Human beings are born with a longing to grow beyond ourselves, to penetrate and illuminate the mysterious depths of our own heart. Our desire to walk among the stars does not seem out of reach; the wish to be eternal goes with us everywhere. In more down-to-earth terms, if we wish to live without resentments and rid ourselves of fear with all of its debilitating limitations, we must shed the skin of our “selfishness.”

To realize the higher level of Self that reveals the need for further transformation, we must use our lives to become living examples of the qualities of character to which we aspire.

Following are ways to teach the truths that transform the world we live in, even as we ourselves are transformed by our own actions:

We teach others when we do not react in alarm to some potentially frightening news or event. The world around us receives the lesson that those events do not have the power to make or break the awakened soul. Our lesson is that we may choose how we react and our level of expression.
We teach others when they see us laugh at our own mistakes. The world around us receives the lesson that there is a difference between making a mistake and thinking of oneself as being a mistake. Our lesson is to see that any wish to be seen as perfect in the eyes of the world is not a part of true peace and contentment.
We teach others around us when we don’t give voice to complaint. The world around us receives the lesson that there are superior ways to handle times of discomfort or disappointment that do not include expressing negative emotions. Our lesson is to see that we can use passing dark states to realize an interior wisdom that knows how to use everything positively for its own growth.
We teach others when we refuse to psychologically defend ourselves — be it simple sarcasm or vicious slander. The world around us receives the lesson that what is true needs no defense and that what is false cannot be defended. Our lesson is the realization that people attack what frightens them and that we need never live in fear of any frightened person.

Our real spiritual development is under invisible laws: To grow, we must learn. To learn, we must teach. To teach we must lead. To lead, we must make mistakes. Making mistakes tills the ground of us, making it receptive to new and higher lessons, and thus the positive spiral completes itself, even as it rises above its original starting point.

Always strive to remember that anything we work to change in ourselves cannot help but change everything around us. What can be more promising than that?

Jasenka Sabanovic is a Certified Life Coach and owner of Coaching to Vision offering individual life coaching and group workshops. For additional information and workshop schedules call 760-799-0523 or visit www.CoachingToVision.com