The theme of this year's SALON material is “Essential Life Wisdom”. And with that in mind, in this first SALON, I chose the subject of soul stamina because I believe it is vitally important to all of us. First of all, what exactly is “stamina” from a soul’s perspective? And how exactly are you supposed to build stamina??

In order for me to even begin to answer just those two questions, much less add the other information to this SALON, we need to widen our lens a bit. I want you to think deeply and seriously about the following items of info, all of which affect you, but none of us know how much. And even if we did, there is absolutely nothing any of us can do about anything anyway. Let’s begin with recognizing that we now live in the age of energy. From the Internet to all forms of communication to energy medicine to who knows what goes on in space to whatever – the fact is we are now living in a world where at least half of what is influencing and controlling us is in energy form. What has this got to do with the subject matter of understanding the nature of a soul with stamina and why you should consider the subject worthy of your time and thought?

Well, combine the fact that we live in the “era of energy” with the reality that we are also the first “psychic culture” to exist in such a physical atmosphere. We are psychically active by choice; we are psychically active unconsciously as the result of drugs (legal and otherwise); we are psychically active as the result of therapies of all kinds; we are psychically active as the result of access to spiritual ritual and literature; and we are psychically active because it is the time in our evolution for advancement in our perceptual skills.

Here’s what’s true: we have yet to realize or find a way to recognize the impact – or energetic contamination – of the techno-world on the individual’s psychic system, much less the influence of one person’s negativity upon another. And every one of you has had who knows how many experiences of energetic contamination. But what’s all this have to do with the soul?

Let’s use a visual just to get a point across. Often times in leading meditations, the group instructor will direct people to “open their crown chakra and let light flow into the top of their head”. Picture that as you’re reading this – light is flowing through the crown of your head, through your body, filling your energy system. I prefer now to think of this light as transferring grace into my system and not “energy”; I can get energy from a candy bar. Now then, imagine that this beam of light – this beam of grace – does not just shut itself off, just like that, poof – because you’re not thinking about it anymore. Instead, let’s reverse the rule of thumb here and consider that maybe – just maybe – once you connect yourself to light, you stay connected. (I mean, it is SO like us to think we control things like that … you know, I’ll decide when and if I’m connected to light. I’ll open my crown chakra and then I’ll close it and then I’ll open it again and so on. I don’t think invoking divine light is like stopping at a gas station and hitting a fuel pump with a “fill me up” attitude … but isn’t that just like us?)

Meanwhile, however, on a more serious note – chakra exercises or other similar meditation practices animate your interior sensory system. Your subtle perceptual field does becomes subtly active, alert, and responsive to the energies in the micro and macro environment of your life. Most often people do not realize their subtle field is expanding, which means that their sensitivities or vulnerabilities to external energy sources, whether techno or human, are vastly increased. I am sure many of you can relate to this. Whereas what felt like “silence” once upon a time to you is now loaded with energy waves that are being absorbed into your subtle psychic body. As a result, you can experience consequences that can go from exhaustion to anxiety to rapid moods swings, among other conditions. Now consider that your psychic field is a mirror of your ego – as your ego goes, so goes your psychic energy. So in addition to relying upon your ego to cope with the world around you, it also has to manage the world within. And as you know, it takes very little to throw your ego into a tailspin. I mean, just ask yourself, “How much advancement have you made in terms of practicing – not just knowing, or understanding, or discussing, or reading, or trying – but actually in making your choices and directing your actions from the level of consciousness equal to the vision of your beliefs?” To ground that question, here is an example that comes from a workshop I gave last year, but as you read this, imagine that I am having this discussion with you.

I presented this question to a group of people and as expected, the first response was, “Could you repeat the question?”

So, I said, “Identify three spiritual truths that you hold sacred.” (Now you do this.) Sometimes even this instruction is baffling. (Examples: Forgiveness is the law of God; All is one – what I do to another, I ultimately am doing to myself; What goes around comes around – this is the law of karma; Love is the greater response than hatred, vengeance or anger, which only produce more hatred, vengeance or anger – only love breaks that cycle; What I see in others is a reflection of my own soul, both the good and the bad; Everything in life is an illusion, a lesson for my learning and to attach to the people in the lesson is to choose to suffer unnecessarily, for they are in service to my learning as I am to theirs; There is a power much greater than me – a Divine force – that watches over my life; Life is a spiritual journey carried on within the physical world – the challenge is to keep focused on everything I cannot see, hear, or touch – thus, the need for faith.)

I have to imagine that you would find something in that list of widely accepted spiritual teachings that you honor as a Divine or Universal Truth. Recognizing then that “All is one – what I do to another, I ultimately am doing to myself” is a Universal Truth, how could a person ever make even one conscious choice outside the parameters of that truth? And if they/we did, wouldn’t we have to hold ourselves accountable? By that I mean we would have to admit to ourselves, “I know all is one … blah, blah, blah … however, when it comes to so-and-so, I am simply not prepared to apply this truth. I am not yet that conscious … no can do … not yet, maybe not ever … working on it is the best I can say.”

In this particular audience was a man who had a particularly feisty personality. He was just delightful and in our discussion of the challenge of maintaining a personal theology, he said that he was simply incapable of living at “a high altitude” full time.

“It’s impossible,” he said, “I can’t function at ‘full consciousness speed’ for more than a minute at a time and then I need at least a week to reward myself for my outstanding behavior.” Everyone was enchanted with him after that behavior, as you can imagine. But he got his point across and everyone was in his court. But my point is that there are psychic consequences to having a deep code of theological truths functioning within your soul that support your psychic awakening. Your psychic field and your soul have a fundamental need to exist congruently. Your interior theology is like an operating code that filters into working orders for your ego, so to speak. Psychic chain reactions occur when you violate one of your theological codes that go something like this:

Like our delightful gentleman who recognized that he more often than not cannot or flat out refuses to apply a truth to someone he doesn’t like, he experiences a consequence of that violation. He has to rationalize his decision somehow, which brings the argument to the domain of the ego. Whenever you involve your ego in anything, especially when you are rationalizing a choice that you know was essentially a negative one, storms occur in your psychic field. Some form of stress begins, like anger or anxiety or depression – it has to because you are now acting contrary to a higher truth that is functioning within your soul. You are now at war with yourself. That, in turn, makes you a receptacle for psychic free radicals, and I’m talking from any outside source.

You have to realize that losing your psychic center these days, in this insane, mad, contaminated, psychic culture of ours, opens you up to far more psychic toxic waste than any junk food you’ll ever consume, I can promise you that. Cat food is healthier than some of the toxic energy I’ve read in some people. (I’ve gone back to doing medical/archetypal intuitive readings on my Hay House radio show, so I’m back at it and I’m delighted to be doing readings again.) I am convinced that these disorders that plague this culture of ours – depression, pain management, bi-polar personality disorder, schizophrenia, ADD, and that’s just a partial list – are psychic disorders as much if not more than they are neurological/chemical disorders. They are on the rise because they are a product of our era – a time of psychic expansion without conscious acceptance of the process. Therefore, the expansion is being repressed through drugs. Meanwhile there are those who have gone into the expansion of their consciousness via spirituality, which still exposes them – you – to the activity in the psychic atmosphere, leaving you extremely vulnerable to contamination.

This business of consciousness and spirituality and all this emphasis on the “self” and how labor-intensive being a good person is can be so exhausting. But the fact is – and it is a fact – that once you have even tampered with the notion that there is such a thing as “becoming conscious”, you’ve crossed the Rubicon and there is no going back. So, there is no going back. The only other option is to recognize that we are all in this madhouse of a planet together and to do the best we can and forward we go. Forward, when it comes to managing the psychic madness that is very, very real, includes developing a soul with stamina.

SOUL STAMINA

What’s soul stamina?

In a word – congruency. Soul stamina is developed through acknowledging the content of your inner theology and becoming congruent with your theology down to the level of your conscience – which is the difficult and more challenging level of practice. The definition doesn’t require more than this brief description; it’s the work that is difficult. Stamina is a scaffolding effort, a work in progress in which one small accomplishment per day converts to an enormous act of soul empowerment.

The congruent psyche/soul generates an impenetrable energy field. You simply are not vulnerable – or as vulnerable – to psychic free radicals or “psychic junk mail” or energetic negativity as someone who is psychically and spiritually ungrounded or out of communication with their theology and conscience.

Homework: Write down your theology – what exactly do you believe? Refer to the list of beliefs that I dropped in earlier for examples. This is a very challenging exercise, oddly enough, although you would think that it would be otherwise.

First: acknowledge what you believe;
Second: hold yourself accountable for slip ups; in other words, keep a watchful eye on your own actions – stay “conscious” of yourself;
Three: take ONE weak link at a time with the intention of building a congruent psychic-soul bridge. This is an exercise to develop stamina in your soul as well as psychic clarity. It requires that you become mindful of when you are acting in opposition to a belief you have; how you rationalize your behavior; and making your next move in a congruent pattern. Example: One woman told me that she was bitter for years because she felt so betrayed by her mother, sister, and a couple of friends. This betrayal consumed her. Then one day this woman whom she refused to forgive for betraying her came over to see her. She was expecting an apology, of course, but instead this other woman said, “I am going to do you a favor and share my feelings with you.” That, of course, took this woman completely by surprise as she had been living under the impression that between the two of these women, she was the only one who had any feelings. Anyway, this woman continued, saying, “You have hurt my feelings so many times and I’ve finally decided to let you know that. I used to confide in you and share my thoughts and feelings. I would always ask you to keep them in confidence and you always promised me that you would. I learned otherwise from two people who told me that you would tell them about every one of our conversations. You have betrayed our friendship for years. Why would you do that to me when you gave me your word that you would honor my confidence? Was your need for attention and entertainment so great that you would violate my confidence as conversation over lunch with your friends?”

Well, as you can imagine, this first woman who had spent years in bitterness believing that everyone had betrayed her was now being told that she was a betrayer herself. And she was – guilty as charged. She had no excuse to offer – what excuse was there? What could she say? She finally had to recognize that she did not honor her word, even though she gave her word as often as she pulled out a charge card. Out of this painful situation, however, came great insight about why her psychic state was always so toxic. She made a commitment to herself to keep her word, to become congruent in her thoughts and actions.

As simple an exercise as choosing an area of your theology that is incongruent with your psychic/ego behavior and working to bring that into congruency … there is nothing simple about it – absolutely nothing. The practice of becoming congruent is about as rigorous a spiritual practice as can be entered into. It requires every ounce of psychic, soul muscle that you have working for you, but that is precisely why and how you develop a strong energy field. I always recommend the practice of prayer and contemplation; but without action, without application in your life, prayer and contemplation becomes congestion.

Let me add that this is a practice that has a beginning, but no end.