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Practicing from the Inside Out: Finding the Freedom of Spiritual Life

Practicing from the Inside Out: Finding the Freedom of Spiritual Life

Last updated on: May 1, 2017 at 3:20 am by Greg Richardson

Practicing from the Inside Out: Finding the Freedom of Spiritual Life 2017-05-01T03:20:18-08:00 Greg Richardson

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We do not like to feel constrained. Straining against what holds us back, what stops us, we push as hard as we can. As much as we might fight and struggle, we often find ourselves feeling stuck.

Where is the freedom we have been promised? We thought spiritual life was about being free, going beyond what constrains us. What holds us back?

Looking for the Freedom of Spiritual Life

Spiritual life draws us in, invites us to understand life in new ways. While various things may attract our initial attention, the power of spiritual life is its openness. We experience this power seeking us as we are desperately seeking it. We find it and we want more of it.

As we begin to ask questions and look for answers we often find ourselves being told what to do. It is easy for us to get caught up in a systematic way of seeing spiritual life.

We feel ourselves being pushed into being less spiritual as we are drawn into spiritual life.

We can begin to feel spiritual life is like buying a car. They present us with various features and extremely detailed numbers and expect to choose. Some brands are more dependable than others, while others have more style.

In many ways, it is the opposite of the freedom we are seeking. We feel more and more constrained and forget what attracted us in the first place.

Rules or Relationship?

Part of the challenge is we see spiritual life like any other product. We recognize we need something and we go out shopping for it. Often we choose the brand our family used when we were growing up. We believe we get what we pay for and we work our way up to a better brand. Our approach is not to pay too much and buy what we absolutely need.

We choose a brand and put it to work for us.

I was brought up to believe spiritual life was found in a set of rules. We were convinced ours was the correct set of the right rules, and other rules were wrong.

Spiritual life was about knowing and sharing our rules with other people. Some people had rules of their own which needed to be corrected. Others had not seriously considered their rules and needed to be persuaded about our rules.

Our rules were important because they showed us how to live. Some of them were confusing or complicated, but they were for our own good. We put a lot of time and effort into learning the rules.

Rules can be helpful places to start and often give us important guidance. They are powerful as means to an end, not as ends in themselves. We may depend on rules for structure and support, but we can grow beyond them. Rules give us a sense of tangible clarity, but they can also appear arbitrary or limiting.

Spiritual life is larger and more alive than rules.

Spiritual Life is a Relationship

While rules can give us boundaries and structure, relationships grow beyond them. Rules help us feel safe and relationships can be painful or dangerous.

Relationships teach us where we can bend the rules, and where they can be broken.

Rules show us how to control ourselves while relationships help us become free.

People try to make spiritual life easier to understand by giving us guidelines and rules. We look to the experience of the past to try to chart our course, to set our rules.

It can be a little intimidating to be drawn into a relationship with deep, Sacred truth. It can attracts us and frighten us at the same time. There is tremendous power in spiritual life which can overwhelm us. We can feel lost in the power and the truth and begin to see ourselves as alone.

Spiritual life is a relationship which allows us to explore our deepest selves. It shows us how to turn our attention from distractions and fears to face ourselves. Spiritual life opens us to the truth all around us and the truth within us.

We begin to discover the freedom of spiritual life.

Finding the Freedom of Spiritual Life

Spiritual life opens our eyes and we begin to see things as they are. We are not bound by rules and expectations but living in a deep, sacred relationship. Each day, each moment has lessons and insights for us to learn.

The freedom of spiritual life does not mean we have no more responsibilities. We may find ourselves free in ways we have never experienced before.

The freedom of spiritual life does not mean we have super powers. It means we can become completely human, completely ourselves.

We may still struggle, though we will struggle at a new, deeper level.

Rather than following detailed rules, we are drawn to be true to the relationship of spiritual life. We are not constrained by what we are supposed to do. We are to behave in accordance with love.

Spiritual life fills us and teaches us to live with love. We learn by example, not by following complicated sets of rules.

Remembering We Can Soar

There are places deep within us where we push rules away. Our deepest selves understand the ways rules cannot help us. It is time for us to allow those parts of who we are to exercise the freedom of spiritual life.

Spiritual life is not about learning to stand, or walk, or even to run. Our relationship reminds us we can soar.

When we wake up each morning we stretch and stand, reminding our bodies how to be awake. As we discover and explore spiritual life we follow the same pattern. We open our eyes, spread our wings, and catch an updraft.

How have you found the freedom of spiritual life today?

When have you experienced the freedom of spiritual life most recently?

[Image by CarbonNYC [in SF!]]

Greg Richardson is a spiritual life mentor and leadership coach in Southern California. He is a recovering attorney and university professor, and a lay Oblate with New Camaldoli Hermitage near Big Sur, California. Greg’s website is StrategicMonk.com, and his email address is [email protected].

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