10 Ways to Stay Spiritually Connected

By Marianne Williamson
O, The Oprah Magazine | April 13, 2010

Whether you practice a traditional religion or relate to a more universal spirituality,

these steps will help you tap into a sense of unlimited peace:

1. Recognize your Creator. Think on this: There is a supreme power in the universe that
is bigger and more powerful than your small mortal self. This step makes you humble.

2. Seek opportunities to put more love into the world. Strive to be a vessel of love, to
fill the world with more compassion and kindness. This step makes you loving and
lovable.

3. Set aside time each day to spend in spiritual reflection and contemplation. Dwell
in the presence of the divine: Your path may be to pray, meditate, read spiritual material,
take a long walk through nature—or all of the above—but an optimum practice includes
both morning and evening sessions of at least 20 minutes each. This step makes you
strong.

4. Become more accepting. With every interaction, surrender any tendency to judge
another person. Pray for a more accepting heart. This step makes you gracious.

5. Forgive anyone you have not forgiven. Whenever you withhold forgiveness, you
keep yourself bound to your own feelings of guilt. This step makes you kind.

6. Recognize your mistakes. Admit where you yourself have been wrong, and be willing
to be corrected. This step makes you responsible.

7. Try to see the good in others. When you're tempted to judge someone, make an effort
to see their goodness. Your willingness to look for the best in people will subconsciously
bring it forth. This step makes you positive.

8. Take stock of your thoughts and behavior. Each night ask yourself, when were you
negative when you could have been positive? When did you withhold love when you
might have given it? When did you play a neurotic game instead of behaving in a
powerful way? Use this process to self-correct. This step makes you grow.

9. Bless the world. Pray not just that your own life will be blessed but that blessings be
poured on everyone. This step makes you beautiful.

10. Use each interaction to be the best, most powerful version of yourself. Try to rise
to the occasion. Be the most wonderful expression of you that you're capable of. This
step makes you a conduit of God's love.
"Giving too much" hides feelings of unworthiness, a desire to please, a fear of rejection,
wanting to be the one in control, a reluctance to receive and a lack of authentic presence
and openness on your part. – unhealthy sacrifice

Unhealthy sacrifice leads to dysfunctional independence. If you are a DIP—a

Dysfunctionally Independent Person—you are trying to do your life all by yourself
without help from anyone else. This is your way of declaring to the world: "I have no
needs." Truthfully, you have plenty of needs; it's just that you suppress them. Why?
Probably because you are trying to avoid a repeat of past disappointments when some of
your needs were not met. Inevitably, you end up more needy than most, but you cover it
up by being strong, being a giver, being cool, being independent, being cynical, being
busy and being dishonest with yourself.

Letting Go Exercise: When you let go of your dysfunctional independence, you feel so
much more alive, open and abundant. You also discover that asking for what you want is
a chance for others to connect with you, to know you and to love you. Being willing to
forgive and let go of old wounds helps you to move out of separation and unhealthy
sacrifice. Now, instead of expecting people to read your mind and know what you need
or want, you can actually tell them. Doing this feels emotionally risky, but it's a risk that's
worth taking. Now you're ready for a real relationship.

Unhealthy sacrifice promotes a kind of giving that blocks receiving. There are usually
two underlying dynamics at work. The first dynamic is unworthiness. Your self-worth
creates a personal allowance that judges how much you will let yourself receive from
others. With especially low self-worth, receiving from others leaves you feeling indebted,
obligated, owing and duty-bound to give back. The second dynamic is pride. And hidden
beneath pride is competitiveness, superiority, egotism and other murky feelings.
According to pride, to receive is unnecessary and to receive is to fail.

Letting Go Exercise: In my book Shift Happens!, I wrote a chapter saying there are no
shortages, only a lack of willingness to receive. Being willing to receive starts with
letting go of your fear of receiving. Complete the following statement 10 times: "One of
my fears of receiving is..." After you have finished, look at each fear and discern for
yourself if the fear is really true or if it is just a fear. At least 90 percent of fears are just
fears that dissolve the moment you give them some attention. Next, make a decision to be
a great receiver. Really! Make this your new affirmation: "I am becoming a great
receiver."

Unhealthy sacrifice is inauthentic. It means you are not really being true to yourself.
When you are not true to yourself, you get confused about what is real and unreal, what is
important and not and what is a yes and what is a no. This lack of clarity in you creates
pain and conflict in your relationships and your work. People don't know where they
stand with you. You give out mixed messages. You are ambivalent. You try not to make
decisions. You procrastinate. No one knows what you really feel or what you really want.
Letting Go Exercise: The desire to be more authentic, and to be more real with yourself
and others, will help you to give up unhealthy sacrifice. One way to do this is to focus on
the word "yes." Get out a pen and a blank piece of paper and write down on the top of the
page: "My Sacred Yes." Now list everything that is a sacred yes for you, for your life, for
your work and then for one important relationship (you can do it with other relationships
later). The clearer you are about a sacred yes, the easier it will be to say yes when you
mean yes and no when you mean no.

"Hi, Robert. Sorry, but I can't make our session this afternoon. I'm too tired to get out of
bed. I'm too tired to drive anywhere. I'm too tired to do anything. I'm taking a duvet day."
That is a message left by my client Tina, a 41-year-old senior personnel manager.

Exhaustion forces you to stop, and above all it wants you to stop being in unhealthy
sacrifice. Unhealthy sacrifice is exhausting: you lose touch with your original energy;
you override your real feelings; you don't listen to your wisdom; and you end up feeling
out of sync with yourself. More symptoms of unhealthy sacrifice include scattering
yourself, wasting your energy, chronic busyness, overcrowding your schedule, feeling
overstretched and overcommitting yourself. The last thing you want to do is let people
down, but that is exactly what eventually happens.

Letting Go Exercise: Exhaustion is a sure sign that you are in sacrifice somewhere in
your life. Exhaustion is an internal memo that is asking you to stop trying to do
everything, for everyone, all the time. Exhaustion is telling you that you have to sacrifice
what isn't important for what is. One of my favorite mantras is: "You can always do one
thing less than you think you can." Yes, you'll probably feel a bit guilty about doing less,
but the guilt will wear off fast if you hold your nerve. Be wise, be courageous, remember
your sacred yes" and prioritize accordingly.

Unhealthy sacrifice forces you to leave yourself out of your own life. You think
something is missing in your life, and it is. What is missing is you. The real you. Every
day you fill out your to-do list, and you are nowhere to be found on your own list. You
make no space for you, no provision for you and no time for you. Be clear that this is you
doing this to yourself. When you catch yourself saying, "I never have time to do what I
want to do," what you are really saying is, "I don't take time for my needs." In truth, you
are depriving yourself. Therefore, you are the solution.

Letting Go Exercise: "If I had but two loaves of bread, I would sell one and buy
hyacinths, for they would feed my soul," said Prophet Muhammad. To heal unhealthy
sacrifice, you have to be willing to let go of the habit of depriving yourself. Take a pen
and paper and answer the following questions: "What feeds me?" "What inspires me?"
and "What do I love?" Next, make a commitment to stop neglecting yourself and to treat
yourself better. Everyone will benefit from you doing this. Life always gets better when
you treat yourself better.
The next level of success and happiness in your life, your work and your relationships
does require sacrifice. Specifically, it requires you to sacrifice unhealthy sacrifice. In
other words, you have to learn the difference between giving yourself away and giving
more of yourself. You give yourself away when you are not true to yourself, when you
play a role, when you don't ask for what you want, when you don't prioritize properly and
when you deprive yourself, for example. Remember: Whatever you try to achieve with
unhealthy sacrifice can be achieved without it.

Letting Go Exercise: Success and happiness require you to let go of your unworthiness,
to let go of your wounds, to let go of your defenses, to let go of your story and to let go of
your ego. The more you let go, the more you inhabit your authentic, unconditioned self
again. And now you are more present, more connected, more open and more able to give
yourself without giving yourself away. The more grounded and centered you are in the
truth of who you are, the better you understand that to give yourself simply means to be
yourself, and in "being" there is never any loss.