The right life

What is the most righteous path? How is the best life lived? What makes a good life?

I imagine these questions being asked by a breathless, sweaty climber who has reached a guru atop a rocky mountain. Yet, as reflective beings, we do ask similar questions in our day-to-day life. Without the drama of the high mountain climb, in our cars or in the shower, we ponder: what is the right life? The questions may look more like:

Should I stay home with my children or return to paid work?
Is it better to stay in the safe job with an employer or take a risk and try something new?
Am I happy in this relationship/ marriage?
Should I be tough on my teen-aged child or be compassionate to his/her struggle?
Can I tell my mom/ dad/ sibling/ boss how I really feel?

Of course there are many more questions where we wonder what is the *right* choice.

I recently struggled with a decision about what steps to take next. Should I pursue teaching spiritual circles and focus my efforts on getting more people to come? Or should I continue in the paper-pushing work of getting clinical social work status and taking a few graduate courses? Or should I work away making some money with less loftier aims and primarily focus on the needs of my still-young-but-not-for-long daughters?

I struggled with feeling obligated to my spiritual teachers. I felt that if I have been taught one or two things spiritually that I *should* share the gift. It is not meant for me alone and so I must pass it on. However, I am not ready, in many ways, to focus my efforts on spiritual teaching full-time. I am worried about making a business sustainable and I fear I might not be successful.

This is what happened to me during this time of struggle:

Talking to an indecisive woman about to have an abortion I heard myself say: There is no judgement. There is no *right* choice here. If you choose this path (in her case have a 4th child), your life will look like this. If you choose this other path (in her case have an abortion), this is how your life may look. This is the burden of choice. How your life is created is up to you. This isn't about who is inconvenienced by your choice, this is between you, God (however you understand that term) and your child.

So read that paragraph twice. First there are the words to a woman who is scared she will hate herself if she aborts her fourth pregnancy/ child, but at the same time feels overwhelmed with three small children already. This alone is profound and meaningful.

The second time you read it, it's a message to me about my struggle: what is the right life? Here is the answer:

The right life is the one that you create.
There is no obligation.
It isn't about who is inconvenienced,
it's about you, God and your child*.

(*The feel of "your child" is implied to mean my role as mother,

but also the implication to future generations- do no harm.)

So now then... what is the right life for you?

Well, that's just it. There is no *right* answer. Live with an open heart and hear your own wisdom. You know the answers. There is only love. When you get past the fear, obligation and sense of lack there is no struggle. You are the creator of your life.


With love,

Heather.

Spirit and Abortion

This is a non-traditional perspective on spirit and abortion. I know there are different views on this. This is mine.

Each woman is different in how she perceives pregnancy and abortion. For some women they have worked out their beliefs and how to make sense of abortion in a spiritual context, but for many women the choice to have an abortion brings a spiritual crisis. A woman may question when life begins, if there is a God and what makes a person good or bad.

Our access to abortion has meant that now we are burdened by choice. Whereas once our grandmothers were burdened by pregnancy and childbirth every year without reprieve, we are burdened by choice. What is right? What is wrong? We weigh the pros and cons of making the choice to terminate a pregnancy.

Choice is a gift, but it is also fraught with difficulty. We can only rely on our logic and our on our conscience when we need to decide what is best our self, our partner, our children and the fetus we have not met. Often our logic and our conscience are in opposition.

Many women cannot work out logically how they can possibly proceed with a unintended pregnancy. Each woman may have many things that prevent her from thinking it’s a good idea to have a child right now. However, her conscience fears that there may already be an individual spirit or soul connected to the pregnancy. A woman in this circumstance may fear that she is killing a soul or an individual spirit and in this, feels separate from God or Spirit.

I believe that when a woman has an abortion, although she does indeed terminate or kill the fetus on a physical level, she cannot kill spirit. We don’t have that power. If there is an individual spirit connected to a pregnancy, it is so much closer to the place from where it came- its original spiritual source- than it is to the physical plane. The spirit simply returns home.

It’s really a bit arrogant to believe that we can kill spirit or energy. This is the stuff the whole entire universe is made from. Who am I to be able to kill that? I can only control some things in the physical world, not the matter of the whole universe. That’s the burden of something or someone greater than I. It is not me.

On the spiritual plane that spirit or life-energy continues. If there is an individual spirit connected to a pregnancy, it may choose (or be chosen) to return to this physical place, but it may not. Maybe the purpose of that spirit was simply to be the fetus that you terminated. Perhaps the turbulent emotions or the changes that have come from this pregnancy and abortion are the message to you. And that is all you needed from this spirit. However, maybe that spirit will be connected to you again in the future in some way. If there really is meant to be a little spirit or soul for you to know, you will. You can’t stop that.

I read on a poster somewhere:

“ You are NOT in charge of the entire universe. That’s my job. Love, God.”


I believe that is true.

With love,

Heather.