Spiritual Burn Out ( how to prevent it)

This is a talk I gave at Columbine Unity of Boulder and decided I would be the first to start using this blog as place we can all share our Spiritual idea and lessons. From the desk of Mary Whiteflower on Spiritual Burn Out. I have been a follower of the Unity way of life for close to 40 years now. And I just received a wonderful healing, dodging the dreaded cancer, and wanted to share that first because some of you know I have been working on this healing.Praise be to God the Good.My blog today will be on Spiritual burn out.Because I am a teacher of the Tarot, I went to my Tarot to see if there was a card that described or held the essence of Spiritual burn out. Well it’s not a Major Arcane because it is not a state of understanding so it would be a Minor; a human condition or experience.So I would have to pick the 7 of pentacles because it talks about having worked so very hard gaining energy of some sort and before completion have a strong desire to rest to just sit on the idea a while before continuing because you are so exhausted.But that is the tarot and I’m hear today to share my personal experiences on the subject of Spiritual Burn out not teach tarot on this entry.Let me start by saying; I started my path toward enlightenment and understanding from the closest we can get to hell I am sure. Having come to the a sad conclusion in my youth that God; As it had been explained to me, was going to send me straight to hell, So nothing mattered because my only choice was hell.Mind you now I came from a good family, a Sweet Mom, and a Dad who took his responsibility seriously. Kind of like Ozie and Harriet, and they sent me off on a Sunday School Bus to learn about God. So I sent Myself to hell early as a drugged out lost soul by the sweet young age of 21.However Not liking there. By 22 I said my first desperate heart felt prayer and telling really begging spirit Or whatever IT was, if there was a god or any goodness it better show it’s self, because I was hitching a ride to anywhere until it showed. I was in California at the time. Well I found God in the streets of New York City. A little guru gave me a book and then someone told me about a free class while I was reading the book, and when I went there, it was the same little guru teaching that class. He told me truth for the first time in my life I wept with joy, and Set my feet upon the path of true understanding and enlightenment.Those first years I grew so fast it made my spin. The world no longer was a bad place that was sending me to hell, and I wanted everyone to hear and understood what I had been shown.Well not yet understanding what I do now,knowing about how we create our world by our emotional responses,The Old Ones if we haven’t cleared them,that that’s how we make our world by our thinking. Even though I found Unity in that first year.However trying to put my new learning in a mind filled with lies from my given social perspective lead to many burn outs of my spiritual learning.Now having been burnt out enough times on my own journey to be turned to ash maybe even too many times too confess to, but I know now time teaches, “once our feet are on the path, there is no choice but continue, to reach your total truth and the fulfillment of life.” Now I have concluded the reason spiritual burn out happens is when one stands on the edge of the alter fire of the heart, a place of seeing the need for great change and just stands there studying it and contemplating it and not taking that step of surrender into the fire. If we just set there in at the edge we burn, soon we are burned out; or if we take that steep in with only one foot stop and freeze in fear again we burn again burnout.But I’ve learned if I step in to the fire of my heart with a heart felt determined intention to step into the fire and be consumed by my commitment, and surrender, Truly surrender to the truth of my true Good God Self, and walk the walk not just talk the talk, I am truly reborn and the baggage I carried into the fire is gone.I know because it just happened after a burn out of well many years. 5 maybe 10 maybe more.Now I feel it is always our choice of how many life times takes to truly step into the kingdom. But we will have to step into the alter fires of our own heart, and forgive everything especially ourself, and allowing ourself to surrender to our own Goodness, or Godness in order to reach the true kingdom.I personally know nowI can see the joy in all times by seeing from my heart.Or if I refuse to see and feel the joy in life, be once again brought to my knees so I can truly look up into the eyes of truth.I have had to learn to Surrender to the good however it may appear, it is MY only salvation TO THINK ON THE GOOD, GOOD being the key word here,Good as in joy and beauty and things that make us feel blessed and just let all else just flow under the bridge of life.For myself I have had this path of emotional cleansing to walk (maybe because I am a Pisces), and I have had to face far to many kinds of exhausting challenges, time has truly shown me they truly are for my own pruning in order for me to make the choice of joy and more life each time, or give up and let this body die. So I have concluded each time, all else but the joy knowing the Good of God must be cut from my thinking or this body will die, Also know all trying needs to be let go of, as I surrender to Spirit within. No matter how long it may seem to take in what ever dimension I may be looking at. My job is to know joy and the goodness in life.(And that is different with every single person of course) So I say be not afraid of the fire of your heart and true commitment to surrender to the Good, the God Within. And you won’t have to endure Spiritual Burn out. Oh I too looked On the internet and I found this after I wrote my talk. Paraphrased slightly http://www.lastdaysministries.org/articles/spiritualburnout.html“Spiritual burnout can only occur where there is either a fundamental misunderstanding of the heart of the Truth, or a failure to apply it to our lives. A person who has dropped exhausted does so because he has believed a distortion of the Truth, or because he has forgotten the heart of the Truth he once committed to.”