How are You Going to Share Your Magnificence in the World?
I had the blessing and pleasure of teaching with two amazing women this weekend — Barb Patterson and Elsie Spittle. Barb Patterson and I often teach together on our Mastermind for Solopreneurs, and we will be doing the experiment of The Engaged Space together starting next week, but this is the first time we are teaching together in person. Elsie Spittle is one of the first teachers of the Three Principles, and she knew Sydney Banks, the man who uncovered the principles, before he had his enlightenment experience. It is such an honor to be in this conversation with her.
As I reflect on our first day, what stands out for me is the simplicity of the teaching. We are the infinite potential of Mind. We have the capacity to see that we are both form and formless, and we have the capacity to create via the principle of thought. Even if we are not aware of this, this is happening. You do not have to consciously know or understand how the principles work in order to benefit from the wisdom of them. They point to the formless essence of love that is who we all are. We are all waking up to this whether we know it or not. We all experience our spiritual nature. We can’t ever understand it intellectually, but that doesn’t matter because it still moves through us and transforms us.
To know that I do not need to work on my awakening takes so much off of my To Do list. Previously I thought I needed to improve myself in order to be worthy of awakening more fully to my true nature. How blind I was to the impossibility of this. My spiritual nature just is. I do not need to earn it, just like I do not need to be worthy of the nose on my face, or the fact I am a human being. I just am. This frees me up to be myself, and to have far more energy to simply enjoy life and be of service. I used to innocently waste so much energy worry about myself, evaluating how I was doing, and trying to change what I saw as my limitations.
My freedom from self-absorption comes from recognizing I am perfect exactly as I am. Not from an egotistical point of view, but from the quiet knowing of I am enough. The solid foundation of understanding I am okay as I am. Can you feel that foundation inside of you? Can you hear your wisdom reassuring you of your perfection exactly as you are?
Rather than needing to work on ourselves and practice self-improvement, we can, instead, look at the perfection of who we are and see what is already working in our lives. We can look for when our wisdom is showing up rather than seeking out its absence. Where we choose to look is important. Are we going to look out for our spiritual nature unfolding through us, or are we going to judge our humanness as inadequate? It is the same picture, just different ways of seeing.
I encourage you to recognize your magnificence in this moment. Not from your ego saying you are better than, but from your ability to see the miracle of you. Which is the miracle of us — the miracle of the oneness to which we all belong. This is the simplicity of experiencing the fullness of who we are – our humanness and our spiritual nature. We are each one of us a miracle, and we have the ability to wake up to that more fully, and to experience the energy of that realization.
We are all love. We have the capacity to bring the essence of our formless nature and express that into form. We have the infinite capacity to create. What do you choose?
How do you want to express your love? What do you want to bring into this world? What do you want to share? It is in the giving and the expression that we get filled up. It is in the service that we receive more of who we are. How do you want to be used? As Mary Oliver wrote so beautifully in her poem, The Summer Day, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
If you would like support or simply to join in the fun of exploring what you want to express through you, join Barb Patterson and I in The Engaged Space that starts next Monday October 2nd. It is a 30-day experiment with experiencing the pleasure of engagement. The focus is the joy of being filled up with your true nature and expressing that in whatever ways make sense to you. Whether you participate or not, give yourself the gift of coming alive with who you are through the generosity of sharing yourself. As Howard Thurman said, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Go be your brilliant, amazing self, with no thought for how you look or how well you are doing. None of that matters when you come alive to who you are, and the impact of that is a gift beyond measurement.
Rohini Ross is passionate about helping people wake up to their true nature. She is a psychotherapist, a transformative coach, and author of Marriage (The Soul-Centered Series Book 1). She has an international coaching practice helping individuals, couples, and professionals embrace all of who they are so they can experience greater levels of wellbeing, resiliency, and success. She also co-facilitates The Space Mastermind for Solopreneurs and The Engaged Space with Barb Patterson. You can follow Rohini on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, watch her Vlogs with her husband, Angus Ross, and subscribe to her weekly blog on her website, rohiniross.com.
Christine Heath & Judy Sedgeman – Spirituality and Resilience
When you no longer give authority to the fear-based thoughts in your consciousness, all you are left with is happiness. Through the teachings of Sydney Banks, you can see how your psychological functioning works, which makes you less compelled to follow those thoughts that do not serve you. Becoming more aware of the wholeness and integration of both your human and spiritual natures helps to ground you in the unchanging essence of who you are, and ride out the ups and downs of your emotional experience more gracefully. Accepting the normalcy of your humanness will naturally reduce your anxiety and fear and enhance your joy and happiness in each moment. By placing less pressure on yourself to feel a certain way or be hung up on self-improvement, you may find that low moods do not derail or debilitate you; instead, you will become much more attuned to your innate wellbeing and peace of mind and experience more happiness as a result.
Greater psychological freedom is the gift that keeps on giving. How grateful would you feel if you no longer had to listen to your negative, self-punishing and painful inner narrative, day in and day out? Understanding the role of thought and recognizing how it creates your feelings of insecurity and self-doubt is truly liberating! You will be better able to hear and heed your inner wisdom and become less driven by the noisy thoughts of fear and constriction. As an ongoing practice, this allows you to more fully experience your resilience and reach a greater sense of clarity about how you want to move forward in your life. As a result, you can live in a way that feels authentic and true in every area, including your career, family, home, creative expression, play, relationships and overall well-being.
Your ability to enjoy life comes from being present in the moment rather than caught up in habitual, negative thoughts that take you out of the Now. Sydney Banks’ wisdom supports you in becoming aware of how you get seduced by your limited personal thinking and thus, create a painful reality of misunderstanding, fear and restriction. When you recognize how and why this happens, you can step free of the pattern. This understanding assists you to dismiss unhelpful thoughts and not take them seriously. Unlike traditional self-help or therapy, experiencing more psychological freedom and enjoyment does not rely on techniques. There are no magic bullets on the path of well-being. All you need to do is follow an internal compass that points to the truth of who you really are—beyond transient thoughts to your unchanging, formless essence.
In our culture, success is often associated with hard work and narrowly defined as material gain. However, authentic success, as shared by Sydney Banks, includes such intangibles as happiness, well-being, love, joy, compassion, and peace of mind that are innate in each one of us, along with outward goals and achievements. It honors the whole person in all walks of life, whether you are a professional, leader, executive, solopreneur, employee, mother, teacher or student. From this knowing and experience, you can access the infinite wellspring of love that is your essence, then share your gifts with the world from a place of fulfillment and meaning, through a profound understanding of the interaction between your psychological and spiritual natures. While conventional success can deplete you, authentic success only fills you up.
Are you self-critical, hard on yourself, and constantly trying to “fix” whatever you think is wrong with you? Perhaps you have tried all kinds of different personal growth techniques and spiritual practices in the hope of solving all your problems. This cycle can be exhausting and never-ending, because there will always be something to improve about yourself, from that mindset. Sydney Banks’ teachings can help you to see how your humanness is normal and not something that needs fixing: as a spiritual person, you don’t need to change or eradicate your humanness! Seeing yourself as normal allows you to love and accept yourself exactly as you are—warts and all. Adopting this perspective naturally brings out the best in you and helps to find peace with your personality. Self-love and self-acceptance is your natural state, and any disconnection from your true nature is only temporary. What a relief!
One of the first areas people often experience profound transformation from the teachings of Sydney Banks is in their relationships, both personal and professional. While it often seems like another person’s irritation, anger, indifference, insensitivity, rudeness, etc., directly affects your experience, in reality your disturbance is a product of your own individual thinking. By making someone else responsible for how you feel, that person automatically becomes the cause of your suffering. Once you understand that you always have a place of well-being inside, independent of another’s behavior, it is easier to maintain equanimity through their changing moods and behaviors. Romantically, you may experience deeper love and intimacy with your partner, but the teachings benefit all relationships. This awareness supports more authentic connection and expression, while facilitating greater understanding, improved communication, reduced reactivity, more acceptance of self and others, and improved ability to work out differences and find common ground. Best of all, just one person shifting in a relationship is enough to transform it.
Barbara Patterson
Scott Kelly
Barbara Patterson
Clare Dimond
Michael Neill
Rohini Ross
Elsie Spittle – The Soul of the Principles
Spiritual Facts 
Chip Chipman – The Simplicity of Syd’s Teachings
Dicken Bettinger – The Spiritual Nature of the teachings of Sydney Banks
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