The activation and opening of your third eye is something that needs to happen on its own. DO NOT attempt to force it open, especially for ego-driven reasons. When this chakra comes alive, it should be because you’re ready for it and the process begins in a natural way. Leave the Universe/God in charge of this one, folks. There is a lot of ego and fear that should be cleared away from the mind/heart/spirit before you begin to explore this new way of seeing reality.

It’s rare for this chakra to activate and open, though we all have the capability of it happening. There are some who will use psychedelic drugs to cheat the process. But I have heard stories of people who have forced their third eye open only to start to regularly see (for example) massive, dark beings looming over their bed every night and suffer a total mental breakdown. So, again, DON’T FORCE IT. When you’re ready, you’re ready, and your ego is not in charge of that decision. Your spiritual bragging rights are not worth the trauma.

I’d like to share some of my experiences with this chakra. Everything discussed here is completely objective.

HOW IT BEGINS

When the third eye begins to activate, you’ll start to feel pressure on the center of your forehead, between your eyes. This pressure can feel like someone’s using their finger to push at that spot. It’ll feel warm, firm, and constant. It’s hard to miss!

This can happen during meditation, prayer, relaxation, or moments of deep concentration. As things progress, the pressure can start up every single time you even think about your third eye. Lately, I’ve been feeling this chakra activate on its own whenever my thoughts and emotions drift off from center, as a little cosmic “hey, get back on track.” It’s a gentle reminder from Spirit of what’s truly important, that our reality is illusory, and to draw my focus back to where it needs to be.

It will not always feel like a narrow external pressure. It can also feel like something is pushing outward from beneath the skin, from the center of our head. Some have even reported seeing a protrusion form on the forehead. I’ve also experienced, when the eye is opened, a distinct feeling of a sizable gap having opened wide in the center of my forehead. It extends to either side about the same size as an eye would be. It truly feels like an unblinking eye has opened in the brow. You can touch your forehead to reassure yourself everything appears normal. Sidenote: Unlike the crown chakra, which I’ve found you can “shut off” with touch when desired, touching the third eye doesn’t seem to affect its function.

PRACTICING SEEING

Meditation is very useful in flexing this new muscle and welcoming the ability as it makes itself part of your daily life. Find a quiet spot, close your eyes, and wait for inner stillness. Set an intention to activate the third eye. You should then feel the pressure form in your brow as the chakra activates. This can provide a helpful focal point during meditation. The more you focus on it, the stronger it will get.

I also recommend looking around during meditation or quiet moments with eyes firmly shut. The goal here is to practice seeing as if the darkness has depth and space. The more you do this, the more you will see variances in light and dark, as well as movement. There can even be what I think of as a “lava lamp effect”, with a constant, slow swirling and shifting that can be quite hypnotizing. The effect is calming in the same way as watching the tides at the beach.

THE FIRST TIME THE THIRD EYE OPENS

The first time my third eye really opened wide, I was laying in bed at night in a dark room. I realized I could see the room I was in almost the same way whether my eyes were open or closed. I could make out the edge of the bed, the nightstand, the dim light cast up the wall from where our nightlight is plugged in down by the baseboard, the outline of a window and the doorway to our adjoining bathroom. I laid there for quite a while, opening and closing my eyes to compare the two views, transfixed and amazed that I could see my bedroom with my eyes closed!

Of course, when my eyes were shut, I could also see forms moving around our room that I could not see with my eyes open, which was another reason for my state of heightened alertness and curiosity. They were dark like deep shadows, about the size of a person, and moved with similar speed – walking, bending over us, reaching out with arms, moving back and forth.

SEEING THE THIRD EYE

Another strange, particular thing that happens when the third eye opens is you may literally see an eye when you close your eyes, right in the center of your field of vision. Mine looks like a normal eye, with eyelashes, creases around the eyelid, and a shine on the pupil. This eye IS your third eye. It symbolizes the chakra in its active state. When it appears, it can linger for quite a while. I’ve had nights when every single time I rose from dreams and just laid there in bed, the eye was there. It’s persistent! If you see an eye like this, which is distinct and lingers, that’s a great sign your eye is active and opening up.

SEEING WITH THE THIRD EYE

It’s hard to describe the things one sees through the third eye. Mine was very active last night, so I’ll try to describe some things I saw then. I’ve noticed my third eye is most likely to be open in rising from dreams. The thing is, once I open my eyes, it begins to break the spell and the effect fades quickly, but it’s also surprisingly hard to keep your eyes shut when you’re so determined to look around! The instinct to open eyes is a strong one, so I’ve literally used my fingertips to hold my eyes shut while I look through my third eye.

When my third eye is open, I can wave my hand in front of my face (in a dark room, so there’s no backlighting) and see the exact outline of my hand as it moves. It’s fascinating!

Last night I could see a light figure and a dark figure moving around my room. The light figure shone from within, whereas the dark figure beside it was made up of pure blackness. There were distinct heads, shoulders, torsos, and limbs. There were no details within their forms, almost like you might envision a spirit made of pure energy. The funny thing is, these beings tend to notice when I’ve spotted them, and will lean in closer or reach out to me. That’s what these did, as if trying to interact with me or study me as I studied them.

Last week sometime, I woke to find a massive, black skeleton-like figure, at least ten feet tall, looming over my bed. I had just enough time to stare at it and go, “Oh, wow,” before it noticed it had been spotted, spun from its core like a windmill and twirled up and away.

I’ve also seen my field of vision absolutely filled with distinct, crisp black numbers in neat rows, scrolling very, very quickly with the apparition of my third eye hovering right at the center. I can’t even begin to guess at what it meant!

It’s important to note I’ve felt no fear, or any other emotion during these moments. There’s only a profound curiosity and desire to witness what’s happening. I never detect any threat or maliciousness in these presences. That’s why I find it to be absolutely crucial to already be centered and clear (mentally, emotionally, and spiritually) before any of this starts to unfold.

The first steps we each must move through in the spiritual growth process are to get our ego-minds under control (rather than existing under its control!), and to process most of our major lessons of growth to clear away the noise and murkiness that clouds our awareness. We must stop seeing only our own mental projections, and practice seeing things as they truly are, without judgment or defensiveness. Fear comes when we craft mental stories about what we think could/is happening. Once we realize these stories are only figments of our own minds spinning and fabricating nonsense, can we release them. Seeing truth requires profound vulnerability and humility. It mandates we understand it’s not about US. We are only a small part of an infinite, intricate whole.

SIDE EFFECTS

You can experience mild headaches, nausea, and dizziness. It’s hard for me to pinpoint which of my physical symptoms are being caused by what, since I’ve been dealing with several different phenomena at the same time (clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, claircognizance, a VERY active crown chakra, and continuing, intentional efforts to confront and process my lingering soul lessons). Because of that, I’ll venture some of my vertigo spells could have been caused by my third eye too, but who knows!

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the experience of working with my third eye and seeing what it shows me. It can be an intense way to discover all of the ways we really are never alone, and how connected we are to the fabric of Creation. It’s one of the highest gifts we can be given by Source. If you find the opportunity to take this journey, it’s because you’ve been trusted to be able to handle it, so be thankful and enjoy the ride.

Love and blessings, friends.

We witness when we sit down, shut up, and pay attention. I haven’t written a blog post in a few weeks because I knew I needed some time for me to do exactly that. Creating space to quiet our own voice in order to pay closer attention to what Is, is one of the greatest gifts we can give ourselves.

What in the world is going on?

The only thing certain is that none of us have the answers. We’re all just trying our best with what we have to work with. If you encounter anyone who DOES claim to have all of the answers—run! When your religion claims to have all the answers? Question it. When your political party claims to have all the answers? Question it. When someone you know is driving you crazy because they insist they have all the answers? Question it!

The ego loves clinging to answers. It loves to be “right”. It loves telling everyone how right it is and getting attention for it.

There’s been a huge influx of toxicity into the spiritual community lately as narcissists and the alt-right use it to drive ego and fuel greed. Question those who use a platform on social media to convince you they should be your guru or wellness expert. Question those who charge you money in exchange for their answers.

Wisdom is free. Your best source of it is within you. You just have to clear away the nonsense piled on top.

And for the record, authentic truth exists in perfect harmony with science. Science is our understanding of nature, and nature is the physical manifestation of the divine. Question those who tell you to fear science and believe in their snake oil answers instead.

Everything you’re certain of is holding you back

The goal in life is not to collect answers and be “right” when we die. In fact, the more answers you hold onto, the more they will hold you back.

The way all of us go through our days is by telling ourselves stories about what we think is going on. When we attach to these stories as “truth”, they act like little boulders tethered behind us. The more ideas we attach to, the more boulders we’re dragging in our wake. If you collect enough of them, you’ll be stuck firmly in place with no way to advance forward until you let something go. The way to peace, happiness, and growth is by releasing our attachments—untie the tether and leave it behind. The goal is NOT to find better attachments. This isn’t a matter of whose boulders are the nicest. The aim is to let everything go.

Life is about learning. We incarnate in order to grow. It’s like a big cosmic school we attend for eighty years or so before going home. Just like in our traditional understanding of school, we get the most out of the lessons when we sit still, be quiet, and pay attention! Stop all distractions. Open yourself to what’s actively going on inside and outside of you. That’s where you’ll find the way forward. Our lives are orchestrated from beyond to place directly in our path everything we need to learn and face. Whatever you need will find you, not the other way around.

Being open and paying attention to the present moment is the ultimate goal. It allows spirit to move through you. It gives you clearer access to guidance from those on the other side of the veil who DO know the best way forward.

We can’t hear the guidance if we don’t hush up and listen for it.

Your inner witness

We are not our bodies. We are not our identities. We are not our minds and thoughts. We are a singular point of divine awareness.

Wherever you are, whatever is going on, there is always a deep part of you in the core of your physical self that is JUST awareness. It’s the Watcher. This essence is your connection to soul. The Watcher is always at peace. It is not at all effected by emotion or circumstances. It doesn’t get involved. It doesn’t judge. It doesn’t draw conclusions. It literally just pays attention and stays centered in peace.

When I’ve experienced road rage, I’ve reminded myself there’s a part of me that doesn’t care at all that some guy tried to run me off the road. This part of me is just silently taking it all it. It notices the anger and all of my scheming thoughts about what I should do about my anger. And it doesn’t care, it just observes.

When I lost my brother to a sudden death, I got better in touch with my Watcher. It was suddenly much easier to just exist and go through things as they happened and not expend any energy about it, but just take things in with a kind of numbness and keep living.

Now, I spend more and more time during my days existing not as my human persona, but as this Watcher. Meditation is a great tool to practice this. There’s no trick to it—it’s just hanging out in the present moment. Notice input from your senses. Focus on breathing. Chant a mantra. Do whatever gets you there.

Things will become profoundly simplified for you if you can shift to being the Watcher. That is the path to prolonged, true, inner peace.

Expectation and certainty will eventually cause suffering. If you can go through life staying in the present moment, taking things as they come without any preconceived ideas about how it’s going to go or what it all means, getting as big a kick out of the craziness of it all as you can while you can, that is the way to have a joyous experience.

The chaotic state of our world

There’s a lot of messed up stuff going on right now. Things are breaking and being exposed for corruption on a huge scale, everywhere we look. This breaking-down is what we need in order to shift to a better existence for all of us, but it’s massively stressful. It’s causing trauma in everyone going through it. But it’s not our job to make sense of it all. It’s not our job to fix anything that big. All we are asked to do is deal with what is directly in front of us right in this moment. Not what’s going to happen in five minutes, or fifty, or in ten years. Just now.

What can you do now? What does your gut tell you is the best way to exist as a loving human right now? Is there a simple way to better serve others? To show kindness or compassion? To show appreciation? To give yourself a break? A lot of times, the person we most need to be kinder to is ourself.

Be here. What can you do here? What does your heart tell you to do here?

Stop looking out at the whole messy world through the lens of screens. Start with your body and your health. How can you show kindness there? Then look at where you are, your space, and the people you share it with. How can you make things better for everyone there right now? What ideas are getting in the way that you can let go?

We all need to work on getting out of our own way. The person responsible for tripping you up in life is you, guaranteed. So, get out of your way. Stop complicating stuff. Deal with what’s urgent. Know your limits. Be kind to everyone, but most of all YOU.

My experience

It’s kind of funny to admit, but I’ve gotten really tired of stories. I’m tired of trying to tell myself what I think is happening, but I’m also tired of listening to others tell fear-driven stories about what they think is going on. As a writer, this has been pretty complicated to deal with. I’ve discovered a reduced tolerance for fictional drama (reading or watching), or current event drama, or social media drama. It could be the way my own trauma is manifesting, but I’m sure everyone reading this can relate to the feeling that just existing on the planet right now is fairly exhausting. Many things suck our energy, so I just don’t want to give my energy away to things that don’t put it to good, necessary use. Instead, I go for long walks. I do puzzles. I make things. I meditate. I journal. I cook.

I’ve successfully let go of a ton of stuff, and it’s left me feeling incredibly free. Now, when I see the temptation to attach to an idea or something that’ll suck my energy, I notice it. The noticing tends to kill the temptation. Because I know it’ll drain my feeling of lightness and freedom. It’ll weigh me down. And I’ve been there, done that. Not interested in going back.

Remaining in a state of open awareness gets us close to the void of the un-manifest. It’s a place of pure potentiality where anything can happen. It’s the gateway to the divine. I find so much ecstatic joy in lingering in this place. Being there is the quickest, most painless route through all the nonsense. I place no expectation on myself. Every moment is a gift and a wonder. There’s a breathtakingly casual, persistent awe.

When intuition leads me to make a choice, I choose the higher path. I direct myself toward the path full of the highest good and most loving version of reality for everyone. I live in hope and faith, and it’s what I honestly wish for everyone else to experience too.

I’ve been meditating at least an hour and a half daily, peppering in briefer moments when I detach and go within for a few minutes at a time to touch base and go back to my center. I encourage everyone to do the same. Anything we do can be a meditation—washing the dishes and feeling bubbles on the skin, smelling the air, feeling the ground under our feet or the clothes on our skin, smiling at someone, saying hello, eating a meal. Simplify!

I don’t have answers for anyone. All I have is input on what’s worked for me in getting to a healthier place. I send it out into the ether like breadcrumbs on a trail to lead those who wish to follow where I have gone, knowing we are all coming from and going to different places.

My increased time being the Witness or Watcher has led me to begin channeling. I’ve had intentional conversations with my spirit guide where I get to ask whatever is on my mind, and have found so much soothing comfort in the clear, loving, surprising responses. It’s been a profoundly moving experience. Please know we are truly never alone and always have our guides with us whenever we need them. They’re waiting for us to let them guide us in whatever ways we need them to, and need only be asked. For anyone willing to do the work involved in opening up to this level, I can’t recommend it enough. It’s magical and transformative!

COVID-19 has required all of us to simplify in many kinds of ways, but my wish for all of you is that simplifying is your gateway to rebirth as a freer, happier soul. Cut some weight loose, search for the inner stillness already inside you, and discover the wonders waiting there.

Love and blessings, friends.

As we become adults, we claim the pieces of our identity one by one as we decide who we are and what face we want to present to the rest of the world. Many of these pieces come from the environment of our upbringing, such as gender roles, religious beliefs, and political views. We absorb ideas from those around us, subconsciously or otherwise, and our reactions to these ideas shape our concept of ourselves. Other pieces come solely from within, as genetic factors fill in the biological blanks for things such as appearance, sexual orientation, and our general health.

When we embark on a path of spiritual awakening, it involves an unlearning of who we are. Spiritual truth teaches we are much bigger than this form, this life, and this reality. To experience that for ourselves and to transform into something grander, we must let go of who we previously believed our self to be. All of these carefully cultivated labels need to be shed, one by one, like so much dust in the wind.

This is because our true self has absolutely nothing to do with our physical, mental, or emotional bodies. Who are we really? It must be experienced rather than told. To “get there”, we must first clear away all the blockages in the way, obstructing our view. We are the awareness within our core. We are the Observer of everything we experience. This Observer is calm, impassive, and ever-watchful. It is our experience of soul, which is eternal, invincible, and made up of only one thing—love.

A major milestone of spiritual growth comes when we realize we are not our physical being—we are much more than that. Our bodies change as we age, but the truth of who we are does not. When we get sick or hurt, it doesn’t affect our soul. The constancy of our inner adventurer is the thread stringing together the whole of our life.

Likewise, we are not our mental and emotional selves. Our thoughts ARE, but they are something we observe happening. They don’t come from the soul. They are connected to the mind and ego. They have as much to do with our soul as birds that fly past. In similar ways, emotions also “happen” the same way thoughts do. They are experiences we go on, but they are not YOU.

We each have several bodies overlapping one another like the petals of a lotus flower or the layers of an onion. The physical body is overlaid with the emotional body, the mental body, and the pain body. Ram Dass practiced wonderful guided meditation centered on the breath. We can all do this to gain better self-realization, witnessing the various parts of our physical bodies, the movement of our breath, and the passing of our thoughts in order to see that in witnessing these things, it is evidence we are not them.

If we are able to release our attachment to these pieces of our identities that we’ve slowly collected over time, we can get free of them. We remove ourselves from boxes we’ve tried so diligently to shove ourselves inside of, not understanding why we don’t comfortably fit. If we are able to stop limiting ourselves by trying to perform an identity, then anything is possible. No longer are we prisoners of our thoughts or our feelings. Just because a thought or a feeling happens, does not mean we need to listen to it or obey what it wants. We always have the option to ignore these distractions and redirect ourselves back on course.

We’re so much more than our physical selves, which are really just temporary containers getting us from point A to point B. Just like a car, we ride inside them for a while, taking care to keep them in working order (or not!), until we reach our destination and exit the vehicle in a miraculous transformation every one of us will undergo as we venture back home.

The best way to practice detaching from what weighs us down is by observing. Pull back to the core of your awareness and just see what’s happening to or around you. Use all of your senses to pay attention to your now moment—the sounds, sights, smells, feels, and tastes. Then pull back farther to observe yourself engaging in these senses, knowing you are not them, but only the witness to them. Pay attention to your thoughts as if they were birds. Don’t try to catch them, just admire their colors and let them go on their way. If you have an emotional reaction, label it as such. “Oh, look. Anger is happening.” If you’re able to do this, you immediately disempower your emotion because you have established distance from it.

The opposite of this calm, centered state of observing, is reacting. When we see upsetting news, or get cut off in traffic, or read something shocking on social media, or get in a disagreement with someone we know, these all provoke reactions. The reaction is strong, sweeping us away like a wave in the ocean, pulling us underwater. It engulfs all our senses—all awareness. We literally get lost in reaction. Our thoughts swarm, our emotions surge, our skin flushes, our hearts pound, and breath quickens. It takes us over, like being possessed. The energy of the reaction ties us to our bodies, trying to drag us away from our role as the Observer.

This is how lower, denser energy triumphs over higher, lighter energy. We are either the Observer, or the Reactor. Never both. But we have the choice between them, always.

Practice noticing your reactions. That’s the first step! Just notice them.

“Oh, I’m getting upset. Oh look, that feeling… it’s frustration. Frustration is happening.”

It might sound silly, but as soon as you identify what’s happening inside you, you automatically pull back into the Observer role. The reaction is instantly deflated and you can take charge again.

None of us are helpless, in any circumstance. We’re not here on Earth, in these wild lives we’re living, to DO anything other than take the ride and see what happens. We aren’t here to react. We’re here to observe.

Don’t believe me?

Try it! Practice for a few days reacting less, observing more, and see if you don’t feel calmer and steadier.

Lower, denser, negative energies don’t want you to be the Observer, because you’re easy prey when you’re lost in reaction. You’re more easily manipulated when you’re a puppet with strings to yank. Do you want to be someone or something’s puppet? Or do you want to have complete power over your experience? Power through being and observing, not doing.

Happiness is a choice. Peace is a choice.

So is anger and fear.

What will you choose?

Love and blessings, friends.

Spiritual awakening is often compared to what happens in the movie The Matrix, with Neo being offered the red pill, or the blue. Once you take the red pill, there’s no going back. Your choice is made and your understanding of reality is forever altered.

There is bliss in ignorance, and those of us who choose to take the red pill and awaken do sometimes yearn for that ignorance once again. But living unconsciously or “asleep” also means being subject to the whims of ego and fear.

It’s difficult to explain awakening to those who haven’t experienced it, since our ability to listen is limited by what we’re ready to hear. A great many just aren’t ready to take that next step. They’re comfortable where they are and are happy in the place of growth they’re currently at. This is the blessing of free will and the mystery of fate. Each soul’s path is unique and no one can walk it for them. We each must do this on our own, at our own speed.

Awakening is the process by which a soul becomes aware of the nature of reality. It’s existence opening a door which we can choose to enter, offering a path we can walk if we so desire, which leads to the evolution of our spark of consciousness in pursuit of enlightenment.

Awakening can be a permanent (abiding) or non-permanent (non-abiding) experience. It’s possible to have an “aha” moment, to glimpse the Oneness of all that is, and then to go back to your life as you left it, continuing onward with little change. An abiding awakening is more earth-shattering, in that there is no “going back”. We can’t un-walk that path once we start down it. The changes that happen within our souls and our understanding of life are permanent in very real ways. It’s not just this life we’re currently living that is effected on all levels, but our level of consciousness will never regress in development to a lower state in future lives or when we’re not incarnated.

It’s not an easy experience, and is not all peace and joy. There is a gritty, hard nature to the unmaking of our selves. We’re required to release all attachments one-by-one, to recognize everything we’ve been grabbing hold of in order to define ourselves, clearing all of these distractions away so our connection to the Source of all creation is stronger. It’s the process of remembering who and what we really are, beneath all of the noise of human identity. We recognize this world is just a dream we’re having, and there is no actual “me”. The person who is your body, your personality, your name, your job, your human self does not exist, but is just part of the dream. Your “real” identity is so much bigger and expansive than you can possibly imagine—invincible, eternal, beyond space and time, a co-creator of existence itself as a fractal piece of the God energy of the Source of All that Is. In the game of earthly life, you’ve chosen your temporary avatar and are exploring this world for a short while through its eyes, but that is the extent of its truth.

As jarring and unsettling as it is to unmake your Self, it’s necessary and we will all experience it eventually. It’s just a matter of when we get there. But there is an urgency now. Our world is changing. Its vibrations rising. Negativity and the old order are being left behind in favor of higher vibrations and a more unified, peaceful existence. The best way we can fully appreciate the gifts of this life, and the opportunities awaiting us all, is to awaken and join the effort to assist this transformation.

Unconsciousness is ruled by fear. Consciousness, by love. A benefit of conscious living is a newfound freedom from the pain of fear. By understanding the nature of suffering, it is possible to move beyond it. All of the destruction and hatred in this world stems from unconsciousness. By choosing to awaken, by releasing fear and embracing love, you’re helping mankind and creation in its entirety in unfathomable ways. It’s not a selfish pursuit, but a gift to be taken seriously so we may serve others more than ourselves.

Any singular awakening benefits everyone you come in contact with. Your energy transformation effects other beings in exponential ways. It is a ripple effect that helps show others the way forward, away from their suffering.

The entirety of the awakening phenomenon is part of the Ascension process. By raising the vibration of the energy of our souls to higher levels and evolving our beings, we’re part of a massive effort on multiple planes of existence, guided by higher powers, to work to save this injured planet along with its suffering beings. The higher path is the way we save the Earth, plants, animals, insects, people—everything. The lower path puts ego’s fear above all else, happily destroying anything that stands in its way.

We’ve entered a time when we can no longer remain in the middle ground. Our choice must be made—to evolve, or to be left behind. I’m urging all of you reading this to make the choice of love, to choose freedom from suffering, to expand your wings, to love yourself as much as we love you, and to come with us on this adventure. There are only better things waiting for us ahead as we embark on this wondrous journey together.

Love and blessings, friends.

Our entertainment has failed us. It’s been psychologically harming us. It promises us a happily ever after. The perfection of the ideal finale. The villain is vanquished, the hero prevails, two flawless lovers kiss, we fade to black, and the story is over. Everywhere we turn, we’re surrounded by this template of storytelling. TV, movies, books, comics, news, magazines, social media. It’s what we know. It’s how we assume things go. But not enough emphasis is paid on explaining the purpose of Story. Too many of us expect our lives to play out the way the movies do, and are sorely disappointed when they don’t.

Story captures knowledge in a neat package to be easily retold and passed down. It’s how we attempt to understand our world. We make sense of things through stories we hear, or those we tell ourselves. Since the beginning of time, Story is how we’ve explained to others how things are. There’s an established pattern to storytelling, and it goes like this:

Stories have a linear progression where things move forward through space to another point further away. Usually, the subject of the story is left in better circumstances than they began. They endure the trial of the climax, things quiet down, then wrap up with a satisfying resolution. Subconsciously, after noticing this pattern in the stories we hear, we begin to expect this pattern to play out for us too.

Instead, we’re faced with Reality, which is entirely different than Story. Reality goes something like this:

We begin at the outermost point of the spiral and progress inward. We do not travel outward. Our journey circles us around the same inner point, over and over again. We relive the same kinds of challenges, the same patterns, the same themes. The longer we walk the path, the most intense things become. We’re given less space to move, we face challenges more quickly, and feel them more keenly. Reality is a journey into our Selves.

Believing our path is supposed to take us somewhere wildly different than we already are, where everything will be swiftly resolved in a satisfying way, and we will live happily ever after in perfection, is Myth. It’s Story. And Story is not Life.

Because of this misguided belief that Story is Life, we are too hard on ourselves. Our expectations are extremely skewed. We lament we haven’t met our Princess or Prince Charming, the evil menace has been allowed to survive, we don’t live in a glorious castle, we aren’t adored by the masses, we’re not rich and powerful, and not the epitome of success.

We must look hard at this tendency and restrict Story to its useful place. We must not allow it to destroy our hope, and our capacity for joy. It’s not a failure if your life isn’t as pretty as a fairytale, or any other kind of Story you’re told. Casting yourself as the hero of your tale doesn’t properly allow for the blessing of failure. For only through failure do we learn, gain strength, and grow. Likewise, casting others as the villain doesn’t permit them their humanity. None of us are perfect while in these flawed human forms, but all of us—without exception—are interconnected fractal pieces of the same divine Source energy. We’re all made of pure love and we all have the same potential.

As an author, I’ve delved deep into the truth of the difference of Story and Reality. Story requires us to torment our hero; to throw them into peril so they can overcome it and triumph. It’s not an exciting Story unless something awful happens to the ones we love most. Many times, I’ve written a book where my beloved characters have finally found their happily ever after, only to be asked for a sequel. A sequel means more peril, more torment, a diversion from the happy ending into more danger. Without that, the Story is boring and unfulfilling.

Story has an established template. All Stories are just versions of the same thing, with the details changed around.

Reality has no template. It’s what we make of it. We’re not required to go through a specific period of torment to reach our happy ending. In fact, our truth is that there is no ending!

Think about that. There is no end. Sure, this life will finish, but we’ll go on. The lives we’ve touched will also go on, and our impact on them will extend our presence infinitely.

The thing about spirals is that if you look at them from afar, they resemble a circle. A singular point. I’d argue that our experience of life is also like a singular point. The scenery changes around us, but we remain where we are, which is the Now. Our past is irrelevant and likewise our future. All that ever matters is where you are Now. What you’re dealing with Now. What you’re carrying on your back Now. What you’re clinging to. What’s holding you back. Not what’s behind you or in front of you. What’s here. Right here.

Anything you need for your journey through life is found within. It’s not out there in the world. You don’t need to go on an epic quest to find anything. There is no hero coming to save you, and you’re not required to go save anyone else. Rather, use your senses to explore your Now more profoundly. Intensify the way you feel, see, listen, speak, touch, smell, and taste. Spend a lot of time with yourself. Stop ignoring Reality in favor of the simple, escapist thrill of Story. Leave Story behind and instead discover your truth. Story is a great distraction, but it has nothing to do with intuition and our connection to the divine. Our real guidance comes from Being, which is the origin of Story. We need to literally go right to the Source to really discover what’s really going on.

Releasing the mirage of Story is an important stage in our growth. When we stop expecting things to play out a certain way, and instead investigate how they are actually happening, we’ll travel exactly where we need to go in our spiral path. We’ll free ourselves from the burdens we’ve placed upon ourselves. We can realize we don’t need to resemble a character in a Story in order to be valid and perfect in our own ways.

Let go of what you’ve been conditioned to want. The only perfection is found in the God energy. Humans are not and will never be perfect. Human “perfection”, when it is attained, is always hollow and sad because our value is not in what adventures we’ve had, the place we live, the way we look, or the details of our romances. We’re not failures if our life is not like a movie. We’re beings who never “fade to black”. We learn, and grow, and climb higher with each twist of the spiral path we walk. There is no limit to how far we may rise, or how long we can take to get there.

Story always has conditions, but Reality is whatever you make of it.

So, what will YOU make of it?

Love and blessings, friends.

If you’re anything like me, when you see things in the world around you going awry, a little voice speaks up inside saying it’s your moral duty as a Good Person to try and fix it. That it’s your job to do everything in your power to… (cue dramatic music) Save the World!

This idea is ridiculous and misguided. I’ll explain why.

To start, we need to take a wider view of things, and more specifically with the question of what exactly you are. You are a soul having a temporary experience in a human body. You are energy in a meat suit. Where did this energy come from? From where all energy comes from—the Source of all creation.

We are all teeny tiny fractal reflections of the Source. We are each a single drop of water in the great ocean of existence. We are a small part of the whole. “The whole” encompasses all of existence. Being originates from the Source or God energy.

With me so far?

You are a portion of the Oneness of Divinity having a human experience, and there actually is no singular, isolated “you” at all. Your human identity is an illusion. The truth is we are all connected. We are all the same energy, different reflections of the same Source. What this translates to is that when you feel you have to “Save the World”, that would mean God would be trying to save God from God. See the ridiculousness now?

Have faith that God knows what It is doing. After all, It has been orchestrating the entirety of existence for all of time. It’s pretty good at this stuff. We do not have the ability to see the whole plan for our world. That perspective is beyond us in this form. It’s not our place to fight the tides and stand in the way of What Is.

We’re not here to save the world. We’re here to learn, to grow our selves, to face a specific set of challenges we’ve decided on ahead of time, and to love. We incarnated with exactly the right body and skill set to face these specific tasks. We don’t even need to go looking for them, because if we just follow our path and our intuition, we will get exactly where we need to go.

Also, that voice inside telling you it’s your duty to save the world? That’s ego. That’s the human mind indulging in the ultimate arrogance of thinking it knows better than God. We don’t know the paths of anyone else. We can’t. It’s beyond us. And that’s okay. We need to respect the paths of everyone who is not us, without knowing where they’ve come from or what they’ve been through. We can show them compassion, but then we need to get out of their way. Because just like you can’t save the world, you also can’t save anyone else but yourself.

Everything that Is is made up of patterns. Fractals. This reality is just patterns within patterns. The best thing you can do, rather than worrying about rearranging the whole puzzle, is to identify your own patterns. See what keeps repeating in your life. See where the stress points are. See where your fear lives. Then investigate that. Look into it as hard as you can to figure out what’s going on there, way down deep below all of the noise and clutter. Find the heart of your truths. And then break the pattern! Make a different choice. The way you save the world is by saving YOU.

Don’t think that’s good enough? That saving YOU isn’t enough? Consider that everything you know about reality is strictly through your own particular vantage point. Your senses. Your human experience. We’re biased. We have no way of seeing or experiencing the world as anyone else. But, if you save yourself and transform the way you experience life, you transform everything! You will see and feel everything differently. But more than that, you are paving the way for everyone around you to do the same thing. You’re showing them the way. Giving them courage to save themselves too. After all, as interconnected energy, we have the ability to influence those in our sphere without even trying. Whatever you’re putting out there is being picked up by every single being in your path. So give them something good! Give them hope and love and compassion. By lifting ourselves up, we lift up the whole world.

You can’t save the world. You’re off the hook. Being the best version of you is enough. I promise.

Love and blessings, friends.

Our culture and society is not set up in a way that encourages a healthy, happy existence. Everything around us boasts the importance of Doing. Our actions, the ways we fill our days, the efforts we make, the manner in which we pursue pleasure and relaxation—it all stems from things outside of ourselves. We’re told to think our value, our joy, our rest, our worth, can only come from what we Do.

This is not true!

Seeing the truth requires a major shift in perspective. We need to relearn how we approach everything from the moment we wake in the morning, to when we go back to sleep at night.

The key is accepting our value is already established and cannot diminish. It comes from our Soul, our eternal Being. Circumstances are temporary and do not change who we are. Nothing you Do outside yourself adds any value to who you are. If anything, it distracts from it. Looking without instead of within traps us into a pattern of thinking we aren’t already good enough, which isn’t true. Anything you could ever need is inside you right now. You don’t need anyone or anything to access it. Just love and patience.

We’re used to chasing pleasure outside ourselves, too. The things we plan on weekends, evenings, and holidays involve travel, socializing, spending money, or pursing experiences. These all have their place and entertainment value, but too often we believe deep within ourselves that these things should fill a void inside. We think the “perfect” vacation, the “perfect” date, the “perfect” party will finally, finally, be that thing we’ve been missing that will finally make us happy and fulfilled. When they don’t do that, we feel we’re not good enough, didn’t try hard enough, and are privately bitterly disappointed, even if we had “a good time”.

How often have you looked forward to plans, building up in your mind how they’d be the thing you need to turn your whole world around and make it all worthwhile? Only to be frustrated with the reality?

There’s a reason for this. It’s simple. We need to appreciate our Being instead of our Doing.

Being is constant. It’s there day and night for the entire length of your life on this planet. No matter what’s happening around you, whether you’re sitting in a traffic jam or sitting on a beach on a beautiful day, you can find comfort, love, wholeness, and much more just by loving yourself and appreciating the gift of being alive, of being in the now.

Being who you are is enough. It’s the way to experiencing peace and joy as your normal daily condition, no matter what’s in your bank account or on your schedule. Being is our connection to the Source of all creation. It links us with all of existence. It’s our Divinity.

Clear away the noise and fear. Untangle the knots dragging you down and creating stress. Release all notions of what you should be Doing. Only Do things you want to Do, not because you feel you should.

Life is like a river. It flows naturally. We’re not the ones in charge of the currents. We’re just floating along riding it out. That’s the way to an easy, pleasant trip—float! Don’t swim against the currents. Don’t create resistance to what Is. Acceptance and surrender to the flow means everything will take care of itself. You won’t need to Do anything! Doing becomes unnecessary when you are able to Be.

I know it may sound hard to believe. I know you’ve been taught to think life doesn’t work that way, that we need to break our backs working under the rules of society in order to survive. But those expectations were set by other people who feed off of our struggles to satisfy their own greed for money and power. They’re lying to you. Money, status, appearances—they don’t matter. They’re the trap. They’re what’s making you miserable, because the endless, frantic chase for them distracts you from Being.

They can’t charge you for Being, so they don’t want you to think you could be happy right now without paying them money for the privilege.

They don’t want you to know your value isn’t up for debate, that you’re already perfect just the way you are because you’re a spark of Divinity itself. They’d rather you fear aging, and obsess over body image, and fashion, and skin care, and all the rest of it, because our fear and misery makes them a lot of money!

You don’t need to go anywhere or buy tickets to a restful day. You can be right where you are, and meditate, or go for a walk, or play music and dance, and Be. Taking care of your Being is true rest. It’s free.

If this all sounds ridiculous, and too good to be true, I invite you to test it out. Let go of all preconceived ideas about Doing. Stop doing anything, other than what you want. If there’s something you’d secretly like to do for yourself, even if it’s just to lay in bed all day and not talk to anyone, even over the phone or internet, do that. Your instincts will always guide you toward what you need most to rebalance yourself.

Stop thinking about tomorrow or worrying about yesterday. Just be here now. Today. In this moment. Breathe the air. Feel the energy pulsing through your body. Do some stretches. Listen to the sounds around you. Look for something beautiful to appreciate. Ground yourself in the moment. What it gives you will be more subtle and quiet than what you’re used to, but its gifts are everlasting and endless.

Once you start practicing this, anything can be a pleasure! Washing the dishes and feeling the warm, bubbly water on your hands. Sitting in a waiting room to rest your feet and catch your breath, clear your mind. Seeing people you care about and appreciating the connection you have, and the ways you learn from each other every day. There are blessings all around us. Pay attention to them!

We are all we have. Sometimes the idea of that is used to scare, but no one can ever take you away from yourself. The love you can give yourself well outmatches what anyone else can ever give you. Use that. Be kinder to yourself. Stop doing so much, and just be who you are. Because you’re beautiful, from the inside out.

Love and blessings, friends.

We live in a world that loves to hear itself talk. Constantly surrounded by noisy electronics, screens, music, news, advertising, podcasts, and oh so many people, the only way to enjoy some peace and quiet anymore is to actively seek it. What’s our motivation to do that? Silence is boring, isn’t it? For many, relaxation means tuning out inner “noise” with outer entertainment and diversion.

Find out who you are

I’m an introvert. My husband and both children are introverts. Our home is quieter than most. We all have our different sanctuaries corners within it where we regularly retreat, but we’ve also learned how to be comfortably quiet together, and to respect each other’s needs to interact or not. Even still, every single day I carve out time to be alone and away from everything except nature. I need it as much as I need food or air. So, I’m clearly biased, but I hope you’ll humor me for a little longer.

Silence is the gateway to listening, which results in understanding. I’m sure we all know people who speak only to hear the sound of their own voice. The moment anyone else replies to them, their eyes glaze over, impatiently awaiting their next chance to speak, the gears in their head turning as new words sit on the tip of their tongue, not listening to anything being said. But it’s not just the mindless talkers. We all fill the space around us with noise and activity. It’s part of our culture and the age we live in. We’re always busy, always surrounded by others, always trying to get just a few minutes to ourselves to zone out by… what? Watching TV, or Netflix, or playing on our phones, maybe.

The only way we’ll ever get to know who we are is by spending quiet time with ourselves. That’s why we’re here! That’s the purpose of our lives! To grow in understanding of who we are in the privacy of our own selves, to tap into the mystery of our soul and, by doing so, find peace.

How will you ever know what will actually bring you joy unless you search quietly within yourself for the answer? How do you even go out in the world every day and expect to find what you’re looking for there if there’s no real inner understanding of self? Why do you think salvation is out there waiting for you in the first place (hint: we’re conditioned to think so). ALL of the answers to the questions you’re too afraid to ask are waiting for you right now inside your soul and your inner connection to all of existence and divinity itself.

Divinity waits in silence

The way to peace is silence. The way to joy is silence. The way to truth and understanding is silence. The way to cut through and block negativity is silence.

Your spirit and the energetic force of creation will communicate with you if you allow it, but ONLY if you allow it and listen for it. The voice of god comes through silence. It’s soft and gentle. It’s so easy to miss. But. BUT: if you allow it to have a voice in your stillness, it will continue and intensify its communication with you. The answers will flow more freely. The key lessons you incarnated in this life at this time to learn will reveal themselves to you more quickly and painlessly. You will achieve more than you’ve ever dreamed possible!

This life is not about any external thing. It’s not about any other person, or place, or job, or achievement, or possession. It’s about YOU. It’s about you finding out who you are. It’s about you figuring out what needs healing inside your spirit and DOING that hard work so you will never have to do it again and can evolve as a spiritual being. The soul work we do on Earth is the only permanent change we can affect.

Period.

Once you heal yourself in some specific way, that progress is permanent. You’ll never have to relearn that lesson, ever, in any life. Once you identity the cycles you’re stuck in and break them, you are free of them forever! Think of it! Think of how wonderful it is to get to do for yourself exactly what you need to find eternal, profound peace. You don’t need any religion, or book, or guru, or meditation practice, or anything else. All you need is silence. 

It creates space. It allows room for the inner voice of your deepest self to speak up.

Be aware – ego fights back

I know this scares a lot of people. I have friends who have orchestrated their entire lives so that they are never, ever left alone with their thoughts. But what I’m urging here is not to get lost in thought. You are not your thoughts. Thought is the voice of ego. It’s full of cruel judgments and causes more suffering than anything else. The real you is the calm inner observer of thought. Silence waits for you once you let thought go. When you meditate, focus on the in and out motion of breath, on the feel of your body where it touches the ground or your chair, on the sound of birds in the trees nearby, or when you journal and turn inward.

The voice telling you silence is boring is ego and fear, afraid of losing their grip on you. Ego wants you to need media’s endless entertainment so you will remain a mindless drone who identifies with illusory external things for identity instead of discovering the only real truth waiting for you within your eternal soul.

Silence is freedom. It’s the way to find true peace right now, in this crazy, messed up world where Trump is president and the way to really start to enjoy your life every single day, no matter what’s going on around you.

When toxic people try to get a rise out of me, my go-to response is silence. The space it creates allows time and opportunity to consider a balanced, kind, appropriate reply before, or if, answering. There can be no argument or disagreement if only one person is participating. Silence prohibits the proliferation of more negativity and emotional imbalance. Own your space. Use it to create a cushion of comfort around you. This space is how healthy boundaries are made and enforced. No one can take your emotional energy from you if you don’t want them to have it. You don’t owe anyone anything. Your silence can be the gift that helps them correct their trajectory and find a healthier path.

Connection in stillness

Do you think you’re alone in life? It’s a common misconception. Do you believe you have to go through life fighting for yourself and your ego-identity? The “you” that’s made up of things like labels, and what your body looks like, and what you do to fill the days?

You’re not alone in life, ever. We are all connected and being constantly guided by forces you will not hear or feel until you get quiet and allow them space to come through. You’re bigger than this one life. You’re magnificent. Allow yourself to be magnificent!

You’re not here to somehow fix the world. Any instinct telling you that is ego. Every soul on Earth has their own journey and path to walk. Honor the paths of others and don’t cast judgment on them. Show compassion, but refrain from all judgment, as hard as that can be. None of it matters.

The ONLY thing that matters is you discovering your true self and learning how to connect with that. Your peace will transform not only your life but the lives of everyone you come in contact with. You will become the example they follow. We must help each other reconnect with creation and with each other. That’s how we transform this whole thing. That’s the answer. 

The most important way you can not only improve your own life, but help transform the lives of everyone around you, is by choosing happiness. This is the most effective way to make a positive impact on our world, which is so full of negativity and fear. Happiness is not something you will ever discover outside of yourself. It will never come to you. It can only come from within, and you can only enjoy it by releasing everything blocking your happiness so it can shine through.

What’s blocking your happiness? Ask yourself. When I say you can choose happiness, do you have an instinctive response such as, “I can’t be happy, because X, Y and Z.” What are X, Y and Z? Why do they have such power over you? How can you choose differently so they don’t have this power? How can you transform your outlook in such a way that you are more loving to yourself?

Do you not believe that happiness can impact the planet and humanity in general? Think about it—if everyone alive right now was completely happy and at peace, how would that change the state of the world? How would it affect violence, war, politics, religion, cruelty to women, children and minorities, greed, wealth inequality and standards of living? If everyone was content with having just enough to fulfill their basic needs, and were happy to take care of one another, how differently would our world look? If fear and greed were gone, what would change? Would the world not be a more loving place to exist?

When you choose happiness, it infects everyone you come in contact with. Others see your joy and are inspired to try choosing it for themselves. Happiness is infectious. Just one person can have a huge impact without even knowing it.

The key to beginning to choose happiness is to understand the CONTENT of our lives versus the CONTEXT. The content of our lives is made up by the labels you give yourself, the things you possess, the place you live, the job you have, the things you do, the people around you, the goals you have, the failures you’ve suffered. Most of humanity fervently believes the way to happiness is via changing the content of our lives. Let me assure you, this is utterly false. Stuff, things, money, and ideas will never create happiness.

Want proof? Look at the wealthy people in our world. More than anyone else, they’re focused on the content of their lives. Appearances, luxury, and attention are what drive and plague them. Their egos have run away with themselves, clouding out any chance to discover the path to actual happiness. They’re some of the most miserable people you will ever meet.

So what is the context of our lives? This is who you are, why you’re here, and the lessons you’re meant to learn. ‘Who you are’ in this sense has nothing to do with your race, gender, sexual orientation, job title, etc. This refers to the great I Am. The truth of your Being, the wholeness of your Spirit. When everything else is peeled away, and just your soul is left behind, who are you? You came into this life for specific reasons, to grow in specific ways. What are they?

When you die, all you will take with you when you go is your soul. Nothing else will matter. When my brother Matt passed away, I visited a psychic medium who not only helped me connect and get closure with my beloved brother, but also gave me a little glimpse into the future. I had since becoming estranged from my family and specifically from my only living sibling. Matt told me via the medium that our brother was stuck on a path where accruing wealth was his only priority, well about love or happiness. I was told he would die believing he had “won” (since he had been so busy manifesting what he broadcast, he would indeed get the wealth he so desperately craved), and only then would he see the real truth. It would be far too late to change his fate.

When we die, we are held accountable for our choices and actions. The stuff we left behind makes no difference at all. There are only three possibilities: you progress, you remain stuck, or you regress and diminish. The sooner you become aware of how to progress, the more you can accomplish while you’re still here to do it. Don’t wait until your life is over and poor choices condemn you to more suffering.

Abandoning focus on the content of our lives in favor of delving into the context is the way to infuse your life with joy and peace.

We incarnate into our bodies with specific limitations programmed in. We all have to learn to cope with lack. Our bodies, our minds, our ‘shells’ will fall short and fail us in ways that are intentional for our life purpose. These details of lack are there for a reason! There is nothing wrong with you! You’ve been assigned a unique challenge that’s pointing you directly toward where you need to go. Stop wasting energy worrying about where you feel you fall short compared to others, and instead learn to surrender with an open heart to truth and your purpose. Have faith in the love surrounding you at all times, in your guides and your Self. Embrace who you are with all of your shortcomings, knowing they’re serving you well. Let go of fear and choose love.

What aspects of the content of your life have you been worrying about? How can you let them go? How can you discover more about your context? Start there.

Love and blessings, friends.

A crucial part of the spiritual awakening process is recognizing your own behaviors, and the reasons you do what you do. Something that will totally transform the way you view the world is by understanding the pain-body. So… What is the pain-body?

It is an accumulation of painful life experience that was not fully faced and accepted in the moment it arose. It leaves behind an energy form of emotional pain. It comes together with other energy forms from other instances, and so after some years you have a “painbody,” an energy entity consisting of old emotion.

Eckhart Tolle

I strongly urge you to read what Eckhart Tolle writes about the pain-body in his book The New Earth. As I understand it, whenever we don’t fully face and process our emotional pain as it naturally occurs in daily life, that pain is then stored within our pain-body—a collection of energy that builds and gets stronger the more we “feed it”. It becomes so strong that it behaves like a parasite, taking control of us and our actions when it gets “hungry”. The pain-body is just like any other life form in that it wants to survive and thrive. But it needs more pain in order to do that. It craves only one thing: pain for you and pain for others. It will hijack you in order to get it.

The pain-body, when it takes control of you, does not have empathy or compassion. It is only rage, bitterness, hatred, and every other negative emotion. When something pushes you over the line and you burst into anger, and you feel it flooding you and blocking out all positive emotions—like during road rage, for instance—that’s your pain-body taking over. That’s why you feel so helpless in those moments. You are.

One of the biggest puzzles of my life, left unsolved for decades, which unsettled me on a very deep level, was encounters with the pain-bodies of those closest to me. Eckhart Tolle explains that the pain-body loves more than anything to provoke our friends and family into experiencing pain. It’s one of the key way it gets sustenance. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been faced with someone who should have felt unconditional love for me but instead was essentially a heartless rage-monster who only wanted me to suffer. The heart can’t understand something like that. Of course, those moments would come and go. The pain-body would come to the forefront and the recede again in time. But it never got enough and always came back. In some people, like my parental figure, their pain-body had become strong enough to have much more control over them than what was left of their withered soul.

To know now what was happening there is a way I empower myself and find ways to feel compassion for those who hurt me in the past. They were at the mercy of their pain-body, which had grown too dense for the light of their soul to shine through.

We cannot affect the pain-body of others, but we can learn to recognize when we experience it in ourselves. As soon as we become aware of it, it loses power over us. It really is as easy as that. If rage begins to consume you, or you feel sadistic pleasure in the misfortunes of others, seeing it as the emotional entity of the pain-body and not your essence lets you take back control. It also prompts us to do the deep inner work needed to face our buried pain in order to release it. That’s the only way to defeat your inner parasite.

Be warned that the media and our society in general has been built to feed the pain-body. It wants us to be offended and alarmed. Selling fear to our pain-bodies gives them food and keeps us weak. It makes us easy to control and powerless. Too many TV shows and movies are designed to enable our pain-bodies with gratuitous violence and suffering. I promise you that you will feel happier and healthier if you avoid those things and instead choose entertainment that lifts the heart, challenges the mind, or makes you laugh. Not all depictions of pain are bad. If it is done to demonstrate the awakening process, in which we are shown how to learn from mistakes and grow, that can be a good thing. Provoking awareness is always the goal and the way we take back our world, healing it and making it a better place for all of life.

So, take a good hard look at yourself and those around you. Try to see what’s really going on, and what’s really in control. Use love and choose love as the way to conquer fear and pain.

Love and blessings, friends.