Spiritual Mentoring
Jan. 11th, 2008 09:57 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helwenWas thinking more on that spiritual mentoring thing that's part of the 2nd degree curriculum... was sorting through how things can be defined in different ways, and realized that spiritual mentoring isn't just answering questions about different religions (yeah, that's what I was doing in high school, oy). AODA studies can be good for getting you to think about things in different ways. I knew going in that my major stumbling block was going to be figuring out what different labels and names meant, what people mean when they're talking about something or other. I've never been a great one for separating things out and giving each thing a name. Besides, many things are actually more than one thing at the same time, because so many elements of life and living are interrelated in many different ways. Life really isn't well-suited to being put in a box.
Anyway, back to spiritual mentoring. It can be about advising and/or encouraging people to pursue what is true in their lives, instead of pursuing "security" or "the big paycheck". If you can attain some security, that's great, but it shouldn't be at the cost of living a life that makes sense to you, with which you can be thoroughly and completely happy. I tend to put myself in the category of cheerleader and fellow brainstormer as far as this goes, but I think it could be considered a type of spiritual mentoring. A life without hope for the future, without dreams, is not a spiritually fulfilled life.
A lot of folks will say, "well that's great, but how am I going to eat and keep a roof over my head while pursuing my dream life?" -- a very good question. And, maybe you have to work at a lousy job while figuring out how to attain your goals. But the important thing is to remember to make the time to work on what your future is going to be like.
Figure out what you can do right now. Can't have a farm yet? What about a small garden -- not the same scale, but you can experiment, discover at least some of what's involved, whether or not you can do it -- or which crops you have a gift for growing and and which ones you don't. Do research, read -- there are lots of good books out there, either for purchase or at the local library. There are organizations who want to help. Every state in the U.S. has a Cooperative Extension, whose purpose in life is to help people trying to grow plants and/or raise animals. This research will help train you for your future, and will also help to keep your dream alive.
It's the same with writing -- there are books out there, poetry or story-writing groups (local or online), magazines and web sites for submitting stories to (just ask![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
hyperbard, who does a lot of stuff online, ellid, who's had articles published and is off to do research for a paper and eventual books, and of course a couple other friends of mine in Oregon, who have a number of books out). There is a lot people can do without much money.
And of course, it's the same with any goal. The ones worth having are usually harder to get -- you should see the goals that L and I have :D
The problem with personal life goals, at least for a number of folks I know, is that what they want to attain doesn't fall into standard careers. The problem being that now you're working with less (or no) net to catch you. Darn scary for most folks, and why not?
When I left Jenzabar years ago to do more with artwork and figure out what else I wanted to do, I had a safety net of sorts, that L had a job -- but he wanted to leave too (boredom will do that), so we had to have some kind of income. He started working as a contractor for one of his brothers, and after a few months I found a decent temp agency. Office jobs generally bore me, but temping meant a regular change of scene, which made it more bearable. And I actually enjoyed working at some of them, because there are good folks everywhere. But even that safety net wasn't much of a net at times -- we went into it knowing that we'd be cutting our income by 25-30%, and only so much of it could be compensated for by reducing our commute, cooking at home, etc. There were times when L was out shopping for contracts because his brother's company wasn't getting enough of them -- times were pretty tight for C and his family too.
A funny thing happened though -- because we were open to opportunities, opportunities appeared. We left our old jobs holding onto the belief (sometimes fervently prayed on) that things would work out. One of L's contracts literally happened because he ran into someone he used to work for, in a parking lot. They chatted a bit, caught up on things a little, exchanged contact information. Come Y2K programming time, he got the contract to check their work and make sure things would work out (and troubleshoot when there was a hitch over New Year's -- it's lots of people like L that are the reason Y2K wasn't a "big deal"). You see, they were still using the programs he'd written for them, 15 years before.... and that work led to other projects for that company.
As for me, I learned a lot about how to have a quality life on very little money, including redecorating and renovating things on the house (we have stuff, and I'm good at making things and re-purposing things). We became less attached to outside entertainments like movies, and I think that's just fine. We tried out merchanting for a year or so, and decided that it wasn't the life for us -- we still sell at Birka and the local craft fair, but I hate the travelling and packing and toting. What we love is sharing the things we make and the stories behind them. We usually make a little bit at Birka, but if we had to pay ourselves an hourly wage, I expect it would be break-even at best.
Happiness was re-defined during this time. Daily thankfulness for food on the table and a roof over our heads, fairly decent health, taking the time to enjoy nature in all its wonder, walks around the neighborhood, company of friends, weeding in the garden, and more.
L and I always had a good time together, but when our old company merged with several others and our jobs changed, that shook us out of our comfortable life. The quiet dissatisfaction with our lives as they were had been growing, and the merger brought it out with a roar. The simple happinesses of life are important, but we'd fallen behind on our larger goals, distracted by the 'wonders' of the modern life. He's always wanted to move back to the country, so we started the long trail toward that goal. And while we still aren't at our final destination, we are a lot closer than we were.
It's been good getting used to doing more for ourselves, eating better, requiring less. We're not suffering from the changes we've made and we'll be tightening the belt more this year. If we want the big prize, we're going to have to save a lot of money. We still have our SCA obligations, and there are still some books I'd like to get for the library, maybe see a few movies -- and of course there's the internet, at least for now.
But there are other things we can and will reduce. And, we have research to do, on how to accomplish our goals. Because we'll need help. Buying a farm takes a lot of money, and you can't buy just any piece of land, it has to have certain basic features or you won't succeed.
In the meantime, while we haven't achieved the material goal of a farm, we do have most everything we could want as far as what's important to the health of our spirits. We aren't exactly where we might like to be as far as fitness, better harmony with nature, skills that would be more in line with the type of lives we'd like to live, but we are in the process.
And really, I think that's what's important to think about and do something about. Learning to be in harmony with yourself. Not easy, usually something has to be given up, the couch of denial is no longer yours once you make the decision to start down your chosen path.
The good part is that once you start down that trail, being mindful and seeking with determination, you get to replace whatever was given up with new and better gifts.
My two cents,
H
(btw, I don't claim to be an expert of any kind, but if you want to brainstorm, get help finding stuff, or just a little cheering up, feel free to drop me a line. That's my favorite kind of cheerleading -- and thank goodness I have friends who cheer me on!)
Anyway, back to spiritual mentoring. It can be about advising and/or encouraging people to pursue what is true in their lives, instead of pursuing "security" or "the big paycheck". If you can attain some security, that's great, but it shouldn't be at the cost of living a life that makes sense to you, with which you can be thoroughly and completely happy. I tend to put myself in the category of cheerleader and fellow brainstormer as far as this goes, but I think it could be considered a type of spiritual mentoring. A life without hope for the future, without dreams, is not a spiritually fulfilled life.
A lot of folks will say, "well that's great, but how am I going to eat and keep a roof over my head while pursuing my dream life?" -- a very good question. And, maybe you have to work at a lousy job while figuring out how to attain your goals. But the important thing is to remember to make the time to work on what your future is going to be like.
Figure out what you can do right now. Can't have a farm yet? What about a small garden -- not the same scale, but you can experiment, discover at least some of what's involved, whether or not you can do it -- or which crops you have a gift for growing and and which ones you don't. Do research, read -- there are lots of good books out there, either for purchase or at the local library. There are organizations who want to help. Every state in the U.S. has a Cooperative Extension, whose purpose in life is to help people trying to grow plants and/or raise animals. This research will help train you for your future, and will also help to keep your dream alive.
It's the same with writing -- there are books out there, poetry or story-writing groups (local or online), magazines and web sites for submitting stories to (just ask
hyperbard, who does a lot of stuff online, ellid, who's had articles published and is off to do research for a paper and eventual books, and of course a couple other friends of mine in Oregon, who have a number of books out). There is a lot people can do without much money.And of course, it's the same with any goal. The ones worth having are usually harder to get -- you should see the goals that L and I have :D
The problem with personal life goals, at least for a number of folks I know, is that what they want to attain doesn't fall into standard careers. The problem being that now you're working with less (or no) net to catch you. Darn scary for most folks, and why not?
When I left Jenzabar years ago to do more with artwork and figure out what else I wanted to do, I had a safety net of sorts, that L had a job -- but he wanted to leave too (boredom will do that), so we had to have some kind of income. He started working as a contractor for one of his brothers, and after a few months I found a decent temp agency. Office jobs generally bore me, but temping meant a regular change of scene, which made it more bearable. And I actually enjoyed working at some of them, because there are good folks everywhere. But even that safety net wasn't much of a net at times -- we went into it knowing that we'd be cutting our income by 25-30%, and only so much of it could be compensated for by reducing our commute, cooking at home, etc. There were times when L was out shopping for contracts because his brother's company wasn't getting enough of them -- times were pretty tight for C and his family too.
A funny thing happened though -- because we were open to opportunities, opportunities appeared. We left our old jobs holding onto the belief (sometimes fervently prayed on) that things would work out. One of L's contracts literally happened because he ran into someone he used to work for, in a parking lot. They chatted a bit, caught up on things a little, exchanged contact information. Come Y2K programming time, he got the contract to check their work and make sure things would work out (and troubleshoot when there was a hitch over New Year's -- it's lots of people like L that are the reason Y2K wasn't a "big deal"). You see, they were still using the programs he'd written for them, 15 years before.... and that work led to other projects for that company.
As for me, I learned a lot about how to have a quality life on very little money, including redecorating and renovating things on the house (we have stuff, and I'm good at making things and re-purposing things). We became less attached to outside entertainments like movies, and I think that's just fine. We tried out merchanting for a year or so, and decided that it wasn't the life for us -- we still sell at Birka and the local craft fair, but I hate the travelling and packing and toting. What we love is sharing the things we make and the stories behind them. We usually make a little bit at Birka, but if we had to pay ourselves an hourly wage, I expect it would be break-even at best.
Happiness was re-defined during this time. Daily thankfulness for food on the table and a roof over our heads, fairly decent health, taking the time to enjoy nature in all its wonder, walks around the neighborhood, company of friends, weeding in the garden, and more.
L and I always had a good time together, but when our old company merged with several others and our jobs changed, that shook us out of our comfortable life. The quiet dissatisfaction with our lives as they were had been growing, and the merger brought it out with a roar. The simple happinesses of life are important, but we'd fallen behind on our larger goals, distracted by the 'wonders' of the modern life. He's always wanted to move back to the country, so we started the long trail toward that goal. And while we still aren't at our final destination, we are a lot closer than we were.
It's been good getting used to doing more for ourselves, eating better, requiring less. We're not suffering from the changes we've made and we'll be tightening the belt more this year. If we want the big prize, we're going to have to save a lot of money. We still have our SCA obligations, and there are still some books I'd like to get for the library, maybe see a few movies -- and of course there's the internet, at least for now.
But there are other things we can and will reduce. And, we have research to do, on how to accomplish our goals. Because we'll need help. Buying a farm takes a lot of money, and you can't buy just any piece of land, it has to have certain basic features or you won't succeed.
In the meantime, while we haven't achieved the material goal of a farm, we do have most everything we could want as far as what's important to the health of our spirits. We aren't exactly where we might like to be as far as fitness, better harmony with nature, skills that would be more in line with the type of lives we'd like to live, but we are in the process.
And really, I think that's what's important to think about and do something about. Learning to be in harmony with yourself. Not easy, usually something has to be given up, the couch of denial is no longer yours once you make the decision to start down your chosen path.
The good part is that once you start down that trail, being mindful and seeking with determination, you get to replace whatever was given up with new and better gifts.
My two cents,
H
(btw, I don't claim to be an expert of any kind, but if you want to brainstorm, get help finding stuff, or just a little cheering up, feel free to drop me a line. That's my favorite kind of cheerleading -- and thank goodness I have friends who cheer me on!)
