Journey of Spiritual Transformation Checklist
I believe the journey of spiritual transformation is a golden key to unlocking the major challenges we are facing during these times. Asking for help and connecting with friends/family/community are two of the biggest ways we can make subtle, yet remarkable shifts.
If your story resonates with the following checklist, like an “Ah ha, definitely," then the Journey of Spiritual Transformation Program is for you!
Story Focus: You’ve moved through challenges (external and internal) toward a more enlightened and authentic state of being in order to feel fulfilled by the end of the story. Psychological and/or spiritual development is a big part of your transformation. You must have gone through an internal transformation in order to reach a goal, or build a community, or change a system.
Changing a System: A large focus of your journey is on changing a system (family, community, network, or world system). Your family, community/network, and/or world is the external container that pushes up against you for the inner transformation to occur. Forward Progress is made by learning lessons along an internal and external arc.
Speaking out or acting against antagonists becomes a group/team or partnered effort to change an oppressive or unenlightened system. And yet, you must reach a more enlightened place within the self (working with defenses, emotions, psychological inner battles) to be able to affect change without raging against the machine, but instead finding more subtle loopholes to transform the system. Rage may be present; however, it is sublimated into agency and forward progress.
No Aggressive Battles: The story doesn’t include aggressive battles or fights with the enemy. Instead, you, as the main character must look within the self to identify how the antagonists have affected you to then sublimate defenses and extend compassion while also building character agency. So that, you will no longer be intimidated, oppressed, or overrun by antagonists or their systems.
Breakthrough Moment: You must have a breakthrough moment. This is the key transformational moment of self-awareness where you made a pivotal choice that propels you forward on your path toward fulfillment.
Integration: Integration is a key element occurring throughout the story so that you gain the agency, wisdom, and wherewithal to change the system. And the main integration of the entire journey cycle is toward the culmination where you integrates the lessons learned by embodying your more actualized self to then be able to bring those lessons into the world’s systems.
Mission: You may be on a mission; however, you must undergo an internal transformation, with the help of mentors, friends, community in order to achieve this mission.
Friendships/Community: Friends, family, and community including mentors are a large part of how you have survived your challenges. You may have lost friends/family/ community and when you did, it came as a hit to your internal transformation. This means the loss must become part of the transformational journey that needs to occur for you so that a “surrogate” family and/or network can be rebuilt as an aid in moving forward on the journey. The “surrogate” or rebuilt network helps create fulfillment in the end including a better world.
Agency: Your personality has been mostly self-effacing and you had find agency through difficult choices and reactions to others. You may achieve agency through completing tasks such as learning from a mentor; however, you learn the most from reflecting on and considering what you’ve learned about those tasks and/or what your mentor is asking of you.
Bettering the World: Your overall transformation can include bettering the world and is usually connected to creating more enlightened communities, awakening to a greater understanding of how the world works and what needs to change in the system, or helping others make changes in their lives for the better of society.
Archetypes (as patterns of behavior): Teacher, Mentor, Change Agent, Coach, Counselor, Goddesses directly connected to transformational journeys (such as Inanna, Mary Magdalene, Isis), transformationally focused Queens/Kings (sovereigns), Artist, Healer, Shaman, Lover, Caregiver, Sage, Reformer
Story Examples:
Memoir: Untamed by Glennon Doyle, Infinitely More by Amy Conway-Hatcher, Spirit Speaks by Denise Schaad, Wild by Cheryl Strayed, The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston, and Crazy Brave by Joy Harjo, The Art of Leaving by Ayelet Tsabari, The Good Hand by Michael Patrick F. Smith, The Other Side of Us by Molly Weisgram, Fox and I by Catherine Raven
Fiction: Harry Potter Series by J.K Rowling, Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Akata Witch Series by Nnedi Okorafor, Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum.
You can also email me with questions or to sign up for the program at regina@transpersonalguidance.com