In this episode I read a chapter from my forthcoming book, A Path To Be Spiritually Free titled Connecting With Spirit. The chapter explores a few different methods for connecting with Spirit and explores how this may be different from what you've explored in the past. Then, I share some of my own experiences with connecting with Spirit. For me, connecting with Spirit is what allows me to create art, books, songs, and podcasts. That connection is vitally important to everything I do.
In this episode I read a chapter from my forthcoming book, A Path To Be Spiritually Free titled Connecting With Spirit. The chapter explores a few different methods for connecting with Spirit and explores how this may be different from what you've explored in the past. Then, I share some of my own experiences with connecting with Spirit. For me, connecting with Spirit is what allows me to create art, books, songs, and podcasts. That connection is vitally important to everything I do.
Hi, I'm Laura Pallatin welcome to The Practically Spiritual Show, where we break out of cultural and religious indoctrination and create our own personally fulfilling life.
As many of you already know, I've been working on a new book called A Path to Be Spiritually Free to help people specifically with step by step breaking indoctrination and then creating a spiritual path that's really personalized and works for them. And I'm writing the chapters sort of as they come to me.
And this episode of the podcast, I will be reading to you a new chapter I recently wrote called Connecting with Spirit. So let's listen to the theme song and then I'll meet you on the other side.
Welcome to the Practically Spiritual Show. Together we will learn, laugh, and grow. Break indoctrination. Rise above our nation. And soar.
Welcome to the Practically Spiritual Show.
One of the fundamental things that I hope to share through this podcast and my books is that we as human beings are fully capable of connecting with Spirit. We don't need a go between. We certainly don't need magic words. All we need is to trust our inner knowing and to learn to allow that communication to happen.
With that in mind, I've written this chapter called Connecting with Spirit, and I sincerely hope that it resonates with you and that you find it helpful.
Connecting with Spirit.
One of the most important things I hope you take away from this book is that you, all by yourself and without assistance, can connect with Spirit. You don't need a middleman or an interpreter. With practice and trust in yourself, you can absolutely learn to connect with Spirit.
If you were raised in a religion, this may seem unlikely or even blasphemous. Remember that anyone who places themselves between you and Spirit, who tells you that you cannot communicate with Spirit and you must go through them, is creating static and is actually acting as a barrier.
There is a vast difference between a person who you ask for help in connecting with Spirit and a person who tells you that you must go through them to connect. Some people naturally find it easier to connect with Spirit than others. We know them as intuitive empaths, mediums, psychics, and true spiritual leaders.
These folks are born with an innate connection. Over time, they learn to grow this connection if they are not convinced by someone that their inner knowing is hubris or a lie. While no one can tell you anything that you can't learn by connecting with Spirit yourself, having someone help you interpret your inner knowing can be powerful.
Sometimes we're so invested in the minutiae of our lives that we fail to see the most obvious solutions. Or we're committed to looking at a situation in one way, And we can benefit from a fresh perspective. For these reasons, consulting with someone who connects directly with spirit can be helpful.
However, you never want to allow another person's view or perspective to be more important than your own. Trust your inner knowing. When someone is speaking to you and you feel discord within yourself, explore it. You may have this experience because it doesn't align with your inner knowing, or it could be conflicting with old teachings that you may not want to hold on to anymore.
Time and exploration will help you determine which it is. You already know what this conflict feels like for you. Each person experiences this in their own way. For instance, when you feel a conflict between your inner knowing and what is being told to you, you may feel uneasy in your solar plexus, that area above your belly button. Or maybe a thought such as, this is wrong, will pop into your head. Confusion is another way this can manifest. Always take a moment to process the feeling and check it against what you know to be true and pure.
One of the biggest problems with religion, as a source of connecting with Spirit, is that it is so incredibly indirect. Most of the world's religions were started around 2,000 years ago. Think of religion at its best and most benign as a very long game of telephone. Messages were shared with followers and told to another person and another, and finally written down in the language of that time, which was subsequently translated and interpreted many times.
Over a millennia, these messages became muddied and twisted. Historically, clergy members were recruited from wealthy families because the job had prestige and influence. There was absolutely no consideration given to whether a candidate for seminary had an innate connection with Spirit. Eventually, there was little to no pretense given to clergy communicating with God.
They were simply presented as men who had a religious education. Religion has been used to commit some of the most egregious atrocities in humanity, yet millions still trust religion to dictate their lives. So strange when you think about it.
Modern day religions are not all inherently bad. Enjoying the company of like minded people, sharing music, and enjoying fellowship should not preclude anyone from connecting directly with Spirit. However, many religions dismiss this real and important part of a fulfilling spiritual life.
How to connect.
There are probably as many ways to connect to Spirit as there are people seeking that connection. I will share with you a few ways I've experienced this connection.
First, through the creative process. As dualistic beings, we have a body with talents and learning, paired with a spirit that animates our bodies. When I am making art, writing songs or books, I feel I am connected with Spirit. It isn't my body that has a creative flow, it's my soul.
Yes, my body has skills that allow me to interpret inspiration into words or music, but the ideas and spark come from my connection with Spirit. As with all forms of connection with Spirit, trying to connect or forcing flow is rarely successful. It's allowing flow that works for me.
Spirit often speaks to me through dreams and encourages me to move ahead with creative projects. This chapter was instigated through a dream this morning, for instance. So, here I sit, writing to you, in hope of sharing what Spirit has sent to me.
Willie Nelson, a great American songwriter, said that he believes songs are flowing in a river just over his head, and he reaches up and pulls songs from the river and writes them down.
I love this analogy because it so eloquently describes the perfect pairing of the duality we experience while in human form. Our bodies are talented in certain ways, and we can grow skill through practice that sharpens those innate skills. When we are ready technically, we can connect with Spirit and receive gifts of inspiration that we translate for all humanity to enjoy.
Once again, the process involves preparing the body by building skills. And then allowing Spirit to supply the spark of inspiration that enables the skills to be put to use in creating art. You'll notice the theme of allowing is continuous throughout this book.
Setting intentions.
Another way to connect with Spirit is to simply set an intention to do so.
Every single person living in a body has some connection with Spirit. It's impossible not to connect at all and be alive. Many people don't recognize their connection and even deny it, but it's there to some degree in every person. Divine spark is the difference between being alive or dead. When our bodies die, our divine spark leaves and our body is no longer animated.
Therefore, we can always see Spirit in one another. it's a good exercise to recognize Spirit in other people. Especially those who are challenging for us.
Connecting through setting an intention to do so is all about listening and noticing what is going on within you as well as what is being said to you by others. We can have flashes of inspiration from Spirit from within that are powerful and inspiring and we will find that other people say things that may seem unimportant to them, a thrown away comment, have an important message for us.
Spirit can also speak to us through dreams. Remaining open and receptive is key to receiving messages and guidance from Spirit. Sometimes the answer to our most burning question is frustrating for us. For instance, I am very mission driven in my own life. I feel strongly that I am here to help humanity, even if it's in a very small way.
So I get wrapped up in what I am supposed to be doing. Should I be writing, creating art, writing songs? What's the most effective use of my very finite time in this life? I can get very frustrated and sidetracked worrying about this question. The answer is always the same and even more annoying. The answer is, it doesn't matter what I'm doing as long as my intention is to help.
Writing this book will help, even if it only helps me, to define what true spirituality is and how to implement a personal spiritual practice. This is a good use of my time, but so is creating art, and that has positive energy. So the answer to "what is the highest and best use of my time" is, it doesn't matter. That's not very encouraging. Doesn't make me feel very special. This is all part of the process. It's all natural and good.
Because communication with Spirit happens mostly within our own heads. It's natural to wonder how to distinguish it from our own thoughts and what is actually Spirit communicating directly with you.
Over time, this becomes clearer. For me, messages from Spirit usually come without words. Instead of a thought of my own that's in word form, messages are often clear and wordless. Although sometimes I get phrases, for instance, earlier I shared my persistent, "it doesn't matter" message that comes through when I ask the same question over and over.
A simple test, though, is to ask yourself, Is this message kind and loving? Is it helpful? Communication from Spirit will always be loving. If you find yourself confused about a message, talk with the person you trust to help you evaluate it. Communication from Spirit is always uplifting, encouraging, positive, and loving.
With practice, you'll be able to easily distinguish your own thoughts from divine messages. Other methods of growing your connection with Spirit will be discussed at length in future chapters. Some of them include automatic writing, using tools of divination, meditation, meeting and consulting with spirit guides.
This is a fun and exciting process, and I know you'll enjoy exploring some of these tools for yourself. For now, know that you will naturally begin to expand your connection with Spirit because just by picking up this book and making this process a priority in your life, you've already set the intention to grow your connection.
This, in and of itself, is a powerful step toward deepening your connection and developing your own spiritual self. Just because you want to, it will happen.
As I said in the chapter, I woke up from sound sleep with basically this idea that I needed to write this chapter and I got a cup of coffee and sat there in my spot in bed and wrote that chapter out and I've just done a little bit of editing to it to make it make more sense because sometimes Flow gets a little interrupted, um, but essentially that's just, boop, what came out.
And it's kind of interesting because the editing process for a book is, to me, the most lengthy, time consuming bit of writing. Um, being inspired and just writing a book especially, fiction, where it flows and I can hear people talking in my head and they're having these interactions, and sometimes a character will surprise me with what they say. I'm like, hey, that was not in the outline, how can we be going in that direction? That's part of the fun of writing fiction.
But writing nonfiction when It's a subject that is so, ah, so close to my heart and really why I feel that I'm here on this planet at this time is, is so very powerful.
And just reading back over what I've written, it's very moving.
When I was in massage school and I took Reiki classes and I came to understand, the way that Reiki works is an allowing, right? I personally had an experience with a Spirit Guide where a healing practice was taught to me. I actually share that in Jane Street Cooperative Garden as the character Ahma.
That, too, is an allowing, and I really believe that connecting with spirit is exactly that. And it's one of the reasons I don't drink alcohol, because it's a static. It's a barrier. It muddles my mind, and it makes my body sick. And all of these are low vibration choices, in my opinion, that bring you down.
And I understand there are people that... I like to use hallucinogenics because they feel that opens them up to connecting with spirit. That's not something that interests me because I enjoy a constant connection. I don't have to go someplace. I don't have to do a thing. I just feel it.
When I first started my spiritual journey away from Christianity, I lived in a community where there was, Native American tribe and I reached out and I was lucky enough to get a moment with the shaman from that tribe and I had already started doing spirit guide work and so I asked this person about that. And they said that you have to go to a certain place. You need to go there respectfully and reverently because spirit guides are busy and they just can't make time for you on your time schedule.
And that just struck me as so odd to believe that a being that's not bound by a body or space or time doesn't have time, right? I, I think in retrospect that perhaps what the shaman was communicating to me was to bring yourself into the right intention and that by having all of these physical, rules that he followed for his process, it helped him to bring himself into an intention of connecting with spirit.
I mean that's the only logical thing I can take away from it because to me, Spirit is in me and around me and in everybody else and we're just, we have the option of just being connected. It's not something you have to schedule or say the right words for. Or any of the other rituals that tend to surround connecting with Spirit.
That being said, I think that we all develop our own rituals, right? And there's nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with that. I guess what I hope to communicate to anybody that's interested in listening is that we are ultimately capable of connecting with Spirit at any time.
And we can use any tools at our disposal, or any ritual, or any practice, to make that happen for ourselves. And we don't have to follow along with any certain set of steps in order to achieve it. It's available to us at all times.
It is very helpful to get quiet, right, not have a lot of distractions, to set yourself aside, to make that time, to maybe have a piece of paper and a pen or a laptop or whatever you use to record. Because, when you're in that space, and you make those connections, and you feel it, and you know it, and you're living it, then when we step back into the world, that whole separation of body and spirit comes up, right?
And, and it's easy to forget what you wrote. Even as I'm reading this chapter to you guys, and, and I love it. I don't remember writing all those words. I love them. I appreciate them. I see them as gifts from Spirit that I get to share with you. And, I get to enjoy again also. Ah, I feel like I'm rambling. I hope that you enjoyed this chapter.
I think it's really cool. I'm looking forward to the next chapter as well. For now, with the podcast, what I've been doing is sharing with you ideas that come up organically in my life and mixing those in with chapters from Walkin Your Own Footsteps and now, of course, my new book that I'm working on. A Path To Be Spiritually Free.
So I'm already all excited about writing the next chapter. I have, I think, eight chapters written already. So quite a bit of material to go through. I want to thank you for listening to The Practically Spiritual Show. You've made it all the way to the end.
How exciting is that? Um, I hope that you enjoyed the episode and that you take with you something that has meaning for you. If you know somebody that. you think of when you're listening to these and think, Oh, so and so would really enjoy it. There really is no higher compliment than inviting somebody that you love and care about to listen to my podcast.
I've already heard from a couple of people that they've done that. And it just means the world to me. If you'd like to reach out to me for a suggestion or a comment or anything, I make it really easy. I made a website for myself and my artsy stuff called, laurapallatin.Com. I also made one called thepracticallyspiritualshow. com. I'm on social media, uh, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. And I I just would love to hear from you if you have any, any feedback or suggestions. And until next time, take good care of yourselves and remember, there really is no them. There is only us.
Thanks for listening to The Practically Spiritual Show.
I mean it. Thank you so much for sticking around to the end. It means so much to me. I love you. See you next time. Bye bye.