“The fool doth think he is wise,
but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.”
William Shakespeare, As You Like It, Act 5 scene 1

Though April Fool’s Day comes once a year, we are archetypal Fools every day of the year. 

What?  Did I just call you a fool? 

No, silly — a Fool with a capital F.  The archetypal innocent.  The one delving into new projects with optimism and enthusiasm.  The one that sees sunny skies without clouds.  The part of you simply enjoying being your genuine self.

At your best as a Fool, you life joyfully in the Now, without a useless worry.  You are present and inquisitive.  Heavy thoughts are not even on your radar — what will they think, what should I do, I don’t have enough, am I good enough, etc. 

Your inner positive Fool is excited about life, pushing forward into new adventures, fully digesting what you’ve learned, letting the icky parts go, and moving on.

This is a brilliant state of mind.  With the state of mind of the positive Fool you can find genuine fulfillment.  You can enjoy your life to the max. You can get things done! 

The Negative Fool

At its worst, however, your inner Fool can attempt to recreate these carefree feelings in negative ways.   The negative Fool is inauthentically carefree. For instance:

• Pretending things are fine when they aren’t.
• Using avoidance to goof off in a fun way and pretend you don’t have a problem that’s getting worse. 
• Using artificial means of feeling good, like substances and thrilling experiences.
• Giving up on yourself and following or conforming to others’ likes and dislikes.

Ultimately, the negative Fool blocks what brings you joy.  It blocks you from hearing and fulfilling your Highest Calling, the activity which brings you the most joy in life and allows you to help others the most. 

The negative Fool creates temporary innocence and joy, but brings worse suffering in the long run.

Your Assignment for this April Fool’s Day

You deserve to be happy, confident, and carefree.  You were born to enjoy your positive inner Fool.

I propose you take a moment today to consider where the negative Fool is showing up in your life.  The negative Fool pops up to save us from problems we think we can’t handle.  Spiritually, however, I have come to understand that if you have a problem, you CAN handle it.  And the sooner the better, so your negative Fool doesn’t foolishly make it worse!

How can you express your inner positive Fool more?  Consider just ONE tiny change you can make starting today. Look at the list of four negative strategies above and change something to stop relying on one of them. 

Whatever tiny change you choose to make, STICK TO IT.  That makes all the difference.

I’ve got my one tiny change.  How about you?

This past weekend I had fun hosting GIA’s table at a 2-day Mind Body Spirit Expo.  Because it was oriented as a psychic fair (schedule a reading and get in the door free), I heard a lot from visitors to my table about their psychic readings.

What troubled me is that I heard about a lot of pain and suffering caused by their readings. Hang on, this is not what a psychic reading is about!

Over the last year, I’ve finally started using the word psychic to describe what I do as a business consultant.  It’s that simple: I see pictures, see new products in your potential, get timelined tasks to reach goals, and more.  Clients say the information is uncannily accurate and helpful.  So I’ve finally started calling it like it is — I’m a psychic.

Any psychic worth his or her salt would be horrified to discover their reading caused distress!  The whole purpose of a reading is to help you see and know capabilities you are ignoring, to see projects and gifts in your potential to easily develop, and heart-centered knowing that you are blocking out.  You might be blocked because of emotions, distress, stress, old habits, small thinking, or old conditioning and beliefs. 

It’s OK to get help moving through those blockages.  The point of a reading is to give you information from your own informaiton field to uplift you to your greatest possibilities, and help you align with your heart and inner knowing. 

Psychic Readings Are Healing Tools, Not Weapons

At our booth, one woman in particular told me a psychic said she was supposed to be an herbal healer.  But she was frustrated and angry.  She didn’t know where to begin, adding: “I don’t have the money for all those expensive fancy classes!”  Bottom line: she wasn’t feeling it, it wasn’t showing up, and she didn’t know what to do. 

What I saw:  she was beating herself up about NOT fulfilling a psychic reading.

Whoa. 

Freeze. 

Put your hands on your heart and back slowly away from that psychic reading!!

Psychic readings are NOT meant to be weapons with which you can beat yourself up.  They are meant to uplift, inspire and heal.  If you are using your reading to feel guilty, frustrated, insecure, or upset, you are using it wrong.

Psychic Readings Are Other People’s Interpretations of YOUR Information Field

It’s ONE opinion.  And it might be a good one or a poor one, who knows.  It’s not written in stone. Let me explain. 

As a psychic, I often see pictures.  As the woman was talking, I saw a beautiful garden unfolding before me.  A garden you could tinker in and get happy. 

But after the picture comes the interpretation.  This is where psychic readings can shift off course, and it’s one of the reasons I often check in with my client by asking, “How does that feel to you?”  I want to know if I’m interpreting correctly.

What if the woman’s original psychic saw the same garden I did but concluded “herbal healer”?  I saw the garden and felt the garden itself talking to me.  So here’s how I helped.

The first thing I shared with the frustrated woman was this Truth:  You have all you need at every moment to accomplish your dreams, your calling, and your healing.  If you can’t afford classes, there is another way.  Books, the public library, free online searches.  You can ALWAYS find another way, always.

Secondly, I asked if she enjoyed gardening.  Big smile and happy look on her face!  Gardens were important and magical to her as a child, etc.  She LOVES gardening.  Ding ding ding.

When I asked how people could heal through having a garden, she knew the answer right away.  I saw a potential business within her and I shared:  she could help people plan, find resources for, and implement gardens.  Brilliant classes, plenty of demand.  She went away happier.

Which Reading Was Right?

Now, which psychic was “right”?  Is this woman really supposed to teach people to build gardens like I said?  Is that how she can best express her inner healer? 

Or… one day after teaching gardening for a while, while she’s happily transplanting parsely, will the plant speak to her and begin instructing her in how to heal with its properties?  Did I give her the intermediary step to becoming an herbal healer?

The correct answer is: it doesn’t matter.  There is no such thing as “right”, there is only now.  All I know is she went away happier with herself, with a viable business idea, and further along the path of awakening her Inner Healer.

How can you use your psychic readings to inspire you, uplift you, and keep you going through the dark times?  THat’s what they are meant to do.  How can you use your own intuition and knowing to inspire you and help awaken YOUR Inner Healer?

You are a natural healer.  May you find your calling or the task that makes your heart sing, with or without the help of a psychic reading.  If you have one, feel your own truth within it, and extract the uplifting information and energies from it.

“I have so much to accomplish today that I must meditate for two hours instead of one.”

–Mahatma Gandhi

What do you do in the morning to prepare for your day? You likely clean your teeth and wash and feed your body.  But what about maintaining your connection with your higher self and inner wisdom?  Do you refresh your connection to Source and to your Calling or life’s purpose?

Don’t be a victim to your day and your duties.  You are so much more than that. Decide right now to make ONE change.  Either set up a morning spiritual refresh activity or strengthen the one you have.

• Can you do a 10-minute relaxation meditation?
• Can you restfully contemplate your life purpose goals and vision for the world?
• Can you connect with the results you seek and visualize them so you can bring them out into the world?
• Can you sit quietly, ask a question, and listen for guidance or for today’s ideal focus or task?

You may resist this change for the first several days, but I challenge you to do this for 10 solid days in a row and see how it goes.

I don’t know about you, but if Ghandi found a morning refresh and centering worked for him, I’m inclined to think he knows something I haven’t figured out yet, and I’m willing to try it.  He was after all extremely effective at creating positive change.

Remember too that being “on” requires being “off”. Being successful out in the world requires inner success first.  The more centered, grounded, Connected, whole, happy, and spiritually refreshed you are, the better you can do what you were born to do.  And the more permanent positive change (aka healing) you can create in the world.

You can do this!  You were born to do this.

Source of quote (and a good article): http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-goldberg/meditation_b_827796.html

Imagine yourself as a small seed.

Contained in that tiny seed is the complete pattern of the full, complex plant in its greatest fruition. All the fullness of its potential beauty and delight and glory and gifts for the world is already there.  All the information it needs to fulfill its pattern and potential is there.  It lacks nothing in its essence or core pattern.

I also guarantee that a more powerful potential outcome than you can even imagine is in that seed, too.  It’s merely not realized in the physical world… yet.

All you have to do is allow what’s in that seed — the inner wisdom and full innate pattern — to unfold. It already knows how to.  It knows a zillion ways how to.  It has the information.  It has infinite potential.  Your job is simply to assist.

• To provide the most nurturing environment without suffocating or stunting growth.
• To exercise and master your ability to help without slowing the process.
• To build faith and trust in the seed’s potential and to step back and allow it to fulfill its greatest potential.

These are the seven steps of Awakening, which we practice each month here at GIA.  They are so important, we’ve provided a free ebook with more details on how to do those steps!  If you haven’t gotten a copy, sign up for it now at the top of the page.

Start now.  This is the year for your success!

2012 is coming up fast.  But people need you now.  This is the year to learn to step aside, uplevel, and let the seed that is you unfold more quickly into its greatest expression. Here are three steps to get you going:

1. Let go right now and allow the seed to be settled by gravity into its best place.  So often we are so obsessed with finding the “right” place or time that we never begin.

2. Step aside and let the rain soften the soil.  Allow the sun to shine on the growing plant, whatever it looks like in its awkward youth.  All you have is right under your nose… if you can see it.

3. Know that everything is best in the moment.  Trust that everything IS in there already and can emerge.  Trust that you have the power to help the seed within you.  Trust that the inner pattern of the seed knows a million ways to emerge and flower, and it’s hard to get in its way.  And trust that the rain, sun and other resources you need will appear as you need them.  If you find yourself worrying or getting in the way, you can actively work on building this trust.

You are a powerful being, constantly growing and increasingly fulfilling your potential.  May you enjoy many blessings on your exciting journey of growth this year!

If you are ready to make 2011 you year, we are here to make it easier and quicker for you, especially if you are here to help the world awaken.  Check out our amazing benefits HERE, and start your membership right away.

May 2011 the year you finally truly sprout your true purpose to help Awaken the planet! What can you do to start right now?  Take one simple step right now, in the next 10 minutes.

I love love love healing!  As a mother and wife and busy person, I am so grateful to have options in my life for speeding healing that I can use to feel better quickly and to help my loved ones feel better too.  

There is NOT a rule that says you have to get sick.  What I’ve seen as a healer is that when we can’t fully process something emotionally or mentally, it drops down into the body to be processed in a visceral, vivid, physical way.  (Your body is an amazing healer and helper that way!) 

Me, I don’t listen to any of those ads commiserating about “cold and flu season”.  Baloney.  I know because I barely get sick any more (thank goodness), and my kids are rarely and barely sick as well.  Oh, I used to get one thing after another, plus asthma and allergies to boot.  Rip-roaring colds that lasted weeks (starting with a runny nose, then sore throat and down into my bronchials for a lingering cough).  Now I get much, much, MUCH milder versions.  I’ll spare you details, but I can tell I’m sick usually in the morning, then feel OK or have very mild symptoms during the day. 

As my symptoms have become milder over the last few years, I became much more aware of the underlying icky feelings and emotions that come with each illness.  For example, while what was typically a pounding headache is now a mild ache, I still feel foggy and want to lie down and not move.  (I LOVE that it’s so much less painful, whew.)

Now the universe is training me to back up even further.  Two weeks ago was a big wakeup call.  I was traveling at a business conference.  The morning of the day I was to be on stage in the afternoon, I woke up dizzy, weak, and nauseated.  Reviewing the prior two days, I saw the signs of mild dehydration move to significant dehydration, one after another, laid out clearly.  I had been traveling and preoccupied.  I had even missed the big red-flashing-light sign the night before.  So I guzzled water, did a little healing, went back to bed for a couple hours, got up and ate sea salt, and felt much better by lunch time (tho I look quite pale in the photos, what can ya do).

Yep, the signs had all been there, but I didn’t notice them.  Point taken, and thanks for the insight, Universe.  I’m paying attention!  Last night, I started to feel like I was getting sick — lungs less elastic, felt a touch weak & a little “off”.  It had come on gradually over the day. 

Remembering my lesson from earlier this month, I worked on it first thing this morning, did a little healing work, about 20 minutes’ worth.  Right now it’s about 12 hours later and I feel 100%!  My lungs feel completely free and unconstricted.  I am more than grateful.

What’s Your Mindset about Getting Sick?

Even Louis Pasteur, the father of vaccinations, said near the end of his life that it’s not germs that causes disease, but the terrain — the environment you provide in your life, your mindset, and your body.  Are you a likely breeding ground for problems, or are you taking care of yourself and detaching from cycles of illness?  Are you seeking health or are you a willing victim to “cough and cold season”? 

Here’s three things you can do right now to avoid getting sick in the first place:

1. Take care of yourself.  Clean up that terrain so no germs want to move in.    In my healing practice, I find most adults are deficient in sleep, rest, and play — not to mention many minerals and B vitamins.  Consider setting a goal to get 8 hours of sleep a night, or start taking a 15-minute lie-down empty-mind rest period in the middle of your day.  Consider renewing your nutritional supplement schedule and sticking with it.  Make ONE change right now, and stick with it.

2. Get yourself some healing tools and processes.  Take a healing class.  My favorite healing modalities are Awakening Healing and Health Kinesiology.  Learn about essential oils or homeopathics.  Learn to meditate.  Keep an open mind and explore possibility.  You are quite familiar with what you THINK you can’t do.  What CAN you do?  How healthy can you get?

3. Hang out here at the Global Institute for Awakening and learn to awaken the greatest possible outcome in every situation, including your health and spiritual well-being.  We help you get your inner work done easily and quickly, layer by layer, so you can achieve greater and greater levels of wealth, wellness and wisdom.  Then you can get out there and succeed brilliantly at whatever you choose!  To join us or check out our generous annual program, hop on over to http://GIAwaken.com/benefits.   We look forward to getting to know you.

Many blessings on your path to wellness and healing!

Watch this. Take mental notes. Then put it out of your mind. From the University of Arizona medical college, here’s a new type of CPR that’s reported to be more effective than the traditional method you might have taken in a Red Cross training. 

What do you think of the method?

Here’s the Heart Association’s video, where they put chest compressions first, now, ahead of airway & breathing:

Nice article about panick symptoms vs. heart attack in women:

http://www.womensheart.org/content/HeartDisease/panic_attack_or_heart_attack.asp

Have you been guilt-tripping yourself about not having a spiritual practice?  The truth is, you already do have one.  Maybe you’re not meditating like a monk or levitating like a lama, but you do have a spiritual practice. 

The question is:  is your current practice doing for you what you need it to do?

This month’s focus in the Global Institute for Awakening’s Life Mastery ~ Healing Mastery Training Program is on building a spiritual practice.  In the training call, available to anyone who joins as a member, I discussed the two sides of every spiritual practice:  maintenance and moving you forward.  You must include both.

Your big assignment here on this blue planet – should you choose to accept it – is to genuinely express the gifts and blessings you already have within you.  Doing so makes the world a better place.  (And the Universe guarantees in spades that you have such gifts and dreams!!)

The purpose of your spiritual practice, then, is to train your body and mind to align with this wonderful Potential and gift within you, so you can easily share it.  Whether you’re just starting out or know exactly what your purpose is – your spiritual practice hones your skills so you are ready for the next leap in life.  And the next.  Spiritual practice helps you train, nourish, and utilize your body and mind so you can get out there doing what you came to the planet to do.  Your spiritual training ultimately helps you live an enjoyable life while you share your message for the world.

It does not have to be boring or difficult.

Anything in your life can be “spiritual”, and so your spiritual practice can be anything.  Maybe you go for regular walks to commune with nature.  This activity tones and resets your energy patterns and relaxes you.  Perhaps you choose to love your children unconditionally.  Perhaps you get body massages regularly or go to therapy to clear childhood issues.  Perhaps you take a moment to appreciate all you have at the end of the day.

If it helps you make the world a better place or improves your personal relationship with the Universe, it’s a spiritual practice.

Your main goal is to nourish and nurture your body and mind and heart and dreams, while you sharpen your skills to do even more good in the world.

How might you improve your daily spiritual practice, today? 

If you’d like some guidance, join as a member and listen to the September training call right now!

I used to avoid exercising.  I could not make myself do it.  Have you been in the same boat with self-improvement or resolving a certain problem? 

Yes, I had the treadmill that slid under the bed.  I had weights and tapes.  But they gathered dust, and I loaded up on the guilt.  I wanted the results (fitness, health, self-confidence, a hot body) but I didn’t want to go through the process. 

When I decided it was really, really time to get in shape, I found a shortcut.  I found a way to make it easy: I took a class.  (A martial arts class, but that’s not the important point.)

While I could not make myself exercise at home, I could drag myself to a class and do what the teacher said.  Classes had other benefits: beginners like me to comiserate with, advanced students to ask for tips, and intensive weekend classes with national-level teachers to learn special routines.  Yeah, I was sore for the first while, but all of us beginners were.  It was funny and we bonded.  It wasn’t so bad.

After about 8 months, the results of consistently going to classes started to become clear.  Consistency is a huge key to success.  When you show up, things happen, even when it doesn’t seem like it at first.  You have to get the momentum going energetically.  Consistency tones and strengthens your energy system and helps you make change.  Without doing anything extra, I started dropping weight.  Eventually I whittled down to size 6, which I hadn’t been since coming up through the sizes in early high school.  Wow, was that fun!

The Formula for Success

To get unstuck doing something good for yourself that you are resisting:

1.  Commit to a quality program that takes you to your goal, even if you can’t commit to yourself.  Find a wise teacher and a great place you’re excited about.  Pay enough so you want to get to classes.  Show up and let the teacher take it from there.

Tip:  Please don’t let this be the class you take to distract you from your misery.  Let it really help.  Where are you stuck in your life?  Take a look at your top 5 frustrations and miseries.  Think about what you need to break through them.  Ask friends, make a list, find places that do that.  You are worth it!

2. Keep showing up.  Even when you can’t see the results, they are building.  Your body, mind, and energy is rearranging itself.  Each time you go to class (or meditate or take those vitamins or…), you reinforce to yourself that you are the kind of person that does that, easily and regularly.  It WILL pay off.   

Tip:  Make a cool chart and check off the classes so you can see your progress!  Mark on your calendar when you do the exercises so that you can see and appreciate all your work!  Track your meditation time and add it up.

The Institute Recommends

Here’s a training program that will help you live a successful life that really counts, discover your purpose in life and do it, and increase your physical and financial health while you give back to others: our membership.  It includes our monthly core curriculum spiritual training and guidance program.  Each month, we build and strengthen a new spirtiual or self-improvement muscle together.  How good can your life get after a year of consistently building 10-12 new habits of dealing with life in a positive effective way?!  Get the details and sign up here:  http://GIAwaken.com/benefits

It seems like a no-brainer to me, but I’m the one that designed the program to be the kind of spiritual training and healing mastery program I always longed for.  It’s worth it at ten times the full price!  Get 12 months of self-improvement practice and spiritual guidance to create success in all you do.  We create positive habits – so you don’t even have to think about reacting well to life and reaching for success in all you do.  If this calls to you at all, take a look at the program here http://GIAwaken.com/benefits.

Join our other members in creating an energy pattern of radical self-mastery.  I so look forward to helping you make your life count in a big way while you reach your dreams more easily.  Join us to get where you want to go, even if you’re dragging your feet.  Join here:  http://GIAwaken.com/benefits.

The planet Mercury is zinging backwards through the sky right now.  I’ve noticed more and more people are aware of Mercury’s retrograde periods and are warning not to engage in contracts or agreements in this time.  It’s becoming cool to fuss about it.  But what does retrograde really mean?  Is it a serious threat?

Most of the time, as the planets circle the sun, they go “forward” in the sky.  But because Earth, too, is circling the sun, we get weird times when they appear to move backwards.  This is like when you are in a bus or a car and the car next to you moves forward but you see and feel like you’re going backwards.  From our angle, Mercury just looks like it’s traveling backwards right now.

1. Check its zodiacal sign for context

First of all, give this Mercury retrograde some context.  Whatever zodiac sign the planet is in gives its effects a definite flavor.  Mercury itself is the messenger god and the trickster healer.  His energies resonate with the exchange of information.  They govern communications, education, computers, internet, travel, etc.  That could be anything.

This retro, Mercury is in Virgo, which is about discrimination, analysis, and correcting.  It’s also about the energies of purity, humility, practicality and organization.  Virgo is the nurturing mother who knows best, healers, and all that is holy, pious or religious.  These are some areas where Mercury may turn over the dirt in your life.  If you want to track retrogrades, always check the sign they’re in.  In fact, you may also want to check what else is going on in the sky and in your charts, which may be much more significant.

2. Look for the inauthentic to surface

Imagine running your hand down a fabric like velvet with a “nap” or a directional fiber.  A cat or dog’s coat is similar.  It’s smooth one way, but when you go the opposite way, the fibers stand up and poke into your hand.  You can see all the way to the animal’s skin or the woven base of the fabric.  Some fabrics and furs will actually push your hand in another direction. 

A planet’s retrograde is like running your hand the wrong way over its orbit and energy.  Retrograde lifts up what is usually smooth and surfacey and has a look underneath.  It digs up and releases, often seemingly against our conscious will, what shouldn’t be there.  The inauthentic and out-of-place works itself out.

This is not a BAD thing!  Back in the day, we used to reverse the flow of vacuum cleaners to blow air out the hose to unclog it.  Retrogrades “unclog” the planet’s energy.  They are like a natural periodic cleanse that keeps Mercury energy running smoothly for you.  How convenient! 

Because so much crud will be surfacing, you will likely have to deal with it to help clear it away.  This inauthentic junk is also why some recommended you avoid nailing down permanent agreements or contracts during this time — some of the debris may be included. 

For me this time, writing my book this week I realized I’d drawn an old conclusion in one section, a conclusion I hadn’t updated with new insights yet.  I had to change the whole mnemonic of that chapter!  This is the kind of wonderful thing that comes from a retrograde period.  I was delighted!

3. Stay in integrity and hold a steady course

There’s never anything to “worry” about in the spiritual journey.  It’s all good in the end, and you always have all you need in every moment.  That means you have all you need to deal with Mercury retros, too.  If you are living and working in true authenticity and integrity, you’re good.  Embrace the period of change, and use it to naturally cleanse out what’s not working for you.  Maintain your balance with flexibility, and you’ll be fine through any planet’s retrograde period. 

(Oh, did I forget to mention they ALL do this?  And see, you’ve been OK all along!)

You can do it.  Take this opportunity to heal your worries about Mercury retrograde.  Embrace the change that life naturally and periodically moves us through. 

Dates This Time
Mercury retrograde begins: August 20, 2010, 3:59 pm EDT in Virgo
Ends: September 12, 2010, 7:09 pm EDT in Virgo
Note:  On either side of retrograde is a period where the planet is stopped or moving very, very slowly, which also affects the energy of that planet.  So retrogrades are now longer than you thought they were, who knew?  Best to do your best all the time and stop worrying!

Do you seek success?  Do you have a dream? The good old dictionary says success is the favorable end of an effort.  It means reaching a goal or finishing a task.  In a nutshell,
done = success.

Done won’t get you your dreams, however.  Sure, completion is  important, but if all I did was finish the tasks my busy life demands — paying bills, going to work, doing the laundry (woohoo!) — would I be a success?  Would I have truly succeeded at life?  What is missing in this equation?

I personally learned the answer the hard way.  In my early 30s, I followed the dotted lines and achieved everything a girl could possibly want.  My life was picture-perfect.  I was dripping in success.

But I felt miserable and stuck.  I was missing something BIG.  I was missing True Success.

Success Comes in Two Flavors: Temporary and True

Most of the time I say “success,” I mean an idea more like the dictionary’s second definition:  the attainment of wealth, achievement, position, bliss, fame, honor, etc.  This is more than finishing a task.  It goes beyond reacting to your life, beyond just getting by, and beyond coloring inside the lines.  It’s not the kind of success you have to repeat to keep moving forward, like doing laundry is.

This kind of success is an achievement!  It takes you to a new level.  Not only do you finish something, but it is bigger and different than what you had before.  Maybe you want to find the love of your life, live your ideal lifestyle in style, heal yourself of pain and bad habits, or achieve a big goal like making a million bucks before you turn 40.  True success does this in a meaningful, permanent way.  What does your heart desire?

To qualify as True Success, an achievement must have three traits:

1. It came from inside YOU. It began as a decision, a dream, or a choice.  You didn’t follow or just “go along” with someone else’s example or dictates.  You chose to reach for this, and you chose to take steps to implement it.

2. It’s a new direction. True success takes you off the path, out of your well-worn habits of thinking and doing.  You change the direction you would have gone, had you kept doing what you were doing.  Your trajectory changes.  Wonderful things happen you’d never expected or asked for.

3. It sticks. Something shifts and you can’t go back.  You don’t lose it again.  Spiritually, you have “realized” it, really gotten it on all levels in a way that changes who you are.  From there, you can easily help others achieve something similar.  That’s true success.

That’s what we teach you to achieve, right here at the Global Institute for Awakening!

Because true success happens naturally when you advance in your life’s journey of Awakening. True success and Awakening describe the same upshift, the same expansion.  Actively walking your life’s journey means leaving the old ways behind and rising in an upward spiral to greater and greater Potential and possibility — for you, your life, and your loved ones around you.

When you don’t reach for true success, you have temporary success. Whatever you just did, you will likely need to do again, or something similar, over and over.  You will stay in about the same place or advance slowly.  If you do achieve  what looks like True Success, it will slip through your fingers again. 

If it doesn’t stick, it wasn’t True Success.  You didn’t shift.

What to Do to Truly Succeed

True success flows naturally from our true nature, which grows, expands positively, loves, serves, and evolves into higher and higher Potential ways of being.  When you learn how that process — the spiritual journey — works, you can reach for the True Success and lift all of us up into a better way of being.  I believe the world could use a whole lot of this right now!

Whatever your goals, this process requires the 7 tasks of Awakening.  (For details and a list of suggestions for each step, get a free copy of our ebook and visual map of the steps in the header bar above.)  They are:

1.  Know Yourself

2.  Build Your Base

3.  Explore Possibility in the World

4.  Be the Change (Practice/Train)

5. Move Beyond Doubt

6. Let Go of Resistance

7. Step It Up (make the next Decision)

So ask yourself:  Do I want to get by?  Do I want to succeed in doing what I did yesterday… again?

Or do I want to dream and move forward into new exciting territory that has a higher Potential for wealth, wellness and wisdom for me, and through me for others?

THAT is the core result of Awakening.  You can’t uplevel without Awakening.  Awakening creates true success.

Are you ready to learn how to shift into true success, over and over, in ANY situation in your life? Make sure you’re working in all 7 tasks, ablove.  If you want help, join as a member to declare your goal to the Universe that you are creating True Success in your life over the next 12 months!

We know you have it in you.  You have a valuable gift for the world to share.  Your nature is to grow and expand and help others.  You can do this!!

Many, many blessings to you on your personal journey of Awakening and true success!

You are a spiritual being of consciousness. Your Potential to help, uplift, and heal is unlimited. 

On the other hand, you live in a world with limits, move around in a physical body with limits, and run your life with a limited, logical (emotional) mind.  Your everyday life is very “loud” with deadlines, sensory inputs, and probems. 

Your spiritual being is very “quiet” and subtle.  It can be challenging to connect with, espeically at first.  Your spiritual self can be easy to overlook or forget about in the daily bustle.

But some part of you knows there is more to life than you can see, buy, or measure.  You can likely feel this part of you calling to you.  It becomes particularly noticeable at times we humans tend to upshift our lives:  during life crises, in your teens, around age 28-30, in our forties, and our mid- to late 50s, for instance.  Here’s why:

Every single person on this planet has something important and unique to contribute to the world in a positive way.  Whether you call that your life purpose, your spiritual mission or your blessing, you have a natural ability in some way to bring a better way of being, thinking, and loving into this world.  You have a talent for helping people love to live their lives more.  We each do this in very different ways,  but we each have something crucial to contribute. 

When you don’t get your gift or blessing out into the world, you feel a kind of ache.  Some call this your spiritual calling.  Whatever you call it, if you ignore it, it gets louder and louder until you respond.  It may eventually cause extreme discomfort or crisis in your life until it triggers a response.  Over the years, clients have described their experiences as:

• Vague dissatisfaction or boredom, even though your life seems pretty darn good on the surface…
• Feeling cut off, lonely in a crowd, like nobody understands you…
• A constant search:  new jobs, new classes, new schools, new locations, new partners…
• An aching emptiness or longing, like a part of you or a close relative has died…
• Continuous pushback from the world, nothing working out well, feeling like a mess-up…
• Painful experiences like an accident, illness, death of a loved one, divorce, job loss, finanical failure, etc. that snap you out of your fog.
• A feeling you should be doing… something… but you don’t know what.

This is your greater potential (some say your higher self) aching to be let out of its box, to do good in the world and help you live a meaningful life that makes a big difference.  This is built into you.  It is your nature and your birthright.  And part of you always is aware of your gifts. 

It’s Time to Walk Forward into Your Potential

Many us can hear our purpose and Potential calling to us, but too few know what to do about it.  The soution is: walk your spiritual path.  Get a move on.  Allow your Awakening to unfold.  Taking the leap will help you find that missing part of yourself.  You will love the results.

Don’t leap blindly, of course.  Leap wisely by learning about the journey and how to read the signs along the way.   Do this, and you will see doors open for you.  You can find a way out of your struggles and into the light again.

You might be able to muddle through this life puzzle, this natural process called Awakening.  Or like I was, you may be really stuck and need some help.  Even if you’re a muddler, some guidance and training can make the journey much clearer, easier, and faster.  You can get that spiritual perspective from a mentor you trust, one who believes in you and who can support you advancing along your own path.  Consider joining Global Institute for Awakening with an annual membership full of guidance and inspiration.

Because it took me so long to find this information and get going on my own path, I offer you everything I’ve learned so far, plus stellar supporting advice from experts in their fields, here at the Global Institute for Awakening.  Take a copy of our free Spiritual Journey Wake-Up Kit with our blessings and no further obligation, in the header bar above.  Check our articles in the Category section to the right.

Without your gift, the world just isn’t whole.  Your spiritual being knows this and you can feel it.  I know this, and I’d love to use my gifts to support you here.

Check back tomorrow for the final fact #5 about your Awakening:  Success comes only from Awakening.

When you allow and support your Awakening, it not only puts you on top of your game, but positively affects the lives of many others through all you are and do. 

Awakening creates new solutions and options.  It opens new doors, solves the once unsolvable, and makes the impossible possible.  The ever-expanding attitude and skills of Awakening typically bring with them wealth, wellnes, and wisdom in increasing amounts. 

Yet too often we get in our own way and block our Awakening by grasping at what is, holding grudges, holding negative emotions and fearing change, to name a few.  This causes pain and struggle in our own lives, impeding how much we can help others.  It’s our nature to grow and expand, and when we block that expansion, it hurts.

Human doubt and fear of change keep us stuck with attitudes, beliefs and daily routines that don’t support us and allow us to evolve naturally.  We limp along thinking there is no solution, suffering through business failures, difficult relationships, health issues, confusion, lack of direction, or chronic pain from the past.  We doubt ourselves and desist instead of demanding and seeking a solution in the world.

The worst kind of suffering is not knowing what you are supposed to be doing on the planet, not having a purpose, not knowing you are living a meaningful life that makes a difference.  It creates painful indecision, doubt and stagnation.

To make it worse, as we suffer, we misinterpret religious and cultural advice that says suffering is actually noble.  Martyrdom is so 2nd century, people – that’s not what they meant!  That old idea admits that suffering cleanses us.  Suffering and pain do this by overwhelming our routines and assumptions.  Suffering and pain force us to seek our spiritual path again.  Agony helps us finally want to let go and move on, to think bigger and to clean up our act. 

It is actually advancing on the spiritual path of Awakening that is noble.  And it is the gentle growth process of Awakening that provides the relief.

Awakening eliminates fear and doubt.  It brings purpose and meaning.  It creates new solutions and more expansive ways of looking at your life that you hadn’t thought of before.  It creates joy and happiness like you can’t imagine right now.  Awakening gets you to a place where you jumpt out of bed in the morning knowing exactly how to make a difference and contribute to the improvement of the world with everything you do.  And then it takes you even further into bliss.

Why Wait?

You don’t have to wait for suffering and pain to begin to transform your life into healing and joy that you can use to help others.  To get unstuck and on your path again, you just need three things:

1. An understanding of the spiritual journey, its goals, stages, how it works, and what you have to do to succeed brilliantly.  You must learn to recognize and trust phases of your journey, so you can push through that hard-wired fear and walk forward into growth and healing.  (Get a copy of our free ebook in the header at the top of this site for a nice overview with no obligation.)

2. An understanding of your spiritual and physical nature and the Universe and how it all fits together.  Learn to navigate the world well by knowing and trusting the cycles of nature and life, so you can use them to your mutual advantage.  (We teach this in plain language.)

3. A flexible daily practice or routine to keep you moving along the path and to get you unstuck fast when you hit a glitch.  (We teach this too, in our membership benefits.)

Awakening breaks longtime patterns of pain and struggle.  It destroys old baggage.  It heals by its nature, and it awakens your ability to help others heal.  By consciously unfolding your Potential, you become a natural leader and role model for others, just by being yourself.

Are you ready to love your life?  I am personally in a healed place of such joy that I could not have even wished for this earlier in my life.  It’s been a long road, but I’m here to help you walk yours a lot smarter and faster.  If you’d like help transforming your pain and suffering into purpose, meaning, healing, and joy, then check out our membership benefits right now:  http://GIAwaken.com/benefits. 

Tomorrow, look for our next installment of fact #3: it is easier to Awaken than to resist it.

If you are alive, then Awakening is a natural human process you are going through right now.   Whether you are aware of it or not, your Awakening affects the state of your health, relationships, finances, business/career success, emotional state, and your ability to live a great life.

It’s the nature of Life itself to grow and that includes you.  In your childhood, your physical body grows, but throughout your life, you also grow emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.  You grow in knowledge and wisdom.  You grow in your ability to truly, deeply love yourself and others.  You grow in your ability to serve others and give back.  You grow in being able to be happy and at peace with your life.  This natural progression is your Awakening. 

In fact, if you want to reach your greatest Potential to be happy, live a meaningful life, make a difference, and leave the planet a better place than when you arrived, then you want to make steady, quick progress in your Awakening!

As you explore the world and advance through your Awakening, you discover what you love and what you hate, what you are good at and what you refuse to do.  Awakening is also a journey into yourself to discover your unique gifts for the world and then get them out there successfully.  It’s your spiritual journey to have trust and faith so you can let go of past events and other illusory limitations to live a life brimming with wellness, wealth and wisdom.  

Awakening is how you create your dream life.  Who wouldn’t want that?

Yet, when you resist this natural process of your Awakening, you suffer.  Blocked Awakening is largely unrecognized as the main source of humanity’s greatest challenges, problems, senseless destruction, and pain.  

What’s exciting is this:  that means working with the process of Awakening to unblock it and advance it is often missed as a source of effective solutions.  Sometimes downright miraculous solutions.

The more you allow yourself to awaken, the more wealth, wellness and wisdom not only flow into your life, but flow through your life to benefit others.  That means yes, you can change the world by changing yourself.  You can heal the world by healing yourself. 

And you can do anything you want to do better and easier by Awakening.

This is why we are so excited to help our members and fans understand and advance along their personal paths of Awakening.  We don’t tell them what to believe, but we give them the map to their journey, the wisdom and tools to move through trouble spots on the path, plus the inspiration to keep going.

You too can grab a FREE copy our map and guide to Awakening in the header bar above.  There’s no obligation.  Take it with our blessings! 

Then check back here on Monday for the next fact you need to understand about your own brilliant Awakening.

A radio with a poor receiver plays a lot of static.  It’s hard to hear what’s going on.  Details are lost.  The station fades in and out and needs constant attention to retune it.  A poor receiver is tiring to use, and a lot of work with less enjoyment.

In your life, you receive with your body, mind, and being.  But being a poor receiver creates a lot of static in your life: confusion, blocked intuition, slowed spiritual progression, frustration and misery.  What your receiver naturally tunes to is your inner guidance to do your life’s mission — to find and enact that way you were born to change, heal, and otherwise improve the world.  Being a poor receiver interferes with this awakening process and causes unhappiness.

The problem is that in our crazy “go, go, go” and “do, do, do” culture, receiving is something most of us are really bad at… and we don’t realize it.  This is why our Membership program includes Core Curriculum training where you build one Awakened habit a month  —  and this month, our members are focusing on building the habit of RECEIVING WELL.  (A habit means you do something easily without thinking about it.)

Receiving well allows you to succeed and exercise your power to change the world.  The better you receive, the more you improve your health and life, and create healing in the world for others.  (Healing being the permanent improvement in function or structure of any system.)  When you receive well, you can find joy in every moment.  You can see the extraordinary in the ordinary.  You can live an extraordinary life and help others more effectively and with less effort. 

Receiving makes the process of spiritual awakening easier and faster, too.  Again, because we are not used to it, we must PRACTICE receiving.

Is your receiving stuck? 

Here are just a few issues that may come from NOT receiving well.  (If any sound too familiar, consider joining us as a member!)

• Struggling just to maintain your status, reputation, job, or bank account
• A life clogged with things that don’t serve or support you any more: stuff, activites, relationships, or a job
• Not knowing who you are or why you’re here
• Feeling stuck thinking you can’t solve a certain problem or get out of a difficult situation
• Feeling constantly drained and tired
• Not trusting the world to provide what you need, worrying
• A negative opinion of yourself, your past, or your body
• Feeling like you don’t have enough time to exercise or actively practice your spiritual principles

Would you like to receive more wealth, wellness, and wisdom so you can better share it?

The benefits of receiving well are manyfold!  Practice receiving to improve your:

• Efficiency  — Let go of things in your life that aren’t working (before they are removed more forcefully by your life’s journey…)
• Enjoyment  —  Enjoy your self more, even in situations you used to hate
• Ability to Heal and Help Others  —  Allow more healing to flow through you into the world (whether or not you call yourself a ”healer”!)
• Intuition  —  Hearing your inner guidance much more clearly and more often
• Connection and Support  —  Feeling more supported and emotionally connected to the people and world around you (without unhealthy attachment)
• Comfort  —  Feeling less worried and more certain that what you need is always there
• Effectiveness  —  Being better able to change your life and succeed in a positive life-changing way
And SO much more

Join as a member right now to get our monthly Core Curriculum training and worksheet.  Also save $50 on membership right now to celebrate our prelaunch period this summer.  Once you join, you can download your Core Curriculum audio right away and catch up with our members.  Let us provide you with the guidance and training you need to authentically be who you are and change the world! 

With or without us, practicing receiving can enrich your life with more genuine happiness, wealth, wellness and wisdom.

There are many deep, unknowable mysteries in life, but the difference between ”i.e.” and “e.g.” is not one of them.  For some Friday fun, let’s impress friends, family, and colleagues by getting this obscure fact straight. 

These abbreviations actually come from Latin.  When I learned what they stood for, I never confused them again.   Here’s the scoop:

•  “I.e.” stands for “id est”, or “that is”.  Use this abbreviation when you mean “that is”.   Today I would like to ride my bike, i.e., my motorcycle.

•  “E.g.” stands for “exempli gratia”, or “free example” — use it to mean ”for example”.   Awareness of your Awakening happens in many ways, e.g., via a sudden accident, a life crisis, or by simply hearing your calling one day.

I love the simpler European style where they lose the first period:  eg. and ie. seem so much cleaner.

Now you have the perfect cocktail party factoid banter.  See if you can use these terms this weekend!

“What’s my purpose in life?” is a frequent question I hear.  Based on many years of mentoring and healing, I can tell you this about finding your “thing” to do in the world:  when you find your life’s purpose or mission, EVERYTHING about you and your past experiences will contribute to your doing it.

Things you’ve hated about your life or your body will help you.  Experiences you wish you’d never had will enhance your wisdom and ability to help others.  Things you thought were mistakes will become the source for powerful solutions.  Trivial past events or facts will be helpful.  EV-ER-Y-THING will count.

It makes sense that Awakening and answering your highest calling activates more and more and more of your core being.  So the closer you are getting, the more your full range of abilities and preferences naturally comes into play.  What part of yourself is missing from your daily activities?

Example: I started college as a mathematics major because I loved science but realized math was the ultimate language of the Universe.  Though I eventually changed my major, Math has been key to the development of my spiritual outlook.  Today, as a spiritual mentor, I simplify the nature of the Universe into principles and formulas that you can use to create an ideal life. 

Example: I have always loved reading mysteries.  Today I act as a spiritual detective, helping clients understand why things are happening to them and how to change them most easily.  I find clues intuitively as well as by observing patterns in their bodies, language, habits, situations, behaviors, families, and more. 

Those are just two fun random examples from my life, how about you?  Think specifically of things you love doing that may be obscure, or you may have judged in the past as not allowable.  Give yourself permission to be yourself.  You’ll love the results.

Most of all, when you are in your purpose, you are in your greatest joy.  Do you leap out of bed in the morning because you can’t wait to get going?  Do you look forward to figuring out the next new thing for you?  That’s what living full in your life’s purpose is like.

To get there, take an honest look at yourself and your life, likes and dislikes, what makes your heart sing, what turns pain into healing, and what combination of activities expresses every fragment of your being. 

“Know Yourself” has been the first directive on the spiritual journey for thousands of years.  It’s in fact number one in our seven steps for Awakening.  Use the other 6 steps to support your implementing what you find within.

Bottom line:  If it helps others and leaves the planet a better place while expressing your full being and bringing you previously unimagined joy, that is your life’s purpose.

Happy new year!  What are your goals and hopes for 2010?  We at Global Institute for Awakening wish for the best and happiest for you and your spiritual journey in the new year, and we would like to share a powerful exercise for spiritual acceleration.

We’ve put together a short list of bullet points to help you in each of the seven tasks of the spiritual journey. (Be sure you’ve gotten a copy of our 7 Steps to Awakening kit, in the upper right corner of this website.) You can use this list as either an intention-focusing, manifestation tool or as a prayer.  Or go through it as a prayer first, then as a manifestation/attraction exercise.

One pass through took us less than 3 minutes.  To make a hugely positive impact on your year, mark your calendar to do this twice a day for two days in a row, or once a day for five days in a row.

1. As a prayer, begin with your favorite opening, or consider:  “Dear God/dess, please open me to receive your divine grace and guidance right now, this year, and always. Forgive me my attachments and self-limitations, and please…” Then use the bullet points, beginning each with “help me to…

2. As a life-flow or manifestation exercise, watch your breath for a minute, relax and then begin each line with “I choose to…”

• lose all attachments to past events or things
• forgive all judgments of me, by me and by others, and to lose all attachments to those judgments
• lose fearing criticism or harm from others in the future
• lose the benefits I gain from carrying my past troubles around with me, and [please help me to/I choose to] find those benefits elsewhere
• lose all doubt, lose doubting myself, lose doubting my mission, lose doubting my guidance, lose doubting my abilities, lose doubting my power, and lose doubting God
• lose expecting and requiring the world go the way I think or want it to
• lose all fears that limit my healing effect on the world

• know myself wholly, as I am divinely known
• fully love and support myself, as I am divinely loved and supported
• know, trust, and step more fully into my spiritual journey
• fulfill my greatest potential for bringing genuine healing to the world and to myself
• build faith and knowingness in my innate ability to perfectly fulfill my spiritual mission
• appreciate the past and carry only its beneficent gifts with me
• surrender to my healing mission and allow it to guide me forward

“I give thanks knowing this is done. Amen.”

May these and other blessings come your way in 2010.

Further Resources
To learn more about your spiritual journey, where it leads, and what steps you must take to walk your spiritual path well, join our emailing list to get spiritual tips and great offers that can help you awaken more easily.

It can be limiting to enter a healing situation, as either the practitioner or the seeker of healing, with specific expectations.  We all naturally do this, but it’s a very logical (left-brained) way to approach healing, which is distinctly a non-logical (right-brained) phenomenon. 

In other words, healing does not compute.  It is holographic and holistic.  It does not work on just one level or one area — you experience healing benefits throughout your being, body, behavior, thinking, and life.  Having expectations about your session limits your results by blinding you to seeing and appreciating or even allowing deeper healing in unexpected venues. 

Eric Pearl, founder of The Reconnection, suggests coming to your healing session in a state of expectancy rather than with specific expectations or demands.  Know that it will be good, but don’t make specific demands on it.  This wisdom is not limited to healing.  It’s also great advice for our spiritual journey and practices as well (a major side effect of which is… well… healing).

I came across a lovely description of this issue over Thanksgiving while rereading The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Riso and Russ Hudson, page 347.  Please enjoy their insights:

“A major obstacle to regular practice is the expectation that we will attain a specific result.  Ironically, this obstacle is a problem especially if we have made significant breakthroughs with our practice.  The personality seizes on breakthroughs and wants to re-create them on demand.  But this is not possible because breakthroughs occur only when we are completely open to the present moment, while anticipating a certain payoff distracts us from such experiences.  In this moment, a new gift or insight is available — although more likely not the one that was available last week.  Furthermore, the personality may use our breakthroughs as justifications to stop practicing, saying, “Great!  You’ve had a breakthrough!  Now you’re ‘fixed’ and you don’t need to do this any more.”

P.S.  Funny story:  I just opened a Dove chocolate as I saved this post, and the saying on the inner wrapper is: “Set your goals high but not your expectations.”     –Daria

Have you been taught to see your thoughts as “enemies”?  As a bad habit you need to “fix”, as the source of illness and imbalance, poverty and unhappiness?  Do you bore yourself repeating positive affirmations so you can develop positive thought habits that eventually can cancel the “bad” ones? 

Stop right now.  (What a relief, eh?)  Read on.

First of all, for several reasons, affirmations don’t often work, and I rarely use or recommend them.  One issue is that they are like steering a horse by its tail.  (Believe me, it doesn’t work well!) 

My main point is that by seeing your thoughts and feelings as “bad”, you polarize yourself against yourself. You lock yourself into a neverending mind battle that limits your personal potential and distracts you from empowering and healing yourself and others.  

Making your mind and its thoughts your enemy LIMITS you living life to the fullest!!!  Bottom line: it can be a form of resistance to your spiritual path.  (And that means resistance to success as a healer.)

Here’s why:  Thoughts are a natural byproduct of your logical mind.  It is your mind’s job to produce thoughts, as it is your lungs’ job to breathe.  Do you watch every single breath to make sure you’re breathing “right”?  No, though you may do breathwork periodically for health, and good for you.   

Likewise, to live a good healthy spiritual life full of healing, you don’t have to correct and adjust every thought or OUTPUT your mind thinks.

You have to adjust the INPUTS.

What are you inputting into your mind?  Actions based on fear and worries?  Pleasing your internalized parent or teacher instead of honoring your heart?  Maintaining a relationship or job that’s not supporting you exploring your full potential?  A long string of fascinating healing classes that help you avoid figuring out what you are meant to DO with them? 

Do you regularly nurture your soul in quiet meditation, contemplation, or prayer?  Do you connect with truly loved ones, nurture your body, love and advocate for yourself, share your unique gifts freely, have fun, enjoy life, get what fulfills you and makes you divinely happy? 

If not, then try this experiement.  Go do that.  Change those inputs.  Reach for fulfilling your life’s purpose, your life’s healing mission.  And then tell me what happens to your thought patterns after a few months. 

If you need help, we are here to support you in your spiritual journey towards your greatest potential, that of being a conduit and receiver of Genuine Healing.

In your first decade or two, you likely learned the "school" method of living your Life.  In school, you are trained and guided by authorities, teachers and adults, who tell you what to do and when, and what to learn, think and believe.  Then they judge and correct your behavior.  Chances are, you were also told what kind of cookie-cutter person you were, what you should like and how you should feel, whether you liked it or not.  And you got used to needing to meet the approval of others.

But that was then, when others seemed to run your life.  This is now. 

You may not be fully aware that you still feel like what schoolkids are seen as:  incapable, inexperienced, and unknowledgable.  I know in my 20s, I was still operating on what I'd learned in my childhood: that I couldn't do anything right.  You likely have been trained to doubt yourself, your inner yearnings, intuitions and knowings.  But that doesn't mean they aren't real.  Artificially doubting yourself doesn't mean you are wrong.

I've seen healer after healer shut down their inner healer, stop listening to their intuition ("oh that was just a random thought", "nobody can talk to trees"), convince themselves their knowings must be wrong and their dreams are unattainable or ridiculous.  Are you, too, trying to live someone else's life because "creative, intuitive healer" was not on the list of official jobs in the school counselor's office, or on the list of acceptable behaviors in elementary school?

How can you, starting today, honor your feelings, intuitions and dreams for what some part of you knows they are: very, very real?

Healer, you came here with gifts to share with the world, gifts that have the power to change the world.  I know because I've lived it and seen it in my mentoring clients, that it's too common for you to doubt yourself because you feel so "different".  Well, not here are HealerToHealer.com!  You're one of us, now, and we all have big healing dreams and amazing intuitive and creative talents. 

I for one would love to hear your dreams!  Put them in a comment below.  And from now on, how can you let yourself dream them?  How can you shift back into hoping and dreaming like you did as a kid?  Your dreams can't come true until you know what they are, and you owe it to the Source of those dreams to have a good long look, and to share them with others.  Leave the "how" to Source.  There *IS* always a way.  YOU just have to hold the possibilities here on earth.

I love you.  Go heal.