Welcome to Spiritual Psychology.
My name is Renee LaVallee McKenna,
And I bring my 30-plus years as a recovering addict and ex-crazy person,
Turned therapist and shamanic healer,
To bring you snackable teachings on spirituality,
Psychology,
And all things personal growth.
And today I want to talk about this really important question I was taught very early in my spiritual path,
And it's to ask,
What is my soul trying to learn here?
Or the simpler version of that question might be,
What's the lesson in any circumstance or situation in my life,
Happy or difficult?
And these questions rest on the perspective that we are spiritual beings having a human experience,
Which is a really expansive and elevated,
But also really grounded way to make sense of the unfolding of life experience here on the earth plane.
And this soul level perspective is probably most present in Hinduism,
But I've discovered it across many,
Many teachings in my spiritual explorations,
That we are more than our personality or ego self,
And certainly from a Hindu perspective or any tradition that believes in reincarnation,
That there's a larger spiritual or soul level journey here,
And this lifetime is just one little part of it.
But that how we participate in this lifetime has profound implications,
Not only for the experiences we're going to have later in our life,
But also for the experiences we will have in later lifetimes.
And it's particularly helpful to ask that question,
What is my soul trying to learn here in times of difficulty?
It's a perspective changer that can move us from a place of feeling victimized,
Oppressed,
Disempowered into a place of curiosity and a particular kind of self-responsibility and empowerment that I have found life changing for myself.
And from this soul level perspective and this question,
What is my soul trying to learn here,
Which is often really different from what my ego might hope to achieve,
Because my soul often doesn't give a shit about my ego,
I've come across many teachings that suggest that on some level before we incarnate on the spiritual plane,
We may even make some soul level agreements with whoever the powers that be,
And what our lessons or learning will be in this school of human life.
And that has been a real game changer to play with that perspective.
What if I actually agreed to everything that's happened,
My birth circumstances,
My family of origin,
Any particular gifts or deficits that I have,
What if I agreed to those things because they would help me grow and develop?
Because that is what challenges do when we engage with them directly and surrender to or flow with the unfolding life flow rather than resist it with how we think things should be or how we would like them to be.
When we move out of feeling victimized by people,
Places,
Things,
And circumstances and move into this place of active engagement,
Focusing on the solution rather than the problem,
Even seeming tragedy can become opportunity.
And the shift from feeling victimized,
Disempowered,
And discouraged,
Hopeless,
Into a place of curiosity,
Courage,
Hope,
Or self-empowerment has completely changed my life and I've observed it changing the lives of many others as well.
A slight variation on this theme,
One of my spiritual teachers suggested that we are all little spiritual heroes or bodhisattvas helping to evolve consciousness on this plane.
And they offered this great image of a spiritual baggage claim in the waiting area before our souls incarnate.
Works a little differently than a regular airport in that we pick our bags up before we take the journey into human form and perhaps consciously choose the particular kind of suffering,
Difficulty,
Or self-centered perspective that we're willing to work with and evolve through our human life.
Some people might pick up the bags of addiction,
Others the bags of abuse or ignorance.
Some pick up the bags of shame,
Rage,
Victimization.
This idea that whatever the particular complexities and challenges are in our lifetime,
We may have volunteered to work with them,
Again,
In this heroic way.
I have kind of a hero thing,
So I really dig this idea.
And I do believe that we are all on a hero's journey here.
And so our work,
Like any of the great heroes,
Is to overcome these difficulties and challenges and become strengthened,
Wisened,
Expanded,
And empowered by them.
To move from victim to courage,
To move from rage to forgiveness,
To move from hopelessness to hope,
From judgment to love,
Peace,
Joy,
And acceptance.
Whoa.
And I can report that this has happened for me.
Moving from addiction,
Depression,
Anxiety,
And self-hatred into a place of feeling pretty useful and happily whole.
This question of,
What is my soul trying to learn here,
Radically shifted my perspective with my dysfunctional family.
What if I picked them?
Oh my God,
Are you fucking kidding me?
And again,
On a human perspective,
It would be like,
Why would I do that?
But on a soul perspective,
From a wisdom perspective,
The incredible suffering that I experienced in those relationships with my early caregivers really are the foundation for my life work as a therapist.
It set the stage for my addiction,
Which led me to recovery.
And there's many other mysterious twists and turns that have happened that have been at times actually devastating on a human level,
But on a soul level have pushed me into new circumstances that have served me in ways I absolutely could not have imagined.
For example,
My father cut contact with me for the last seven years of his life.
He didn't come to my wedding.
He didn't have a relationship with my children.
And prior to that,
We were incredibly close.
I'm an only child,
And he was the only person that I felt really loved me.
I was an adult when this happened,
But it was still probably the single worst thing that's happened to me in my life.
I have a really good relationship with death,
But when someone just cuts me off and they're still alive,
And no matter what I do,
It makes no difference,
All of my most manipulative tactics,
Being super nice,
Being super mean,
Being angry,
Being quiet,
Making amends,
Leaving them alone,
Was all tantrums outside of a brick wall.
And I now have come to understand years later that on a soul level,
That separation from my father was necessary for me to deeply pursue the path I'm on right now.
One of our last conversations,
I told him I was going to go to graduate school to become a psychologist.
He said,
What do you want to do that for?
Because I grew up in a house where emotionality was kind of like a disease of the less intelligent.
Nevermind that they're all crazy pants.
That separation made it easy for me to move to California,
And it also challenged me to come to understanding and forgiveness of another on a level that no other circumstance has pushed me so far,
Although there's a couple of close seconds in the challenged to forgive this person category,
And I should probably do another podcast on forgiveness because it is such a potent and important topic,
And often a really long road to get to true forgiveness rather than just spiritual bypassing from anger to denial.
Just a little aside on some of the process to forgive my father,
Much of which has happened after his death.
And one of the things I did,
In fact,
In the days following his death was to walk a labyrinth contemplating his life,
Starting with his own birth and walking through his life experience so that I could understand how he could come to sever the relationship with his only child.
And I actually have come to understand that.
I would never do it with my own children,
Which is also part of the lesson,
And it's also expanded my capacity to have compassion for others who suffer with family dysfunction in their own experience.
So what if the universe is designed for learning and not for comfort?
The material world is often inconvenient,
And if we view these inconveniences as opportunities to learn and refine ourselves,
We may experience the exhilaration of personal progress,
That this is a noble practice to ask,
What is my soul trying to learn here?
There is this really great story about a king who was always accompanied by his expert and trusted chief of staff.
And the king relies on this chief's advice and depends on him to manage a lot of his affairs.
And one day,
The king is practicing martial arts,
And he accidentally cuts off the tip of his little finger.
And he's in a lot of pain,
And he asks his chief,
Why did this happen to me?
And the chief replies,
It is divine arrangement.
And the king flies into a rage and says,
I am the king.
How can such pain and suffering be divinely arranged?
But the chief holds his position,
And the king is insulted and orders him put under house arrest so he might reconsider his opinion.
And the chief does not protest.
He says,
This too is a divine arrangement.
And so a month later,
The king goes on this excursion into the wilderness.
But because his chief is under arrest,
He doesn't come with him,
As he usually does on such adventures.
And when the king is deep in the forest,
He's captured by a tribe of tantrics,
Ill-advised,
Ignorant people who perform human sacrifice,
Thinking that it will bring them wealth and power.
And as the tantrics prepare the king for sacrifice,
They notice that he's missing the tip of his little finger.
And since they need a complete human for a good sacrifice,
They release him.
Having narrowly escaped death,
The king rides his horse back to the palace,
All the time thinking about how his chief had deemed the accident to be divine providence.
And now he can see how that could be possible.
So when he reaches the kingdom,
He immediately calls for the chief to be released and brought to him.
And the chief arrives,
And the king gives him a big hug,
Tells him the story of his capture and release,
And says,
Now I can understand how it was by divine arrangement that I cut my finger.
But when I put you under house arrest,
You didn't complain.
You claimed that your arrest was perhaps also by divine arrangement.
Now I can understand how my situation was divinely arranged.
But what about yours?
You have been languishing in prison because of my hot-headed,
Ego-driven,
Limited perspective.
And the chief says,
Ah,
Yes.
But sire,
If I had accompanied you on this latest adventure,
As I usually do,
The tantrics would have sacrificed me because my body is complete.
Therefore,
We can now both see that your arresting me was divinely arranged.
So asking,
What is the lesson,
Or what is my soul trying to learn here,
Requires us often to take a long view,
Which in itself is a wisdom perspective.
The tolerating some discomfort now may have incredible long-term benefits that I can't see from my limited perspective today.
And many of us don't like the idea that we may have to tolerate discomfort.
Modern culture in particular is kind of obsessed with being comfortable all the time.
Me learning to tolerate discomfort,
The idea that it may even be part of my growth process,
May create strength,
Resilience,
Fearlessness.
Difficulties often call us to grow if we approach them from this wisdom perspective.
If I feel victimized and disempowered by them,
They can destroy me.
But approached from this empowered soul-level perspective of curiosity and even hopefulness,
Difficulties can expand,
Bring me to new solutions and opportunities that I can't imagine if I am caught in victimization or frustration.
And I am not sure if the King and Chief story is true,
But I do want to relay another story that I know is true.
And it's from a professional healer named Robert Peng and his book,
The Master Key.
And he's got a really incredible story.
And he tells how when he was a boy in China,
He was very sickly and bullied,
Had a lot of health problems.
And they lived in this big apartment complex,
Like a lot of communist countries have.
And there was a little old man who lived in the boiler room,
Tending the heating system.
And Robert made friends with this old man who was very kind to him.
And as the man learned about his health issues and social problems,
He began to train him in martial arts and energy healing technologies.
And the old man had lived in this boiler room for years,
Alone,
Quiet,
Very tiny existence.
And over time,
Robert learned that he was a Kung Fu master.
He'd actually been head of a large monastery that was dismantled and destroyed during the Cultural Revolution in China.
Communism being atheist.
And the monks had all fled for their own survival,
Gone into hiding.
And he was one of them.
And as the restrictions lessened and Robert grew in his studies,
The boiler maker was able to return to his monastery and start to rebuild it.
And the monk trained Robert to become a master healer,
Which culminated in this really incredible process of a 100-day fast in the dark,
Which Robert recounts in the book,
Which is a pinnacle formation that only the most highly trained are allowed.
And Robert was 15 when he went through this training.
And then the monk told him,
Now you need to go to school and you need to learn English and you need to bring this work to the world.
And sometime in the next year,
He died.
And Robert has continued to do that.
In fact,
I hope to do some trainings with him sometime.
He lives in New York.
But anyway,
If the monk had not tolerated that period in the boiler room,
He would not have met Robert as a boy and to train him to continue this ancient,
Potent,
Healing,
Energetic practice that they call the Master Key.
And I'm continuing to pass that lineage on right now.
Some of you may even look up the Master Key because there is a mystery of how we are all connected.
And when we can show up,
Hopefully knowing that there can be purpose in any circumstance in our life.
We are conduits for the life force ourself,
And I have found that my suffering can always be soothed,
My perspective elevated by asking these questions.
What is my soul trying to learn here?
Particularly in any repetitive patterns in our life,
Patterns in relationship,
Patterns with money,
Patterns with substances or circumstances,
Even those that seem way outside of our control,
These questions will move us from victim into hero,
From hopelessness into hope,
And from fear into courage.
At least they can.
As the great psychologist Carl Jung said,
Until you make the unconscious conscious,
It will direct your life and you will call it fate.
That we have more agency here than we might think,
And that there is a loving intelligence of the universe that calls us to align to her,
To trust the unfolding process,
And to honor our own soul's journey.
Thank you so much for listening.
Blessings on your path until we meet again.
This is Renee LaVallee McKenna for Spiritual Psychology.
