Earth School

I like to think of our life experience as “earth school”. I have thought of life like this for years, but today listened to Gary Zukav on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday Series (Zukav, 2012) and wondered if I had picked up the idea from him back in 1987 when I was frantically searching for meaning in my life. To me, this idea just made the most sense. And have carried it with me, living life with this philosophy since 1987. Gary Zukav who wrote Seat of the Soul (among many other books) talks about our journey on earth and our opportunities while we attend “earth school”. (Zukav, Seat of the Soul, 1989)

From the time we are born until the time we die we attend earth school. Earth school’s goal is to help us grow, on a soul level, and to become aligned with our spiritual purpose here on earth.  It is at “earth school” that we encounter our moment by moment lessons. I love this because I also believe that if we don’t get our lesson, we are given another opportunity to “get” our lesson because the pattern or situation will replay over and over again until we choose to get it. Just consider this for a moment. Do you have patterns or experiences in your life that replay?  My experience in my own life as well as in working with others in therapy, has often times been that when we fail to get our lessons or make the necessary changes for our growth, the lesson gets louder, and perhaps, even a bit more painful, so we may eventually get the message and choose to do what our soul is calling for.

Gary believes our mission is to align our personality with our soul and the more we are able to align, the more we experience that “sweet spot”. Each moment is the opportunity to be more loving, mindful, creative and compassionate. He suggests that we live our moments with intention and that we take full responsibility for our choices of how we live our moments. In other words, our personality may want to react to a situation. He suggests pausing in these moments, being very intentional in our choice of how we want to respond, breathing, and acknowledging the feeling. He suggests we become aware by going into the gap of “pausing” and make a conscious decision of how we want to respond. Then we are making the choice with awareness and can respond in a responsible way. He goes on to state that when the small you (personality) aligns with the big YOU (soul), your life begins to fill with purpose and you know why you’re alive -- because you are doing what your soul wants you to do – hence you have found your sweet spot.

Each moment brings us a lesson that is our opportunity to connect with our soul and move from our personality towards aligning with our soul and our soul’s purpose. Each moment is a lesson brought forth by our Soul and by our choices we have made. Use the moments this week to be reflective, aware, and intentional to move closer towards aligning your personality with your soul. Take a breath; reflect in the gap between the inhale and the exhale.  And as you exhale, make a conscious decision in how you want to respond to your lesson right now in this moment.

Works Cited

Zukav, G. (2012, May 20). Oprah's Sunday Soul Series. (O. Winfrey, Interviewer)

Zukav, G. (1989). Seat of the Soul. New York: Simon and Schuster.