Women: I have a radical invitation for you.

Imagine how your life would transform if you dedicated the next year to YOU.

In the busyness of our everyday lives, it is easy to disconnect from our source and passion, or get confused on how to create our next step. As women we are domesticated to put our energy towards the needs of others and to fear our own wildness. We often dull ourselves energetically to stay safe and be good girls.

We think about living a spiritual life and being in service to the divine, but so often our innate potential lies dormant and unclaimed. We want to be fiery, independent women, but get caught in roles of caretaker, pleaser, and worker bee.

Can you imagine if you consciously gave yourself a year to fully untie the cords, lies, and limitations wrapped around your soul and wiggle free of the old, too-tight cocoon?

On a recent miguelruiz.com teleclass one of the participants asked me, “HeatherAsh, how did you reclaim your power?”

In the early 1990′s I was blessed to meet and apprentice with don Miguel Ruiz. He asked me to make a commitment to myself, and over the next ten years I completely rewrote everything about my life. I know that it was this commitment to myself and
having a clear, unconditionally loving guide that changed the course of my life and supported me in not just dreaming about, but actually becoming the woman I wanted to be.

Turning your attention to yourself is not selfish, it is self-full. When you create time for your own healing and inner exploration you can finally shift the many old, below the surface patterns and issues that drain your energy and cause you to be off-balance.

With more energy anything is possible. Instead of just getting by day to day, you suddenly have the resources and vision to creatively make changes and to start living the life you were meant to live.

Committing to yourself for a year is simple, but not necessarily easy. Your old ways of being are so familiar that they can be difficult to shift. To stay present with your commitment to you, pick a start and an end date, and take some time to dream into what you want for yourself over this coming year.

Let go of the excuses and fears and procrastination and give a big, fat, YES to yourself. You deserve it, and the world needs YOU, whole, complete, and vibrant.

HeatherAsh Amara is the author of the new book, The Pixie Solution, along with The Four Elements of Change, Toltec Tarot, and Sacred Time Management. She has apprenticed and taught with don Miguel Ruiz for almost 20 years. HeatherAsh is delighted to offer a long distance and Austin-based year-long sacred container for women to reclaim their power and vibrancy. Thirteen Moons starts in late November. For more information
on Thirteen Moons, which is being offered for a special price through www.miguelruiz.com, click here.

From the dream of the planet point of view, power is defined by how you look, how much money you make, who you are dating or married to, and how you are progressing on your career track. From a framework of fear and lack of resources, powerful people are the one’s who have the most external resources available.

From the spiritual point of view, power is defined very differently. Power is not sought after from the outside, but patiently cultivated from within. Power has nothing to do with money or fame or outside perception, but with one’s connection to the mystery of life. From a framework of abundance and immanent spiritual connection, powerful people are the one’s who have the most depth and connection to their internal resources.

All of us are tied in some ways to an old model of power. We worry about getting older and no longer being attractive; about the amount of money we have, about how others see us. We try and increase or hold our power by working to please others, control the outcome of situations, stay safe and small so no one notices the power we have (and therefore cannot take it away). We struggle with our judgments around where we should be in our career or on our spiritual path. We compare ourselves to others. We slip into jealousy and fear around other women who shine more brightly or threaten our sense of self in any way.

When we are attuned to something, we vibrate at the same frequency as it. Our challenge, then, is to be honest with the places we are still vibrating with old modes of power, and move ourselves towards complete attunement with a new power: our own. This will not be done all at once, but over time as we unhook ourselves from old patterns and agreements.

Outside, the human dream beckons us to buy more things, to stay young, to be in a relationship, to climb the career ladder, to have a child or two, to be sex kittens one second and sweet virgins the next. Inherently, none of these things are bad. But when we use them as way to fill up the emptiness or stop our critical minds or feel complete or safe, they become a jail.

Inside, your essence whispers to you to remember your light. The Divine waits to be embodied in your form. Your being yearns to blossom, to share your soul’s love. You taste it, you sense it. When you attune to your inner bounty, life is glorious. Each breath is a joy. The external form does not matter. You know your own wholeness, and you feel complete when you are alone or with others. Yum!

Stepping into a new power means doing the work and having the courage to unweave the tangled web within to allow your true radiance to shine forth.

HeatherAsh Amara is the creatress of a year-long women’s circle, Thirteen Moons, that begins in November. Join a circle of women dedicated to opening their wings to fly and be as bright, bold, and beautiful as the full moon. http://www.thirteenmoons.us

The desire to live in a fully awakened state has inspired many of us in the choices we make every day. The raising of our collective awareness and consciousness is now a global phenomenon that each of us is witnessing and contributing to. The word itself whispers that there is something more to be discovered about ourselves and our creative place in the world. More and more of us everywhere, are hearing the call, feeling the pull and responding to it by opening our minds and hearts more fully to the capacity we have to dream our lives with more awareness.

Awakening can allude to the image of one who suddenly opens their eyes and comes out of a dream of “sleep� or unawareness and in this process life takes on new meaning, insight and purpose. We can see ourselves in a new way that necessitates leaving parts of our former selves behind, while more self awareness is brought forward that we can use to recreate our new, awakened lives from. The every day and the mundane become infused with the delight of increased levels of wakefulness that inspires us to find our reflection in the world we inhabit.

It can begin with a deep yearning of the heart, almost painful, and continue with moments alternating between expansive lucidity and unsettling confusion. Both responses are normal as we make our way through a world that is shifting and changing all the time. Our opportunity in being awake is to know without a doubt that balances harmony, and stability are possible even if chaos is what we observe in the world around us.

To be awake to our true identity is an invitation to experience who we are beyond an assumed identity or old roles that we have accepted without awareness. Accepting this invitation, in which we are both the sender and the receiver, opens us to the wide expanse of the new and mysterious, revealing truly breathtaking experiences that raise our vibration and energy. This becomes what share not only with those we interact with but what we offer to the evolution of consciousness as this movement and force engages so many at this time

Fortunately, we live in a time where our spiritual quest and desire to live in a lucid state inner discovery are now actively supported and inspired by most channels of mainstream media including books, magazines, the Internet and film. What we need to support the ongoing commitment of awakening to who we really are, is becoming easier to access.

We are each awake now and have only to look at what we allow to obscure that state of clear perception. Imagine that we each desire to experience our awakened state full-time, real-time and with this self-realization, we then desire a larger community of individuals to share this with and this becomes what moves us into interaction with life.  What could be the results of such a desire?

It is with this desire that a group of unique individuals, have come together to create the documentary film “Awaken,� which will premier in Los Angeles during late summer 2010.

“Awaken� documents the wisdom and teachings of five teachers, sages and shamans from diverse spiritual background about the movement to awaken to a higher consciousness amidst the current crisis and energetic shift on Earth. I have the pleasure of being one of the teachers featured in the film.

Each sage communicates their unique message and energy to inspire viewers on their journey of self-discovery and remembrance. Though each of us comes from diverse backgrounds and life experience, each message carries a common theme; the current opportunities within our challenges that are available to each one of us at this time in our human evolution

I speak to the illusion of separation that the dreaming mind creates and that the mythology of The Mayan Calendar and 2012 speaks to the end of a world of false beliefs, and the end of the rule of the ego-mind. “Imagine that we humans created for ourselves a time that would bring so many of our false and irrational fears to the surface just so we could make a choice…. love or fear…victim or creator…separate from or connected to all of life? Now seems to be such a time for us to awaken to our creatorship and the understanding that our thoughts, emotions and choices impact not only us but everything and everyone we touch.�

Barbara Marx Hubbard serves as the “elder� in the film entreating us to seize the opportunity in our current challenges, as they have the potential for a mass awakening of humanity. Also included in the film are messages from a shaman, and a Tibetan Lama.

“Awaken,� reflects the powerful energy of collaboration and clear communication of individuals delivering a message that conveys our personal awakenings as well as, true hope and inspiration for humanity in our evolutionary process.

It has been my experience in being a part of this project that the original intention of the filmmaker, Danisa Perry, was achieved. The intention was to have the viewer “experience� the energy of the master teachers, beyond their personalities, but more as direct channels of wisdom that create a transformative experience akin to being in their presence. This energy sparks the place within the viewer where insight and awareness are already present.

I sincerely hope you all get the chance to view this film, and are moved by it. Within each of us at this time lives the potential to live fully from our heart’s desire… awake, aware, and authentic, creating our contribution to the dream of humanity.  Will we meet the challenge and opportunity that we are presented with? Will we choose to be awake in the dream of our own making and filled with faith for what we are capable of dreaming? I have a great amount of faith that the desire we have to evolve our human consciousness while at the same time, choosing to live in happiness, will keep our eyes and hearts wide open.

Please visit www.awakenthefilm.com for more info on screening dates and for ordering your own copy.

Please visit www.Lifemasteryprograms.com to view the trailer of the film and current events. Contact me directly at Rita@Lifemasteryprograms.com
Click Here to view Rita’s profile

Understanding the Mind

As humans we live in two worlds. There is the external physical world of work, family and friends that we travel in. Then there is the world of our mind and imagination. It is a virtual reality that can at times appear and feel just as real. When it comes to our emotions the virtual world of our mind can often affect on our emotions more than the real world.  If we want to be happy, we may not always be able to change the physical world or other people, but we can always change the virtual world of our mind.

If you are seeking to create greater fulfillment and happiness in your life most sources will point to making changes in your external world.  They will talk about goal setting, success, financial wealth or attracting the perfect partner.  Those suggestions to find what you love, do what you are passionate about, find the perfect partner, and achieve your goals will lead you towards happiness. However without addressing how beliefs in the mind affect your emotions you can still end up disillusioned and empty. The importance of addressing the role beliefs play may be difficult to grasp.  That’s partly because the beliefs in your mind that you’ve acquired from school and society don’t point you in the direction of changing them.  In fact, they point you away from changing them.

Change Begins with Perception and Awareness

We don’t see what we want to see.  We see what our belief system projects. For the person that gets called into their boss’s office their mind may project visions of getting reprimanded or fired. When they get there they might find they are getting a bonus.

A person might project that their partner is cheating on them. In their virtual reality they create a movie of their partner leaving them abandoned and alone. Their virtual reality generates emotions of fear, jealousy, anger, and loneliness. In reality their partner might be madly in love and devoted to them. But they aren’t responding to their real partner. They are reacting with the person in their virtual reality they imagine as their partner. They treat and act towards their partner according to the beliefs and images their virtual reality projects not the way their partner really is.

In these scenarios it is not a matter of people seeing what they want to see. People do not want to see visions of being reprimanded, fired, or abandoned.  People perceive what the virtual world of their belief system projects.   The virtual reality of the mind actively projects scenarios continually throughout the day separate from what we want. When these projections in the mind are based in fear the result is unhappiness.

People do not see what they want to see. People see what their virtual reality projects. This fog isn’t so dangerous by itself unless a person invests faith in what their mind projects. Without belief in these images they have no power to produce emotions or reactions.  If you are watching a movie, and are aware it is a movie you don’t react.  When we have this awareness that much of what our mind projects is fictional we don’t react emotionally either.  In fact when we have enough awareness even horrific scenarios in our mind begin to seem silly or funny instead of fearful or threatening.

When you perceive that your beliefs about your self, and the rest of the world, don’t match up with the real you or the real world you conclude that changing your beliefs is something worth doing.  Of course coming to this often uncomfortable realization requires a bit of humility.

How to Make Your Self Happy

Most everybody has heard that money doesn’t make you happy, other people don’t make you happy, and that you have to make your self happy. Very few people will tell you how. Your mind will propose that happiness has something to do with the success and accomplishment in the external world. This is exactly what the belief system in the mind has been trained you to believe and act on.

As long as you are more focused on the external world of success and accomplishment your beliefs can avoid giving up the control it has over your attention and emotions. In certain respects the ego mind has an agenda of preservation of beliefs ahead of your emotional well being.  It does this by trying to get us to focus our attention on the outside world and not notice our own beliefs.

As you put your attention on the dynamics of the virtual reality of the mind it begins to lose control and power over your choices and thoughts. The process involves first becoming aware of the mind and the projections it makes.  More self awareness will result in being aware of your self as separate from your mind that is generating thoughts and opinions.  The result is that life is less automatic and more conscious.

The realization that our belief system distracts us from noticing what our mind is doing is a big step in awareness.  It helps us stay focused that happiness and life fulfillment is really determined by what goes on in the world of the virtual reality and therefore is something that we can affect.  This is an empowering realization.

Your Happiness and Unhappiness is Created Internally

Let’s take a circumstance such as being fired from your job. In the moment you might feel like it is the worst experience of your life.  You feel rejected, worthless, mistreated, and angry at your boss or company.   Those feelings are really created by the self judgment, criticism, and beliefs in the mind.  These opinions about the event are generated in the belief system about being fired. It is these opinions and beliefs that drive your emotions.  At the time it seems like our circumstances are determining our emotions.  What we believe seems completely true.

Now imagine that a few years have passed. You have moved on and circumstances are better in your life. Your new interpretation of beliefs about being fired might be that it was a beneficial turn of events that helped facilitate a better life. It was an event that was necessary to bring you to your current job/career and state of enjoyment. The story projected in your mind changed and so did your emotions about that same event.  One might say that it is easy to change your emotions after a couple years because your point of view changed.   But isn’t point of view part of your belief system also.  Can’t we work to gain control of the point of view we look at situations from and use that to change our beliefs and thereby change how we feel in the moment?  If you believe you have choices then you can make them here in your belief system where they directly affect your happiness and emotions.

Did the event actually change? No. You were still fired on that day at that time for the same reasons. However since point of view, opinions, and beliefs about the event changed so did your emotions. Your emotions are created by the beliefs at the time it happened produced one set of emotions.   A different point of view, opinions, and beliefs later on produced a different expression of emotions.  If you are unconscious to what is going on with your opinions then your beliefs change unconsciously over time.   However it isn’t time that has changed your emotions.  If you still have the same opinions about someone or something years later you will recreate the same emotions.   With awareness and practice you can change your point of view, opinions, and beliefs in your virtual reality in any moment.

How you feel in terms of happiness, fulfillment, and satisfaction isn’t as much a function of success, failure, or other external factors. Happiness and fulfillment is determined by the opinions and beliefs in your virtual reality about your circumstances.  Mastery your point of view and your beliefs and you master your own happiness.

Shifting Priorities

When you understand the significance of how your beliefs impact your emotions it will become more important to create happiness in your mind, and less important to achieve goals that you assumed would be a means to happiness.  Some people only come to this realization after they accomplish their goals.  They achieve their goals only to notice that they don’t feel the happiness and fulfillment they believed they would.   They end up asking the question, “Is this all there is?� without having an answer.  Their emotions didn’t follow the track of their outside world accomplishments as they assumed.  Their emotions were still being driven by their internal beliefs.

The Measure of Success is Emotional Happiness

You can be a success in your field, have a wonderful partner that loves you, make lots of money, and receive accolades from peers and authorities in the external world. However if your internal world of imagination dictates that you are not good enough or haven’t “done enough yet to deserve it� you will hear the stories and self judgment of failure in your head. You will feel the emotions of a failure.  If you are unable to satisfy the critical voice of the Inner Judge in your belief system no amount of external rewards will feel satisfying.

Numerous studies indicate that wealthy people are not much happier than the middle class. Once a person’s basic needs are met there is very little change in a person’s happiness as they gain wealth or accomplishments. What these studies don’t explain is the lack of difference. That’s because these studies don’t reveal the aspects of fear, judgments, criticisms, and beliefs that make up the virtual reality of people’s minds. These elements of a person’s mind do not change because of a change in their wealth, accomplishment, or where they went on vacation.  However, you can change the beliefs that affect your happiness your self.
Changing Your Mind is Not Easy

When we prune a tree or bush many buds shoot out with new branches.  When you attempt to squash negative thinking the same can occur.  As we become aware of what is going on in the mind we often attempt to describe, justify, judge, or explain why the mind does what it does.  We often end up adding layers of opinions and projections to the belief system this way instead of make it smaller.  One of the most common, “I shouldn’t think that.�  In effect our new wonderfully spiritual idea of living a better life has led to the belief system creating a self judgment.  This is one of those buds trying to sprout.

To make changes in the way your mind projects stories and images in your virtual reality is sometimes counter intuitive. In the beginning directly attacking your thoughts and beliefs attempting to cut out everything you don’t want can back fire.   Without skilled techniques and guidance it is likely to bush out and seem bigger and more difficult than before.  To really change what the virtual reality projects requires that you become skillful in slicing it apart in a way that it doesn’t grow back.

In the beginning changing the patterns of the mind and currents of emotion might seem like a daunting task.  At least that is what the belief system proposes as a thought as if it were truthful analysis.  But like anything that we fail at the first time, we get better at with good guidance and practice.   Whether it is easy or difficult is irrelevant. Your happiness for the remaining years of your life is the question.  So whether it is difficult or easy,,, it is worth doing.

A Quiet and Peaceful Mind

The difference between happiness and misery begins with changing the quality of images and story projection in the virtual world of your mind.     One half of this process is to express love and happiness as the basis for your stories.  The second half is to dismantle the fear based beliefs that project unhappiness in your mind.  In the beginning this half may need the most attention.

Beyond these two types of projection you find another world, a third world.  In the state of a quiet mind the virtual reality is silent and there is peace. The visual images and projections are nil. You see the external world as it is. When you see life as it is you find out that it is beautiful internally, and externally.

The Sufi poet and sage Rumi says it this way, “Out beyond the ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field.  I’ll meet you there. “

In that way of living and expressing you do not paint upon the dream screen of your mind judgments, criticisms, fears, justifications, or even opinions and descriptions. When the internal virtual reality is dissolved so are the voices in your head that keep you from peace and quiet. Only when you dissolve the virtual reality of your mind do you have a chance to live in connection with the real world. In the beginning this may only happen in brief moments and by accident, however with practice it becomes more common until it is a normal way to live.

Only through dismantling the false projections of your virtual reality are you assured of being free of emotional suffering in the changing circumstances of your life   When the mind is tamed and dissolved there is no longer the unhappiness, frustration, anger, or sense of emptiness.  You are able to see the world as it is, and people as they really are.  Most clearly you perceive yourself as you are.  You realize that you are a force expressing love through that human body.

For more insights into the relationship between the mind, emotions, and beliefs listen to the free mp3 Audio podcasts on Awareness and Consciousness

For specific practical steps in finding and changing fear based and false beliefs follow the exercises in the Self Mastery Audio Program on Gary’s website www.PathwayToHappiness.com
Click Here to view Gary’s profile

The greatest barrier to happiness in the world today is … fear.

Fear keeps us from living our lives fully; it locks us behind doors, too frightened to take chances, so afraid of losing what we covet that we can barely move at all.

Fear creeps into our lives in so many ways. We fear death, so we are afraid of living. We fear rejection so we are afraid of relationships. We fear failure so we hide from success.

Fear makes it impossible to enjoy what we have, to appreciate life, because we are afraid that our happiness, our successes, our possessions can be taken away from us. We can’t live in the present because the possible horrors of an imagined future paralyze us … with fear. But, what can we do about it?

We can begin by recognizing that fear has many forms, and that there is such a thing as healthy fear. We have a biological fear of fire, for example, which keeps us from getting burnt. A car comes careening toward you, you leap out of the way, your heart pounding in terror. Primal fears are hard-wired into us to keep us safe, so that we don’t act recklessly or take unnecessary risks.

But when fear blocks our very ability to live, it is supremely unhealthy.

Of course, fear – as a natural part of our human make-up – can never be banished forever. Circumstances change, life is in constant flow, and no matter how well we train ourselves to become free of fear, we will nevertheless face that challenge again and again.

The trick is to recognise this, and to not succumb to fear when it re-enters our lives.

One of our greatest fears is fear of change. And yet the world is constantly changing. The problem arises when we begin to identify with the changes – when we begin to define ourselves as a particular manifestation, rather than as a living being in a fluid state of existence.

Imagine looking in the mirror when you are very angry. You know this is a temporary state, but for the moment you identify with that state. You say, ‘I am angry,’ as if you are defining yourself as an angry person. But the anger – as something temporary caused by changing circumstances – is an illusion. Thus, the person you see in the mirror is also an illusion.

You are only seeing one facet of your complex self, and ignoring the deeper, spiritual you – the part of you that has nothing to do with circumstance. You see, once you identify with temporary feelings, you experience fear. Maybe you’re afraid you won’t get what you want – your next meal, a big promotion, love … whatever – and that fear begins to suffocate you.

But when you remember that you are a spiritual being, that you are separate from appearances, that you are eternal, you can begin to release the fear. By bringing your attention back to what already exists you can be in touch with your divine nature. And in that place, there is no place for fear.

At its core, fear is the ego’s fear of not existing. The ego – that part of us that thinks it is all of us – is constantly analyzing, intellectualizing, measuring and quantifying in its effort to dream its way into existence.

Many of us have had enlightening glimpses of our true nature. When it happens, it’s beautiful – a freeing and uplifting experience. However, the ego is very powerful, and it usually comes marching in again and tries to retake its position at the center of our existence.

But once you understand this, you can work to free yourself of the ego’s power. You have a choice, every moment of every day, to silence the chattering beast that is the ego and to focus your attention not on fear of what might be, but on the certainty of what is – your true nature.

We are all reborn every single moment. If you choose fear, it is fear you will experience, and you will find yourself surrounded by other fearful people.

But yes, you can choose to detach yourself from fear and focus instead on the higher truth of your spiritual reality. Life often seems to be a roller coaster ride, dipping from heights of good, down to troughs of bad … all the dualities: good/bad, happy/sad, rich/poor, loved/lonely, sick/well, etc.

But the trick is not to simply focus on the apparent high points which we call ‘good.’ Instead, the trick is to see it all as a wholeness, the flowing process of life, without judgement, without anger, without fear.

For most people, the greatest fear of all is the fear of death. It paralyze many of us to the extent that we are obsessed, incapable of appreciating the life we are currently living.

The great teacher Ramana Maranhi recommends practicing your own death. Check out this little story about facing death for the first time:

It was in 1896, about 6 weeks before I left Madurai for good that this great change in my life took place. I was sitting alone in a room on the first floor of my uncle’s house. I seldom had any sickness and on that day there was nothing wrong with my health, but a sudden violent fear of death overtook me. There was nothing in my state of health to account for it nor was there any urge in me to find out whether there was any account for the fear. I just felt I was going to die and began thinking what to do about it. It did not occur to me to consult a doctor or any elders or friends. I felt I had to solve the problem myself then and there. The shock of the fear of death drove my mind inwards and I said to myself mentally, without actually framing the words: ‘Now death has come; what does it mean? What is it that is dying? This body dies.’ And at once I dramatised the occurrence of death. I lay with my limbs stretched out still as though rigor mortis has set in, and imitated a corpse so as to give greater reality to the enquiry. I held my breath and kept my lips tightly closed so that no sound could escape, and that neither the word ‘I’ nor any word could be uttered. ‘Well then,’ I said to myself, ‘this body is dead. It will be carried stiff to the burning ground and there burn and reduced to ashes. But with the death of the body, am I dead? Is the body I? It is silent and inert, but I feel the full force of my personality and even the voice of I within me, apart from it. So I am the Spirit transcending the body. The body dies but the spirit transcending it cannot be touched by death. That means I am the deathless Spirit.’ All this was not dull thought; it flashed through me vividly as living truths which I perceived directly almost without thought process. I was something real, the only real thing about my present state, and all the conscious activity connected with the body was centered on that I. From that moment onwards, the “I” or Self focused attention on itself by a powerful fascination. Fear of death vanished once and for all. The ego was lost in the flood of Self-awareness.

Yes! He says, we should imagine exactly what it would be like to die right now – each and every moment. Then when death comes, we will realize it is not frightening at all – it is simply a natural transition – another change in the flow of life, and if we have trained ourselves to greet change as a natural part of life, instead of fearing it, we have freed ourselves from the greatest barrier to happiness: FEAR.

A common source of fear is desire.

One way to practice what Ramana Maranhi suggests – a bit less dramatically than practicing our own death – is to ask yourself about your needs and desires.

Ask yourself

Do I really need this?

Do I have to judge this?

Do I really need to be appreciated for this?

Do I really need his approval?

Do I really want this?

And by asking these questions, you begin to strip down your wants and needs and discover what really matters to you. When you don’t really want something, the fear of losing it evaporates into thin air!

A huge obstacle to this kind of acceptance is our insistent yearning for something ‘out there.’

‘Out there’ is an illusion. There is only the here and now. Our desire for something else has us playing the ego’s game of if only …

… if only I had more money

…If only he loved me

…If only I had a better job

…If only I could afford those shoes …

But what we need to develop is an ability to stop and look at ourselves – not our ‘self-image,’ which is an illusion – but at our true selves. Enlightenment is all about realizing that there is only one consciousness, and that the self, itself, is an illusion.

Of course, this realization can also be frightening. It is a bit ironic that conquering fear can generate a new kind  of fear: fear of the truth. What the Buddha calls ‘spiritual death’ can be very frightening indeed, as we awaken from not only our own dream but humanity’s collective dream.

In this new state of being you must just let it be. Don’t think of enlightenment as something you receive. You don’t get anything from enlightenment, you lose the part of you that has been seeking it so desperately. The need, the desire, are gone.

And with them, fear.

Okay, you may be thinking, ‘But fear is fear. When you’re afraid of something you don’t want to face it, so how can you fight it?’

You’re right. Seeing fear as the ‘enemy,’ that must be defeated just feeds more fear. What you need to learn to do is to allow fear to crumble away into nothingness, rather than confronting it head on.

This isn’t a battle; you have no stance to make. Simply draw your attention to what is arising and allow it to dissolve.

One of the most common expressions of fear is anger. When you feel anger rising inside you you can fight it, you can express it, you can repress it, but none of these things will defeat the fear that generated the anger. What you should strive to do is ‘let it be.’ Try to picture the fear for what it is – the ego’s attempt to control you – and let it slowly fade away.

Instead of running from fear, just stop! You see, fear gets all its power from you. Negative emotions have tremendous power. But if you can be still and refuse to be moved, that power fades, the shadow dims and fear drifts away.
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Brilliant Powers are alive and abundant within us. What makes these inner resources truly brilliant is their capacity to switch on the highlights of our nature; the energies that spark our heart and connect us with life. They are our gifts that express an ongoing experience of contentment and peace.

Tapping in to these inner powers accesses our true brilliance— Love; giving rise to integrity, authenticity, instinctual wisdom and loving relationships.

When we focus on these inner gifts and cultivate their potency, we expand into Love; the strongest power in creation.  This expansion shines awareness into the shadow spaces, the lowlights that cause needless suffering. The highlights rewire the lowlights, more of our true nature comes online and we raise our state.

Our ‘willingness to be opened’ is the first intent to illuminate the Brilliant Powers within. It invites the spirit of grace to reorganize us from the inside out. Inside out is how Love flows.

Our willingness to be opened is a discipline that takes us directly to the highlights we want to experience. This kind of discipline isn’t the grueling effort, parental force or rigid schedules that prompts rebellion and disappointment. Discipline truly means, “being a disciple of�.

Why not become a disciple of being opened to Love?

As you spark your Brilliant Powers, opening is a natural response. You will bear witness to the lower states within as they arise and pass through you. Your state of being is the strongest influence in determining how you experience life. When you choose to cultivate your Brilliant Powers you meet life in the best possible state—Love.

Spark Your Highlights

~ Expand your heart through consistent Gratitude. Gratitude moves your attention from the stress-filled ‘this isn’t it’ mind and into your heart. This practice alone will alter your center of gravity where being ‘heart centered’ is a normal state. Gratitude draws grace into your life.

~ Quiet into the subtle power of Gentleness in all you do. When you speak to yourself with tenderness you quiet self-judgment, guilt and worry. A gentle mind nourishes us in the kindest way. Gentleness allows you to rest when tired and take action when you feel vital. Gentleness naturally unfolds into compassion. We accept the moments given to us and abandon the violence of molding people and situations to fit the images in our head. Gentleness breathes reverence into life.

~ Generosity awakens the One heart that lives through you and everyone else. Offer your resources, gifts and love to life as a daily practice. When you generously give of your self, you experience your abundant nature. This practice alleviates self-absorption, isolation and loneliness. It strengthens your connectedness with all of life.

~ Develop Courage; it propels you to expand. Courage liberates your willingness to feel and act in life. It steps you through the little fears and keeps you present in the hard places. Baby steps lead to big steps and you move through all realms of inner and outer life with ease. Courage gives you the freedom to be you.

~ Walk with Faith. Put faith in your ability to spark your Brilliant Powers, to raise your state and awaken to Love. Activate the faith in yourself to break all agreements you have with needless suffering. Live with faith in the real you; heart, spirit and a big sprinkle of common sense. Have faith that the experiences, people and challenges you meet bring opportunities to expand your awareness and love.

~ Cultivate Patience and a bigger picture emerges that leads you to right action. Patience is an ally. It teaches you to hold the tension in any situation so that you can respond with the right timing instead of reacting. Without patience you miss the mark and waste energy.

~ Strengthen yourself by doing what you say you are going to do.  Persevere through all the voices of your inner saboteur who attempts to derail you. Creating a new vision requires strength to carry on, even when you don’t feel like it. Perseverance is consistent movement, returning again and again to your intent. It increases loyalty to your self.

~ Create Beauty. Combine the natural elements of earth, water, air and fire to create balance. Beauty arises from harmony and it communicates love. Making beauty in your life creates the outer reflection for your inner beauty to be recognized.

~ Meet Humility face to face. Disown the mind’s judgment, which creates self-consciousness. This allows you to express yourself fully without holding back or shutting down. Humility arises is this freedom.

~ Transform your limitations with Surrender. When you surrender control, possibilities emerge that allow situations to evolve in directions that you couldn’t have imagined. Surrender does not negate responding to life, creating life, or being in life. Yet it is an avenue to stop grasping and struggling. It simply softens the angst around attaching to the outcomes.

~ Align with Honesty; it holds your integrity intact.  Honesty simply speaks what is ‘so’ in the moment. You find that hiding is so much more trouble than revealing yourself, and the process of self-exposure discharges guilt and shame. When you are honest, it helps others trust you; it cleans up your life and relationships.

~ Forgiveness opens the floodgates that dam up your Love. Forgiving yourself, others and life moves you out of the pain of separation. It softens your mind, relaxes your body tensions and breaks up righteousness and victim stance. Forgiveness releases the compulsion to go against yourself and raises your state.

Gratitude Draws Grace

Gentleness Breathes Reverence into life

Generosity Expands Your Heart

Courage Propels You to Expand

Faith Strengthens You

Patience Guides You to Right Action

Perseverance Increases Loyalty to Yourself

Beauty Communicates Love

Humility Arises from Removing Self-Consciousness

Surrender Transforms Your Limitations

Honesty Trumps All Powers

Forgiveness Creates Your True Brilliance

Practice for each Brilliant Power

1. Hold your intention – your ‘willingness to be opened’.
2. Focus on One power.
3. Heighten awareness of its energy by making an inventory of how you enhance or diminish this power in your life. Write it down.
4. Accept your awareness without judgment.
5. Be impeccable with your word to yourself as you make your plan of action. Communicate your intention to someone who will witness your accountability. Do what you say you are going to do.
6. Generate the energy you are focused on until it becomes your natural expression.
7. Acknowledge yourself and give gratitude to this practice for Raising Your State.

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