Creating Space For Wholeness
13 Sessions To Reflect On The Journey Home To Who We Are Meant To Be
Facilitated By Karen Hilfman Author of The Mended Mirror
Session #2 of 13
A Time Of Reflection
- As you read the quote and story below and consider a step in The Connection Strategy, notice what you notice as you read. Does a word, phrase or concept tug at your attention?
- Does a quote or insight emerge for you in this time of reflecting as together we listen for and commit to choosing pathways that lead to life and love and light rather than death and hatred, that lead us home to who we are meant to be?
- What insights rise up from your experience as we hold space to focus on and empower a vision of wholeness and well-being? What are the lessons we need to be learning? What are the shifts we are embracing or need to embrace?
- What wisdom and creativity is emerging for you? What stories and situations fill you with hope? Are there quotes or stories or experiences that you would add to deepen these reflections?
Connection Strategy For Self And Community: From Disconnected To Connected
13 Steps to Connect to the Power of Transformation, Meaning, Purpose and the Authenticity Within Each of Us to Enhance Our Life Together in Community
Step #2 Develop intrinsic motivation. Disconnect from insecurity, judgment and the need for external affirmation, which can destabilize our connection to our core.
Quote
When we risk being open, vulnerable and honest about our struggles and our joys, the fullness of who we are emerges and connects us to one another at a profound, authentic level.
Sharing our stories allows us to take the risk of coming out from behind masks that separate us from one another and from ourselves. Experience has taught me that the pattern of hiding behind masks and disconnecting from authentically engaging in life is at the root of some of our greatest struggles in the times in which we live. We are experiencing an epidemic of loneliness rooted in the destructive powers of judgment, shame, blame and guilt. We are experiencing a culture that is numb to some of the deepest travesties of human history as we soothe ourselves with over-consumption of things, addictive substances and repeated mindless patterns. Too often, we are cut off from the roots of meaning at the core of our being as we strive to survive by fulfilling shallow expectations, rather than allowing ourselves to be nourished by the richness of wisdom and the vision of collaboration that is deep within us. Sharing our stories connects us at the deep level of our profound longing for community, creativity, compassion and acceptance.
Page 10 The Mended Mirror by Karen Hilfman Millson
Story
I call Alan at work to ask him if he is willing to take our trailer out to the provincial park for me that night. I desperately need to get away.
For the next nine days I am completely alone. I do not listen to music. I do not read books. I barely think. I talk to no one. I allow myself to merge with the forest beside my campsite. It isn’t until the fifth day that I even walk down the trail to be nourished by the lake. I simply sit in the campsite, barely moving, staring into the trees, allowing time for my depleted stores of energy to connect to the source of love’s power in order to be refilled.
As the days unfold, the power at my core has the opportunity to be charged. In this time of healing solitude I become aware that during the past many months, in the midst of the crashing and rumbling that felt as disruptive as an earthquake, there has been a sense of wholeness that never completely left me. Now with my power reserves topped up, the wholeness within me is again filling the landscape of my soul rather than being diminished to a tiny still point in the middle of chaos.
Page 280 The Mended Mirror by Karen Hilfman Millson
Sharing Your Reflections
To add your thoughts to this conversation post them on the Course page under each session of Creating Space for Wholeness on www.AuthenticConnectionCulture.com or www.TheMendedMirror.com or on Facebook. Or simply be intentional about holding prayerful space knowing we connect heart to heart across the miles and time, and that together we are empowering and strengthening the things to which we give our attention.