Spirituality | Rohini Ross - Part 9

Love Trumps Hate!

I just got back from the LA Women's March. What an adventure! It started with the best laid plans going awry. I was traveling to downtown LA with my youngest daughter, our neighbors, who are good friends, husband and wife and their daughter, and another of my daughter's friends. We thought we were smart in deciding to take the end of the line North Hollywood Metro to Pershing Square. The difficulty finding parking should have given me a warning to how crowded the Metro would be. When we got the station the crowd was enormous.   We managed to descend the staircase...

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Taking the Easy Road: No Thinking, Just Doing

It has been a busy week in the Ross household. Our daughters have their final exams, and we are feeling the impact as a family. However, for the most part, moods are good. We are all looking forward to going to Sri Lanka for the winter break. We are meeting my dad, my step-mom, and my brother there. As many of you know, I did not grow up with my father. This will be an opportunity for us to connect in his homeland, deepen my understanding of my heritage, and share this with my family. I look forward to being in...

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Let Love Lead: No Matter Who is the President of the United States!

I am guilty of being a liberal, coastal, elitist. Living in my California bubble of progressive values while eating lots of kale, and, thanks to proposition 64, I can now add juicing raw cannabis to my health regime with legal impunity. I have the privilege of living a blessed life with very little suffering day-to-day. I received a wake-up call when I saw the results of the 2016 American election. I see the outcome as a symptom of tremendous pain and disillusionment. Donald Trump being the President-elect of the United States could not have happened without people having very little...

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Are We Human or Are We Divine?

"Let go of who you think you are supposed to be and embrace who you are." -- Brené Brown  The ego's mantra is to feel more, do more, have more, be more. It screams, "I am not enough!" It believes the next moment, the next hour, the next future will better. We humans can so easily get pulled into these thoughts.   Given that, how do I sit with my insecure thinking? How do I accept feeling my unworthiness?  I find it easier to be with these thoughts and feelings when I realize they are simply part and parcel of the human experience. I...

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Letting Go Allows Wisdom to Do the Heavy Lifting

One of my client's told me recently he was too afraid to let go. He couldn't trust that Mind, Spirit, God, Universal Intelligence, Love, whatever label you want to use, would have his back. He believed he had to confront the challenges he was experiencing through his own brute force and willpower. In his certainty and fear, there was no room to receive inspiration and fresh thought. His behavior made sense based on his understanding there was nothing greater than himself. He believed letting go of the fight and struggle would ultimately result in catastrophe.   My experience tells me the opposite...

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How Relationships Can Be a Catalyst for Growth in Consciousness

If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro’ narrow chinks of his cavern.   —   William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell   Coaching is about achieving goals. Spiritual understanding helps us recognize there is nowhere to go because we have wellbeing and peace within. Soul-Centered coaching recognizes the spiritual context and supports clients with experiencing an upward shift in consciousness so they can enjoy greater levels of wellbeing and peace. The by-product of this growth is that clients see...

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We Are All in Recovery — Recovery of Our True Selves

I went to a workshop this week with Dr. Gabor Maté speaking about addiction. Maté spoke about the relationship between the trauma of unmet primary attachment needs and addiction. He defined the essence of trauma as not what happens to us, but the result of an internal disconnection from the body and the awareness of emotions. He sees what happens internally as creating trauma. He did not stay within the traditional realm of psychology in order to address the trauma. Instead, he quoted an unnamed spiritual teacher in California as saying, “The greater calamity is the lost connection with your...

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Soul-Centered Coaching: Opening Doors to Possibility and Living Into Potential

Traditional coaching focuses on working hard and achieving goals through determination and accountability. It emphasizes the importance of individual effort and sees success as being the result of labor expended. Consequently, lack of success would mean you didn’t work hard enough. There are a plethora of motivational quotes to support this perspective such as:   “Nothing worth having comes easy.” — Theodore Roosevelt  and   “The difference between the impossible and the possible lies in a person’s determination.” — Tommy Lasorda     However, in these times of stressed out individuals working so very hard, but experiencing less quality of life, coaching would benefit from using a wider...

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It Is Possible to Go From Super Sensitive to Anti-fragile in a Relationship

My husband and I have been married for 23 years. Our relationship began with a love at first sight moment with all of the fireworks and giddiness that go along with that experience. I've heard one of my teachers, Ron Hulnick, say many times, when that happens, run in the opposite direction. However, having the optimism and insight of a 24-year-old, I ran straight into the flame.   The laws of gravity seem to apply to relationships as well. What goes up must come down. My husband and I have experienced tremendous highs and lows in our relationship. There aren’t many challenges...

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Frontline Challenges and Opportunities of Parenting a Teen

You might ask yourself, how relevant are spiritual principles when you get a call from your teenage daughter at 3 am on a Sunday morning, when you think she is safely tucked away in her bed? A spiritual understanding of reality may not be the first thing that occurs to you as you get dressed to pick her up from the parking lot of a local church where she is waiting with two police officers and several of her friends. The essence of her formless nature may not feel that present as you hear she has a curfew violation, and...

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