103

a clarification.

your pain is not your power. your pain is showing you the parts that still want to attach to the people, places, things and outcomes that Do Not Want You. pain is saying, “no more.” when your shoes fit, they feel nice or they don’t feel like anything. your shoes start to hurt when they no longer fit; when they are no longer your shoes. you wouldn’t know you had grown out of them until they started to bother you. pain is how your power shows you, “this is not me.”

what is your power? your power is the part of you that trusts you will be fine, no matter the outcome. your power is in detachment. your power is the part of you that does what’s right, even if “what’s right” nails you to a cross. your power is in your surrender to the higher path. your power is the part of you that expands and grows, creates and destroys, even if your tolerance for this discomfort makes others feel unsafe. your power is in your transformation. your power is the part of you that resists shame and the impulse to shrink, no matter how great the promise of comfort or approval. your power is in choosing yourself.

pain just wants to burn away everything and anything that’s not your power. what’s hurting you is not yours. even if you needed to carry it some ways to become strong, you’re strong enough now. you grew accustomed to the load but now it’s time to set it down. your pain serves your power.

102

life skills.

we teach our children how to count money but not about self-worth. we teach them how to tell time but not how to read energy. we explain what is owed but not how to receive.

when we do this, they look to acquire valuable things in place of understanding the inherent value within. when daily life and ticking countdowns reinforce the idea that time is scarce, the allure of stealing energy through substances and manipulation becomes harder to resist. when we raise children to be more attuned to external demands than to internal truths, we give them over to the wolves.

it’s ok.

it’s ok when kids have to un-lost themselves; that’s how many adults have learned to find their way. it’s ok when kids think they have to chase after the butterflies of their desires; that’s how many of us have come to realize that stillness and palms open were the safety that we and our blessings needed to come together. it’s ok when kids learn to abandon themselves; it’s so much more difficult to part with buried treasure that we ourselves have had to unearth over decades.

101

newsflash.

you will feel powerless if you try to control that which you cannot control. the person you love the most: what if their life is a building collapse that you can’t seem to drag them out of? what if it’s a slow-moving car crash that you can’t stop from happening? what if you can’t protect or defend or stop them from doing what they’re doing? what if you can’t control other people? newsflash: you can’t control other people.

every time you try to make a person see or feel or run before they are ready, you’re not going to like it; the “right thing” is going to feel like the “wrong thing.” on top of surviving a car wreck, and having the airbags deploy inside of crumpled metal and machinery with them still in it, or being rudely awakened to the heartbreak of actual reality, they’re not going to like the pressure and judgment and impatience coming from you.

here is your real superpower: you can see it coming, you can witness it as it unfolds; you know what to do and how to guide people out of a disaster zone, but only when they are ready. they have to call for help, not you. when someone is trying to cook dinner in the fire, the blaring smoke alarm is just annoying. it’s part of the problem, not the solution.

your ability to hold steady in your truth and vision, as others live into theirs, that is your power. put it where it belongs; keep it with you. your power is a magic spell that works only inside your castle. you are powerless outside your own kingdom. all you can do is stand tall and bright to remind others of their own light. your boundaries are for you, not them.

100

i’m so sorry.

i don’t know how to show you love, so i will show you its opposite, that you may discover love’s endless source within.

i don’t know how to give you my best, so i will wish ill upon you, that you may claim your own path to happiness.

i don’t know how to appreciate or value you, so i will close my eyes to your radiance, that you may learn to see yourself.

i don’t know how to meet you at your depths, so i will allow someone else, that you may instantly recognize true love.

i don’t know how to hold you, so i will show you abandonment, that you may learn to stand with yourself.

i don’t know how to guide you, so i will allow you to trust yourself as your own wise person.

i don’t know how to celebrate you, so i will always try to bring you down, that you may learn to validate yourself.

i don’t know how to take care of you, so i will fail to nourish you, that you may learn to honor yourself.

i don’t know how to defend you, so i will side with the oppressor, that you may learn to protect yourself.

i don’t know how to accept you, so i will reject you, that you may learn unshakeable self-worth.

i can’t hear what you say, so i will give you isolation, that you may discover hidden reservoirs of strength in solitude.

i don’t know how to help you, so i will obstruct your path, that you may find your true purpose.

i didn’t know how to be who i needed to be for you, so i stepped aside so that you could become who you needed.

99

even, especially, all.

do you know how they got to be like that? how they came to be that way? how deep those wounds had to be that they allowed themselves to bleed all over you? do you know their story from childhood? i bet you do. and i’ll bet it’s a long one.

now, even if you don’t have one handy, picture them as a child. look at their small, young face. their eyes are not the same as the ones you knew. that’s because their eyes hadn’t yet taken in the darkness. it was before they started to look at you and everything as the problem, before they saw you as someone good enough to take everything out on.

visualize in your mind’s eye, this pure, beautiful soul that hadn’t even done anything wrong enough to deserve a villain origin story. not only do they deserve another chance (in this very moment, you can wish them all the love and happiness in the world for each of their future lifetimes) but this precious soul agreed to go through all of that, to become so hurt and so blinded, because that is the only way they could have ever brought themselves to treat you the way they did … turning you into the bad bitch you are today.

that’s something you should know. add it to the anthology. be humbled, be grateful, and send only love to anyone and everyone around you. these people agreed to help get you to where you were going, as best they could. even the worst ones, especially the worst ones.

98

it will happen.

one day, your pain will be your piano. every key it’s own song; you’ll create beautiful music wherever you go. you’ll have access to everything within you, and that’s when you know you’ve finally stepped into your own power.

until then, before you learn to play, the piano plays you. before you embody your own style, you do whatever is in fashion, and your clothes wear you. you’ll sit by the radio and listen to other people’s music, wondering if enough life could ever happen to get a song out of you. you’ll read other people’s words, not knowing when you’ll have anything to say for yourself. you’ll watch movies and wonder, “do i have a story worth telling?”

until then, you’ll give and give and live and live, until you’ve had enough nightmares to wake you up to the urgency of your own dreams. you will finally understand, love and appreciate this special human relationship with time. it takes time to bake a cookie. it takes time to write a song. it takes time for life to unfold.

when your eyes open, the light will be bright. you won’t be used to it. when they finally adjust, you’ll see where it’s coming from. the light is coming from you. they always say not to stare directly into the sun, that it will blind you. you are the sun. your life revolves around you. your world is illuminated by you. you are an expression of the divine. and you’ll have as many lifetimes as you need to bravely walk the path that can only be revealed by your light alone.

97

a time to heal.

we know it’s time to heal when the lies become too painful to carry but the truth is still too hard to believe. healing is difficult because we will be called to evolve our hearts and explore our shadows, but only at a pace that our nervous systems will allow. the methodology is love, the medicine is light, and healing is not fast.

sunlight does not commit visual assault. unlike a light switch, the sun brightens the sky gradually and then gently retreats so that we may use dreamtime to integrate daytime. our shadows just want to be seen; they are tired of hiding. our shadows want the light. our feelings just want to be felt; they are tired of being denied and pushed down. they may cause pain but they aren’t meant to hurt us. rather, they are asking to be felt and released. feelings require safety to be expressed, so we may find ourselves pushing them down during battle and then numbing them away as they are triggered after the fact. the worst ones are just trying to leave the emotional body. many of them don’t even belong to us. they’re just echoes from the past, stowaways that must be brought out from hiding.

so what are the truths and what are the lies? the truths sound like this: i am worthy of my desires. i am beautiful. i am whole. the lies sound like: i do not deserve what’s good. i am not enough. i have to shrink and hide to be safe. as we heal, the truths start to make more sense, negativity becomes more obvious, and both become easier to accept for what they are.

96

breaking open.

why do you think you’re broken? because bad things happened or because you have everything all mixed up, backwards and wrong inside? “both,” you say? ok. forget about the first one; it doesn’t matter. the second one is meant; we are supposed to be broken inside.

how else would we grow? everything that grows in nature requires a breaking open. even at home, in your kitchen, you have to break a few eggs to get breakfast. we were not meant to pass through this life miraculously unscathed. the miracle is life after death. we were not meant to come all this way just to be the same person going out as we were coming in.

and guess what, no one signs up for a bad time. even if you did, you could always change your mind. a feeling is just an outfit, a try-on. the only way to experience a feeling is to feel it. that doesn’t mean it’s yours, it doesn’t mean you have to take the outfit home with you to wear every day, and it doesn’t mean it looks good on you. of course, you’ll have to let the feeling move through you before it’s out. you’ll be glad to remember this is your party; you can cry all you need to.

it’s also your movie; you can stage the greatest comeback of your life. if anyone had the ultimate backing to do so, it would be you.

95

when it’s time.

look at everything you have accomplished. imagine if you had asked for permission beforehand. half of these things wouldn’t have gotten done. think about it. what did asking permission ever get you? it got you a bunch of not getting in trouble for not asking permission when you were a child. that’s it. so don’t do it. don’t ask for permission. you’re not a child. do the brave thing. do the thing you haven’t done before.

and if it doesn’t turn out well, if it doesn’t turn out how you wanted, don’t even apologize. people don’t want apologies. they want you to acknowledge the harm or shortcoming in your changed behavior and through different results. this you can do quietly. so stop apologizing. fewer “i’m sorry’s” and more looking, more paying attention. less talking and more feeling into what’s really happening.

separately, it is absolutely good manners to over-communicate and mind your p’s and q’s and to announce all of your moves in advance. that’s fine. as an adult, you’ll have to determine when it’s time for manners and when it’s time to trust your gut and follow that inner guidance. when you become quiet, open and still, you’ll meet the part of you that just knows.

94

be a leader.

the king and queen, as powerful as they are, are not the leader. not even the bishop is the leader, no. the leader is the person playing; she is not a game piece on the chessboard.

what is a leader? a leader gives people what they need so they can do what they need to do, so they can do what’s right. that’s the entire function. you’re a leader or you’re not. you’ve taken responsibility for yourself and the people around you or you haven’t.

everyone on the board has a separate function, together with strengths, weaknesses and natural ways of working. the leader’s job is to learn each of the game pieces through close observation and careful study. they discover and connect with your secret ambitions. the leader does not blame anyone but herself when there’s a loss; she protects and serves.

as she is guided by her own light, and her light alone, it is her job to reveal the light of the team and to allow each person to shine. this is how you build an army that answers when you call and is ready to run through a brick wall for you.

93

doing it right.

do you feel like your whole life has been trying to break you? maybe the trick is to surrender your body (do what you need to do) and at the same time, know that nothing can break you, ever (be who you are meant to be).

you are your soul. your soul possesses a physical body and an emotional body. these are what we use to navigate our journey over lifetimes. the stories we carry forward animate the particulars: the artifacts and game pieces that function like types of equipment we would find at a gym. our lives are tools for practice, supplying a supporting cast of characters, along with costumes and props for the drama, presenting the indoor rock wall that helps us climb the mountain within.

life unfolds for the soul to evolve. who are you in this lifetime? are you a lover? a fighter? both? keep going, even if the battles don’t seem to end. keep fighting, even if love hasn’t arrived yet. keep rattling the cage until it’s dust at your feet.

what if winning is a realization: that we can’t ever lose because there’s nothing to lose? what if having it all doesn’t mean having many things, but rather, the complete freedom of “nothing left to lose” because it means there’s nothing left to hold us back? whether it’s fear, comfort, stability – whatever we’ve built or achieved, clung to or hid behind, until now. what is holding us back from more? what is holding us back from who we really are? what’s the difference between surviving a shipwreck and the surfer on a waxed board?

you know you’re doing it right when you don’t know what’s next, but you know that you will use whatever it is to be free.

92

we’ll soon find out.

do not confuse your first act with your second. how it’s been is not how it’s meant to end. this moment is a threshold. the cell door is about to open and the curtain has just come down for intermission. everyone in the audience is asking the same question they’re whispering backstage: is this the lifetime that our protagonist sets herself free? her biggest battle has been the same for all lifetimes. but tickets were so expensive because this could be the one where it actually happens.

we meet her in the cellblock. we meet her in all the ways she has ever been trapped; in the bed where she’s always lain, with the song of her soul and a blue sky dream of freedom just on the other side of a high window, among the guards and cellmates that have become friends, serving under the fearsome voice of a faceless warden.

act one poses the question that must be answered in act two: “here’s what she’s always known. is this what she wants?” we aren’t sure how she’s done it, but it becomes obvious that act one is an obstacle course that the protagonist herself has set into motion. though we hear very few details of her crimes, we witness her punishment as it unfolds. act two will show us one of two scenes, and we will soon understand the nature of free will: does it exist? and if it does, how free is it?

when the chimes ring for the audience to find their seats, we will see whether she bounds out of her cell with the fury and joy of a thousand lifetimes or whether prison of mind is the tragedy of humanity. if every day, our only job is to show up as the version of ourselves that wants to be free, we can trust ourselves to do the right thing when the prison gate opens. they’ll not find us hanging back in our cell, having finally learned that we were always free, old comforts be damned.

91

year of the snake.

addiction subverts desire and blocks our blessings. if you can let the craving, the false need pass, you’ll be left with a beautiful desire that can actually be fulfilled and truly enjoyed.

no one enjoys a thing less than the person who is addicted to it. of course there’s pleasure, but it’s the most fleeting high of your life; the addict becomes trapped in the energetic of desire-only, unable to access fulfillment. think about it. how can you enjoy the one if you’re chasing endless? if one is too many because there’s never enough? gluttony lacks trust; its reward and punishment is the crown of addiction.

addiction says, “take the cup with these holes cleverly drilled into it and look away from the endless source within.” spend 40 days in the desert with your devils and get clear. break through the lies: that you can’t have what you want, that it exists outside of you, and that within you is a big, gaping lack that will never be filled, even if you throw all the money in the world, and all of your pleasure and pain into it. that you cannot be fulfilled. that all is a lie.

be a snake, intuitive and grounded. shed your old, protective skins. be self-sourced. renew yourself. be so humble and powerful on your own that no creature, great or small, can confuse your kindness for weakness, or restraint for temerity.

90

you don’t need what you want.

addiction is so bad for the body. but what if the real problem is something else? what if the purpose of addiction is to alert us to an even greater misalignment? a misunderstanding that the soul sought to correct, a lesson we needed, having set a specific intention to heal it in this lifetime?

what you want and cannot get enough of —whether it’s pain, pleasure or oblivion— that’s not what’s interesting. at most, it seems strange or silly to want endless pain, pleasure or oblivion. if it doesn’t seem rational, maybe it’s not. peer into the mind of an addict and you’ll witness the forever inquiry of, “why do i want this?” and “why do i think i need it?” inside the ravenous loop of, “can’t believe i’m doing it again,” and “can’t believe i can’t get enough.” every low, a new low, and yet, the thing itself is not the problem.

the path is to remember that whatever it is we want, we don’t need it. that’s the off-ramp. it’s clearly marked. but addiction disguises what we want as what we need, which is simply not true. addiction is the allegory that points us to the real problem: the internal misalignment.

what we think we want from the world, we call them “needs,” though we need none of them to be whole: love, validation, safety, presence, peace, understanding, power, permission, recognition, connection. we lack nothing. it already exists within. and we have to locate the inner wellspring before we can experience it with anyone else. try loving someone who doesn’t love herself and you’ll see what i mean. try being a safe person for someone that is dangerous to himself. try having a relationship with someone who is deeply disconnected from their own wants, needs, identity and power.

once we remember that we don’t need anything from anyone, we can let go. it would be nice to have what we want from people and places, but we can learn to survive, and we were designed to thrive. the addiction, the pain, it’s a message in our service. the illusion of lack is always pointing us to the abundance within. surrender to the pain, let it guide you home, to the divine light within that lacks nothing. stop wanting what the world can’t give you. you can’t be in control. and no one can give you what you owe to yourself.

89

you are the key.

the shadow is that which we do not recognize even as it is drawn out of us. these are the strengths, weaknesses, talents, vices, compulsions and drives that we witness and become responsible for as we find ourselves embodying them.

we must then ask, do i want this in my body? do i want my body to participate? am i willing to serve as an instrument for this energy? is this shadow aspect the real me? should i feed it? shall i cast her out or welcome her inside? will she then leave peacefully or is this her home?

what’s at stake is whether and how you remain a stranger to yourself. will you let all the crying dissuade you from peeling back the onion? other people show you to yourself and then you must learn who you are before you can know others. you can meet others only as far as you can meet yourself.

do you have a favorite version of yourself? you probably met her through your favorite person. and guess what? you can be this favorite version of yourself with or without a favorite person. you can enjoy yourself all the time and give your actual favorite person the most beautiful experience of being needed because they are loved, instead of loved because they are needed. your favorite person unlocks you and then you must become the key.

face your shadow. create yourself. be the cause of your life and not the effect. break the limits in your relationship with yourself, enter the realm of expansiveness, and you will have less time for limiting relationships with others.

88

what’s not flowing?

they don’t see your value? maybe they’re not meant to. they won’t promote you? maybe you aren’t there for that. they won’t meet you where you are? maybe you’re meant to meet them where they are. love hurts? maybe it’s something else. can’t get your body right? sit down and listen; you’re not here to perform. can’t seem to get anywhere? time to go within.

the escape room won’t let you out with the puzzles half-solved. if you refuse the meal you’ll be served another until you’ve cleaned your plate and memorized the recipe for humble pie. gotta grow a bit more, maybe a few more years before they let you onto the next rollercoaster; they wouldn’t want you too scared or too small to fully enjoy it. car won’t start? maybe a long walk will do you better than a short drive. getting bored in the playroom? maybe time to start your new adventures outside. best friends starting to feel weird? maybe that’s not what they are.

we won’t always know what’s going on or why. but it was man and not beast that invented prayer. ask for the gift of sight: “help me to perceive what i perceive. help me see what i need to see, when i need to see it.” ask for healing: “i am sorry. please forgive me. thank you. i love you.” and when the battle within arises to finally leave you, help it along: “out of my body. out of my body.” in motion, in stillness, find your flow.

87

what you are.

we attract what we are. that person in your life is showing you something about yourself, not about herself. is she your nemesis? your opposite? who cares about her and her limitations and follies?! keep looking at her in the face until you can read the message. it’ll burn until it clicks.

fighting her, ignoring her or vilifying the messenger wastes your own time. she’ll stay at your house until the unconscious becomes conscious. there are no enemies outside; all of your enemies are within. the world is a mirror and reality is your clay; you form it into shape. the world is a river full of fish, but you’ll only see and feel this abundance after you’ve cleared the unconscious blocks to receiving. abundance is in the spiritual realm and you find it there before it can flow to you.

the frustrating thing that keeps showing up reflects how you’ve been frustrating your own desires and progress. there’s somewhere else you need to be, beyond where you are now. your soul asked for this to be shown because it’s ready for release. and you have to know that “ready” doesn’t mean “readily.” releasing what no longer aligns might be the hardest thing you ever do. some drugs you can quit in a matter of days and they’re gone, out of your system, just like that. they’ve served their purpose in your story.

other drugs take a lifetime to quit. you’ll have to wake up and choose yourself, every day, every time, until your head hits the pillow. some days will be harder than others. this is a different kind of gift: the most important choice of your life, as often as you need reminding.

86

your story.

after a while, everything is just stories. it’s no longer your childhood, it’s just a story you grew up with; you are no longer playing out that narrative. the generational cycles you witnessed and carried with shame no longer have a hold on you; you release them and they release you.

the early promises that you’ll never do what they did, that you’ll accept only the opposite of what you had always known, reveals the lack and keeps you stuck. when the nouveau riche parade new wealth, it doesn’t feel like it’s theirs. doing and proving abundance is not how we release the fear of scarcity. you have to be the abundance, love, beauty, validation and safety you seek. the striving against only helps you partway; you have yet to fully arrive and receive what’s yours.

life is meant to take you from the illusion of, “i lack [the thing],” to “i can go out and get [the thing],” and failing that, to, “i am [the thing].” follow your heart and fight the limitations in your mind so that your soul can shine. integrate the versions of yourself that questioned whether you came all this way just to experience the persistent not-having of what you desire the most, together with the intermediate versions whose eyes started to open and question whether your blessings were somehow a mistake or just temporary. you will begin to understand the difference between what belongs to you and what does not.

your blessings are real, they are yours, and they will continue to flow into your life as you set aside the old stories and illusions of lack. you will have to keep going through whatever you’re growing through until you like your reality. until your story becomes your favorite story.

85

your actual job.

what you do in the world has to support what you do in your heart, mind and soul. starting companies or even charity work, is not your purpose. if these activities do not help you to do what it is you came in this lifetime to do within yourself and for yourself, then your purpose is something else and we can’t use your job as a shorthand for your actual purpose.

now, it would be some inner work that you don’t even know about yet (there’s more life ahead of you) or it’s growth you’ve been avoiding. and once you start addressing that inner purpose, the goal of your soul, it will be so much easier to identify what you should do and not do, out in the world.

whatever it is has to help you to be proud of yourself, not be the thing that makes you proud of yourself. it would sound like this, “wow. i’m so thankful that i can afford to teach because i have always wanted to be the kind of person i really needed when i was a kid.” or, “i’m so thankful for this job because it gives me the time and financial means by which i can now make my art, and finally explore all of who i really am.” maybe, “i really like my job because i like helping people get things done, knowing how it feels to not get any help for hard things.”

then it could be ok to say the job is your purpose, if you want.

84

category of memory.

everyone has a very special category of memory called, “the worst thing(s) that ever happened to me that i could never tell anyone.” what we can hardly bear ourselves but cannot have help for. we can’t bring ourselves to ask. we can’t reveal the hurt. we can’t let anyone know something so trivial or vile or embarrassing could ever touch us, triggering all our shame and deepest fears. they are for us, alone.

now, what would it take to turn this into the best thing that ever happened to you? even if success could only bring you to zero or neutrality about it? if we can’t wish that it never happened, if the goal is to somehow never regret and yet never find ourselves back there, we will have to treat our private tragedies as sacred, secret initiations into our purpose.

if you still don’t know how this could be the best thing that ever happened for you, you have to keep going. everyone is on a journey, whether out in the world or inside, to the depths. keep showing up, keep digging in. if you can’t get to, “always wish it happened,” don’t worry that you haven’t yet arrived. the path will continue to unfold until the heartbreak becomes a mystery becomes a miracle, in the most perfect way that only your soul could have known to ask for.