• The illusion of separation is the origin point of evil.

• This illusion is formed and sustained within each of our minds.

• Therefore, to overcome evil at the collective level, we must commit to the personal process of consciously dissolving our own illusions of separation.

Working towards this goal has profound personal effects: it develops inner peace, generates personal capacity, deepens compassion for others, and brings clarity and direction.

To that aim, let’s begin by turning our attention to a specific conceptual gap that feeds the illusion of separation: we believe there is separation between mind and matter. There is separation between spirit and form. There is separation between our psychology and the reality we experience. Over time, this distinction has become institutionalized: religion and science, psychology and philosophy. Religion seeks spiritual understanding, while science seeks material understanding. Psychology has focused on understanding the mind, while philosophy has long questioned the nature of reality. These disciplines hardly collaborate because we assume that mind and reality, that spirit and matter, are fundamentally distinct.

To overcome the illusion of separation, we must bridge this fundamental gap.

“Spirit” cannot be defined in terms of our physical senses. We cannot describe its shape, its color, or its dimensions. It’s intangible. It is something that has been named, but it cannot be physically described.

Mind is similar to spirit; it doesn’t have physical form. Even if we attribute the capacity to know thyself and think about life to a function of the brain — the capacity itself is formless.

Consciousness is similar in this respect; it is intangible, without form.

Spirit, mind and consciousness.

Because these cannot be physically described, their meanings remain open to interpretation. And because we are discussing them, we need to loosely define these terms. Particularly, we need to distinguish between consciousness itself and the mind.

Many people identify with their capacity to think. As Descartes expressed it: “I think — therefore I am.” Yet we can be aware of and watch our thoughts. I am here — and there are my thoughts coming and going through my mind.

So for the purposes of this discussion, let’s define “mind” as the ability to think and imagine, while “consciousness” is awareness itself.

Matter refers to physical forms that can be described in terms of shape, color, weight, and texture.

Mind is our ability to think and imagine.

Consciousness is awareness. It is aware of both mind and matter.

Are you with me?

So it occurred to me that perhaps this definition of consciousness might be the same as what is meant by “spirit”. Perhaps spirit is our conscious awareness. If we look at it that way, spirit doesn’t feel so elusive, mysterious, or out of reach. When I move deeply into my awareness, perhaps I am moving deeply into my spirit.

So we have a trinity of experience:

• Conscious Awareness (maybe “spirit”)

• Mind (the ability to think and imagine)

• Matter (physical form)

Let’s tie this into the previously discussed four bodies.

Conscious awareness forms a sense of “self”. This sense of self becomes the identity body. With the mind, consciousness builds a structure for understanding experience: the mental body. Understanding gives rise to feelings, the emotional body, which is felt within the physical body. It might look something like this:

• Conscious Awareness

  • Identity Body: Consciousness builds a sense of self.

• Mind

  • Mental Body: With the ability to think and imagine, consciousness forms a mental structure for understanding experience.

  • Emotional Body: When consciousness sustains focus through a particular understanding, it produces emotion.

• Matter

  • Physical Body: Emotions felt within the physical body are expressed through physiological and chemical changes that prepare it for action.

In this view, conscious awareness is prior to the four bodies.

Everything else is changeable.

One’s identity can be consciously chosen, formed through having a sense of purpose and taking on a specific role. Thoughts and images related to that sense of self and purpose will naturally receive attention. This focus will inspire emotion. At the most basic level, inspired emotion creates motivation and energy for action.

Conscious Awareness → Identity Body/Sense of Self & Purpose → Mental Body/Thoughts and Images → Emotional Body/Inspiration → Physical Body/Action

Here we have a conscious flow from the formless into form. Because it is consciously directed, we will call it an active flow. We can see that so much of human ingenuity begins this way; as an image in someone’s mind — someone with a sense of purpose.

However, the flow can also move the other way: something happens in the physical → we feel emotions about it → we think thoughts about it → we can even define our sense of self based upon our interpretation of it. For example: your partner leaves you, and you come to see yourself as undesirable and inherently flawed. In this case, your sense of self is a product of physical circumstance. It comes into being reactively. We will call this a reactive flow. Because the resulting sense of self is based upon changing external factors, we might call this an illusory self.

So we have two possible flows:

• Active: Conscious Awareness → Identity/Sense of Self & Purpose → Thoughts → Emotions → Physical Action

• Reactive: Physical Circumstance → Emotions → Thoughts → Illusory Sense of Self/Identity

These flows represent two different ways to relate to life, to others, and to the world.

Notice how the reactive flow doesn’t actually affect awareness itself. Awareness is always available. We can increase or decrease our capacity to embody it, but awareness itself remains available — unadulterated and clear.

The active flow is consciously directed.

The reactive flow occurs unconsciously.

It is fueled by incorrect beliefs we inherited and adopted, that which I’ve been calling “illusions”. When we work to discover and transcend these false beliefs, we bring into the light of our awareness that which was unconscious within us. Thus, we consciously embody more awareness. We could say, we are multiplying it.

In the active flow, conscious awareness affects the physical.

In the reactive flow, the physical world affects your state of being and your sense of self.

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Let me briefly point out that these two flows are not mutually exclusive. Both are currently present in our relationship to life. While we could theoretically engage with life only from awareness itself, we are not there yet. This illustrates our goal, not our present experience. That both flows are present is important to note because you may have a sense of self that was born through a reaction to circumstance. From that reactive sense of self, you could develop a sense of purpose. You could focus your attention on thoughts and images related to that purpose. This would inspire emotions, which would build momentum that would lead to action. Even though this flow was, we could say, “consciously directed”, it was consciously directed from a sense of self that was unconsciously formed through reaction. Because this sense of purpose, these thoughts, feelings and actions are downstream from an unconscious, reactive sense of self, they are also reactive. Revenge is a great example of this. Even though it is consciously directed, it is done so through a reaction to physical circumstance. You are in the world and of the world.

As I said, in the reactive flow, your state of being and your sense of self are effects of physical circumstance.

In modern times, the physical world alone is often referred to as “reality.” Therefore, the common notion is more disempowering: “reality” is the cause, and we are the effect.

Look at the current scientific model: accidental, expanding cosmology produced complex spinning galaxies and precise solar systems. Unlikely planetary ecology supported the miraculous emergence and evolution of biological life. And the vast span of biological evolution produced physical bodies and brains. And according to materialist deduction, the intricate physical processes within the brain produce consciousness.

And voila! Here we are! Ta-da!

It’s a good trick, right? An accidental and unlikely trick that supposedly begins when spacetime itself expands from an extremely hot, dense state. This cosmological theory raises an incredible question: what is spacetime expanding into? This question is begging to be acknowledged. The Big Bang theory itself does not even mention it! In my mind, this makes the theory woefully incomplete. Perhaps there is nothing. Perhaps there is something. Perhaps the answer lies beyond our current physics, mathematics, and concepts. An answer is not necessary for the theory to exist or to have merit. But the question it naturally raises is an enormous mystery — one worthy of acknowledgement and future exploration! Not knowing is not a reason to ignore or dismiss the question. It is precisely this kind of unanswered question that represents the frontier of scientific inquiry. The show must go on!

Yes, a distinction can be useful without being complete. We identify this without mentioning that. We define what is included, while not mentioning what is excluded. Yet over time, the excluded may be forgotten and left unexplored. And the theoretical model, now taken as the whole, remains incomplete. Scientific theories could acknowledge the questions that they naturally raise, so we can continue to intentionally expand our thinking.

Instead, we tend to accept the current scientific model without even noticing the questions it left behind. We believe that the incomplete theoretical model is “reality.” We don’t know that it’s true, but we believe that it is. An incomplete conceptual static now exists in the mind.

Think about it — the physical world, “reality” is considered to be that which we cannot change. It is a given. It is the given. It is the given, stable denominator — even though it is constantly changing. And this given, “unchangeable”, physical “reality” affects and defines us.

The superiority of physical matter is so fundamental to our world view that when something is significant to us we say, “It matters!” We might have chosen any combination of sounds to express that which is important to us. We just happened to choose the same word that means “the substance of the physical world.”

To us, matter is what matters!

This suggests that our fundamental relationship with life is upside down. Matter is superior to mind.

I’ll say it again. We consider “reality” to be the physical world. If we can physically perceive it, then it is “real.” And our definition of “real” is the given, stable denominator that we cannot change…

Yet this version of “reality” is defined by that which we can perceive with our physical senses, including that which becomes perceivable to us through various instruments.

Doesn’t that seem a little off to you? How can it be both ways? If physical reality is defined by what my physical senses can perceive alone or through instruments, how can physical reality define me?

This “reality” changes with our investigation of it. This is not a fixed definition. It is not a stable, unchanging denominator.

So if we want to maintain “reality” as a given, stable denominator — then we must admit that the perceivable physical world does not fit this definition. We can see that matter is not static, unchangeable or even unaffected by us. It is, in fact, defined by our physical perception, experience and understanding of it!

In my own experience of life and self, everything has changed many times over. Externally: where I live, what I do, who I am with, and how I appear. Internally: my sense of self and purpose, my world view, my beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and physical expression.

The only factor that has not changed, the only given, stable denominator that I have experienced — is awareness itself.

We have equated the physical world with reality because we have assumed that it is the fixed foundation of experience. But when we examine our own experience, physical circumstances are constantly changing, while awareness itself is the constant through which all change is experienced.

So just take note that you grew up in a culture built upon this idea: the physical world is “reality.” This “reality” is the given cause, and you are the effect. And please consider what this belief naturally implies about who you are and what you can or cannot do within this ‘reality’. Also notice that this belief fits into our reactive relational model.

Physical → Emotional → Mental → Sense of Self/Identity

We are going to leave it here for now. We covered quite a few new ideas to begin bridging the conceptual gap between mind and matter.

• We delineated three aspects of our experience: consciousness, mind and matter. We defined consciousness as awareness itself, so consciousness is aware of both mind and matter.

• When we consciously relate to life through the four bodies, from a chosen sense of self and purpose, we engage an active flow. We begin with something abstract and formless, and we bring it into form. We affect the physical.

• When we unconsciously react to life, the reactive flow takes place: physical circumstances affect our emotions, thoughts and our sense of self. We become effects. Because this sense of self is unconsciously derived from changing external factors, it could be called impermanent or illusory.

• Our aim is to bring unconscious, reactive flow patterns within us into the light of our consciousness, thereby increasing our embodied awareness. We do this at the individual level to develop self-mastery. We might say that we are in the world but not of the world.

• Our current definition of “reality” is based on the assumption that physical matter is the given, foundational common denominator. Yet because our definition and understanding of physical reality are constrained by what our senses and instruments can currently perceive — it is not a given, stable denominator.

• If we want our definition of “reality” to rest upon a stable foundation — a factor that does not change — then we might consider conscious awareness itself.

Before we begin exploring the current state of humanity, I want to be clear: these reflections are not born from the perspective of a curious intellectual outsider analyzing “dysfunctional” psychology in others. They arise from a long-lived exploration into my own psychology with the aim of mastering my own state of being. And to say that my own psychology was once “maladjusted” and “dysfunctional” would not be an exaggeration. My formative years were fraught with neglect and abuse from my stepmom, who was my primary caregiver from ages two to ten. Those formative years also included the loss of both my parents — my mom before my second birthday, my dad before my twelfth — at times when I was still emotionally attached to each of them. When I took psychology classes in college, I simply learned the terms and definitions of that which I intimately knew through experience.

Yet my journey didn’t end when I became well-adjusted and functional within society. I was fueled by a desire to understand how neglect and abuse could even be such a defining feature in the life of a child — and on a world scale, how people were driven to go to war, killing one another en masse. At the individual level, murder is rightly considered a crime. Yet the same governing bodies that declare it illegal, train their young people to be ready to kill innumerable others for a “noble” cause, and this contradiction is rarely questioned.

It was clear to me that being well-adjusted to society did not preclude dysfunction. And personally, I still experienced inner turmoil in reaction to external circumstances and other people. The more deeply I sought change, the clearer it became that my source of power and responsibility was, first and foremost, my own state of mind and being.

The purpose of these reflections, therefore, is to facilitate deeper self-awareness and personal agency in the reader. For genuine change begins here: not in attempting to control or change others, but the willingness to consciously transform oneself.

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While you and I may not commit inhumane acts, and therefore would not consider ourselves “evil”, it would be naive to assume that we do not still perceive life through the illusion of separation, which lays the foundation for all that we do consider evil. If mind does precede matter, it would be in our interest to contemplate how our own perspective may be contributing to the manifestation of inhumanity in our world.

The goal is freedom from evil through personal transcendence of the illusion of separation, achieved through the conscious cultivation of deeper self-awareness — even when it becomes uncomfortable. Much of the discomfort we feel stems from the tendency to place judgments of good and bad on everything, including ourselves, in order to establish relative value. From this emerges a competitive nature, as we define ourselves in relation to others. Yet these definitions are unstable and impermanent, demonstrating how we construct our sense of self from illusions.

For example, in America, I am relatively short. In Thailand, however, I am quite tall. Depending on my surroundings, I am both tall and short. This definition of self only exists in relation to others. Because relationships change, the definition itself is impermanent and therefore not actually who I am. While a relative identity such as height may be easy to examine, many of our self-definitions are emotionally charged and deeply defended. This is another reason self-awareness becomes uncomfortable — it requires us to question the very identities we have spent a lifetime constructing and defending.

So read this thoughtfully. Witness your tendency to judge yourself, but do not let those judgments hinder your self-discovery. Give yourself grace. We must first acknowledge where we are before we can go elsewhere.

The truth is that all of us have been shaped by this primary illusion because we were born into a society deeply rooted in the perception of separation. As children, we absorb its discordant beliefs through enculturation — a process that helps us adapt to our environment. Yet when separation becomes the foundation of cultural perception, human life is built upon deep insecurity.

Under this illusion, three basic perceptions tend to take precedence in awareness: fear, lack, and conflict. While these words sound definite, each encompasses a wide range of experience, from obvious to subtle. Fear quietly masquerades as doubt, uncertainty, anxiety and insecurity. Lack can be as innocuous as failing to fully appreciate the miracle of life. Conflict can be as subtle as believing you are right while another is wrong. These inconspicuous expressions apply to the majority of us.

The primary drives within this illusion are seeking validation and worth externally, defending false identities, and attempting to secure a false sense of safety by controlling circumstances, outcomes, and other people. While these tendencies can appear in obvious ways, they more often emerge subtly through socially acceptable behaviors: comparison and competition, people-pleasing, the pursuit of wealth and social status, emotional reactivity or withdrawal, and attempts to fix others’ problems.

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Beneath these varied expressions lie two experiential conditions that allow us to perceive separation: a break in conscious continuity and the primacy of our physical senses.

I mentioned in a previous writing that most of us currently experience a separation in awareness. We do not know where we came from, who we are, why we are here, or where we are going. This break in conscious continuity — before physical embodiment and after physical death — has led to the assumption that we are temporary, producing an underlying existential insecurity.

Beyond this break in conscious continuity, our physical senses seem to inform us that we are physical beings in a material world full of separate objects and individuals. These outward-moving senses exert a gravitational pull on our awareness, directing attention externally to such a degree that the collective belief is that the observable world is all that exists. The common phrase, “I’ll believe it when I see it!” reflects this assumption. More accurately, it means: “I’ll believe it when I can perceive it through my physical senses.” Yet the many instruments we have invented reveal that our senses perceive only a narrow band of reality. At the atomic level, what appears to be solid is nearly 99.9999% space, yet our attention remains fixed upon physical substance.

Consider it another way: our physical senses are calibrated to perceive distinctions. We see the words on this page and derive meaning from them, while completely overlooking the unifying element that allows the words to be seen: the blank page. This is not because we cannot perceive the page, it is because we preferentially notice distinction over sameness. Once we notice the page, we can recognize that without this unifying background — the words could not exist. This illustrates two cooperative aspects of reality: a non-distinct unifying presence, and the many distinct forms that arise within it.

As I said previously, distinctions themselves do not cause the illusion of separation. The illusion only arises when consciousness within a distinct form forgets the whole, identifying exclusively with the part. The tendency of our physical senses to notice distinction, coupled with our forgetfulness of continuity beyond physical form, does not eliminate our connection to the whole nor our ability to perceive it.

These conditions simply necessitate a conscious and disciplined effort.

When we first close our eyes to practice meditation, our attention moves to sound, feeling and smells, while the mind runs rampant in the absence of visual input. In Vedic traditions, yogic postures were not an end in themselves, but a way to subdue the body and mind in preparation for meditation. Meditation is the practice of turning attention toward a subtle inner sense that perceives beyond ordinary physical awareness. I will refer to this faculty as intuition. As it deepens, we naturally perceive the non-distinct unifying presence that lovingly cradles this great unfolding of life.

Through ordinary sensory perception, quantum entanglement appears as “spooky action at a distance”. Through meditative intuition, it is not spooky — because there is no distance. The conscious intelligence that creates and sustains reality is not divided and therefore, it contains no distance. It is the unifying factor.

We have these two modes of perception: our physical senses and our intuition. Because our physical senses are acute while our intuition is subtle, the illusion of separation is convincing. Coupled with the break in conscious continuity, this sensory imbalance reinforces the belief that the physical world is all that exists. Because both of these are experiential, they carry tremendous influence in shaping what we consider to be “real.” Yet our belief does not make material absolutism or separation from the whole ultimately true. Instead, these beliefs form barriers within the mind that obscure the perception of unity. In some disciplines and teachings, these perceptual filters are called energy veils.

They only exist in the mind of the beholder.

This illuminates a crucial point: the way to experience integral oneness is to consciously examine and deconstruct the barriers within our own mind. These barriers are illusions of separateness that have come to define our sense of self. This process has many names: self-awareness and transcendence, expanding one’s mind, and raising one’s consciousness. Though deeply personal, this process ultimately contributes to a collective awakening.

Awakening is not a superficial method of acquiring what is believed to be factual information about the external world. Awakening is an internal process of taking responsibility for, and command over, one’s own state of mind and being. While it certainly includes updating one’s worldview — at its deepest level, it involves consciously reconsidering who we believe ourselves to be.

To facilitate the depth of self-discovery that is required to notice one’s own perceptual barriers, we can view the mind as operating through four levels of perception: identity, mental, emotional, and physical.

The identity level is primary, as it sets the foundation for all the others. It contains our individual and collective identities — our “I am” beliefs. Our identities inform the mental level, which contains the thoughts and beliefs that shape our worldview and determine how we interpret reality. This is also the level through which we consciously consider new ideas by “opening our minds.” The emotional level is where thoughts begin resonating within the body as feeling. Repetitive thoughts build emotional momentum until a threshold is reached, at which point an action is taken, and the emotional energy is released. This resulting physical expression — whether enacted outwardly or resisted inwardly — emerges from the interaction of all the layers above it.

For example:

• Identity (belief): “I am vulnerable and powerless.”

• Mental (world view): “Circumstances and other people have power over me, my life, our world.”

• Emotional (vibration): feelings of anxiety, insecurity, helplessness.

• Physical: actions of defense, withholding, and escape.

This example is very common in our world. It is rooted in existential insecurity, which arises from complete identification with a temporary physical form.

In addition to these four levels, the mind also operates through two aspects: conscious and subconscious. The subconscious absorbs information automatically, without deliberate consideration. This serves two important functions: it supports orientation to family, culture, and environment, and it allows practiced skills to become automatic, freeing conscious attention to focus elsewhere. Yet this same process is that which permits illusions of separation to become deeply embedded within our perception.

Our subconscious beliefs determine how we interpret reality, and we tend to overlook that which we assume to be real. Yet we can choose to move through a gradual process of shifting from identification with experience — to the observation of it. We begin by observing our automatic behaviors and emotions. These are the easiest to notice because they tend to be more dramatic, producing moments in which we feel “out of control.” Once we recognize that we are reacting automatically, conscious awareness enters the process, and we become the observer rather than the reaction itself. This breaks the emotional charge and gives us the opportunity to uncover the beliefs and identifications underlying the reaction.

At the root of all reactivity is a false belief - either at the identity level through the defense of an “I am” belief, or at the mental level, through the defense of a worldview. In both cases, the underlying impulse is self defense.

But what kind of self needs defending? Only a sense of self born from the illusion of separation.

If you knew that you were an integral part of all creation, that you do not come and go with form, that you are not defined by or bound to matter — there would be nothing to defend. You would be free of reactivity, free to respond to life consciously — without fear of annihilation or any longing for validation.

The illusions each of us inherit and defend become deeply personal through internalization, so awakening only unfolds through personal recognition and transformation. There are billions of people in the world, which means there are billions of paths back to the perception of wholeness. We each return by consciously stripping away every illusion of separation we have taken into our own minds. The further we have traveled into separation, the more divided and conflicted our perceptions appear. Yet beneath the conflict, fear, and division, the wholeness we seek has never been absent — only forgotten. The closer we move toward remembrance, the more harmonious our perception — and therefore our lives — become.

While many modalities can shift subconscious patterns in the mind and body, their effects are temporary unless the underlying beliefs and identities are consciously recognized and dismantled. In the next chapter, we will explore how to do this in our everyday lives.

They remain a work in progress. This short writing belongs to what will eventually become the chapter exploring our present choices — the living answer to the question: “What can I do about it?”

Conflict is one expression of the illusion of separation. Understanding its nature is one way we can begin moving from division into receptivity, understanding, and genuine human connection.

According to the dictionary, conflict (noun): is a fight, an ongoing struggle, discord, antagonism, opposition. In this post, we will consider the root cause of conflict between people.

While individuals naturally have different perspectives, that alone does not produce conflict or fighting. Conflict arises through identification with the idea “I am right,” which renders the other as wrong. This assumption is a form of othering rooted in the illusion of separation. When I assume the other is wrong, communication closes.

Communication is communion — a coming-into-union. The purpose of communication is to reach a place of understanding: I understand your perspective, and you understand mine. To do so, we must first acknowledge and accept that individual perspectives are inherently personal. When we acknowledge our differences and communicate effectively, it engenders emotional intimacy and sets a strong foundation for active cooperation in life.

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Communication breaks down into conflict when one assumes their perspective is correct in an ultimate, objective sense. In this case, the purpose of communication deviates from mutual understanding, and instead becomes an attempt to convince another that one’s perspective is accurate: they should see things as I do.

This illustrates that outer conflict stems from a personal state of mind:

I am right. My understanding is the only valid understanding. My experience is the only valid experience. The other person is delusional, dysfunctional, incorrect, ignorant, confused, dumb, naive, unrealistic, flawed, maladjusted (or whatever label reduces the other to an inferior position in my mind). This justifies my belligerence and validates my perspective to myself — affirming the illusion that I alone am correct. It is disrespectful to perceive (and then relate to) another person from the idea that they are flawed. Yet I am the one who feels disrespected because they will not accept that my perspective is the factual and infallible version of reality.

Such a state of mind destroys communication at its heart — because it no longer seeks to reach a mutual understanding.

Identified with being right, this mindset turns conversation into verbal combat, seeking to establish its perspective as ultimate truth. Conversation becomes an attempt to secure agreement rather than understanding. It wonders why communication fails, never realizing that its own rigidity is the obstacle.

In order to communicate effectively, the realization that all perspectives naturally vary needs to be embraced. The truth of reality may be one — but the many that perceive reality will be looking through different eyes, experiencing different thoughts and emotions, holding different beliefs and world views — leading to a variety of different interpretations of the same situation. These are all valid, and offer the opportunity to see a more complete picture — when we are open to receive them.

If you find yourself in conflict when your desire is connection, consider the following:

• Discover your intention: What do you want to get out of the conversation? Do you want to experience the emotional intimacy of sharing and being heard, or do you want a cooperative solution to a specific challenge? When you know your own intention, you can request the kind of feedback you want — right up front. This powerful tool can eliminate misunderstandings that often lead to conflict.

• Share your experience (without talking about the other person): Own your perspective without accusations, criticism, assumptions, or name calling. This is very challenging because we live in a culture that projects blame for inner experience onto external conditions and people. Using others as a scapegoat is inherently disrespectful, as it reduces them to a negative mental idea.

  Examples: “You’re so aloof!” becomes “I miss spending time with you. Do you have space in your schedule to get together this week?”

  “You’re so boring!” becomes “I am longing for adventure! Do you want to go ____ with me?”

  “You’re spineless!” becomes “I would love to feel supported. Will you please back me up with your voice (or specific action)?”

• Stay on topic: Resist the urge to confuse the current conversation with unrelated grievances. Learn to share and resolve one concern at a time.

• Find common ground: All of the above will assist in discovering a common goal. This is perhaps the most powerful shift — it transforms conflict into active cooperation.

When we open into the desire to truly understand another, conflict gives way to communication — not through sameness, but through mutual respect and receptivity.

Where does evil begin?

This question does not arise in moments of peace. It emerges when we encounter something so cruel, so inhumane, that our felt understanding of reality begins to fracture. Even without formal belief, many people feel an inner sense that life is not random — that it unfolds with intelligent design.

When confronted with such inhumanity, that inner sense can collapse beneath the weight of what was seen or experienced. In its place arises disbelief, horror, and a destabilizing question: how can my understanding of reality hold this? How can a world that once felt meaningful contain such brutality?

Faced with this uncomfortable tension, some quickly conclude that there must not be a deeper intelligence guiding existence. Others remain within their crumbled understanding, searching for a perspective large enough to reconcile a benevolent reality with the undeniable presence of evil.

Even more importantly, an origin implies the possibility of a return. If evil has a beginning, then perhaps it is not an inevitable fixture of reality, but the result of choices that can be remade. We are therefore not seeking the origin of evil merely for cognitive integration, but to discover a potential return to a state where inhumane acts are no longer possible.

In our current world, where reports and disclosures continue to reveal the horrific system-wide abuse of children, including at elevated levels of power — the question of such a return becomes more than philosophical.

It becomes essential.

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To keep it simple: the origin of evil is the illusion of separation.

This illusion creates the only condition in which antagonism can arise. When a being perceives itself as separate from the whole, there are others to fear, to compete with, or to control. From this initial misperception, the intention to harm becomes possible. Alternatively, with unified awareness, existence is known as an interconnected and symbiotic unfolding — and such impulses do not arise.

Separation is a perception the mind can adopt — and one that it can consciously surrender. While this can be expressed simply, the process of returning to clear perception is not. Many layers of distortion arise from this original misperception, shaping how we experience reality itself.

This concept will be clarified throughout this thesis in several distinct chapters. The first will lay the foundation for understanding what is meant by the illusion of separation, including a short cosmological story that explores how evil may have come into being within a cooperative reality. The second will examine how this same story appears across cultures, traditions and disciplines. The third will explore where humanity is now through the examination of our current awareness. The fourth will consider our present choices — those that will affirm the illusion versus those that will dispel it.

To examine the illusion of separation in depth, we will look at one of the most influential stories in Western culture: the Garden of Eden.

To be honest, the traditional interpretation of the original sin story in the Book of Genesis never made sense to me. It seemed to offer little more than an explanation for why human beings must continue to live in pain and suffering: the first humans made a mistake, and the rest of humanity continues to bear the consequences. I do not believe that the choices of other people thousands of years ago determine my life today.

Nevertheless, while pondering the origin of evil, I had an abrupt realization: what if the phrase “original sin” was simply the ancient way of posing the same question we are considering today? Upon deeper reflection, the story itself might actually be describing the same insight I have reached — the origin of evil begins with the perception that reality is divided into equal and opposing forces.

In the story, Adam and Eve eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. The original Hebrew word translated as “knowledge,” does not refer to absolute truth, as it is often understood in Western thought. Rather, da-at describes an embodied awareness — an understanding that comes through experience. Eating this fruit induced a direct experience of a divided reality. At the same time, the word often translated as “evil” does not refer to an independent dark force — but to that which is harmful, disordered or simply, out of alignment.

It is also important to distinguish that the “good” described in this phrase is not the same harmony experienced within the Garden. In this new mode of perception, tov is defined in contrast to its opposite. In Hebrew, such paired opposites often represent an entire spectrum of experience. In this sense, the “knowledge of good and evil” may not point to two distinct categories, but to a way of perceiving life through division itself. What was gained was not truth, but a way of experiencing division in that which is fundamentally whole.

From this shift in awareness, an experience of separation arises — and with it, the perception of vulnerability, lack and fear.

The moment a self-aware being adopts the perception of being separate, unity is veiled — resulting in exile from the garden. The garden symbolizes a state of conscious unity with existence — an awareness of participating in something much greater than oneself. The word Eden means “delight,” suggesting a state of harmony, abundance, and creative expression. At the heart of the garden stands the Tree of Life, symbolizing an endless flow of sustaining life force. In this state of connection, all things — including oneself — are supported and maintained, fostering a natural sense of safety and surrender.

In this view, being “cast out” of the garden (a state of unified awareness) was not a punishment for disobedience, but the “fruit” of adopting the perception that reality is divided. From there, one may even believe that an external force has caused the exile — when in reality, the shift only occurs within the perception of those who have chosen to partake.

As the story suggests, the illusion of separation is not inherent to individualized self-awareness. One may recognize oneself as an individual while still participating in the intricate, cooperative unfolding of life. The illusion only arises when one identifies with a sense of self that experiences disconnection. It is a forgetfulness of one’s integral relationship with the whole, and a mistaking of fragmented perception for the ultimate reality.

Within the story, this perception is accompanied by a warning: to partake of this fruit is to “die”. This may be referring to an entry into the perception of mortality — the loss of conscious continuity beyond one’s current form. This loss of continuity is a separation in awareness that has initiated man’s most fundamental questions: “Who am I?”, “Where did I come from?”, and “ Where am I going?”

This reveals that the illusion of separation is ontological — producing an existential insecurity that gives rise to survival-based beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. Others appear as threat, and aggression emerges as a defensive response to an imagined vulnerability. Deep within the illusion, life force becomes constricted, generating fear, withholding, and competition for resources. Each of these responses intensifies the illusion of separation, creating a self-reinforcing downward spiral.

Ontological separation can never become permanent because it is ultimately a distortion of awareness. Just as light dispels darkness — which is only the absence of light — the perception of separation dissolves when unity is remembered and our conscious connection to the whole is restored.

Rather than relying solely on the traditional story of the Garden of Eden, we will explore a cosmological narrative adapted for our time. This story offers a way of understanding how the inhumanity we observe — and sometimes experience — can arise within a benevolent creation, without assuming evil to be an equal and opposing force.

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Imagine, then, the beginning of creation as a state of unified awareness, joyfully expanding into a harmonic symphony of creative expression.

A Cosmological Fall

A long, long time ago, before time and space and matter, a Conscious Self-Aware Intelligence, overflowing with Love, joy and abundance, was inspired to create. Needing space for Its creation, It withdrew It’s awareness into a point, creating a fertile void. Within that space and out of Itself, It created an impermanent, practice universe, within which It created self-aware beings. Each being was created with the likeness and imagination of the Original Intelligence: endowed with a point-like sense of self-awareness and free will, so that each could co-create from within creation. All of these beings knew that they were part of the whole, and joyfully co-created in harmony.

One day, some co-creators wondered what it would be like to be separate from the whole. Because all the self-aware beings were bestowed with the power to create through their imaginations, those that imagined separation, created and sustained a divided reality. Over eons of time, some of those who imagined they were separate, forgot about the whole and became identified with their separate sense of self. Like Narcissus before the pool, they mistook reflection for their true identity and were lost within the illusion of their own making.

The majority of the self-aware beings remembered their unity and kept co-creating in harmony. This raised the vibration of the entire universe, so that one day, it was accelerated to the point where it was ascending into permanence. This transition into permanence would naturally disallow any false perceptions to remain. The beings who had forgotten about the whole were presented with what seemed to be an existential choice: they would have to give up their separate sense of self to ascend with their universe. They equated this with a loss of life (mortality). Attached to their false sense of self, they refused to ascend. Clinging to the illusion, they fell into an upcoming, impermanent universe where the illusion could be maintained. This was the consequence of their choice, and this level of the illusion became known as the fallen consciousness.

From this level of consciousness, the fall was perceived as a punishment. Feeling victimized and mistreated by an external force, these beings set themselves against the force that they alone imagined. They saw two powers instead of One.

Belief in separation produces a constriction in one’s connection to life force. This is a natural consequence of the illusion and a kind of safeguard — preventing those who perceive themselves as separate from generating limitless disharmony. When these beings fell into the upcoming universe where the illusion could be maintained, their perceived separation became absolute in their own minds. Feeling completely severed from the source of life, they began to steal life force from others. The fallen ones adopted parasitic behaviors in this budding universe: theft, deceit, manipulation, coercion, abuse, torture, murder and sacrifice — all attempts to extract life force from those who remained connected.

When connected co-creators were preyed upon for such parasitic exploit, it was nearly impossible not to adopt the illusion of separation themselves. An experience of such antagonism was not understood by connected beings, and they began to believe that there must be a separate opposing force in creation. The fallen ones felt completely justified committing such atrocities because they perceived that they were wronged in the first place. If they could be so wronged, then they might as well do wrong to serve themselves.

Here we see three more fabricated identifications that spring from the original illusion of separation: victimization, entitlement and justification. “I was wronged, and therefore, I am entitled — my behavior — justified.”

The end of this story has not yet been written. We are writing it now — through the choices we make about how we interpret and respond to reality.

While the above story is theoretical, as all narratives of creation must be, it serves to illustrate how harmful and destructive behavior can arise within a reality that is, at it’s foundation, unified and life-giving.

While the essential parallels are not provable, they are possible: we exist within an impermanent, practice universe, in which anything can be imagined — including separation. This illusion is out of alignment with the unifying source, generating experiences of fear and uncertainty. Yet this is not final; it may be transcended through a restoration of one’s full awareness.

These parallels may also explain the current inhumanity in our world. It is possible that the beings who commit atrocities come from a different place and have no allegiance to, or love for, humanity. They may be completely out of touch with their integral connection, defining their entire sense of self through separation. In effect, their life force has become so restricted that they are dependent upon parasitic behavior for physical survival. And consider how this would render them not uncommonly powerful — but actually — incredibly weak.

Since the illusion of separation is the beginning of evil, the path beyond it lies in remembering our connection to the whole. Freedom from evil is not achieved by fighting those who remain entrenched within the illusion — such conflict only reinforces the very illusion of separation that it seeks to overcome. Instead, true freedom arises through awakening from the illusion itself.

In our present time, this may appear as a growing number of human beings restoring their awareness of the cooperative unity of All Life. As this awareness spreads, the illusion of separation begins to dispel. Those who continue to insist upon the illusion will find themselves outside the harmony that unity naturally expresses — much like those who, in the ancient story, could no longer remain within the garden.

The stakes of this realization are not abstract. Entire systems of iniquity exist because the underlying perception that sustains them remains unexamined. As long as the illusion of separation dominates human consciousness, manipulation, exploitation, and violence — even against children — will continue to manifest in our world.

Those who remain deeply identified with separation will not dissolve the illusion. Believing their survival depends upon it, they will do everything in their power to preserve it — within themselves, within our systems, and within our perception.

The responsibility, therefore — is ours. It is up to us to rise above the perception of artificial division. We are not bound by this illusion, even if we have learned to see through it. The question is: will we continue to maintain that separation is real?

The possibility of awakening remains — not in a distant future, but as a present choice — by consciously surrendering divisive illusions and actively uncovering our integral part in the cooperative unfolding of life. In so doing, we do not destroy evil — we simply outgrow it. The fourth chapter will reveal what this looks like at both the collective and personal levels, grounding it in our daily lives.

In the next part of this series, we will explore how this pattern of unity, mistaken separation and return — appears all over the world in a variety of traditions and disciplines. This continual repetition suggests a pervasive undercurrent of knowing within humanity itself — a steady unbroken call of unity signaling to us the way back home.

However, it does fall within the purpose of this publication to assist you on your journey — which might currently involve the understanding and integration of the harrowing information contained within the Epstein Files. Hearing or reading about atrocities committed against humanity, women, and children is heart-wrenching and unbelievable. So doing can leave you with such a bleak and discouraged outlook that you can hardly function. And people around you might be working to avoid such information like the plague, leaving you alone in your plight.

A friend dealing with this issue reached out to me the other day. She had been looking through the Epstien files, trying to put the pieces together. Understandably, she was having a very difficult time. Because I had mentioned the issue of child sex trafficking to her years prior, she instinctively reached out looking for an anchor. How the heck does one learn of such things and go on with life?!?!?

If any of you are in this same sticky sinkhole, this post is for you. My goal is to assist you in your effort to understand and integrate the information — to ground you in a sense of sanity as you boldly face the insane.

And if you are someone who does not want to consider the information contained in the Epstein files — this post is not for you, and you may not want to read it.

My first suggestion: if this is your first exposure to the international trafficking, torture and murder of children, surfing the files to try to understand what is going on might completely overwhelm you. Trying to put these varied pieces together into a puzzle that you can see and understand has the potential to be crazy-making.

Instead, I highly recommend you go straight to those who have survived child sex trafficking, and listen to their stories directly. This will allow you to get the full picture without speculation. It is still horrible information that is very hard to digest, but it will be provided in a whole and complete picture.

I have read and listened to many survivor stories — and all of them talk about the exact same things.

Seth at Man in America did a recent interview with a survivor which you can watch here:

Interview with a Child Trafficking Survivor

His shows are also available to listen to on various podcast apps. I’ve been watching Seth for many years. Besides being a great interviewer, his humanity and empathy are fully intact. He has quite a few episodes talking about the Epstien files, including his own processing of the information.

The woman that he interviews has her own website and interviews (including with other survivors) here:

Max Lowen at Unbroken

There are many other good people who are looking through the files and disseminating the information, talking about the material and their own mental and emotional coming to terms. Find a person with whom you resonate. Get a good feel for them. If you follow a bunch of random (unknown) people on this topic — you won’t necessarily know what to believe. Many people post clickbait, even about this: fake headlines, fake photos and videos. So be aware. You still need discernment.

Sayer Ji is a long standing leader in the natural health community who is writing about the Epstien files. His website, Green Med Info is a comprehensive database of research on natural medicine, from herbs to red light therapy.

He has been covering the data in the Epstien files that is related to Bill Gates and the pre-covid financial and political structuring for a ‘pandemic response.’ Apparently, Epstein had his hands in many things.

Sayer Ji was labeled as one of the “disinformation dozen” during the covid era censorship, which suppressed the sharing of natural remedies that were helping people to recover from covid. You can find his articles on his website and on his substack — his first Epstein article is here: What the heck does Epstein have to do with the pandemic response?

If you wrote off the people who were labeled as the ‘disinformation dozen’ because of the name calling and the MSM telling you that it was the right thing to do — you may want to consider making your own choice based on your own personal assessment of those individuals. Surely, you are smart enough to decide for yourself.

My second suggestion is to increase your self-awareness — and take your time. The information is horrifying. It is much easier to disbelieve than to consider that these things might actually be true. This is not because the women who have come forward are not credible, but because the information is way beyond our capacity to understand. We cannot understand how or believe that — people could do such things. It is much easier to write it off.

It took me ten years to develop the courage and capacity to actually look into child sex trafficking and bear witness to the survivors. Almost ten years later now, and the information is integrated. While it may not take you quite as long, give yourself grace. Give yourself the time and space to process it.

The willingness to face that kind of information gave me the very strong impulse to show up brighter and clearer, with more light, with more Love. To be completely vigilant with my own mind, heart and soul — making no excuses for harboring anything less than Love within my own being: no hatred, no rage, no darkness, no despair, no discouragement.

It’s a big bite to chew, and yet — it is the ONE place that I have complete power and responsibility.

You can always use the external to purify your own mind, heart and body. You may not be able to, at this moment, do anything else. So do the ONE thing that you can: master your mind, heart and soul. Use the information to eradicate your own fear, despair, hatred and blame. Let it transform you into a beacon of tremendous Light.

We need to keep rooted in our morale and in our humanity. Whatever you have learned to do to calm your nervous system — do that as often as is necessary. You might be able to hear only one minute of an interview before you need to pause for a day or two. That’s okay.

Personally, I prayed. In the beginning, I’d read a paragraph (or a sentence!) then stopped to shout at the Great Spirit for a good twenty minutes (sometimes my prayers are like that). I also asked questions. I asked for help understanding, for processing and transmuting the heaviness of my heart into something worthwhile. Asking for help from angels, guides and the Great Spirit — must precede receiving help. I don’t recommend going it alone. Even if you do not believe in angels or a benevolent Creator, now might be a really great time to test those waters. And if you do believe in a benevolent Creator, it’s a great time to build that relationship.

When I took my dive into that discovery, it was utterly apparent to me that children can only be abused within our society if the good and capable adults were unwilling to even consider that it might be happening. My goal was to witness the survivors — while not letting the information dampen my spirit or my resolve.

It can also be helpful to talk to others who are learning (or who have already learned) this information. However, if you have family and friends who are not looking into this information, they are not likely to be receptive to you sharing it. Instead of trying to force reception, realize that your desire to share the information is driven by your need to process it.

You can process the information with those who have gone before you or with those who are traveling this path now. There are many resources available in the above links. Just be aware of how other people are handling, or are not handling, the information. If you have embarked on this journey, you can and will make it through. Every person will have their own time and their own way — and it may not be in this lifetime. Focus instead, on your journey.

Last but not least, my friend came to this question: “Where did evil come from?”

This is kind of information tends to land us squarely on this question. I have pondered it for many years: Where does evil come from?

Because the outer world is a reflection of the inner world — I also searched within myself. What in me contributes to the outer manifestation of evil (fear, hate, chosen ignorance, divisive thinking, victim mentality and shucking responsibility for myself, belief in powerlessness, etc), and can I deal with that?

My broader goal was to understand the origin of evil within the larger context of a benevolent Creation. Are both possible?

The answer that I have come to over the years is quite long, so I will share those ideas in another post in case they might also be helpful to you.

And if you have questions, thoughts and concerns, I welcome them in the comments.

At some point, I burned most of my poems in a fire. I was done playing those old, sad songs.

These days, I wake up inspired. It’s been a journey of over thirty years. If you want to read a very condensed (but still very long) version of my sojourn, you can find it here:

So here it is, another day to revel in a love affair with existence.

It is my choice to be in a state of love. I don’t know when I realized that I didn’t have to limit love by pinning it to someone or something else. I can use everything as fuel for a great love affair.

Thus, I’ve been intentionally stoking a sensuous flame of rapture within me.

And this morning, poetry returned. I didn’t even notice she had been missing.

Love Song for the Divine


Waking up to sparkles

Golden sunlight in diamond form

Memories in dreams

The boundless dragon rouses in my home



Trembling with electricity 

of connection

My belly free falls into space

Giggling like a child

I bow before Your Grace



With every single fire

You light within my chest

I take a breath and exhale

Eyes on You, I keep at rest



I used to take the outward journey

I used to run so far away

Now I sit with Your Infinite Dragon, 

Kiss her paws, 

And pray.



Go ahead and burn me up

And take off each layer of my cool

I touch the ground in prayer

I have no other purpose

(or pleasure)

But You.

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If you appreciate poetry, I have a beautiful friend who posts her musings and poetry here:

Poetry of a Curious Heart

Musings about life, beauty, emotions, experiences, and growing into the person I am meant to be.

By Rhielle Widders

The impetus to think and wonder about life could be called philosophy. The word alone often has me imagining the old days, classic scenes of men in robes, sun beams shinning on white architecture, serious expressions as they discuss the mechanics of the Universe and the meaning of life.

I find this relationship between thinking and being quite amusing. On one hand, considering what you don’t know allows your consciousness to expand. On the other hand, imagining that any knowledge is certain, creates limitations in the mind that hinder expansion.

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I decided to look up the definition of philosophy. Keeping in character, the definition is a giant word salad that no one wants to chew on. For clarity, I took one sentence from the bunch: “The rational investigation of the nature and structure of reality.” I’ll simplify further and drop the word “rational” from “investigation” because that is a matter of personal perspective, which is subjective — and so, clouds the definition.

Philosophy is the investigation of the nature and structure of reality. Isn’t that so much sweeter than a word salad?

Philosophy is one of my things. It’s a tremendous life-long love affair. I have been pondering the nature of reality since I was a child, furrow on my brow.

Back then, I was particularly aware that the human-created reality didn’t make any sense. It’s easy to look around, perhaps for you as well, and see how insensible human beings can be. At some point, growing up within it, we take it for granted and it’s lack of sensibility becomes less obvious.

This is the innocence of children. They have connection to their inner-sense, and they can see clearly how not much in the human creation resonates with that inner-sense! Thus, nothing makes sense! So while I still feel some frustration and surprise about the insensibility of humanity, it isn’t quite as blatant as when I was a child.

Yet, my understanding of that insensibility has been clarifying all these years. And that clarification is the result of an inquisitive mind that keeps right on questioning the nature of reality.

And questioning is so very different than overthinking, both of which can seem philosophical. When I question something, I know I don’t understand, so I am actively seeking an answer that is not within my current awareness.

When I overthink, I operate under the assumption that I do know and that if I just think it over enough, I’ll “figure it out.”

So this phrase — “you might be overthinking it,” popped into my head this morning. Laughing to myself, I concluded that any ‘thinking’ was likely overthinking.

I was considering how to navigate a particular conversation, yet because I wasn’t having that conversation in that moment — I became humorously aware that I was certainly overthinking! My attempt to plan it out before the moment arrived was sheer vanity. Lately I find that I keep reminding myself, “I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.”

This desire in me to “figure it out” ahead of time, ironically, stems from a lack of ease in the present moment. Anxiety propels my mind into the future to set up shop. This usually creates more anxiety — as no one can deal with a situation that does not yet exist. And when I am mentally absent from the present, I miss whatever messages, synchronicities, and signs might be coming in to guide my way.

It is only when I am present in the moment that I can know how life wants to show up through me. Life will figure out the conversation once I am within it. And if I have anxiety or trepidation in that moment, I can increase my awareness which will allow me to move through my anxiety and follow my intuition.

You have probably experienced your own mind jumping through hoop after hoop in the vain attempt to ‘solve’ your problem. Yet the real problem, the real obstacle is the idea itself — that your mind alone can solve anything!

Your mind interpreted there was a problem in the first place! Thus, the creator of our problems is that which supposedly goes into action to ‘solve’ the thing that it created!

This realization comes to me in waves of relief, even though it’s been unfolding for many years. I keep letting go into the experience that surrender is the surest route to fulfillment.

There was a time when believing that I knew about the world and mentally pre-determining my future based on those beliefs was of great comfort to me. But life never let me get set in my own ways. Every time I thought I knew something and pre-determined my future, life shredded my scripted version, tossing the pieces into the wind. This provided me with the opportunity to experience that something outside of my own mind was holding and guiding me. Every time I found myself back at square one, I felt a deep sense of peace — despite my feelings of loss. And at those times, I surrendered to what was — because I had to.

And ever so gradually, I began to trust NOT knowing. I began to trust the intelligence inherent in all of life. I began to experience that when I allowed life to unfold without my mind trying to think my way through, it did such a beautiful job that it often appeared miraculous. And over time, NOT knowing became an experience of wonder and mystery.

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When you believe that you know anything for certain, when you are sure — your experience of life becomes a determined thing, without newness or mystery.

When you open to the possibility that everything you think you know is just an endlessly changing drop of water in an endless ocean — you begin to reconnect to your inner-sense, your innocence, and the wonder of life begins to unfurl before your very eyes.

It doesn’t really matter what you think you know.

Thinking that you know is a barrier.

Wondering what you don’t know — that is a bridge.

It is a bridge from your time-traveling mind into the present. It is a bridge from your mental constructs into the intelligence of creation. It is a bridge from overthinking into being.

And from that place of being, the bridges go everywhere you could possibly want to go.

Have you noticed it? There is a collective focus on threat.

So, of course I want to throw a monkey wrench into this whole line of thinking. That’s what I am here for: upsetting our apple carts. And it isn’t that I am a “rebel just for kicks.” I just like to think about things. And I cannot help, these days, applying perspective to every single thing in existence. So, there’s my focus. And I won’t apologize for it at this juncture, because so far — the consideration of perspective is MIA in most of our conversation. So, I am bringing it back.

I’ll begin with a sincere confession.

I deeply appreciate the warriors among us, those who are willing and able to defend life. I, too, have this warrior spirit — though you wouldn’t know it to look at me. When needed, that spirit instinctively rises up from the depths of my being, with absolutely no regard for my normal gentle nature.

Therefore, this following consideration is not to suggest that we should abandon our warrior spirits for an elusive higher ideal. There is no black and white here, no either/or ultimatum. We can honor our warrior spirits AND expand our understanding of existence. I just like to push the boundaries, as I always do. I do this within the confines of my own understanding of life, and so — I invite you to join me in the exploration. And I present this as a challenge to you, fellow warriors — as I challenge myself.

The “greatest threat” — is not out there somewhere.

It was once beautifully distilled: “We have nothing to fear but fear itself.” And where do we experience fear? Within our own minds and hearts.

I know that many warriors are now thinking that they are not afraid. But please read on. While you may be free from the fear of death because you long ago decided that you would lay down your own life to protect others — there may still be anxious perspectives in your mind whose boundaries you can push.

A great example of a warrior experiencing fear is found in Star Wars, when Anakin Skywalker begins to fear the loss of his pregnant wife, Padme. His anxiety is then manipulated by Chancellor Palpatine, who promises him the power to prevent death through learning the forbidden knowledge of the dark side.

All of us can relate to the fear of losing someone that we love — especially when we have experienced loss before. Fear and anxiety create a desire to control reality because we lack the capacity to deal with various challenges in life. This brings about an important distinction: A warrior, when anxious, works to increase his or her capacity to deal with a situation. A war-monger seeks external control in the face of fear — because they are unwilling to change themselves.

So let’s return to the above idea, slightly specified:
The greatest threat — exists within our own minds and hearts.

As a collective, we are unintentionally focused on fear — instead of consciously focusing our minds on the cultivation of an unwavering trust in creation.

The intentional focusing of our minds through discipline is gloriously absent in modern civilization. Instead, our minds run away in thought, and we follow them with our attention — usually believing every single thought that passes through. If our minds don’t have their own interests to explore, we often dive into the alternate reality within our devices and peruse an endless display of content. This occupies our attention — while decreasing our capacity to intentionally focus and direct our own attention toward a chosen idea for any length of time.

We could use our will to focus our minds.

Considering that the greatest threat exists within our minds, then it stands to reason that a real warrior would take seriously the intentional focusing of their mind on what we could call faith. More specifically, a warrior would focus their mind on the intentional eradication of all fear and anxiety from his or her own being.

What does that ultimately boil down to?

It boils down to an intentional cultivation of an unwavering trust in a benevolent creative intelligence that is much greater than our own. This is achieved through cultivating a felt oneness with existence. And whenever we find fear and anxiety within our minds and hearts, we do battle there first. We consciously and continually depose the despots of fear, insecurity and anxiety within us and reestablish our trust in creation. And yes, it is a very big deal.

I have written pretty consistently about manifestation over the years. I have pointed out that we create reality through our minds. At the most conscious level, it’s easy to see this in action. Before you build a house, a road, a building, an airplane or a business…..you think about it. You draw up plans. You consider materials, functionality, legalities and profitability. The action steps are a natural by-product of an inspired and focused mind. Such that, the ability to intentionally focus your mind on what inspires you — is primary.

We also create unconsciously (without intention) with our underlying beliefs about ourselves and life in general. If you perceive that life is a struggle, then how will you experience anything different? Your experiences come in through the filter of your mind.

The underlying, unquestioned common notion is that the physical world begets everything else. If you subscribe to this idea, then your conscious awareness is a product of matter. If you believe that matter created you — well then — how can you create or change matter?

Obviously, belief in this one idea creates a certain anxiety. Believing the physical world changes you leads to the perception that whatever happens in the physical spectrum has some ultimate importance — because it defines you, it limits you.

Well, who are you? Are you a human being reading a strange article about perception? Or are you an eternal spirit walking the temporary path of experiential learning offered on earth?

If it makes sense to you that all of life, including your existence, began with a cosmic accident — go for it. I make no judgements here. Yet how did the cosmos come into being to have an accident? How does something explode from nothing? I don’t need you to subscribe to mind preceding matter, but you may find it infinitely more empowering — which might be useful to you.

So for the purposes of this writing, we are consciously exploring the belief that everything is created through mind — as well as what value that idea may have in our lives if we were to adopt it.

We all possess an individual mind that contains our current perspective of life. This individual mind ties into a collective mind. A collective mind often carries more weight on the scales of reality determination because the focus is larger. Truth also carries more weight than illusion — which is why we have not yet physically self destructed.

When I see a repeated theme of “The greatest threat” — I know that our collective focus is fear based. Even when there is no immediate threat right here, right now — the collective tendency is to look for the impending doom. If it isn’t here — it’s over there. If it isn’t happening now — we anxiously wonder when.

This, quite simply, is a *focus*. It’s a lens. It’s an obsessive-compulsive thought process related to the fear of annihilation. It comes through the ego, or more specifically, identification with the body — which has a limited life span (as far as we can tell) and will return to the earth someday.

So — what do you think we create in our reality when we constantly look for threats?

Circumstances, people and events to justify our perspective of feeling insecure, mortal, vulnerable and under threat.

It’s the weirdest thing to me. This part of manifestation becomes unreasonable to so many. They cannot correlate mental focus with creation in this particular way.

Well, why not? It works this particular way in all other areas of our lives.

Mental focus = physical creation.

Why wouldn’t an underlying (somewhat obsessive) mental focus of threat also create something in our shared reality?

I see clearly how this focus eventually erupts in wars and violence, creating the very thing it was supposed to avoid: chaos, destruction and physical death.

I see clearly how throughout time the most destructive and murderous dictators have manipulated people’s fear to rise into positions of power. The rule of these dictators then brought about that which people fear: chaos, destruction and physical death.

I see clearly how governments throughout history have manipulated their people’s fear to garner support for war with another nation — which brought about chaos, destruction and physical death.

Want to be uncontrollable? Deal with your fear. Don’t think you have any? Dig deeper. Leave no rock unturned in your own mind. Anxiety counts, worry about the future — it counts. As a warrior, this is your first duty of vigilance.

An underlying belief in threat cannot and will never bring about a sense of security.

So let’s explore deeper into the root of fear. I said above that it stems from identification with our bodies, which are impermanent. Yet even if you believe that your body houses your eternal spirit, the primacy of our five senses makes it challenging to experience anything else. This brings our awareness into the illusion of separation.

Think of it this way: we are here. We don’t know how we got here, we don’t know where we came from, nor do we know where we are going. That, in and of itself, is a separation in awareness. We wake up here, and one day — we are no longer here.

Some people remember past lives. Some people remember in-between lives. Some people have had amazing experiences when their physical bodies were pronounced dead, only to recover physical life and share their stories. All are super fascinating to read and wonder about. Some materialist scientists would say that these kinds of memories and experiences are a function of some unknown neurological process in the brain, and therefore, lack “reality.”

And this theoretical conclusion is a function of — perspective!

As I said before, modern thought (particularly scientific) is built upon the theoretical notion that the physical world is the cause and everything else is the effect. Well, if the very foundation of your discovery process isn’t based on accuracy, how far will your experiments take you in the expansion of your knowledge and understanding?

The heart of the current scientific model is that we can “observe the truth of reality.” Well now-a-days, there is a whole lot of reality that we cannot directly observe with our senses, but we can observe or measure them with instruments. Could there be more “reality” that we cannot yet observe or measure?

So our awareness is separated from where we came from and where we are going. Our physical senses also separate us from perceiving the whole of, at least — the light spectrum. Our physical bodies are physically separate from one another, as far as we can tell through our senses.

So — even if we believe in an eternal spirit, we are both consciously and physically separated from the experience of knowing it, so we become deeply identified with our physical bodies. It’s just an inevitable part of being here.

This doesn’t mean that we cannot experience the eternal spiritual reality — I am just pointing out that it isn’t the norm. Such described experiences fall under the woo-woo category as the rest of the population thinks, “Yeah right, I’ll believe it when I see it!”

Okay. Except — you can only see .0035 percent of the entire light spectrum.

So, you cannot see 99.9965 percent of what we know exists.

Funny, huh?

The other part of this that makes it more wild (just in case that wasn’t wild enough for you), is a new field of study in neuroscience called ‘pattern recognition’. Here scientists are studying how the brain interprets the signals coming in through the eyes via the visual cortex.

Seeing is not quite what we think. It is not merely observation of what’s ‘out there.’ Seeing is actually a process by which light signals come in through the eyes, and the visual cortex of the brain then interprets those signals with ‘pattern recognition’. The brain then creates a picture inside of what is ‘out there.’ This means that when our eyes pick up on vibrational signals that fall outside of the pattern recognition process of our brains, we won’t see something that is ‘out there!'

For example: there is a Hawaiian story of a Kahuna noticing a different pattern in the ocean water that had never been seen before. He understood that something was moving the water, but he could not see what was causing the water to move. It took him a few days of meditation before he could see what was causing the new pattern: It was a giant sailing ship. And because he hadn’t seen one before, his brain was unable to use pattern recognition to interpret the light signals, making the ship invisible to him! It was his ability to wonder, “what am I not seeing?” that allowed him to finally see the ship.

The implications of this — are huge.

This automatic, instant neurological interpretation of light signals makes this experience of life possible. And it also creates a perceptual prison for our awareness and our creative potential — IF we are unwilling to question our perspective.

This process currently has us perceiving that the complex interaction of energy waves that we pick up on with our eyes — is a myriad of solid, unchangeable, separate things.

Yet quantum physics tells us that these seemingly solid, unchangeable, separate things are actually just space and energy — which is a fluid, constantly changing and entirely connected whole.

It’s interesting, isn’t it?

We have a collective connotation of reality — reality is that thing ‘out there’ that is a given, unchangeable norm. Yet if that reality is created by our individual and collective minds, and then interpreted (and pictured!) by our brains — then an unchangeable ‘reality’ is much less pervasive than we think. In fact — a given, unchangeable norm might not even exist.

To bring it back to where we began, it is our perception of separation that leads to identification with the physical body, which leads to the fear of annihilation, which leads to the myopic focus on ‘the greatest threat’.

The underlying belief is that this experience is not divinely guided by a benevolent intelligence greater than our own. This one fundamental belief can only create an experience of reality that is full of insecurity, anxiety and a sense of being under constant threat.

The sense of reality that we have about the world here on earth is entirely a product of our mind. Because we create and interpret reality through our minds.

We reap what we sow. We get what we think about. Energy flows where attention goes. Because your brain is both a transmitter and receiver of frequency — and everything is energy vibrating at different frequencies.

And the strongest collective frequency collapses the wave form into particles. Aka: “physical reality.”

“The greatest threat” is the incorrect perception that we are vulnerable, that anything in this world could destroy or change our eternal spirits or the eternal creation.

So I will say it again:

Considering that ‘the greatest threat’ exists within our own minds, then it stands to reason that a real warrior would take seriously the intentional focusing of their own mind on what we could call faith. More specifically, a warrior would focus their minds on the intentional eradication of all fear and anxiety from his or her own being.

What does that ultimately boil down to?

It boils down to an intentional cultivation of an unwavering trust in a benevolent creative intelligence that is much greater than our own. This is achieved through cultivating a felt oneness with existence. And whenever we find fear and anxiety within our minds and hearts, we do battle there first. We consciously and continually depose the despots of fear, insecurity and anxiety within us and reestablish our trust in creation.

Indeed, this is a very honorable duty.

It struck me that anyone with a physical injury received the love, attention, and care they needed to heal. Support from the community overflowed. Yet when the wound was emotional, society offered little recognition or guidance.

Without that societal awareness, when I inevitably acted outside of accepted norms, I wasn’t met with compassion or offered tools for healing. Instead, I was called unstable, labeled with diagnoses, and prescribed drugs to numb my capacity to think and feel. None of that helped, of course — it only deepened my sense of alienation.

For many in my generation, unacknowledged emotional trauma left us silently suffering. Yet over time awareness has grown, inspiring a deeper understanding of trauma, as well as the development of effective ways to resolve it. These methods and the awareness that created them are still on the fringe of society — so the work of emotional healing can still seem elusive.

As recognition has grown, the cultural pendulum has swung in the opposite direction. Rather than being unfamiliar with emotional trauma, displays of emotional reactivity are now often protected. And the younger generations tend to over-accommodate, tiptoeing around one another, afraid to cause “hurt feelings.” Catering to each other’s wounds isn’t much better than ignorance — both responses enable the root cause of suffering to fester, untouched.

We now see this pattern across many areas of modern life, where efforts to shield others from emotional discomfort obscure the deeper work of inner transformation. Consider, for example, the growing sensitivity around identity and language. While words carry meaning and power, emotional pain doesn’t arise from language itself. Instead, it reflects a profound inner conflict — one rooted in self-acceptance, belonging, and the tension between who we are and who we believe we should be. Because this conflict does not originate in language, changing the language cannot resolve the pain.

When our sense of self depends upon external validation, even well-intentioned social adjustments can increase confusion by diverting attention from the true source of suffering. It does not lie in external labels, but in the discrepancy between our true nature and the ideals we’ve been taught to embody. This struggle is so pervasive that many do not even fit within their own ideas of what it means to be a man or a woman, a boy or a girl. The dissonance that this creates within the psyche is far more painful than the superficial use of language.

This topic is close to my heart, because I never fit in with my own ideas of what it meant to be a girl. My ideas were simplistic and based upon what I observed: girls liked to dress up, wear makeup, go shopping and gossip. I didn’t like any of those things. I preferred exploring nature, dancing in thunderstorms, rescuing worms, climbing trees, and swinging on monkey bars. I was fierce at street hockey, could do more than 10 pull-ups, and was unafraid to throw down any boy who thought teasing me was fun.

When I looked around, every indication suggested that I was more like the boys than the girls, despite my female form. Back then, the term ‘tomboy’ was used to describe girls like me — so I labeled myself thus and moved on.

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Labeling ourselves when we are young creates a foundation for building our sense of self. Even just knowing that my body was female gave me a sense of stability. Had anyone told me that I could change my body to match how I behaved, it would have caused unnecessary confusion and pain. I might have concluded that I should have been a boy — and that belief would have haunted me, making me feel as though I had been born wrong.

Though the external labels “female” and “tomboy” were a beginning, they couldn’t answer the deeper questions stirring within me. Admittedly, my earlier years were turbulent for reasons not everyone shares, but much of my suffering came from not knowing who I was or why I was here. These are fundamental questions I believe most of us begin asking in our youth.

Yet instead of supporting young people in their search for self and meaning, society diverts their quest — by encouraging them to construct their identity from external or imagined concepts, rather than guiding them inward toward the discovery of who they already are. This approach leads our youth to anchor their sense of self in illusion, rather than essence — an essence that cannot be reduced to or limited by any physical form.

We further complicate matters by asking others to affirm fabricated identities, unintentionally reinforcing illusion at the expense of authenticity. It’s a tender mistake — one that confuses validation for healing. Yet this neither resolves the alienation of not belonging nor fosters the development of an intrinsic sense of self. Ultimately, each time we encourage identification with an idea, we pull the soul further from its own center.

In the end, society leaves young people chasing a mirage, calling it altruism while quietly undermining their becoming. To mistake appeasement for compassion is not kindness — but a subtle cruelty that delays true self-discovery and actualization.

My words are direct because I am devoted to facilitating healing and integration — especially for those who suffer because they don’t fit into cultural molds. That was my experience, and I too endured the inevitable rejection and cruelty that arise from standing apart. It was unpleasant, yes, but it also revealed something profound: many of our cultural values are painfully superficial. I didn’t envy the children who conformed to them — I felt sorry for them — seeing that their belonging came at the cost of discovering their inner authority.

So, if you struggle because you don’t fit into society’s expectations, I understand. I also understand the temptation to build a sense of self from imagined concepts. What you are longing for is freedom — the freedom to simply be yourself, without the constraint of pre-defined norms or the pressure to belong anywhere but within the sanctuary of your own sovereignty.

Yet when we construct identity from external ideas, the freedom we seek remains illusive. This approach simply cannot offer the confidence and security that arise from true self knowledge.

There is also a simple and liberating truth waiting to be remembered: regardless of the physical body we inhabit, each of us embodies both masculine and feminine energies. To avoid confusion, we might call them yin and yang — complementary expressions of the same whole.

These energies naturally shift throughout our lives — and even through the course of a single day. With one friend, we may embody a protective and supportive role; with another, a nurturing and intuitive one. Physical gender does not limit this expression. We are free to be who we are — regardless of the expectations attached to gender, race, culture or age. Social norms may influence us, but they cannot define us. Only we can do that — with the ideas we hold about ourselves.

This realization is liberating because ideas are easy to change. When we discover that we do not fit in with our own ideas, we can expand them to embrace our current sense of self. Allowing our self-concept to evolve over time is both natural and healthy.

And when we don’t fit in with the ideological structure of society, we often serve a vital role — encouraging society itself to mature. Nonconformists are catalysts for cultural growth.

At its heart, non-conformity honors individual freedom of expression: you get to be you, and I get to be me. The moment either of us insist that the other adopt the same view, that freedom is lost. If we truly value the freedom to be ourselves, we must offer that same grace to others — without demand or expectation.

True freedom is not found by fitting in; it is found by owning what lives within our own mind and heart. And like true healing, it begins when we stop seeking external validation and turn inward — to transform the beliefs that obscure our wholeness and prevent us from fully becoming.

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This brings us back to the essence of emotional healing. To heal the emotional body, we must first uncover the source of our pain. At the core of feeling inferior because we don’t “fit in” lies a simple truth: we do not yet love and accept ourselves as we are.

Ultimately, this is a lesson each of us must learn — we are intrinsically lovable and worthy. We do not have to earn our value. Our beliefs alone determine whether we feel lovable or unlovable. Formed in the mind, those beliefs regulate whether the heart opens to share love or closes to reject it. This highlights the need to consciously examine and reframe beliefs to resolve emotional pain. When we hold limiting beliefs, we inevitably experience the emotions that correspond to them: insecurity, shame, fear, or separation. When we consciously shift our beliefs toward those that open the heart, feelings of love, peace and joy naturally follow.

One common belief is that we cannot love and accept ourselves unless we are first loved and accepted by others. Yet the truth is the inverse: until we fully embrace ourselves, we cannot give or receive love unconditionally.

Conditional love is not actually love — it is merely the ability to strike a bargain. We bargain for this mediocre substitute because we are cut off from the source of Love within us — which is simply the result of hearts that are guarded against the natural unfolding of life. So we come to believe that we can only receive love from the outside, reducing ourselves to beggars peddling false commodities.

This illustrates how beliefs give rise to our feelings and actions — revealing the subtle, all-pervading power of perception — and the mind as our greatest tool for conscious self-development. But intellectual understanding is only the doorway. Healing and integration require practice: a conscious reorientation toward self-awareness, healthy boundaries, and the steady cultivation of confidence in our own worth.

A sutra of the Buddha illustrates this beautifully: “Love yourself and watch — today, tomorrow, always.” The sequence is revealing: loving oneself precedes the ‘watching’ of meditation. After all, how can we truly witness our inner workings if we have not yet learned to hold ourselves, without judgment, in love and compassion?

This returns us to the primacy of self-responsibility. Healing requires full accountability for our own beliefs, thoughts, and feelings — while gently releasing the illusion that we are responsible for others. Only then can we clearly perceive what belongs to us and what does not.

For example, while I never intend to diminish or demean anyone, I recognize that certain interactions may stir painful beliefs within another’s psyche. Though this can feel uncomfortable, I do not need to take responsibility for their pain. Instead, I can meet them with honesty and compassion: “It was not my intention to hurt you. What did you hear me say?” Such dialogue opens the way to understanding, clarity, and connection — all of which facilitate awareness and healing.

Some people do attempt to intentionally hurt or demean others with their words and actions. Yet even then, the pain does not come from what was said or done — it arises from the negative beliefs we have internalized. A bully cannot make me believe something untrue about myself — nor can their apology erase the beliefs I already hold. Only I have the power to do that.

I was thoroughly unpopular in my formative years, but that was not the source of my pain. The cruelty of other children merely reflected my inner state. My early home environment often felt threatening, and through those experiences I adopted negative beliefs about myself and the world. These beliefs became the source of my suffering, as I interpreted reality through a hostile lens. While I had no control over those early years, I eventually realized that I could change my beliefs.

Before the age of eight, our brains function primarily in theta and delta wave states — slow, deeply receptive frequencies that allow us to learn through absorption rather than reasoning. In this hypnotic openness, we take in our experiences as reality, without the capacity to question our interpretation of them. These formative years lay the foundation of our subconscious belief system — the structure upon which we build both our inner and outer lives.

Fortunately, as adults, we can consciously revise these programs once we recognize they no longer serve us. Spoken affirmations, tapping, EMDR, brain-spotting, and other reprogramming methods that engage these same brain wave states are powerful tools. For me, they were essential. They created space within my awareness, allowing me to respond rather than react when an old wound was triggered.

Of course, none of this happens overnight. Emotional healing takes time. In a culture conditioned for instant gratification, the slow and often messy work of transformation can feel frustratingly foreign. I never found any easy, quick-fix solutions for resolving emotional turmoil. I had to move consciously through each painful belief, one at a time. There are no bypass roads around this. I’ve been traveling this path for over twenty years, and at times, it has felt bleak, impossible, and endless.

My own journey was far from graceful — it was often chaotic, irrational, and painfully human. More than once, I found myself in heaving sobs, curled up on the bathroom floor, certain that life wasn’t getting any better — that I wasn’t getting any better. In the beginning, I often reverted to behaviors that can only be described as absolute madness. You may hear the stories someday. My middle sister and I once had a fight so explosive, it could have shamed Jerry Springer’s guests, had anyone been there to record it. And yet, she and I were close. Another day, I sobbed to her, “I wish that I was normal! I just want to be normal!” No doubt, my sisters have often felt the same way.

My husband has witnessed a bit of my crazy behavior too — a more mature and subdued version, mind you. Luckily, he can match it, so I’ve never felt embarrassed by my own perceived inadequacies. “Crazy behavior” is nothing more than a wounded emotional body in action — repeating unconscious, irrational, and destructive patterns when triggered.

In the beginning, my husband and I duked it out often — the unspoken contest of who had the deepest emotional wounds. Not that we consciously fought about it, but underneath every argument, it was something like this:

“I am way more hurt than you, and I deserve concession!”

“No way!!! You don’t know anything about how hurt I feel, you think it’s all about you! What about ME?!?”

When our daughter came along, everything shifted. We both suddenly thought far less about ourselves and far more about her. And wouldn’t you know it? A giant part of emotional healing was simply getting over myself — letting go of my identification with being victimized, which had long justified my irrational behavior.

Thank you, Juniper, for teaching me this lesson. While it was easy to excuse cold or harsh behavior toward a man whose tone could be sharp and expression unwavering — acting like a petulant child in front of our newborn gave me a

v-e-r-y l-o-n-g p-a-u-s-e.

Ohhhhhhhh — the emotional defense card doesn’t work here. If I act out against her father, it does not hurt just him — it hurts her. And I was simply unwilling to reduce her to collateral damage.

So, I got over myself. And I keep getting over myself. This tool is called humility — the willingness and ability to lay down one’s weapons and armor because one finally sees that all battles are destructive to life.

That moment marked the beginning of my journey with self-mastery — when love for my daughter collided with my awareness, I was emboldened to discover where I was out of integrity with my own values. I was no longer willing to excuse my destructive beliefs, emotions or behaviors — because I recognized that their expression diminished her.

With this new courage and purpose, I discovered one supreme tool for healing the emotional body: I place my conscious attention in my physical body the moment an emotional wound gets triggered. When I feel it, I can heal it.

If your feelings are triggered by someone else, it reveals an existing wound in your emotional body. It was not inflicted by the other person; they only revealed what was already there. To believe otherwise is a form of self-deception that wreaks havoc in all relationships. The purpose of the outer world is simply to bring into view a belief that no longer serves you. Be grateful for these experiences — and turn your attention within.

This, I believe, is the deeper meaning of turning the other cheek. It doesn’t mean repressing emotion or striving to be “the bigger person.” Rather, it is the natural result of realizing that the real insult — the real injury — lies within our acceptance and enactment of false beliefs. The outer world is only a mirror. If there were no pain within, there would be nothing to trigger.

The practice itself is conceptually simple, yet remarkably challenging in application. The trick is this: when my mind attempts to hijack my attention with tangents or excuses, I interrupt it — gently but firmly — and bring my awareness into my body, into the physical sensations of emotion.

It is the light of awareness that heals the emotional body as it squirms uncomfortably in its exposure. The power of conscious attention — used to observe pain rather than avoid it — is the very force that transforms us.

I dare say, it’s the only thing that truly heals.

When I do this practice, it often feels as though an ugly part of myself has been pinned up for examination. This in-lighten-ing of the darkness within is uncomfortable — often accompanied by waves of shame, guilt, or regret. Yet if you truly want to heal, you must stay with it. Those feelings too are rooted in false beliefs, and they tempt you to abandon the path to freedom.

So you must decide: which do you value more — the comfort of the known or freedom from suffering?

Once you move through the discomfort full attention brings, you can begin to discern the underlying belief and replace it with a more constructive idea.

It is important to remember that our reactions to emotional wounds are habitual. These automatic responses bypass conscious awareness and engage the survival brain — a useful adaptation when facing physical danger, but often misplaced in modern life. A harsh word or judgment is not a tiger in the grass, yet the body responds as if it were. This is why maintaining conscious awareness in moments of perceived threat is difficult.

It is difficult. And it is necessary.

Each time we recall our awareness in the midst of emotional turmoil, we forge a new neural pathway. At first, it is a narrow gravel road beside the well-worn highway of old reactions. But with repetition, that road widens and smooths. Over time, it becomes the main road, while the old reactive patterns crack and fade away.

When that shift takes hold, my friend, the work becomes easier. You are no longer riding the emotional rollercoaster — you are standing on solid ground, watching others still caught in its loops and drops. As a calm observer, you become the living example that there is another way. They too can step off the ride whenever they are ready.

This state of awareness is not to be confused with imperviousness, callousness, or emotional numbness. On the contrary, you will feel deeply —yet remain fully present with those feelings without mistaking them for who you are. There is always a middle path to walk: neither repression nor reactivity. You are not running away, nor are you armored. You are vulnerable, open and fully present.

There will come a day when someone calls you cruel names or accuses you of terrible intentions — and it will not hurt your feelings. Not because you have hardened, but because you have healed. In that moment, you will see clearly: the other person is hurting and projecting their pain outward because they are not yet ready to take responsibility for themselves. Instead of taking offense, you will feel compassion for their lack of awareness — which you once shared.

In conclusion, you do not have to endlessly dig through the weeds of your past to find healing. You can, but it did not do much to shift me personally. What transforms me most is the simple act of staying present with whatever emotion arrives at the roundtable of my heart.

In one moment, grief may knock on the door, and instead of escaping into distraction, I sit with her. The next moment, resentment barges in, and I pull up a chair to listen. Fear, doubt, helplessness — I greet them all and give them my full attention. In the light of awareness, the emotions calm and I discover that I am not my emotions. It is then that they lose their hold over me.

And wouldn’t you know it? It was my unconscious identification with suffering — and my attempts to deny or outrun it — that kept it alive and prevented my healing. As the continual discovery goes: I was doing it to myself.

This reveals the hidden cost of the victim mentality — a belief so deeply woven into our culture that we often mistake it for truth. When I see myself as a victim of life or others, I dismiss my intrinsic power and build a prison of my own making. The only escape is to abandon victimhood and take full responsibility for how I show up in the world. No excuses, no blame — just awareness, humility, and conscious choice.

To sum it up:

Keep this question close at heart — Do I want the comfort of repetition and victimhood or do I want to heal and become free from suffering?

If you want freedom, here are the tools I’ve mentioned:

• Interrupt patterns: Break up the habitual energy of destructive feelings and beliefs through spoken affirmations, tapping, EMDR, brain-spotting, or other reprogramming methods that utilize theta and delta brain waves.

• Cultivate humility: Ask yourself — do I want to be right or do I want to be happy?

• Bring awareness into your body: Root your full attention in the physical sensations of emotion while letting go of the mental stories. Stay with the sensations until the emotional intensity dissolves.

• Reframe beliefs: When calm returns, examine the belief that fueled the emotion and replace it with one that supports peace and growth.

Every human being will one day come to the same recognition: no amount of external approval, identification, or belonging can substitute for self-acceptance. The moment we see this clearly, we begin to align with personal integrity rather than imitation. This integration — the journey back to wholeness — is the crux of all healing.

Healing is the process of uncovering who we truly are beneath the pain, the mental stories, and the layers of false identity. The wholeness of my being was never absent; it was only obscured by beliefs that told me I was broken, unfixable, and unworthy to become.

As I turned inward, I began to realize that bringing my awareness to my wounds and false beliefs is how I pull the beam from my own “I” — so that I can see clearly to help remove the beam from my brother’s “I.” This is the freedom that self-awareness and mastery bring: the capacity to see without distortion, to love without condition, to feel without being consumed, and to meet life fully — with an open and conscious heart.

Freedom from suffering is not a destination, but a continual practice of returning — again and again — to presence, humility, and authenticity. In that return, a peace that passeth all understanding begins to flourish. The long search for emotional healing dissolves in the present moment, when I use my freedom to turn my attention within. This is the essence of self-mastery: to reclaim power over my own mind and heart — while surrendering all attempts to control external conditions and other people.

This is where I am going.

Do you want to come with me?

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Yet when it comes to speaking one’s truth, there are some deeper considerations.

The biggest challenge we face in speaking our truth, is the tendency in our culture to define absolutes. We tend to become very attached to our own perspectives, equating our views with who we are and with the truth of reality.

In the most obvious example, a person can develop a dogmatic or extremist mindset. This is marked by a rigid mentality - where exposure to new information doesn’t broaden one’s perspective, but instead triggers the need to defend it at all costs. People like this will tend to foist their perspectives on others. Their basic motivation is the preservation of their sense of self or their sense of reality, and in the process they are more than willing to diminish others. One could say that this kind of person “speaks their truth” and doesn’t “lie by omission”. And if you read my last article, you might have concluded that I am suggesting that this kind of person creates harmony in life. But I wouldn’t consider this an honest expression of one’s truth. For one, these ‘truths’ are often adopted from external sources. And this kind of expression is unbalanced because it lacks awareness of, or respect for, the simple fact that everyone sees the world from their own perspective.

So, I would like to set the stage with this: We each have an individual perspective and understanding of life. Our individual perspectives are the result of our personal life experiences, as well as our interpretations of those experiences. This means two things:

1. Everyone’s perspective is valid, and

2. Everyone’s perspective is different.

Our unique life experiences, combined with our personal interpretations, create intricate inner kaleidoscopes through which each of us view our shared world.

So, even though we tend to define and cling to absolutes, we can recognize that what we see through our individual perspective is NOT ABSOLUTE. This doesn’t negate the possibility of an underlying, unified truth - only that we cannot fully grasp it through the lens of our personal perspectives. When we believe our own perspective is the absolute truth, we automatically assume that other perspectives are wrong. I wrote more about the division this causes in The Woe of Being Right.

Expressing your truth begins with self knowledge - an awareness of what you think and how you feel in any given moment. A balanced expression of your truth also requires understanding that everyone else’s perspective is inherently different. With that in mind, communicating your perspective becomes much more effective when you consider the following:

1. What is your intention?

2. Are you talking about yourself or others?

3. Are you asking questions instead of making assumptions?

4. How clear is your mind within the conversation?

Let’s start with number one. When speaking your truth, what is your motivation? Is it to defend your sense of self? Is it because you think your viewpoint is the absolute truth? Is it because you want the other person to see things the same way that you see them? Any intention in which you want to defend your sense of self, your sense of reality or you want another person to adopt your view, is what I would call an impure intention. The reason is twofold:

1. You are trying to impose your perspective on someone else who has their own perspective, and

2. You are willing to diminish their view in order to validate the absoluteness of your own view. In other words, you are willing to put others down in order to raise your limited sense of self. (Identification with your perspective.)

With this definition, a pure intention is one that seeks to uplift all of life, including other people - not by allowing yourself to be treated like a doormat, but by refusing to treat others that way. And this can be subtle. In fact, it becomes more subtle as you go. Sometimes, expressing your opinion serves no real purpose beyond validating your sense of self or your sense of reality. Other times, withholding your perspective can diminish you, the relationship, and life itself. Speaking your truth might occasionally hurt someone’s well-being, yet staying silent might deprive them of the chance to grow. There are also times when someone simply is not willing or able to receive what you are sharing - and I have learned to respect that, for it is their choice.

There is no absolute rule to figuring out if what you want to share will be uplifting or diminishing. You have to be mindful, introspective and increase your self awareness as you go. In my case, I tend toward withholding and silence. So when I am withholding something that would serve life, I may feel a knot in my throat and emotionally guarded - yet everything inside of me is urging me to speak. For someone who tends to be open, and freely shares their thoughts and opinions: the lesson may be to examine the purity of their intent while pausing to consider the effect of sharing their perspective.

Another consideration in the expression of one’s truth is cultivating an ability to communicate about ourselves instead of other people. The tendency to attack the character of other people and name call is rampant in our culture. Talking negatively about others nullifies the intrinsic power of self knowledge and accountability. It is common in our world to blame other people and external circumstances for our own state of being. It feels like a get-out-of-jail-free card, but really, it’s an eternal-slavery card. For as long as we are not in control of our own state of being, our state of being is at the mercy of everything else. I wrote more about this in Radical Responsibility.

Our impulse to cast blame is what leads us to talk about other people. You can see this play out at a personal level in everyday conversations with friends and family: “She said…..!”, “He did….!”, “They are…!!!”. The same pattern appears collectively as fingers point at that other religion, that other political party and those other people - in order to place the blame for our own inner turbulence - elsewhere. Recognizing this illusion can be very subtle, because when someone attacks you verbally or otherwise - surely, you have a great reason to be upset. Yet I am not interested in your reasons.

I am interested in your freedom.

To give an example of how I might talk about someone else instead of myself, I may remark, “You’re so needy!” - when speaking my truth would actually be saying, “I want to be alone right now.” These two sentences are trying to communicate the same thing. But as you can see, talking about myself has much more power - because it isn’t offensive, and it isn’t refutable.

Talking about others usually doesn’t bring about the desired result. This became clear to me as a parent. I used to say to my child, “You are tired, you need to go to bed.” But just the fact that I am talking about her opens my statement to opposition, “But mom! I am NOT tired!” It has been a wonderful learning experience. Now I say, “I am tired, and I am going to bed in 10 minutes. If you want me to tuck you in, you need to be ready in 8 minutes.” See? Nothing to refute. And the bonus: she is magically ready for bed in 8 minutes because she is very motivated to meet her own need.

Let me tell you a story to highlight these concepts.

I hike my dogs off leash. The other day, my boy dog lost track of me, and I had to go looking for him. A man on the trail said, “Are you looking for your dog? He went that way.” I said, “Thank you.” He then said, “It’s too bad you let your dog get away from you.” To which I responded, “Yeah, he usually keeps very good track of me.”

But I noticed that his comment bothered me because he was judging this scenario as ‘bad’ on my part. I watched my mind note how his off leash dog, a German Shepherd, is bred for protection and stays nearby, while my dogs are bred to run ahead and flush birds. My mind explained to me that my dogs do keep very good track of me, 99% of the time - and that yes, that is their job. (This idea is counter to our culture, so I didn’t really expect him to have that view.) But as you can see, my mind was using all of it’s resources to defend my sense of being a “good dog owner.”

I could go on to relate this story to you, and talk about how grumpy that man was or how off-putting. I could mention how easy it was for him to rattle off his judgement in that quick passing, where no conversation was imminent. I could say that it was such a cop-out, surmising that he must be weak, and go on about how rude some people can be. And what would I be doing? I would be talking about HIM.

And I don’t actually know anything about him. Instead, I could talk about me. I could tell you: I felt diminished in that moment, looked down upon. I could tell you that this shows some attachment in me to how I am perceived by others. I might mention that I intend to continue to see these attachments and let them go. I might also admit that I want to uplift others in my interactions with them, and since that interaction did not seem to be uplifting for him, I feel a bit disappointed. I could say the feeling of disappointment leads me to wonder what I could have done differently. And in all of that communication, you would actually learn something about me. This conversation would engender intimacy between us.

It is also interesting to note that when he mentioned how it was ‘bad’ that I let my dog get away from me - he was talking about me! I don’t know what his truth was in that moment because he didn’t share it! It could have been that he felt stressed about his dog’s reaction to Max running by them. If that was the case, he could have said, “Your dog ran that way. He passed us and my dog felt protective, acting aggressively toward your dog, and I felt very stressed. You may want to keep your dog closer to you for his safety.” THAT is a very different way of talking that actually leads to understanding. Now I have information about him and about a potential scenario, which may encourage me to keep Max closer at that park. The point of communication is to understand one another. Not necessarily to agree, but to understand. The purpose of sharing one’s truth, is communion.

To COME INTO UNION.

So you can see, can you not, that when we talk about others, it usually springs from an impure intention. In the case above, I am defending my limited (and very unimportant) sense of self against someone else. By necessity, I must look down on him to raise up my view of being ‘a good dog owner’. When I am pitting myself against someone else, or something that they said - I am motivated by a sense of separation from them. This obviously creates division between us.

So we have gone over two considerations in sharing our truth:

1. The purity of our intention and

2. Talking about ourselves.

The third consideration is intertwined with the second: asking questions instead of making assumptions. I am making an assumption any time I talk about someone else. In the case above, if I told you that guy was grumpy and blowing off some steam - that IS an ASSUMPTION, unless and until he expresses it to me himself.

In a common scenario, if someone speaks to me with an intense voice at a loud decibel, I could ask: “You seem upset. Did I do something?” This does two things that encourage understanding: it tells the person about my perspective, and it asks them about theirs. This is real communication. Any time I have ever used this, the other person immediately speaks more softly, admits that it has nothing to do with me & then clarifies the cause of their frustration. They know where I am, and now I know where they are. Marvelous.

The last consideration in speaking your truth is the clarity of your mind. In the story of Max losing me, I didn’t have mental clarity because my mind was busy defending my sense of self. Had I tried to share ‘my truth’ with that man at the time, it would have been nothing but self defense or counter attack. On the other hand, if my mind had not gone on that tangent, I might have had the clarity to ask, “Oh, did he startle you?” In which case, I would be working toward communion with this other person, instead of working for the defense of my self image.

This makes me wonder rather sheepishly, are there other people in this world who would instantly know to ask such a question?

Oftentimes for me, it is in retrospect that I can see clearly the workings of a scenario. This increases self awareness going forward, and I will gradually remember to work toward communion with others by asking them about their perspective or experience - particularly when they say something that has nothing to do with either.

These considerations in speaking your truth are plenty to ponder for now. Here they are again for reference:

• What is your intention?

• Are you sharing something about yourself or are you talking about someone else?

• Are you making any assumptions?

• And, how clear is your mind within the situation?

I will be writing more posts about communication because it is an area that is ripe for improvement in each of us and in our society. My aim will be to come into union with others & to assist you in doing the same.

In this post, I would like to take you on a journey of a deeper consideration of honesty and deceit. In so doing, I hope to inspire within you a commitment to be honest with yourself and by extension, others. Not to uphold some ideal moral code, but rather because this one choice determines what you create in your life. In using deception, you build a life around you that is out of harmony with you and so becomes uninspired and flat. On the other hand, committing yourself to honesty builds a life around you that you love and enjoy.

For all of my readers who have already made a commitment to honesty, the ideas in this post might be obvious to you. (I am actually really curious about this). What might not be obvious to you is why other people use deception - and this post may give you a peak into that reality.

First off, I will not say that deception is ‘bad’. In our current world, there are times when a lie could be life saving. I learned deception at a young age, and for me, it was an undeniable form of self protection. So this is an important point: I cannot tell you when a lie might save you from danger or abuse. Only you can discern that for yourself. If you are in a dangerous situation, and you can use deception to save yourself and others, please do! I will caution you, however - my perception of ‘danger’ continued even after my situation changed, and I was no longer in any real danger. So, discernment of your conditions versus your perception is important to develop.

When I moved in with my aunt and uncle before the start of middle school, I had this understanding: lying is a useful and necessary protection. My aunt had a very different perspective of lying. To her, lying blocked intimacy and eroded our relationship. My aunt was very clear at expressing her displeasure with my lying, and she readily doled out negative consequences when she caught me in a lie. This once protective habit produced negativity and drama in my new life. I had to re-orient myself.

Some years after beginning my ‘adult’ life, I was able to see that I also lied by omission. Also a hangover from my formative years, I used silence and withholding as a protective mechanism. If I didn’t communicate with you, I put distance between us, so you could not ‘hurt’ me. Silence, when I have something that I want to say, prevents me from full participation in a relationship. I might also lie by omission if I assume you will not like what I have to say. In this case, I am erroneously taking responsibility for your reaction, which is not mine to take.

When I lived with my aunt and uncle during my teenage years, I was not yet even aware of how I withheld my perspective from others. Withholding was just an automatic, habitual response to life. I couldn’t reveal my truth, even to those who treated me with love - because intimacy felt dangerous to me. Experiencing abuse during my youngest years created a misperception that all other people were antagonistic. For me and my sisters, it wasn’t just our step mother who was abusive. It was also the babysitters she chose, the kids at school who made fun of us because we were different, and the middle school bully who beat up elementary school children walking to and from school. That was basically the whole of our world.

It took me decades of living in different conditions, with different people, for me to even see these once protective habits - and then begin the work of changing them. With perhaps another decade of life experience, I was able to see that I also lied for less significant reasons: approval & and avoiding conflict. Growth in self awareness takes time.

When we use deception in any form, we unwittingly create fake, empty relationships - and by extension, a fake and empty life. It is detrimental to our sense of self, as the continual disallowance of honest openness with ourselves and others erodes our self knowledge, our self confidence and ultimately, our self reliance. We do not know who we are, what we think or feel, and we become dependent upon other people’s opinions of us. This is one of the most disempowering circumstances we can create for ourselves.

On the other hand, when we commit ourselves to saying what we mean and meaning what we say, we free ourselves from the reactions and opinions of others. The first time I was able to voice my perspective in a heated discussion, I was amazed at how little the other person’s reaction to my honesty mattered to me. When I had finally come to that tipping point, I was overwhelmed by a deep feeling of love and respect - for myself.

I had always assumed that I loved myself. I never belittled myself, I was never hard on myself - life was hard enough! It wasn’t until my mid twenties, when I tried saying, “I love you” in the mirror, that I was able to observe my own mental and emotional arguments to this statement. I was very surprised! “Holy crap!” I thought, “Do I NOT love myself?” I reasoned that this was the left over residue from my youngest years, in which I wasn’t treated with love. I must have taken that upon myself, so a belief that I was ‘unlovable’ was etched into my subconscious, and I didn’t even know it was there!!!

Yet my commitment to honest expression within relationships revealed to me that saying “I love you” in the mirror is NOT the same as actually treating myself with love and respect. It merely begins the reprogramming of the subconscious belief. It cracks opens the door to the actualization of self love - which seems to be, first and foremost, a commitment to live and express one’s own truth in the present moment of one’s unfolding life.

As I said earlier, my transition from deceit to honesty has been a continual evolution of thirty years. We tend to imagine that change happens instantaneously. While I do think that some inner shifts can be experienced this way - the vast majority of my learning has been a gradual process. When I understand that learning and integration are gradual, I am less likely to get discouraged and give up. I personally felt so frustrated for so many years that I was not yet ‘enlightened’. My inner suffering was continual. I was not at peace. I didn’t get it, I wasn’t getting it, and I wanted it so badly - so where the heck was the sudden “Poof!-Everything-makes-sense?!’’ Where was my instant gratification?!?!

Looking back, I can see clearly how far I have come. I have had some sudden realizations that have immediately shifted my perspective. However, the integration of these still took time. Mostly, the revelations have been a gradual expansion of my perspective as I have continued to ponder a given topic.

It takes time to grow in self-awareness. To even NOTICE automatic behaviors, it often also takes new life experiences. My life has changed radically, over and over again. Yet wherever I went, there I was. At some point, I could no longer believe that the outside world was responsible for that which I was carrying with me wherever I went. Change fosters growth in self awareness, for the simple reason that it allows you to see yourself from different perspectives.

What I discovered in this necessary accumulation of life experience, is that my use of deception as an adult created a life around me that was disharmonious to me and fraught with internal and external drama. It’s like this: my mind is a lens. My truth lives inside of me, and it is projected onto the screen of the outside world through the lens of my mind. Deception creates cracks in the lens, so the projected image becomes scattered and chaotic. Honesty, on the other hand, creates a clear, clean lens in which the projected image matches my resonating heart. The latter, once experienced, feels glorious.

Deception can also play out as a misinterpretation of reality. In this case, your misinterpretation deceives you. This means that your understanding and behavior are based on fallacy. I have also experienced this a great deal. As I said earlier, when I moved in with my aunt and uncle I was still perceiving danger, although it was no longer there. This can be equated to dirt on my lens, or an overlay of an assumed reality which prevents me from seeing clearly. As such, disentangling your interpretation from the world you see before you is vital to clarifying your lens. I have written about this in The Nature of Reality:

In teachings on manifestation, one’s use of honesty versus deception has not been mentioned. Everything in our lives is manifest through our minds. So if we use our minds to deceive and we are unwilling to first acknowledge and then share our truth - we simply cannot create a life that is in harmony with us. Even if we tell only small, justifiable lies - these still create distortions in our lens, and so we project some disharmony onto the screen of our lives. And small distortions tend to become bigger over time.

Here is a simple example: I do not like stuff. Currently, I have too much stuff for my preference. It happened as a matter of course - perhaps to clarify how the maintenance of stuff takes a great deal of time and attention. I personally value my time and attention infinitely more than stuff. Now let’s say that someone gives me a cute trinket to put on a shelf. If I lie and say, “I love it!”, I am creating the distortion in my lens that I love trinkets! So what happens? I project onto the screen of my life the receiving of more trinkets! From my perspective, this equates to a mouth-drying, eye-widening scenario. I tend to nip this in the bud and tell friends and family that I don’t like stuff and that I don’t want any THING for any occasion. If, however, someone does give me a trinket, I can say, “Thank you for thinking about me, and for wanting to give to me from your heart. However, the idea of possessing another thing currently overwhelms me, so please keep the trinket.” Now that person knows my truth and - at the very least - will never gift me with another thing. That person also might share my truth with someone else who is thinking of buying me something. In other words, the projection of my life moves into harmony with me. In this example, the consequences of deceit are relatively insignificant. So let’s consider a significant example.

When I was younger, I agreed to ‘go out’ with boys who asked. This meant calling one another ‘boyfriend’ and ‘girlfriend’, holding hands and spending time together in school. In most cases, I agreed because I wanted these boys to feel lovable, and I was sure that my rejection would cause them to think they were unlovable and unworthy. Lucky for me, I moved past this tendency early on. I figured out that when I didn’t have anything in common with a boy, spending time with them felt like a burden to me, because I actually enjoyed spending time alone. This is called feigning affection, which is lying about being interested in someone.

Let’s say that I never got past this tendency. Perhaps the desire to ‘not hurt feelings’ through rejection was instead coupled with a distain for spending time alone. The consequences of this continual deception might have been marrying a man in whom I wasn’t really interested, having his children and building my whole adult life around this one lie. Over the years, I might harbor deep resentment toward this man, who I blamed for my unhappiness. This resentment would play out in our marriage, reducing the stability of our home and that of our children’s lives. This kind of marriage may also prevent our children from acquiring the ability to build honest relationships in their lives. Obviously, these consequences are far greater than the original impetus to not ‘hurt’ one person’s feelings through honesty.

In both of the above examples, we are talking about the consequences of ONE lie. Yet, as I mentioned, deception stems from a deeper impetus; a need for approval, a fear of revealing one’s truth or a desire to keep the peace - so lying becomes a tool that is used regularly to meet the underlying impetus. So imagine the cumulative damage of telling continual lies and regularly lying by omission. It creates a life that is completely out of harmony with you.

So I will say it again for emphasis: If I am unwilling to first acknowledge and then share my truth, I cannot create a life around me that I love. It turns out that manifestation is not some secret, esoteric teaching and practice that is hard to grasp. It only seems that way from within the confines of a culture that readily uses deception.

Manifestation of a harmonious life is simple. I continually clarify my mind and purify my heart. I use my voice to speak my truth. My spoken word brings my truth into the physical through sound vibration. That vibration moves out from me like a ripple in a pond, affecting my external life, which is also made of vibration. Honesty, from my heart, through a clear mind AND my spoken voice IS that which builds a life around me that I love. In this way, all disharmonious manifestations I created and sustained through deception simply fall away. Like magic.

Your own honesty, with yourself and others, does indeed set you free. Which also means, that your own deception with yourself and others is the very thing that imprisons you. It isn’t the honesty or deception of others, nor of the society in which you live. It is your own use of honesty or deception that frees you or imprisons you. Consider it. Perhaps you will find this as tremendously empowering as I do.

If this topic interests you, you can read more about it in my post Integrity.

I also highly recommend a very illuminating book called “The Way of Integrity” by Martha Beck. In this book, she clarifies her own path from living a stress-filled life built on the need for approval into living a life in harmony with her truth. Her story winds through all the various nuances of deception and their consequences: from lying outright, to lying through silence, to the self deception that happens when we value approval over living our own truth. Her story also takes us through the consequences of her commitment to honesty - from disapproval to threats on her life. Make no mistake, there is a strong beast in the collective consciousness that will haunt you and attack you for valuing your honest expression over fitting in. This can make a commitment to honesty a seemingly treacherous path. So keep it in your mind: it is your own honesty that sets you free & your own use of deception that imprisons you. One day you may reach your own tipping point: where you begin to value your freedom over any conveniences provided through conformity. This is a great moment in your life. Your freedom is well worth the journey.

This one quote ended up in many various photo books I made over the years. It sent shockwaves though my awareness that are still rippling within me to this very day. Yes. I had been focusing on the wrong spot. Even for decades after first reading that suggestion, I still went on focusing outside of myself.

This is a very strong cultural habit. We feel a deep sense of longing, and we interpret that longing as a need to find something outside of ourselves and acquire it. Or do something important outside of ourselves. Or receive something from outside ourselves. Or experience something outside ourselves. As we go after our external desire, our inner longing is used as an unending fuel for the chase. And after our external desire is met, the longing still remains.

Have you noticed? What’s up with that?

You get the thing, experience or relationship you’ve always wanted. And a week/month/year later, the sense satisfaction has washed away & the longing is back in full regalia. And again, you look for something outside of yourself to quench the longing.

Remember: our collective interpretation is that longing is an indication that we need to find something outside of ourselves.

What if this interpretation is wrong? What if longing is not actually a cue to go on an outer search? What if longing is the sound that is calling your attention home to your own Inner Being? What if longing, that loud feeling vibration in your body, IS the X that marks the spot where everything you need is provided to you?

Like a mother out on the porch ringing the dinner bell, so that her kids know to come home for their already prepared dinners, what if longing is Source calling you home for sustenance? Instead of interpreting the ring as a call to begin hunting and gathering outside - no, my friends, dinner is already on the table! The food is warm, nurturing & exactly what you need. The loud vibration of longing could indicate to stop what you are doing outside and come on in for fulfillment.

In my case, Longing came in the guise ‘freedom-from-suffering’. It was at least an inner goal already. I, of course, thought the healing (and freedom) would be found outside of myself. Yet the feeling of suffering existed within me, so at some point it became abundantly clear to me that the only way to deal with it was to move inside. Thus, discovering my inner world via suffering was bound to happen sooner or later. Had Longing captivated me with external trinkets, my search for her satisfaction might have been life long.

When we regularly move our attention inside to the place where we feel longing, we quickly discover what we had been seeking - and more. Longing is the call to come home to the spot inside of us that sustains and fulfills us directly.

In my own case, when I finally brought my full attention to my longing (which existed as a feeling inside of my chest), I discovered oozing wounds, fears & doubts and painful & limiting beliefs. When I cleared away the gunk, I found freedom from suffering. Kinda funny. She had been within me all along. I also found Wholeness, Security, Power, Purity, Beauty and Creative Vision.

The outer path that I had taken away from my Inner Home was pretty treacherous. That ‘outer path’ was paved with the way that I had interpreted life, other people and myself. And so, the only way that I was going to get back to the house for dinner was to walk back the way that I had created. This inner journey is a purification of self - a purification of my own consciousness. Who else is responsible for that? Right? It’s only me. It’s taking radical responsibility that becomes the key to freedom.

The reason why we don’t immediately move inside ourselves when we feel longing is because a great majority of us have treacherous returns, our minds are a tangle of negativity and lies.

Using that longing as fuel for an inner search, you will face all your own negativity & illusions. At first this will feel uncomfortable and disconcerting. You may judge or condemn yourself. Your resolve might waver and weaken. Keep going. Do not be fooled. Over time, the discomfort becomes less intimidating. You experience that your conscious awareness survives the destruction of your illusions/beliefs - and you begin to feel lighter, happier and more free. It seems that everything changes radically, but it is your view of reality that is radically changing. You were looking through a mucky river, and now you are looking through a crystal clear pool. You begin to feel a deep sense of inner fulfillment.

And luckily, that bell of longing will not stop resounding within you until you make it home.

And the inner journey & discovery is endless. The exploration continues for a deep love of It’s Own Experience of Self. It’s a story that never ends.

No matter what inner and outer challenges I face, she is still here ~ giving her loving attention to me and the life I am co-creating. How glorious is that?

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I could learn so much about how to live in grace from the sunlight alone. Whether my child is crying, having a fit, or laughing with glee, I could just witness her and love her all the same. I could give her space and time to have her own experiences, to learn through them & to develop into her own person. Whether my husband is in his own loving presence or he is struggling within himself, I could just receive him and love him all the same. Whether the dogs are barking loudly or wagging their tails in joyful greeting, I could just appreciate how they show up fully in each moment. Whether the bright blue sky wraps me in endlessness or the wind blows while pelting me with freezing rain, I could just enjoy the glorious contrast inherent in the experience of nature. I could just enjoy the glorious contrast inherent in the experience of life.

So, I walk this line: acceptance of or resistance to WHAT IS. In it’s more subtle state, the line becomes ambiguous, existing somewhere between discipline and surrender.

I was born stubborn. My adoptive parents remember this quality in me ~ my stubbornness stood out. In retrospect, I can see it clearly. I always knew what I wanted. And I wasn’t going to have it any other way.

Except, that didn’t really work out for me.

The Great Spirit has employed some dastardly schemes to strip my plans for my life out from under me. Whoosh! Oh, to stand in that empty place of life not going the way I planned!!! Time and time again! I cannot tell you what it feels like. If you have experienced the vacuum rendered by the sudden end of your planned life, you already know. The Infinite Intelligence must have been asking, “Hmm, how do I change this one’s mind to include Me? How many readjustments does she need?”

On the rare occasion where I did have it my way, after much fight and suffering, it was only to discover that my way wasn’t the way I wanted, nor would it ever become what I wanted!!!

I was being shown that there is a much greater intelligence than my own at work, and when I negate that intelligence to follow my own stubbornness of mind, everything is hard and requires great effort. However, when I align myself with that greater intelligence within my heart, everything flows effortlessly.

So it is, and it has been, my own stubbornness that has necessitated these very great lessons in humility.

So, I walk this line. Somewhere in between discipline and surrender, I drop into a natural flow.

I still have direction. And I don’t try to figure everything out ahead of time. I align myself with the greater intelligence within me & make choices from that stillness ~ while remaining open to the endless possibilities of the undetermined future. I mix direction with intuition & inspiration with imagination. I listen to quiet voice of my heart & let the greater intelligence shift life around endlessly, always in favor of my growth, as I continue to let go of my preconceived notions.

When I don’t know, I admit it. Thankfully, it became obvious to me that I don’t have to know. Life flows anyway. Just being here is enough. With self awareness and curiosity, with the gentleness of the sunlight, just being here becomes magical and wondrous. I don’t have to worry about anything. I can let go into that greater intelligence and let it carry me.

I am reminded of a story that exemplifies our culture:

We are hard workers. Go getters. We get in our boats and we paddle upstream. We relish a good challenge! Everyone is doing it. Everyone has always done it, for as long as we can remember. It can certainly be a little tricky. Often the current is stronger in shallow waters, where our paddles hit rocks and provide less momentum. With less leverage, we must paddle faster. Luckily, we are very determined! We keep our eyes on the goal. So yes, of course, we will get upstream! We can do anything we put our minds to! So there we all go, racing one another - who is stronger, bigger, faster? Who will reach there first? Our collective goal to get up stream, to that promised land, very much consumes all of our energy & attention.

And it isn’t until tremendous difficulty arrises - which momentarily breaks our drive - that we may become aware of a profound and simple truth:

Nothing we want or value is upstream.

It is all downstream.

It has taken me decades of internal struggle to see this. It has taken so many obstacles, so much turmoil, for me to finally begin to allow my boat to turn downstream.

And this is what it feels like to me when I let go into the flow of life. Easy. Effortless. Satisfying. I can appreciate the sun on my skin. The birds in the sky. The sound of the water, and the sunlight reflecting on it’s rippled surface. I still paddle. Sometimes, I want my boat to go right, and the current pulls me left. I have to keep checking myself. Does this require great effort? If so, I question my motivation, and I pay closer attention to where the current is taking me.

This is counter intuitive to our culture. We tend to respond to challenges by upping the ante of our efforts, digging our heals in more deeply.

I can hear a song line playing, “Try, try…..just a little bit harder….”

And I come to this distinction, for all of you who love working hard: when the work is in alignment, it doesn’t feel like work, it feels like inspired action. And again, in our culture we have to be mindful: action itself is revered - inspired or uninspired - just keep going!

I understand. That drum beats loud in me too. Yet, I have experienced the value of just sitting in the silence of having no plan and doing no thing - to give my heart time and space to well up with inspiration.

We are motivated, primarily, by the desire to meet our outer commitments. This makes taking the time to discover what motivates us from the inside such a profound practice.

When that inner wheel spins, it’s much more rich and satisfying than the outer, collective hamster wheel of “Do more! Have more! Be more!”

The first time I rid myself of outer commitments, I was in my early twenties. I quit my job, gave notice on my apartment and moved into my honda civic. It was such an awesome idea! It still makes me grin. After all was done, and I was moved into my car, I was struck by the starkness of my choice. “Whoa, I literally have nothing to do and nowhere to go! Now what….???……”

Enveloped in that space of nothingness, I encountered all that was inside of me. The removal of external distractions is a powerful tool for self realization. Of course, I was not doing it consciously for that reason. But I still got to experience the fullness of all that I embodied - from the fear of death to the exhilaration of unbounded freedom.

I don’t necessarily recommend that you move into your car. It is pretty radical, even for a twenty something year old. That was my way. If you feel the need to get in touch with your inspiration, you will discover the best way to do so. If you discover that you are paddling upstream, and flowing downstream sounds like a glorious reprieve, you will find a way to do that too.

It seems to me that, as Dr. Seuss once wrote, “life’s A Great Balancing Act.”

“So be sure when you step, step with care and great tact, and remember that life’s A Great Balancing Act.”

So, I walk the line.

It’s a learning process, like everything else. I play with it often: zooming out to experience the sheer wonder of the abundance of creation. Then later, having forgotten, I peer through the illusion of lack. I feel the resulting uncertainty & withholding of my own energy, mind and being. As my awareness of my perspective increases, so too does my ability to consciously choose my focus.

In our younger years, we learn the meaning of various words through the expression of opposites. This is useful in the development of our comprehension of language. Eventually, this kind of dualistic thinking can be transcended.

Gautama Buddha taught that illusions distort our interpretation of ‘reality’. Western thought reduced his teachings to the idea that life itself is an illusion. The missing element from that oversimplification is the knowledge that it is possible to distinguish between reality and my perception of ‘reality’. Developing this awareness is essential for seeing where my beliefs cast shadows upon reality ~ making reality appear dualistic. Here are some realizations that come through that awareness:

• Lack is not the opposite of abundance. Lack is an illusion.

  Abundance is the natural state of existence.

• Hate is not the opposite of love. Hate is the result of peering through the illusions of powerlessness and victimhood. Unconditional Love is the true nature of existence.

• Competition is not the opposite of cooperation. Competition is the result of peering through the illusion of ‘never enough’ having, being or doing. Cooperation is the natural state of existence.

You can consider this ideas yourself. You may or may not believe the above statements, yet you can be curious about them and push beyond the boundaries in your own mind. Your mind is free to roam!

Of course, we can see that many people have experiences of lack. Some people don’t have homes, clothing or food. Some people struggle to pay their bills. Some people don’t have physical health or capacity. Some people don’t have access to education. Some children don’t have love or nurturance from adults. We call these experiences ‘lack’ & the opposite of these experiences ‘abundance’.

In western culture, these terms are usually attributed to material wealth or poverty. Materialism, in general, is the search for fulfillment in the external world. This is the driving force of western culture. Thus, the supposed answer to our western ails (depression, anxiety, dissatisfaction, sense of purposelessness and lack of inner peace and joy) is most often to have more, be more & do more. We think, “If only I had more, then I’d be happy.” “If only I was more, then I’d be at peace.” “If only I accomplished more, then I’d be satisfied.”

Despite the fact that research has shown that making more money, having a high social status or accomplishing feats does not equate to more happiness, peace or satisfaction - the pull toward external fulfillment hasn’t yet lost momentum in the western world. Some people have to learn through direct experience ~ that the perspective of ‘never enough’ is not born from not having enough money, social status or accomplishments. It is born from an inner state of poverty & the resulting mental belief in lack.

It is also likely that if you are in the western world, and you are experiencing lack, it will be more challenging for you to focus upon and feel the natural state of abundance. I specify ‘western world’ because in other places where materialistic poverty is the norm, that condition doesn’t seem to register as ‘lack’ in the minds of those people. In fact, the short time that I spent in the ‘third world’ with people our culture would consider ‘impoverished’, I was awe struck by their inherent happiness & joy.

It reminds me of the quote, “Be careful that what you own does not end up owning you.” In western culture, what we own or desire to own, is indeed owning the majority of our lives and attention.

In America, people’s lives tend to revolve around the work they do to make the money they need to pay for the bills they’ve acquired. In this case, our freely given physical lives have been dedicated to the pursuit of making and accumulating money. And this dedication, which many of us perceive as necessity, leads to the experience of a lack of freedom and creativity. Of course, this is easily justifiable. We have to work, so that we can provide for the basic needs of ourselves and our families. Most of us have no life sustaining skills. We rely on intricate systems, so we can buy our basic needs. Yet, we assume that we only have one choice: make money or perish. We can move beyond this stalemate by inquiring, “Is there a way to provide for the basic needs of myself & my family, while still experiencing freedom & satisfaction in my own life?” This kind of curiosity opens our very capable and creative minds to seek an alternative to an either/or idea. When we open our minds, in pour the possibilities.

So, let’s move on a bit….

In the face of the many experiences of ‘lack’ on the planet, why do I say that abundance is the natural state of existence?

Well, here I am. Here you are. We exist. I said above that our lives are freely given. Life itself is freely given. All life, from the single celled micro-organism to the vast Universe: created, freely given and very abundant.

When I was younger, I spent a great deal of energy wishing I was not here & looking for a way out. It made sense. In my youngest years, I grew up in a condition I liken to a prison camp. It wasn’t that bad, of course. Yet, I was in a constant state of fear and survival. There wasn’t much reprieve from that state. When I was freed from that experience around 11 years old, I felt tremendous relief. It was such a glorious feeling, that any time I remember it, I feel the joy all over again. Yet, over the course of my childhood, resisting life had become my way of being. And it took me a very, very long time to even see that about myself.

This fundamental mindset I held caused me immense suffering.

At some point, I began listening to “The Power of Now” on my commute to work. I can still hear Eckhart Tolle’s voice say, “What could be more futile than resisting that which already is?” It sent shock waves through my body. He was right!!! My resistance to life got me nowhere. Ever. The suffering I felt was continual. My determination to see my freely given life as a burden was indeed a very dark lens to peer through. And it was my chosen perspective. Even though it wasn’t a conscious choice ~ it was STILL a choice, and when I saw it, I had the power to make a DIFFERENT choice. And only I could make that new choice. Nothing on the outside of my mind could change my view for me.

And I say that here and now - because if you find yourself in that particular place - I get it. That’s where I came from. I was at the top of that game. If you cannot see your very existence as a gift, do not despair. You are not condemned to have that perspective forever. You can change your understanding. It might take effort, awareness, inquiry and practice, but if you truly desire peace over suffering, you have exactly what you need to get there.

So, we exist. We have a sense of ‘self’. We have awareness. We are capable of expanding our minds. We have these very intricate and fascinating bodies that we use to explore this very specific material world. Our physical bodies are a cooperative community of an estimated 30 trillion individual cells and 40 trillion individual bacteria & fungus. This group of 70 trillion microscopic organisms work together to give our individual awarenesses a ‘point of reference’ in the physical world!!! Consider that!!!! Without the cooperation of 70 trillion microscopic organisms, our physical lives would not be possible!!!

Peering out from these physical cooperatives, by simply watching the stars at night, we can even behold eternity! Isn’t that cool?

The entire Universe is a living miracle beyond our wildest imagination!!!

Oftentimes, that which is ‘normal’ is taken for granted. When we take things for granted, we no longer see the absolute wonder, the striking majesty or the sheer abundance of existence.

You have probably experienced this:

• You live in a stunningly beautiful place. And eventually, you no longer notice it. Instead, you notice the increase in traffic, the potholes, the pollution and the high cost of living.

• You meet and marry the most amazing person. And eventually, you no longer notice. Instead, you notice their unbecoming characteristics and habits, their persistent stuck spots and various challenges in communication.

• You have everything you need. And you forget to notice. Instead, you notice what you do not have.

In all of these examples, the one factor that changed your experience of reality is your perspective, your point of focus. The stunning beauty around you is still there, striking awe in friends and family who come to visit. Your partner still possesses those amazing qualities you love and admire, and you still have everything you need. You just began focusing your attention elsewhere.

You could take some time to remember, to wonder at your very existence. The purpose is simple and profound: When you focus your own mind on the wonder of your own existence, on the wonder of life itself - your perception begins to register awe and appreciation. You begin to vibrate an incredible feeling of fascination, of glory.

Think of it! You could NOT exist! All of these experiences, our physical bodies, our physical world, our individual points of awareness could NOT exist! What then would exist? Anything? It blows my mind!

When I was a young child, I often wondered where the heck I was and why the heck I was here - wherever ‘here’ is! That wondering kept filling me with more wonder! Holy crap! What the heck IS life anyways????? Have you ever really thought about it? What is it?????? What are you?????? Why are we here???? And where is here?????? Do you get me????? Seriously!!! What is LIFE? WHY ARE WE ‘ALIVE’?

All of the readymade, automatic, take-it-for-granted answers are just mental ideas! Like: “Give me a buoy, or thousands of buoys - because I am in an endless ocean full of possibility & I don’t know how to swim or who I am or what the ocean is!” Existence IS endless potential & that is ABUNDANCE to a degree that we cannot even imagine. Sometimes, when I experience a tiny fraction of it’s vastness, my body trembles, my heart races, and I cannot breathe. I gotta grab one of those buoys: “I am a human being on planet earth”. (trembling stops, breathing resumes). My buoy does not mean that I am not in an ocean of infinite potential! It does not mean that I am limited to the experience of a ‘human being on planet earth.’ It just helps me to feel a little more secure for a minute, or perhaps a few lifetimes, while I get used to what it might actually mean to be an individual self awareness.

When the physical cooperative we call ‘body’ returns to the earth, where does my individual self awareness go? Does it move into another body becoming in a womb? Or does it decide to explore beyond the small spectrum of visible light?

In current scientific understanding, everything is energy. And energy never goes out of existence. Energy just changes form. Eternal existence is - well - QUITE ABUNDANT!

If the die-hard, scientific materialists are correct, and self awareness is a by-product of material biology & thus, it goes ‘out of existence’ when the body return to the earth - it doesn’t really matter in a greater sense. This isn’t likely the case, as so many near death experiences illustrate. In these experiences, people go on having awareness to a heightened degree - an awareness that is no longer limited by the physical body!

Either way, life itself goes on. Why should I not trust my consciousness awareness with that which produced it in the first place? I realized at some point, that it was childish of me to think that my created consciousness was even mine to surrender. I don’t know how I came to exist. I don’t know how I got here. I don’t even know where I am. Yet somehow, here I am. How can I doubt the greater intelligence which makes all possible? How can I doubt the greater intelligence that I can perceive in the majesty of all life?

Even if we, in our arrogance and naivety, irreparably damage planet earth’s ability to sustain our physical bodies, life itself will continue - not just here on Earth, but throughout the Universe and beyond the spectrum of visible light that we can perceive. And why is that? What is that? If that isn’t grace, abundance, beauty and unconditional love - I don’t know what is.

Here is the story. I change from telling the story via the third person to becoming the character of the story who is narrating. That probably isn’t kosher in the writing world, but that is how it came out - so I am leaving it for now. Creative license used.

I hope you enjoy the glorious potential of this story as much as I do.

Imagine that we are, at our base, individual points of consciousness, blank canvases of self awareness. We create 3-D reality through our identifications (roles/beliefs: "I am a human being on planet earth, powerless to change 'reality'."), thoughts (most of which we believe, yet the thinking mind is a just a creative tool) and feelings. Thus, 'reality' is a collective creation that occurs through the individual and collective use of these tools (beliefs, thoughts & feelings).

If I was a person who was inclined to external power, and I knew that this was how 'reality' was created, I may polish other people's tendency to perceive themselves as powerless. I may weave victim consciousness into society on all levels. As these powerful self aware creators take on the role of 'powerless victim', they look outside themselves for guidance. I give them that guidance. I might use national TV and radio shows, podcasts, children’s fairy tales, school curricula and other means to provide 'information' that I want them to believe. In this way, I co-opt their creative power, which I now use to create my own vision of ‘reality’ - as many minds are more powerful than one.

Truth be told, I have been doing this in various ways for thousands of years, as history reveals. Human beings love to believe they are powerless, as they loathe to take responsibility for themselves or their creation. I am, and have been, doing them a grand favor.

Yet, there seems to be a small glitch in the matrix I have built: as these powerful, self aware creators suffer under the illusions I have fed to them, they begin to stir in their sleep. It's like they know, deep down, that something is wrong. I still catch them into my nets of differing realities: from mainstream media to conspiracy theories. They do not know that most every story ever told is one of my very own. As they look for 'truth' outside of themselves, they find nothing but my web of created realities.

You see, I have gotten very good at this. I am, after all, a master manipulator, and my power of persuasion is very great. I sometimes wonder at my own brilliance. Yes, I impress even myself.

Yet despite my wisdom, there is a small faction of creators that are becoming lucid in the many dreams I have spun. They are freeing themselves from my visions of separation, powerlessness and fear, and they are creating visions of their own. This is causing deep cracks in the 3-D reality created by my own genius, causing others among them to notice and start to wake. I actively prey upon their doubts and fears, ensnaring them back into my web. I have been at the helm for eons, turning the sleeping against the wakeful at every opportunity. The sleeping often rid me of this problem themselves. They believe this reality is the only reality, and so they defend it with vigor! I feel so very proud of how they use the hate I have seeded within them.

But never-the-less, I feel the ground shaking as more cracks appear. I haven't yet located the glitch. My own doubts and insecurities surface, and I take more extreme measures to maintain my control over their minds. It doesn't seem to be helping. As the fearful become more fearful, the wakeful only become more awake. As the wakeful find the truth within themselves, they reach out to the sleeping! I hate them! Why do the meddle with my creation!?! They use the power of unity, compassion and unconditional love! It's disgusting! And it's the one thing that I cannot control! I would rid the entire universe of it if I could!

I do not know how this story ends, but I assure you that I will continue to fight for my vision, for my control over this collective reality. Lucky for me, the sleepers are so easy to control. Wouldn't you like me to sing you a sweet lullaby, little human? That's right, sleep on. You have no intrinsic power. Reality just exists, and you are powerless to change it. I know it's scary. But I've got you. I'll take care of everything. You don't have to worry about it. You go back to sleep.

This is a continuation of that post, with more stories to illustrate the point.

“There is no use in trying,” said Alice, “one cannot believe impossible things.” “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I did it for half an hour a day. Why sometimes, I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”

What is *impossible*?

This is relative & depends on the limitations each of us have adopted into our own minds. You can use your imagination to stretch your own mind beyond it’s current beliefs of possibility. It takes - like everything else - conscious practice. Thus, the reply to “there is no use in trying….” is “I daresay you haven’t had much practice!”

The closer you start to where you are, the more successful your way. Slight stretches in possibility are more believable to you. Most of us move best from A to B, not A to Z. And you can gauge the believability of your current imagining based on the level of excitement you feel. If you feel no excitement, you do not believe your imagining, you doubt it. If you get lost in the bliss of your daydream, your emotional body vibrates out the frequency of joy and excitement. You feel it. The stronger you feel it, the stronger the attraction. This principle is stated in religious scriptures: “Ask, and believing you shall receive, it shall be given to you.” Belief is necessary!

I remember I used to ‘ask’ with a sense of desperation. I was pleading. I was begging. I felt helpless. So clearly, I didn’t believe I would receive that for which I was asking. I was feeling (and vibrating) the absence of what I wanted.

In my post, “Choose Your Own Adventure”, I illustrated this story: The neurologist who interpreted Juniper’s MRI those many years ago, said that Juniper had an injury that would “NEVER heal”. Her use of the word “NEVER” immediately clarified for me that she was telling me her BELIEF. She believed that healing a brain injury was impossible. And because I registered her comment as a belief, I realized I didn’t have to adopt it. Thus, I decided in that instant that Juniper could indeed heal. And she did.

Of course, we cannot scientifically attribute her healing to my choice. Yet, I see this choice as my conscious energetic contribution to the outcome. After which making, I began to intentionally imagine her healing every night before I went to bed.

I don’t personally need ‘scientific proof’ anymore; the kind of information that can be translated into physical measurements. I am aware of an energetic knowing within my body, and it’s communication works for me. If you need scientific ‘proof’ of the incredible potential of human consciousness and the connection between everything, there are a myriad of researchers who study and express the measurable physical data: Lynn McTaggart, Joe Dispenza and David Wilcock to name just a few.

If this kind of data helps you change your mind, you should definitely use it! Just remember that the only factor that actually changed was that you decided to allow that new information into YOUR MIND for consideration.

Isn’t that powerful?

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And also remember that scientific proof will not and cannot substitute for your own actual lived experience. An experience is embodied learning, which changes you from the inside. This distinction is clear when you consider reading stories about love, in order to ‘know’ love. You could read every book written in the whole world, and this simply pales in comparison to the actual experiences of falling in love, loving others & loving one’s self. Books might help you on your way to actively ask and answer questions about love, but the experience of love is the actual teacher.

Your consciousness (which is a combination of your identifications, beliefs, thoughts and feelings) is the structure for your understanding & interpretation of life. It functions much like a filmstrip. Whatever is in your mind & heart is what you are projecting into the physical ‘reality’. You then experience this physical ‘reality’ and think, “See, I am correct. My beliefs and ideas about reality are ‘correct’.”

Can you differentiate between the physical creation and your beliefs about it?

Do you remember this quote by Henry Ford: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.”? The variable is WHAT you think, not the outcome. Thus, the statement could be significantly broadened: WHATEVER you believe & think ~ you’re right. Because your perception becomes your experience of ‘reality’.

Our collective understanding is backwards. We *think* reality just exists and that IT affects US. But No! Just the opposite is the case.

We exist and our perceptions affect ‘reality’.

We have Conscious Awareness. This comes BEFORE physical manifestation. (You have to think about something before you create it). Our identifications, beliefs & thoughts CREATE the world we see around us. We create the world around us at an individual level AND at a collective level.

We cannot overpower the collective creation at an individual level. If 90% of humanity is operating under the illusion of lack & competition, then the 10% that is operating under abundance & cooperation will not change the state of the world overnight. What the 10% vision will do is offer the 90% an opportunity to see a different perspective, and perhaps follow suit. We all learn best, not through words, but through example.

Our beliefs, thoughts and feelings create our perception of reality, and through it, we send out a certain frequency that draws to us people, events and circumstances that affirm our chosen perception - proving us ‘correct’.

The easiest way to test this theory is at the individual level.

I have to change something in myself, and experience - does it change something in physical ‘reality’? In this post, I am going to pull more stories from my own life that illustrate this example - both with changing my mind and with conscious daydreaming. In the following example, I changed my mind and my state of being - and the universe followed suit.

I was driving to work. I was grumpy, tired perhaps, and I didn’t want to go to work. I was mentally & emotionally protesting going to work as I was driving there. I was getting into the feel of my own resistance when I became totally AWARE of what I was doing. With this higher level of awareness, I realized that I was the one who had wanted the job. I had applied for it! I had chosen to move to that area, and I wanted to be able to pay my own way. And wasn’t it so nice that I could DO what I wanted? Wasn’t it nice that I could make money in a social setting, in service to others? And when it became time for a change, I could change! I could decide. In a few minutes, I changed my perspective from “I have to” to “I chose to, and I can choose differently at any time,” and my feelings followed along: moving from resistance to joyful empowerment. What a difference!!!

I arrived at work in a very uplifted and happy mood. My first table paid their $30 tab with a $100 bill, leaving without change. I knew that my joy had been infectious. And that lovely couple affirmed their appreciation of my joy. But more than that, the experience was a big head nod from the Universe; “Yep, THAT’S the way you do it.”

We weave the tapestry of our lives with everything in our minds & hearts. We can do this by focusing our attention on that which we want to create, and by consciously changing our limiting beliefs and thoughts. We ALSO do this unconsciously, with beliefs and thoughts of which we are not aware. When a person or circumstance in life brings our awareness to an unconscious limiting belief, we feel bad. Despite the inner turbulence, this is a tremendous gift! When an unconscious limiting belief is brought to our attention, we can edit the script. And if it feels bad, editing is a great idea!

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This is another story about conscious creation. Here, I just want you to appreciate how I consciously sent signals out in the beginning - and how they came back.

At this time, I was living very close to the home of my young childhood. It felt good to be there, to integrate this long, lost place. I was living with a woman who’s work inspired me, and I was rediscovering myself outside of a relationship. It was wonderful. During this phase of my life, I began practicing hot yoga, the full 90 minute sequence. Despite stretching at the end of the evening, my body was consistently sore and tight. The hot yoga sequence is tough! I vividly remember driving around saying over and over again, “I WANT a male massage therapist! I WANT a male massage therapist!” I only had one massage in my whole life, and it was from a kind, older man whom I knew from a previous place of work in a different state. With that singular experience, I concluded that I wanted to find another male massage therapist, so that I could get regular massages. My body felt so in need. Thus I regularly repeated, “I WANT a male massage therapist!”.

It’s important to note that I could have been more to the point by saying, “I want to feel good in my body.” I was instead assuming that ‘feeling good in my body’ could be attained by getting regular massages from a male massage therapist. (The HOW) Even so, I also wasn’t verbalizing, “I want regular massages.” I was verbalizing, “I WANT a male massage therapist.”

I only lived there for about 8 months. When I was ready to leave, I packed up my car. I was planning on getting back together with my ex. We had been together for 8 years, and we had been taking a break. I missed our dogs and living off the grid in the country.

So, I drove east. It didn’t work out the way I had thought. I arrived only to feel a visceral rejection of the plan from deep within my body. Apparently, my body valued authenticity more than living off the grid in the country with my dogs. As it turned out, my emotional body had moved on. She had feelings for another person. So, I drove back west.

At this time, I had no plan for the future ~ except that I was driving out to see my sister who lived in Phoenix. On the way there, I visited the man to whom I had taken a liking. We had become friends & had kept in touch. As it turned out, he lived in a farm house in the country & had a couple of dogs. We entertained the idea of starting a relationship.

We had different values and different lifestyles ~ but you know how feelings go, they often out-weigh the logistics. However, since I was just passing through, our in person visit was short. While he was at work, I continued on my journey. I did not make my plans clear to him beforehand, and he was upset when I told him I had left. Perhaps I wasn’t quite ready to, yet again, factor someone else’s feelings into my life choices.

I couldn’t very well suppose that he and I were going to start a relationship. He needed to want that, and to say so. As far as I understood, the jury was still out in deliberation. I didn’t want to impose myself upon him and his life, and I was happy to give us both space to consider the possibility. It felt like a very considerate and graceful thing to do ~ minus my inability to communicate the details beforehand. In any case, he did not understand or interpret me correctly. I camped in Colorado that night and spent that evening in the attempt to describe to him the way that I felt, and why I had left. His guardedness was not lessened by my communication, and I felt a sense of loss.

I continued on my way to Arizona in the early morning. The drive would take about 14 hours, and I wanted to get in before dark. I was still feeling a sense of loss, but I decided to adjust my attitude, and focus on what I wanted. On the way, I listened to various teachings on the Law of Attraction. About an hour out, I listened to an upbeat song whose words were pretty specific to my experience. The song was funny, to the point, and happy. By the time I arrived in Phoenix, I was on cloud nine.

My sister, however, was not. She was longing for a harmonious romantic relationship, coming through the experience of a drama ridden relationship with a man she had been dating. She felt defeated, and as though it would never happen. I started telling her about the Law of Attraction principles I had been learning & working to implement. I described to her my predicament with the Kansas City Cowboy, who still wasn’t talking to me. All the while, I was radiant. I explained that I felt joyful when I was with him, and if I wanted that to be my reality, I had to feel joyful despite the current condition. At that time, I very much wanted to have a family. And since I had feelings for the Kansas City Cowboy, I projected that desire upon him.

My sister eventually & begrudgingly agreed to try the experiment with me. We had nothing to lose! We decided to focus our attention on whatever thoughts, words, memories and songs would inspire joy within our hearts. Using our imaginations, we decided to act as if the relationships we wanted were already in existence. So, my sister and I listened to happy songs while cruising around in the sunshine, the top down in my Cabrio convertible. We moved our attitudes into joy, and so of course, we had a great deal of fun!

At some point, the Kansas City Cowboy reached out and told me that he would like me to return to Kansas to begin a relationship. This seemed to affirm to my sister and I that our efforts at being joyful were indeed affecting ‘reality’. Thus, returning to Kansas became my plan.

While I was in Arizona, my friend from Hawaii contacted me. She was going to be in Utah visiting family with her new baby and little girl, and wanted me to come and visit. I was somewhat reluctant to delay my return to Kansas. But the time was ripe and the logistics were super easy, so I decided I would drive up and visit her for a couple of weeks.

The Kansas City Cowboy did not like the arrangement of waiting a couple more weeks for me to return. I realize now how insecure he felt with my way of being. I was an independent, untamed, wandering young woman, and he had a very specific, secure & normal way of life. He liked me, yes. And, my way of being scared the heck out of him. Not too many days passed before he told me not to return to Kansas. I questioned the authenticity of his determination ~ to no avail. So, quite unlike my younger years, I let it go. I had absolutely no interest in barking up the wrong tree ~ again. I was learning to focus on the WHAT (harmonious relationship & family) and not on the HOW (or the WITH WHOM). (Yes, the WITH WHOM is part of the HOW.)

As it turned out, my friend really needed help with the care of her little ones & wanted me to stay with her at her dad’s house until she returned to Hawaii, which was about a month. I was glad to have that extra time to be there, grounded with this new extended family, helping out however I could. I got to take care of the baby, which absolutely delighted me. I also really liked Utah! It was the first place I had been since Hawaii, where the natural beauty filled me with joy. We were right at the foothills of the mountains & I could go get lost in the forest just by walking down the road and disappearing into a canyon.

Coming full circle with this long and winding story: As the Law of Attraction would have it, my friend was friends with a male massage therapist, and he lived right down the road. So, I scheduled myself a massage with him. At least there was that!!!! It had maybe been 4-6 months since I had been been repeating that desire to the Universe. All of the uncertainty within me, and the driving back and forth across the country, me never knowing where I was going to be at what point, and still ~ the Universe managed to deposit me at the doorstep of a male massage therapist.

I walked over to his house. It was that close. As I arrived, I saw a VW camper van in the driveway. It stunned me out of my reverie. I had lived in camper van on Kauai, and I had bought another one on the Big Island when I was living there. These vehicles were a deep love of mine. The capacity to live so simply, to be in nature and travel anywhere, represented freedom to me in a way that not much else did.

I don’t remember much about the massage. The presence of the VW camper had riveted my attention on the possibility that I was there for a much greater reason than a massage. Thus, all of my psychic senses were piqued. I didn’t even take the time afterwards to process how my body felt. The male massage therapist and I were too busy talking on the couch, as if we were old friends.

This man later became my husband and the father of my child. Funny, right? The universe definitely has a sense of humor! And, he had a dog & an off grid property in the country in California, to which he drove back and forth multiple times a year. Instead of being threatened by my way of life, he matched it. We regularly drive around the country as a family, camping in the middle of nowhere, wandering the earth.

At some point, I started managing the out call massage business that he owned. I found out through booking massage appointments, that the high quality massage therapy provided by my husband is rare. Nearly all our clients have lamented at some point, “I wish I could find a massage therapist like him in NY/LA/Chicago (etc)!”

So, not only did the Universe deliver me to a male massage therapist, it delivered me to an incredibly talented & tapped in massage therapist.

Fun to note, my sister ALSO met her husband-to-be within a few months of using our imaginations to pretend that we were already married.

Over the years, I have grown in my ability to actively imagine what I want. I have also grown in the practice of taking the time to do so.

This next story comes from taking regular time to actively imagine what I want. My desires are very general. I want to say that here because creation still works with general desires. Many teachings on the Law of Attraction will say that you have to be specific. Well, you don’t have to be specific. You can be specific and you can be general. My desires are difficult to specify primarily because I don’t desire material things. I want for feelings and experiences. And really, all desires boil down to the desire for a certain feeling, which could be generalized as: “I want to feel as good as I can right now, and I want to continue to feel better.” Who could argue with that?

Fast forward to a few years ago. I got into the habit of waking with the sun rise, and taking my pups out into the mountains for a long hike. When I hiked up as far as I wanted, I would sit down in meditation, eyes closed, get a joyful feel in my heart and say, “Infinite Spirit! The decks are clear for the Divine Design of my life to manifest!” While I was saying this particular phrase, I would imagine a log cabin in the country with a big deck that overlooked a river. It was a real cabin that I had seen on realtor.com. I was calling in the fulfillment of my Divine Plan, but the words “The decks are clear”, and the remembrance of that log cabin in the country with a big, empty deck over looking a river helped me get into a place of tremendous joy.

Four to six months later, my family and I were driving across the country to visit my husband’s father. We were looking at properties on our phones & my husband found two homes that we wanted to check out. We had been looking at properties in Michigan for a few years, thinking it would be nice to spend summers there, closer to family. We were camping in the Upper Peninsula for one night, and we could only see those properties the next morning. So, I emailed a realtor while my husband was driving, and we were scheduled to see those two properties in the morning.

The second property we looked at was a log cabin in the country. And my husband loved it as soon as we pulled down the long driveway. His approval is a big deal, because his energy carries tremendous weight. I was hesitant. The other place had been renovated with the fanciest stuff! Copper hammered sinks in the kitchen! And the kitchen had wall to wall windows that overlooked the woods! What a dream!

This log cabin, however, had a big, back deck that overlooked a wide, flowing river. And while the other home also had flowing water in the back yard, it was more like a creek. I walked down to the river at the log cabin (it’s right there!), and the trees opened into a wide expanse of water and sky, sun shining. The log cabin itself sat on a lovely, grassy opening in the forest, and the energy of the home and land was overflowing with love, reverence and intention. It felt good. Really good.

So, we finished our three day drive to my husband’s dad’s house, told him about the log cabin, and together we closed on the purchase of it within 45 days. We now spend our summers at a log cabin in the country, with a big, back deck that overlooks a river.

I will not tell you that moving between two properties is easy. Or that maintaining two properties is easy. There are many challenges. Yet challenges are opportunities to refine our creation.

Of course, what I was calling in with the image of that log cabin on a river was the manifestation of the Divine Design of my life. I didn’t know what that was, and the image of the log cabin was just the way I got into a feeling of joy. So, the real question is: “Did the Divine Design of my life manifest?”

Yes. It has. And it is. I have been ignited for a few years now with a passion I cannot contain. Over these years, I have been opening to a flow that begins in my heart and flows through me. In a dance of both decisiveness and surrender, I have become tapped in, tuned in & turned on. The only door was the decision to answer the call of my heart, which holds and expresses my ‘Divine Design’. The seeking for answers and direction - which often takes us on an outward journey - is resolved when we finally look within ourselves.

The bottom line comes down to one thought: You are not helpless. If you feel helpless, you are creating your reality unconsciously. You are an infinitely powerful ‘child of God’ who creates ‘reality’ through the focus of your attention. Your creative attention/awareness gets focused through your beliefs, thoughts and feelings, even those of which you are not aware.

The solution is to actively increase your self awareness. Become interested in what, within you, is being projected onto the screen of your life, broadcasted into the material universe. And begin to actively practice using your imagination to create that which you do want. You have nothing to lose.

I would like to talk about this. Because I love you all of you. Because I want you to feel good. Because, no matter what, if we can put our love for life, freedom, peace and equality ahead of our beliefs - it doesn’t matter what is going on out there. We can always change it by changing ourselves. We can learn how to communicate and cooperate with one another, especially when we have different perspectives. If we can do this, the whole divide and conquer strategy will not work on us. Being able to receive all perspectives, we would better suss out corruption, the wolf in sheep’s clothing and the trojan horse at the gates.

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I will admit that I, like many of you, used to hate Trump. I use the word hate very infrequently because it is so severe, and I acknowledge that I do not want to harbor such a feeling inside of myself. I am using it here to be honest with you, despite my embarrassment about feeling hate for anyone.

As a very wise rapper succinctly put it: “God is love and hatin’ is satan.”

If we could just understand that, wouldn’t life be so much easier? It doesn’t really matter if you don’t believe in the God/satan dichotomy. You can use secular words to understand the concept. Whenever I feel *hate*, I am increasing negativity in myself and on the planet. Whenever I feel *love*, I am increasing positivity in myself and on the planet.

My greatest point of power is how I feel in my own body, based on my own thoughts and beliefs, all of which I can always change to feel better, rather than to feel worse. When I choose to feel better, to feel love, inspiration, gratitude - I act better. I am better. I am nicer to other people.

I seek first the ‘kingdom of heaven’ (which is inside of me), and then all things are added to me. The ‘kingdom of heaven’ could just be an inner feeling of peace and love. And if ‘like attracts like’, when I find peace and love within my heart at the beginning of every day *first!*, then I am taking care of my first responsibility *myself!*, and I am attracting more peace and love from the Universe.

→This one distinction is more important than any other thing we could possibly ever talk about!←

Our reasons for hating someone do not matter. It doesn’t matter if we hate someone because of their skin color or vaccination status, their economic status or life choices, their personality or their words and actions. Hate, however it is justified, is still hate. Whether we like it or not, whether we want to admit it or not, it is the same vibration. Hate, by any name, is still hate.

I had a conversation with my daughter and her friends, as my daughter told me plainly about a schoolmate, “we hate her.” I clarified for her and her friends how much it would hurt if their schoolmate heard any of them say that. I also clarified their concerns, “You do not hate her. You may not like her behaviors, but she is not her behaviors. She is a person, and she can learn to respect other people’s boundaries. It is okay for you to tell her what you do not like. You should tell others how you feel about their behaviors. This will give them an opportunity to consider if they want to behave differently, so that their presence can be enjoyed and appreciated.”

When we harbor feelings of *hate*, they are within us, and they affect us first and foremost. They affect our mental, emotional and physical health. They vibrate from us. They attract to us more events, people and circumstances to excuse the *hate* that we are allowing ourselves to feel and vibrate.

Excuse it all we want. The simple truth is the same: we are poisoning ourselves. And others around us. If enough of us vibrate hate, what do you think we will create in our world? Where do you think that road leads?

How about we drop our armor, our senses of ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, and move ourselves back to humility and love? You cannot make other people do it, you know. I hear you thinking about that other person who definitely needs to get back to humility and love - that lying, arrogant bastard!

Whoops. See? What are you radiating? Where is your point of power? You can only move YOUR OWN SELF back to humility and love. That is your point of power. If you want love & peace in the world, you must radiate love and peace from your heart, despite others and the world. How does it make any sense for you to expect the world to live in love and peace when YOU cannot even get there in YOUR OWN heart? If you *hate* another person or the other side or those other people, you are not creating peace. You are creating war, in your own mind and heart first. Just take note. If you believe that peace and love would be the best thing for all life on planet earth, then you need to commit to cultivating that in yourself.

It doesn’t matter who started anything. Hate begets hate. Love begets love.

That is the choice you make right now, within yourself, at every moment of your unfolding life. And it is always the most important choice you can make. With your choice, the Universe responds in kind. Just remember. Just try it. Why do you want to go on feeling helpless about things you cannot control? Control the things you can: Your heart. Your mind. Your beliefs. Your words. Your actions. No excuses.

Please stop excusing away your own, very real, point of power.

So, I used to hate Trump. Viscerally. It vibrated in my body.

At that time, I had been reading a book about mind control. Mind control seems to be a strange topic. I’ll give you that. Yet apparently it is a thing in our world. It was the title of Hitler’s book, and controlling other people’s minds was something that Hitler and the Nazi party strove to do (and did!). Also, the word government is related. Govern (to control) and ment (mind). ‘Propaganda’ is the word for mind control that is widely known and used - it is defined as: “ideas spread widely to help or harm a person/group/movement/institution or nation.” ‘Character assassination’ is a form of propaganda that is common practice between political rivals. So basically, propaganda is gossip and name calling. They just call it ‘propaganda’ in the hopes that we won’t notice how dastardly immature it is. It is a tool that is widely used to ‘sway public opinion’ (the nice way of saying ‘mind control’.)

I personally do not want to control anyone’s mind but my own. Yet this desire is apparently ‘a thing’ for some of the most disturbed humans in history. On a smaller scale, we have all experienced it play out in ourselves - as we all work very hard to change other people’s minds INSTEAD of our own. Right? Because I am right! Oh, wait a minute…

Being right is a dead end. Unless, I can change other people’s minds! And then, as I embark on the journey to control other people’s minds, I become a totalitarian parent, teacher, manager, boss, government official, religious leader, president. My mental body becomes rigid, absolutest. My physical body becomes more tense. My emotional body is hardened, cut off from the gentleness of my own humanity. This road, whenever I have attempted to take it, feels bad in every aspect of my being.

Back then, after reading that personal account of mind control, I found myself asking the Universe, “Am I mind controlled?” I answered myself out loud, “No, of course I am not mind controlled, I don’t even watch TV.” Phew. That was close.

But the Universe had a different answer for me. And instead of a whisper coming up from within my heart, I ‘accidentally’ stumbled across a video with an alternative story about Trump, one with a very positive story line. (I say ‘accidentally’ because it was an accident on my part - I wasn’t looking up anything to do with Trump or even politics.)

My mind was blown wide open in an instant because I knew that I was getting the answer to my question: Yes, I was indeed ‘mind controlled’ and here was how. I did not know Trump. I had never watched a video or an interview. My ‘opinions’ & my visceral response only came from what I had heard. I was also bearing witness to my own desire to believe the positive story line over the negative one - while aware of a quiet whisper: “you don’t need to buy this story either. Just watch how you desire to know an absolute truth.”

Oh, how lovely it would be to know an absolute truth.

Because, it’s certain. Comfy. Safe. Maybe I could take a little break from this dance with the unknown, unlimited, uncertain and endless possibilities of this mystery we call life?

The only way out is through. When you feel a negative feeling, like hate, it doesn’t do any bit of good to sweep it under the rug and pretend it doesn’t exist. It doesn’t go away. It just builds up. Shit gets dusty. The air becomes hard to breathe. We have to face our own ‘demons’ sooner or later.

In my case, all that was needed to let go of my feeling of hate was hearing a different story. It started with my sincere, openhearted question, “Am I mind controlled?” As I said, I answered the question myself, “Oh no, of course not!” Because, after I asked the question, I loathed to even consider the possibility that I was! But I was willing to receive that different answer. I was willing to change my mind.

That experience showed me that I believed in a mere story about someone else, and that my chosen belief justified me harboring and cultivating hate inside my own heart. Yes, please excuse me for vibrating hate for that person and his supporters. Yes, I am totally excused from my own inner violence because they deserve it.

Oops. That’s projection and deflection. Do you remember those terms? I feel hate in me, and I project the reason for my hate onto an outer source INSTEAD of looking at what, in me, is allowing for the cultivation of hate. (Projection). And because I project the cause of my hate outside of me, I think and talk about that person INSTEAD of turning my attention inside. (Deflection.)

With this frame of reference, I have come to think of ‘mind control’ as when I adopt an outside story/opinion as an absolute truth. In so doing, I have a strong emotional charge about the truth of the story. It may even define who I think I am: “I am a moral, loving, accepting and inclusive person, and so I *hate* those who are not!” (Did you catch the hypocrisy there?).

When I define myself with ideas, I get very attached to and defensive of those ideas. Because I think they are me. Right? Have you noticed that in yourself? Some popular identifications are: I am a democrat. I am a republican. I am a Christian. I am a Muslim. I am a Buddhist. I am a Marxist.

You see that those listed above denote a certain way of thinking. And we associate that way of thinking with who we are. We define ourselves with our ideas. We could speak more accurately: “I like democratic ideologies.” “I like republican ideologies.” “I like Christian ideologies.” “I like Buddhist ideas.” “I like Marxist ideas.”

Just with that small linguistic change, we create space (non-attachment) within ourselves & no longer feel a desperate need to defend our ideas.

In my own sorting out, I came to this distinction:

I can gain information by hearing or reading & I can gain information through experience. The information I gain through either reading or hearing is what I call hear-say. I hear it, and then believing it, I say it. This is the number one way we receive ‘information’ from out there.

This type of information doesn’t stand up in the court of law. If I take the stand & say, “I heard this is what happened,” my testimony means nothing.

However, if I have information through direct experience, if I am a witness - I am obliged to give my testimony because it matters. It stands in court. Being informed through experience holds much more weight in our culture because it is a much more precise form of knowledge.

If I only heard it or read it, then I know that my ‘knowledge’ is little more than gossip or theory, and it is wise for me to recognize it as such. This disarms my perspective. I think, “Well, my testimony wouldn’t stand up in court, so there is really no reason to defend it. I can let it go.”

If I have an experience, and I read someone’s perception of a similar experience, I deeply understand. This is experiential recognition. Much more than hear-say, I fully recognize the meaning.

This distinction keeps my attention much more focused in my own neck of the woods & radically simplifies my life. I don’t spend much time talking or thinking about things that are hear-say. This eliminates SO many conversations about things that I actually know nothing about. What a relief! How much more rich and full my conversations have become!

I don’t know shit about ANY of those things out there and neither do you.

Can we start there? Doesn’t it feel so very freeing?!? From scratchity- scratch? A blank canvas, an empty page? Isn’t it lovely??? The possibilities are endless!

When my attention is no longer focused on those things out there - my curiosity increases, my inspiration increases, my focus increases and my ENERGY increases!

I remember when my cell phone automatically started putting a daily ‘news feed’ up on the screen. “Oh”, it said passively, “I’ll just tell you about anything and everything, mainly the bad, scary stuff, that is going on out there, even when you are not using me.”

The very first time I saw it I said, “Oh no you don’t!” And I immediately figured out how to turn that feature off. Unless it happens to me or around me, it doesn’t need my attention. My attention serves me best in the present moment of my unfolding life. It does not serve me to scatter my attention and focus to the ends of the earth. It drains me. And being drained of my energy and attention in the present moment of my unfolding life renders me quite powerless in the only time/space that I have: right here, right now.

I do appreciate the value of listening to people who are running for positions of political power. This is very different than listening to news anchors and others talk about them. I am not listening to someone else’s opinion of someone else. In this case, I am trying to form my own opinion. I try to get a ‘feel’ for them. For me, this is a physical feeling. It’s like I can tune into their frequency and ‘feel’ their resonance. You know, because it isn’t quite enough to trust the words they say. Politicians have a reputation for lying. How do I gauge their sincerity? I get a physical feeling inside of me. Listening to them feels good or it feels bad.

This is intuition; tuition from within.

I believe we can all get a pretty accurate ‘feel’ for someone if we try. This does require a heightened awareness, you know, because our ‘feel’ could be our body’s response to an ideological attachment. In this case, the ‘feel’ is very strong, possibly overwhelming.

Intuition, in my experience, is a very quiet, subtle, gentle voice and ‘feel’. To hear her, you have to quiet your loud demon voices first.

So, if you are kinda like me, think about reducing your intake of hear-say information. It might help you to garner and use your attention and energy in your everyday unfolding life, exactly where you have tremendous power. And there, right where you are, work on cultivating within yourself the values you want to see in other people and the world: love, compassion, forgiveness, patience, receptivity, joy, inspiration and peace.

If enough of us take seriously the responsibility for the state of our own beings, the world might just change overnight.

If you read my recent post, ‘The Nature of Reality’, you might have been left with the question, “But HOW do I change my mind? HOW do I change my perspective?”

The first time that I vividly remember changing my mind was when my new born baby was in the hospital, her fate uncertain. Really, it was more like I disintegrated a thought in an intense fiery rage. The thought, “Of course this would happen to me!” popped into my head, and automatically believing it, my body responded with an upwelling of tremendous grief. But I saw the thought. And because by this time, I was quite familiar with teachings about how reality is created, I powerfully opposed the thought. I said out loud, “Fuck you. I am NOT writing that story!”

I considered the upwelling of grief inside of me, and I calmed it. I thought, “Now is not the time for grieving. Right now, my baby is alive. Right now, she is in the best children’s hospital in the country. Right now, our family and friends are organizing themselves to support us. Right now, my baby needs my calm, clear and loving presence.”

Notice that I did not, in that moment, try to imagine a preferred future. The intensity of this time rooted my attention into the present, and I chose to focus on all of the blessings in the current situation. It changed my emotions (my vibration), and it served me very well. I suddenly became completely capable of dealing with the situation. From there, I was able to spend time, before falling asleep at night, imagining my preferred outcome. I thought of it as petitioning the Universe for what I wanted - while accepting that my child’s spirit had it’s own say in the matter. If you are curious, I wrote a full version of this story (and the magic it contained) in my post, “The Birth of a Mother.”

In such a severe life circumstance, this process was clear, obvious and extreme. The sheer intensity shifted my attention into hyper clarity. Most of my painful thoughts and beliefs are not quite so obvious. They are much more subtle, requiring growth in my awareness in my every day, non-emergency life.

If you are in a current serious upheaval, your attention might serve you like a laser beam. If so, use it to your advantage. If you are not in a serious upheaval, welcome to the search for the needles in your haystack. Don’t worry, you can find them when they poke. You’ll just have to begin to notice when you feel a slight twinge of inner suffering.

I mention, though perhaps not enough, that the first step in changing your life for the better is to acknowledge and accept exactly where you are. Manifestation teachings can become a lovely place for some people to live in denial. And in denial, the lack of peace and inner suffering you feel will continue, full speed ahead. So you have to be willing to admit to whatever hard truths you have in your life. Maybe you despise your job, your current relationship, or your adult child currently residing in your basement. Maybe your family is in turmoil, and you have no idea what to do. Whatever hard truth you may have, it is your starting ground. It is the only starting ground you have. If you do not acknowledge where you are, you cannot go anywhere else. I will write more on this later.

If you are pretty good with admitting exactly where you are, you are ready for the next step in changing your mind; cultivating humility.

Wait, what?

Yep. You heard me. Cultivating humility. This has been a life long process for me, and my family will tell you - I was quite stubborn. From a continual letting go of being ‘right’ to questioning what I think I know, humility is my most loving and nurturing teacher. She opens all ways of possibility, tends to all my wounds, and loves me despite my often stubborn opposition to her. When I finally yield to her, I am flooded with relief.

This is not something that is given to us, this is something that we either allow ourselves to have - or we withhold it from ourselves - because “I’m RIGHT! And I KNOW that I am RIGHT!”

One of my biggest lessons in humility came through motherhood, for in that experience, I suddenly cared about someone else more than myself. It wasn’t that I didn’t care about others - I certainly did. However, the blind spot that motherhood helped me to discover, where a healthy sense of ‘being right’ grew inside of me - was the simple fact that I was willing and able to ditch relationships when seemingly inconsolable differences came up. In that space, it was easy to be right, justified in my beliefs, thoughts and perceptions - even to the point of indignation. It didn’t matter to me if I burned the bridge of this or that relationship. If people couldn’t see my truth (what I previously thought of as ‘the truth’), there was some error in them, and I would go my own way.

Well, getting along with others became a value as soon as I had a child. Suddenly, there were two people with whom it was in my great interest to get along. And the main impetus for getting over my own sense of being right (so I could get along with my husband firstly, my child secondly) was the simple fact that I valued my child’s well being more than my sense of being ‘right’.

I once read this question: “Do you want to be right or do you want to be happy?” In relating to others, it could be: “Do you want to be right or do you want to experience the sense of peace and union that comes through mutual understanding?”

The feeling and perspective of being ‘right’ is a very common theme in relationships, one that often leads to destruction. This touches back upon my recent post, ‘The Nature of Reality’. Our perspectives are intricately interwoven with what we consider ‘reality’ to be. You think you are ‘right’ (and you are, as far as you are concerned). I think I am ‘right’ (and I am, as far as I am concerned).

Yet - we simply cannot relate to one another when we each hold and entertain this notion.

Let’s say that you are at odds with your significant other and you tell me your side of the story. And I agree - you ARE right!

Now what??? A slight feeling of validation?

Ok. Then what?

Then nothing. Being right is a dead end. It goes nowhere. You get to be all alone in your right-ness, which keeps you separated from that other or others, who are just plain wrong.

So great. If you want to be at a dead end that goes nowhere for the rest of the day, the week, the month, your life - stay in your righteous mind set. It feels cozy, safe. You know what to expect.

However, if you’d like to find a road that goes somewhere - you have to be willing to leave your sense of being right. You have to shed it, surrender it, whatever metaphor or repetition of words works for you. I say, “I don’t even know what I don’t know.” I respond to my daughter’s questions with the caveat, “The current theory is....” or “What we think right now is….” When my husband asks, “Are you sure?” I say, “I am not sure of anything.” It’s not that I am trying to be flippant, I am just affirming my openness, giving a nod to the grace of humility, affirming my acceptance of the possibility of being wrong.

If I am right, I cannot get a sense of where you are; what you feel, think and believe or how you came to feel, think and believe those things. If you are right, then you are not open to getting a feel for where I am; what I feel, think and believe or how I came to feel, think and believe those things.

When I consider that I may be wrong or misguided about something, anything - I suddenly become fertile ground. I want to know what I don’t know. I am open. I am curious. I ask questions and have conversations, I share perspectives, I build relationships. This is the beauty of humility. It opens me.

I still catch myself thinking that my perspective is not only correct, but also, the only perspective possible. You know, if I think that I am just perceiving ‘reality’, then I will conclude that the other person also perceived the exact same thing. In this lies the assumption that you know ‘what happened’ (according to my interpretation), and I may be huffing and puffing about it - only to find out that you had a totally different interpretation of what happened.

Do I want to be right - or do I want to experience deep, intimate, mutually satisfying relationships with other people?

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I asked the Universe the other day, “If I am wrong about the things that I think I know, how did I get there?” And I heard a slight whisper come up from inside of me, “Because you look for ‘information’ that supports your beliefs.”

Oh yeah. That’s what we all do. Gulp.

After that answer, I petitioned to the Universe that I want to know the ‘truth’. And then that quiet voice came up again: “The ‘truth’ is relative to your perspective. Life is a process of self-discovery, a process of uncovering and shedding your own self-imposed limitations as you learn to create ‘reality.’ The ‘truth’ is what you make it.”

When I can admit that my perspective is actually a subjective interpretation of reality, I immediately expect that your perspective is going to be different than mine. And instead of harboring a feeling of indignation, I feel a sense of curiosity. I no longer think that our differing perspectives cannot co-exist. Unthreatened, I want to know about you and your perspective. I am open. I am willing and able to receive.

Sometimes, our ‘rightness’ has nothing to do with other people. It can just be the way that we perceive the world around us, and we believe our perception to be ‘true’. Humility can also help us here.

To change a painful or limiting belief, I must first move it from the realm of something I KNOW to be true into the realm of something I BELIEVE to be true.

The word ‘know’ is just like the word ‘right’. I know. And I am right. And I know that I am right! SO THERE!

These are closed doors, dead ends. There is no room for expansion. There is no possibility for change. There is no impetus for inspired action or creativity. You can KNOW that you are RIGHT indefinitely. And you will go nowhere from there, indefinitely.

Humility beckons us to suss out the things we think we know that cause us pain or constriction in our hearts. These are the beliefs and ideas that we want to change for the very practical purpose of feeling good, so that we can be better humans on planet earth.

This is how we free our minds.

We admit that, “Yes, I know I am right!” Then we move to a more accurate statement, one that creaks open the door of our minds just a little bit, “I believe I am right.” Or “I think this is the case.” Or “It is my understanding that..”

We can challenge the Universe: “I sure do believe this painful belief to be the case. If I am wrong, show me in a series of undeniable ways!” When I have been in this place where I either challenge the Universe for information, or I am curious about the nature of something and I ask for a deeper understanding - oh boy, does the Universe answer.

Humility, in my experience, is profound grace. When I allow it, it remains with me. It opens me. It teaches me. I don’t even know what I don’t know.

This is the first step towards changing your perspective. You must disentangle yourself with your attachment to being right.

I have repeated thousands of times:

“Oh Padmasambhava, in your flame of peace, all human opinions I hereby release. I see now the ultimate truth you reveal, Earth is an appearance where nothing is real.”

This one works for me to dismantle my own righteous mind set. It’s unusual, and it may not be the words that ‘ring your bell’, and cause you to shift from a place of hardness into a place of softness. Finding thoughts, words and actions that help you shift from a place of hardness (inability to receive) to a place of softness (ability to receive) is your responsibility.

You will shift from being a closed system bound for breakdown, to being an open system bound for integration with the whole.

You might think: “Jenn, it’s ridiculous to think that changing my own mind will have any effect on anything what-so-ever.”

To this I say, “That is just a belief that you have adopted into YOUR OWN MIND. It is a way of thinking that gives you an excuse to stay the same, to think the same! If you choose to see yourself as a victim of circumstance, other people or a crazy world - the Universe will support your choice, and excuses will be plentiful! You will adopt them into YOUR OWN MIND. And by adopting them into YOUR MIND, you will create more reasons to excuse yourself from taking responsibility for the thoughts and beliefs that you entertain.” Do you see the catch 22?

In a recent conversation on this topic, my husband, who has a protective warrior spirit, argued, “It sounds like you are saying that if we think differently or have ‘faith’, human beings will no longer engage in war. That’s a bunch of bullshit. Human beings have been at war for thousands of years, so of course it will always be that way. At least, war will not end in our lifetimes.”

I was excited! I said, “See, you just did it! You just did it right there!”

“Did what?” he asked, somewhat confused.

“You have it in your mind that human beings have been at war since the beginning of time. As far as we ‘know’, this is the case. Despite not being in a war ourselves (no actual physical experience), we understand through recorded history, that human beings have been killing one another en masse for quite a long time. You are now using that to project a conclusion out into the future that human beings will continue to kill each other en masse. When you do that, you are creating (with your mind!) a future of waring human beings. You are projecting a certain vision onto the empty canvas of the future. You think that future is imminent, and not a creation of your mind. Yet, you are USING YOUR MIND TO PROJECT IT! And if you do not withdraw your own projection from the mass consciousness that is ALSO projecting that supposition into the future, then you are contributing to it’s creation!”

The alternative is to admit to yourself, ‘The warring of human beings is just awful. I feel so much sorrow when I see it, when I read or hear about it. My whole being is telling me that there is a better way!”

Moving away from a preconceived conclusion of what the future holds, you might suddenly become ignited with a burning curiosity about how to change it. This is humility in action. Now there are possibilities. Now there is creativity. “What can I do to create a peaceful world? How can I resolve conflicts in my own life, with my own friends and family, and therefore create peaceful resolutions in my own neck of the woods? How can I help others to create peaceful resolutions in their lives? And since the inhumanity of war is so innately opposed to what I feel in my heart, I am going to use MY MIND to IMAGINE a future where human beings get along with one another and cooperate to meet the needs of each individual, as well as the whole. Since MY MIND is my paintbrush, I am going to choose the corresponding thoughts, images and beliefs and project those onto the canvas of the future!” Now you are no longer condemning future generations to lifetimes of destruction and death by your simple belief in it.

You have moved from a concluded', “I know the future will be….” to “I am going to do whatever it takes to create a world of peace, love and cooperation.”

Do you see how, just altering this one idea in your own mind can alter the future of human existence on Earth?

And understand, it is a closed thought system to believe that things will always be the way that they have been. This belief seems ‘right’ or ‘correct’ to the person that holds it. Yet, in it, there is no openness. In it, there is no room for possibility. It’s a dead thing. You can kick it and it doesn’t move.

In the closed thought system, we draw conclusions & build rigid mental boxes because it helps us feel safe by giving us a sense of certainty in a world of endless possibilities. This ALSO justifies our inaction. “It is just the way that it is, it will always be that way - so, there isn’t a damn thing I can to do change it! Whew!”

At some point, you may want to move beyond those mental boxes. At some point, you may want to expand your creative potential just a little bit further.

Our ideas about life, our mental boxes, are NOT reality. They are mental structures, thought patterns, that help us understand ‘reality’, so that we can feel a sense of safety. This provides a necessary starting point. You must have some idea about ‘reality’ before you can expand it.

You can more easily expand your ideas, your mental boxes, when you experience the sense of safety that comes from internally connecting with your eternal nature, your Source. When you cultivate that relationship, rigid mental boxes are much more easily dropped.

When you free your mind in this way, the world is your oyster. Life is your canvas, and your newly opened mind is your array of various mediums, colors and textures. You can add and take away as you so desire to serve your creation. And this kind of intentional creation is joyful. The only limits you have are the limits you have adopted into your own mind. And so, it is always up to you what you keep in the toolbox of your mind, what ideas and beliefs you shine your pure Divine Creative Light through onto the canvas of life.

When you consider this particular idea, how do you feel in your heart? Do you feel a sense of expansion?

Or does your mind interrupt your consideration, blocking it with a rigid mental box like, “That’s so idealistic, it’s ridiculous!” or “Great in theory, not in practice!”? Just notice. That block is in your mind. You may ‘know’ you are ‘right’ about it. That block is also in your mind.

When you see them, you can question their authority. Are your mental structures in charge of your creation - or are you?

Another way to look at it is: You are humility, You are Divine Grace. You are constantly learning. You are an open, endless possibility. Your mind is your tool. It thinks that it exists of it’s own accord. Well, it kinda has been running amok while You have been sleeping, lost in your identification with it. This is why it creates rigid mental structures - it wants to affirm it’s existence as a ‘real’ being.

It is not a real being. It is a tool. When you begin to identify as an eternal expanding awareness, you no longer need to identify with the thoughts you think and the resulting feelings; the tools you use to create. You are not your paintbrush. You are not the paint. You are not the painting. You are the artist.

Moving toward humility, you can walk away from your own outworn mental patterns. They have brought you to wherever you find yourself today. If where you find yourself feels just right, just perfect - amazing. That’s what I want for you. If you could use some improvement, try humility on for size. Or, keep disrobing your rightness. That’s what it feels like to me. I keep taking off and discarding my sense of being right. Being right is not my goal, and more importantly, being right prevents me from reaching my goal.

I want to be open. I want to stay open. I want to be receptive. I want to be creative. I want to see all possibilities and potentials. I want to be able to communicate and cooperate with others. I want to keep moving, keep growing, keep learning.

What are your goals?

Does knowing that you are right (about anything) prevent you from reaching any of your goals?

On the national level, this dynamic is currently very easy to see. In my country, we the people have common goals. I like to simplify them to this idea in the Declaration of Independence: All people are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

We have different ideas of how to get there. Currently, we have two opposing sides - each one sure that their way is the way to reach the goal, while also believing that the other way will destroy our nation. Both sides, believing in the ‘rightness’ of their own way, have abandoned the ability to respectfully receive the ideas and perspectives of the other side.

No one, who holds conviction in their own rightness, can respectfully hear and receive another person’s perspective.

As a nation, do we want to be right - or do we want to live in a country where we have open and respectful conversations, where we all work together and cooperate to reach our goals of equality, freedom, peace and happiness for all?

The woe of being right is simple: it is a closed, concluded, dead end. It goes nowhere. It is divisive. It is destructive. It prevents us from reaching our individual and collective goals.

So wherever you are in your own life, clarify your individual and collective goals. And when knowing that you are right gets in the way of reaching your goals, take off your rightness. Be willing to expand your understanding and soften your heart. You will find that the return to humility will be a continual process. You will wonder how many layers of rightness you have left. You will also notice how much forward movement is happening. You will notice how many more possibilities there are, how much more inspired and creative you feel. You will notice how soft and nurturing humility is. You will experience that not knowing is the most direct way to gaining a fuller understanding. You will experience that humility is inclusive, nurturing & equal to Divine Grace.

Don’t we just love when other people can apologize for their misgivings? This quality is so well appreciated in our culture: the ability of our loved ones to admit to trespass and apologize. And it’s opposite - the person who cannot admit to fault, trespass or being unkind ~ and as such, cannot apologize: Uggh! That’s the worst!

Well of course, I want to offer you another perspective.

In a long term relationship, I experienced what it was like to be in a relationship with a man who found apologizing easy. He did it readily, no holds barred. He did it often. Probably every day. And you know what happened? I got sick of hearing it. It began to annoy me. Because at what point would his apology become the impetus to actually change his behavior? And if he didn’t think that the behavior needed to change, then WHY was he apologizing?

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It is common in our culture to apologize when something we do or say offends someone or hurts their feelings. If you examine this a little closer, you can see this comes through our interpretation that we are responsible for that person’s hurt or offended feelings. This interpretation enables the other person to maintain the illusion that they are not responsible for their own feelings, and thus, believe they have no power to change them.

We are not responsible for another person’s feelings. We are only responsible for ourselves; our beliefs, thoughts, feelings, words and actions.

A sincere apology is given when we actually experience a feeling of remorse. When we feel remorse, it is because we recognize that our behavior is out of alignment with our values. In this case, we are not taking undue responsibility for another person’s feelings. We are instead, using another person’s response to notice when our actions and words are out of integrity with our own values. It’s a subtle distinction, I know. And it’s a very important one.

In that previous relationship, my boyfriend may have been apologizing simply because I had hurt feelings, rather than because he felt remorseful for his own behavior. In this case, he is taking responsibility for my hurt feelings rather than his own behavior. So he did not actually look at his behavior to determine if it was in alignment with his integrity. At the same time, of course, he is powerless to change what he is taking responsibility for ~ my response to his behavior. And because he was always apologizing, I assumed my hurt feelings were a valid and reasonable response. I experienced that I was ‘right’, and so I never did question if perhaps, my easily hurt feelings were the actual ‘problem’ ~ or at the very least, that which I actually had the power to change. (I wrote more in depth about my experience of easily hurt feelings in my previous post, “I’m Sensitive”.)

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Within that relationship, both my partner and I were operating under two illusions: 1. we are responsible for other people’s feelings (particularly each other’s) and 2. we were powerless to change our own feelings/responses. It is easy to see how these illusions contribute to mutual disempowerment, and repetition of the same challenges and conflicts within the relationship.

I apologize when I feel remorse. And I only feel remorse when how I treat you is out of integrity with how I want to treat you. I want to treat you with love and respect. So if I veer from my intention, I feel remorse because I see that I am out of integrity with myself. When I am out of integrity with myself, I use introspection and self awareness to discover the cause, so I can change the behavior. And of course, this is empowering.

On the other hand, I don’t apologize just because something I did or said hurt your feelings. In this case, I question your interpretation of my words and behaviors. Why would I apologize if I believe, think and feel that how I am showing up in relationship to you is exactly how I want to show up? Do you see what I mean? That wouldn’t be an honest apology. I would be placating you, manipulating you. If I apologize when I am in alignment with my values, then I am unlikely to change my behavior because I do not see any real problem with it. I am only apologizing because I want your approval, not because I actually feel remorse.

Would you really value this type of apology? If someone was unkind, but didn’t see it or didn’t actually feel sorry for it, would you really want them to lie about that? Wouldn’t you rather know the truth about their way of being?

We do not always know beforehand what behaviors are out of alignment with our values because we live under the illusion of various mental ideas. Life experience is often how we discover the illusions under which we operate, as well as how they skew us from being true to ourselves. These are important lessons. They are opportunities for tremendous growth in self awareness.

Sometimes, this happens suddenly.

On one such occasion, I was in class. I had grasped the current concept & I was very eager for the next. Another student asked a question, and in my enthusiasm, I interrupted our teacher’s thoughtful consideration of the question to shoot off an over simplification in hopes to move to the next bit faster. My normally calm teacher looked at me and responded in a very sharp & exacting manner. I cannot remember his words, but I immediately understood that I was out of line. I fully recognized how my interruption was disrespectful of my teacher and the pace of learning of the other student. I am not sure I verbally apologized, as that would have been another interruption - but I was indeed remorseful. I didn’t want to diminish others, even if it came from a place of excitement. And so, I never interrupted again. And changing my behavior was the real apology.

Sometimes, these life lessons happen over a long period of time:

In a more serious case, I once cheated on a partner. Before that time, I clearly remember judging people who cheat as ‘less than’ - because for sure, I would never do that!

In the case of this betrayal, I was going with my feelings. The longing I experienced was a longing for emotional intimacy, which I did not have with my partner. I was utterly confused about my primary relationship, which I sustained with quite a few illusions (mental ideas). The other relationship happened within the ‘integrity’ of my feelings; I felt the emotional connection for which I was longing.

Note: When there is a conflict between your feelings and your thoughts, the feeling is the truth (not the ultimate truth, but the relative truth of how life is showing up in you), and the thought is the lie (or illusion). This is an important distinction because we can (and do) lie to ourselves before we ever lie to someone else.

In this case, I desired a level of emotional intimacy and connection that was not present in my primary relationship (the experience). At the same time, I thought that he was “the one” (the mental illusion). So, I thought that I was supposed to figure out how to build the romantic relationship with him that I desired (another mental illusion).

I realized later that relationships are the way that they are, and while they can deepen and change, acknowledging the fundamental way that they are is the very important starting point for their development. It seems so basic to me now. And yet, I only discovered the metal ideas under which I was operating through the experience of my betrayal, and the introspection it facilitated.

When my partner found out, I sat with him while he cried, and I felt a very deep sense of remorse. And because I felt remorse, I specifically looked at what in me had contributed to the betrayal. I realized that I had been unable to admit that the dissatisfaction I felt within the relationship was a product of how the relationship did not meet my desire for emotional intimacy. As long as I couldn’t admit to the reality of my experience, I would likely succumb to betrayals in the future. This seeded a resoluteness to seeing and admitting to my experiences as they were, and also, my feelings as they were.

Our relationship ended, sometime after this - not because he couldn’t forgive me, but because I began to see and accept the experiential truth of our relationship; we had a friendship. I thought that once he decided to ‘be with me’, our relationship would become ‘romantic’.

The truth was that I liked him, and he was entertaining my infatuation. He was the first man that I met with whom I could have meaningful spiritual conversations. I thought that he was probably the only man in existence that had this capacity. What I loved was the experience of our shared interest in the topic. It felt really good!

He was quite a few years older than me, and he had a different experience. He was sure that my attraction to him would be temporary and short lived. So he regarded me, my interest in him and our relationship with little to no seriousness. And so I felt continuously dissatisfied. I felt lonely. I nagged him often, trying to get him to be emotionally intimate with me. I couldn’t see our relationship for what it was because I believed my ideas about how our relationship should be. My inability to see the truth in the experience was the primary betrayal taking place - meaning the first level, the foundation. It was the way by which I was betraying myself. When we betray ourselves by denying the truth of our experience, we end up betraying others by default. Because if I cannot admit to my truth, I certainly cannot share it with others. And I will still act on that truth, while flying blind to it, utterly confused.

I was so deluded by my own ideas of how the relationship should be, that someone else had to tell me, flat out, “You have to consider that maybe he doesn’t care about the relationship as much as you.” It took my breath away. Hearing someone else say it flatly, finally brought my attention to it’s reality. And this reality had been obvious to everyone else who saw us together. My acknowledgement of that truth shifted me deeply, and in that shift, the relationship naturally petered out. It was entirely built upon my make believe vision of what kind of romantic relationship we could have. He was merely humoring me. We had been living a lie together. And from that place, what else can be created but more of the same?

Betrayal is tough. It’s really, really tough to have your ideas about a relationship (and the life you’ve built around it) be shattered before your eyes. Definitely. And yet, somewhere, somehow ~ we already knew that something was off, but we ignored it. We easily deceive ourselves. We see what we want to see. We hear what we want to hear. In my case, I pretended that this man I thought was ‘the one’ felt the same way about me - just because he finally and begrudgingly decided to ‘be with me’ after two years of my non-waning interest. His agreement to be in a relationship with me was his lie to himself. Why wouldn’t he agree to be with a younger woman who was interested in him? It makes logical sense. But he simply did not feel it, and I always felt his lack of interest. I just couldn’t place it.

This all points to the importance of integrity, which I wrote about recently in the post titled the same.

The result of my betrayal was a deep desire to be honest with others, no matter how painful or difficult. And this became the driving force for me to learn how to be honest with myself & readily admit to the reality of my experiences - again, no matter how painful or difficult. A willingness to admit to the truth of my experience is empowering because it allows me to deal with it.

Denial is utterly disempowering. And so is thinking that we are responsible for someone else’s feelings, and somehow - not our own. It sounds backwards when I say it that way, doesn’t it?

When we feel remorse, it is because our actions are out of alignment with our values, and we acknowledge that we want to show up differently within a relationship. This empowers us to look within to discover why we are acting outside of our values. This self awareness and introspection brings about the capacity to see more clearly what illusions we are operating under, which allows us to rise above them. This give us the capacity to change our actions, to bring them into alignment with our true values.

As you move forward in your days and weeks, try something radical: do not apologize when you do not feel remorse. Help your friends and family discover and take responsibility for their own feelings and interpretations. Enabling others to maintain their hurt and offended feelings by apologizing when you do not feel remorse is a manipulation of others that disempowers them. Does that serve their ultimate well being or does that serve you?

And when you do feel remorse, challenge yourself to do more than give a verbal apology. Without the corresponding change of behavior, a verbal apology is quite meaningless. Use self awareness and introspection to discover why you stepped out of alignment with your values. Use the experience to change yourself, to see and transcend your mental illusions and get into alignment with your integrity. This is the real work, and this is the real apology.

To begin, I first need to say that I am a human being who, as a child, experienced ‘evil’ in others. I am not ignorant of the level of inhumanity that exists in this world. Quite the contrary, the inhumanity that I have experienced and the stories of inhumanity that I have willingly heard from others, has become the unending fuel in my desire to discover how to create a humane, cooperative, peaceful, loving and supportive world.

This is how I came to manifest destiny teachings; with a burning desire to end human suffering. This is an important distinction because many of the teachings focus on material wealth, making the teachings seem potentially un-useful to those who, like me, are driven by humane causes.

Well, it turns out that creation works the way that creation works, no matter what it is you want to create. The law of creation actually works better for altruistic desires - because you don’t accidentally generate karma making wonderful things for yourself at the expense of others; people, animals or the planet.

So, my deepest desire is, and always has been, to end human suffering.

Well, how do I do that?

Sitting within that place of wonder since childhood, that place of questions, of curiosity, of possibility - which later became feverish obsession marked by compulsive reading - I come to you now to illuminate that which has been taking form within this space.

I am going to make this post very basic. Very simple. These are new concepts that are quite abstract, and simplifying is very helpful in getting a grasp.

First off, I had to end my own suffering. I still experience pain - like the heartache that comes through the experience of being misunderstood. Yet, the suffering that I generate through a story I tell myself about how abnormal I am and how I will never be understood - that doesn’t happen much anymore. I catch myself pretty regularly at this spot- and then I tell myself a different story. Suffering is what we create when we repetitively think (and believe) something that makes us feel bad in our hearts. It’s an empowering definition of suffering, because - we can choose our thoughts and beliefs. This means that we all have the power to end our own suffering. It seems simple. It is simple, though not necessarily easy.

Some people will argue that they cannot choose their thoughts. Okay. Let’s start there. We live within a collective consciousness, and random thoughts pop into my head too. I can still choose which ones I pay attention to, and I can certainly choose which ones I believe. I once read, “Don’t believe everything you think.” This is funny, but also profound. Not everything we think is true. In fact, nothing we think is ‘true’. Thinking is how we generate reality/’truth’. ← (This is the part that keeps blowing my mind. This time, I felt it pulse through my heart.)

So, I want to end human suffering. That looks pretty difficult considering the large amounts of war and mayhem in the world currently. I am just one single person. I cannot logistically find every single individual who wants to hurt, kill and harm others. And even if I could, what the fuck would I do then? Could I change a serial killer’s mind through wisdom? Probably not. I won’t tell you that it isn’t possible. I believe anything is possible. But it doesn’t seem like a very practical way for me to go about the business of ending human suffering. It would certainly be doubtful that I could accomplish my goal this way - in one lifetime.

Enter from backstage: Manifest Destiny Teachings.

Energetically, I can radiate such an intense vibration of love and peace that it softens every heart on the planet. And I can do that in 10 minutes.

We live in a sea of energy. We are energy. Everything is energy.

Energetic creation is the easiest and MOST POWERFUL form of creation because it moves outward from me, on it’s own. It does not bump up against physical obstacles, it moves right through them. It doesn’t encounter any physical resistance.

Energy flows into creation based upon my ATTENTION.

My Conscious Attention is my energetic paintbrush.

My feelings are my vibration; the way my Attention shows up in my physical body.

This feeling/vibration IS my Conscious Attention moving through my physical body and into the physical world (becoming physical).

When I feel ‘bad’, I am focusing on (and thereby creating) something that I do not want.

When I feel ‘good’, I am focusing on something that I do want.

Noticing what I do not want is necessary in the discovery (and creation) of what I do want.

Once I know what I do want, I now turn my Attention toward that, using my imagination to envision what I do want.

When I use my imagination to envision what I do want, when I revel in this lovely daydream, I start to feel joy, love, peace and harmony in my heart. This is my vision starting to vibrate in my physical body. I can feel it moving out from me into the physical world.

It is safe and useful for me to notice the things that I do not like in myself, my life, my relationships, my career, my world. This provides me with the necessary contrast that allows me to move into creativity; beginning to imagine what I do want.

This step; the intentional conscious focusing of our Attention in the creative imagining of what we do want - is the one step that we have yet to collectively take. It’s probably also the one that you have yet to personally take.

Why? Because we don’t believe life really works that way. But we haven’t even tried to prove ourselves wrong - or right for that matter. We have not tested the theory. I learned about the theory only AFTER I had done it by accident. This was handy because when I was learning the information, I already had proof. So, I can tell you through experience, and not hear-say - that not only does it work that way - it works smoothly, like magic! It works WAY better than any other way I have tried, and with very little effort on my part.

This is the crux of the manifest destiny teachings. You have to use your imagination. You have to IMAGINE WHAT YOU WANT. You have to spend time daydreaming. And I go a little further than that. Because I haven’t done it through thought alone. It has worked for me when I imagine in my mind what I want until I get an expansive feeling (usually of joy) in my heart. The more deeply I get into the imagining, the more expansive the feeling becomes. In this, I am generating a specific vibration in my physical body, and I can feel it moving out from me into the rest of the world.

Collectively, we spend a great deal of time looking at things that we do not want: massive corruption in politics, the ignorance or ambivalence of fellow human beings, horrendous natural disasters that destroy the lives of many or the destruction of the planet by the greed of corporations. It is so easy to feel powerless, to like a victim of an insane and corrupt world or a victim of insane and corrupt people.

Yet consider, when we feel powerless, what are we vibrating? What are we creating? Circumstances that are out of our control? By continually looking at, talking (and FEELING) about the things we do not want, we unwittingly add our Creative Energetic Attention to their manifestation.

I am not saying that we shouldn’t honestly acknowledge where we find ourselves. We absolutely should.

From there, we could collectively use that information to help us generate a vision of what we do want. We could spend at least as much time imagining what we do want as the time we spend looking at those things that we do not want. And if we don’t want to do the 50/50 thing - perhaps it isn’t practical depending on your role in the world - you could try imagining what you want for 10 minutes a day. Or however many minutes it may take you to get the feeling vibration of your vision in your body.

Do that. Daily. You’ve got nothing to lose.

If I am incorrect, those 10 minutes a day might have been wasted perusing social media anyways. If what I am saying is correct, then adopting this new practice will radically change you, your life, and the fate of humanity for the better.

And remember, if you are walking around frustrated, brooding about the state of the world, the state of the union, the state of your family or marriage, what that friend, co-worker or stranger said - you are vibrating something. You are using your energetic paintbrush to create something.

I hate to be a stickler for details. But it matters.

What you believe, think and feel becomes matter - it materializes.

So please, for the love of Creation, focus on imagining what you want to see in the world. And if it is too difficult for you to imagine what you want, spend those minutes focusing on all the blessings in your life. The process is the same. Focus on what you are grateful for until you feel your heart expanding, until you feel really good. It is the vibration of your feelings that is your indication that you are sending a signal out into the Universe.

And the Universe returns to you what you send out.