Focusing on Spiritual Development & Healing

By Arline Rowden

You might wonder why I connect Spiritual Development and Healing. What I found was that it was challenging to focus on my spiritual development when I had so many personality issues that needed to be resolved. Their energy clouded my connection to my Higher Self that I consider my Soul. In the beginning, I thought my unhappiness just had to do with the stress of living. Especially, the stress from my work life that included lots of overtime, deadlines, difficult supervisors and more. I couldn’t get to sleep at night, sometimes for a couple of hours, I couldn’t get my thoughts to quit bothering me when I was trying to go to sleep. Once I did get to sleep, it wasn’t restful sleep. Then there was the stress around relationships and so much more.

When I started to meditate at 32 years old, it was to deal with stress and to try to get more sleep. With daily meditation, actually twice a day, I was able to go to sleep much faster and get better quality sleep. That helped me to deal with work more easily, although it was still challenging. The meditation technique of connecting relaxation with the breath was very helpful. I found that I could take a few deep breaths during the day and felt more relaxed for a while.

While in meditation, I felt so calm and happy. Then I began to notice, that when I wasn’t meditating, I would start to think about and feel emotions around experiences in my past. At first, I thought I must be meditating incorrectly since I had believed that meditation would magically change my life. Then I discovered that emotions stuck in the body can begin to surface when the body is relaxed. I would cry frequently and wasn’t sure what to do. I didn’t want to stop meditating. So, I started to work with a therapist, one of many over the years.

Therapy did help me to organize my thoughts about life experiences. I gained some clarity and understanding about myself. But it didn’t seem to move me through the experiences and gather what I learned from them. It didn’t help me to release the emotions from my solar plexus chakra and move the wisdom of what I learned from them into my heart. I discovered that emoting alone didn’t result in me releasing the suppressed emotions. I kept emoting over and over about the same issues.

It would take me many years, classes and sessions to begin to heal deeply and it is a continuing process. The secret was to develop something positive from negative experiences. It is truly alchemy. I was able to express compassion, patience and understanding and much more slowly, over the years, as I healed. It does take time to move through emotional healing. There were times when I would react and say or do something mean spirited when I was still in so much pain. Then I had to hold a space of compassion, patience and understanding for myself. I wanted to express changed behaviors instead of just apologies. It is a process that takes time but it is so worth it.

As I continued to meditate and to heal, I began to be aware of something beyond my personality or my physical, emotional, mental self. At first, I just thought that my higher self must be above my personality. So I just thought of looking up as a way to connect. Then I started to ask my higher self to reach down to touch me as I would reach up. I wanted connection. After a while I began to feel a connection. At times, I would even feel that connection in my heart center. It felt comforting and supportive. My spiritual & healing journey continues to this day. Sharing about my experiences and discoveries is part of my journey. I encourage you to do some writing and meditating about your spiritual development and healing