Reroofing
Your Life
If
you’ve been reading my blog, you know that the wind blew the roof right off of
my carport last Sunday. This morning at 7 a.m. there are 12 men on my roof
scraping off the old roof and preparing the decking for a brand new roof. As always,
I can’t help thinking what the metaphor of this process might be for me. I’m
going to go through the process of finding a metaphor in your daily life with
you, so that you can understand how to do this yourself.
I
believe that Spirit is operating in every aspect of my life. Even something as
simple as removing and replacing a roof means something spiritual, especially
if I believe that God is all in All, which I do.
So,
the roof symbolizes that which protects the house from the elements, especially
rain and snow. It keeps in the heat and cool. It provides shade and weather
proofing so that the heat and cooling in the house stay where its supposed to.
Basically, a roof is the last thing placed on the house and it’s there for
protection.
So,
I wonder what in my life I have put over my life or in my life very recently,
or over the long haul, to keep out the elements of storms, which may represent
psychological storms such as anxiety, stress, and fears.
I
think, perhaps, that as I search my mind and sit with this metaphor, I might
consider ways that I protect myself from hurt and managing fear:
1. I
keep people at arm’s distance for a long time before I let them in to my
personal life.
2. I
tend to throw away the good with the bad when I leave a relationship.
3. Strict
rules, especially religious or political ones, tend to really put me off, so I
keep very strict church people or very antagonistic political people at arm’s
distance.
4. I
don’t enjoy being judged, so I “try” to be perfect in all ways.
5. I
don’t like for people to see my flaws, so I hide them well.
6. I
think personal relationship will protect me from the elements of daily life.
7. I
tend to use subtle manipulation in place of anger and then eat the anger and
digest it deep in my soul, never to be seen it again. I remember only bad
coming out of anger as a child, so it holds an element of ungodliness.
I
think those seven attributes might do it for the things I use to protect
myself. Now, the objective is to
look at all those things I wrote and see which part or parts of my protective
covering need to be replaced with something new—a new roof!
As
I was writing each element, I realized that some of what I use as protection, I
have already been successfully changing in my life. For instance, using
relationship to protect my life is something I completely realized months ago
and is not even a choice anymore. Relationship is purely about someone
accompanying me in life, not about protection anymore. The working out of this
aspect of change is purposefully being challenged almost every day, which means
I’m open to learning the lessons about it.
I
look at number two—throwing out the good with the bad. I learned to do this
because I had always tried hard to make amends with people I had been in
relationship with. I had done this so that our time of loving would not be
wasted.
But
after many years of realizing that half of my problems were as a result of
trying to keep old relationships alive in my life, I decided maybe it was time
to remove old useless ones that were draining me of energy. This has happened
fairly recently in my life, as well, so I don’t believe that this problem is
something Spirit wants to change.
Number
three strikes my heart fairly hard this morning. Keeping religious and
intensely political people at arm’s distance sounds a lot to me like judgment,
prejudice. So, perhaps, Spirit would like to help me lift that distinctive barrier
from my life.
The
next thing I do is ask Spirit to show me through books, life’s circumstances,
and people (it could be a bum on the street) how I might make this change.
Since this is a very new revelation, I am simply going to say a prayer and make
an intention that I sit with this feeling and let Spirit do Its job. I guess,
the most important thing to understand in doing spiritual work like this is
that, if God is about teaching you something, all you need do is be aware, open
your heart, and listen.
I
think of dear friend of mine who is a caterer. One day as she was taking her
daily run in the neighborhood, a baguette came from the sky, seemingly out of
nowhere, and hit her in the head. When bread from heaven hits you in the head,
you had better sit up and take notice. This actually was a wake-up call for her
to move deeper into her spiritual life, which she has done with ease and
persistence. Taking notice of this spiritual message has made her life richer
and more loving than ever. We laugh at that day. But I would say the simplest metaphors
in life might be the most valuable to you as you begin to watch for them.
I
hope this helps and I look forward to hearing from you about your life’s
lessons through God’s daily metaphors.
* * *
Bo Sebastian is a Hypnotherapist and Life & Health
Coach, available for private sessions to QUIT SMOKING, Lose Weight, New
Lap-Band Hypnosis for Weight Loss, CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE YOUR LIFE! at
615-400-2334 or www.bosebastian.com.
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