Spiritual Partnership

I liked how Gary Zukav's, the author of Spiritual Partnership: The Journey to Authentic Power and many other books, described spiritual partners in this interview. Spiritual partner is someone who helps you grow and grows with you. It is also a perfect topic to discuss on Valentine's Day!

He has posted Spiritual Partnership Guidelines on his website. I find these guidelines very useful as a daily reminder to stay focused on my spiritual growth. Many of them are so simple, but at the same time I can see how paying attention to the way I communicate with everyone and act in the world can make a difference. I am going to summarize these principles briefly below, because it helps me to think about them again. I would love if we would be each others' Spiritual Partners all the time.

1. The first step is to commit myself to making my spiritual growth my first priority. Another word that Gary uses for spiritual growth is "creating authentic power". I love this term. I think it really represents the process of self-awareness and harnessing your own power. So how can I create my authentic power? By focusing on what I can learn about myself at every moment from my reactions, emotions, thoughts, and intentions.
2. Then, I need to develop courage to overcome limiting perspectives of the frightened parts of my personality. We all have those parts that we wish to hide. Facing them, taking responsibility for them, and stepping out of the comfort zone will help to step outside of these limited beliefs about myself.
3. I need to have compassion to others and realizing that we all have these limiting beliefs. Releasing the distance I feel from anyone and being present for another are the steps involved here.
4. Finally, I need to make all my communications and action conscious and loving. To do this I need to use my intuition and set my intention before I speak or act. Acting should happen from the healthiest part of my personality. When I speak, I need to make sure that I am personal and specific rather than general and abstract. The final step is, and I love that this is the same idea I have been talking about while reading the Bhagvad Gita yesterday, releasing attachment to the outcome. If there is attachment to the outcome, or doubts, then I need to go back to Step 1 again. How cool is that? Trusting the Universe and releasing attachment to the outcome has resurfaced here as well.