Your Vital Spirit

Listening to the wisdom of the summit panel is a true testament to the power we have as humans. If we allow ourselves the chance to go there, we have the ability to heal ourselves as well as others. Our power, in its most subtle form, is Spirit: that divine connection that unites us all. This post will explore the region of Sprit: what role does spirituality play in our vitality?

“Your own Self-realization is the greatest service you can render the world.” –Ramana Maharshi

What is Spirit and why is it important? The beauty of Spirit is both its universal presence and its diverse expressions, depending on our gifts. Take summit speaker Gina Sala. She found her expression of the Divine through her voice as a child, overcame the voices telling her she couldn’t sing, and has gone on to be a very accomplished vocalist. She has recorded with Disney and been featured as a principal singer with Cirque Du Soleil. One thing she talks about is overcoming the need to impress and using her voice as a means to express. Gina says this beautifully: “What I want to share with you all is no matter what you’ve ever been told about your voice, no matter if you’ve been told your voice isn’t good enough or you shouldn’t speak up or it’s not strong, you never know what your voice will be called into.”

Michelle Phillips was another voice of amazing spiritual insight. You can read a little of her story here in her own words:

This is an exercise from my book that I came up with after a friend of mine passed away. She committed suicide, and it was very shocking to me, because she didn’t talk to anyone and tell us what was going on. I was so sad, and I wrote my name down in the middle of this piece of paper, and then I wrote all the people’s names that I’m spending a lot of time with – this was 12 years ago – who they are and what they’re about.

There were many people that we so loving and supportive, creative and spontaneous, fun and compassionate. I wrote down their different qualities. There were quite a few that were negative and that were fearful. There were some who every time I pick up the phone and speak to this person, I can’t get off the phone quick enough. They’re Debbie Downer. They drag me down. They’re always waving the flag of ‘me’.

I realized that everyone around me mirrors who I am. The good mirrors who I am, but the negative mirrored who I was at the time. There I was in the middle, deep in the middle, of my own coaching practice really learning to be a coach and working with a coach. I had just finished coaching school and I realized that in order for me to really improve the quality of my life, it was very important that I surround myself with people that are positive and where I want to be. If I have a lot of negativity around me, it’s because there’s a lot of negativity within me. That was a really good barometer of where I was in my life and what I needed to do to change.

In my book, I talk about how to remove the energy suckers from your life, so that you don’t have them in your life, even though some of those people could be your parents or your family members.

I also learned how to share with people that were close to me but who were negative that I was on a different path, and that I would appreciate it if we only talked about positive things when we were together. I was very adamant about it. It was funny how, they stopped.

Here is the practice she gave to people who heard her on the Summit. If you missed it, here you go. Practice this and let me know how you do in the private Facebook group!

Life Inventory Exercise:

1. Take a blank piece of paper and write your name in the middle of the piece of paper. Then, in a circle around your name, write names of people that you spend time with, quite a bit of time with, that you choose to spend time with. Not somebody that’s next to you in your cubicle at work that you have to sit next to. It’s friends, or family, or people that you spend a lot of time with.
2. Underneath their names, what are the qualities that you see in these people?
3. Anyone that wields a negative influence in your life, that you call a friend, refuse to engage in a negative pity party with them. This doesn’t mean that you don’t love them and want to be around them, it’s just when you shift, everyone around you will either shift too or they’ll fall away.

It’s very difficult to improve your life when you have people around you that really suck the energy out of you because you allow them to stop you from moving forward.

Here’s to your vitality and health!

Love,

Dr. Keesha