Tempting questions just for you...to answer for yourself during your Inner Lent.

Let me set the scene, the context for the Inner Lent questions. 

A Feeling for Your Purpose

You have sense of self and you know this self has a contribution to make. You are not exactly clear what that contribution is but you know it is something that gives all the ordinary bits of your life purpose. Or maybe right now you do know that for the time being your purpose is to be your child's mother, to be a partner in a challenging relationship, to collaborate with a group of people to make a difference, to face a life-threatening illness, to master an art or a sport or the most challenging and complex purpose of all, to know yourself. Whatever your sense of purpose, it is a commitment and a devotion that belongs to you and no one else.

A Strange and Lonely Place

Suddenly, in your soul, you find yourself alone and in a strange lonely place.  You are in an inner wilderness of no comfort. 

How many times have you been in this wilderness? Often I find myself in this lonely place when I wake up at 3AM with thoughts of all I must do, not just to pay my bills and keep my house clean, but to make the contribution I showed up on earth to make.  At 3AM, I am all alone and without comfort and then I start to doubt. Or in the middle of the day, when I have just finished an audio for the latest course and I am haunted with the voice that tells me its not good enough and in a flash I am in my inner wilderness all alone and feeling unbearable discomfort knowing the Tempter will appear in a moment. 

The Tempter and the Temptations

Let me tell you a secret, since I began working with the mysteries of Inner Lent five years ago, I have grown to love these visits from the Tempter. Initially, when I find myself in the wilderness, I despair, but then I realize the strangeness is not new and aloneness allows me to know myself.    The Tempter soon arrives and I know the routine...I am presented with the same three temptations every time and I get to look into myself and see if I have succumbed or vanquished.  Will I do differently this time?

What I see is always a combination.  I've succumbed in ways and vanquished in ways.  I don't know when it happened but the visits with the Tempter stopped being a time of guilt, shame and self-hatred, and became a time of self-awareness, self-transcendence and self-compassion. Each visit I get wiser, humbler, and more humanly me. 

Every year in the cycles of the soul, there is the time to attend to these temptations.  Now is that time.  

So here are the tempting questions my friend the Tempter places in my soul:

What stones do you still think you can turn into bread? To answer I must own and release my addictive desires that cannot nourish, satisfy or fulfill me. Will I be able to let go of these and manage the anxiety that comes with self-regulation?

How many leaps off the pinnacles of great ideals do you take, assuming angels will rescue you from crashing on the stones below? These are my ungrounded fantasies of magical support that drive me to expect too much from myself, to fail to prepare, and to wish for winning a practical, moral or spiritual lottery so I don't have to face the gravity of my earthly limitations. Will I be able to adjust my ambitions to the solid steps of real action?

How often have you felt the power over a situation and been willing to sell your soul to have that feeling remain forever?  These are my personal prejudices and the feeling that my way prevails over all others. Will I open up my soul to an interest in the experience and needs of others?

If you would like guidance in finding your self-aware answers, I have put together a course called Inner Lent that brings deepening perspectives, insights and possibilities to inspire your own imagination of your experience of the wilderness and solitude, your challenges with addictive patterns, your challenges with your ungrounded fantasies and your challenges with judgments frozen in time. I take the New Testament images and make them intimate and meaningful for your modern, embodied soul. The wisdom is universal, far beyond church dogma, and the application is truly personal.

The experience of Inner Lent can occur any day of the year and last for 40 minutes or 40 years.  Inner Lent is about your changing, evolving, developing relationship with yourself in the vast and lonely wilderness of modern existence.  You do not need to perfect the Inner Lent experience.  You can play with it.  This year you may want to focus on your addictive temptations.  Next year you may want to devote you inner attention to your experience of the wilderness.  Or you may want to just explore the whole imagination and get a sense of all the possibilities, knowing next year for Inner Lent it will be your ability to choose your focus.  

This year I am making the Inner Lent course available as individual lessons or as a complete package.  The single lessons cost  $15.00 each.  You will receive a link to the Lesson page with the downloadable audio, the slide presentation and a set of seven exercises to work with. The complete course is available for $47. 

Learn more.

https://theimagineselfacademy.com/courses/17/about

Inner Lent, like all the Imagine Self Inner Festivals, is not about sin and redemption or being a good Christian. It is about the great commandment, "Oh, Human Soul, know thyself!" This is a commandment for all human souls, beyond religious beliefs.  I find the central festivals of the Christian Calendar quite universal in their ability to guide us to this task of imagining self as an earthly and divine being and the great mystery of becoming fully human.

From the beginning of experiencing your work, I have been and continue to be, astounded by your ability to organize this spiritual content with inner process. 

Andrea Martone - Core Imaginations participant, biodynamic farmer, bookkeeper, Pilates instructor, Durango, CO

A Complimentary Consultation?

Do you need help in determining whether to work with me individually or enroll in the Core Imaginations curriculum? Do you wonder what level of participation is best for you?  Do you have questions about Imagine Self?  Do you want to request a discount in the cost of a program? Please schedule a 20 minute phone conversation with me. Schedule your complimentary consultation by clicking here. .

Or email Lynn