The Eyes of the Sacred

By Elizabeth Stauder

For me, the most radical belief that has shaped my ability to lead has been the understanding that the more I honor and embody my authentic and unique expression, the more I become a channel for Source. It’s paradoxical, but true: it has been by embracing my ego that I found the courage to dissolve it. It has been by loving my shadow and the messy human parts of me that I have slowly become liberated from their chronic grip.

Spirituality, for me, is about freedom—not by suppressing or casting away what is not “spiritual,” but rather by learning to see all things through what I call “the eyes of the sacred.” When we look with eyes of soul upon everything and everyone in our life, a magical landscape awakens before us. Nothing is an accident. Nothing is a coincidence. And none of it is punishment.

This belief is what allows me to sit in the fires of uncertainty through situations that range from illness in my own body and not knowing whether I would survive, to painful ruptures in relationship that lead to heartbreak, to sitting in front of my clients and holding a stable and caring center for them no matter what challenges they bring to our sessions. It is also what allows me to look at the world and culture at large—to truly see without turning away from suffering—and feel neither powerless nor naïve about it all.

The understanding that my humanness is also my divinity has given me the humble curiosity to stay present and not rush ahead nor cling to the past, the capacity to meet each arising situation and keep asking: What now? And what now? And what now?

To live with purpose, then, is to be myself—a self that is ever-flowering as I dissolve layers of masks and conditioning that once covered my essence. I have seen time and again in my somatic transformation practice that whenever a layer falls away, a new layer of dharma (sacred purpose) emerges, not summoned through force or effort, but arising like a flower given the nutrients it needs to blossom.

I agree with the sentiment that the only distinction between a person and a mystic or spiritual healer is that the latter has learned how to ask for help in the greatest sense. When we allow a greater nourishment to influence us, we grow like a flower—nourished by sun and rain, stabilized by good soil, the ground of the body which supports the spirit.

We are not alone on this planet, in this universe, and knowing that we are supported by forces beyond our imagination is fuel for times like these, when so much is unknown and so much of the world seems to be hanging by a thread. We need to learn the confidence of those who know how to move through the eye of the needle—those who understand the deep wisdom of transmutation and transformation and who model identity evolution for those around them.

We are beings designed to evolve, and research in neuroscience suggests that our capacity for growth and change rests upon feeling safe within the Mystery. For me, that deep safety comes from faith—not blind faith, but the faith that emerges from witnessing what wondrous, purely natural things can happen when I lean into the mystery and ask for help, attuning to how life responds.

Many of the people I work with have lost faith, as I once did, due to trauma and extreme experiences of suffering. Yet in every case, there has been a capacity to regenerate life force and restore purpose when the proper resources are found—resources capable of meeting the magnitude of our suffering. These resources are all around us, and the more we learn to welcome them in, the easier it becomes to see beyond illusion, awaken latent potential, heal beyond suffering, and unlock our unique purpose.

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