Hitting Refresh

Eighteen months ago I started my YouTube channel, Spiritual Center Spokane. (www.youtube.com/bonniebarnard-scs)

I am often asked how someone lives spiritually; the day in, day out nitty gritty. I decided each week I would share what is in front of me, what I am learning and how I am walking through life’s circumstances spiritually. There are several themes two very prominent ones — loving all emotions NO MATTER WHAT and starting new/starting fresh each moment, every day. Another way of putting this is realizing that the physical world is always changing and the spiritual principles are changeless. So, embracing and welcoming the NEW from a place of the Eternal.

Which brings me to this year and this week.

I came to realize that basically 2026’s theme is cleaning out, giving away, packing, moving, and unpacking. Meaning that I began the cleaning and clearing of my home in January, got married in February, drove many of my belongings to Arizona in April and I’m preparing my home for its next tenants right now probably through August or longer then I’ll be unpacking in my new location. This means an entire year of everything moving related.

Amidst this backdrop I have experience health challenges — talk about turbulence. So 48 hours ago I started a water fast. In 2019 I did one (under doctor supervision) for ten days. This was a powerful reset for me. I learned I could live on water so when the pandemic came I wasn’t as scared as I imagine I would have been about food scarcity. I also realized the power of detoxing the body, opening to more spaciousness in my spiritual practice. My experience is that around Day 3 I start to get a lot of energy and feel remarkably better. Until then, it can be a slog with achy muscles, headaches, and detox symptoms.

I chose to fast as last week was physically difficult for me. Still showing pneumonia activity I noticed some significant spikes in my blood sugar. At night in my dreams I had visitations telling me I was going to die soon. I smelled rotted flesh around me believing wherever I was at there must have been a dead rodent in the walls. And I cried, and cried. I don’t want to die. I want to experience my new next which I have been working toward all year. I want to experience marriage, the desert, and travel. I want to serve more clients and write more. I want to meet and create a new community. I want to live.

There is a group of ministers I meet with monthly to vision and have for the past twelve years. This month as I shared my fears and my experience around my health and death. All three of my minister friends suggested I contact a healer friend of mine who they were aware of from our years of story sharing. The problem was this healer friend of mine is deceased and has been for five year. This didn’t instill confidence in living through my fears.

As I have spoken about loving all emotions as they arise I have done this. Some emotions, or as David Friedman calls them “sensations” are grossly uncomfortable as they arise. Betrayal, jealousy, envy, fear, anger…many feel funny in the body yet feeling them frees the energy up to be recycled. I believe this emotional health directly informs and impacts physical health. To feel the feelings associated with resistance to death and allowing them in my space to be loved has been some of the greatest discomfort to date. Yet I applaud myself for this as I know the practice is at a masterful level and immense freedom will exist on the other side.

Fasting beyond intermittent fasting has long been a part of the spiritual tool box. Coupled with prayer and meditation can be powerful. Of course, having supervision is essential, especially as we get older.

“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do… But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to others that you are fasting.” The Bible scholars point out this scripture spoken by Jesus says “when” you fast, not “if” you fast implying that fasting is an active part of the spiritual practice. As fasting is a form of disrupting the normal pattern and focusing attention from food or form to Spirit, remember, there is much that can be fasted from, not simply food. A thought fast, a news fast, a tv or binging fast, an electric fast are all ways of focusing attention away from distraction and onto the living Spirit within.