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Self-Ministry

Religion is idealistic.  It holds for us the vision of becoming, and it houses our very best human ideals, values, and beliefs.  It presents a vision that may be utopian, but the vision is a model or container for our aspirations and our growth.  Religion gives us an experience of the Mystical union, and it provides the tools of the wayshowers or Teachers.  In that way, it provides us with the path, the journey companion, and the ultimate view on the top of the mountain.  We reach the summit and then life becomes the eternal quest to find a way to return to that mountaintop, or the quest to show others how to walk the journey and minister to them on the way.

Self Ministry is about personal Soul Care.  One cares for one’s own connection to spirit, finds one’s own unique ‘calling,’ and answers the call.  Soul Care is a transformative process.  Moore (1996) says that it is the application of imagination and enchantment to everyday life.  It’s not about fixing oneself; rather it is about honoring oneself and one’s own uniqueness – allowing that uniqueness to come to fulfillment.  We don’t need to fix ourselves as much as we need to find ourselves and honor what we discover.  Indeed, the very items within us that look like negative dark spots on our beingness may indeed offer us the very gifts that help us grow and expand as individuals.  Our difficulties and painful experiences in life are what acquaint us with the depths of our own strength and wisdom, because they are our gifts for growth. 

Self ministry challenges us to find the Magician within.  “The Magus is educated and trained not just to know about things but to live in this world effectively empowered by the things of nature and culture” (Moore, 1996, p. 373).  Magicians draw out the hidden magic in the universe, and magic becomes a way of life.  It excites, impassions, and empowers us to live in the world and seek our highest self and our highest good.  Magic feeds the soul. 

How do we teach others to self-minister?  We help them reach a place of spiritual maturity.  One must move from a state of dependence – of depending on others, on a leader, or a guru – to a state of independence.  The state of independence is where one separates out what is self and what is the other.  Then one is ready for interdependence or using the strength of ego to merge back into the community to serve others. 

The four archetypes, Healer, Visionary, Teacher, and Warrior, are excellent containers for self-ministering.  Arrien’s (1993) work provides tools and processes to help the individual create a Soul Care process.  To self minister through the Healer, one can engage in the eight universal healing principles that support health and well-being:

  1. Balanced diet
  2. Daily exercise
  3. Time for fun, play, and laughter
  4. Music, sonics, and chanting
  5. Love, touch, and support systems
  6. Interests, hobbies, and creative purpose
  7. Nature, beauty, and healing environments
  8. The presence of faith and belief in the supernatural.

To self-minister through the Visionary, one must watch one’s projections and be vulnerable and willing to examine oneself.  One sees life as a reflection of self.  We grow in consciousness by virtue of Transference.  One can use these projections (transference) to heal, grow, and develop in consciousness.  When the individual works with projections, he strengthens his authenticity.  The ‘mirrors’ in his life are an indication of the projections or unclaimed parts of self:

  1. Clear mirrors – those we idealize or believe we cannot be like
  2. Smoking mirrors – those we have difficulty with and hope we are not like in any way
  3. Split mirrors – those we like and admire but feel fear or constriction in their presence (Arrien, 1993).

             Arrien presents Robert Bly’s five stages of projection (originally from Maria Franz’s and Alice Miller’s work):

  1. We find the perfect person to hold our projection – an idealized individual to project our disowned strengths, someone we hate to project our disowned dark side, or someone we fear for a combination split mirror.
  2. The projection begins to slip – we begin to see that the individual may be someone other than we thought, however we readjust the projection and rationalize and make excuses.
  3. The projection totally falls off – no rationalization will make things right, and we are forced to see the person rather than the projection.  We move to blaming, anger, disappointment, and judgment.  If we wish to heal the projection, we must move to stage four.  Otherwise, we look for someone else to own the projection.
  4. Recognition – we realize it was a projection, and we feel the grief for the lost part of ourselves and the grief in the realization that the person was not who we thought.  We must mourn the loss.  We may also feel guilt for our blaming, anger, disappointment, and judgment in stage 3, because it was misdirected. 
  5. Compassion for and integration of the projection – we feel compassion for ourselves and others with similar issues.  We lose our ‘charge’ about the projection and integrate it into ourselves and ‘own’ it. 

From the Teacher archetype, we develop our wisdom, detachment, and willingness to enter into a relationship with the unknown.  We also learn to be flexible and accepting of life.  We learn to see our life from the perspective of the ‘Witness’ or Higher Self.  To access the Teacher, we need to be aware of times when we are stuck in a righteous position, a judgment of another or of a situation, and in a state where we must control the outcome due to fear and distrust or confusion and doubt.  Each of these is a key that we are unwilling to be flexible and accepting and gain the wisdom inherent in the lesson (Arrien, 1993).

The Warrior brings presence, empowerment, and leadership into our lives.  If we see within ourselves themes of rebellion, unclaimed authority, projections of authority onto others, and patterns of invisibility, then the shadow Warrior is at work, and it is telling us that we have vast reservoirs of unclaimed power and talent that we need to tap into (Arrien, 1993).  Shadow patterns show up as follows:

  1. The Rebel is overly independent and self-involved, lacking the ability to engage with others.  Rebels are afraid of being limited, restricted or restrained, and at its worst can become narcissistic.
  2. Authority issues are usually projections and failures to claim our inner strength.  We may find ourselves drawn to leaders and needing to compete or covet their favor due to idealizing them.  We are actually behaving like victims when we have authority issues, because we are failing to claim our own inner power. 
  3. Invisibility issues mean that we hide behind others or ride on their coattails. We draw close to powerful people and draw our strength from theirs, claiming power vicariously or feeding off others like leaches.  It is a mark of dependence and fear of exposure – we are afraid to reveal our own creative talents for fear of being judged or being held accountable for our acts.

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