How To Become Your Own Spiritual Leader

Clint  0:00

Hey everybody, welcome to another episode of the spiritual cake podcast, we talk about anything and everything that has to do with the spiritual side of humanity, the spiritual side of our condition of what we go through on a daily basis. We are familiar with the mental and the physical and the emotional, but the spiritual is that next thing, and we love kind of exploring what could lead us to that, or what could get in the way of that. My name is Clint Hufft. And with me is Wendy Dahl. Wendy.

Wendy  0:29

Hello.

Clint  0:30

Hello, Wendy. So, neither Wendy nor I are ordained as clergy. We don’t run a church, we don’t have a masters of divinity. But Wendy was raised in a Mormon household, and I was raised Lutheran, and then I went on to explore a bunch of theologies and philosophies and everything, and am very comfortable with all of that. But we are both in the event industry, which in the wedding and corporate world, and also, weddings, things like that we have to interact with people of all kinds of faiths and theologies and philosophies. So it really has expanded both of our minds. And we started talking a while ago about spirituality and how unique it is and how diverse it is. And that’s an interesting isn’t it, Wendy, to think that it’s unique and diverse? Yes, yeah. Yeah, refreshing, like a splash of cool water. Right? Yep. Okay, so last episode, we talked about spiritual leaders. And we just kind of explored what’s the criteria for a spiritual leader. And, history has been littered with spiritual leaders, both good and not so good. But then the last thing that we talked about or brought up was, is it possible to be your own spiritual leader, for each individual to lead themselves in a spiritual path? And I think I kind of touched a nerve or resonated with something inside of you, because we both had that kind of like, aha moment. So I know that we’ve had seven days to think about this, do you want to just dive right in?

Wendy  2:19

I do. And I feel like the premise of the whole spiritual cake podcast sort of comes together and this discussion that we’re having right now, because both of us had discovered that we both have been through a challenge within our spiritual community where we’ve had to reach out to things that we could do to become our own spiritual leader. So that we still felt connected to spiritual things, even though it felt like well, I can’t speak for you, but in my experience, it felt like my spiritual community had cut me off at the knees, not everybody, but a good part of them. And so I had to learn for myself how to become my own spiritual leader, because I knew for the time being, that I needed that, that I needed to have that connection with God, and that I needed to find the resources so that I can lift myself up because my community wasn’t going to do that with me. And I think that’s a powerful thing to be able to make, number one to bring it into the awareness that that is what your need is, and number two, to be like, Okay, how am I going to do this?

Clint  3:35

I think on a gut level, it’s interesting, I’m thinking about children right now, and thinking about how many existential crises a child might have. And I guess it depends on the environment that the child is living in. Whether it’s nurturing or not, or challenging, or scary or threatening, or whatever the case may be. There are some children who naturally gravitate towards the concept of God. And there are some who who don’t. I guess, it just kind of depends.

Wendy  4:15

Well, I was just gonna say, I see that within my own kids. And that’s where I realized that I needed to lead them because I realized that by my choice and getting a divorce, and being Mormon, was going to ostracize them from other people that look at them differently. And so I realized that I needed to step into the role of spiritual leader to some degree so that I could lift them up wherever they were, so that we could move forward together without without their spiritual nature being diminished or destroyed at any point. To give them resilience.

Clint  4:52

I’m a firm believer in leading by example, that whole phrase of when parents say to children, “do what I say, not what I do” is incredibly annoying to me. And so realizing that I want them to have that freedom of choice in terms of how they connect with the divine, or they ask questions or wrestle with the divine, which is interesting. That’s a concept for the Jewish religion is wrestling with God, which I kind of like. I like the fact that they’ll question things and that sort of thing. Now, let’s go back to the initial kind of concept of being your own spiritual leader. The thing that popped into my mind was the 12 step program. And the reason it popped into my mind is because today on the Jewish calendar is Yom Kippur, and Yom Kippur, I’m not gonna do this justice, but what I understand of it, it’s the Day of Atonement. So they have new years in the Jewish calendar, which is Rosh Hashanah, and then they have like eight days, to kind of analyze the last year of their life and, and then on the Day of Atonement, they come to terms with all of that. And to reinforce that concept, I got an email today, I’m on the email list for a woman that writes, she’s in New York. And her name is Jen Glantz. I came across her because she wrote a book, she actually has a business being a bridesmaid, she’s a bridesmaid for hire. And she’s been a maid of honor and that sort of thing for hundreds of weddings, fascinating. But then she also has created this business as a writer and a motivational person. And today, she acknowledged the fact that every year, I’m guessing, because she’s Jewish, every year, she makes a list of the people that she thinks she has wronged. And, that’s an interesting concept, which I’m just going to leave that right there. But what it led me to think, and especially with the 12 step program, one of the steps is you have to go to the people that you have wronged and make amends. You have to make sure they understand that you are sorry for what you did, that you feel remorse. And, I’m thinking that perhaps that is step number one in regards to being your own spiritual leader. And I only say that, because there seems to be so many programs and major religions that are focused on that. For instance, in the Christian faith, it’s all based on forgiveness of sins, that Jesus died on the cross, so that we can be washed of our sins. I think everything is just kind of geared towards, what do we do with the guilt and the shame that just naturally occurs in every human being based on past actions that maybe they regret or wish that we had acted differently? First of all, just as a base for the conversation, does that make sense?

Wendy  8:09

It makes perfect sense. Yes. And that it’s definitely foundational in being a Mormon as well.

Clint  8:15

How do the Morman’s deal with that?

Wendy  8:17

Well, it’s very similar to going into confession where if there’s certain things that you’ve done, that are sinful, or considered a major sin, you would go and confess to your bishop. And then there is a period of time where you might be restricted from participating in certain things like you may not be able to take the sacrament, for a certain period of time, depending on the severity of what you had done, or what the bishop had felt that you needed to do to feel like you were repentant, for doing what you had done, but I think the main message that comes from the repentance process, is that when you repent, you promise to not do what you had done again. And I feel like that gives you the ownership of saying, okay, so I did something wrong, and I’ve promised God that I’m not going to do it again. And so you take that upon yourself, so that you’re constantly looking forward. Okay, I cannot do this again, I will not do this again. And so you know how to move forward in a different way. But when it comes to, going back to the person and asking for repentance, sometimes that happens, sometimes you have the ability to do that. And other times it’s like, I look at it from the perspective of my divorce where I haven’t gone to my ex husband and said, forgive me for divorcing you, but I do feel that over time. I’ve come to the place with him where I’m becoming kinder, and I’m moving forward in a different direction where perhaps I wouldn’t have achieved that had I stayed married to him. But now moving forward, I can approach that relationship in a positive way.

Clint  10:14

That reminds me of a concept that I’ve held for a long time in regards to grief. Because I think regret and grief are close allies, I think in regards to human emotions, where you grieve the loss of something. And sometimes it could be you grieve, like, for instance, I’ll be hanging with my family. I do it all the time anyway. But my family will see it, where all of a sudden, I’ll just have a big breath, to release a memory, and they’ll say, what was that? And I’ll say, I just thought of something stupid I did a long time ago. And I don’t know if women do that. But men do that, I because I saw a columnist write about that exact same thing. And I thought, Oh, my gosh, I thought I was the only one. Where you think of something you did that you feel guilty about. Or you’re embarrassed, which I think of embarrassment can lead to shame. But there’s that grief as well of the loss of I think, I think human beings spend almost our entire life grieving something. Even babies grieve when when something was there, and then it’s not. And so I think that acknowledging all of that, that sits inside us, that is buried inside us, most of the time. Carl Jung, the psychologist, he called it, the shadow self, where the shadow consists, and it’s different for every human being, because the shadow consists of the things that we are ashamed of. And if we don’t look it in the face, then it will rise and a lot of times in ways that make things even worse. But if we are able to confront it, then we can actually lead towards healing it. And that goes back now to that must be a real thing. Because why would these theologies, philosophies, treatment programs, all have that included in the “road to happiness” is confronting whatever it is, that gives you shame and grief. Does that make sense?

Wendy  12:43

Yes, and that actually recalled an experience. Not that I’ve gone through the 12 step program. I mean, I’ve had close friends and family go through it. But there was a particular time where I was working with what you would call an energy healer, where she would do guided meditations with me. And I think the most impactful meditation she had ever done that was a guided meditation was when I went back into a memory that I had from my childhood. And I healed little Wendy. Yeah, she walked me through the process of meeting her as my adult self in my mind, and giving her the love and support that she needed back then. And just healing her.

Clint

That must have been an incredible feeling.

Wendy  13:32

It was profound. And let me tell you, I was just gushing tears, and you don’t even realize up until that point, I really hadn’t thought of the moment that she had me recall, as a pivotal or critical moment in my life. I was just a child but then when I had the opportunity to heal a little Wendy, where I got to be the one that was as my adult self to go back to that little Wendy and just say, hey, you’re going to be okay.

And it’s like, all the wisdom that you have as an adult would not be I mean, obviously, you can’t have it as a child but to be able to go back to that, that’s that little you and to nurture you. It was it was like for me it was life changing.

Clint  14:21

So you know, I want to go back and hug little Wendy.

Wendy  14:24

Can I explain the experience of how it worked real quick?

Clint  14:29

Oh, like a memory regression. Yeah, go ahead.

Wendy  14:32

What she did was she had me recall a point or something that I would do normally and I remember there was a moment that she had me recall where I had fear and shame and all those things and without going into detail about what that emotion was or what triggered it. I saw myself as I was probably five or six And I had this thing about twirling, like, I used to wear dresses when I was a little girl like full skirts, so I could twirl. So I remember twirling at the bottom of the stairs in the home that I grew up in. And so my adult Wendy went to that little Wendy that was twirling at the bottom of the stairs, even though she was worried and felt shame for something that obviously I had no control or impact on being five. But I had that feeling of fear and shame, I almost get choked up thinking about it, pulling her close to me and talking with her and having that conversation of like, gosh, you’re gonna be fine, and everything’s gonna be great and giving her confidence. And then like the continuation of that, that meditation showed, like, what happened after so it was almost like, I got to envision the happy ending to that experience, and little Wendy skipped off into the backyard and was totally outside. But giving yourself that permission to go back to that moment and to just help yourself. After the meditation was over, and I thought, why aren’t we doing that for ourselves? In an everyday situation where you talk about forgiving yourself or forgiving others or asking for forgiveness? It’s like, why haven’t I forgiven myself for certain things in my past, but like you mentioned how you look back on it. I mean, we all have things that we’re not proud of in our past. And we all have things that come up where you feel like you’ve forgiven yourself, but then they pop up, this little memory where you’re just like, dang, where did you come from. But to be able to give yourself the permission to say, I’m going to take care of me in this moment, and I’m going to give myself courage and strength to comfort and heal myself in a different way.

Clint  17:03

I just want to acknowledge that now we’ve kind of deepened the concept of dealing with shame and grief, in that at first I talked about how we may have wronged somebody else. But now we’re talking about dealing with how we might have wronged ourselves, in terms of blaming ourselves for something or that sort of thing. And, or maybe have felt guilt because we were attacked or so on.

And then you mentioned a modality, where and I’ve heard of this, where there are some people who are able, because the brain is this amazing organ, that as soon as it can, it starts recording everything. And there’s a buddy of mine that has gone deep into meditation and all of these different practices, physical and mental and emotional in order to get to whatever is possible. And he described one time where he went through like a memory regression type of deal. And it’s fascinating the way they do it, where you start with something in the immediate, and then you start remembering and somebody guides you through this, and you remember, and you keep going back and back. And memories will start coming up as things linked together in your mind. And, he was able to go back to before his conscious memories to where he was two and then one. And then it turned out that he remembered trauma at his birth. And nobody ever told him about this. But he just remember birth being incredibly traumatic and scary. And when he was done with that, he was able to release a lot of that. When he was done with that he went to his mom and said, Did anything happen when I was born? Anything out of the ordinary? And she said, oh yeah, we almost lost you, the cord was wrapped around your neck and they had never talked about it. But it turned out that through the guided thing of being able to allow the brain to let you access those memories. It was a fascinating thing.

Now, on the physical side. My wife is a massage therapist. And I remember we were talking about this when I was studying yoga, that there’s a theory that some memories are trapped in your body. And maybe it’s in the muscles. There’s this whole thing about a lot of tension that some people get in their thighs because of the fight or flight syndrome, where you’re confronted with something and you either want to step to battle, or you want to run away as fast as you can. Now this happens on a regular for every human being. But most of us realize we don’t have to do anything. But our body has already instinctively sent the signal to our legs to either get ready for battle or to run. The yoga teacher would say that stuff just sits in there until it’s released somehow. And sometimes people will be able to release it by running. But through massage, there have been times where my wife has said that some of her clients will just break into sobs. And it’s not that the massage is bad. It’s because as she’s working with the muscles, and the nerves and whatever, she’ll reach to a certain point. Now, whether or not the memory is actually stored in the fibers of the muscle, or whether or not that particular muscle triggers a part of the brain, I have no idea. All I know is that it’s a real thing where people can access something that they have hidden away, the shadow, if you will, and now it’s brought to the surface that they can deal with. And the way they deal with it is they release through tears. There was one time where I was in the other room, and I heard one of her clients sobbing like that. And I said, What’s going on? And she said, Well, she just needed to release. And that became a really comforting concept to me, of the idea of releasing what we’ve carried with us for too long.

It reminds me of the story of the two monks, the two Buddhist monks that had to cross a stream, except for it was the rainy season. And the stream was now a river that was dangerous. And as they approach the edge of the fast moving river, so to speak, there was a woman there who was obviously a prostitute. I don’t know what they call it, it was something fancy, like a lady of the night or a woman in red or whatever, anyway. And the Buddhist, the old monk said, it was the kind of thing where they could cross because they were strong enough, and went up to their waist. But she was really scared because she was lighter. And so the older monk said, just get on my back, and I’ll carry you across. The younger monk was horrified. Because, that’s not what you’re supposed to do as a monk, you’re not supposed to go anywhere near a woman like that. They get across the river, and the monk puts the woman down, says thank you very much. She says, Thank you. And they all go on their way.

So the monk and the young monk are walking along, and about 15 minutes later, the young monk says, I can’t take it anymore. How could you possibly touch that woman much less let her get on your back? You know who she is, right? And the older monk looks at the younger monk and says, well, when we got across the river, I set her down and let her go. It appears you’ve been carrying her ever since.

You like that?

Wendy  22:47

Isn’t that the truth, though? I only said that the hardest thing when I talk to my kids about repentance. And even for myself, I think the hardest thing about repentance, and forgiveness is forgiving yourself. And I remember listening to a book and I don’t remember which one of hers it was, but it was by Berne Brown. She’s an author who actually talks about shame and guilt. And I remember listening to it thinking to myself, well, Isn’t that the truth how your mind deals with guilt and shame. But isn’t it also true that we have the ability to think ourselves through it and to do whatever exercise it is that you need to do to be able to forgive yourself, and to say, hey, I’m not going to do this anymore, or I do feel bad for that. And whether you feel the guilt and shame towards somebody else towards yourself or towards God, acknowledging that it’s there and moving through it.

Clint  23:51

It reminds me of that saying that I brought up a couple episodes ago. I don’t know who originated this quote. But perfection is when there’s nothing else to remove. And now we’re talking about this, and shame and guilt and what we carry with us, just as part of being human beings, what we carry with us. But if we want to become our own spiritual leaders, then it makes sense that the first thing we need to address is releasing all the things that get in the way that we keep punishing ourselves for. Does that make sense?

Wendy  24:28

100%. I agree with that statement 100%.

Clint  24:33

Now, I want to make sure that the listener understands this. And I’m really talking to myself when I say this is that the process of this cleansing that we’re talking about, of grief and shame, takes as long as it takes. And everybody’s on their own timetable. And so you don’t want to add your shame and guilt to the concept of, I’m not doing it right, I’m not moving quickly enough, you’re going to progress. Because everybody’s on their own journey, you’re gonna progress at your speed. The important thing is that you don’t kid yourself, and deny the work. And go in with your eyes wide open and be honest with yourself about your progression. And then if you have a setback, it’s okay, just acknowledge it the same way you are everything else, and just keep moving forward with the idea that you’re wrapped in acceptance and love. If for nobody else, then us, Wendy and myself, are right there with you, and giving you all the love we possibly can. But also for those of you that believe that there is a higher power, that higher power, God, the Divine Spirit is right there with you, wanting you to cleanse yourself of all that needless guilt and shame. That’s my opinion. What do you think?

Wendy  26:27

I share it in that opinion, but I also would add to that, to give yourself grace, to give yourself the space, to be able to go through the things that you need to go through and to be kind to yourself. Even in my own repentance process, some of the things that I’ve dealt with, it was almost self loathing, and I thought to myself afterwards for I was like, I don’t know that I necessarily needed any sort of other punishment other than my own, because I was so hard on myself. And, to give myself the nurture and support that I’m worthy of, and to remember that, in the Mormon faith, we all believe that we’re sons and daughters of God, here on the earth. And that this is our time to be able to go through trials and to be tested and to see kind of  what you’re made of, and to give myself the ability to cut myself some slack. And to realize that even though my goal is to be as good as I can, that sometimes I’m just not, and that I fall short, and that I’ve got to be able to get back up. What is the saying that says, fall down six times get up seven. It’s right on the tip of my tongue. But it’s an old saying that a monk or somebody had said, where it was just like, fall down so many times and get up one extra time. And it’s just like, keep getting up and give yourself that space to be kind and loving towards yourself.

Clint  28:08

Now, we’ve run out of time, and I like what we’ve shared here today with each other, and also with everybody who’s a part of the conversation. And now I’m curious as to why. Why do human beings have this apparently need that’s built into us to carry shame and guilt? What’s the deal? I mean, there’s so many books and movies and everybody and we keep trying to encourage each other, to release all of this negative stuff. But it’s a continual thing where, I mean, just because we reach a certain age, it’s not like all of a sudden we grow wings, and we’re angels. It’s a continual learning process. And what is it that is built into us? That leads to shaming and grief. So I need to do a little research on that, because that’s stupid.

Wendy  29:01

Right, but it’s there, and it’s human.

Clint  29:04

I know.

Wendy  29:08

I always look at it as it’s there to refine us. Because if we never felt guilt, or shame or sadness, then we would never know how or fear we wouldn’t know how to course correct. And we wouldn’t know the path that we would prefer to be on versus maybe a decision a bad decision that we’ve made in the past.

Clint  29:31

Well, I think that it’s so subjective what we attach shame and guilt to. And yeah, I think that’s interesting. And just as a kind of a little side note, as we sign off, is that now it makes sense that there might be a devil. If the devil isn’t what all the art and storytellers have depicted, horns and hooves and all that kind of stuff, fire and brimstone. Maybe we put a name to this concept of self deprecation that leads to a less than great life could be the devil inside us, if we want to personify it. That’s interesting. I never thought of that before. What do you think?

Wendy  30:18

I think it’s true. I feel like all of those emotions that are used to hold us back, the fear, guilt, shame, all those things, and doubt, are the things that would keep us from doing good. And it’s to identify when we’re experiencing those feelings, and how to move through it so that we can recover. Or sometimes it’s even fears that don’t even exist or doubt that doesn’t even exist. And once you move through that feeling, and you see on the other side of it, that it was just your mind creating sort of scenarios that may not have ever even happened. That would have totally stopped you.

Clint  31:05

I think maybe that’s part of the message of Jesus saying Go and sin no more. Meaning, you know, just drop it. Drop it, like a, like, whatever it is just drop it and move on. You know, drop it like it’s hot. That’s it.

Wendy  31:22

Yeah, right. I knew that was coming next. Well, no, you’re right. That’s a very key element is to know that you don’t have to carry it, you don’t have to carry it around like bricks. You can put it down and let it go and be free.

Clint  31:40

Yeah, absolutely. There we go. No, that’s another thing that I can work on for the next seven days. And I think it’s okay, if we look forward to Oh, let’s do just a little recap, what we talked about in terms of this process is, sometimes you can go to people that are experts that will help guide you through a mental exercise, or perhaps you need to free up some of the tension that’s in your body. But I think the main thing that we’re saying is, it seems to be the most effective based on all the modalities objectives is to look at it, deal with it and then move on. That’s what I’m guessing. Yes.

Oh, the other thing that I would like to invite all the listeners to is that we’re about to tell you how you can reach out to us and communicate with us. I guess if there’s a theme or a request from my standpoint, is let us know not only what you think about this, but what has worked for you in the past. Or if you’re stuck, then share that with us and let’s see what we can do to help each other. So Wendy, if you would, please tell them how they can get in touch with us.

Wendy  32:51

You can find this at spiritualcake.com where you can leave comments to any one of our episodes, you can listen to all of the diverse conversations we’ve had and join in the fun, you can send us an email or you can connect with us on social media, we are on Instagram or Facebook and both of those links are on our site spiritualcake.com.

Clint  33:12

If you want to just directly email us [email protected] and we will get back to you as quickly as we can. And remember we welcome you with open arms. That’s it for this episode of the spiritual cake podcast. This is Clint and on behalf of Wendy, We will see you next time.