Lessons to learn

My hormones have finally stabilized, and I had three lovely days in a row without obligations. I haven't left home since I bought groceries on Friday, instead puttering and gardening and catching up on things undone. Clearing space in the house, the garden, and my mind. So I'm feeling more open to the world and to ideas.

If there really are spirit teams, I think there'd have to be far more
than 25 on my team. The author says there are other tiers of spirits
involved, with different levels of importance, so maybe it would
work. But it would really be hard to limit the number of people who
have had a profound effect on me (positive or negative) to
about 25. I'd say more like 60 or so; same for Sandy.

I read more of Spirited last night. The author avers that we are each part of "spirit teams," groups of spirits that reincarnate together, helping each other learn lessons and meet the goals we have for that lifetime. She says this same group of 20-25 spirits stays together through multiple lives, performing different roles (sister, lover, friend, grandfather) in different lives.

I've never heard such a theory before; she says spirits have explained it all to her. It's a challenging concept to me, but not offensive. It's actually reassuring to imagine that these people who are and have been close to me in this life will be with me in future lives.

It's the extension of this idea that offends. She talks about lessons we need to learn in order to move to higher levels, similar to Buddhist beliefs, as I understand them. And - here's the part I reject - that everything happens for a reason in order for us to learn those lessons.

I can't abide by the idea that everything happens for a reason, especially if one person's suffering is for the benefit of another person's development. Nope. Not okay.

I put the book down and wandered back to the idea that we plan our lives before we enter them, deciding what we want to learn, and then work with the others in a team to help us get there. She says we still have free will, so it's not quite as creepy as it sounds. And if anyone has planned my life in advance, I'd like to believe it was me. So I'm happy to play around with these ideas a little bit, open to the possibilities if not actually believing them.

So, what was Sandy meant to learn this go-round? If I'd been planning for her to learn something, it would be to let herself be known and accept the love that others give. And for her to learn to love herself. She struggled with those issues most of her life. But at the very end, I think she might have gotten it. It pleases me to think that she finished the test, achieving high marks, just as the timer buzzed.

And me? What lessons am I supposed to be learning? It's easier to analyze others, so I have to step back a little bit to be honest with myself. The lessons I need to learn in this life are probably the things I run from the hardest: letting go of my need to control the events of my life; recognizing that my inherent self-worth is unrelated to tasks I accomplish or wrongs I right; relaxing my vigilance.

Whether there's truth to the book's assertions or not, there's value in considering which lessons we each might be destined to learn, how the universe might be providing opportunities we're ignoring, and how to get to those insights more gracefully. I'll leave the other ideas for later scrutiny. See, I'm already learning to let go!