At One 
with 
Christmas Spirit

The Power of Not Asking for Spiritual Help

 

One day, in early December of 2003, I was hired for the most life-changing job I’ve ever had. A close friend of mine decided that she truly wanted to heal and explore the many personal issues she had coming up around the Holidays. Nosy parents were infringing on her space, giving and receiving presents felt strangely empty, and despite all the festivities going on, she felt quite alone.

As if she had just discovered a new magic potion bubbling inside her self, she looked right at me and told me that she wanted to hire me to be a healing presence for her, in her home, for a straight 48 hour period. She was hell bent on churning through her inner psyche in order to dissolve all holiday shadows, family gripes, loneliness, limited perceptions and deep-seated fears. And her intuition was telling her that she needed an on-call guide.

My eyes widened. What a fantastic idea!

Over the next few days we solidified the plan and the basic guidelines to help foster inner change:

I would have my own quarters and I would always be on call. I could give her input, but she was always the one in charge of her self-inquiry. This was not about romance; the intention was for me to help create a safe space for her to go through what she needed to go through. 

Our journey began at noon on a Friday. We set up a massage table in her living room and explored breath work, toning, energy healing, movement meditations, self-inquiry, and more, using familiar healing modalities as well as ones we invented in the moment. This was a meditative and sacred ‘Heal-a-thon.’ In a sacred and safe space, with me as a guide, she peered into every crack and crevice of her Holiday issues.

Tears shed. Laughter flowed. Inner dams crumbled.

I was essentially there for her, but it did not take long for me to realize that I could benefit from this “job” as well. While she explored her issues, I naturally became very expansive and open-hearted from being in perpetual ‘healer mode.’ Although I have coached people through intense emotional terrain before, I had never before experienced being a non-stop spiritual/emotional coach for someone. Our trust to explore in this way was built on a sturdy friendship. We trusted each other by way of trusting our selves.

Now, something I must confess about myself is that for nearly ten years prior to this adventure I had been a “professional spiritual seeker” and my interest in calling to and asking Spirit guides for assistance was infallible, to say the least. I used to ask angels/Spirit for everything. I pleaded to the romance angel to bring me a heart-mate; I pleaded to the job angel to save me from Starbucks, and reached and prayed for just about everything under the sun.

Suddenly, about half way through this 48 hour healing session, I had the astonishing realization that I hadn’t called upon Spirit at all during the entire time. “Help me to be a healer. Show me what to do!” I had asked many many times.

But here, now, during this uninterrupted healing journey, the desire to call upon Spirit for assistance had vanished, and it did not matter.

Perhaps because I was so steeped into being a healer, and not seeking to ‘become a better one,’ I spontaneously relinquished the desire to ask for spiritual direction and help. I was open and ripe and so I let go of the addiction to calling on outside help.

Instead of calling for spiritual help, I embodied the help. I was the help, the Light. I was the Spirit Guide. I trusted my own sense of what to do and how to offer healing.

This shift in me, the shift into not asking for spiritual help, set in motion what felt like a true union with spiritual essence. I found I could effortlessly support my friend as she suffered through and surfed through her inner world. To this day, I still am reaping the rewards of dropping the need to call for spiritual assistance. I seek less, and find more. I stumble and fall, but I catch myself more than I used to. I am at One with what I used to seek.

            Does this mean we should all stop praying and asking for spiritual guidance?
            Maybe. Maybe not.

Here is what I think: Calling to Spirit is fine, and it is not that you should stop calling, it is that calling is not always necessary because you are the One you're calling to.

Explore this some time. Take a break from seeking or asking for spiritual guidance and see what happens. If you stop calling out to Spirit, seeking, or hunting for new spiritual experiences, you open yourself wide to having an immediate and holy encounter with the spirituality of whatever has surfaced now.

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