I’m busy taking care of me – I’ll finish this post shortly. Drop me an email and I’ll send it to you as soon as it is done.  {Big Grins!}

What a winter! I have found this to be the most difficult winter in years, and many I have talked to are saying the same. I was very happy to see March 20th come around. The energy of winter has shifted into the birth and growth of spring. Yea God! Go Team! Actually the energy shifted for me around the first of March, but by the 20th I was ready for the birthing to happen!
I have seen this reflected in my session work with clients as well. Many hit hard spots this winter, as I did. These were totally unexpected hard spots, and without a warning of any kind. Or things came up that we thought we had ‘dealt with’ already. It seemed that all winter I was in an active hibernation- a very busy stillness. I felt myself fragmented almost, and of course I had to ask my spiritual guidance team what was up with that! They gently smiled at me and said “Spiritual Defrag”. Then They promptly disappeared, having downloaded this tidbit of wisdom into my consciousness and soul for me to explore.
Hummm, Spiritual Defrag…. Interesting concept, but of course I needed more, being the enquiring mind that I am. I needed to see how this actually fit into my life and my work. I desired the wisdom of these two words on a deep soul level. I could vaguely see how this applied to my life but I wanted more clarity. They promptly sent me my first vivid example outside myself. This person had been experiencing the same shifts of energy that I had been seeing, and a bit of a twist. She said she felt that she was ‘at the end of her spiritual rope’. I found this very interesting, especially as it related to her quest to discover exactly what it was she wanted to do with her life.
Hummmm, again. Her story was like many others. Most people are raised with religious/church doctrine – much of it brimming with dogma and fear. There are beliefs that they are unworthy. Beliefs that we are unable to connect with the Divine Source on a real personal day to day level way that affects our lives. These thoughts and beliefs are often woven through every breath. As we grow up we accumulate many different pieces of religion through listening, observing and being part of a family and community. We then work to fit them together, creating our own belief system. Something that fits who we believe we are. Ultimately, it is assumed, and we hope, that this religious education will bring us comfort. However, often it brings us pain and conflict, a feeling of never being good enough.
As usual, as human beings we develop inner conflict when what we hear does not match what we see. We find ourselves in a religious conflict, often creating an inner and spiritual turmoil. I have found that ultimately we all, sooner or later, have to look directly at our relationship with God, independent of any organization. We have to define God, and/or the Divine Source of All That Is, from all the pieces we have accumulated and our own personal experience. No one else’s definition of God will fit us perfectly. We generally start this process with what we have learned or picked up from our early religious upbringing, or lack there of. All the pieces we have accumulated over time will need to be looked at, deciding what to keep and what to let go. Then we shave, break up the pieces or simply rearrange our knowledge and experience to define God.
At this point many look outside their respective churches for spiritual Guidance and the wisdom they seek. We look to those around us, read books and seek deeper experiences with ourselves, and the Divine. So once again we find ourselves shifting the pieces we have gotten as we find new ways of looking at our self and the world. As we quest for this relationship with God we find ourselves becoming more involved in our personal Spiritual Evolution. Often, but not always, creating a Spiritual Revolution, totally throwing out the old and creating a new definition for our self. We attend lectures and workshops, and expand our views even more. We explore the concepts of Universal Laws such as Karma and Reincarnation.
Even as we embrace the Universal Laws, by what ever name we call them, we understand that the world as we know it has is own set of rules. The world’s rules aren’t necessarily the Universal Laws, and not what we usually learned in church as kids. We find that we have whole sets of man made rules that we picked up growing up and older. We find ourselves with extra pieces. In the course of our spiritual evolution we create a mosaic of beliefs and experiences. This mosaic of our belief system has these extra pieces in this constant state of evolution. In the case of a personal Spiritual Revolution there are even more fragmented pieces.
I’ve discovered this is where the Spiritual Defrag comes in to the process. A lot of people carry all the old with them as they integrate, develop, and live the new spiritual aspects and wisdom they are embracing. What happens to all those old pieces? The religious doctrine? The dogma? The fear and feelings of being unworthy? They are still in our consciousness or subconscious as well as in our energy field. This pattern came up a lot this winter. Many pieces floating are around in some aspect of our being and do not have a home. Some of them are mental pieces in our subconscious that seemed to be in a holding pattern, waiting to see if they will be called up for use again, long after they have been consciously dismissed. However, they are still there simmering and ready to bubble up at any time.
In computer-ese these are fragmented pieces that have separated from an operating program or a file. These fragments are too small or useless, so the operating system can’t use them or use them efficiently. Thus, causing the computer to run slowly and inefficiently. It can happen slowly or suddenly, depending on what has fragmented or mis-filed. Defrag leaves no holes, and gets rid of the little pieces that slows things down or causes glitches— causing the operating system to search all over for one piece of information that will allow the program to run smoothly and efficiently. We use a scan program to check out our computer to see what is what in the system. This is to locate fragments, holes and disjointed or warped information. We get a report back about what it found and corrections it made. When our personal operating system, the Higher Self, is fragmented it cannot operate efficiently either.
Spiritual Defrag is our ability to evaluate our lives. It identifies and gets rid of what is not allowing us to run smoothly. When living intentionally we consciously scan our personal programs, the sum total of our life. However, unlike computers we cannot always- in an easy, peaceful and harmonious way- make all the corrections on our constantly evolving life program. I have found this to be so because as humans we lack the cold objectivity of computers, and I for one celebrate this lack! We are intimately involved with our life program unlike a computer. A computer does not feel joy, passion or bliss like we do. It also does not feel the loneliness, pain or sadness that we experience at times in our lives. I celebrate this as well. It is often when these feelings enter into our minds and lives that we stop and take the time to defrag. Those that are in the constant process of joy and happiness do this daily (the act of intentional living), they don’t wait for pain or discomfort to trigger a life scan.
When scanning our lives we often find fragments that no longer fit. Ideas, people or places that we have out grown or simply don’t fit us anymore. One fragment that often pops up in our scan (sometimes forcefully) is the manifestation of illness, or discontent, and feeling unworthy or not good enough. I believe that everyone would agree that our thoughts are powerful, yet when it comes to negative thoughts, the ones that WE have, we seem to forget this. The same thing happens when we bump up against old and non-supportive programming, perhaps from childhood or early adulthood. When we look at those thoughts and beliefs, we usually find that many of them constantly contradict our wonderful loving prayers, affirmations, and mantras that we repeat faithfully everyday. These thoughts and beliefs are like computer viruses. We have acknowledged some of them and have eliminated them, but others seem to be in quarantine. Lurking in the background, springing out when the barrier is not strong enough. (I won’t even get into the amount of daily energy that it takes to keep these pushed into the background! Talk about feeing tired all the time. Keep leaning on that door so they don’t spring free, and you’ll continue to be exhausted physically, mentally and spiritually.) Cleaning up our conscious and subconscious minds is a must to keep our life running smooth and honest. Success in this area will empower us to move forward as the individuals we desire to be.
Honestly and lovingly allowing these thoughts and beliefs to surface is the best course of action. The very thing we swear that we’ll never be is probably where we are headed. Allow these things to come to our awareness, and then choose to keep them or let them go is much healthier. It makes the process easier if we remember we can love the source of the thought or belief (mom, dad, granny) and chose not to keep it. It does not make them wrong and us right, nor does it make us wrong and them right. It simply means that pair of shoes does not fit our feet, so to speak. The shoe is fine; it is just not for us. Many seek traditional or alternative therapy, or hypnosis to help with this process; others choose to tackle this project on their own. What ever works (as long as it really works) is fantastic for it clears the way for greater growth, and a more dynamic space for self-awareness and empowerment. However, being aware of the energetic pattern of thoughts is important, for thoughts do have an energy, and energy never dies, it simply changes form.
As we are all spiritual beings this fragmentation also happens in our spirit. As everything is made of energy, it is in our energy field as well. We often ‘defrag’ our conscious and subconscious minds through rearranging our thoughts, or therapy. If this is so, where do the old thoughts go? Very often they go into our energy field or into our bodies. (If the thought or belief is still in the conscious or subconscious it is definitely in the body’s energy field as well, where illness and injury take root, acting like magnets for these things as well.) I have found that directing the Divine Energy into these areas will assist in clearing them out of our energy field and mind once and for all.
When love is in our field only things like love will remain. A Course in Miracles states that “Love brings up everything unlike its self for the purpose of healing and release”, so this can bring up a healing crisis. It can affect the mind, body or spirit. It can be small or big, but it will be noticeable and often uncomfortable and at times terribly painful. It is a trigger for us to know things are not smooth and operating efficiently. That something is not supporting us, but is actually working against us. There are many ways this can appear. One of the ways my client (and many others) felt this in day-to-day life was through a great desire to help people through her natural gifts. However, this desire created conflict for her as well. She had a spiritual and mental conflict with the results of her work, and was totally at the mercy of the opinion of others, and she was in a state of constant exhaustion physically. It was God’s work if there were immediate noticeable positive results, but she was a great failure if there were not. The belief that if it is good it must be God, if not it must be human. Intellectually she had altered her beliefs about God and the way the Universe works. She knew she was vital in the role of bringing individuals to personal healing, but something in her underlying belief system kept her from embracing this knowing. Creating mental confusion, physical exhaustion and spiritual conflict.
All of us have healing crisis of varying degrees and effects. How we get through them, if we choose to get through them, is what makes the difference in how much ‘easy, peaceful and harmonious’ we have in our lives. It is the difference between living with joy and harmony or pain and drama. Too many accept a painful healing crisis as part of living or being human. After all, no one is completely happy and at peace, are they? Without drama and trauma somewhere in our lives how would we know we are really living, right? If you believe that it will be true. If you don’t then perhaps it is time for a Spiritual Defrag.

 July 2004

I recently had a discussion with a friend about my upcoming move out of the Atlanta area. Until last Thursday I was moving to Richmond Virginia at the end of the month. On Thursday that changed when my fiancé got a promotion that includes a move to Detroit. Venus transit moves through my life in a totally unpredictable way! I did not have an opposition to Detroit, I just have no idea why I am really going to Detroit, other than following my heart. I do know my life is handled through Divine Grace, so I figured there was Grace in the move and I would discover it as I get further into this new phase of my life. But there is no path for me to follow, as there would have been in Richmond, as that area has been an extended part of my life for a while now.
Richmond I felt comfortable with, granted it was a change, but it felt like more of the same. It was still the south, I have clients and students in the area so I had convinced myself that it was simply a suburb of Atlanta, just 10 hours away (hey, we all do strange things to help ourselves through things like this!) Then Detroit became my new reality. Totally alien geographically, no roots in the area, but the bonus being really good blues clubs to be discovered. Ok, so I am reaching there, but I need something to look forward to besides brutal winters!
My friend told me a story about ancient Roman history. She said that Cesar would choose individuals to be trained as ambassadors and keep them in Rome and close to him ‘in training’, sometimes for years. Often longer than they felt they needed to be kept in Rome. They would be eager to travel and see the world, but Cesar in his great plan would make sure they were experts in every aspect of life in Rome. No area was left out from them, they had to go through the paces of all aspects of life and how Cesar wanted things done, even things that they did not personally relate to. In the process they were exposed to the Roman way of life from the smallest details to the highest social echelons. Their very presence, no matter where it was, represented Rome in its entirety. They were trusted and trained to be Cesar, so to speak. These individuals were mobile pieces of Rome, with the authority and knowledge of all that Rome was in Cesar’s day.
Then they were sent to the farthest reaches of the world. Places that may have never even heard of Rome. They were also sent to places that had heard of Rome but had no real idea what that meant or encompassed. Where the ambassador was, Cesar was. I suspect that some of those ambassadors faced real hardship in these new and foreign area’s, and at times asked themselves “What was I thinking!?!” Their job was to be in that area and live as they live in Rome. Their job was to hold solid as they intergraded Rome into the old way of life. As the natives were attracted to that way of life they were to be given the opportunity to become Romans. (Ok, so in some areas there may have been some violent coercion as well… but most of them were sent to accomplish this in a peaceful manner.)
I got exactly where my friend was going with her story. For the last few years I have been in intense Divine training, personally and professionally. This has not been through formal training, but through day-to-day experiences. It has been constant exercises in being flexible and staying out of judgment. At this point I am considering changing my name to Gumby! Oh yea, I have had to be flexible, or die physically, emotionally or spiritually. I have learned to stay out of judgment, which blocks the energy of Grace in my life. I have a knowing that all will be better than I could have imagined if I just let it BE. Hard earned wisdom, through Divine Light training. The things I have been living and incorporating into my being are serving me well in this time of unexpected life transition.
I realized I am, that we all are, Ambassadors of The Light. We are being taken out of our comfort zones into the far reaches of the world, to Be the Light. Not to preach the light, just to Be the Light in areas that may not have the Light as we know it. We are to be the Light in a spiritual way, instead of the traditional religious way. Of course that brought me a wisdom I did not previously have. It explained why so many spiritual people are being drawn, or left, in situations that are foreign to the individual’s current spiritual beliefs. They find themselves in situations such as work, family or social groups that feel dark or unenlightened. These are the times that we must hold solid in our core beliefs, not revert back to old behavior or beliefs that no longer serve us.
Let me make clear, I do not consider Detroit unenlightened. That is not what I am saying at all. But it is foreign to me and many tell me that even in Atlanta I am unusual in they way I apply my spiritual beliefs to my day-to-day life. Friends, clients and students often tell me how the simplicity and straightforward way I approach life and work differs greatly from the ‘us against them’ mentality that too often still prevails in the spiritual communities. My actions and beliefs in my personal life are the same as the ones in my professional life. My professional life includes corporate work, public speaking and one on one sessions with individuals. The Light does not change by situation nor do I.
How often do you find that those who ‘do not understand’ surround you? Is it possible that we are to live and express our training in the Light to brighten those areas? We have all been in intense Light training for the past five years. I call this time the accelerated Master’s program. How well we have incorporated these past five years will be revealed through the changes occurring in our lives.
We are beacons of Light, Ambassadors of Light, everywhere we are. We are full expressions of the Divine no matter the situation. We have been trusted and trained in the Light. We are prepared even if we do not feel like it. Actually, not feeling prepared can be a big signal that we have been diligent in our training. We want to understand and know more, to be better prepared. However, the life of the perpetual student is a safety zone that holds no real responsibility. When we find our life goes in directions that we had not expected, we should consider it a promotion. The boss knows we are ready, we just are being human… putting off exactly what we have been working and training for all our lives. The opportunity to Be the Light, especially when it is out of our ‘expected’ way. And like the Roman Ambassadors there may be times when we ask ourselves “What was I thinking!?!”, but we have signed up for the job and we have received the training. Now it is time to take this show on the road. It is time to Be the Light. Instead of ‘why’ perhaps we should be saying Thank You, because we would not be sent out to be Ambassadors of Light unless we were ready. Yea God! Go Team!

April 2004

I recently read an article by Dena L. Moore where she addressed the difference between ‘safe’ love and ‘dangerous’ love’. It was thought provoking in its points made.

As I continue to develop my intentional life and work with others doing the same, the area of romantic love comes up often, as this is a vital part of all of our lives and our perceptions of ourselves. Past or present, romantic relationships can color the world in which we live. This can be colored positive and smooth, or it can be negative, painful and dramatic. It is often hard to distinguish between what is real and what is not, hard to identify that which is positive and that which is negative especially in the beginning of a relationship.

Too often ‘love’ becomes a battle ground for old emotions and traumas from our past, from childhood to the present. These can even be left over from past lives. Most of us have felt the burn of dangerous love and if you are like many you assume that you or the other person are broken in some way if this ‘love’ did not find success or completion. In reading that statement do not assume I mean the fairy tale happily ever after scenario as the only successful means of completion.

In this context I mean completion to be that the souls understood and went through the contract that they set up between lives. These contracts are always about understanding the self and expanding your capacity for love and compassion to greater degrees. There are times when the individuals contract is to stay together ‘till death do us part’, and at other times it means the end of the relationship with both individuals better for the experience. It ends with both being fulfilled, feeling honored and they are rewarded by being able to look forward for more experiences of love and the next honorable contract that they have ‘scheduled’.

Mature, evolving souls can together end a relationship because it has played out, both knowing the contract has been fulfilled and it is time to move on. This life and the individual souls were enriched for having gone where they went together. This is done with gratitude not drama which is the signature of an prematurely ended contract. Drama means the contract was not completed and it has to be done with that individual in another lifetime, and the remainder of this lifetime is often a variation or echo of the contract not finished. (As seen by having the same relationship over and over with different partners.) The contract is unable to be finish because the person it was with is not the one in front of them. Note that the difference between a lesson and a contract is that a lesson can be learned along the way, it is not absolute in its application. A contract is between two individual souls for a specific outcome for them both.

Think of any contract you have ever entered into. When it was over you either got paid for a service rendered, or received a service for your money. When the contract was successfully completed both sides shook hands and walked away feeling satisfied and complete with the transaction. If one party or the other did not feel these things then the contract was not completed as outlined and there is left over issues that remain dangling causing both of them grief or guilt to some degree or another. This happens because one or the other did not fulfill their part of the contract, and usually has plenty of excuses as to why. Most all of them blaming the other party or how they were the victim of some outside force.

Hard to think of love in these terms is it not? But that is the way it is with everyone we meet. We do have contracts with them, from long term to brief encounter. Between lives we set up opportunities to learn and grow into our greatest spiritual capacity. These lifetimes are simply exercises to grow stronger into our God Selves, emulating the Great I AM with the goal being to bring our individual vibrations back up to that level. The level which we once were before we chose to come play on planet earth. Or it could be more accurately said that we use these exercises (lifetimes) to help us remember that we are that vibration, everything else is background noise and distraction. Remembering that we are the total essence of Love and Compassion as is the Divine Source, this is the purpose of each life.

In love relationships, as in all relationships, it is a time for us to live what we are in our core. We define our boundaries and expand our horizons at the same time. ‘Safe’ love relationships give us that place to be and feel love while continuing on with other aspects of our spiritual growth that we wish to exercise and expand in this lifetime. (Every lifetime has one primary lesson to learn with many other mini, or elective lessons to learn if we choose. There are countless contracts.) ‘Dangerous’ love relationships are Karmic in their origins and powerful opportunities to learn about us and honor another soul. Note I do not reference Dangerous Love as those that can be physically dangerous or abusive, but it is used here as a relationship that is dangerous because of the passions and intensity that it inspires in the individuals involved.

These relationships, these contracts, are to discover where we are in our lessons of self. It is often the yardstick that measures our personal development, which is why they are so vitally important. These types of love relationships are also excellent in the mini lessons department because it shows where one is as related to truth, integrity and trustworthiness or any number of other core traits. If these are weak in the life application then they will surely cause great bumps in the Dangerous relationships because they can become ‘outs’ that one can spin ‘out on’ to keep themselves from directly addressing the core issue, which is love and the Karmic tie or contract with another.

Dangerous loves are strong and binding contracts. Many relationships are not dangerous love relationships but we want to pretend they are to keep us from having to truly work through a real one. We set up the stage for drama and negative passion and call it love. We take the easy out. It is all wrapping paper and no gift. This is soul sabotage that will always cripple other areas of the life, which is a great indicator that you have taken an out and it was only a pop quiz that you turned it into an essay question to avoid something important. What should have taken five minutes takes much longer to get through and often becomes very tangled indeed. It is something the ego created to keep you busy and away from your soul’s real purpose in this lifetime.

Dena Moore gives an excellent definition of Dangerous Love. When trying to determine if a relationship is or was a dangerous love relationship one thing to “consider is the importance of the person in your life and your soul’s quest. If you have spent many lives with another person, both positively and negatively, you will feel familiar with that soul. So we have many different types of love in our lives and many souls we know and remember on some level. A passionate, dangerous love develops when two souls love each other and have for centuries. There is usually some tragedy that occurred in a past life that severed the relationship in a very unusual or painful manner–often one of the partners died a dramatic death. In subsequent lives, the two souls avoid each other (choosing not to incarnate at the same time, or one soul simply refuses to come back to this plane for a very long time), thus setting up a karmic tug of war between them. They want to be together, long to be together, yet the pain is powerfully strong and often guilt is a major issue that keeps them apart. Buried past life memories invade the subconscious when the two souls are together and makes one or both partners feel as if they will die if they stay in the relationship or die if they stay out of it–the ego feels it is safer to sever the ties that bind rather than work through it. Anger can become a factor of this, as repressed fear often escapes in such a manner. These relationships and how a person handles them are very important turning points in a person’s life–for one thing, you will not have been confronted with this type of relationship if you are not ready to heal and move beyond this point in your past .”

In other words there are those who are truly part of our life path and soul’s development, and then there are others who are really are just a pop quiz, or a detour. They are part of our soul family but not part of our soul in the way that helps us develop greater awareness of our God Self and more deeply define our capacity to love. They just give us opportunities to more deeply define drama or assist us in self-sabotage. Ultimately they do not assist us in any way other than giving us a distraction when the going gets rough and it is time to get real. We take what should have been a weekend retreat and convince ourselves to turn it into a way of life. A way that will lead us nowhere, or at least nowhere the soul truly desires to go or benefits in going. These individuals love us (on a soul level) enough to give us an out even when it is in our best interest to dig deeper into ourselves and finish the contract we originally set so we can achieve that soul satisfaction and feeling of completeness. They allow us to escape when our higher good would have been served by discovering what it is that keeps us from the Great I AM within. Thus generating more karma to clean up in future lifetimes.

Look deeply at your life and your growth when in or reviewing past love relationships. When gathering our keys for intentional living we must remember to remain clear in our purpose and intent. Make peace with yourself if you turned a pop quiz into an essay question and you feel like you wasted valuable time. Forgive yourself and move on. Take it as a lesson and take it to heart never to repeat it again. Identify what you learned about yourself and the world, and be thankful for the opportunity.

Alternately, commit to finish out the contract you may be in or have run away from. These unfinished love relationships too often have cords that are attached to our day to day life that makes it impossible to move forward with ease and grace for these cords act like elastic bands and keep drawing us back. These cords can show up as day dreams, psychic connections or dreams of the individual at night. They can also show up as locks, or blockages in your day to day life. Clear these contracts, live out the karma and then you can move on. When you clear these old contracts you will find the keys to unlock the blockages in your life.

Which ever you discover follow through intentionally not reactionary this time and you will be amazed at how that area of your life cleans up and you find yourself genuinely excited about all aspects of today and all the days of your future. All the weight will be gone from your heart and you’ll once again find yourself excited about love-for all the right reasons. No danger there.

 Nov. 2004

There sometimes comes a time in a life when you do the right thing for the wrong reason, and you just pray that love will grow from it. When it doesn’t, a piece of you dies, and day by day, it keeps dying until you finally realize there is nothing of you left.

At those times one comes to deeply understand tragedy; its taste, its texture, its long silent moments of excruciating pain that isolates and exposes your most inner soul. You find that you have disappeared into the experience and you no longer exist. You feel as if you have become your history, seemingly one without a future.

You find that you no longer know how to breathe, and you are not sure you even want to anymore. There are no pretty words to wrap around that kind of grief and pain. There is no sign of the sunrise in these long dark nights of the soul.

But as with all things in nature, the cycle of life continues and the sun does rise. It may seem like a long, slow agonizing rise but the light does come simply because we did keep taking one breath after another. It may be irregular breaths, they may be infrequent and shallow, but they do keep the carcass of flesh and blood alive and so we remain on planet earth. With the sunrise we begin to awaken.

Then we have to survey the damage of the storm that moved through our life. And like hurricane Katrina that is ravaging New Orleans as I write this, it will take days, weeks, even months- possibly years, to fully assess the damage. After a physical or emotional holocaust you eventually have to take stock of what is left standing in your life. Slowly we realize that we did not disappear in the moment of tragedy or into the eye of the storm. We also must painfully realize we created the landscape and the weapons used for the holocaust, and the actual event was the natural consequence of our actions, or non-action-which is an action in its self.

The short version of my story is that omce upon a time I married the man of my dreams, and within weeks I found that instead of a fairy tale I was in the middle of a nightmare that my mind truly could not comprehend. Like many others that this type of thing has happened to, I found that I was involved with an individual who was not who he presented himself to be. He has since told me that he realizes that he is nothing more than an illusion, which is something I had already figured out during the year that followed. I found out the hard way that I had been living with someone that was a figment of his own imagination, a man that has no moral compass or personal integrity. This is a man who throughout his life continually compromises his own mental health to be able to support his illusion and imagination, and then surrounds himself with others that will do the same. In hindsight, it sickens me that I was one of those people. When these people no longer support that illusion he makes up some slight and has the ‘excuse’ he feels he can justify to move on leaving emotional devastation in his wake. The personal twisting I had to do to support his illusion-which I allowed to become my own as well, created a sudden devastation of my life that threatened my physical, emotional and personal stability, not to mention my sanity.

Over and over I have heard ‘Pat, if this can happen to you—with your gifts, what chance do the rest of have?’ ‘You’re an intuitive for gosh sakes! What happened?’ And the all too common comment of ‘We thought you two were perfect together, the fairy tale we all aspire to!’ Believe me I have spent much time looking at these very things. I’ve spent a lot of time looking at him, our life and myself. The only productive reflection I’ve engaged in has been looking at myself. Looking at why did I buy into the illusion that we were perfect together, and at what cost it was to me personally to constantly prop up that illusion. In looking deeply at myself I realized he, as a person, is totally inconsequential to grand scheme of my life. He simply mirrored my own self-disrespect. Once I realized that, things began to shift out of the negative tragic experience and into a positive joyous awareness for me that facilitated some breathtaking self-discoveries, and bringing with them opportunities to create a satisfying life for myself.

You see, so many of us want to believe in a fairy tale, long after we know better. Not that they aren’t possible, because they are, the problem comes when we believe we are in one after the evidence proves we’re not. We continue to support the illusions of others, justifying those that we have created ourselves. We desire perfection somewhere in our lives, even if it is from a distance. Falsely assuming we know what is going on in others lives and modeling our own after them, like many did while observing the relationship I was in. No one realized the personal compromise I endured for years to maintain that illusion for us and everyone else. Yes, for a moment there was a deep soul love between us, and those who observed it and its echo were fascinated by it. Unfortunately that moment passed all too quickly and then I bought into the fairy tale, and then the echo too! I believed in my own fairy tale despite in-my-face facts to the contrary, facts that had been right in front of me for five long years. I spent a lot of time and energy ignoring the facts about him and about what I was allowing- or forcing?- myself to become with him.

By ignoring the facts and my intuition, my life began to be directed by chance and someone else’s plan and intention, not by my intention and my interaction with my own day-to-day life. That choice to ignore, or the non-choice to do anything about the reality of my life and the person I embraced in it, created a lock on my life that became uncomfortable over time and ultimely completely jammed. I was not a total Pollyanna. I had identified some serious structural defects in the relationship and we had discussed them, with him whole-heartedly agreeing to the defects and agreeing to commit to creating deep change on both our parts. Little did I know how he planed on doing his part… by running away from himself and us, by creating a new illusion and finding someone of his negative moral caliber to support it. However, once I was away from him I could see that I should have expected his actions. That is what he always did when something was hard or challenged his illusions. He always runs from the reality into escapism of one form or another. That is the life he enjoys and thrives in, the only life he knows. The questions are: why did it surprise me? Why did I not listen to my intuition that he would do exactly what he did, in one form or another, like he always had? And most importantly: Why did I continually fail myself?

The ironic part of this is that I had been working on a program called Keys to Intentional Living during the previous year and a half. I’d been formulating the thoughts and behaviors I have found through experience to work for me, when applied to situations and my life. Things like focus, solitude, personal integrity & accountability, just to name a few. When I identified a ‘lock’ in my life I use these things to open the lock, in this way they have become keys for me. This is the foundation of the life coaching work I do that is so successful with others as well. It is a foundation of self-thought, self-accountability and self-responsibility.

These ‘keys’ have helped me build better healthier relationships with my family, friends and in my professional life. I have used these keys to assist me in understanding about the energy of money and financial flow. Repeatedly I have used these keys to assist clients to create lives they desire. Using my keys, I created a life that I, for the most part, absolutely loved and many envied.

Yes I am saying that I used these keys everywhere except where I was most vulnerable, in my intimate relationship. Time and time again this man not only showed me but actually told me how he did not deserve a ‘nice girl’ like me. Time and time again I observed and experienced his hidden self, his true self and too often it was not pleasant. He even told me he was unworthy of me, and the life I lived. The problem was I did not listen or believe him even when the facts were right in front of me! (Haven’t we all done this? Believed someone was more than they were or that they wanted to be more than they were?) How can I blame him when I chose to settle for less than an authentic man and then lied to myself about it? He did not lie to me; he knows who and what he is-and did all along. I just refused to believe it. The question for me is why did I allow this to continue year after year in my life knowing what I know about intentional living?

I realized that I chose an alternate reality that had no basis in fact or application. I unintentionally chose a counterfeit reality by not taking action on what I knew to be right and true for me. I set an intention to help him- to give him a chance believing it would not harm me and possibly make both of us better people. Falsely believing that I was laying the foundation for a deep and lasting love and a life together. What a whopper of a self-lie that one is! Sadly it is one that we, and yes I see it most often in women, often engage in. It’s a dangerous intention to set a goal that is below your standards to assist another who will not carry their own emotional or spiritual weight. This leaves us wide open for the energetic, physical and spiritual breakdown of the other person, not to mention our own inevitable breakdown. If we are wise, and Graced, this breakdown turns into a breakthrough, as it did with me.

During those years of my life my intuition- my greatest gift, and even my good sense, went off again and again- Bing! Bing! Bing! I ignored it… I take full responsibility for this and have lived through the consequences as we all ultimately do. The keys I have used successfully in all the other areas of my life remained in the drawer, so to speak, and unused. Had I been applying my Keys to Intentional Living to my own intimate life, the emotional nuclear holocaust I experienced would never have happened. I would never have tasted the unfathomable bitterness of the tragedy my life became. This is something we all do at different times in our lives to some degree or another. We go without a plan, without established intention for our life and our souls best experience. We float along, we play smoke and mirrors with ourselves, by having an intention for another and expecting to get a reward or pay off for it. It is at best a bastardized or twisted intention for us. Eventually we find ourselves all ‘locked’ up, and not moving ahead. This kind of lock can affect all areas of our lives because of the reverb that ripples out from our core to our family, our work and our mental processing.

I’ve share some of my story with you so you will know this is not healthy intentional living, to show how we can live intentionally in parts of our lives and not others. I also share this with you so you know that my gifts do not protect me from the intentions of others when those gifts and intuition are ignored. Nor will yours protect you if left unused. It did not protect me, and it especially did not protect that aspect of my self that is continually defining its self worth and quality as a woman. A gift stored away will not help anyone.

Ultimately, I had to face that I did not have the magic wand to wave over us that would heal us as a couple or make me love myself more. I had to face that I was wrong and that my belief and faith were misplaced and I was living a lie. I was out of my personal integrity with myself, and trying to move ahead with outdated intentions for my life. When that man betrayed my love and my soul with lies and deception, he actually gave me a gift. His emotional brutality and instability was just a mirror of the depths I had lied to myself. It was a painful wakeup call that was so cruel in its reality that I could no longer deny I was far off my personal track. It was either die or get my life together- quick because my son had also been emotionally devastated and needed me! I did not hide myself in the quicksand of blame and become a victim. I accepted the gift of self-evolution that presented its self to me. Eventually I decided to have an attitude of gratitude, to be grateful for the opportunity to take a quantum leap beyond the pain of the previous years into the possibility of the future. I chose to create personal, intimate and real peace in my life and soul.

Don’t get me wrong, it was hellishly painful. There were days- even months that I felt that I would go out of my mind from the physical, emotional and mental pain. Due to financial reasons I had to remain in the same house with this man for over two months (he refused move out and leave my son and I in peace), I had waves wash over me almost constantly that felt as if hot oil was being poured over my body from the brutality and shock. I had a few panic attacks, other times I’d black out and wake up on the floor, I would not be able to remember huge chunks of my day, I vomited blood… Hell is an understatement of events. Once out of there I called myself ADD woman because I could not hold a coherent thought for months, because the brutalization continued from a distance, and my attention would not focus on anything beyond survival in what ever moment I happened to be in. I realize I had posttraumatic stress syndrome and with therapy and the support of some amazing human beings that truly loved me I was able to get through the experience and into self-discovery to ensure this type of behavior never surfaces in my life or me again. The decision to live and go through this process of self discovery (which is optional for us all) was not easy and carrying it out was at times almost as painful as his betrayal because I had to really face how and why I had originally betrayed myself. In every crisis lies the latent potential for change, but we must have the courage-and intention to realize that potential, to get the gift out of the tragedy.

Thankfully this horrific situation I created, through twisted or non-intention has a silver lining so bright that it makes me blink away tears of awed gratitude. Yes, like many others, it was pain that motivated me into a new way of life. Pain that slowly escalated over time, it was pain that I endured because I did not accept the responsibility of creating my own intimate personal happiness! Emotional pain that I had to work hard at to keep it at a maintenance level (or a bearable level) so I would not have to face the fact that I loved someone who was completely unworthy of my love, someone that has no healthy definition of love. I had to work really hard for many years to maintain that level of illusion to keep me from facing the fact that I did not love myself enough to make the hard decisions to create a real and healthy life, either on my own or with a healthy man.

In the end, the only thing that really matters is that I have embraced intentional living at a deep personal level. In the wake of leaving that life and all my old beliefs and twisted personal intentions, I began to think of how many of us walk around with some kind of elephant in our own living room. How many of us paint our locks pretty colors and hang ribbons from them and call them lovely works of art? How many others are like me? How many of us have cleaned up through hard work and with great personal integrity, the majority of our lives and in the process, have created heaven on earth for ourselves, only to find that there is something rotten at the core? That’s where it counts the most, in our most private heart of hearts. Personally we too often totally forget all we have learned in life and instead we make allowances and excuses for others that compromises ourselves and we settle for less than what is possible in this life. We accept crumbs (because of fear or laziness) when the buffet is available (through honest and often hard personal work.) Then we wind up wandering aimlessly through our intimate lives wondering why we are still hungering for more. By not using our “keys”, we become locked emotionally, financially, mentally and spiritually as well.

I do not find it surprising that from the moment I agreed to marry this man, my writing of the Keys to Intentional Living stopped. My spirit knew I had moved out of my personal integrity. I could not progress any further with this project until I cleaned up my own life. I needed to learn and embrace a greater personal awareness in order truly live the life I wanted and deserved. Then I could share this awareness with others. I am glad to report that the finishing touches have been put on the Keys to Intentional Living, and yes, that coincides with my leaving my counterfeit reality and my return to living intentionally.

Summary of lessons learned:

• Above all, to yourself be true. If you don’t know what that means then start there. If you have any blaming of another for your life you are not being true to yourself for yourself. If there is any part of your life that you feel victimized because of another’s actions… or whatever, then you are not taking responsibility for your part in creating the situation so you won’t be able to correct it. Identify the truth of your life, take responsibility for this truth and then make the necessary internal changes to improve your life—regardless of how long this takes. Internal success will then be seen naturally in your external life. Most make a terrible mistake in believing that if they change their external then the internal changes. Changing geography, jobs, your car or your clothes changes nothing of substance. That is more often than not called running away and we can never out run ourselves.

• If you have to make excuses or justifications (just like blaming someone) you have just left intentional living and are engaged in self-sabotage.

• Integrity is only as good as when it is applied to you in those quiet moments when no one is looking.

• Justification and rationalization. Are you doing it? These two things are a big signal that you are playing the “pitiful me” drama:

1. If you are lying to and/or manipulating yourself or another you are feeding your drama monster. You can be doing this through lies, or deceit and omission to get yourself or another to support a false belief i.e. the illusion.

2. Feeling the need to get someone to assist and support you in your rationalization. Justification and rationalization love company!

Think of the person/people that you are getting to support you. Are their lives full of drama and victim mentality? If so then you know why you are going to them to get support.

Do any of this and you instantly move out of your personal integrity with yourself locking yourself deeper into a place of torture. You are just rationalizing to create more drama/trauma to justify your being a victim. This is the ‘poor, pitiful me’ syndrome. Remember:

Manipulation + Justification = Mental Masturbation and just gets you more of what you currently have.

• Listen. Listen. Listen. Your gut and intuition will never lie but you’ve got to take the time to make sure that is where your guidance is coming from. If you don’t hear anything at first, or you hear or feel anger then it is ego or the mind talking to you. It means you could use more quiet time, not to think or rearrange the mental pieces, but quiet time to just be still. Rearranging the mental pieces just gets you more of the same i.e. mental masturbation.

And if you listen to those around you, really listen, you will hear their truth as well and will never have an excuse to blame them for your life. After all they told you their truth, and often it is how it is all about them and you are just someone to support their plan. Make sure their plan matches yours or you move out of your personal integrity and get what you deserve- or in reality, what you are willing to settle for and you forfeit any right to complain.

It is vitally important to make sure you surround yourself with quality people who are stable and happy themselves if that is what you desire in your life. After all, how can they describe a color to you that they have never seen? How can they assist you in recognizing it if they don’t? It is impossible for someone to share with you something they don’t know.

• When in doubt, get quiet and your truth will be revealed to you. Notice those ‘odd’ or ‘impossible’ thoughts, often they are your intuition and guidance system giving you options. Equally, notice those hard truths that will reveal themselves to you as well. It may be a truth that you don’t like, but not liking it does not invalidate a truth.

• And remember, never build a home without your keys or you may find yourself locked out.

• However, if you ever do find yourself locked out, or locked in, reach out to the best locksmith available to you. Trained, licensed therapists know humans and their behavior and can help you with yours. They can help you identify your patterns and assist you in changing them. You would not go to your mechanic if you had a brain tumor would you? Of course not, you’d go to the individual best trained to get you through what ails you. Do the same for your life.

Do I regret having loved? No, I do not. It was good for me to experience the first five minutes of that relationship. However, I told him that the sun and the moon rose in his eyes because for me it really did, even knowing his faults and habits. That was my greatest mistake. Loving was good and right and as with all relationships I took a chance, giving me an opportunity to embody a greater capacity to love myself and the world. However, allowing the center of my universe to move from me to someone else is where I went off track; it is where I moved out of healthy intention. I moved out of self-love into self-hatred by putting someone else’s intentions and happiness above my own.

Now I give myself the gift of love. A very healthy intention indeed, one that has allowed me to be open to a more satisfying and gratifying love with an authentic man who possesses personal integrity and takes total responsibility for his behavior and his emotional and spiritual health. I have been graced with intimate satisfaction like I have never known before, having attracted into my life a man of quality. I have done the hard work and made within myself the space to embrace and appreciate such high quality. I now have in my life a gentle giant of a man that brings to our relationship the respect, love and sensuality that I deserve and feel safe in returning as well. Having emotional intimacy is becoming normal to me again, now that I have cleared the illusions and emotional garbage from my mind and life. Finally, I have a healthy mirror in my life, one that I value and love dearly.

The fact I also got a gift that most people in my position never get, though satisfying, has become barely incidental. Yes, that man who thought he could take from me my essence did come back to me and related how his life is now totally destroyed. All because of his inability to be real and face the facts of his illusion and then do the hard work necessary to make his life different. He knows his lack of integrity and is living the effects of this, having brought into his life those who have the same level of integrity, personal responsibility and moral corruption. He has surrounded himself with mirrors and is understandably revolted by the view it presents. Yes, he ‘gets it’ and he got it intentionally through his thoughts and actions just as we all do. As he has said, he lost everything when he lost me, literally and figuratively. Unfortunately that is true as he is nothing more than a reflection of who ever is in front of him because he has been away from is soul for so long he has no real substance anymore. Sadly, like many he still thrives on the drama and has no lasting interest in finding his own keys. Individuals like that have created monuments to their locks, decorated them and calls them works of hard earned art…. and they have no idea who they’d be if not a victim. Living like a candle in the wind makes them feel alive and without the wind battering them around they don’t believe they’d feel anything. Just allowing their light to burn bright and steady is as foreign to this type of person as walking on the moon. Pity parties serve some need deep inside them. We all know people like this and this is their choice, just as healthy and peaceful is ours. Personally I choose to feel compassion for these individuals. I know only too well how much energy and work it takes to maintain that level of mental, emotional and psychic pain not to mention how much it takes to sustain the drama. However, the difference now is I feel compassion for them from a distance and without allowing their dramas to connect to my life. Oh yes, I have learned wisely and well. I am now honoring my gifts and the grace I’ve received in all areas of my life.

So to all of you who cried tears of loss for me, and possibly for your own fairy tale lost, take heart as I have. Know there is more than hope left for us all. There is reality. Right in front of us is a reality of honor, love and stability and it is ours for the making. We created the reality we currently have, and it lays the foundation of the reality we will have in the future. What you have today you will simply have more of tomorrow. Is that thought sobering or exciting to you? If it chills you to the bone to realize then perhaps an anti-victim reality check is in order. Inventory your personal responsibility and accountability, cataloging every second of your day from here on out. You cannot cop out from yourself even for a second because those ‘little’ seconds of personal irresponsibility and personal and physical escapism are the supports in the foundation you are laying. To have a superior reality takes a commitment to not settle for less than personal accountability and taking personal responsibility to uphold our constantly updated intentional standards. It takes courage to face- and deal with those things about us and those people in our lives that are not healthy and cause dis-ease in any area of our lives. At times it takes a tremendous amount of tough love for ourselves but it is more than worth it, it is living through true anti-victim behavior.

We do not have to settle for lies for breakfast and uncertainty or drama to be loved and to feel alive. No, my gifts did not fail me. I failed my gifts. Yet in doing that I found a way to realize even more about my gifts and myself. Entangled in locks, I discovered more keys for my life. Most importantly I have found the key of keys that will lead the way to unlock all locks. I have found the key of self-love and acceptance which empowered me to change those things I did not like about myself once I took an honest inventory. That key of honest personal acceptance opens doors to reveal a life that is far greater than any fairy tale. It empowers us to do the right things for the right reasons because we are living from a place of self love- not manipulation and/or self-deception. This brings us to one of the most fulfilling keys of human existence. The key for emotional intimacy… and romantic love automatically follows. Or at least it offers better possibilities than we have ever known before.

May 2005

Energy Hygiene is a combination of words that has come to me several times over the last year or so. It is a variation of many things I’ve heard before but when my ‘crew’ gave me this is really made sense in its application and its urgency.

When I began to define Energy Hygiene for myself and others I actually broke the words down individually then put them together for greater understanding. (Being a writer that is one of the ways my mind works!)

Energy is something we all know about but often define differently. I think of energy as being the non physical aspect of everything that exists. The basis of quantum physics is that everything is made of energy. When scientifically and manually reduced everything physical and non-physical comes down to a wave of energy. Everything is energy including all aspects of us; all the physical, mental, emotional & spiritual pieces and parts.

Some think of energy like the power company that they pay their monthly bills to for electricity and heat. That falls into my description as well. That energy is non physical as well and it is part of our lives. We may not know how it works but that does not take away from the fact it exist and the role it plays in our lives.

Everyone has an ‘energy field’ surrounding them. Some circles call this the aura, others simply know the feel of their own energy field, and at times are in tune with other’s energy fields. We’ve all heard ‘waking up on the wrong side of the bed’ and it is a reference to our energy field and it being out of balance. Other times we can walk into a room and know that there is something wrong or that we’ve just interrupted an argument. The flip side to that is we can like something or someone and not know why, but know that it is a good space or good people as we define it. Regardless if facial expression or body language we can often tell if someone is an angry person or a kind one. This is picking up on someone’s energy field. Too often the focus is on other’s energy fields and no attention is paid to our own. Or at least not enough attention is paid to one’s own energy.

Our bodies are made up of energy too. Our skin, our muscles, organs and bone are made up of a combination of different ‘energies’ to create the whole body. As the body is a compilation of energy it is also part of our overall operating system just as our neurological component is part of the body’s operating system. Non physical energy runs through our body just as blood does. Blood is considered a connective tissue because of its origins in the bones and because of its functions. I consider energy a connective ‘tissue’ as well because of its origins and functions. Energy is a non-physical connective tissue as it binds the physical and non physical self together in harmony or imbalance.

My example on the physical and non physical connection is the brain and the mind. The brain is obviously physical and the mind is obviously non physical. The brain can be fine but the mind imbalanced and thus affects the entire operating system of the body and all the related energy. Therefore it affects the life as well. They are all interrelated. In addition, the physical brain has an energy that is inherent to its physiology.

The mind is non physical but from the thoughts the mind has it can create physical form through action or speech, or through the impact on the energy system creating illness or disease. Our bodies and our energy are a mirror image. When balance is in one it is in the other. And when imbalance shows up in one area it shows up in another. When our energy is running a negative pattern or is out of balance it will create physical illness, injury or disease. Much scientific research has been done in this area and is well documented. I’ve had many fascinating and interesting conversations with medical doctors and trauma specialists on this topic.

Continuing on with the individual definitions I think I define hygiene pretty much the same as everyone else. It means practices associated with ensuring good health and cleanliness. I just have expanded that definition to include the non physical self as well.

These two definitions together is where Energy Hygiene came from and the foundation of where I’ve learned so much about the subject.

Implementing Energy Hygiene

I use the same principles to clean our energy that I do to clean the body. Begin with creating an energy hygiene routine and then do it regularly. Follow this routine as regular as the one for cleaning your body.

Creating an energy hygiene routine will take the same trial and error path that we went through with creating our physical hygiene routine. We’ve tried different things to find out what works best for us. Our parents taught us the basics on how to bathe and shower. Over time we’ve fine tuned what we learned. Some shower all the time, some take baths. Others alternate between the two. Shower in the morning or shower in the evening. We also have tried a variety of soaps and shampoos. We’ve modified over time what works for us, and continue to modify it as the need arises.

The same goes for Energy Hygiene. And knowing this going into thinking about it and creating a routine will helps us all tremendously. Know that the same thing probably won’t work forever. You may need to update or change your routine periodically to maintain the energy balance and/or cleanliness you desire.

You may need to try different things but you can find out what works for you. You can tell what works by how you feel each and every day. Think about the last time you changed soaps and it did not work. You were either too oily or too dry, but you knew that what you had was not what you wanted and then tried other things until you found something that did. The same thing applies to cleaning your energy. When a soap does not work for you, or does not work for you anymore you don’t stop bathing! Remember this when things seem too overwhelming or difficult in developing a regular Energy Hygiene routine.

Why We Need This

During the course of our day we pick up things energetically. Interacting with the world at large gives us exposure to energetic debris that clings to us like dirt clings to the skin. Another common saying is “I need a bath after being in that place(or with that person)!” We feel that way because we’ve picked up a noticeable amount of incompatible energy. We also pick up an unnoticeable amount in our daily life. Over time it builds up and we can feel sluggy/irritable/sad.

That meeting at work or interaction with a client or customer changed our energy in some way. If it was a good meeting or interaction we walk away with that energy and the associated feelings that came from it. The same goes for us if the interaction was not so good or even down right disturbing. The energy is now in our operating system. This type energy absorption is especially true in intimate or family relationships. We take on other people’s stuff on a regular basis. Even if it is good, we need to clear off the other people’s energy and take the good feeling ONLY and incorporate it into our operating system through the feel or memory of the experience. That way we make it our own and are not dependent on others for those good feelings.

There is also the effect that our thoughts have on our energy system. Negative thoughts will clump up, some immediately and others over time and create change in our body and life. Positive thoughts will also build up and affect our operating system much the same way. However, when you have been having positive thoughts or repeating affirmations and mantra’s there is generally positive affects on the overall system of being. And ironically, when you clean your energy intentionally on a regular basis, the good affects seem to multiply. There are many reasons for this, but the most basic one is that we are created in such a way that healthy, happiness and joy are part of our most fundamental being. When we apply any of these energies it actually strengthens us and has something good and supportive to attach to.

Regardless, daily cleaning will prevent any build up and make us aware of how our thoughts and our interactions with the world affect us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually.

There are a number of ways to bathe the energy. And yes, here comes the dreaded M-word – Meditation.

Meditation! That’s So Hard!

It really does not have to be hard. Here is my quick definition of Meditation as I’ve come to understand and work with it. Meditation really does not have to be hard. Meditation does not have to take a lot of time. Most westerners have a bastardized definition of meditation that comes from some solid productive eastern practices. These practices have been distorted or misapplied to the western lifestyle.

Meditation is simply intentional focus of the mind, then one’s energy and spirit follows. The point is not to ‘go out there’ somewhere, but to go in to a place of quiet and peace where all things are possible. This place of internal peace and quiet is like a garden. A garden we must cultivate and tend to on a regular basis or it is ragged and overgrown. And yes, regardless of who you are and or where you live you can have a garden. Even if it is a small widow box you can have a garden. So don’t believe for a second that you don’t have an inner place of peace and quiet. It is there, but perhaps it is simply overgrown with all the things you do. For those who already believe that meditation is hard I suggest you don’t call it meditation. Call it Quiet Time or My Center Point, or whatever else you can come up with that you are comfortable with and state’s your purpose.

I find that there are two groups of folks who meditate or who have tried to meditate.

The first and most common group are those who basically have the ‘been there, done that’ approach. This group generally says they don’t need to do routine meditation or they say they can’t meditate. Either way, this group of people has come up with excuses not to even try.

Part of these people believe that is useful for some but not them. They convince themselves the routine is not for them. ‘I can’t or don’t meditate because My Mind is too strong to do it… I don’t need to sit still and meditate I get it driving… or walking in the woods… or watching TV.’ Excuses, excuses, excuses, not a reason in the bunch!

The flip side of this group is that they use not meditating as a bat to beat themselves with as they are “not strong enough’ or ‘not wise enough’…. They say they don’t know how or they are deficient in some way. Blah Blah Blah…

When I talk to these folks I generally find that they have created (usually with help) such a convoluted definition of what meditation is that it is overwhelming. “You’ve GOT to do this or you’re not meditating” or “You MUST do that…” that the basics are completely lost in the shuffle. The basics are simple. You become still (in what ever position is comfortable), you close your eyes, you breathe and you focus your mind on one designated thought. That’s it folks. There’s the beef, all the rest is extra.

The second group of folks who meditate are those who only feel they’ve ‘really done it’ if they go out of body and have some huge life altering experience. Anything less is ‘not real or good enough’. These are usually the one’s that say their minds did not ‘turn off’ and that they were still ‘aware’ so they must not have been meditating so they don’t ‘waste’ their time anymore.

News Flash! If your mind turns off you are dead. The goal is not to turn off your mind but to train it like you would an unruly toddler. You direct and guide them until they can follow your lead into the direction you – as the adult, as the one in charge – wants them to go. Most of humanity has given over control to their unruly mind. You are not your mind. However, most people don’t realize that. The mind is an aspect of us that we’ve allowed to run amok and then everyone in the operating system agrees that the mind is in charge so that must be who we are. Instead we’ve put the equivalent of an unruly toddler in charge of the family – or in this case our entire being. And like working with an unruly toddler repetition is the key. Doing something again and again is the only way to get the results you want – especially when working with your mind.

The only thing hard about that is being in charge of ourselves and the Doing it! Otherwise we engage in victim mentality and are at the total mercy of the people and situations around us which never works out the way we’d like. (In all reality those around us would probably like to have us involved in this game called life, even if it takes a bit of adjustment in the beginning.) But remember, doing something over and over until it becomes natural is how we all learn, why would meditation be any different?

Think of it as learning to write with your non-dominate hand because the similarities are there. You are working with the other side of your brain than you usually do. It will feel awkward at first and only through repetition will you get comfortable with it. When comfort has arrived then confidence soon follows, and then you will feel successful.

Meditation Myth

I know we don’t have to turn around three times, bark at the moon and touch our left heel to be able to meditate but most people don’t know that. It is not hard nor does it have to be time consuming. If we make it hard and/or time consuming we won’t do it. That is one of the major differences between eastern and western approaches to meditation. We did not grow up watching our elders take time for contemplation and solitude. Our parents and elders were usually too busy and their health and life chaos reflected it. So when trying to fit a new thing in our busy schedules we think of all the ‘time it will take.’ That is an illusion. Time does not change to our routine, we change our routine to time.

Along these lines I’ve recorded a CD called Incension to help folks train their mind to be still and it is less than thirty minutes long. Thousands of times I’ve had people tell me that they can follow my voice but can’t do it on their own. That is what lead me to record Incension, so we have a voice to follow. I’ve kept it short and sweet because all folks have to do is turn the TV off thirty minutes earlier each evening.

I use this CD myself when my mind is wanting to flitter here and there – like an unruly toddler. It not only is a great meditation tool but it also puts into place the practice of focusing the mind anytime you want it to go in the direction you desire. The benefits of meditation are especially helpful in times of stress or despair as well as when you have a lot to do and need to prioritize or meet a deadline. However, waiting until one is in crisis is not the best time to start a meditation routine. But if that is what brings you to it, then start then and keep on going after the crisis is over. You’ll be better prepared for what ever comes your way in the future and more likely to remain balanced and handle any situation with a more level head.

Another form of energy bathing is imagining that you are standing under a shower of golden or white light. Imagining how it feels on your body and how it would feel running through your hair. You can take it further and ‘allow’ it to seep through your skin into your body and all its organs and bones.

I have hundreds of ‘visualizations’ like this shower visualization. They are all simply points of focus for the mind that takes us out of the day to day routine. I also have a ‘place’ I ‘go’ when I want to focus in instead of out. I’ve created a retreat in my mind. I’ve ‘built’ a building, landscaped, decorated… It is totally unrelated to my day to day life and I can escape anytime I want. Even during the day when things get hectic with life stuff I can close my eyes, take a deep breath and visit my retreat. Through repetition (years and years I’ve been doing this particular exercise) my body responds to the simple thought of this point of focus. Ironically, it was this something I started back in the mid 90’s when my life and mind were in chaos. This is the exact exercise I used to train my brain to turn off at night so I could sleep. Worked, and still works, like a charm! Repetition makes it easier to focus anytime we desire regardless of what is going on around us so we are capable of cleaning our energy anytime and anywhere.

Doing positive visualizations that are unrelated to our life or active thoughts gives the mind training to focus on more than the obvious and trains it to go where we desire – AND it cleans our energy in the process. My ‘retreat’ has a back deck over looking the ocean and I imagine the wind blowing all energy that is not mine away. Showering in Light, wind blowing over and through us, waterfalls, swimming like a dolphin in the water are some of the other possibilities you might consider. What does not matter as much as simply DOING IT!

How Does This Work?

When we put ourselves into a place of positive thought and positive experience through the mind we replace the energy that is clinging to us from our day or our thoughts. We feel refreshed like when we have just taken an invigorating shower, or relaxed like after we feel from a long hot bubble bath. After meditating or using creative visualization we usually feel both – invigorated and relaxed. There is no other way to access the depth of these feelings than through meditation or focused positive mental experiences. Once you’ve felt it you know that the usual definition of invigoration and relaxation are pale in the reality of what is truly possible.

However, bathing our energy field and the energy of our bodies requires that we intentionally alter our approach and thoughts; after all we’ve not been doing this so we must make some changes.

Think of it as being a caveman being presented with the idea that he needs to take a bath. His first reaction is ‘Why? I’m plugging along just fine like I am. Why do I need to learn to bathe? That is just ridiculous!

Well, over time the cavemen learned that bathing was essential to reduce infection and skin irritations, some of which lead directly to death. The cave people also learned that it made them feel good. Cleanliness leads to better health and physical longevity. Energy Hygiene does too. It reduces stress in the body, mind and spirit enabling us to live healthier, happier lives. For those who are expanding their awareness beyond what they we taught as children it is imperative that regular energy hygiene be part of their day to day life.

Expanding Our Awareness

Most humans, at one time or another, realize that what they’ve learned is not enough or what they are doing feels like it is not enough. They feel a void in their lives even when they have achieved ‘success’ as they or their family and culture has defined it. The usual response is to ‘work harder’ and achieve ‘more success’, yet the void remains. Many are surprised that the larger house, newer car and country club membership did not make them feel complete. They then either start the cycle over again or simply resign themselves to never feeling complete or good enough. This opens the door for resentment and anger to come in.

What has happened is that individual has applied themselves, usually physically or mentally to their job or profession. They got the golden ‘IT’. It is usually a disappointment after a few minutes. However, we are more than our bodies and we are certainly more than our minds. In addition to the energy system I’ve been talking about there is another non physical element of us that I generally call spirit. Different people have different words for this spirit portion of self, such as soul and/or higher self but that other non-physical aspect of self is what I’m referring to here.

Once we have the golden’ It’ – or have come to a place where we think we’ll never have that golden ‘IT’ – we begin to think more esoterically. We turn to things related to philosophy or the Divine, either though the religion we were taught as children or through empowering self help books and information, or a combination of both.

Due to the inherent structure of organized religion many feel it is not open enough or through enough. That it does not answer those nitty gritty day to day issues that we all have. Some feel tricked or lied to because of their ‘religion’ and unfortunately throw the baby out with the bath water. If God were real then all these bad things would not happen to the world. If God were real then my prayers would be answered….

Another Area for Energy Hygiene

When life does not meet our expectations and or beliefs I find that this is another area where energy hygiene can help. I think of this as similar to brushing and flossing our teeth daily. Everyone had a build up of beliefs, similar to how the way the things we eat and drink builds up in our mouth. We need to brush our teeth daily to prevent build up. When too much builds up in our mouth it begins to erode the enamel of our teeth, or gets jammed between the tooth and gum causing infection. We’ve got to be diligent in maintaining our teeth to prevent the painful effects of build up.

The same goes for our minds and our belief system. The build up can be about spiritual matters or how the world operates. Every time we are exposed to a new thought or way of doing things it lays on top of our existing belief system or way of doing things. Often we then decide what to use and what is not for us. From this exposure and experience over the years we have our belief system.

However, there are experiences and thoughts that ‘feel’ right or are working for others and we want to incorporate them but don’t know how or they contradict what we already believe or do. Some challenge us so much that we become fearful and express it through scorn or ridicule. Meantime, these new thoughts or experiences stick in the mind like a piece of hard candy that has stuck to a molar or on the side of a tooth. We’ve either got to swallow it and let it move on through our system or we’ve got to get rid of it so it is no longer an irritant. This is where brushing and flossing our thoughts and beliefs come into usefulness.

Mental Floss

We’ve all had what I call ‘hard thoughts’. These may be anger or belief that life is a rat race. Hard thoughts may be about themselves or someone else. A couple of contradictory or hard thoughts that I’ve personally encountered and that come up often with clients are thoughts like “It’s a dog eat dog world’ vs. “Do unto others as you’d have done to you” or negative self talk vs. we are all children of God. My all time favorite is that many religions espouse the philosophy that we are unworthy and unlovable as we are (we must be saved) but God loves us anyway. That is a perfect training for us to go out and pick the people who are unworthy and unlovable to spend all our precious time and love trying to ‘save’. These are just a smattering of type of thoughts or even experiences that create mental conflict that ripples throughout the entire system that is Us.

We must brush off our thoughts regularly. If something tickles our mind or our soul we need to follow up on it even if it does not fit into the life that we currently have or does not match our religious or cultural beliefs. To spit out a sweet morsel because ‘someone’ deemed it bad or unfit will build up resentment inside us. The reverse is true as well. If we adopt a belief or action (being an accountant because your parents expected it of you comes to mind) will also build up resentment. Then one day you wake up angry at the world and don’t know why. Sorting and separating our beliefs from within us can be complicated and take time, but more than worth the effort. I mean, this is your life we’re talking about after all. One’s belief’s determines the quality of life.

Brush your mind regularly. Notice when there is something new on your own personal horizon. Decide what to keep and incorporate or explore, and spit out the rest as not yours. After all we don’t all like brussel sprouts, and some people really are allergic to them! Just because it is accepted or ‘normal’ does not automatically mean it is for you. Take the time to determine what is and what is not. My practical personal experience with this is how I learned to brush my teeth. Brush twice a day for a good long time. Use a stiff brush and really get them clean. In my 20’s a dentist asked me about my ‘brushing routine.’ After I told him what I did he said that explained what was happening to my teeth. Apparently, I was literally brushing the enamel off my teeth creating weakness instead of strength. For someone that had never had a cavity it was hard to hear that there was something ‘wrong’ with my teeth. There was nothing wrong with them except what I was doing to them. Since then it is a softer brush and shorter, more frequent brushings. What was ‘right’ for everyone else was definitely not right for me.

What does flossing our teeth have to do with this?

Sometimes pieces, parts or chunks of what we’ve taken in get stuck. These are the really hard thoughts that cause irritation, pain or life distress. These are beliefs or actions that we hold on to long after we’ve realized that they are actually doing us harm or not getting us what we want in life, or simply thoughts that are not right as we know right to be. A lot of what I do in session work with clients involves recognizing these stuck pieces and getting rid of them. I call it Mental Floss. It means getting down to that which is really not working and working it loose and then treating that area of their life.

These are not always easy tasks but it is more than possible. It may involve admitting to yourself that you don’t want to be an accountant and no matter what you do to make it better it is simply going to fester more and more until you can no longer do anything else in your life. It is amazing how many people hate their jobs and they keep on doing them! I’ve got to have the money… I’ve got a family to support… it is all I know how to do…. These are excuses not reasons. When I see this it takes me about 3.5 seconds to also get the person to tell me how their health is deteriorating, their relationships are full of chaos and drama, how they hate to see the sun come up in the morning to the same ole same ole thing.

My response is ‘And you do this Why? For your family?” We delude ourselves into thinking that we won’t get support from those around us if we ‘floss’ these things out of our lives. If your family does not want a healthy, happy, passionate member then you need to look at changing your family structure. Not necessarily physically change the people, but change what you’ve trained them to expect from you. But before you can do that you’ve got to change your own expectations of self. Yes, you’ve got to change yourself before those around you will change. After all, you are the one that taught them how you are. This is where we’ve got to be real. Really real. We start this by defining things that we’ve never even looked at before. If we don’t know what we want we can’t blame anyone else for us not having it. That is total victim mentality and worse than the unruly toddler of the mind. Especially for people working on expanding their awareness, their enlightenment or ‘ascension’ it is unforgivable. It is a total breach of energy.

A good brushing and Mental Floss keeps us fresh and ready for the next bite of life. This should be done daily just like we brush our teeth. And like a full dental cleaning, we should schedule regular appointments with ourselves to review our mental state and see what if anything needs to be addressed that may be bothering or irritating us and create a plan to address it. Solo vacations or weekends away with ourselves are great times for this. Doing that leaves us refreshed and invigorated – and ready for the next ‘bite’ of Life!

Other Aspects of Energy Hygiene

The next part is similar to when we trim and buff our nails. The reference to brushing and flossing our teeth directly related to things physical that we put in to our mouths, and it covers the part of our life that is physical – though experience or interaction with others. Our nails are different in that they are going to grow regardless of what happens to us on the outside. It is a basic function of the body. So is our emotional and spiritual maturity. These are natural functions that will keep on as long as we live. Yes, traumas and difficult experiences can chip or break parts of us, just like our nails can be chipped or broken but the growth will continue regardless. The question is will we grow broken and chipped or whole and buffed?

Emotional & Spiritual Maturity

We live, we learn, we grow. It’s that automatic and that simple. How we live, how we learn and how we grow is within our ability to control. We can remain reactionary to the world around us or we can choose the direction of our lives and within that framework respond according to how we are or how we desire to be.

This is not an Om Kum Ba Ya approach or theory. There is real life application possible here. My example is I was accosted one evening in the parking lot of an apartment I lived in once. While the young man was literally in my face screaming I chose to believe that this had nothing to do with me. He was not mad at ME he was mad at the world. I was on the receiving end of one of his really bad days. In that moment I went out of fear and into compassion for the guy. I made the conscious choice to not be part of his bad day. He was not going to ruin my good day – or my new belief in humanity, because it was a NEW belief! – with his behavior. I did not engage in his anger so he was basically forced to stop playing his game with me because I was not playing back. I stood firm, making eye contact with him but I refused to see him as a bad guy. In the moment when he was threatening to ‘cut’ me he lost all steam and just looked at me. I can’t say what he saw but his anger deflated for that moment; I believe it was because he could not find anger, fear or negative judgment from me. He puffed back up, but it was as he was walking away from me and back to his buddies in the car. He was basically mouthing off, but took no action except to leave. To make a long story short I reported it to the police and to the apartment management. I was still real clear that I’d been the recipient of someone else’s bad day and told the manager of the complex of my belief. Sure enough, from my description they knew who I was talking about. It was someone that I’d never seen before, a young man who was having a hard time and had taken up with a bad crowd. I told them that instead of pressing charges I wanted to have a sit down with the guy. The first thing out of his mouth was he was sorry and he had been have a ‘really bad day’ and he would regret what he did for the rest of his life.

Years earlier that episode would not have ended like that. It use to be that my belief system that it was a dog eat dog world, strike first and hard. In my old belief system I would have seen him as a threat and engaged in defensive maneuvers, instead I saw him as sad. It shifted the entire situation. (But during the entire episode I never lost sight of my physical safety. I knew he could crack at any moment so I kept fully aware of my possibilities and options.)

My instinctive reaction – full awareness but with non engagement – was a pay off for my own personal emotional and spiritual growth in a real life situation. And at all moments I chose to be in control of my feelings and emotions as well as my actions. I still do. This is something that I’ve had to teach myself, it was not something I learned growing up. The world supports reactionary living instead of pro-action living.

We see it every day on the news, to the point that road rage is part of our consciousness. Traffic happens to everyone. Inconsiderate drivers happen to everyone. It is our choice as how we react to it. We can take it personally and think they are ‘out to get us’ or we can think ‘Wow, I’m glad I’m not them because they are having a really bad day. I’m choosing to let this person go on their merry way without my energy attaching to them.’ It is the old adage that stress is not what happens to us, but how we react to what happens to us.

Emotional and Spiritual maturity comes into play all the time. How mature we’ve become shows in those moments of stress and how often we engage in judgment of others. If we don’t like the feelings or actions that we engage in use those times to show yourself what and where you’d like change to happen. Then do whatever needs to be done to give yourself the knowledge on how to make it so. I had taken those steps over the years. At that time in my life the repeating phrase which I was running through my head 50 times a day was “I choose differently now. I choose Love, I choose Light, I choose Joy” and I refused to let that guy force me to choose differently.

In this way I think of buffing off the old, like we do with our nails when we buff them out to a nice healthy shine for ourselves to experience and for all to see. Find what works for you. I personally have a huge reference library that I’ve collected over the years. This library is filled with books, people, experiences and many different forms of therapy. We all have to admit that we don’t know what to do or how to do it. If we knew we’d be doing it. This is a real commonality in all my work with clients. Realizing that we can’t do the same things the same way we’ve always done and expect different results. My friend Jean calls this the definition of insanity.

We also need to trim off the parts that ‘hang’ on and cause pain. This is especially relevant in our spiritual beliefs. As we become more interested in spirituality or metaphysics then it is vitally important that we buff and trim or our underlying belief system will kick in and we’ll feel like failures or not spiritual enough. The same goes for those who live within traditional religious frameworks as well. If you find yourself doing that your religion says or you’ll ‘go to hell’ for then you need to buff back the layers and discover why you do them. Is it self sabotage or is it lack of belief in the framework you’re living in? Trim away the old and put in place a new belief – THEN LIVE IT! Buffing and trimming where needed. This is a multi-step process that is unique for each individual, but it is possible.

Outside Assistance

Through my education and 20 years experience I’ve noticed patterns that are part of being human, my own and others. During session work with individuals I am able to see the most painful patterns and how they play out in different areas of their lives, generally because I’ve experienced it myself in one area or another. Ironically, a lot of folks come to me to have their third eye opened, or to develop their psych abilities or intuition. They just know that if they could see and hear their guides and angels their life would be perfect. I wind up asking them how they are going to trust that intuition if they don’t listen to it about what job to take or what the body says to have for dinner. If they are not seeing and hearing what is really going on in their day to day life what makes them think they’ll see and listen to their guides?

I can be a bit frustrating but the pay off is great for those who choose to live intentionally. These are the same steps that I used, and still use in creating the life I desire with quality people and experiences in it. Things have to have a practical use for me or it is unimportant as far as I am concerned. It may be fun, or different but not really important from my point of view. I offer a mix of practical and intuitional steps to develop the life and the soul fulfillment they desire.

I may not be the person for you, and that is fine with me too. My point here is we really are part of a larger community and we should avail ourselves to all its resources (after all we buy soap, shampoo and nail clippers! That could be considered outside help too!) As ffor any services I offer take what you can use and leave the rest. But get out there and make contact. Be an active part of your own life and know that there will be times when you are the wise one and other times when you need a wise one. Or you may simply need someone that has made it through what you are going through. Why be Louis & Clark when you can take the interstate in your air conditioned car?

One place to start, or continue being your own wise one is making sure you engage in your own personal energy hygiene. Go ahead, you can do it. I know you can. And if I can be of any assistance please let me know.

May 2007

Are you interested in training your brain? Due to tremendous positive feedback Patricia recommends two of her CD’s; Incension and/or Soul Star to help you calm all the mental monkey chatter and build your focus while allowing your energy to be cleansed and filled with peace.

 May 2007

For many years my Guides and I had a “parable-confusion type relationship”. They spoke in parables and I stayed confused. It was really simple. It was also really painful. When I finally caught on to the whole free will concept, I discovered that I could work with them (all those beings of Light) and define our lines of communication just as I could with the humans in my life.

So I got busy looking at how much I really wanted this information and how I could best assimilate it. Spirit told me, “If you don’t like something then you should change how you think about it and act on it.” I also came to understand that this included my relationship with them as well as my gifts. Yes, they did look at me like I was the crazy one when I finally got this! They were just going along with what I had, at some point, agreed to or more accurately that I had created. THEY were not to blame!

My Life Changed

The first area that shifted was my realization that I had to glean the knowledge from my experiences in order for it to become wisdom. Or, I had to take new knowledge for a test drive (experience it) to make it become wisdom. No matter how I looked at my life or my knowledge, until it had been through this process I did not have the deep knowing, or wisdom, I desired. Until tried and true, it was simply theory or an experience that I couldn’t or didn’t know how to integrate into my core being.

Once I came to that realization, I renegotiated my contract with my Guides and said, “Hey Guys! Time is not what it used to be. Days, even months, are going by in a blink of an eye. There is a lot I want to do, a lot you want me to do, and this process of

Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom

OR

Experience + Knowledge = Wisdom

is taking way too long. I’ll only get about 20% done at this rate. From now on, I want you to just send the full package in one fell swoop. I don’t have the time to read all the books or to have all the experiences. Just give me the wisdom from now on! Make it deep into my being, and make it there when I need it.”

They shouted, “Yea! It’s about time you quit making us jump through hoops along with you!”

My Life Changed Again

I found the simplicity of the new life humbling. One of the ways they stream-lined things for me was to give me opposites (they are indeed tickled at how humans love polarity!) I heard Steve Rother say “The opposite of Love is Fear.” I have since been told this is a basic principle in the Course of Miracles. However, when I heard Steve say it in a seminar, I smiled. He was the only other person I had ever heard make this statement. In the 4 years since I had gotten that simple message, I had come to understand how true that is. I have also seen personally and professionally the healing that comes from this wisdom and the acceptance of its truth.

It reminded me of another ‘opposite’ Spirit gave me. One that forever altered my world. I used to be your classic Type A personality. I lived, breathed and slept control. In the dictionary next to the word control was my picture! Not only that, I was blessed with some of the planet’s best teachers on control. I chose to be born into a family of Master Teachers on the subject of control. I chose relationships with men who had ‘control issues.’ Bosses… Friends… I was surrounded by mirrors. What a blessing! It was making me crazy. I had finally reached the point in my life and evolution where I (Finally!) realized control was one of my ‘issues.’

One day, while doing laundry, this ‘thought’ came to me about control. Of course, I was mentally going over how someone else, close to me, had control issues. So easy to see it in others, is it not? Suddenly a new Wisdom was seared into my being: The opposite of control is NOT out of control. The opposite of control is TRUST. I realized that the manifestation of a core issue was control.. The core issue was about trust.

And my life changed yet again.

Oct. 2003

This winter has started off with a bang, with many feeling a bit disoriented. It started in December with the winter solstice on the 21st. Traditionally winter is the time to go within, as bears go into their cave – we go into ourselves. Many are out of work, afraid they will be out of work soon, or are not happy with the amount of income they are generating. We all go through phases where we have more time than money or more money than time. It makes sense – when the majority of our time is spent making money then our time is at a premium. This winter season is giving everyone more time, so to speak. Generally, winter is when our recreational and social schedules slow down so we find that we have more time on our hands. If work has slowed down as well, as it has for many, then that adds to the amount of time that is unstructured in a day.

I’ve been working with clients, as well as myself, on this time we have on our hands. My ‘crew’ (i.e. spiritual guidance team) has brought to me the time honored phrase that we can all ask ourselves “If time and money were not an issue what would you be doing? We all have more time on our hands right now so why not play the ‘what would I do’ game? Time and money are never issues in themselves, but we often make them issues out of fear.

The best way to find out if these are issues in your own life is to listen to the dialogue that goes on in your head about these topics (or any topic for that matter.) Fear will bring you nose to nose with excuses, blame and victim mentality. Be especially aware of two words that mean justification has been engaged – ‘Yes, But’. When you hear ‘but’ the box is firmly in place to keep you doing the same thing the same way, the definition of insanity. “I have bills piling up”, “my family does not support me in my spirituality or desires”, “My boss and everyone I work with are jerks.” Really, what does that have to do with how you spend your time? It is your time, not theirs. The quality of your day is completely up to you. You may sell your time to your employment, but the expression of that time is determined by you.

Yes, we all have responsibilities. Endeavor to fulfill those responsibilities to the best of your abilities. Then live your life as if you were on vacation. You’ve got the time, why not do something different with it. The first thing that comes up for me when I ask “if time and money were not an issue” is that I’d flitter off to Bali and live on vacation at some wonderful pacific resort where all my needs were catered to. I can’t do that right at this moment because of responsibilities, but I can create many of those aspects in my life. I can live as if I were on vacation, take care of myself in ‘spa’ like ways – bubble baths, candles, eating healthier. I don’t have to wait for the money or the time. I’ve realized that most of what I really want does not involve money, just time.

Turn off the TV and color in a coloring book, even if you don’t have kids. A box of crayons and a coloring book cost less than a cup of coffee at Starbucks. For that matter skip the coloring book and color on paper bags or cardboard that is in your garage. Take a walk through the neighborhood. Go downtown and look at the old buildings or drop into shops and art galleries. Just like vacation, meander through your time. Get into the habit of looking people in the eye. Most have gotten in the habit of going so fast they never look other people in the eye, especially family. If you feel disconnected then this is vitally important, and no one keeps you from doing it except yourself and the habit of not doing it.

Use your time to find out what makes your innards giggle. If you have a passion do more of it, passion is never about money it is about doing what makes you feel alive and vibrant. If you don’t know what your passion is then simply do things differently and let the passion rise up in you. Put on your favorite music and sing and dance. Don’t worry about your family or roommates – so what if they think you are crazy. Keep on doing it and they will join in before long. What really matters is you use your time differently and in a way that feeds your Being. It may take a while as your own giggle has been suppressed for so long in the all mighty quest for the dollar, but give your Spirit the attention it deserves doing something fun or creative. Your life is a work of art. Only you decide if it is expressing what you want it to.

The unexpected bonus of living this way is you sleep much better. Have you noticed that you sleep better when you are on vacation? When you allow your body and mind to meander it has a chance to refresh itself. Worry is a lack of trust. Plus, most people ‘wish’ they had time to meditate as part of their spiritual development. Here is a news flash – meditation is not about spiritual connection. It is about quality of life that enables you to live spiritually connected. It is about non-mental focus. It is about breathing. Many of my clients highly recommend my Incension CD to assist them in this non-mental focus. I’ve heard repeatedly that they have replaced Ambien sleep medication with my Incension CD.

When we live as if time and money are not an issue, they are not issues. This is very simple and very spiritually supported. Humans are the ones that make it complicated, and in the process we tie ourselves up in knots way too often. So live “as if” from joy and possibilities – instead of “what if”- from fear and judgment – and your time will take the shape you desire. The money will follow.

Jan. 2003