A few months ago, I went looking for that quote from the Gospel of Thomas — the one that artists, writers, and healers love — the one that says something like: if you do not bring forth what is within you, it will just kiiiiiiiill you.

Oh yeah.

In the throes of our artistic angst, especially when not doing our art, our teaching, or our healing, we can identify with the feeling of slowly dying.

But when I finally located the quote, I discovered it was misquoted. Among the three main scholarly translations and several others I found, none translate logon #70 the way I have seen it on facebook and twitter.

Here is the misquote, directly from BrainyQuote.com (a website that any serious writer or facebook quoter avoids like the plague):

INACCURATE:
“If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.
If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”  (emphasis mine)

Instead, the real quote speaks of something deeper and even more profound. 

What do official translations say?

Part 1: What Saves You Is What You HAVE… If You Express It

ACCURATE (first half of quote):

Translated by Thomas O. Lambdin:
(70) Jesus said, “That which you have will save you if you bring it forth from yourselves.”

Translated by Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer:
70. Jesus said, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you have will save you.”

Translated by Stephen J. Patterson and James M. Robinson:
(70) Jesus says: (1) “If you bring it into being within you, (then) that which you have will save you.

Rendered by Pico Iyer (Source: The Gospel According to Thomas: With Complementary Texts, ed. Raghavan Iyer, Concord Grove Press, 1983, often miscredited online to a mysterious Nancy Johnson.)
70.) When you produce this within, what you have will save you.

The Coptic Ecumenical Project, translated into English and Spanish by Paterson Brown:
70. Yeshua says: When you bring forth that which is within yourselves, this that you have shall save you. (Again, my bolding for easy comparison to the misquote.)

Three Intentions for Awakening

What does this new understanding mean for those of us who produce creative or healing works?

1. Stop looking for what will save you “out there.” Know that you already have something wonderful inside you, something worth sharing, something can turn your life around, every time you need it to. You will not find it out there, although some of what you find out there may remind you of what you already have inside. Drop any jealousy of other people’s published works, too, because those are mere shadows of what counts. Wonderful though they may be, the works don’t matter. What YOU already have counts for a lot.

Translations #3 and 4 even seem to imply that all you have to do is develop this thing within you, to “bring it forth” within, perhaps by simply exploring it, listening to it, or acknowledging it. Turn inward.

2. Express your something wonderful. If you are a dancer, dance. If you are a writer, write. If you are a healer, heal. Do it behind closed doors and unpublished if you have to at first. Explore what is within you. It’s more important that you acknowledge what is in you and EXPRESS it, than you or your works be seen or approved of. It may be that our most sacred duty is simply expressing what is inside us, if only to ourselves and our loved ones.

Well, all right, we kind of knew that already, but let it soak in: It’s not what you have, but THAT you have something wonderful already. It’s not what you produce but THAT you produce it.

3. And, finally, stop counting jelly beans. It’s not the size of your, er, body of work that counts. Contrary to the misquote, what you’ve produced is not what saves you. The painter with the most canvases hanging in the Louvre does not win. The vast potential you don’t even know you have inside is what makes the difference… if you connect with it. If you seek it and “bring it into being.” So stop counting the other kids’ jelly beans while you focus on your own.

This teaching reminds me of Jesus’s admonition to pray in secret. There, alone, it’s what you do in your heart that counts — what you do when it’s just you and God looking, not what you show to others. This teaching also reminds me of the Tao Te Ching’s saying that, “Those who know don’t talk and those who talk don’t know.”

I had no idea this quote would turn out to be about a lot more than artistic angst. What counts, in my words, is your Inner Healer: your naturally healing gifts and your inner connection to them.

And you will be “saved” by awakening this within you.

Would you like a small challenge to activate this teaching? Take 10 seconds right now, and name ONE thing you can do immediately (or later today) to connect with the real you, inside you. (Whether that part of you looks like what you think other people want… or not.) How could you honor this hidden part of you? How could you begin to explore it more deeply?

One thing.

Let me know what you discover, in the comment section below.

ARTICLE PART 2: THE THING ABOUT THE THING THAT KILLS YOU… next time

© 2013 Daria Boissonnas

It is the job of poets, writers, artists, and healers to both uplift society in dark times and help them enjoy the good times.

As a former resident of New Jersey, the photos and news of hurricane Sandy has been personally shocking and devastating. As a writer/poet and healer who came to love New Jersey and its amazing people in my 13 years of living there, here is my small contribution:

Noble New Jersey

Oh noble New Jersey, your skirts are wet and torn,
Your people and trees uprooted, how ravaged your shores!
Although your lights fall dark in this dim week,
We, like your celebrated lighthouse peaks,
Remember and hold high your lighted heart, unmeek.

How can I—we—by that light help you along
Each step by tiny step, towards our brighter dawn?
Though creations of man may crumble and pass away,
Not hand nor storm nor the struggle of difficult days
Can mar the soul of our blessed New Jersey state.

–Daria Boissonnas

Yesterday I had the most wonderful time at a writer’s group. I was productive, ate great quiche, met other writers, and enjoyed being with other people who spend all day writing or thinking about writing.

Best of all, after working, we took turns reading some of what we’d written: two memoirs, a poem, a YA novel, and my nonfiction. And then we all commented on each other’s work.

This is where my warm fuzzies went a little cold.

How do you feel about criticism? Even criticism you have asked for?

One particular point they made stung for a while. It made me realize, first, how out of practice I am at taking constructive criticism. They pointed out a distracting detail in the story that starts my last chapter. At first, I couldn’t even understand what they were saying, and flashed back to the early stages of my book’s reading committee — 10 brave people who volunteered to read my book by email, chapter by chapter. When I saw the committee’s edits, I thought I’d sent files around for 10 different books, none of them the one I wrote. What were they talking about?

Criticism Insight #1: It’s all about them.

People read their own stuff into your stuff. When they criticize you, it has everything to do with them. The trick is, if you are writing for a broad audience, you do have to write flexibly enough to handle all their stuff, too. So while it’s good to remember that they are talking about their side of the fence, not yours, it’s also important to listen to what they have to say.

Criticism Insight #2: We tend to notice criticism over praise.

When I got home and reread my notes, their constructive ideas finally made sense. I made the edit. Then I remembered they also gave me great compliments: “I like how the book talks about healing in such a positive light.” “I like to hear your enthusiasm.” “That is a great story!”

I received that.

Criticism Insight #3: Even when you’re brilliant, people can complain about something.

Then I started thinking… If I brought a page of Faulkner, Hemingway, Twain, or Joyce to a writer’s group, read it and asked for critiques, I would get them! One of the readings we heard was so good, all I could find was one word that confused me. But I did find something. In fact, I feel bad that I did not emphasize how brilliant it was.

If you ask for critique, you get critique, even on masterful writing. Art is not set in stone. There are no right answers. Everyone would do it a little differently. Writers are notorious for changing (and changing and changing) their own work. Of course you can critique the masters — people earn PhDs doing so, but those writers are still masters for a reason.

Criticism insight #4: With practice, you can get a lot out of constructive criticism.

You asked for it, you got it. And you asked because you wanted to make your art better. Let go, listen, and have fun with it. See what others have to say. (Nobody said you had to take their criticisms, after all. One particular member of my committee clearly didn’t understand the kind of book I was writing, so most of their comments were inappropriate, and I moved on.) Constructive criticism is a resource for better art, for you, and for healing yourself, too, when you look at what catches you or ignites strong emotions.

All told, I cannot wait to back to the next writer’s brunch! What are you doing to take your art and healing to the next level?

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

On Friday I attended a writer’s retreat and I am still floating. Because I am a writer. It’s my life purpose, the way I fulfill my divine contract. When I returned, I was quite surprised to find the pain from a recent horrible relationship blowup had all but disappeared. This was a situation where for two weeks I was so preoccupied that I kept forgetting things and taking wrong turns while driving.

It reminded me how powerfully healing it is to do what you were born to do, to step into your divine purpose, even just for a few hours.

Many artists, healers, and creatives spend a great deal of time and money fixing their problems. While this process has merit, we also can get WAY too distracted by it! I have seen great healers obsessed with pathology instead of asking how to move beyond it. I have seen them with their backs to the future, toiling over clearing their past, like Sisyphus rolling the rock to the top of the hill only to have it roll down again, or worse, like Prometheus getting his liver eaten out every morning.

You can spend a lifetime clearing the ants from an anthill by stepping on them as they emerge. Or YOU can help yourself step beyond the anthill.

Your choice.

When you are in your purpose, time disappears, your heart sings, and you create so much nurturing and healing energy that you can help clear a LOT of those problems you thought you had. Imagine what it would be like to make your living expressing your creativity! Let the fantasy roll. Think up your next project.

Healing comes from connections that nurture, and the most powerful kinds include connecting to your divine purpose, your natural gifts, your creativity, and who you really are when you are in that groove.

Over and over, my highly gifted creative clients are unhappy and stuck because they are not devoting enough time to doing their creative thing. (The second most common absence is not getting out in nature enough–another source of powerful healing!) It’s time to give yourself permission to be happy and to heal.

Stop peeling the onion. Put it down and be done with it. Go do your creative thang.

When I write, my cup runneth over. So may it be for you.

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

It is the worst feeling in the world when you unintentionally cause someone else pain. You wish you could rewind, unsay, and erase, erase, erase.

It is like lightning striking your relationship, too. It hurts both sides.

I’m at a loss to understand or amend what happened between me and a very important person in my life. This morning, my emotions are crippling my ability to think straight, so I’m doing what any writer might do to pull myself out of it. WRITING.

Sadly, the situation keeps making me think of a dramatic story I read in one of those emailed-to-everyone-and-their-brother chain emails. With the email long gone, I’ll retell it here (and please let me know if it comes from a book with copyrights, thx).

Once upon a time, there was a boy and his dad, some arrows and a fence. The boy opens the story by picking on another kid with his friends, as kids do. He badly hurts someone’s feelings without, like most kids, fully understanding what he has done.

So the father asks the boy to shoot a few arrows into the fence, and the kid does. The father explains that the arrows are like the insults he lobbed at the other kid. The arrows damaged the fence, and those comments hurt the kid, too.

Light bulb starts to go on in the son’s head. He wants to run apologize to the other kid right away.

But first the father asks him to pull the arrows out of the fence. They leave gaping holes and splintered wood. “Can you fix the fence?” asks the dad. Horrified, the kid realizes no. Even if you fill the holes with putty, they are still there. The fence is permanently damaged.

Lesson: When you hurt someone, you have created a wound that, even though you smooth it over later, is still there in some form. Permanent damage. Therefore, do everything you can to never hurt someone on purpose. Bite your tongue. Go for a walk. Let the vitriol cool off. Get some healing. Make the better choice, and love your neighbor.

But what about healing?

It will never, ever get better? Omg, what a depressing story! But so is my personal situation, in its recent rawness. It feels irreversible. I feel like our relationship will never be the same because this horrible, awful misunderstanding happened. There will be holes in the fence. We will always remember this.

Wait.

Sure, the dad’s demonstration helped the kid better understand THAT he hurt someone. But is it really true? Do hearts and humans, like wooden fences, never heal?

Is this an outdated, incorrect story? Is this one of the common cultural myths we are learning to heal beyond?

Do you think it is possible, with forgiveness and genuine healing (not repairing), to fill those holes and restore the relationship? Do you think the dad is teaching his kid the wrong principle, which, in reverse is this: when you get hurt you will never be able to repair yourself?

I myself believe that this story is old thinking. After 15 years as a healer, I know it is.

I know that genuinely healing a harmful relationship event (not fixing, not undoing) can transform the relationship by taking it to a new place of understanding, deepened love, and appreciation. It’s not quite “learning the lesson” in the event — it is transcending it to a place where it does not matter any more.

It’s easier to understand this by thinking of little things that are easy to forgive and forget, like a toddler wobbling and spilling your coffee on your lap. Unintentional, easy to let go of (maybe after you change and mop up). So can the BIG rifts in life be, with healing, true healing. To begin, you just have to ask how you can get to that bright and healed place.

Thanks for the reminder. Thanks for helping me pull out of my old attitude.

I am feeling better already.

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

I’ve been searching hard for a good quote about being a strong role model for others. It’s an important role to play. Role models shine their light brightly to help those behind them find their way. They uplift and inspire.

As healers, we need to be great role models for our clients and fans. We must walk in the shoes of our divine Inner Healer. We must care for and support ourselves so we can create as much healing as possible in the world.

That means if you recommend nutritional support, you should take it yourself. If you offer an energy healing technique, you should receive that method of healing from other practitioners yourself. If you are a lawyer, you should have your own legal ducks in a row.

The odd thing is that I discovered many of the celebrities and thinkers we admire do not want to be called role models. Keeping in mind that these are unconfirmed quotes from those junky online quote sites, here is the sort of thing I’m finding. (Do not quote these without confirming their source, just get the gist and be amazed:)

“Making me into a role model is placing too much importance on what I see as a work in progress.” –British musician P. J. Harvey

“I’m no role model.” –American athlete Charles Barkley

“In the right situations, I can try to help and be a role model, but I’m still gonna speak my mind, and if that affects the role-model deal, then too bad.” –American musician Toby Keith

I get their point. They are not perfect and do not want to be held up as such.

But who is perfect?

We seem to have a mistaken idea that role models have to be perfect. I tell clients all the time that I share their struggles, flaws, and regular dips into the dark night of the soul. What I have developed over the years, however, are strategies for catching myself earlier and pulling myself out faster and faster. I’ve also developed practices and mindsets to keep myself from falling down as often or as hard. That is the value of the role model.

What we really admire in our role models is this: they are not perfect, but in some aspect they have developed ways of being that we wish to develop, too. Practical tools, tips, and tricks like this are what we want from our coaches and mentors and role models. Ultimately, and ideal role model knows their flaws and loves themself anyway. They be themselves, their brilliant, fun salves. That creates charisma. That’s what we crave in role models: permission to be ourselves.

If you are a leading person in your field, be comfortable with the fact that you are a role model. Own it. And live it. Be yourself. Do what you admire in others. Look up to yourself. People won’t be able to get enough of you.

If you would like to inspire others, we are here help you walk your path. Our membership program offers the spiritual development and practical action steps to get you where you want to go, faster and easier. Click here for more information.

“I don’t want to be perfect, but I do want to be a role model. My mom always tells me that imperfections equal beauty. All of us are imperfect.”  –American musician Miley Cyrus

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”  –American author Mark Twain

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

The holidays are in full swing and the thrill of the brand new year is upon us. Here are a few tasks for this week or next to get you in a great position for next year, clear and ready for your best year yet.

Out with the Old

1. File Your Finished Work. Congratulations! Yahoo, you published author, you! Now put those files where you can find them, right now, before they clutter up 2012. Do this in your office with paper files, and on your computer. Create a “2011 Sold Work” folder, and drop your project folders in there. This folder can be filed within your active writing folder, so you will always know where to find previous work.

2. Cull Your Unfinished Writing. Which ones will you let go of? Which projects have you already moved way beyond, with no reason to finish? I love this process! Invariably I find a poem I started or an article idea that I threw into a file and forgot about. You can hang onto the viable ones, and set them up to be finished next year. (See part II of this article for “In with the New”.)

As a writer, I rarely delete writing (you never know), so tuck away the projects you will not pursue  in either your deep-six folder or your future projects (but not right now) folder.

Then mentally and emotionally, let go of them. Create a ceremony if you like. For example, you may want to print an article you are killing, or the outline for a book that’s going bye-bey (double sided, 4 sheets to a page) and symbolically burn them in your fireplace, returning their energy to the Pool of All Possibility.

3. Tidy Up Your Accounting. Make sure you were paid for these projects, resending overdue invoices and giving their recipients a call. Put your invoices and receipts in order for accounting. When my business was small with few expenses, I taped receipts onto paper in a three-ring binder with 12 monthly tabs. Yellow paper held was cash receipts. The bank statements held bank receipts. Blue paper was for travel trips, etc.

Ready for 2012

When you are done with these steps, all your desktops should look beautifully clean. Enjoy getting ready for 2012. Here’s to you and a fabulous one-two. *toast*  ;)

Do you have any other year-end steps you take to prepare for a new year? Share them with us in the comments, below!

This article series is about the many forms of human intuition. Do you know your strongest type?

To recap our intro article, intuition is a way you can receive information through the parts of your consciousness other than your physical body or rational, thinking mind.

Intuition is perfectly normal. Your job, my dear spiritual traveler, is to learn to recognize and decipher your intuition, and then use it to live a good life and help people.

Types of Intuition – 2. Clairaudience

Most flavors of intuition begin with the prefix “clair-”, French for “clear.” Not all are voluntary, able to be turned on and off, though you can get there with practice. In clairaudience, you receive information through what feels like a sense of hearing.

Sometimes, the information feels like it has actually been said aloud. Many clients and healers have told me of such events. They heard a profound and simple statement as if it was very clearly said aloud (except nobody was there or nobody else heard it). Those messages were deeply clarifying and became turning points in their spiritual journeys. This is one kind of clairaudient event.

Clairaudience can be subtle, too. When working with clients, I have heard clear messages for the client from his or her guides, higher wisdom, or dead relatives (can often tell who or describe them). It feels like I hear the entire phrase, as if it is being said to them. To me it does not feel like I’m hearing a physical sound. It often comes with emotions or the feeling of the consciousness that is “saying” it. So I pass these messages along as best I can. They are often super easy to forget, like waking from a dream and trying to tell someone what it was right away. For the client, the message is often profound. While random statements to me (tho often clerly loving), they are “wow” to the client, even to the point of tears.

You can think of clairaudience as a form of channeling, where the words of another consciousness come through you as if you are hearing them said. You are a conscious relay, shifting from your clairaudient higher consciousness down to the part of your consciousness that talks or writes. This type of channeling differs from claircognizance, which is like a brain dump: you know a lot of information in a deep way all at once.

Are You Clairaudient?

All right, I’ve had decades of practice as a psychic or empath, but I suspect many folks hear clairaudient messages and cannot tell them apart from our own thoughts. Instead, they assume this valuable guidance is just a random thought. That’s too bad when they brush off what could be a profoundly healing statement.

All the information you need in any situation is available to you. If your overtaxed thinking mind cannot figure it out, your higher guidance has an infinite number of alternatives. To create healing, we should always search with our hearts and higher consicousness for solutions beyond what the mere thinking mind can create.

To get better at recognizing how a clairaudient message feels different from random thoughts, simply listen. See if you can begin to feel the difference in how your thoughts feel. Pay special attention to statements or thoughts you hear in meditation, on nature walks, or during those wonderful times when our physical consciousness is just busy enough to let us drift into higher layers of consciousness: driving, showering, doing dishes or other routine physical tasks, for instance.

As with practicing any kind of intuition, you both need to hear it and get some feedback to test how accurate it is. Practice does not get you to Carnegie Hall — but practice with accurate feedback does. Keep a notebook handy and see how you do.

Yes, you are intuitive. All the information you need is available to you. How can you use your gifts to live a blissful life that benefits others?

Better Healing with Clairaudience

To listen is to pay attention to what you are hearing. Clairaudience goes beyond the physical ears and brain, however. It is an open state of receiving information.

If you are a healer or would like to create the permanent positive transformation that we call healing, then develop intuitive listening. Create a state of what feels like listening with your entire body and being. Then train your mind to receive it, bypassing the thinking mind’s habit of judging, measuring, categorizing, rationalizing, and rejecting. Enjoy the journey!

Next time:  clairemotional or empathic (not the same as empathetic).

What Next?

If you are looking for spiritual and intuitive development, consider a membership in GIA. Check out our benefits here: GIAwaken.com/benefits.

To ask Daria a question or share a comment, use the comment section below!

With energies shifting, more and more of us are becoming aware of our intuitive abilities. How about you? Do you know what form your intuition takes? Do you know how to recognize it and what to do with it?

Intuition comes in many guises. Intuition is simply a way of receiving information via the parts of your consciousness that are other than your physical body or rational, thinking mind.

Intuition is perfectly normal. We are all born with a vast spectrum of consciousness, a rainbow of flavors, which can receive information. So there are many ways you receive information, in addition to your five standard senses and your thinking mind.

Your job, my dear spiritual traveler, is to learn to be unafraid of your intuition, as you would be perfectly OK with sight or sound or other inputs you are used to. Your spiritual responsibility is to learn to recognize and decipher this additional information, and then figure out how to live a good life with it, and even use it to help people.

Intuition is a great source of objective information and guidance. When information comes in through these channels, it does not flow through the fallible human mind. It stays in its purest form, from God’s mouth to your ear, you might say. As we process or think about this intuitive info, or rationalize it, or interpret it, however, we begin to dirty the waters. A skillful intuitive does as little interpretation as possible.

To access your inner wisdom, you must first familiarize yourself with the way the extra info comes in. Learn to recognize it, and especially discern it from random thoughts — because your thinking mind can be mistaken. (Actually, the mind is quite famous for being mistaken, and for making up false stories of all kinds.)

I’m sorry to say that your intuition did not come with an owners manual. In this article series, we will take a good look at the several different kinds of intuition.

Types of Intuition – 1. Claircognizance

Most flavors of intuition begin with the prefix “clair-”, which comes to us from French, meaning “clear”. You can slap “clair” on the front end of any kind of word describing how you receive your information.  Er, that is, any word describing the way it feels like you receive your information. Er, that is, describing the most similar “normal” way of receiving information.

Oh, let’s just jump in, shall we?

1. Claircognizance — clear knowing. You just know. You know who is calling, and it turns out to be them. You know your lover will be home late, and they are. You know something bad will happen this morning, and you’re in a fender-bender. It is not belief or thoughts. You. Know.

Claircognizance may be the most common form of intuition today. I suspect it is more widespread than any survey can uncover… because you can have this form of intuition and not even know it! Ask yourself this: how many times a week do you experience or refer to what you may call: a funny feeling, impression, gut feeling, hunch, inkling, forboding, instinct, premonition or even a plain old thought! If you are not good at recognizing your intuition, claircognizance will totally feel like thoughts.

One close friend who is very claircognizant honestly believed he was a good guesser. He could find things in 20 minutes that other experts could not find for days, but he thought nothing of it. He didn’t know that everyone is born with perfectly normal levels of consciousness, beyond the thinking mind, that can gather information.

Now you know this.

For a few years, he didn’t believe me about being claircognizant. Now, he admits it. Better yet, he’s learning to differentiate this cleaner information from his chaotic monkey-minded thoughts.

When we don’t recognize the value of our intuition, we don’t benefit from it as well as we can. If he had admitted how valuable, incisive, and consistently accurate his gift was, he could have made a very highly paid living focusing on finding things that other experts could not. A great living based on one of his Divine Gifts!

Are You Claircognizant?

So think about it over the next few days… when you get a hunch, what does it feel like? Does it come with words or pictures? A feeling of calmness and peace? Or is it a random (but recognizable) blip of information in a river of thoughts?

Another clue to our intuition often comes from childhood. We tend to train ourselves to ignore our intuitive gifts as we grow up, but we can often see them in hindsight. Can you think of hunches you had regularly as a kid? Did you have a good people sense? Feel like animals talked to you or you to them? Good sense for how the grownups were feeling? Imaginary friends? Talked to fairies or your dead grandmother?

When I was little, I always had a “feeling” about trips. I knew exactly how I would feel emotionally during them, and I was 100% correct. In my early 20s, starting a Sunday night trip home, I felt like I was driving to my death. Spooked, I crashed with a friend and drove home at 4am. Even in the morning light, I almost wiped out on black ice in the mountains. We will never know for sure what would have happened, but I’m glad I listened to my gut and drove the next day.

Another gift I’ve had for as long as I can remember is being able to either predict coin tosses or know when the answer was blocked and I had no idea. 100% right when extensively tested by a disbelieving boyfriend once upon a time, LOL.

See if you can now begin to separate out your claircognizance from your other sensory inputs and mind activity. If you get a hunch about something, see if you can verify the extra information. Keep a notebook handy and see how you do. You may surprise yourself. You may completely validate what you’ve suspected for years, more like!

You are intuitive. How can you use your gifts to live a blissful life that benefits others?

Next time:  clairaudience.

Still Confused?

If you are looking for support in walking your spiritual path, consider a membership in GIA, where you learn to manage and confidently use your intuition and Divine Gifts, ultimately to make a great living fulfilling your Divine Purpose. Check out our benefits here: GIAwaken.com/benefits.

If you have another form of intuition, please comment below.

Have you gotten stuck writing a book, workshop, information product, or finishing a big creative project? Struggling to finish? Feeling guilty? Missing deadlines? Worried you aren’t ever going to finish? Can’t find the time?

I know what it’s like.  For three years I worked on writing a book, then this year, I started and finished a book in about 5 months. Let me help you by sharing the three biggest spiritual insights and actions that got me through the rough patches and helped me finish quickly and easily.

If your big creative project is part of your Divine Purpose, we want to help you finish it!

Join us in December for this amazing FREE class.

FREE CALL: “Top 3 Spiritual (& Energy) Secrets to

Getting Unstuck, (Re-)Starting, and Brilliantly Finishing

Your Big Creative Project:

A Free Class for Creatives, Dreamers, Intuitives and Healers”

With Daria Boissonnas, Founder & CEO, Global Institute for Awakening

Completing a book or BIG creative project is a spiritual journey, and it begins in this call! Learn the three secrets that can make the difference between continuing to struggle (or be stuck) and allowing your book to practically finish itself. We will begin to implement on the call, and you will have even more steps to take when you hang up.

Date: Tuesday, 13 December 2011

Time: 2pm Eastern / 11am Pacific US time

…

Register FREE and Get the Audio Recording Too

Register here and you will get all the dial-in info:  http://giawaken.com/register-free-call

Yes, an audio recording will be available after the call, so sign up even if you cannot make the live call. You will be emailed the link for the free recording shortly after the call.

I look forward to connecting with you on the call!

The most powerful “cure” for feeling blue, sad, tired or depressed is helping others.

Now, even in the middle of the night, you can be inspired by healing and helping stories. KarmaTube.org offers videos about people who have helped others and overcome their own challenges. It inspires me to stop feeling like I am struggling or feeling sorry for my poor ego and get back on the bike again.

It is not often I come across an outside resource I recommend whole-heartedly, but I urge you to browse the FREE videos at KarmaTube. You can even join to support their mission.

Go here:  http://www.karmatube.org/

Now share your discoveries! In the comments below, please share your favorite video link there, and why it inspired you.

Did you like this KarmaTube? Then enjoy GIA’s FREE inspirational and educational series of audio interviews called “I Am a Healer” — 100 Inspiring Stories of Ordinary People Who are Changing the World and How You Can Too.

“I Am a Healer” — Register here to listen for FREE!

A book!

It’s a book!

In March of this year, at the Wellife Mind Body Spirit Expo in Madison Wisconsin, I spoke about “How to Tell if You Are A Healer”. It is one of the most common questions I get, especially at our expo booth — Am I a healer? How can I tell if I am a healer? A psychic told me I’m a healer — what do you think? Etc.

At the start of my talk, I asked the audience how many of them were healers.

In response, one man raised his hand with an “enh” sigh.

Enh? Most “enh” responses come from people who have learned a healing technique but not practiced it much since class. Then again, I also get “enh” from brilliant professional healers who can’t recognize their gifts at all or who are insecure about the little bit of healing they are doing. (This is why I have founded the Global Institute for Awakening to support healers in finding their inner power, gifts and brilliance!)

But 50 minutes later, at the end of my speech when I asked the question again, every single person in the audience raised their hands! The two ladies who apologized ahead of time that they had to leave partway through were still sitting there excitedly, hands raised.

Everyone on the planet is a healer. And WOW do we need you now! That speech, which came to me in a flash, has become the perfect outline for my new book, tentatively called Gift of the Healer.  If you have ever wondered whether you were a healer, what makes you a healer, or how to awaken your natural healing gifts to transform the world around you, this is the book for you.

I even give away the #1 secret that masterful healers know that allows them to create miracles and permanent positive transformation.  This book is chock full of valuable insights and tips for all healers, transformational coaches and mentors, artists, writers, agents of change, innovators, visionaries and conscious leaders.

Right now, the book is teetering on the edge of done. We are just waiting for the last comments from the editor.

Stay tuned for more bulletins, and look for it to be published late this year! I cannot wait to share these insights with you and help YOU connect more fully with your Inner Healer.

Many blessings on your healing journey,

.

.

In the last month I have been in writing mode, focusing on finishing my first book under a tight deadline.  I’ve never done anything so intensively in my life.

Thursday, however, I wasted the whole day barely writing.  In fact, I’ve been struggling badly with productivity for the last two weeks, running circles rewriting or blanking out in the undone chapter.  I was at my wits end.

Finally, I applied my own intuitive Clear Wisdom process to the problem (a process I offer here at GIA).  I asked the Universe what time frame is most productive for me to write in during the day.  What a difference!

When Does Your Muse Strike?

You might know if you are a morning person or evening, but do you know exactly when your muse strikes? It may not even be every day.  The last time I did a productivity schedule for someone, it was a certain number of hours per day, three days a week, and it didn’t matter which days, his choice.

The answer for me and this book was 8 am – 11:30 and 1 pm – 2:30, seven days a week.  And WOW — today I stuck to those hours and got TONS of writing done!  Better, I remained enthusiastic about the writing the whole time.  If I start too late in the day, I can’t get the level of excitement I need to write decently.  (When it’s bad, it’s awful.)

Now I can see I’ve been losing productivity by starting way too late in the day, doing other tasks first.  Next, my three regular 8 am meetings each week have to GO!

With today’s busy schedule, it seems like a no-brainer to get the most out of the time you work.  Ready to hit your maximum creativity and productivity stride?  Sit in meditation for a few minutes and then ask yourself or the Universe what your ideal schedule is.

If you like, I would be happy to download a productivity schedule for you from your higher guidance.  Click here to purchase a Productivity Pop session with me.

Full Clear Wisdom sessions are available to members of the Global Institute for Awakening.  To join, visit http://GIAwaken.com/benefits.

Enjoy your creativity!  And go heal the world with it.

At breakfast this morning, I told my daughter she was my favorite child and I loved her more than anyone else in the world.

She said no, that wasn’t true, I loved all my kids the same.

I smiled and said, exactly — I love each of them the best of all, more than anyone else in the world.

How is that possible?

This concept came from a zen koan story I read many years ago.  It piqued my interest at the time because I LOVE puzzles and it made no sense!  How can each thing be the best?

There are actually many ways to explain why and how this is true.  But understand this first: you can’t use logic to solve this puzzle.  Your logical, thinking mind categorizes and compares.  It ranks and sequences.  It draws straight lines between points.  It would say my statement was impossible.

Luckily we all have access to different types of consciousness, or thinking if you must call it that.  Our consciousness is like a rainbow, and the logical, thinking mind is merely one color.  My statement makes perfect sense when you are in a different slice of your consciousness.

For instance, try this:  the next time you are deep in a meditative or altered state, ask yourself how everything can be the best at the same time.   You will likely be able to see it then.  (Hint: your higher consciousness is not limited by the sequence of time, either.)

The Key to Healing and Leaving the World a Better Place

Our job as humans is to access the knowing we find at the higher levels of consciousness and bring that wisdom down into the world. The thinking mind is absolutely requred to live our daily lives, but it’s not all you have.  Accessing your greater consciousness changes the world.  It creates win-win mindsets and accesses permanent positive change nobody could have thought of.

Really, would you rather live in a world where everything was best of all, where everything was seen as a stepping stone to something even better?  Or do you prefer a small-thinking world where everything is either good or bad, where there are such things to overcome as negative, naughty, evil, painful, and hateful?

Connecting with our higher knowing takes us to new and better places in our logical, physical world.  It opens doors.  It is the only thing that creates genuine, transformative healing.

Back to the puzzle.  Once you understand my statement “up there” in your greater consciousness, you can understand it logically in many ways.  For instance:

• Each person is unique.  If you are the only one of you, you must be my favorite one of you.
• In that moment, enjoying my daughter’s presence, with nobody else in my perception, she is the only person in the world to me and therefore my favorite.
• Each person on the planet is equally valuable, therefore they all fall in the same value category, such as favorite.
• Your turn: In what other ways is each of my children my favorite?

What if each and every child was seen and valued as if they were the most precious child in the world?  This is not pollyanna thinking.  This is enlightened thinking.  It the only thing that creates positive change.

And for the record: you are my favorite reader, ever.

© Daria Boissonnas 2011 All Rights Reserved. Please email us about reprint rights.

In 2001, I was learning to paint.  On my third project, while working on the water under my leaping dolphin, I boldly added a darker blue to the depths of the waves.  When I stepped back to see the effect, I was amazed.  It looked like a photo, not a painting.  Somehow, I’d done something to make the water look so real you could get wet touching it.  My mouth dropped open.  I did a happy dance.

Excited, I mixed my next color, a lighter blue.  (After all, if that was good, more would be better!)  When I was done applying that color, however, the realistic effect was completely gone.  It looked a painting of water again.

I couldn’t wash the last color off.  I couldn’t redo whatever I’d done with the darker blue because I wasn’t sure how I’d done that.  The effect ws gone. 

It was a little like winning the lottery and dropping the ticket down the drain. 

Learned:  good enough is great. 

Boy did I learn something!  If it’s good, it’s good and it doesn’t need any fixing.  Accept your good fortune.  Don’t overthink.  Be in the moment and enjoy it.

Today, I’d like to think I would stop when the water looked perfect.  I would accept the cool fluke with gratitude, laugh, enjoy it, and move on. 

The funny thing is, underneath the current state of the photo is that perfect picture.  I still have the gift, in the painting instead of on the surface of it, and a new insight to boot.

I’ve always wanted to paint.  In 2001, I took my first painting class from the local recreation program.  I thought of myself as a logical professional at the time, not an artsy type.  I bought the materials relying entirely on the list and the store clerk, shocked at the huge variety of paintbrushes.

I can see myself sitting at the easel in my dad’s old shirt one day, feeling guilty for asking mom to get the paints out for me, staring at the blank paper, needing to create something worthwhile… but completley blanking on WHAT I wanted to paint so badly.  Conclusion: Painting was too hard, too frustrating.  

Turns out, it wasn’t a class as much as an artist walking around the room for 2 hours.  My questions started with, “What do I do?”  Then, “What should I paint?”  She suggested a still life. 

Not having brought the requisite vase and fruit, I ran to the car and collected four plastic kid blocks out of the baby seat.  I followed her rough suggestions, outlining the blocks and attempting to shade them.

When I think of that class, all I remember is frustration and disappointment.  I couldn’t figure out shadows.  She didn’t tell me exactly how to do it.  The class was bad, I thought, the teacher was bad.  The teacher even said my painting was good — was she blind?!  I didn’t like the painting at all.  I was experiencing a world crisis! 

I used to get a sick feeling thinking of that first painting, but yesterday I dug it out and looked at it for the first time in a decade.  I was shocked to see it has a lot of promise for a first painting, though unfinished and unfinessed.  Looking with my eyes today, in fact, I think it’s great!  (And how appropriate: baby building blocks, LOL. See pic.) 

So Many Lessons Learned

1. All my angst was in my head.  It came from me, not the class.  I had expectations about the class, and because it was different than *I* demanded, I got upset.  Really upset.  I created a crisis and then lived the negative emotions and beliefs, for years and years afterwards, to my own detriment.  I did that a lot back then.

2. First paintings are masterpieces too: masterpieces of learning.  Now I see that since you never stop learning, you can let everything in your life be a masterpiece of learning!  Wow, you are SO good.

3. Things you do are never, ever as bad as you think.  Self-judgment is the worst.  We can be more cruel to ourselves than to anyone else.  Believe the compliments you get.  Write them down.  Repeat them to yourself.  You totally rock.

4. Get back up on the bike.  How can you judge your first painting?  Your first book?  Your first song?  Your first client’s results?  Keep going!  You are so much more than any single thing you do.

Will I take up painting again?  …Stay tuned…

Whew, I’ve been going through a major healing wave in the last few weeks!  The kind where I stop calling my friends for a while b/c I’m processing stuff.  (They are used to this, bless them.)  In mid-January, it was like a floodgate opened on a clogged dry riverbed.  As the water has poured through, huge logs, boulders, branches, and rotten things have lifted away effortlessly, piece by piece.  

In the last week it’s been washing away blocks to my creativity.  Yes, I finally saw the pattern that when I start super-creative projects that are really “me”, they all seem to die!  Hmmm.  It’s time for that to stop, and I know that’s why this is clearing itself up. 

What Makes an Artist an Artist?

Oddly, since Tuesday I’ve been badly longing to see some paintings I did in 2001 after I took my very first painting class from the local recreation program.  It wasn’t a class as much as an artist walking around the room.  My questions started with, “What do I do?”  I hated the two paintings I attempted in that class. 

Daria's painting #3

About the same time, an astrologer told me I was so creative I should leap out of bed in the morning saying, “I am an artist!  I am an artist!  I am an artist!”  

Feh.  I was not an artist. I majored in econ with lots of math and computer courses.  I worked in finance.  I was logical, thank you very much. 

Then again, since I was little, I’ve longed to paint.  I remember sitting in front of blank paper, desperately wanting to paint, knowing I could, knowing the feeling of painting, but not being able to do it.  Blocked. 

So at my request this morning, my weekly healing mastermind focused on unlocking and healing creativity.  We cleared dozens of false beliefs that had been getting in my way.  Do you recognize any of these?  (You also can clear them by adding “I choose to lose the concept that…”) 

• Science is superior to art. 
• Art is a waste of time, artsy-fartsy, something to be made fun of, something to hide.
• Art is not valuable.  (So you have to buy cheap materials and you certainly can’t make a living out of it.)
• Nobody can be good at art except the chosen special few like Monet and VanGough, definitely not me.
• <Insert critical comment here about your art.>
• It’s too risky to put yourself out there genuinely through your art.

I hope you can see the utter ridiculousness of these few samples! 

As we worked, I finally went downstairs and dug out the paintings.  I was shocked to find they were MUCH better than I remembered.  In fact, my fourth painting (an unfinished bowl of pears) triggered an almost meditative state of Presence for me.  I’ll be working with that one this week! 

The Secret to Art & Why It Will Always Be In Demand – Always

Am I an artist? Are you?  In 14 years of learning why artists are stuck and sick, I’ve discovered a secret about art.  By observing my healing work with many high-level artists and creatives, I’ve concluded that creativity, intuition, and healing all come from the same place.  It is a place we are each connected to and a part of.  

Daria's Painting #4, Unfinished

It’s not the physical, mechanical, logical, emf side of life.  Art connects us to the nonphysical, intuitive, knowing, genuine, connected, One-with-All side of the universe.  Art connects both the artist and the beholder to that Other Side, that part of ourselves we have a hard time sensing, the part with all the deep Peace, Love, Wisdom, Fulfillment and Bliss we could want.  We CRAVE this connection.  

Intuition also comes from connecting to that place of Wisdom and Potential, of Knowing.  And so does genuine transformative healing.  When we connect to that part of ourselves and use that part of our consciousness, we can shift to a better way of living and being in a way that changes our lives for the better.  Permanently.  That’s healing. 

Yes, perk up, starving artists –  since good art connects us with that infinite, higher side of ourselves, it will ALWAYS be in demand, always.  

My Challenge for You

I’m taking a look at my own art and creativity this week, with loving and accepting eyes this time.  I know I’m ready to do this.  I invite or even challenge you to do the same.  Then share your journey and art with us in the comments.  Post your blog or art links.  The more we share our stories of creativity, the more we can help each other and raise the next generation to accept their Inner Artists.  The more we enjoy art ourselves, the more we can heal. 

Art, at its core, is a level of mastery: mastery of patterns, mastery of connections, mastery of seeing the same thing in a new way.  So too is healing. 

When you master life’s patterns, you can create the GREATEST ART IN THE WORLD: making an art form out of LIVING YOUR LIFE and leaving the world a better place.  You can make an art of living, healing and Awakening. 

Are you an artist?  Am I?  

Yes, my friend, we sure are.  

I see the innate artist in you, and I am blessed by it.  Thank you for that.

It’s what you were born to do.

It is the highest expression of your gifts.

And stepping into it creates the greatest life you can imagine, flowing with wealth, wellness, and genuine happiness.

It is your Higher Calling. But if you don’t know what it is or how it works, you can spend your life chasing shadows and suffering.

Join us for a free talk on Friday, Feb 18, when we’ll share 10 important facts you need to understand about awakening your Calling and creating your dream life in a way that naturally makes a positive difference. You’ll be glad you heard this info!

Super-Easy to Register for the Call

To register, just make sure you’re on our email list. If you’re new to us, sign up for our free kit at the top of this page and follow the directions. If you’re on our email list will receive reminders about this call and the audio afterwards.

Many blessings on your spiritual journey,

How are you like an SLR camera, and what does that have to do with living your best life? I’ll tell ya…

To register for this free call and get the audio afterwards, sign up for our free kit at the top of this page and follow the directions. If you’re already on our email list, you’ll get a reminder and notice when the audio posts.

See you on the call!

Note from Daria ~ Newsletter 18 Jan 2011

Oh what a week!

Last week was download week for me, and I’m still catching up with reality.  Messages, classes, marketing campaigns, coincidental offers — it all popped in, one after another after another. Almost to overwhelm level.

Have you experienced this yourself?  When your creativity goes crazy, and you become a fountain of ideas?  It’s exciting!  We are each connected to the Pool of All Possibilities, and when we open that connection, we can pull in new, life-enhancing options.  We can make the impossible possible.

Then the BIG question becomes: what do I do about it first?  

Doing something about it is where GIA comes in.  We give you the practical tools and systems to shift that creative fountain of ideas to a well-oiled, enjoyable business, practice or career. 

Here’s my favorite first step:  always always write down the idea or insight that came in. This action honors the Source of the idea.  It’s like saying thank you, plus you ARE taking the FIRST STEP to manifesting the concept in the physical/mental world.  

I keep a “Brainstorms” file on the computer where I write these down, plus a little notebook in my purse.  A beautiful journal would be delightful.

Another good reason to write them down is that sometimes these download experiences can be like dreams — you may have shifted into an altered state, so when you start operating in the everyday world, the brilliant ideas fade like a dream in the morning.  Though they were earth-shattering, now you can’t remember them.

So write them all down, right away.  Then enjoy sifting thru that Brainstorms file now and again to find insights and ideas you can still use.

Let me know how this strategy goes.  Here’s to you and your highest calling!!  

Many blessings,

Daria Boissonnas
Founder, Global Institute for Awakening

TWO Free Calls this Week!

Thursday: Has Your Astro Sign Changed… or Not?

The internet is abuzz about recent news articles that point out that the sun was not actually in your natal astrological sign when you were born, due to the tipping of the earth.  They also claim the Babylonians took a sign out of the zodiac.  Should it be there?  Find out on Thursday.

Tell your friends:  anyone who is signed up for our email list or freebie Wake-Up Kit (at top of every page and at http://GIAwaken.com) will get info for this free call.)

Date: Thursday, 20 January 2011
Time: 12 noon Pacific/3pm Eastern

Speakers: Daria Boissonnas, Global Institute for Awakening Founder, interviews
Patricia Selmo, professional astrologer & ordained minister

How to Sign Up:  Everyone on our email list will get call-in details.  Subscribe to our freebie above or at GIAwaken.com to register for the call details.

Weds the 26th: Your Spiritual Calling and How to Thrive with It

Got a gift that feels like a curse? Listen & discover how to live with your greatest gift — your calling!  Daria will explain why it is much easier to follow your calling than to ignore it.  Join us for this call and we’ll also explain why 2011 is such a great year to strengthen your commitment to your highest calling and step into it!

Tell your friends:  Anyone signed up for our email list or freebie Wake-Up Kit, at the top of every page and at http://GIAwaken.com, will get info for this free call.

Date: Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Time: 11 am Pacific/2pm Eastern

Speaker: Daria Boissonnas, Founder of the Global Institute for Awakening

How to Sign Up:  Everyone on our email list will get call-in details.  Subscribe to our freebie above or at GIAwaken.com to register for the call details.