Get In Touch With Yourself— On a Positive Spiritual Level

If you’ve been looking in your mirror recently and better understanding where Dr. Jekyll meets Mr./Ms. Hide within you, then you may want to start thinking in terms of positive spiritual principles versus negative spiritual principles. The Dr. Jekyll side of you operates out of higher, positive spiritual principles, like love, empathy, compassion and forgiveness. Conversely, the Mr./Ms. Hyde side of you operates out of primal, negative spiritual principles, like fear, hate, envy and resentment.

It’s very easy to operate from the gut-level of negative spiritual principles. When someone cuts us off in traffic, there are few of us who have the immediate, natural reaction to bless the person in the other car. Instead, our animal instinct (which is governed by negative spiritual principles) kicks-in and we immediately swear and flip the bird his or her way. By reacting from our gut animal level, however, we give our peace of mind and our integrity away to the person who cut us off. We assume the worst, after all we don’t know why they cut us off, and we sometimes become the worst that we can possibly be.

Many families operate more from negative spiritual principles than they do positive ones. So it’s no wonder that families often have a high level of dysfunction. I find many family members are operating out of wounded places that force them to rely more on their animalistic negative spiritual principles, like pride, arrogance, criticism and self-righteousness. Pride is a negative spiritual principle. It keeps us from opening up and being vulnerable with others because it’s ruled by fear and not love. Humility is the opposite of pride. Humility requires that we be vulnerable before each other because humility is ruled by love.

I’ve been watching old Roy Rogers movies recently. On one of the dvds I have, there’s an interview with Rusty Rogers, one of Roy’s sons. He tells of a day when he realized that he had never honestly, with all humility, said to his father “I love you,” and it was bothering him. He knew his dad was getting older and that he might not be around much longer. So one day when the two of them were alone, Rusty reached a place of humility where he was able to tell Roy how much he loved him. And Roy, so moved by it, grabbed Rusty and the two embraced in that spot where love is God’s very presence.

By developing his higher, positive spiritual principles, Rusty Rogers was able to bridge a massive river: That ever expansive river between pride and humility. He said that after he and his Dad had crossed over that bridge, they found that they were truly on the same side. They talked more, did more things together and became better friends.

We all have many rivers to bridge in our lives, and it takes great effort on our behalves to reach that place of vulnerability where we can act from higher, positive spiritual principles. It’s worth the effort. Once we bridge the gaps in our relationships, we are taken out of our self-imposed isolation and we are transported into the beauty of life-giving relationships. These relationships enhance our happiness and over all well-being and we experience new levels of purpose. If this sounds good to you, then get in touch with your Dr. Jekyll side on a more deliberate basis. Become aware of your gut instincts and how their negative spiritual principles drag you and others down. Then work at transforming those negative principles into positive, life-giving ones. The more you work at it, the less you will see Mr./Ms. Hyde in your mirror, and the more you’ll see a very satisfied Dr. Jekyll.