Spiritual growth comes the ways we allow it.  If we close off one way, it shows up some other way. Sometimes we have to approach various parts or phases of it from many different ways at the same time.

Mine often comes with beautiful and exciting visualizations, information, and discernible energy shifting.  I had some of that this week (see my yahoo group for my description of a beautiful integration of a higher aspect of me while working with someone else– down2earthspritstff on yahoogroups.com) This past week it has also come via eating differently and some emotional work done for a program in which I am participating, both of which I was guided to do by my intuition. (This is what I call practical spiritual stuff.)

I switched to vegan eating a little over a week ago.  Not just vegan but about 80% raw with hardly any fruit and no grains (I will eventually begin sprouting them).  I have been amazed at myself at how I just did it considering I have been guided to do this for about 7 years and couldn’t stick with it.  But the time is now, so it is happening.

I have been detoxing since about the 4^th day, which is not pleasant but it is informative.  It means my body reeeeaaaaaaally needed this change, to give it a break physically and to help it catch up with the energy shifts the rest of me already went through.  I have already noticed that I generally feel better, even though I cannot put my finger on exactly what is better physically.  However, in my spiritual work there is a greater clarity and ease that is noticeable.  I move quicker into the higher vibration needed to support my clients with their healing choices, and, more importantly, I am staying in that higher vibration longer because my body isn’t fighting off the effects of harsh, and sometimes toxic, food that it doesn’t want or need.

Additionally, either as part of this detox or as part of some emotional inventory work I am doing, I tapped into some deep hurt I had not healed yet.  It is hurt I have visited before but now I am approaching it on a much deeper level.  How can I tell?  Because today when I woke up I felt much lighter after all the emotional flow that happened yesterday when I tapped into the hurt.  I feel as if I opened a door to a place where I had stuffed a bunch of that hurt while trying to believe it didn’t matter or was already healed.

You know how our higher selves are – we are put in situations where we get to learn or heal, if we choose, and where the people we interact with usually participate in that healing in some way.  So I had help in opening the door to this deep hurt by an insensitive and controlling family member who so brilliantly (and easily) triggered some deep feelings of non-acceptance and invalidation.  I also was helped by an acquaintance innocently asking how someone could get to be my age and not have experienced something that I keep thinking I desperately want to experience (life with a mate/partner). It just wasn’t part of her reality so she couldn’t understand it.

I am reminded that if I didn’t have this stuff to heal no one would be triggering me. After all the emotions released I was able to embrace that thought easier (LOL!!) and bless that family member and acquaintance for the role played in all of this.  I also realized that anything I am using as a focus for holding on to old emotions is just a distraction.  If I didn’t already have a belief that I needed something outside of me in order for me to be acceptable or loved or whole, none of the expectations or desires would matter.  For instance, if I accepted myself totally as I am I wouldn’t still have the belief that I need to please anyone else in order to survive or be happy, yet I still have some of that I struggle with. There are a lot more examples but I plan to write them up in another blog.

I am aware of the more practical nature of this phase in my spiritual evolution because of my experiences this week with my reactions to my change in eating and my emotional work done while following my intuitive guidance.  I did not know what would result from following that guidance, but I have enough experience to follow any intuitive guidance that comes to me this strongly.  I am pleased with myself and my growth.

I am experiencing some personal changes in an interesting way.  In the past two days I have had the privilege of assisting two friends through pivotal shifts.  However, during each of their shifts I too have been worked on.  I am not sure I have noticed that before.  I know when I work with my monk friend it happens but then she is a very high vibration, and there is no way it cannot.  But now it is happening with me.

Additionally, a week ago I listened to my higher self as it emphatically told me to stop eating meat products.  So now I am detoxing too but I think it is helping my vibration raise more.  My intuitive guidance tells me that there is less resistance in the body to the shifting I am experiencing so it seems to be happening faster.

On two different days this week I basically spent most of the day by myself (other than walking and running to the library) AND, drum roll, I didn’t beat myself up about it or push myself to do anything more.  I am just being – too many changes are occurring for me to do anything else.  Somehow the days are being filled up. Between all the new vegan and raw foods recipes I am trying and all the pro bono work I have been guided to do and the clients, I am busy.  It is a lovely busy though, just enough so I am not too bored but not too much to make me crazy.  I can no longer run from one thing to another.  Everything is mindful or it is stressful.  I kind of like living this way. I am content with myself more times than not.  It is a pleasure to say that and to live it.  I APPRECIATE this state of being immensely.

I have noticed that the guidance to do that often begins very gently, maybe a whisper of an idea.  Then it gets stronger, perhaps all kinds of synchronicities occur and/or certain things in our life just go away.  Then it gets a lot stronger, sometimes hardship or physical discomfort.    Maybe I see that in my clients and the people around me (in person and online) because it has been that way with me and I notice that which is like me. It is hard to tell.

Also, aligning with our higher self shows up in all areas of our life, financial, relationships, self-talk, physical, etc.   It doesn’t just effect some esoteric beliefs or conscious awareness of ourselves as god.

I was watching a dvd on Thursday night and all of a sudden found myself unable to watch anymore.  I turned it off and thought I was tired.  But what happened is that my higher self wanted to have a talk with me. Usually when my higher self wants me to do something different I gradually become aware of it or I just do it, then wonder afterwards what is going on.  Not this time.  I heard a very firm  voice talk to me that night.   I also know that I had been resisting this guidance for a little while, even going to sleep a few days before when it was trying to come through stronger.

And what did it say?  Did it share more magic from the universe?  Did it give me insight into more earth changes?  NO, it was very practical and direct (and loud!!). It told me to stop eating meat products – no chicken, no ground turkey,  no eggs, no butter and no cheese. A few times a week I can have some fish.    I have been guided and attracted to vegan eating for over 7 years but have not had the internal emotional maturity to stick with it because part of the way I was still limiting myself is by allowing my addiction to certain foods and the effects they had on me emotionally control me.  I even allowed a genetic tendency towards diabetes become a reality because of this.

So when you hear a voice strongly in your head telling in no uncertain terms to change something, you change.  Or at least I did.  This part of me told me some other things too that I needed to change to be able to handle the increase in clientele that I have already co-created.  It was all very practical but tied to the spiritual evolution I have been experiencing recently.  But the way this information came to me was so different I paid attention and acted on it right away.  I am thrilled that I have grown enough that I didn’t have to create any more physical distress to ‘get’ it.

I got caught up in someone else’s money fears yesterday and got out of them within hours and was able to help someone move into a more aligned energy place, where she could more fully embrace her higher purpose in this life.  It was a beautiful and moving session with very clear goddess guidance.  I love those sessions.

I am finding a deeper sense of self-acceptance which is leading to greater acceptance and compassion for others.  A lovely side benefit is this inner peace, calm and joy.  I am really enjoying this part of my spiritual evolutionary path.

I appreciate all the work and contrast that occurred for me to be able to enjoy now.