Once we close our eyes and follow our breath, we have virtually shut out the outer world. As we “go down into the deep of our own being,” we relinquish to the Higher Power. And because we have surrendered to the Divine, our meditative experience is like being on a guided tour.

Sometimes, spiritual reflection opens the door to transformation and healing. The following spiritual practice offers a set of questions that can guide this process. It is based on Gestalt Psychology, Jungian Psychology, Core Transformation, Embodiment, the Enneagram’s Centers of Intelligence and soul qualities, Neurolinguistic Programming, and Rational Emotive Therapy.

June 30, 2025

Whether rich, poor, educated, uneducated, spiritually developed or not, all of us can be ruled by ego, even when we pray— and all of us have the potential to be governed by the soul and when this is true, our prayers come from our soul. In the New Testament book of Matthew, Jesus instructed us to go into our closet to pray, far away from those who would hear us. Jesus’s word “closet” is from the Greek “tameion” a storage chamber or secret room that is well-guarded. Jesus’s Aramaic word for the closet was “Tawanaah,” a room where valuables and supplies are stored, a room without windows. It is a metaphor for a place of solitude and spiritual reflection, free from distractions and public displays of piety. 

March 31, 2025

Many spiritual practices increase our level of serenity. But perhaps the most effective spiritual practice is meditation. In meditation, we are grounded, still, and open to our higher mind. Simply quieting our mental activity and external stimulation reshapes our neuropathways and emotional response patterns. In settling our minds, we move past the chatter, and extraneous thoughts pass. The condition we achieve in meditation can remain with us after our meditation formally ends. If we notice that condition and work to keep it, we move through the world with tranquility. Negative emotions cannot readily take over in serenity and tranquility, negative emotions cannot ready take over.

March 30, 2025

Saying what we think sometimes hurts others’ feelings and causes problems. This happens especially if our emotional center is running rampant. It is hard spiritual work to control emotions enough to consider what we say before we say it.

March 29, 2025

Sometimes, the answer doesn’t come. Sometimes, the insights, ritual, or guidance don’t bring a resolution. Nothing works; however spiritual it may be. This situation calls us to do something that most of us resist doing at all costs. It’s the hardest spiritual work of all: surrender.

March 28, 2025

Many of the circumstances and relationships on our journey of spiritual growth require hard work. For example, someone wants to take something from us or control us. Maybe they want to take advantage of the relationship or diminish us. Possibly they will not give us what we need or deserve. Maybe their intentions are good as far as they are concerned, but they are blind to the repercussions of their actions. Such scenarios happen all the time in marriages, families, businesses, organizations, political parties, cities, states and countries.

March 27, 2025

Spiritual work is not confined to the academic study of spiritual ideas and their application. If that were true, then people who can’t read or study would be limited in their spiritual growth. We know from experience that spiritual growth happens in all lifestyles, regardless of culture, educational status, or the ability to study. Often, I think of the enslaved people in our country and the spiritual strength and wisdom that many of them must have achieved to exist in the most horrendous circumstances imaginable. They had no formal education, but they learned and grew spiritually.

March 26, 2025

We have to swallow our pride to do the work. Our unchecked ego doesn’t want us to admit we were wrong or entertain other ways of being. But spiritual work calls for just that. It calls for us to let go of our unchecked ego and open our eyes to the higher things. Many spiritual searchers I know tell me that their spiritual journey began when their ego failed them. That’s when they swallowed their pride and started to do the work of study and practice.

February 3, 2025

As living documents, we constantly declare in thought, word, and deed our outward identity and our inner soul. Of course, how much of each we express depends on our connection to the ego and its healthy amalgamation with the soul. And this connection is composed of a different algorithm for each of us.