If you are on the path of being a transsexual, it is vital for your holistic sense of wellbeing to recognize that this is necessarily a spiritual journey and to the degree you can develop your spiritual life as you travel this road, you will feel more balanced and have a greater sense of wellbeing as you face the inevitable adversities along the way. It will allow you to become more thankful and have more gratitude for the kindnesses, often unexpected that are extended to you along the way as well on your individual journey.
Developing a rich spiritual life will help you to keep from becoming bitter when those who are supposed to love you and care about you unconditionally, fail to fulfill the love and support you have expected from them. It allows you to forgive them so you can move on and extend them grace if they should come to you and ask for forgiveness so that you will be able to once again have a loving and mutually supportive relationship with them.
If the ones who have hurt you never do attempt to make amends, then you will be able to move forward by creating new supportive and loving relationships with others rather than react by withdrawing from others and becoming bitter, isolating yourself from other caring people in the future who will come into your life.
Last week I attended a two day workshop in Birmingham, Alabama given by Thomas Moore, who has written a number of books on living a spiritual life. His best known book is probably The Care of the Soul and his most recent book on which the workshop was about is entitled Creating a Religion of One's Own. He is a former monk and lived a monastic life for 14 years. He and I both share the belief that psychotherapy is a spiritual practice and that we care for the soul of the patient who chooses to engage in psychotherapy. We believe that the emotional pain that one experiences and leads one to seek help is a spiritual affliction. Dr. Moore's workshop was entitled "Creating a Religion of One's Own".
This workshop had nothing to do with the topic of being transsexual and did not touch on the subject in any way, but there are profound ideas that I found to be very relevant to our spiritual development.
In the next series of articles I will be writing about his concepts and how they can help you live a more spiritually fulfilling life on the journey of living with a transsexual identity. To begin this series, I will leave you with this idea....
"We do not create or choose our lives, but we are destined to follow our paths. It is not predestined. It is about our experiences and what they lead to and it is about the meaning we find in them" - Thomas Moore
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