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Tuesday Inspiration - 11 August 2009
by Sally Mabelle
Out of Crisis into Mastery: A Four-Stage Process
 In December 2008, I experienced being burgled for the first time! It was an eerie feeling opening the door to my apartment and being hit with a chaotic scene - All my drawers had been pulled out and dumped out. My computer, my video camera, my DVD player, my new LCD TV and all my jewelry were gone. My 16-year old son’s IPOD was gone. Someone had broken in through a window through my son’s bedroom while we were out the night before. The energy of desperation and hurry still hung in the air as I saw the mess that was left behind. To add to the mix, I was not insured at the time, so I lost about $7000 worth of stuff.
In January 2009, my new GPS was stolen, my car window smashed as I sat clueless only 15 meters away, inside the house. This was my first experience of having my car broken into. Then, a week after that, my son accidentally reformatted our entire computer, wiping out hours of work I'd done the day before and had not yet backed up.
Rather than feeling angry and resentful, I felt strangely unperturbed by all these events...somehow surrendered,observing and accepting. I came to experience what master teacher John Sherman (http://www.riverganga.org) refers to as the SELF that never changes, the SELF that can neither be helped nor hurt by anything that happens. Any of our ‘crises’ as well as our ‘successes’ don't really touch the true SELF. John should know this by now. In 1974, he was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List for robbing and bombing banks. He spent 18 1/2 years in a US Federal prison, and in 1994, shortly before he was released, a spiritual teacher named Gangaji visited the prison and her message changed John’s life. He became ‘self-realised’ and has been a spiritual teacher ever since, living in his own words ‘happily ever after’.
A few days after my computer crash crisis, I saw a video of another master teacher, Joe Vitale, (http://www.mrfire.com)
Joe was talking about the ‘four stages of mastery’, and I really resonated with what he said in the light of my recent ‘crises. Joe said that most people spend their whole lives never moving beyond the first stage of mastery which is 'Victimhood'. This is a stage where everything is ‘someone else's fault’, and one's life situation is largely due to circumstance. Little or
no personal responsibility is taken for what happens to us in life.
The second stage of mastery is 'Empowerment'. This is the stage which comes with feeling like you are GOD...in other words, you create everything that happens to you. You feel like it is only you who are controlling and directing your life, and you take responsibility for everything...the opposite of victimhood.
The third stage of mastery is 'Surrender'. This is the stage where you realise that even though you have dreams and set goals, that sometimes Life takes you in another direction. Relationships events happen which you can not foresee or predict and relationships come and go. The ‘Surrender’ stage is letting go and opening up to divine guidance. You begin to hold the possibility that perhaps rather than actually BEING God, that perhaps you are just one 'drop' in the ocean of GOD...and you realise it's not ALL just about YOU.
The fourth stage beyond surrender is 'Realisation'. In this stage, rather than surrendering to the divine, you are ONE with the divine, moving with sensitivity and intuition moment by moment. You and Life are one. In this fourth stage, there is peace, because you're not a victim of Life, nor are you GOD by yourself, nor are you simply surrendering to Life. You are ONE with Life.
So, where am I on the scale of mastery? After the burglary, I could have gone into victimhood with a 'poor me' attitude (which I admit I dabbled in for a brief moment). Fortunately, I did not stay there long. I also went through the 'empowerment' stage with an 'I created it' attitude (I said I wanted to get new jewelry a new computer, and a new video camera anyway). I would like to believe I moved rather quickly into the third and fourth stages of mastery, surrendering and doing what needed to be done in the moment with grace.
Where are you on the scale of mastery today? We can all move forward and backward in these stages at different times. Perhaps you might keep these four stages in mind when dealing with any 'crisis' that you might deal with in the future. As we all move up and down the scale of mastery, let’s be gentle with ourselves, knowing we are all on the same journey. We will all one day realise that we are indeed ‘Life living itself’ through us.
Blessings
Sally
About Sally Mabelle
 Sally is Life Coach, Voice and Communication Coach. She began learning and teaching various communication skills in 1980 in her studies at The University of Virginia where she was selected as a National Communication Scholar. In 1989, she attended a two-year Spiritual Psychology/ Life Mastery program at The University of Santa Monica and in 1992 began developing her own workshops, talks, CDs, DVDs, articles, and book. Sally's passion is inspiring people to discover and express their authentic voice and to create healthy and successful relationships through conscious communication.
Mobile: 021 0222 8782
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