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Stages
for Soul Transformation, Growth and
Development
that Achieve Soul Freedom
Article
by Margaret Jang of One Source Learning Centre
Nothing in
life is static. Instead, your life involves a progression of stages
starting from the day you were born. If you reflect on your life's journey up until
now, you will probably agree that you have already experienced some of
the following stages, but not necessarily in any precise order or at any
particular pace. Some stages you may have completed, while some
you haven’t yet started or maybe you are stuck and going in circles by
continuously repeating others.
Stage 1 - Trauma, Shock or a Life Altering Event
For most, it is all too easy to go through life without really pushing
yourself. You prefer to stay within a safe, comfortable and
dependable material-based setting. Your life becomes routine,
where it may encompass getting an education, starting a career,
travelling, settling into a committed relationship, raising a family and
so on. Unfortunately, this isn’t always agreeable from your soul’s
perspective. Many go through the “routine” of living only because
that is what is expected - to appease or please either family, society
or your own belief system about being successful. You prefer to
erect a façade, but because you are an eternal spiritual being living an
earthly existence, it is still necessary to fulfill your soul’s
contract, which is the agreement that you made while still in the
spiritual realm. Using the the human form as its host, the spirit
of your soul can expand its radius of knowledge and increase its vast
wisdom through encountering first-hand experiences. But because
humans are creatures of habit, who want guaranteed security, sometimes
it is necessary to boot you from your comfort zone in order to make you
aware of your greater purpose. For most, this can only be
accomplished through experiencing a major crisis – something that really
jump-starts you. For some, this can be suffering through the death
of a close loved one; for others it can be suffering through a serious
accident or perhaps contracting a debilitating disease or being
diagnosed with a life-threatening illness. Whatever the reason, it will
be enough to give you cause to stop and re-assess your life. You will
begin to question the role that you presently play or the importance of the role
that you play and you will undoubtedly wonder if you would rather
play a different role. This stage is the beginning of your soul’s
impending transformation.
Stage 2 – Searching for Answers
Once you have been “awakened”, your curiosity will unrelentingly drive
you to search for answers to all the niggling and nagging questions that
refuse to go away. Pay attention, because this is your soul nudging
at you. At first you may search numerous libraries or browse
through bookstores looking at books on self-help, alternative healing,
spirituality or New-age material. Although some of your answers may
be satisfied, it still will not be enough to assuage your insistent
curiosity and you will continue to feel crazily driven without really
understanding why. This stage is the beginning of your soul’s growth.
Stage 3 – Thirst for Knowledge
Your thirst for knowledge will seem unquenchable and at times you may
feel as if you are running around in different directions that lead back
to the same circle, only to repeat the process. Inevitably, you
will uncover, seek and try out a multitude of events covering areas that
may astound your perception of sensibility. At this stage it is
important to be aware of the areas that really attract your attention and whether you
feel comfortable pursuing them. Your thirst for higher knowledge
and wisdom will most likely continue (or should continue until you can
no longer think rationally), but at some point you will narrow your scope
of interest in order to avoid spreading yourself too thinly. It is
useless to be a Jack or Jill of all trades, but a master at none. This stage is a continuation of your
soul’s growth, which introduces you to a smorgasbord of tidbits just
waiting for you to choose and sample. It is time to unlock hidden
talents, interests and qualities that lay dormant.....just waiting to be
discovered or used to their fullest potential.
Stage 4 – Questioning Your Sanity
In your quest for answers and knowledge, it is only natural that you
will question your sanity. Climbing out from your comfort zone is
quite scary,
but is mainly generated from a fear of the unknown. Quite likely, family
and friends will also question your sanity as well. But don’t be
deterred by any criticism, because it is more important to have trust
and faith in whatever is propelling your motive. In other words, pay
attention to your intuition! Your own ego will give you a thousand
reasons why you should stay put and to stop your “silly” search. Ego
does not like change and will take every opportunity to create
resistance. Family and friends may feel threatened by your “odd”
behaviour and may offer “friendly” advice to “help” you see logic.
You may feel that changing your career or ending a long-term
relationship or even moving to another country where the grass might be
greener will help you to regain control over your topsy-turvy life.
But generally, this only brings temporary relief. This
stage can be coined as mid-life crisis, because this is when many take a
huge spurt in their soul’s growth.
Stage 5 – Feeling Insecure or Sceptical
It is quite normal to feel insecure with decisions that are on the verge
of bringing change or have already brought
change into your life. Your first concern may be, “What will others
think?” But without worrying about the opinion of others, reflect on
whether these are positive changes which make you feel happier, more
fulfilled or satisfied, as well as more peaceful and loving. If you have
delved into areas of interest that raise eyebrows (or you may assume
that they will) and even push your own scepticism to the limit, assess
whether these pursuits add further knowledge, wisdom and positive joy
into your life and if so, release your concerns. As long as you are not
consciously causing harm to another person, it is really nobody’s
business but your own. Remember that it is healthy to be sceptical,
because this propels you to question authenticity. It also keeps
your own truth in perspective, rather than becoming just a sheep in the
herd or an ignorant follower. At this stage, it is time for you to build
self-confidence and to remain open-minded, but first you will have to
open your heart.
Stage 6 – Joining Like-Minded Groups
This stage promotes your soul’s growth and development. At some
point you will feel that it is necessary to join a group, but not just
any group. Most likely, you will be drawn to the company of
like-minded individuals, where you will be understood or where you can
ask questions without feeling self-conscious or an odd-ball. For
those who wholeheartedly balk at the very idea of joining a group, be
assured that this is the most beneficial step that you can take.
Here, you can gain additional knowledge, as well as develop your learned
skills in a comfortable environment. Many, when they encounter
soul transformation, are drawn into the healing arts, metaphysical arts
or psychic arts; which require much practice and development in order to
acquire proficiency, as well as build necessary self-confidence.
It is important to avoid joining groups that disallow freedom of choice
or that discourage personal opinion or growth. Instead, join a
group where you are encouraged to participate, learn and develop at your
own personal pace. It is essential to your development that you
receive non-judgemental validation that boosts your confidence and
groups can provide vital feedback. At this stage, you learn about
adapting, as well as developing more patience,
cooperation and tolerance.
Stage 7 –Teacher or Guru
In order for you to practice and develop your skills of endeavour, you
will feel compelled to search for a suitable teacher or for some, a
guru. Just remember when choosing, that you keep certain criteria in
perspective. You want to look for........
-
Someone
who encourages you to think for yourself
-
Someone
who encourages you to practice, practice and practice
-
Someone
who willingly shares knowledge; who doesn’t hold back so-called
trade secrets
-
Someone
who encourages you to develop your skills to the best of your
ability
-
Someone
who avoids judging you, embarrassing you or comparing you to others
-
Someone
who resists finding fault with your pace of development
-
Someone
who willingly releases you when you are ready to move on
-
Someone
who resists building a relationship based out of fear, insecurity,
domination, power or one of enabling
-
Someone
who is undeniably happy about your progress and development
-
Someone
who treats you as an equal
Once you
leave the guidance of your teacher or guru, you will then be faced with
continuing to learn and practice on your own. Certainly, this requires
determination, dedication and commitment, but by now you should have
developed enough conviction to practice without someone else nudging you
along. If not, then you will either return to the fold or
search for another teacher who can give you additional knowledge or
motivation. Additionally, you may switch gears completely and search for
a new interest. This stage is critical to your soul’s development;
therefore, it is important to find a teacher or guru who is not only
compatible to your personality, but who also fulfills essential
criteria. At this stage, you must be prepared to listen, to cooperate
and to learn, but without losing your own identity.
Stage 8 –Practice and journalizing
Part of your development is to practice, but the other very important
aspect is to journalize your daily experiences from your practice
sessions. Without journalizing or keeping a daily diary of your actions,
encounters, experiences or outcome, you have no way of comparing your
soul’s progress. It is also important to resist comparing your rate of progress to others; otherwise you set yourself up
for defeat. For those who think that they can remember all the daily
details, be assured that this is impossible. In order to build
self-confidence in your abilities, it is necessary to understand and be
aware of your developmental progression. At this stage you learn
discipline and more patience.
Stage 9 – Feeling secure and trusting
This isn’t about other people trusting you, after-all, if you cannot
develop trust in yourself how can you expect the same vote of confidence from
others. And it isn’t about other people making you feel secure about
yourself. Again, this can only come from within you. As you continue to
investigate and experiment, it is important to realize that you
cannot make positive changes in your life if you do not intimately know
yourself. You must first gain an in-depth understanding of your likes
and dislikes, your quirks, your fears, your natural gifts, your
compatibility, your strengths and weaknesses and so on. In assessing
your attributes, there is no bad and good or right and wrong, because in
reality there is no perfect human being. The important issue is that
you acknowledge and accept yourself as a blank slate and that
your intention is to strive to feel secure and
to build trust in who you are. Once you make your personal assessment, you
can then decide which areas you wish to strengthen, which aspects you
wish to relinquish, with whom you need to forgive or in which areas you may lack
positive qualities.
This is also an opportunity to build and retain self-love, self-esteem
and self-confidence, to the point that once this is achieved, nothing
can deprive you of it. Once you are able to trust yourself, then
you can start to trust others. This stage can be difficult and many times you
may waffle with uncertainty, but through continued development, success
can be achieved.
At this stage, you may find that you become more vocal, where you are no
longer afraid to speak your mind. But because you can be your own worst
critic, development for this stage is made easier with the assistance of
a teacher, a guru, a professional or within a group setting.
Stage 10 – Keeping Faith without regret
Although you may be making tremendous progress in your journey, at some
point you may be presented with an event that causes you to doubt what
you are doing. Most likely it will be a life-threatening
situation, which will make you pause to reflect on your past, present
and conceivably whatever the future holds. This is a life
lesson about whether you have complete faith following your chosen
pursuit and how to maintain it without any regret. At this
stage, it is very easy to lose focus and instead adopt a cynical
attitude. It is easy to feel regret that you may have made certain
sacrifices for nothing. You may even be tempted to give up or become
temporarily side-tracked doing other things. The real lesson here is
to take a deep breath, relax, re-focus and then ponder on this question, “What lesson is
your soul trying to learn or what knowledge or wisdom is it trying to
receive?” At this stage, no matter what the odds, you must learn to
retain your true focus, while keeping faith that a higher power does
exist for the welfare of your soul's greater good.
Stage 11 – The Point of No Return
Once you have embarked along this path, at times you may feel a
compulsion to give up. Your excuses can be endless - you are
too busy.....you feel scared.....your family doesn’t approve.....you're too
tired.....you feel that you're not good enough.....it's too much
work.....or, you would rather be doing other things that you
consider more fun. You can deny your deeper inner feelings and urges
and plead ignorance, but sooner or later you will feel that something very
profound is missing from your life. Your soul will keep urging and
prompting you to fulfill your spiritual contract; to fulfill your
destiny. So it will continue to throw signs, signals, speed bumps and
roadblocks in front of you and each reminder will present more trauma
than the last until it gains your undying attention and comprehension. Again, you are asked to notice, to
feel, and to accept what your natural
inclinations or gifts are and then to pursue them in order of personal
importance. In your analysis, remember to keep material comfort or
sensory pleasures, as well as financial gain out of the equation;
otherwise owning to your truth may become tainted. At this stage, it is
important to acknowledge that what you resist will continue to persist
until you are prepared to take constructive action.
Stage 12 – sharing with others
When you gain total confidence in the knowledge and wisdom you have
acquired in your particular field, it is time to share it with others. This can be accomplished in various ways, such as through teaching,
healing others as a practitioner, writing about useful information
through websites, blogs, e-books or publishing a book,
facilitating a group or perhaps volunteering your time, service and
knowledge to organizations. Although you may also offer your
knowledge, experience and time for a set fee, money will probably not be
the primary factor for your efforts. At this stage, your concern
will shift from focusing solely on you
and instead, be more focused with helping others find their truth.
Stage 13 –
Achieving soul Freedom
Nothing comes easy or is accomplished
without hard work and in order to retain soul freedom, it requires
on-going vigilant effort. Indications of achieving soul freedom will
present itself in many ways and at many levels, some of which are....
-
You
finally experience profound inner feelings of contented joy, peace
and bliss. You know without any doubt that nothing outside of you
can provide this or even be a substitute.
-
Despite
any mental or physical health infirmity, at some level, whether it
is emotional, mental, physical or spiritual, you still feel strong,
healthy, vibrant and quite focused to be the best that you can be
and thus become a positive inspiration to others.
-
Your
present living and working environment bears testament to whether
you live a
chaos-free or stress-free balanced lifestyle.
Truthfully, your immediate
surrounding environment
expresses your inner world. To achieve soul freedom, you
must
consciously strive to maintain a positive sense, because this
represents.....how peacefully you actually live and feel, or
.....how sensible you actually are, or .....how
organized you actually are, or.....how much in the "present" you
actually choose to live. Be aware that in a negative sense this may represent.....how much chaos is
attracted to you, or.....how
stressed-out you really feel, or.....how disorganized your life
really is, or..... how lazy you
have become, or.....how you choose to continue to live in the past.
Note: You cannot accept anything new into
your life unless you are prepared to release old clutter. Likewise, you cannot
live totally in the present if you still live amongst useless clutter from
the past.
-
You are conscious about how and what you are thinking,
because you now realize that thoughts are vibrations of energy that create
action, which ultimately creates your reality.
-
You may
still encounter a crisis, but now you are in a better position
for knowing how to respond to it, thus you avoid becoming overwhelmed
and out of control.
-
Status
and materialism are no longer the driving forces in your life. You
may still have goals and dreams, but they are not fuelled from
ambitious monetary greed.
-
You gain
complete control over your life, where you now make your own
right-choice, informed decisions without relying on others to do it
for you.
-
You are
mature and responsible by acknowledging positive ownership for your
own actions, decision-making and subsequent re-actions.
-
You
maintain personal integrity, which is now foremost on your agenda. Money, position and power cannot sway you from adhering to your
inner truth.
-
You no
longer care about the opinion of others and instead feel totally at
ease and comfortable with your own knowledgeable perspective. You
may still seek advice from others, but you now filter received
information before arriving at your own sensible conclusion.
-
For
additional guidance and knowledge, you now listen to and converse
with your own inner teacher (at your soul level), which is always
connected to the universal source of truth and wisdom.
-
You are
consciously committed to the improvement of society. This may be
directed to a single group, to your community, to your country or at
a global level.
Many never reach this particular stage, but then others refuse
to try or haven’t developed the necessary awareness that they should
start. It doesn’t really matter how long it takes or how many
times a stage is repeated, just as long as you give it your best shot
and are willing to keep improving.
If you can truthfully attest to finalizing all of these steps, then you
can now breathe a sigh of satisfaction, because your soul has at last
achieved personal freedom. Most likely your journey has not been
easy, with each stage presenting its own tribulation, but with
perseverance it is certainly attainable. So go ahead, you deserve
to give yourself a huge pat on the back, along with a resounding
applause of praise!
© Written by Margaret I. Jang, August 10, 2008
About the author: Margaret Jang of One Source
Learning Centre, resides in
Vancouver, BC and is a writer, a spiritual/inspirational poet, a Reiki
Master/Teacher, a healing
and intuitive arts teacher focusing on psychic/channelling development, as well as a healing practitioner for Reiki
and gemstone therapy.
Note:
Articles, poetry and soul inspiring expressions are © Copyright
protected - all rights reserved. In order to copy, reprint, publish,
quote, electronically transfer, post to websites or blogs, or reproduce
in any manner, please obtain written permission from author
Margaret I. Jang at
admin@onesourcelearn.com.
Articles Home Page
Disclaimer
The above information is not intended to replace, diagnose, prescribe or treat any ailment or
to be used as a replacement for medical treatment or consultation.
It is only intended to enhance your knowledge or general interest and is
offered as an alternative and complimentary source of information. In all
cases, it is recommended that you continue to follow medical treatment
as prescribed by your medical physician.
Margaret Jang at
One Source Learning Centre, Vancouver, BC•Workshops•Reiki•Crystal/Gemstone Healing•Psychic/Channelling Development•Spiritual/Inspirational Poetry |