Spiritual Maturity: How to Know When Your Brain’s Kickin’ It New Skool

I’m a big believer in using maps to figure out where I’m going. Even, occasionally a GPS. Here’s a list I’ve compiled and adapted from Dr. David Richo’s book, Shadow Dance that in my estimation provides a pretty good map of destinations I’d like to join the world in trekking towards. It’s a useful map, depicting not only where we might be, but where our brain and body will begin to take us as it continues to grow in its capacity to process increasing amounts of life’s energy and information.

The good news about this map is that no matter where we are on the journey, if we know where we’re going, we can fake it until we make it. We can choose rehab in lieu of punishment, win-win instead of win-lose, cooperation over competition. Acting “as if” we’ve arrived, while it most certainly won’t be fully and authentically embodied initially, nor will it immediately fire up massive amounts of joy juice generated in the nucleus accumbens where extensive dopamine plantations live. But with enough practice there’s little doubt that eventually we’ll get there. Why is there little doubt? Because many others have journeyed to this heart-brain integrated destination ahead of us and brought back their joyful, telling accounts.

Directional Map of a Joyful Brain