Are you Awake to your spiritual strengths?
Can your intuition Alert you on how to use them?
Is your personality Aware of how easily to develop them?

Over the past couple of months we have been speaking about C.O.S.T™. These are the challenges, opportunities, strengths and triumphs we encounter in living our purpose. It’s not always a bed of roses. This month is about strength, the strength we develop when we are awake, alert and aware of who we are, the gifts we possess and how effectively we use them. This is the first of 3 articles about this topic which I hope will help you all. It’s about being Awake.

It’s not enough to be awake to our purpose, although that’s very important. We also need to be equally awake to the gifts we possess that make us uniquely qualified to live our purpose. The problem is that because we are so used to these gifts we are often not awake to their significance. For example, are you a people person, is your intuition strong, do you find it easy to organize or lead others? These are gifts (natural abilities) and you were born with them. They are part of your tool kit to empower your purpose.

In addition we need to be awake to developing qualities that will help us grow our gifts. A quality often overlooked is perseverance. Without perseverance we may stop before we truly begin if the challenges seem too great. At the beginning of my journey, over 30 years ago, I developed a pulmonary embolism (blood clots on the lungs). This was life threatening and scary at the time. I couldn’t meditate as I was on morphine for the pain. It would have been easy to put everything on hold until I recovered. And yet, I knew that if I did I would probably not step back into my spiritual work.

I decided to help myself by using an exercise I hade been given by spirit. I made myself as comfortable as possible, placed on hand on my solar plexus and the other on my heart. Then I simply focused on breathing as gently as possible – which is not easy when you have clots in the lungs! By slowing my breathing it eased the pain. Then I pictured myself healthy again and living my purpose. At the time it was not a very well known technique although it is widely used now. The doctors were amazed at how quickly my overall health improved. Once I recovered I then focused on what had happened and what I could learn. I persevered despite the difficulty. It is now second nature to me to do the same in any situation. I persevered and I recovered more connected than ever.

Use this exercise and as you breathe, look at what you find easy, what you can do without thinking, what others say about you. These are your strengths. Now its about developing them.

Enjoy!