Purpose
Is Your Spirit in Need of a
Tune-Up? by Stuart Alpert and Naomi Lubin-Alpert
NATURAL Nutmeg
A
JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2022
32 “Much as the pit crew has the knowledge of what needs to take place for the driver to continue, we have a roadmap that helps us understand how transformation occurs…. In real time, the pit crew can’t do its work by reading a book. They need to be willing to get their hands dirty.” —Stuart Alpert and Naomi Lubin-Alpert
s humans, we have feelings of discomfort and dis-ease in us. These feelings include depression, anxiety, fear, agitation, meaninglessness, loneliness, longing, alienation, isolation, shame, ambivalence, tension, pain, and feeling overwhelmed or dissociated. This list is not exhaustive; there may be other feelings that cause you discomfort and dis-ease. These feelings are indications of our being out of balance and disconnected from our heart, our spirit, and our life force. It’s possible to be understanding and compassionate toward these feelings so that we develop a more intimate connection with ourselves. This intimate, supportive relationship helps us feel more balanced, whole, vibrant, and alive. Developing understanding and compassion also becomes the path to expanded consciousness. We begin the journey to expanded consciousness by accepting that there is work to be done in the depths of our emotional life. This work has to do with clearing out the negative, harmful energies from our childhood. The energies we absorbed from any abuse and neglect of our childhood are still in our bodies and in the neural wirings of our brain. The abuse is also in the beliefs we have about how to live with our emotions and body experiences. How we have become organized in relation to the abuse determines how we feel about ourselves, how we comfort ourselves, and the quality of safety and protection we embody
The Pit Crew
Entering the depths of our feelings can be compared to being members of a racecar support team in the pit of a racetrack. The pit crew changes the car’s tires and oil and tends to engine problems so the driver can continue the race. The pit is where the hard, messy work takes place.
The work in the pit of our emotional and physical life can also feel messy and hard. It requires a dedication fueled by our Spirit’s natural drive for greater aliveness and a deeper connection to our heart. The pit work is well worth the results. It is vitally important, however, to know that we don’t have to enter the pit blindly or alone. Much as the pit crew has the knowledge of what needs to take place for the driver to continue, we have a roadmap that helps us understand how transformation occurs. The roadmap lets us know where we are in the process of transformation and what needs to occur to remain on track; it does not, however, save us from needing to live each experience that opens in our process. In real time, the pit crew can’t do its work by reading a book. They need to be willing to get their hands dirty.
Where Do We Begin?
We begin by exploring the nature of how we keep ourselves safe. We often have old, outdated beliefs about safety and protection that limit our consciousness, our aliveness, and our feeling of wholeness. As an old TV commercial pronounced, “Without regularly changing the oil in our car, we may need a major engine job down the road.” The same concept applies as we examine our old belief systems—if we ignore the signs that indicate that we are out of balance, these symptoms will intensify until we finally get the message. When we organize ourselves around old beliefs of safety and protection that originated from past abuse and neglect, we are ignoring what we now need so that the “engine” of our life to be in good running order. It is as though we are not changing the oil that lubricates elements of ourselves; we remain stuck or resist tending to the meaning of our breakdowns. Without being able to read our
