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 #7 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 # 7 Listen for inner guidance. Disconnect from dishonouring and ignoring inner wisdom.
Quote
Through these early years in the community on two lakes where creative energy nudges me to see deeply into life, I continue to meet people who offer an alternative and often ancient way of listening for guidance and wisdom.
A major new understanding and insight comes from the teaching of an Elder from the First Nations community close by. He shares his wisdom about the perspective and practices of the medicine wheel to enhance decision-making and discernment within community. The teaching confirms what I have been discovering. The wisdom that he shares impacts my work and my relationship with Mom. It is a teaching rooted in the understanding of the importance of hearing the different perspectives that are carried within the circle of community. I write about this teaching in an article:
It is an Elder of the First Nations community near my home who teaches many of us about the wisdom he’s been given about the Medicine Wheel. A key concept in the teaching is the importance of hearing the wisdom of all perspectives within a community when we need to resolve an issue or find a way forward that will be life-giving to the community. When a decision is required, the process is to listen to the insights of each of the seven clans. There is recognition that each clan has one-seventh of the perspective required to make wise choices. When the wisdom of all seven clans has been shared, time is given for all the clans to digest the different perspectives. Then the community gathers again to hear more input, and then maybe again. Only when it feels like all the perspectives have been heard does the way forward become clear, a way some call the eighth way, which is the way of the Creator. To arrive at this place of awareness, conversation is filled with pauses in order to allow wisdom to emerge. The use of a talking piece, such as a stone or feather, invites people to listen deeply as others share their thoughts. People are encouraged to only consider what they are called to share when the talking piece is handed to them rather than developing their answer while others are speaking. This practice contrasts with the tendency in our culture where ideas and responses are mulled over while others share their perspective. We think about what we are going to say rather than listening to what others are saying. In many ways for me, the use of the talking piece or “peace” models the experience it promotes, of talking for the purpose of finding a peaceful and wise way forward.
Page 251 The Mended Mirror by Karen Hilfman Millson
Story
I had a conversation with my Dad about “nudges” during my late teens, which continues to impact my life on a regular basis. He told me that it is important to always listen to the nudges that I get in life. He said that if you stop listening, the nudges will stop coming. He shared stories of business deals that would have fallen through if he had not followed a nudge to make a phone call. I learn the power of that lesson again and again in my life.
Extending my trip to England by ten days after the Greenbelt Festival is one of the times when I follow a nudge even though it feels odd. It is a nudge that sends me barrelling down a pathway that confirms for me, within the context of community, that I am not alone in the profound spiritual experiences that are continuously part of my life.
All my life I have sensed a mystical, loving energy that playfully calls us to see through eyes of love, inviting us to see life differently from the limitations of the teachings of our society. While I have journeyed far into this awareness in conversations with others, these final ten days in England create the opportunity to have experiences that confirm even more deeply my sense of the world.
It is this awareness of a power greater than we see with our eyes that sustains me through the years when Mom is going through difficult times. And now, because of Mom’s encouragement to travel, I have a multitude of mountaintop spiritual experiences filled with the transformative power to change people everywhere as we awaken to what is possible.
Page 349 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.