Episode Notes

In this episode, I share the resources and techniques I've been using to create my own Spiritual Intensive program that has been helping me get through some challenging times. At the end of the episode I do a blessing of light for Christmas and the Holidays.

EPISODE RESOURCES

Here are the links from the episode for y'all:

The journal I spoke of that I like to use for my Spiritual Intensive is called the Clear Habit Journal and is available at https://amzn.to/2YCsuUv

‍You can get the health meditation I discuss in this podcast  Episode 10: Body Balance Meditation by John-Roger and the Spiritual Exercise information explanation at this podcast Episode 20: Spiritual Exercises & Experiencing Heaven Now

‍You can read how to do Freeform Writing here and for more info about Discourses by John-Roger go here

‍I talk about University of Santa Monica and gestalt, and you can see their programs here

‍And if you want to sign up for the workshop I mention in London on January 11th with me, you can do that through eventbrite and on my website here it's called Set the Tone for the New Year Workshop

Episode Transcript:

Nat: 00:24 Hi and welcome to Transcend with Nat. I am Nat and I'm your host and today I want to talk to you about something that has been really beneficial to me as I've been going through a difficult period in my life and this is something that has helped me through it, has kept my focus and my intention on that which is uplifting that which is joyful and it's something that is kind of a combination of a lot of tools and techniques I've learned throughout the years through classes that I've participated in that I've taught. And so I want to share that with you today.

Nat: 01:10 Basically what it is, is a spiritual intensive is what I would call it. It's a program I give myself or I've given myself of different things to do as daily practice. And part of that is tracking those things. Now I like to use this journal that I bought which is really handy. It's called the clear habit journal. And I modify it a little bit for my own usage, but it has a lot of key elements of things that I've already used. It's got a great tracking sheet. That is something that in a lot of the classes that I participated in, especially those over periods of time you can use these tracking sheets to track the things that you're doing each day. It also has a section for a one line per day, which I use for my gratitude statements. And then it has a lot of blank pages which I use for other things, which I'll get to. I find it helpful to have this journal to, and to have all these techniques that I'm going gonna go through with you about all of this. So I'll put the link up on my site, my sites transcend.online. And, and I'll put the link to this journal, the clear habit journal on there. So the things, what I do is I really looked at, okay, what, what are the key things that, that will help me in this time period? I have so many tools and techniques that I can choose from. But I really focused in on the things that I really thought would help me during this time.

Nat: 03:02 One of the first thing on the list and then I put this in the tracking sheet and I put, you know, how often I want to do, whether it's every day how long every day, if it's something like spiritual exercises or if it's three times a week or one times a week. And these are the tools that I use. So I put them in my tracking sheet and I create myself a program. It's something that if you take different classes like the masters of spiritual science, that Peace Theological Seminary and College of Philosophy gives, that's a nine month course or two. It's actually nine months for two years or three years. And then they have a doctoral program. They use a lot of the tracking sheets. The University of Santa Monica, they use the tracking sheets. Tracking sheets are super beneficial. And something that I, I like that really keeps me focused in on a daily basis on those things that I want to be doing. So I change in the tracking sheets. I cross out habit tracker and I have focus tracker or discipline tracker because I really look at it as a focus rather than a habit or a discipline that I'm doing. And so I'll read to you like what I'm doing right now and every month I look, relook, look at this and change, add some things, take some things away. And depending on what you're going through and what you're dealing with you can use different, different tools, different things. But these are the ones I'm using and I find extremely valuable. The first is spiritual exercises. I've done a podcast on that. You can go back and listen to I do that daily a minimum of 15 minutes. And sometimes it can be a lot more. I like to make it easy for myself, so the and, and really doable so that like, I mean, 15 minutes is very easy. And make it very, make my minimums doable. And also I can do more. I right my spiritual teacher John Roger three times a week and I burn it because I find that very valuable. Jr is my spiritual teacher who had lived with and worked with for almost two decades and he worked with thousands of people and I find writing to him and burning that letter very valuable to me in this time. That's a real personal thing for me. A free form writing amazing tool just to clear out the junk, the junk of the unconscious, the stuff that's just disturbing, upsetting and like what's underneath that disturbance, what's underneath that upsetting. I put that to do that daily. And you, and there's a whole guide to that. I'll put that link also on my site, a transcend.online in this podcast, a page for this podcast and I'll call this one a spiritual intensive. I think that's an appropriate title since that's what I'm going through with you. Then my discourses, which are booklets that John Roger wrote do that every day. I do health meditation every day. I have a meditation the body balance meditation is one of them that I use and that's in a previous episode we have that I love doing gratitude statements. I think that gratitude is one of the greatest keys in terms of having a good attitude towards life, having a good outlook towards life. So I use in this journal the part, the section that is one line a day, and I write my gratitude statement for the day. I write it there and I do that every day. Then I ha I do affirmations every day. So every day I actually have been writing new affirmations on, you know, that really focus in on what I'm focusing on, what I really need to remind myself in terms of a positive way. So I usually do I am statements. You know, I am joyful. I am letting go of the need to control. I am letting go of over responsibility for others. I, I am worthy. I am enough just as I am. I love myself just as I am and whatever kind of statements. I want to affirm in my life sometimes it's giving myself permission. I, I give myself permission to remove myself from any situation that's no longer working for me. Things like that, things of that nature. So I'll write a number of those statements in this journal where where there's a big section of just plain paper. So everyday I'll, I'll write that down. And then at the start, ideally at the start of the day, I'll do that as well as the next thing on the tracking sheet is my daily intention. So every day I have intentions that I work with longterm, but every day I really go inside and set my intention. Whether that's a spiritual focus, intention whether that's, you know, having fun and joy or levity whatever that intention is for the day. Sometimes it's to be, you know, in, in my loving and to really focus on, it's like my daily focus would be another way of looking at it from my daily intention. It's that internal quality that I really want to nurture and I really want to live in, in that day. And really have it live and grow within me. So sometimes, you know, that's my connection with my spiritual teacher. Sometimes with the Christ, sometimes with, with loving, as I said it can be a lot of different things and sometimes it's just having fun. You know, my intention is to have fun with whatever comes today or have or be grateful. And so that having that kind of daily focus, I find very enriching and very helpful in the day, especially if I can keep focusing on that throughout the day. I do a gestalt process. I do that at least once a week. That is a it's a psychological tool that helps give the parts inside of of me or of you a voice and you can have different aspects of yourself, different feelings you're having. It's a way of giving them a voice in until hear them and so they feel heard and that you can get the value of what it is or get it out or whatever. There's, you know, a lot of benefit to that. That process is something that I that they teach at the university of Santa Monica. And I think, you know, if you want to do one of their classes, it's really there, it's really valuable. They teach spiritual psychology. So then I have my nighttime daily nighttime intention, which is just something that I put in before I go to bed at night in terms of, you know, dreams in terms of letting go of things in my dreams and all of that kind of stuff. And then my dream journal, which would be in the morning daily. And then I look at and send light to my ideal scenes. I'm big on the ideal scenes these days. In terms of, of my work, my life, my a lot of different, different things. I think they're really valuable to how to gain clarity on the direction and on what you're going for in your life. And so those, that's, that's my current months this month of December. That's my spiritual intensive.

Nat: 11:24 Like I said, you know, you can create your own. It's something that I think is really valuable for people. And if you have any questions or you, you have any questions or, or would like any suggestions depending on what you're working with. You know, you can always write me, you can write me and contact me through my website, transcend.online. So if you have questions like, you know, you're going through this type of thing and if I have any suggestions, happy to, happy to help you with that to give you suggestions with this. Anyway, this is something I, I definitely have found to be extremely valuable in keeping my, keeping my focus, especially when it's easy when you're going through challenges to to just get caught up in those and to to get caught up in our thinking or our habit patterns that, and so this is one way to really integrate your spiritual life and that higher perspective and get on track with a more purposeful life and a more purposeful way of being. So anyway, that's, it's a short episode, but I just wanted to share this technique with you. If you have more questions, you want some help with it let me know.

Nat: 12:53 Also I'm excited because on January 11th, 2020, I'll be in London and I will be doing a workshop there. For those of you who are interested, we'll be doing a workshop that really focuses for the new year on bringing, bringing you more into the, the truth and the the inner knowing of what's the priority, what's important to you in your life. Having next steps with that and really doing a beautiful process with all of that as well as doing a toning guided meditation to really get those good vibes going into your intentions and going forward into the new year. So to really set, set that set the year up for, for greater spiritual awareness, greater loving, greater grace to be available and to set ourselves up to be more open to that. So that's going to be in London on January 11th. So if any of you are in London I look, you can get more information on my website. It's also on Eventbrite. It's called set the tone for the new year with me, with Nathaniel Sharratt and you can get more information at transcend online on my website and I, and contact me if you have any questions about that. I look forward to the next episode and hearing from some of you, God bless you all.

Nat: 14:35 Oh, and you know what? Let's do a little something. We're getting close to Christmas to the end of the year to new year's to all these holidays. And I just thought, why don't we just call ourselves forward into the light, into grace and do a little blessing to close it this time. So if you're driving or needing your attention, keep your awareness on what you're doing. If you're not, you're welcome. If you're in a place where you can safely close your eyes and just be present inside of you, go ahead and do that now. And either way, just center yourself in your loving in your heart and just pay attention to your breathing. Just breathing in and breathing out as we open ourselves to the light. We asked Lord God of the Universe to awaken us more fully into your loving, into your light, and we ask that we may open to allow that to flow through us more and more into the world, to bring a greater soothing energy into this world, to the land that we walk upon, that we live upon to this planet. We see this light and loving extending through us to all those that we touch. All those that we come in contact with, we ask that this light may transmute any negativity, uplifting it, bringing it into the nothingness from which it came At this time of year. We ask for that energy that is known as the Christ. That is that great loving energy may come forward more fully through us as us, as we are one with that. And that only that which is for the highest good take place. As we go about our daily lives, we're so grateful for all of the blessings in our lives, and we open ourselves to more fully focus on those blessings so that we may present ourself to the world with greater gratitude. And through that gratitude, grace can be extended to us and all that we do. And so be it. I like to end those with something my teacher always ended with, which is baruch bashan, which means the blessings already are, Have a happy holidays and a happy holiday season. And hopefully I'll be talking to you soon. Bye.