Spiritual Perfectionism vs. Your Calling

Hi Everyone!

I posted some provocative thoughts recently on my Facebook Public Page and wanted to share with you some insights I gleaned from various comments folks made. In essence the post I wrote explored the urgent need for all of us to bear witness to what’s happening in the World if we are to enter our ‘Calling’ and become forces of transformation. For me personally the ideas I expressed in the post were greatly inspired by what happened to Cecil the Lion.

Some folks were resistantly triggered by what I was communicating…commenting that the news media couldn’t be trusted, depressed people often can’t look at the World and feel more pain or it might collapse them, if you focus on the negative you will become negative, etc. What I began to realize was that in addition to those rooting ‘Hell Yes, Go Ohotto!’, I had also summoned the ‘Spiritual Perfectionist’ in some others…

To be sure, a clinically depressed psyche needs different medicine than what my post was asking to be considered, and everything I wrote was done within a context. And the reality that our news is often manipulative, spell-casting, polarizing, and myopic is actually quite true! But are we opted out of caring about this World and paying attention because of this? I say all the more reason to tune in to TRUE news and care! Destiny often asks us to look at things we don’t want to or like. Why? Because you just might miss your ‘Call’ if you don’t. What I’ve learned over the past 15 years in my intuitive work reading Soul Contracts is that ‘Callings’ are often issued from an invitation to connect with Life in some way that wakes us up to how we are all connected. Callings are about CONNECTION.

That said, what does a Calling call? Sure it calls YOU, but what exactly does this mean? What part of you gets called? A Calling calls your Offering. Meaning it calls the Light in you that only you can offer to illumine the World’s dark. I often like to also call this your Genius.

Think about it, makes sense that our Destinies would have something to do with brightening up the World in some way right? Especially if we consider Carl Jung’s idea that ‘Enlightenment isn’t imagining figures of light, it’s making the darkness conscious’.

Yet there has been a seductive by-pass formula of sorts (that sells lots of books) of which many of us have bought into: that our Calling only comes when we are only in pure alignment with positivity and gratitude. And if we can just get our vibration to that frequency then suddenly our cell phone will start ringing loud and clear with a call from Heaven. I’m here to tell you that on a Soul Contract Fate/Destiny level that is a lie.

Can a calling come when you’re pissed off? If you have the Rebel/Revolutionary Archetypes you bet it can. Can a calling come when you feel the suffering of other beings? If you have the Rescuer, Healer, Liberator, Mother, Activist, Environmentalist (and more!) Archetypes you bet it can.

In fact there is a Buddhist Archetype I’ve identified in the Soul Contracts of some folks called the Bodhisattva – an enlightened being that reincarnates to takes on the suffering/darkness of others though they are already free from the wheel of Samsara. For this Soul, the understanding of our interconnectedness is so powerful they come back via the realization that until all are free of suffering, no one is fully free: ALL IS ONE.

Furthermore, a Soul at this level of compassion comes to teach us that enlightenment will open us to look more at the World, not turn away from it. From what I’ve seen in my work, this quality of high level compassion is a central force found in those who have Soul Contracts in which ‘Callings’ are destined to animate.

Buddha, Martin Luther King Jr, Jesus Christ, Mother Theresa, Malala Yousafzai — have these folks not been called? Was their call about alignment to positive vibrations? I don’t think so. In fact, it was often about taking their Light into the Dark. It was about their connection to the supreme spiritual truth ‘ALL IS ONE’. Their Callings where/are about their humanity, and so is yours.

And what about the Soldiers of WWII who shut down Hitler, the Animal Right’s Activists who fight to stop lions from losing their heads to trophy hunters, the Animal Rescuers and shelters who save abandoned and abused animals every day? Talk about taking light into some VERY dark places of horror and heartbreak – yet that is their Soul Contract, that is their Calling.

Now to be sure, you may not have a Calling that asks you to meet the darkest aspects of humanity per se. As one person commented on FB, she felt her calling was to be an ‘Activist of Joy’! I love that! YES YES YES… But nonetheless you are still connected to this entire planet and all of its dynamics, from the darkest to the light – so is your Calling.

It’s human nature to avoid pain, but to erect and edify Spiritual Dogmatic Formulas to completely by-pass it altogether and call that a ‘Law of Attraction’ key to your Destiny can actually disconnect you from your Calling, not take you deeper into the beating of its loving raw vulnerable heart. So will turning away from looking at what’s really happening in the World, lest it throw your vibration off.

My dear friend and colleague Andrew Harvey once said to me that ‘The only heart worth having is a broken one.’ A sentiment I’ve shared many times over the years to mixed reactions that I’ve found often depend on the listeners orientation to the pain in their own lives. Can you let your life’s pain guide you to purpose as much as your joy? Is it trying to? What would happen if you let your empathy for others suffering guide you to your Destiny instead of your desire to only feel good?

Now I don’t believe that we are all necessarily Destined to feel like shit and wallow in dark vibes, whether our own or others. Truthfully that’s not what I’ve witnessed in all my readings – BUT painful feelings are part of the fullness of being alive, in as much as joy and everything in between. And there is something to what Andrew said…the truth that we are all connected does often come alive when we recognize the suffering of others and care enough to do something about it, however big or small.

And yes, we can also find connection watching someone light up from meeting their much cherished goals, finding love, or triumphantly getting through a challenge! Wouldn’t you say both of these aspects of connection have been true for you at some point in your life?

Then why are we buying into the Spiritual Perfectionism that Callings only come to those who align with positivity and gratitude when it clearly goes contra to our own experience? My short answer is that here we are back again standing in front of some wrathful damning God who only gives purpose to those who are ‘good enough’; all the while thinking we’ve left the shame of ‘original sin’ theology, when only the language has changed. It’s time for a more balanced view of Destiny lest we continue to wonder around feeling lost and purposeless. Are you in? Then let’s get you connected!

Unconditional Connection = Alignment to Universal Power

Perhaps you’ve heard it said that if you’re feeling depressed or lost, go help someone else and you’ll shift out of it. I believe there is some truth in this as what this medicine does is pulls you back into CONNECTION with the ALL. In helping someone else you reconnect to the larger forces of Life because in the act you acknowledge that YOU ARE LIFE. As you act as someone else’s miracle you become your own. I would argue that unconditional connection is what gives us access to Universal Power – not positivism and gratitude. (Though they are GREAT assets when genuine!)

In closing, I think it’s time to let this Spiritual Perfectionistic approach to Callings go…it’s painful disconnecting stuff. It can be ok to speak of darker truths and look at the World’s pain – it won’t ‘throw off your vibe’, in fact it just might open your heart to what you are born to give.

To think that Highest Potential and Callings are only connected to ‘positive vibes’ is Archetypally myopic. Light workers are often called to go where it’s dark, and one can take light to the dark without ‘going dark’ themselves if you are channeling grace through enough Soul-Esteem. Sure, sometimes we aren’t resourced enough to pull that off and that can be ok too. Yet I still say open your heart and take a look at the World as it is the best you can. Explore your edges of compassion with curiosity.

I agree, bearing witness to the World can be rough to do, no doubt about it. And this often needs to be balanced with days at the ‘Light Spa’…but when we refuse to look at and meet the dark in the World we actually give the darkness the upper hand. This is how ‘Hitlers’ rise up and holocausts begin. We also disconnect from Life and become conditional with how we’re willing to show up in the World because it’s not as we think it should be.

Then our heart polarizes into right/wrong, good/bad, fear/love, either/or and shuts down while we fly up to our head to create a ‘make believe’ perfectionistic spirituality that tells us not to look at the suffering of others or our vibe will be thrown off and we won’t ‘attract’ our Calling.

After thousands of readings I can say that our Callings play out in LIFE, not some fantasy pain-free world. Our Callings thrive in the compassion of embracing both the light and dark. Can you embrace both? If you can’t, then start there with compassion and acceptance!

Namaste my dear Buddhas – I love you ALL, including your dark sides! Please share this newsletter with everyone whom can benefit from its message.

Robert Ohotto
Intuitive Life Strategist