By Valerie A. Cody
Valerie
When we venture towards new understandings of spiritual life we often find ourselves wondering “where is Spirit showing up in my life?” and looking for concrete evidence to support what we are feeling deep down.
Maybe we are so close to a situation energetically that we cannot see the big picture. Maybe we have been staring at the same project for hours or days, but cannot see where it is headed.
During these times, we may find ourselves in a mentality of lack, or possibly doubt. Thoughts begin to circulate, telling ourselves we are on the wrong track or that we should give up.
In today’s post I would like to introduce you to a tool that may be helpful in identifying how and when Spirit (God, Source) is gently guiding you throughout the day.
Rosicrucians called it the Backward Review – or “Zurückschauen” to German Rosicrucians. Rudolf Steiner, an Austrian Rosicrucian Theosophist and occult philosopher, made this practice a basic requirement for students of his own initiation school.
The concept is that: While you are lying in bed before falling asleep for the night think of the very last thing you did. Maybe you brushed your teeth or stretched. Then, in reverse order, the prior activity all the way up until the last time you were asleep. Maybe it was that morning or perhaps you had a nap.
An example would be the following:
Here I am in bed.
I just put my book down after reading for 20 minutes.
I applied hand creme.
I applied lip balm.
I showered.
I ate dinner.
Etc, etc.
In regards to your entire day: What did you have planned versus what ended up happening? This practice can allow us to observe things that happened throughout the day that we did not expect. Corollary to this, when we wake up in the morning or from a nap, we spend a moment pondering what we think will happen next. We might plan to go to work, to go the gym, etc. This is our general plan for the day.
Then, during the Backward Review at the end of the day we sometimes find that very different things happened than what we had planned. Or something totally unexpected was inserted.
In this way, we can start to see where Spirit may be guiding us. What divine intervention (small or large) may be taking place in our daily lives.
This is an essential addition to the “hustle and run your day” sort of attitude that is popular at the moment. Having a plan is important, but equally important is the balancing act that leaves enough space for Spirit to guide us.
For example, after doing this nightly for a week we may realize that a number of different friends throughout the week extended an invitation to a yoga class. Or we may find we are gravitating towards certain foods – and away from certain ones. It could be possible that we are hearing a particular song daily. These are patterns. Notice them and reflect.
By going backwards in the day’s activities, we begin to become conscious of our day’s activities. We can notice if there are blank spots or times when we were just acting from auto-pilot.
This reverse order of thinking also activates a new strength, it’s like flexing a muscle within our etheric body. The etheric body is our body of memory. The etheric body holds all of our life-forces as well.
When we begin to exercise our capacity to think backward instead of forward (the way we normally do), we are exercising the body of memory that will become a force that can be used for higher spiritual development and alchemical purposes later on.
Remember, our individual spiritual paths are divinely protected and guided. Our guides are constantly showing us messages and we only need to become aware.
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