What’s in Your Spiritual Backpack?

No matter where we go in life, we must deal with people, events and things that may or may not be difficult. Having the right "tools" at hand makes our journey less stressful and much more fulfilling.

Our guest writer, Lorraine Ash shares her tips on what to take in our spiritual backpacks during Life's journey as we participate in the WOW! Women on Writing blog tour for her new book, Self and Soul: On Creating a Meaningful Life.

In this uplifting memoir, Lorraine Ash uses her own life experiences to explore inner landscapes where the seeds of divine healing and insight reside. These are the landscapes on which we create our own meaning and find the resiliency to thrive in a changing and challenging world. 

 Photo credit: ©Asdf_1 | Dreamstime.com 

 
Today, Lorraine answers for us the question, "What is in your spiritual backpack?" 

Any traveler, from a hiker to a spiritual seeker, loves talking about maps, directions, and roads traveled. They ask which ones lead to the summit, whether that be a real-world mountain or a state of mind. 

Getting lost from time to time is enlightening, too. It certainly worked for Cheryl Strayed, author of Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail.

But what we carry in our proverbial spiritual backpacks - otherwise known as the contents of our minds - is as key to the journey as any external destination or surprise along the way. Your mind, like mine, is filled with truths, hard earned from our experiences on all the trails we’ve ever traversed. I’ve learned never to trade in those truths for some shiny new tantalizing thing I want to believe. 

Here are seven I carry wherever I roam: 

1. The world is not a maze. It is a teacher, diverse and complex enough to offer lessons for billions of people. 

2. Inner guides and natural inclinations are not delusions of grandeur. They are muses who suggest starting points, and key turns, in our life journeys. 

3. The soul is not a financial portfolio or resume. Its contents are not to be weighed, measured, or compared. 

4. Truth contains everything, including negativity and positivity. 

5. The human psyche is vast. Yet, most folks live on a small island in the mind devoted to aspiring, achieving, and stressing; they ignore the oceans of peace and perspective that surround it. 

6. A family legacy is not a random stroke of good or bad fortune. For everyone, it is both. 

7. Many lost souls walk the planet. They live among us, sometimes with us. Some are powerful. Recognize them. Pray for them. But do not follow them. 

Question: What time-tested lesson learned on the road of life do you hold most dear? Post yours in the comments!

About the Author: Lorraine Ash, MA, is an author, journalist, and essayist as well as a writing teacher. Self and Soul: On Creating a Meaningful Life is her second book. Her first memoir, Life Touches Life: A Mother's Story of Stillbirth and Healing, was published by NewSage Press and has circulated throughout the United States as well as in the Middle East, Australia, Europe, China, Canada, and Mexico. Lorraine also is a veteran journalist, whose feature articles and series have won seventeen national, state, and regional awards and have appeared in daily newspapers across the country. Lorraine belongs to the Association of Writers and Writing Programs and Investigative Reporters and Editors. She lives in New Jersey with her husband, Bill.

Self and Soul: On Creating a Meaningful Life is available in a variety of formats and online stores, all presented here,

http://lorraineash.com/selfsoul.htm  

Self and Soul: On Creating a Meaningful Life is also available a digital audiobook. Find it at Audible.com and Amazon.com as well as in the iTunes store. 

Reach Lorraine at - 

www.LorraineAsh.com, 
www.facebook.com/LorraineAshAuthor , or 
@LorraineVAsh