Spiritual Development | Rohini Ross - Part 8

He Said, She Said: We Aren’t Out of the Woods Yet Regarding Taxes

Sometimes it really looks like circumstances create our experience. Angus and I are both struggling with that. But knowing that our experience comes from inside of us no matter how it looks the other way, helps us to have a cushion from our distressed thinking, and look in the direction of equanimity rather than create more imbalance for ourselves -- even when it comes to the government and taxes!   Angus and Rohini love to work with couples and help them reduce conflict and discord so they can experience more love and harmony in their relationships. They co-facilitate individualized three-day couple's retreats...

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Success is the By-Product of a Clear State of Mind

Barbara Patterson and I are launching our second Mastermind this week. We will be exploring with the group how to take their businesses to the next level in a way that is aligned with their Authentic Selves, and naturally fun and inspiring. One of the themes that emerged from the enrollment conversations I had for the group was an inquiry into what success really is. What was clear for many of the people I spoke to is that success involves being able to enjoy life and to have the spaciousness and freedom to do projects and activities they want to. No...

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He Said, She Said: Money Conversations — No Longer Kryptonite For Our Relationship

Angus and I relax after getting our taxes in, and reminisce over how far we have come from the days of getting into fights over the accounts. Not to say there isn't more progress to be made. Angus seems to think laughing at my control freak coping mechanisms would be even better.   Angus and Rohini love to work with couples and help them reduce conflict and discord so they can experience more love and harmony in their relationships. They co-facilitate individualized three-day couple's retreats that support the deepening of connection and understanding. We work with couples who are struggling and couples who...

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We are Not Human or Spiritual — We Are Both

Last week I wrote about spiritual bypass. That happens when we place judgment on our human experience and see it as inferior to our spiritual nature. I then started to think about what human bypass would look like. It occurred to me that a human bypass is when we forget that we are multidimensional beings who are the creators of our reality. It is when we forget that we bring the formless essence of our true nature into form and create reality moment to moment. For example, when I identify with my story, and forget I am also the infinite potential...

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Experience Greater Peace of Mind by Understanding How Harmless Negative Emotions Are

"Spiritual bypass" is a term coined by the psychologist John Welwood. In an interview with Tina Fossil, Welwood defines a spiritual bypass as when the goal of spiritual awakening is used to try "to rise above the raw and messy side of our humanness before we have fully faced and made peace with it." He warns that this "leads to a conceptual, one-sided kind of spirituality where one pole of life is elevated at the expense of its opposite: Absolute truth is favored over relative truth, the impersonal over the personal, emptiness over form, transcendence over embodiment, and detachment over...

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Let’s Stop Working On Ourselves!

I have been noticing a theme with my clients across the board from the work I do with leaders, to teams, to individual clients. There is a focus on there being something wrong with them, and a pervasive idea that they would feel better and perform better once it is fixed. Their "it" could be insecurity, worry, lack of motivation, feelings of overwhelm -- fill in the blank. However, instead of diving into what they see as the problem, I help them recognize that whatever the experience is that they want to get rid of, it is not the problem. The problem...

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From Nothing Comes Everything

I am the product of East meets West. I have a Sri Lankan father and an English mother. When it comes to spirituality, I like the best of both worlds. In the East emptiness is sought after and revered. In the West, it is feared and seen as nihilistic. The West seems to prefer the fullness of love. For me, both are true.   In the fleeting moments when I experience emptiness, the space where there is nothing. It is in this nothingness that I experience everything. It is in that space that I touch the most exquisite feelings I have ever known.   One...

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Insecurity is an Ego Trip We Can Always Come Home From

I recently took an on-line personality test a friend shared on Facebook. I was surprised when one of the results indicated I have a big ego. I don't see myself as particularly arrogant or conceited. My character weaknesses tend to fall on the side of self-doubt and insecurity. Not that I took the test very seriously, but it did cause me to reflect on what it means to have a big ego.   It made me look at my experience of insecurity in a new way. I saw when I am experiencing self-doubt, I am actually self-absorbed and self-centered at those times,...

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Understanding We Live in Our World of Thought Sets Us Free

Even though most of my work currently is as a coach and a trainer, I do have a psychotherapy practice. I see clients experiencing a wide range of mental health challenges. One of the experiences I have learned an incredible amount from is psychosis. I think there is a lesson in it for all of us.   The mainstream understanding when someone is experiencing psychosis is that they have lost touch with reality. This is because they are experiencing hallucinations or delusional beliefs such as  grandiosity, pronoia, or paranoia that do not conform with "normal" human experience. Believing you are an important...

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