Thinking a lot about commitment today. I read Gay Hendricks’ latest book recently, The Genius Zone, and was reminded yet again of the power of commitment. I’m not talking about the commitments we make to others here, but rather the commitments we need to make to ourselves in order to make the changes we need to make to live our lives doing what we most love to do.
I’ve made a number of lifechanging commitments to myself over the years and I know I would not have been able to do the things I really wanted to do without having done so.
The first one that comes to mind is early on in my spiritual journey when I was following a year long program having to do with Daily Spiritual Living. It was my first year taking Unity classes and it was my first year taking workshops with Christopher Moon with Vision Mountain Leadership Training. I was committed to following each day’s lesson and when I came to the part where we were to make a commitment to follow our inner guidance without question for 40 days I was in! Then I got the hit to go on a trip to Israel and Egypt. Didn’t make much sense to me as I was not working at the time, and I had never even thought of going there before. But I had made the commitment, so the trip actually morphed into circling the globe with stays in Thailand, Nepal, India (briefly), Egypt and finally Israel. I was by myself, on an extremely low budget and had no real idea what I was doing. It wasn’t an easy journey, but it was a life changing one that I have never regretted though I would not want to do it that way again!
The second one that comes up is a few years later, after yet another marriage breakup. I had been through many relationships over the years with none lasting more than 3 years. It was discouraging to say the least, but I knew there was something important there for me. I had come to realize that I was expecting my partners to love me in ways I was not willing, and had not even known I could, love myself. So, I remember the moment I made the commitment to love every part of myself rather than expected someone else to. That decision has sent me on the most challenging and amazing journey where I really began to recognize all the ways I was not loving myself and learning how to do so. It also led me to the great relationship I have had with my husband this past 21 years. That is nothing shy of a miracle and the work goes on. I love him and myself more all the time. Without that commitment I have no doubt I would still be floundering and very much alone.
The third commitment I will mention here has to do with how I finally got into ministerial training. I went a few years with the desire coming up and then getting discouraged, then letting it go only to have it rise up again. There always seemed to be some obstacle or other that I was not willing to overcome until the day I finally said, I am going to do whatever it takes to become a Unity minister. It was a whole being commitment as were the other two I’ve mentioned, and once again it changed my life. Within a very short period, weeks or at most a couple of months, the windows and doors were opened and I walked through. It was a grace filled dream come true!
There are more but those are my top three. What I have learned through all this is the power of commitment and I continue to commit every day to my path. The latest is the commitment I made that has me writing these blogs again. The commitment to spend at least two hours every day doing what I most love to do. I love studying and exploring, teaching, talking about and writing about the spiritual journey and realizing our Divine Potential. So here I am.
What do you love to do? Are you committed to spending time with it every day? If not, what are you making more important and how is that serving you? We are all not only worthy of doing what we love but that is how we make our greatest contribution in this world (thank you to Gay Hendricks for reminding me about that again). We need to be aware of what we get from our distractions and avoidance so that we can choose to let that go and truly surrender to the Divine process that is leading us to our greatest sense of purpose and fulfillment. How could we ever regret that?
Namaste
