Author: LisaColonDeLay

Lisa Colón DeLay, Puerto Rican, born creator who creates products and resources for spiritual formation. She is the host of Spark My Muse podcast since 2015 and author of The Wild Land Within (2021) and The Way of the Desert Elders (2026)

because you are

Just about all of us grew to understand our value through what we did. (accomplishments, abilities, behavior, etc.)

Being able to ingest one is loved not because of what one has done, or what one can do, but simply because – one is- is the most healing, awakening, and empowering thing that may ever happen to a person. I believe the Divine offers this to us. Freely.

The question is can we offer people the hope they need by truthfully telling them, “No matter what you’ve done, or what you do, I will love you–because you matter. You are the only you. There is nothing you can do to change that,”?

Feeling threatened/inciting growth: A "how to"

At the margins of growth–personal, emotional, vocational, spiritual, and otherwise–we feel discomfort. The natural feeling is to, in some way, feel threatened. Our stress increases. Our resistance lives at the edges of what we know. Pushing past the edges involves learning and experiencing-and too, conquering fear. It probably involves some sort of pain, process, or persistence.

Think of anything you ever became good at doing. It was threatening in the beginning, and after perseverance, it grew easier. Sports, music, or learning a language, it’s all the same.

Because most people shift to avoid pain/discomfort or associate it so quickly with negative aspects of human experience, we often fail to realize our opportunity for growth lies in the red flags that signal that we feel threatened. These feelings point to patches where we can learn something new about ourselves, our world, another person, a useful skill, or something else. This is how greater understanding comes about.

Like a root-bound potted plant, or a caged bird, we were meant emerge from our surroundings. We can use the native emotions (once seen as negative) that surface for our growth and benefit.

Share your stuff about feelings and growth….

And if you’ve ever used pain/discomfort to grow…feel free to share a blurb.

Grief = loss, separation anxiety

A few insightful excerpts from recent reading:

Grief is the (normal) human emotional response to loss. It is a common part of human experience and may produce growth. We can lose people, places, objects, relationships, and even ideas. Some losses may not be actual, but anticipated, or a perceived loss. (25) Acute grief looks remarkably similar to a classic anxiety attack (same physical symptoms). It is similar to the feelings felt in fear. In grief one fears the loss of self through separation, and experiences separation anxiety. (28)

It is a function of attachment. It can be understood also as our emotions catching up with our reality. (38) The more we can love the more we can grieve. Our abnormal attachments show up (caused by an improper process of  grieving) as permanent emotional detachment or heightened attachment. (30)

R. Scott Sullender, “Grief and Growth: Pastoral Resources for Emotional and Spiritual Growth” Paulist Press, 1985.


Have you lost or grieved anything lately?

Feel free to leave your thoughts or comments about grief or loss.

guilt good-shame bad?

From recent reading, James M. Bowler Shame: A Primary Root of Resistance to Movement in Direction, “Presense” (Vol 3, # 3, Sept. 1997)

“Guilt is associated specifically with an action–something one has said or done. Shame, on the other hand, refers to the feeling one has about one’s very self… believing one has a fundamental flaw.” (p. 26) (italics mine)

We need (a sense of) guilt to correct ourselves and change our ways, but shame is damaging, and hinders progress. Guilt is about our doing. Shame is about our being.

All people struggle with shame at some point in their process of growth. Feel free to comment.