What's Guiding You?

Living in a new city and being in the midst of a career change is such an interesting space to inhabit. During this time, I am grateful to have the support and encouragement of a wonderful circle of friends and family who check in with me regularly. I am often asked about what is next, what my plans or goals are, or even just where I am headed.

At first it felt completely comfortable to give the honest answer that I didn't really know. However now that we have been here in Nanaimo for 6 months, our non-profit society is set up, and I have completed my ministerial training I am starting to feel a little self-conscious that I still don't have a good answer about my plans, goals, or intentions.

To make matters worse, in a few weeks I will have a panel interview with some ministers in my field as the final step in being licensed as a minister and I am assuming questions about my plans will be asked. I must admit that I am more than a little nervous that my current best answer is "I am not sure".

And yet, on a deep reflective level this feels like the most appropriate place for me to be right now. It feels like it would be arrogant for me to move into a new city and to set up shop as a spiritual community without taking the time to get to know the greater community. It feels like it would be short-sighted to use a traditional "church" model for CSL Nanaimo as churches have been in steady decline for many years. I love to be a problem-solver and a decisive innovator so it is taking a lot of courage for me to slow down and rest in not knowing.

And if the past few years have shown us anything, I think we have seen that life is unpredictable and that we are in a time of great change and uncertainty. There is a reason that we hold on to sayings like "We plan and God laughs" and "The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft a-gley". Going through a global pandemic and emerging into economic uncertainty under a looming climate crisis has robbed us of familiar comforts and our sense of certainty.

So, if we can't necessarily make plans or goals, what do we do?

It is important to our wellbeing to have hope and to feel like we can move forward. So for me, the answer has been to shift from a mindset of goal-setting and plan-making to one of identifying some guiding principles to live by. By clarifying my values and creating a set of guiding principles both for myself and for CSL Nanaimo, I am in a position where I can take action and respond to situations from a place of alignment with my values. And what is even better is that as I live in alignment with my guiding principles, life seems to be falling into place

At the last board meeting we discussed the four guiding principles of our CSL Nanaimo community. They are:

• to spread kindness and hope,

• to promote personal wellbeing,

• to encourage spiritual exploration and growth,

• and to care for humanity and the planet.

To me, this is a beautiful foundation upon which we can build our events and programming. We can be responsive to whatever is going on in the world or in our community while knowing that anything we do will be guided by these principles. Our community outreach Meditation Made Easy sessions were born out of the principle of promoting personal wellbeing, and our new Peace Rocks! Project was built on the principle of spreading kindness and hope.

My guess is that we all live by a set of guiding principles in some way even if we haven't consciously thought about it. Here are some questions for you to ponder:

Do you know what your guiding principles are?

How are they serving you?

Are there any principles you would like to add in?

How can you use them as a foundation for the decisions you make and the actions you take?

If you have some insights about your guiding principles you'd like to share, I'd love to hear from you.

Peace and blessings,

Amanda