I’m beginning a new podcast series called Spiritual Freedom and have decided to ask myself the same question I’ve been asking others. “What does spiritual freedom mean to you and how does your work help others to embrace this?

In this moment in time, I see spiritual freedom as a place of grace and self acceptance. No matter what I create or discover inside, no matter what happens in the outer world, I am connected to my soul with enthusiasm and experience the world with love in my heart.

Until 1988 I’d never given this precept a second thought, maybe not even a first. In fact, I spent a lot of my growing up years living in total autonomy without even knowing it! Spirit drove me, embraced me, it penetrated everything I did, and doing was the essential me.

Mostly I was an active person, expressing spirit while skiing, sailing, practicing yoga, dancing, hiking, swimming, and as I matured, I found spirit in romantic partnership. I was filled with passion and spontaneity, enthusiasm for nature, for people and life in general. In the early days, up until I was in my early 30′s, it was all about playing and having fun. My body was healthy, strong and very vital. At the time, this was my interpretation of spiritual freedom, a sort of unconscious bliss.

Then, in 1987, I worked with a young woman who suggested I take a meditation class at Berkeley Psychic Institute (BPI for short). So I did. No questions asked, I just signed up and attended the class. It was the best decision I ever made! I learned to ground, run energy and heal my body-mind of a subtle, yet rising river of anxiety that had overflowed a few years before; one that I’d dammed up so I could continue having a blast.

Now my anxiety had an outlet and I watched as energy I never knew existed began to release from deep inside me. I was still having fun, it was just a different kind of fun. My enthusiasm was for the unknown, the psychic or soul parts of me that I’d suppressed and long forgotten. Suddenly, I was a totally different person with totally different friends, thoughts and even behaviors. I remembered that I was a spirit in the body and that was incredibly freeing. This sensation allowed me to expand way beyond my previously established boundaries, and simultaneously I was grounded more than ever before.

After the first year at BPI the learning curve became a bit steep. We learned how to go into the shadows, pulling out old patterns and programs for healing. Sometimes these patterns were sticky and I felt further than ever from the ease of spiritual freedom. Other times, there was no time and no space between my body and the great expanse of the universal web of spirit. Of course this place of limitless possibilities was my preference. Sitting on top of the mountain was very different than the challenging journey upward. At that moment in time, my interpretation of spiritual freedom was comfort in the body and a quiet mind.

Soon I decided to teach people about spiritual tools and precepts, becoming a minister at the same time. The bar of consciousness continued to be set higher and higher. Eventually, and this happens for everyone, even many times on the road to enlightenment, I hit a huge, resistant rock inside me that wouldn’t budge. I believed everything the world reflected to me. Like an obsessed dieter, I tried desperately to change the reflections by being nicer and nicer.

No longer free, I wasn’t autonomous in any way. I felt so blocked, so encumbered, I even gained weight. It took a whole lot more than a deep breath and grounding, or an aura healing, to sustain even the tiniest flame of desire in me. It was so very dark in here! My tools weren’t working anymore and emotions began to fly up and out of this entrenched place like bats exposed to daylight. All I could do then was ask for help.

“As we read, we allow the cosmic and earth energies to flow through our bodies, opening the doors through which we become more aware of our spirituality and increase the communication with the God of our hearts. Let us pray. May it be with the blessings of the creator, that whatever happens during this healing will benefit each of us in our spiritual growth, awareness and understanding. Amen.”

This is the prayer we recited to set the energy before practicing many of our healing sessions. I used it every day before I went to work, before I even stuck my toe out the door. It was the first time since resolving the old panic that I wanted to curl up and hide under the covers. Albeit short in duration, this wasn’t the last time this same pattern would come out of the dungeons, hairy and smelly, wearing the dirty and torn clothes of a life sentence prisoner. It looked a bit different each time, yet was linked to the same old ball and chain that dragged me down, time and time again.

If you’d asked me about spiritual freedom in those days, I may have given you the finger! That was my answer. I was tired of digging, tired of using the cliché about how everything is good, no matter what; saying those ridiculous affirmations about what doesn’t kill you just makes you stronger. I just wasn’t there yet. Flipping people off was as free as I could be back then and my subterranean anger had finally started to bubble and breathe. Little did I know this would be a constant companion for years to come.

As it was, I found a lot of freedom in the ability to express emotion as I experienced it in the moment, quite spontaneously. I thank one of my teachers for that permission. She told me “it may look ugly at first, but you absolutely have to practice being angry, you have to admit it, embrace it, love it and show it outwardly. When you can do this without worrying about the risks, that’s when you’ll be free.” And anger was my next experience of spiritual freedom.

So, fast forward into present time, after lots of anger, lots of self-hatred realized, lots of sadness and grief, many moments of feeling victimized and then taking responsibility for all those experiences, I sit here today asking myself what is next. How will I experience and interpret spiritual freedom around the next bend.

All I can say is this: I am willing to be lonely, I am willing to be alone, I am willing to go even deeper, spending my whole life as a ditch digger. I am willing to be all these things. I am also willing to open my heart, to find compassion, to be powerful, to let my light shine as the Goddess that I am, I am willing to transmit peace everywhere I go. I am willing to risk every relationship I have to find my way back home, to complete my soul. This is freedom.

“‘What if a man gain the whole world and lose his own soul?’ To a mystic with eyes turned inward toward infinity and cosmic consciousness, Jesus’ words have great meaning. There exists only one to one contact between the Cosmic and a living soul, which flames quietly, bringing a lifetime of contentment and a realization that nothing is worth exchanging for that attainment.” This is taken from Berkeley Psychic Institute’s Psychic Creed.

And how does this play outwardly? Currently my life’s work centers on my own growth as a human being in full spiritual embrace, and although I want to reach out sharing with everyone on my planet, if one other person feels compelled or motivated by this, my soul will be complete.

Please visit Energetic Connection’s podcasts, “Fuel For the Fire,” listening to topics like this, breathing and visualization, seasonal Celtic ceremonies, self-mastery and more.