#349 Snippets of wisdom: Τhe interconnection between personal and spiritual development.

EPISODE TRANSCRIPTION
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Agi Keramidas  0:02  
Welcome to Personal Development mastery podcast. And this is another snippets of wisdom episode where I select my favourite, most insightful moments from previous episodes. I hope it is as insightful for you as it was for me. 

Agi Keramidas  0:21  
In terms of those two, if if there are two categories, like the personal development and spiritual development, are they two? Are they? Do they converge at some point? Or do they diverge after a point? What are your, your thoughts on this? 

Barbara Lima  0:39  
I think that's a great question. I think that has to do a lot to do with your cultural perspective, first of all, and the depth of the exploration that you propose to yourself as a personal development journey. What I believe is that most people don't really understand what spirituality is. And oftentimes, they undergo a spiritual awakening or spiritual development period, which they call personal development. And this is not to cancel one of the terms, I just believe that they work together, they merge the way I see spirituality, it's, there are many facets to spirituality. But when we talk about spiritual development, that has a lot to do with this inner exploration and inner development, there's actually now a term, we know the Sustainable Development Goals. Now we have the inner development goals. And if you look at that framework, it's a personal development framework, but it's very much founded on spiritual tools and spiritual aspects of that enter development. So in my understanding, spirituality is an intrinsic aspect of who we are as human beings, alone, or in community or in relationship to another. But I believe that it starts in the realm of the relationship with oneself. That's when people when you discover spirituality, it's when you establish that relationship with yourself. And you understand that that's the most important relationship that you can cultivate in your life. Because it's through a process and here I'm going to start talking about regeneration, it's, it's through a process of self regeneration, that we can then enter a collective space from a place of self understanding, self regulation, healthy relationship with yourself. And that will inform the quality of your presence in the spaces where you are in the relationships you establish with people and with the planet. So for me, it's personal development is an intrinsic aspect of spirituality and spirituality is an intrinsic aspect of personal development. And that is the first most important journey we need to take in order for then cultivate that healthy presence in community. And from that space, co create with other people, for the development of strategies that will allow us to understand our relationship with the earth energy understand that when we belong to ourselves, we also understand that we belong to the earth. And so it's a journey from separation to oneness, you know, separation from ourselves, separation from the people around the separation from our environment, spirituality and personal development will give you the tools to then navigate the liminal space of self discovery and the shadow work, no looking at the corners where you don't want to necessarily be but facing yourself and owning the wholeness of who you are taking self responsibility and loving yourself as a whole, instead of just looking at the parts that shine. And in that process of reclamation of the wholeness we enter the realm of regeneration in that liminal space that then guides us towards oneness. So the journey would be for me separation, liminal space of the unknown, where the shadow work is where we be friends darkness, and we then generate light through sitting with darkness, and then getting to one oneness with myself, I now I am now whole. I, I recognise, I accept, I love all parts of who I am. And from that space of honouring that within myself, I can then honour the same dynamic within other people. And that gets reflected on the environment. And I think that that's the real foundation for regeneration. And that's why I believe that human regeneration is a prerequisite for planetary regeneration. We cannot care about the environment if first we don't care about ourselves. And we don't understand ourselves in our wholeness in our connection with source with each other, and with our planet.

Agi Keramidas  5:47  
Thank you for tuning in. You can listen to the full conversation. The link is in the show notes. If you've enjoyed this episode, can you find one person that you think it would add value to and share it with them? I would really appreciate you. It helps grow the show and it also helps you add value to people you care about. Thank you so much. Until next time, stand out, don't fit in!