This matrix is like a map, or like a game board, for our human journey. We will be looking at each row, one at a time and then each column, one at a time, then at the intersections of both. Each view will give a different perspective, a separate “lens” to look through at our individual lives. Each perspective can contribute to some insights and increase awareness.
Each of the four rows is a chapter in our lives, usually repeated over and over because life goes in cycles just like the seasons: grieving and surrender make up healing. Growth, where we spend the majority of our time, has the potential to lead to wholeness, with a balancing of ego and soul. This map is a square, and linear. However, that is for ease of drawing and discussion. In reality, life is a spiral, and the movement among all 16 of the squares is fluid and ever-changing and often combined.
When we are living from 4th row, the spiritual energy within each of us, creativity can be incredible, whether it is expressed in landscaping, gardens, music, art, architecture, inventions, theater, writing, poetry, or leading human rights, environmental or spiritual groups. Creativity is about creating beauty and harmony and can be very inspiring. We each have the potential to become co-creators with God. This is the ever-unfolding embodying of the best of human nature: expressing the fruits of the Spirit.
Spiritual energy can fill the heart to overflowing, and service is a natural outpouring of that. There is a desire to help make the journey easier for others and the world a better place. This can lead them to the ones who have walked the earth with holiness and striving for Christ, Mohammed, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Mother Theresa, the saints. There are also the healers, where you hear about miracles and healings occurring.
Whether a person is religious or not (involved with a church, temple, synagogue, mosque, kiva, earth religions, etc.), every person has the Divine Spark within their heart. Some people are both religious and spiritual, but some are spiritual and not involved with a specific religion but live a life of love, with a heart filled with kindness and caring.
I have numbered each box to be able to refer to each for discussion. However, in real life, they are not in order like this at all! With the linear way we organize and think of things, it is essential to remember that having a life this orderly and controlled can be a vast illusion, which we are reminded of when we get hit by those “unpredictable” and “uncontrollable” events of real life. At any given time, in a group of people, there will be someone in every square of this matrix all at the same time. That is the nature of life.
Each of us has distinct and unique personality makeup. Our “hardwiring” is different. Throughout the years, many models have been developed as a way of trying to understand and explain personalities and life. Each of us “leads with” one of those four areas, as our core way of being, perceiving, approaching, processing, and interpreting life. Some people lead more from the physical, for example, the athletes, the hands-on, kinesthetic people. Some lead more from their emotional natures, the artistic, the sensitive, the caring heart-centered people. Some persons lead more from their intellectual nature, the scientists, the thinkers, the researchers, the logical, rational approaches. And persons some lead more from a spiritual center, the spiritual leaders, the mystics, the devout seeing the sacredness of all life.
Of course, there is overlap in all four areas. Each individual has different balances of each of the four areas. This is fortunate because the world needs people to have the talents, gifts, abilities of each of these areas. However, this also can lead to challenges and conflicts with people understanding each other and working together as a team. Unfortunately, there is often judgment and frustration rather than respect and cooperation regarding these differences.
The strongest teams will have a combination of the different types. And ideally, each person will see the other with respect and appreciation for their unique gifts and perspectives. However, it often leads to conflicts, with views like, “Why aren’t you more like me. I’m right, and you are wrong. You should do/see it my way.”
In our forums, you will be invited to share and discuss your life journeys, challenges, goals, growth, and insights with each other. Let’s create a supportive and caring community, encouraging each along our both shared and unique paths. We will be using four tools to assist us with this, which I will describe on another page.
On our journeys, we can only start with right NOW. Not the past, not the future, but right now, this moment, with whatever circumstances you are dealing with right now. Now is where you will jump in.
Steps in Using this Journey Map. 1. Like any map, figure out where you are now, in the present. First, look at the four rows. Which row comes the closest to fitting where you are in the present? Grief, Surrender, Growth, Creativity-Service? 2. Then look at the four columns. Where is the majority of your energy and time in this current situation: Physical, Emotional, Mental, Spiritual? Which area has the least amount of time and energy in the present?
For example, for myself right now and where I am in my own life at this time, my focus is on the row of “creativity and service.” With COVID hitting, my insides are filled with a desire and a push to use what I can offer to help support others through this time, whether it is to help them grieve, surrender, grow or create and serve. I want to be in service to help others on their journey from ego to soul balance, empowerment, and service.
Having identified the row that fits me right now, then I look across the columns and reflect on what I need to be aware of in each area at this time.
Physical: I need to focus on balance, sleeping enough, eating right, and pacing myself. I need to be sure that I very steadily and consistently continue on the healthy eating program and recovery that I have been doing in the last 17 months.
Emotional: when powerful, very high vibrational, creative, intense spiritual energy comes in, it can take over, really charging my body. I can quickly lose my needed balance of self-care, not giving my body the rest and pacing it needs. It is harder to sleep, and my health can pay the price. Also, I can quickly get behind in keeping up with the practical daily life stuff. I’m emotionally excited, challenged, inspired, becoming driven in the ups and downs of the messy creative process.
Intellectual: Due to Covid-19, many of the spiritual growth conferences and speakers have been canceled. Consequently, many have adapted to online formats and are offering some of what they had intended to provide in “live conferences” in locations all over the world. Now, these are being brought right to my own home, many at reduced prices. What a treat! What a thrill! I love to learn. These are some of the top people, outstanding in their fields, now abundantly online day after day. Some I know, have heard, others are new to me. What a treat! It is easy for me, in my enthusiasm, to try to do too much, and once again, lose balance.
Spiritual: I am very excited. I hear and feel my soul’s calling and am responding to that call. My entire life has been a preparation for this momentous time in earth’s cycles and evolution. The Covid-19 will contribute to and speed up the vast transition the earth and all life upon her are in at this time. We are in the chaos and resistance of the last of the Piscean Age, breaking down to clear the way for the energies of the Aquarian Age to gain momentum and move in. Transformation is chaotic and messy. The old systems are dying. There will be a birthing of new systems, new balance, moving more towards healthier balances and oneness of the whole human family, honoring of all life.
I feel the urgency of this “window of time” but also need to remember not to get so caught up in the creating process of the website that I even forget to set aside time for going inward, reading spiritual materials, and reflecting. This is my critical and needed centering time.
When I look at all four columns, it invites and encourages me to remember balance. It is undeniable that the one that can easily get shortchanged, and often has, is the physical. The other three areas I have worked on throughout my life, feeling very satisfied with my growth, awareness, development, and balance. Interestingly enough, and no surprise to me, that is the area that was my last to get into alignment, in this past year and a half, to get a balance in all four areas of my life. Before that area, specifically, my eating patterns were not healthy and not congruent with the rest of me. It was like an anchor holding me back, no matter what I had tried. But, now, I am thrilled to say, success at last. I mention it briefly on the page where I use that as a personal example of the steps in applying the 4×4 and the tools.
So, in summary, if there are areas you want to heal and/or change, this Journey Map 4×4 can be a helpful place to start.
From there, we will look at four more tools to assist us in our awareness, insights, goals. Another page will go into the four tools and then a personal example of applying them.
Looking at your present moment from this map and the other tools we will refer to, can give you a better understanding of how you might be stuck or self-sabotaging yourself. This can help you problem-solve and free yourself to move forward in your life with more self-empowerment. The more you move into your wholeness, the more your Love and Light energies increase in consciousness and contribute even more to the Light Grid, impacting others and the world for good.
This is a core reason this website has both The Human Journey part and the Light Grid part. The more that you can become your full self, healing your wounds, using all of your gifts, the more empowered you become to give of love, forgiveness, acceptance, understanding, wisdom, and compassion to others directly and through this Light Grid of Love. As we heal ourselves, we clear the way to make it easier for others to heal themselves also.
All of my life, I have worked with people along the entire continuum of human growth and development. That is my joy, my blessing, my heart fulfillment to help others heal and move through the stages to become their Authentic Selves, who then contribute their gifts to the world. I hope to do the same through this website. The forums in the five topic area, combined with the postings, will be the vehicles to do this.
What about for you? What are you learning about yourself in this COVID time and world? What are you aware of? What is your “cutting edge” of right NOW? Let’s share and support each other in our ever-unfolding life journeys that are both unique and similar at the same time.
This is a site that we will be co-creating by our sharings, our insights, and our respectful discussions. I will be at the helm, reading and guiding us through. This needs to be a safe place of acceptance for all that is inclusive and honoring our differences. Suggestions are beautiful, if offered from an “I statement,” of “this is what I tried that worked for me”—but not a place of judgment. Each other’s learnings and views can enrich us.
And again, a reminder that life is always moving and flowing and cycling. The row and square you are in at the moment can quickly change to another whole place of the “gameboard of life.” One square is not “better than” another square. We will all take our place in all of them at some point in time, but it will be at different points in time. We can make progress, and then life can throw a curveball, and we start all over again with the new issue.
However, our learnings, skills, and strengths accumulate, and we build more courage as we move along and have more life experience. However, we also can get worn out if the curve balls stack up in a short time, and we need the encouragement of others to find the energy to get up once again and put in the effort to move forward. I want this a space to be real with each other, not the surface image of “having it all together.” There is no such thing. It is an ever ongoing journey.
For the forums in each of the four rows, plus the grid forum, choose where you want to share and participate—any or all: your choice, your combination. Just tune in to your insides, let your heart and your intuition guide you. A big part of our life path is learning to trust that inner wisdom and intuition.
Journaling can be a beneficial “assistant” in the process of healing, growing, serving. Journaling helps our reflections, can bring together both our left and right brains, deepen our awareness and insights, and we also can see our progress and changes. I call journaling your “free 24/7 therapist”. It seems very simple, but it can be very profound. Some people prefer handwriting into a journal, some prefer typing into a computer, and some prefer talking into a recorder or even Marco Polo-ing to yourself. Whatever works for you. Note: Feeling / knowing that your journaling is private and safe is core to being able to have it be most effective. Also, some love to illustrate their journals with pictures, artwork, images that are special for you or that you create. Keep all of this in mind when you decide what best matches you. ~ Caterina