In 1991 I developed a way of understanding, experiencing, and expressing one’s internal makeup called the Spiritual Root System™. Since its inception, the Spiritual Root System™ has been used in assisting thousands of people. It expresses in detail the essential makeup of the heart, out of which develops our capacities and limits for relational living. The five main substantive elements, or roots, of the heart are feelings, needs, desire, longings, and hope. Cognitive, physiological, and behavioral development are intricately interconnected to our roots, and they are to assist in expression who we really are. We are created to express ourselves from the heart outwards, or from the inside-out.

When we respond or reawaken to this essential makeup of our emotional and spiritual creation, the roots of our hearts can be hydrated and oxygenated with the energy of living fully. By addressing how we are created, we can step fully into living.

We are created as emotional and spiritual creatures, created to do one thing — live fully.

However, we cannot step into living fully unless we do so in relationship with our own hearts, with others, and God. By feeling our feelings, telling the truth about them, and giving both to the process of living (God owns the process), we integrate into who we are made to become, so we can do what we are made to do.

We will always be works in progress, of course. That reality means that we will always experience struggle and tragedy, while we paradoxically and rightly pursue a life without either. Nevertheless, in relationship, we can become really good at living fully amidst the never-ending experience of our own imperfection in a world of imperfection.

We are created to live fully, love deeply, and lead well a life that leaves a legacy worth others’ treasuring in their hearts.

To do so:  (1) We have to take a long view of life. It takes a lifetime to learn how to live, and no one masters it. (2) We also have to live life on life’s terms. The reality of life, its struggles and difficulties, will always be with us; we must become talented at living truthfully amidst realities that make us wish to withdraw into a shell.  (3) Even more, we cannot give what we do not have. We are created to live fully, and that cannot be “gotten” from life without fully investing in life. We must remain vulnerable to asking, seeking, and knocking to receive what we need to grow into our full selves.

To summarize the three statements above, we have to develop the strengths of struggle. To do so, we must become good at living in relationship with our own hearts, others, and God. The roots of how we are created must continually be hydrated and oxygenated so that we can bear fruits that are an expression of being in relationship.

Matters like passion, intimacy, and integrity; living fully, loving deeply, and leading well; feeling the truth of us, sharing the truth of us, giving the truth of us are all matters of the heart, the roots of who we are. To have the lives we are created to have, we must be involved deeply in the way we are created. Through honesty and courage of our own need of relationship, we become who we are created to become and do what we are created to do. The Spiritual Root System™ reawakens us towards becoming someone who benefits a world in need by being able to give what we need ourselves.

If you want to learn more about how to live fully, we’re here to help. Here are a few ways you can get connected:

Center for Professional Excellence 
Sage Hill Workshops
Individual & Couples Therapeutic Intensives (email Mary Prevost to inquire)

Sage Hill Training
Sage Hill Podcast
Sage Hill Counseling
Voice of the Heart Book and Bible Study