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Spiritual Psychology Today

the official newsletter of the university of santa monica

february 2022

We’re here at Mary’s writing desk this morning. Gazing out the window at the garden, we are delighting in seeing the first golden daffodil in bloom! Surely an auspicious sign of rebirth and new beginnings as we move into 2022.

Here at USM, we’re declaring 2022 as a year of Golden Opportunities. Surely the miracles of 2021 are propitious indicators of more good to come. “What miracles?” you may be asking?

  • Receiving Spiritual Guidance and Creative Inspiration that led to the renovation and refinement of First Year — Soul-Centered Living I: A 10-Month Certificate Program in Spiritual Psychology being delivered to a class of over 200 enthusiastic students from across the country and around the world ONLINE.
  • Second generation University of Santa Monica students making themselves known to us throughout the course of the 10 months of SCL I. What a joy meeting the adult children of USM grads and experiencing how the intergenerational DNA of families is being transformed through this work. It’s very moving to us to experience USM becoming a family affair during the time of Corona. Three sisters and their Mom completed the Program. A couple, both grads, audited First Year with their son who participated as part of his gap year. And more!
  • Experiencing the new levels of the deeper work coming into the Consciousness, Radiant Health, and Healing Program was very inspiring and surely an indicator of the ongoing evolution of this work of the Spiritual Heart. We just completed the Four-Day Consciousness, Radiant Health, and Healing Retreat ONLINE with students participating from across the US, as well as England, France, and Switzerland. At the end, the students were chanting “Year Four… Year Four… ” How wonderful they are ready for more!
  • Incredible levels of volunteer support — grads with willing hearts and the willingness to learn how to assist inside the ONLINE classroom. Holding the Light and the foundational practices remain the same: Seeing the Loving Essence and Being the Loving Essence. The Joy and Blessings of service keep the volunteers returning year after year.
  • Monthly themed Worldwide Community Gatherings hosted by Ron & Mary, the hallmark being the deep intimate sharing along with the Loving and caring. In fact, you’re invited to the 31st WWCG since COVID began two years ago that is taking place on February 15 from 6–8 p.m. Pacific. The focus of the evening is 11 Keys to Loving Relationship: Heartfelt Gifts You Can Share Every Day of the Year.
  • Receiving very generous donations that supported the school and this work during a challenging time of transition.

What golden opportunities are present now and on the horizon for 2022?

  • Year Two—Life Mastery and Soul-Centered Living II: A 10-Month Certificate Program in Advanced Spiritual Psychology ONLINE is scheduled to begin Feb 19 & 20 and is already well subscribed with both First Year grads and audits registering. Please see Mary’s article below about how she intends to use it to recalibrate her consciousness and life.
  • The two-weekend Loyalty to Your Soul® Workshop ONLINE is a wonderful way for those new to the Principles and Practices of Spiritual Psychology to experience a robust introduction to this work. The Workshop is taking place June 4 & 5 and July 9 & 10, 2022, and we look forward to meeting your friends and family members! Stay tuned for more information soon.
  • Expanded offering for grads, including redesigning the Advanced Spiritual Psychology Workshop for the online format. We also are excited about designing a workshop on the Divine Feminine and Sacred Masculine.
  • Ron is involved in weekly meetings having to do with the ongoing legacy of this work and how to continue making it available across the planet at this time. Mary will be participating, too, now that the Four-Day Consciousness, Radiant Health, and Healing Retreat is complete.
  • Growing USM’s financial resources to support us in expanding our reach during this time of the greater Awakening on the planet. We are grateful for the donations already received for this year’s fundraiser. If you would like to join us in contributing, go to gousm.edu/donate. Ron and I more than doubled our personal donation to USM in 2021 as a way of amplifying our Sacred Yes to Spirit as we continue serving here at USM and its this mission: Communicating the Principles and Practices of Spiritual Psychology worldwide through the process of Soul-Centered education. Please join us in giving generously.

William James, known as the Father of American psychology, said, “To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.” This is surely our intention for 2022 and beyond!

With Blessings of Loving, Light, and Golden Opportunities,

Ron & Mary

What’s Mary up to?   Year Two in 2022

I’ll be taking Life Mastery & Soul-Centered Living II right along with you!

This year is turbo-charged with both uncertainty and golden opportunities—bringing forward deeper questions. How can I support myself in moving my consciousness and life up an octave or two—or more? How will I support myself in making a Spirit-inspired and Spirit-guided leap of faith rather than teetering on the high dive gazing at the water? Second Year is powerful support for experiencing the Strength of Heart required. I’m experiencing the energy already…

My intentions include utilizing the turbulence present as the wind beneath my wings, ever lifting me into greater courage, clarity, and intentionality, and using my life’s precious energy in service to Soul-Honoring choices in this decade of this life—and more specifically, here and now.

This surely is bringing forward deeper questions evoking more Awareness of the powerful opportunities present informing some of the intentions present for participating in Year Two in 2022!!

Here are four:

1) Honoring Sacred Yeses! If not now, when?

It’s time for turning attention to my deepest heartfelt yearnings, which have sat patiently on the back burner at a low simmer, pre-empted by other responsibilities. Second Year provides opportunities for courageously invigorating Heartfelt dreams with Spirit-guided, lion-hearted action. As Antonio Machado said, “There is no path; you make the path by walking.”

Spirit is already guiding me in making changes regarding priorities and choices.

2) Deepening in Nurturing… nourishing both Heart and Soul!

2022 is also for cherishing and deepening in accepting the sanctity of my humanity and divinity — discovering a gentler, kinder approach to myself and the manner in which I’m orchestrating and and participating in life. Whoa! Game changing!

What if I tithe part of my day to myself in service to further nourishing my Heart and Soul in ways that enliven and refresh—opening new channels of Spirit-inspired creative expression! I am intending writing, more walks on the beach, and more time with my garden!

3) Living in greater simplicity and Grace!

Practicing the art of completion inside and out, bringing forward greater simplicity and Grace!

The Consciousness, Radiant Health, and Healing Four-Day Retreat completed Monday early evening. What an exquisite four days! This morning was an opportunity for putting the script and handouts “to bed.” It was also a time for letting go of paper archives of previous versions of both CHH and the First Year. Amazing how much paper was released and energy freed!

Clearing psychic and physical clutter in service to opening space to greater Creative Inspiration and expression in this amazing time of golden opportunities—I’m excited!

4) Discovering and making the most of golden opportunities in this golden year and those that follow.

Perhaps I’ll begin a Golden Opportunities Journal. This morning I received a phone call presenting one! And I’m intentional and receptive to them!

Ron and I are both enthusiastic about this year’s Second Year offering — Life Mastery and Soul-Centered Living II. The class is coalescing! Already there is a strong contingent of audits and, of course, an abundance of First Year grads eagerly awaiting the launch on Feb 19 & 20.

From our Hearts, we invite you to join us for a year to remember!

With Heartfelt Love & Blessings of Light,

Mary

Read about Life Mastery & Soul-Centered Living Here.

And if you would like to speak with Eliza in Admissions, click here. We know she would love to hear from you.

Join us for a Special Life Mastery & Soul-Centered Living II Information Evening on Tuesday, February 1 from 6–7:30 p.m. Pacific. RSVP here!

From inside the classroom Peter Bort shares about his experience of taking Life Mastery & Soul-Centered Living II Online after a 30-year pause after First Year.  He shares enthusiastically about the profound healing opportunities available in the course Relationship as Spiritual Opportunity as well as the incredible power of Ideal Scenes and Living Visions with an inspiring glimpse into what he’s been able to manifest using these tools.

“Few things in life are so beautiful and so contagious as two people obviously in Loving with each other.”

—Drs. Ron & Mary Hulnick

February brings attention to Love and romance, for Valentine’s Day is known for heartfelt expressions of Loving. Chocolates, flowers, jewelry, romantic dinners. It’s a time when proposals are made and weddings take place. For many, it is a day of deep connection to their partners, a day of remembering what brought them together. Or, in new love, it’s the beginning of something special, a spark of beautiful potential. Then there are those who experience sadness and despair with Valentine’s Day—it can be a day of disappointment. For some it may be because a partner “didn’t do what I wanted,” or for those without a partner for whatever the reason, there may be feelings of dejection, loneliness, or heartache. Is it possible that Valentine’s Day provides a deeper opportunity for all of us to discover the true nature of Loving? Join us for the next Worldwide Community Gathering during which Ron and I will be sharing 11 KEYS TO LOVING RELATIONSHIP: Heartfelt Gifts You Can Share Every Day of the Year. Learn how the Principles and Practices of Spiritual Psychology provide a liberating context through which you can Awaken more fully into the Awareness that you are the Presence of Love and can reside in that consciousness regardless of circumstance or situation. And we will be focusing on how to deepen the Loving in your primary relationship. We look forward to sharing this special Gathering with you! We’ll begin with a Light Invocation and engage in a reflective process together (please have pen and paper handy). We‘ll then have time for sharing with Ron & Mary and complete our time together with a Mary Meditation and Blessing. A handout with the 11 Keys will be available for downloading during the evening. This event is complimentary and open to all. USM grads, current students, friends and family and all interested in the life-changing Principles and Practices of Spiritual Psychology are welcome!

USM Worldwide Community Gathering

♥ 11  KEYS TO LOVING RELATIONSHIP
Heartfelt Gifts You Can Share Every Day of the Year
Tuesday, February 15, 2022
6–8 p.m. Pacific
In the Classroom: Spiritual Psychology students

Jason Burby shares the extraordinary impact his USM education is having on his life as a father, husband, friend, and man. The beautifully touching way Jason reports his son having witnessed his transformation is a powerful testament to the ripple effect of this work.

Michelle shares the incredible gifts that abounded when she devoted herself to following her intuition from the largest to the smallest of questions. The result is a health transformation that has eluded her for decades.

Quinn shares about the deep connection he is cultivating with his Inner Counselor who has encouraged him to take risks, or as Mary shares, “to go out on a limb; that’s where the fruit is,” hence his risking this very moment to share. The beautiful exchange between a young man who grew up with the Principles and Practices of Spiritual Psychology through his USM-Grad parents and Ron & Mary is a glorious heart-expanding gift for all of us.

Building a legacy is a lifelong mission that Laya Saul, international speaker, award winning author, and founder of the Children’s Museum of the Galilee, works on daily.

A deepened understanding that the time we have in this world is fleeting came suddenly when Laya was diagnosed with MS. It inspired Laya to want to leave a legacy for her children and others. Her first book, a self-help book for teens, You Don’t Have to Learn Everything the Hard Way—What I Wish Someone Had Told Me, shares tools and inspiration to help readers get through hard times and to thrive. As the gift of time revealed the good a book can bring to the lives of its readers, Laya used an anti-Semitic encounter at work as a stepping-stone to spark her journey into a Torah path. That’s how Sisterhood of the Copper Mirrors was ultimately born from a class she taught. It’s about the archetypal women of the bible, their gifts, and relevance to our lives today. Then the children’s books I Love You So Much, a love note to every child, and Squished Tomatoes, written for children who need help to understand how to deal with their anger and upset.

“Every book I write is a love note to the reader,” says Laya. “I’ve learned how to serve, savor, and surrender—an ongoing journey—and want to touch the hearts of readers and share the tools.”

And then came a dream. “It was the same kind of dream that guided me to return to graduate school—and how I found USM. This time, I knew I was given a chance to build a children’s museum in the Galilee, where I live.”

“I woke up and said out loud, ‘That’s really big!’ The voice in my head replied, ‘You know you don’t start finished… baby steps.” While stretching Laya in all kinds of new ways, she says that it’s thrilling to work on something so joyful every day. The project is gaining momentum as the organization heads toward a capital campaign in 2022. You can learn more at ChildrensMuseumoftheGalilee.org

Laya met her husband, Tyrone Jackson (class of ’91), when they both returned to USM as volunteers. They have two adult kids and two grandkids (so far!). You can see her books on Amazon.

Laya graduated USM with an M.A. in Applied Psychology in 1990.

SOUL-CENTERED BASIC SKILLS 1 & 2:

Seeing the Loving Essence
Heart-Centered Listening

Seeing the Loving Essence and Heart-Centered Listening are the first two Soul-Centered Basic Skills of Spiritual Psychology. They become Principles to live by for almost all who learn them, and we love Victoria’s share about how she’s been using them these past 12 years in her own life. 

Seeing the Loving Essence and Heart-Centered Listening are the two Basic Skills I use together daily! For the last 12 years I have worked as a Patient Access Coordinator for Hazelden Betty Ford Drug and Alcohol rehab. I answer calls from both patients themselves and from loved ones gathering information to hopefully get someone into treatment. I consciously use these skills and they have served me and the callers well. As you can imagine there is a lot of emotion present when someone is reaching out for help and these Principles help me to stay in my loving as each call unfolds. I’m forever grateful for my USM education and it’s my intention to stay “awake.” Ron’s voice is in my head permanently!!!

Victoria Koutavas  

Given all that is unfolding around the planet, a Soul-Centered education is one of the most leveraged preparations for living in these challenging times. What could be more powerful than navigating life during these times equipped with the Principles and Practices of Spiritual Psychology and experientially knowing you are the Presence of Love? To us, there seems to be such synchronicity in the convergence of events globally and for USM, leading to USM’s rebirth as a virtual organization. USM has never been more prepared to serve those Souls around the world who are ready to heed the Call to Awakening during this time of tremendous planetary change.

At this time, with all of the change that is occurring at USM as we move into this new era of online education and USM offerings, we wanted to let you know that we will not be offering Soul-Centered Living I: A 10-Month Certificate Program in Spiritual Psychology Online in 2022.

We are, however, excited to share with you that we will be offering Loyalty to Your Soul® Workshop (LTYS) Online for the first time since its sold-out run in 2019. This is a two-weekend workshop taking place on June 4 & 5 and July 9 & 10, 2022, and it will be a robust dive into the foundational Principles and Practices of Spiritual Psychology. Over two weekends, participants from around the world will be experiencing the quintessential Soul-Centered Basic Skills and “power tools” that have supported thousands of students over the last 40 years to live authentic and empowered lives. More information to follow in the coming months!  

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