engaging in a joy-filled aspect of my childhood. Because I needed to find some joy, I needed it desperately. By the time I donated my beloved Barbies and all my other collections to charities for auctions, I was hanging on to life by the skin of my teeth. My major challenge each day was to find a reason to go on living.

Sometimes, when we get stuck in habit, ego, or despair, we need to be worn down and broken open to get it. Fortunately, the Universe is more wise, creative, persistent, and loyal than I am, even on my best day. When I didn’t rediscover my truth via the first one million transmissions, the Universe didn’t give up on me. It just upped Its game and kept right on transmitting until I was finally ready to listen, remember, and respond with clarity concerning why I am here and how I choose to live.

To help me gain greater clarity concerning what it means when I affirm that I know who I am and Whose I am, I developed a highly personal statement of intentions comprising selected affirmations that succinctly express my core values and purpose. I share it in the appendix to inspire you to develop your own intentions based on your values and purpose. Just as the affirmations themselves remain dynamic and open to expansion and refinement, so too does the selection of which affirmations are included in the statement of intentions.

My statement is posted over my desk, in my kitchen, and next to the bathroom mirror—places where I tend to linger over tasks and benefit from the opportunity to remind myself of my core beliefs and motivations. In particularly stressful situations, I recite a relevant item from the list. Other times I read the entire list aloud as an overall reminder. I encourage you to experiment with developing your own deeply meaningful intentions and ways of using them to support you on your journey to wholeness.