an excerpt from Dr. Roland Trujillo's new book on intergrative healing from emotional and spiritual trauma
I’ve
saved the best for last.
The title of this chapter is The Secret to Life is Response. What we
respond to and how we respond is very important. And nowhere is it more
important than when it comes to how we handle overt or subtle challenges to our
ego.
Most of us have spent our lives responding
to the ego challenges and teases of the world with excitement and resentment.
We resisted and resented anything that made us feel wrong, and we compensated
to prove our rightness and goodness.
Now
you must respond to the wordless Truth which makes you to know that pride is
wrong and that responding emotionally to challenges is error.
Before you took your growth stimuli and
pattern of development from those tempting challenges. Now you must learn how
to stand back and observe the teases without responding to them.
Your meditation exercise and newfound
rapport with truth will teach you how to stand back and observe without
reacting. This is called the discipline of patient nonresponse. (If you haven’t already done so, may we
suggest you look at our meditation materials available on our website)
Do you see it? Your response of joy and
belief to the inner wordless Word renders you impervious and not responsive to the
tempting morsels of aggravation and the challenges to your ego.
Henceforth you won’t grow in the old ego
animal compensatory way. Now your inner character will grow and flower in the
light of the Spiritual Sun. Just as a plant takes in the sunbeams and
incorporates something of the light into itself, so the soul, now living in
God’s Light, will incorporate the pattern and purpose of that Light into
realizations, character, and growth. The
essence of the Light will give purpose and direction, and the warmth will bring
peace, assurance, and life itself to the humble receptive soul.
Each
time you are patient, you sever another attachment to the world and develop a
little bit more heavenly character.
Mostly you will go about your business, but
with an observing attitude. During the course of the day, you will make many
discoveries and have realizations. You will see and understand. As a result of
your beginning the day with meditation, signaling your desire to have the Creator
enter your life, you will continue to grow in His grace.
At times and places you will be inwardly
prompted to move or say something. This time, instead of reacting to temptation
on temptation’s time schedule, your word or deed will be in your own time and
space. You won’t even know what you are going to say or do ahead of time, but
after having acted in response to intuitive impulse, you will see the rightness
of what you did.
There will be a lot of sorting out to do,
sometimes with pain. But God will give you the time and the grace to work
through things. With time, life will become simpler and you will come to know
the peace of God.
