I have some questions for how you get through hard times.
I know there are ways we can use our physical resources - cash, food, safe spaces, and so on...
There are ways we use our emotional resources, too - leaning on friends and family, therapy sessions, communicating about experiences with art, etc...
There are other ways as well, but let's focus on our toolkits for spirituality and whatever religion or tradition we have learned some of those from.
1. When you have a particular challenge, do you have a being to whom you pay respect or veneration, and are they a saint, a goddess or god, a power animal, another being you have relationship with?
2. Do you call in the energies of these helpers, if any, to help you do the work for yourself, or do you ask (possibly with offerings of praise or nourishments) for outside/external assistance?
3. If you don't rely on spirit beings, which tools do you go to in your own spiritual handbag? Is it meditation, to gain clarity? Is it physical movement like yoga or dance, do you portal hop through the barriers to your growth and skill development? Is it some other pathway to achieving resilience?
4. If you have a go-to tool in your repertoire, is it something you access for yourself, or is it something you are not necessarily aware of - do people come to you for a particular skillset frequently and honour your abilities instead? Do you practice on purpose, with intention to become better at these skills in times of lull, when you don't need to access them? Or do you wait until emergence times to unfold all that you have gathered and gleaned?
5. Is there anything else you would like to share about how you conquer or integrate with your situations, spiritually speaking?
6. Who have your teachers looked to for their own guidance, spiritually, and do you seek to know more about where their skillsets arose from? Or do you assume, (sometimes correctly, other times, maybe not so directly) that these teachers have mastered the craft of whatever cunning or grace seems to be their strength, achieving more in that regard than the sources from whence it all sprang originally?
7. Do you have any stories - even anonymous or with changed names - about someone in your life who powered through their roadblocks with spiritual abilities or tools that led you to honour that either by admiring their perseverance, persistence, or other virtues or values, or by taking stock of what they had accomplished for themselves or others - and trying to apply that knowledge to your own practice? (For me, I think application of wisdom is often better than a simple gratitude for the inspiration or opportunity to witness or observe a hero's journey)
8. On your path, when you come across a new tool or skillset in another person, or in a situation where it seems required or helpful, do you research it, first? try it out first? see if you already have adapted or absorbed some level of competence, by checking your memory bank? How do you decide whether to add a tool to your collection, or leave it in search of deeper understanding of ones you have yet to achieve full proficiency or greater, in?
Thanks,
♥ Moss