Sunday 22 April 2007

Breaking Free from CSD - Spiritual

"If you have a talent, use it in every which way possible. Don’t hoard it. Don’t dole it out like a miser. Spend it lavishly like a millionaire intent on going broke." - Brendan Francis

Woke up this morning, feeling sluggish. Perhaps the weekend was more indulgent than strictly necessary :-). But perhaps I need to pay more attention to the energy/vitality basics - eat energising food, actually chew it properly, hydrate my body regularly, exercise etc. The morning feeling is my vitality barometer - leaping out of bed is where I prefer to be.

The last and ultimate block to flow and cause of CSD is on the spiritual level - withholding your gift. I believe that everyone is born with a unique gift (unique perhaps in the most subtle way) that enriches the world and contributes a piece to life's great puzzle. Spirituality often gets mistaken for religion. The two can be distinguished as follows:

Spirituality - a sense of connection to the universe and to a higher power
Religion - an organized system of worship that gives a framework to the relationship we have with the universe and with a higher power

The facet of spirituality that we are discussing here is the notion of our role in the universe, and our source of power. I believe that our gift is a key to the source. When someone is working their gift, they are fully alive, creative and powerful. But how do you discover your gift?

"Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." - Gil Bailie

Your gift leaves a trail for you to follow - a sort of personal treasure hunt. One set of clues are your strengths. What are your strengths? Activities that make you feel strong. There are several parts to this - you are good at them, you instinctively are drawn to them, you feel great when you re doing them, and you feel fulfilled after doing them. Of course, strengths are made up of talent, skills and knowledge. You may be able to isolate the talent component by remembering what you loved and were good at as a child (your parents/siblings might shed light on this). A wonderful treatment of talent is provided by the strengthsfinder programme by Donald Clifton and Marcus Buckingham (http://www.strengthsfinder.com and http://www.simplystrengths.com). Some people are fortunate enough to just know their calling in life. They can then build skills and knowledge quickly and easily.

When you have this block removed, and you start to bring your gift powerfully and pervasively into your life, the other blocks must begin to fall away and CSD dissolves. A world where everyone was working their gift would be very different from the one we live in today.

"If everyone cleaned in front of their houses, the whole world would be clean" - Mahatma Gandhi

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