Golden Age of Gaia

Menu
  • Home
    • About The Staff
    • Golden Age of Gaia Website Frequently Asked Questions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Service
    • Downloads Page
    • Close
  • Contact Us
  • Hope Chest
    • The Hope Chest
    • Hope Chest: Frequently Asked Questions
    • Close
  • InLight Universal Shows
  • Library/Archives
  • Children Of The Sun
/ Home / 8. Personal/Spiritual Growth Essays / Linda Carroll: 4 Beliefs to Keep in Mind for a Happier, Healthier & More Authentic Life
post

Linda Carroll: 4 Beliefs to Keep in Mind for a Happier, Healthier & More Authentic Life

April 16, 2015 By Steve Beckow

Linda CarrollThe great anthropologist and spiritual teacher Angeles Arrien (1940—2014) was known for teaching people to “walk the mystical path with practical feet,” to lead “regular” daily lives while also navigating a spiritual journey.

As a foundation for this teaching, Arrien designed “The Four-Fold Way,” an educational program made up of four principles that integrate “ancient cultural wisdom into contemporary life.”

I find Arrien’s simple formula a code to live a happier, healthier and more authentic life in many ways. To me, the principles reflect most wisdom traditions in the world. Here is my own take on the four principles, and some tips on how we can integrate them into our lives.

1. Show up with presence.

Deep down, most of us understand what exactly we need to do in our lives to be the best humans we can be. Of course, this knowledge is useful only when we take theory into practice, and follow through with commitment and with action. To show up in our lives, in other words, is every person’s spiritual practice.

Showing up is about action, whether we are inspired to or not. It can be about doing your best at getting your kids off to school happily, taking your morning walk, making a healthy meal, writing in your journal each morning, or performing any daily ritual even when you’re feeling bored, uninspired, even defeated.

Many religions set aside specific times for people to focus on a specific spiritual practice. Muslims bow in prayer five times a day. The Balinese Hindus offer baskets filled with flowers and rice to their deities every morning, afternoon and evening, and the Benedictine nuns sing daily Gregorian chants. So establish a schedule for your own practice. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and it doesn’t have to make you happy. But it must be one that you will meet, one that’s both realistic and compelling enough to get you to show up and stay grounded.

2. Pay attention to what has heart and meaning.

To become spiritually literate, pay attention to what’s in front of your eyes at each moment. If you dwell on your past (yearning, regretting, and fantasizing about what could’ve been), you automatically diminish the potency of the right now.

Here’s an example to illustrate this belief, conveniently related to spiritual practice: When Lily’s sons were four and seven years old, she went on a spiritual retreat in order to recommit to her meditation practice. When she returned home, she set up an altar in the corner of her bedroom and announced to the boys that she would be spending thirty minutes each day in her room meditating. During that time, they would need to be very quiet.

The day she began, they stood quietly outside her room. But soon after, she could hear the boys: pounding one another, yelling and then bursting into tears. In exasperation she jumped up, opened the door, and screamed at them, “You two better stop it right now. I mean stop it, damn it.”

Her sons’ faces fell at the sight of their enraged mother, and Lily was struck by the absurdity of this scene. Her practice was hurting all three of them. What her true practice should be, she realized, was to use every event in the day as an opportunity for kindness and patience to emerge. Nowhere was this more important than with her children.

3. Tell the truth, but do so without blame or judgment.

Certainly there is truth in the cliché that “honesty is the best policy.” But truthfulness can also be a weapon. We must learn to tell the truth kindly and carefully, to give everyone involved the best chance of being heard.

The ninth step of the well-known 12-step Program advises us to “make direct amends to people whenever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.” If we view honesty in the same way, we can learn to speak without blame, and others will be more inclined to hear the truth in what we say.

To refrain from blame doesn’t mean that we deny the pain or difficulty caused by someone else’s actions. Here’s an example of nonjudgmental honesty: “I asked you not to share what I told you about my health condition with others. The fact that you did has upset me.” Now here’s a similar statement that judges and blames: “You’re a terrible friend with a big mouth who can’t be trusted with anything.”

4. Open yourself up to the outcome.

In other words, don’t attach yourself to particular expectations, especially in high-stakes experiences or situations. Take Jake, for example. Jake is dating a woman that he really likes and wants to impress. He’d like to have a relationship with her. Once he becomes attached to this outcome, however, he will do whatever he can to make it happen: he may monitor what he tells this woman about himself, and try to influence her view of him by not being authentic. His desire for her to like him is fine. His trying to force it into being by misrepresenting himself, however, could lead to disappointment, even disaster.

Sure, most of us do have preferences about what we’d like to see happen in our lives. And that’s not only normal, but healthy. So when isn’t it healthy? Well, if we let these desires determine how we act, we can become inauthentic and try to manipulate people and situations (even unconsciously) to get what we want.

Arrien reminds us that the outcome of practicing “the Four-Fold Way” is the same outcome of most forms of spiritual seeking. She says, “The heart and the essence of all spiritual seeking is the reclamation of the authentic self.” Who knew that cultivating the simple (but difficult) practice of being your true self is the most spiritual practice there is?

“4 Beliefs To Keep In Mind For A Happier, Healthier & More Authentic Life”, by Linda Carroll April 9, 2015 at http://www.mindbodygreen.com/0-18204/4-beliefs-to-keep-in-mind-for-a-happier-healthier-more-authentic-life.html

Original link: 4 Beliefs To Keep In Mind For A Happier, Healthier & More Authentic Life

Print Friendly, PDF & Email
Share

Filed Under: 8. Personal/Spiritual Growth Essays, Guest Writer Tagged With: Authentic Life, happy, healthy, Linda Carroll

Connect with Us

Visit Us On FacebookCheck Our FeedVisit Us On Youtube

The Divine Mother’s Mandate

Build what is divinely beautiful. I give you my divine authority to do so. I will guide you. I will help you. But I entrust this to you as well. …

      We are helping you. That gateway is open and you are being flooded and you are being assisted and you will be assisted every step of the way.

      – “Transcript ~ The Divine Mother: Take Up Your Divine Authority, AHWAA, February 23, 2017,” February 28, 2017.

      On the Divine Plan for Ascension.

Archangel Michael: Lead or Leave a Vacuum


If no [lightworker] steps forward into [leadership] ...

Recent Blog Posts

  • Bliss, Saedor, and a You-and-Me World
  • Looking Through the Eyes of Love
  • New Maps of Ascension – Part 3/4
  • Heavenletter #6293 via Gloria Wendroff: Waking Up to Your Self
  • QAnon on the Rothschilds & Satanism – Trump’s Secret Alliance with Putin — Part 2
  • Happy Earth Day!
  • Arcturian Group Message 4/22/18
  • I Love; Therefore, I Am
  • New Maps of Ascension – Part 2/4
  • Gender-Equality Update for April 22, 2018
  • The Arcturians through Sue Lie: Excursions into the 5th Dimension
  • Master Kuthumi via Natalie Glasson: Recognizing, Upgrading and Embodying Your Soul’s Contracts

InLight Universal Show Schedule

  • Heavenly Blessings – Bi-weekly on Thursday at 7 p.m. EST
  • An Hour with an Angel -Bi-weekly on Thursday at 7 p.m. EST

Reval Reporting



GAoG will not be answering financial questions after the RV. No one here has the expertise to do so. We will however highlight other blogs whose mission includes that and post general, philosophical discussions of financial wayshowing and stewardship.

The Disclosure of Our Star Family

UFO-mothership-333Disclosure of Our Star Family

Dr. Steven Greer on Disclosure


How the Secret Government Works (Four hours) .

Archives

Please Note

I make no claims to being an enlightened person.

I am neither qualified to be, nor do I wish to be considered, a spiritual teacher.

I'm a researcher and writer, here simply to share my views and listen to yours as spiritual adults and equals. - Steve Beckow

Please support this site. Donate:


A 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit
  • Building, anchoring, and restoring hope, trust and Love within the human community.
  • "The key to Love is sharing, ... [balancing] give and receive." - The Divine Mother.

Downloads Page

Sitara Williamson: Rent-a-CEO

* Do you have an entrepreneurial vision that you want to express but are afraid of ridicule?

* Would you like to have someone REALLY hear you, target with you and receive your reports?

* Would that be worth remuneration?

I have years and years of growth training, been the CEO of my own corporation, run a business, managed offices, and have for the past few years been doing my own inner/spiritual work.

Message me and we can talk: [email protected]

Werner Erhard: Creating a World that Works for Everyone


We can choose to be audacious enough to take responsibility for the entire human family....

Financial Wayshowing and Stewardship R15

Glossary of Terms Used on the Golden Age of Gaia

Lightworker Links


May we recommend:

Kathleen Mary Willis, Voice of Freedom
Wes Annac, Open-Hearted Rebel
Arcturian Group through Marilyn Raffaele
Arcturian Tools
Awakening with Dr. Suzanne Lie
Awakening to the Fifth Dimemsion
Paige Bartholomew
Blossom of the Soul
Cosmic News
Patricia Diane Cota-Robles
Linda Dillon, Council of Love
Divine Frequency
Vidya Frazier, Awakening to the Fifth Dimension
Natalie Glasson
James Gilliland, ECETI
Harmonic Concordance Blog
In5D
Ramola D, Era of Light
Higher Density Blog
Kauilapele’s Blog
Kryon
Tiara Kumara, Children of the Sun Foundation
Judith Kusel
Lakshmi Amrita
Dr. Suzanne Lie, Multidimensions
The Lightworkers
Lightworkers Meet-up
Lightworkers World
Love Has Won
Love in Action Now
James McConnell
Alexandra Meadors, Galactic Connection
Messages Celestes
Lisa Renee, Energetic Synthesis
Sananda

Sananda
Len Satov, SourceLight – Seeing you Home
Spirit Earth Awakening
Suzanne Spooner, The Art of Universal Knowing: TAUK
Suzanne Spooner, QHHT
Therese Zuni Sumner
Uplift – Unity, Peace, and Love in a Field of Transcendence
Sandra Walter, Creative Evolution
Geoff West, Cosmic Vision News
David Wilcock, Divine Cosmos

Alternative News of the World

Activist Post
Adbusters
Alternet
Amnesty International
Antiwar.com
Care 2 News Network [animal rights, ecology]
Collective Evolution
Common Dreams
Conscious Life News
Ramola D, The Everyday Concerned Citizen
Free Thought Project
Global Research
Independent Media Center
In These Times
Inequality.org
Human Rights Watch
The Mind Unleashed
Mother Jones
Natural News
News Bud
No More Fake News.com
Physicians for Human Rights
Russia Today
Salon
Signs of the Times
State of the Nation
Truthout
TruthStream Media
Wake Up World
Waking Times
Washington's Blog
We Are Change
Wikileaks
Yes! Magazine
Zcomm

Copyright © 2018 The Golden Age Of Gaia