The Measure Of My Success
A few weeks back, I wrote a post about success and what it means to me. Highlighting how success is measured within modern society and how it came to be that way. People tend to believe that success is something that is given to you, that true success is reflected by the level of your material gain. But for me real success comes from within!
The latest question from the EcoTrain Community asks “What does success look like from a spiritual perspective”. Which also requires us, to look at and explore what spirituality actually means. We hear talk about spiritual leaders or practitioners and I am sure that they consider themselves to be successful.
But unfortunately you also have people who claim to be spiritual and in fact nothing could be further from the truth. There is a lot of money to be made these days, in helping others reconnect with their spirituality and as is the way with anything that involves money, it can attract those who only wish material gain and status. So anyone can train to become a spiritual advisor or guide, misleading others on their own spiritual journey.
One must be able to journey inwards, to lay themselves bare, to sit with their pain and their ego, to strip themselves back. To really look, at who they have become and be willing to work on themselves, so that they can become a better person. But that in itself will be something different, to each one of us. We have to remain open, open to the many teachings that come our way, from the people we meet, to the wonderful lessons that nature creates for us.
In order to do that, we need to be in touch with our inner knowing, our intuitive self, to remember what it means to trust ourselves, so that we become our own guide. And move away from this need to be guided by others.
Spirituality means different things to us all, as we all have our own idea of what it means to be spiritual. It's not something that you need to be told, but rather something you feel. It is for me anyhow. The connection that I feel with nature, no matter where I am. I don't need to be in the wilderness to feel that, I carry it with me wherever I go.
I had a very interesting conversation with a woman in France a few years back. She told me that she was more connected with nature, because she was immersed in it, living high in the mountains, away from civilization. I argued that it nothing to do with where you live, but more about what you felt.
At the time I was living a nomadic lifestyle, so I was not spending as much time outside in Nature as she was, but I didn't need to in order to feel my connection. I could be 6 floors up and feel it. Because it is a part of me, as I am a part of it. We are nature, so everything we feel is a a part of it. There is no separation.
This is what being spiritual means to me and why I believe, that I do live a very successful life. Because to me it is all about what you feel and not what you have.
