Thursday, July 3, 2008

Burnout, Spirituality Style

Seems to be a lot of that going around. I don't know if it's the weather (it's too dang hot!), the natural slowdown in traditional places of worship, my personal frustrations with the job search that is (almost!) over, or what. It just seems that lately I haven't been as excited or energetic about my spiritual growth, research, and life as I was a few months ago.

Turns out I'm not the only one, though.

I went over to Blogickal's website, which I've been reading every so often because I find her insight and her tradition (she's wiccan) to be fascinating. Do I subscribe to her beliefs? No, but it doesn't mean that she is, or I am, wrong in any way shape or form. If there's one thing I've learned during my journey, it's that there are very few absolutely "wrong" answers when it comes to our relationship with the Divine. Unless you think that Tom Cruise is a great spiritual leader, that is. Then you're absolutely wrong! : )

Anyway, in her latest post, she talks about her feelings of ennui. I later met with Whirling Dervish, and he and I chatted about how all of us seem to be feeling run down and stagnant in our spiritual progression. Despite learning opportunities in both of our lives (as well as the coming new career paths), we're both sort of, well, just here.

I'm sure that further introspection will reveal the source of this, but for now I think I'll just let it be. I remember when I was training as a spiritual director - one of the best things I ever did, despite not doing much directing these days! I remember my mentor telling me that I need to learn to listen to my body and spirit. When energized, move. When tired, sleep. When hungry, feed. That sort of thing. As simple as it sounds, too often I try to plow ahead when I'm exhausted and drained, and go hungry when I should be taking care of myself. So now might be a good time, since I'm waiting on people to process my paperwork, to just sit back and doing some resting and healing. Self-care is a must when you're in this business!

1 comment:

bhawan said...

Hi,
I was looking for spiritual blogs, here I found yours, dear, tell me one thing which I didn't get in your article, that when you're getting training to be a spiritual leader, your mentor told you listen to your spirit and body, that's fine, but next line !!! 'when hungry eat, when tired sleep, when energetic move, don't you think through these things, we'll depend on our body, many times body says go to sleep, go take rest, mostly it say so, then should we keep on fulfilling it's wishes like this??

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