115

choose you.

what if the universe gave you everything you wanted and nothing you needed, like a bad parent? review your personal haves and have-nots with discernment. your most important gifts may be hiding just beneath the surface of your greatest disappointments. what comes to you easily might be hiding all the ways you unconsciously starve and betray yourself.

has your life shortened or lengthened the distance between you and your self? your essence is the spirit and identity that you brought into this earth, together with the growth you signed up to experience. it’s the inner fire, the divine light you were built to express and share with the world. here’s the trouble: the world will punish you or it will reward you for it.

worst case scenario: the world rewards you + you allow the distance between you and yourself to grow. best case scenario: the world punishes you + you allow this to bring you closer to who you really are and what you came here to be.

what if the world rewards you for being what they want and not who you are? are you strong enough to choose yourself anyway? or do you become part of the machine? what if the world punishes you for who you are and the energy you bring? are you strong enough to choose yourself anyway? do you allow your light to shine brighter or will you dim yourself because it hurts to make everyone uncomfortable?

remember that when people and places reject you, that’s the divine choosing you, and it’s an invitation for you to do the same. the divine never created anything “not good enough.” plants grow. that’s their entire job: to grow, to change. the divine has created things it expects to grow. so you know when that “not good enough” message comes up, it is the divine inviting you to learn, grow and choose yourself.

114

a cup with holes in it.

love doesn’t hurt. it’s what’s not love that hurts.

if you don’t become the love, safety and abundance you seek, you won’t know it when you have it. you will not know the difference between what you want (the real thing) and what you don’t (its opposite or a cleverly disguised substitute). if you don’t become the source, you will continue to seek outside yourself. you will settle for less. this will keep you in a cycle of survival, which keeps the real thing away, and delays or obstructs the flow of blessings into your life.

why? because a person starving wouldn’t know the difference between breadcrumbs and the entire loaf, fresh from stale, a stolen loaf from bread baked just for you. the real thing is wasted on a person who is starving for it. we can’t have it all until we remember we are whole. the cup, the vessel, must repair the holes punched into it by the energy of lack.

and it’s ok. some of us learn from contrast: experiencing many years, or even lifetimes of struggle, so that we may fully transform, understand and receive. even if we have had our eye on the prize from birth, sometimes the longest, steepest path is the surest. because by the time we arrive, we can trust ourselves to bring the deepest reverence and respect for the magnitude of our blessings, having cleared away the false clouds of deprivation and scarcity. we will have stepped into the version of ourselves that was meant to know, recognize and hold what’s ours. realizing we didn’t need anything outside of us to become who we came here to be.

113

we meet ourselves.

others will know your energy before you know your own. what kind of people do you come from? do they tell you to sit down, stay quiet and move to the back? they know you have big energy, standing head and shoulders above the rest. do you find yourself saddled with expectations and obligations? have you always been an adult? the peacemaker? the glue? you carry the weight of the world because you are a royal bitch. born to peasants when you were meant to walk with kings.

people know this, but they won’t tell you. they will make you feel small. you will be made to owe and serve. there will be no shortcuts, no benefit of the doubt, and no grace for you. the world will feel cruel. you will go around thinking little of yourself, a gift in disguise, hiding in plain sight, until different people start to notice. you will be surprised.

you will come to realize that every person you meet represents a choice. ask yourself, “what is this telling me about me? and do i believe it?” here’s what’s next: [1] you will move towards the people and places that reflect your light back to you, [2] you will bless those who reveal to you your own shadows, and [3] you will lighten your load by releasing what’s not yours.

you will balance being with the becoming. whether you believe we started out perfect, or born to a particular path, we were meant to leave this earth better than we came. you must first hear, see and feel what the world is telling you. and then you must go home, where you will learn to listen closely for the voice of your soul, feel your own feelings, and use your own eyes to see who you are. ask the universe to show you what’s true. ask for what’s right and ask for what’s good for you. why would you have anything less?

112

the rest.

one day, you’ll realize that you are no one’s child. even if you were, even if for just five minutes, you are that child no longer. it’s over now. this is when you know you are safe from ruining love. and that is no small thing, as it’s happened before.

you should know that the only absolute obligation on this earth is that you parent yourself. even if your parents didn’t parent you. especially if your parents didn’t parent you. this responsibility is magnitudes greater than that of any parent. for example: a parent may abandon you; you may not abandon yourself. a parent does not owe you their happiness; the only person that owes you their personal happiness is you.

this is when you meet yourself: the real you, no longer a child, now the willing adult. the new you has come online. she exists only because your younger parts were howling so loud that it woke her up. she remembers now why she came. it was to put all these girls to sleep for the last time. they are tired now, and need a rest.

111

and why not.

in your life, you’ll meet people who only see what they’ve been allowed to look at. hear only what they tell themselves. deliver the message and play the part. these are your teachers.

you’ll also find those who can see past what you’ve shown them, listen and hold you, sing the song you needed to remember and almost forgot. they believe in the future, and that you deserve it, too. these are your guides.

you’ll not find all these pieces where you thought. you’ll have parents as your competition, your enemy, your child. siblings that are strangers. grandparents that never met you. neighbors who know your whole life. friends that became sisters. brothers from acquaintances. aunts, uncles and godparents that forget. mentors that kept you close. colleagues that adopted you into their litters.

how else would you know justice until you recognized it separate from the law? loyalty separate from family? love separate from commitment? responsibility separate from the role? and why not? every time your heart breaks, the pieces come back together bigger and stronger. hold yourself and you’ll be able to hold even more.

110

daily renewal.

like sisyphus and prometheus, we too, are immortal souls subject to a daily renewal.

sisyphus has his boulder and he will never reach the top. prometheus has his liver torn out by an eagle each day at lunchtime; the eagle will never stop. why do the myths speak of daily punishment, setting this expectation that pain will naturally issue from a destiny fulfilled? why do our days bring the promise of routine destruction and nothing more?

because the other half is up to us; we bring the balance. to the regularly scheduled program of meaningless destruction we must bring ourselves to consciously create our own freedom and meaning. the gift of free will must be exercised not just once, at the very beginning, but at the start of each day, as the eagle draws nigh, and as the summit comes into view, come nightfall.

we are in the middle. we are not the mysterious divine force that has set all into motion. we are not the inanimate rock or a task-laden creature. we are this soul. we have a body consciousness that must be transcended, even as any progress must be undone and remade on a daily basis.

109

be the balance.

we came to this planet not just to create and destroy, but to enjoy and rebalance. energy wants equilibrium. nature gives us water in its states, the moon with its phases, days and the year under a star we call the sun. to the naked eye and under a microscope, nature demonstrates seasons, cycles and balance. this is how we know we are supported in our efforts.

in our lives, we must ask ourselves, what does this situation need? how can i be or bring about balance? when you know what’s missing, you know what needs to be done, and that’s when you will feel the divine move with you, through you. remember that time is not real; we will all eventually be brought back into balance, whether we like it or not. how do you think all human civilizations know the great flood? because we tend to forget.

it’s not a conversation if all you do is answer a thousand questions and nothing more. it’s not a relationship if all you do is give. a human being that focuses exclusively on the human doing has lived only half a life. you are a force of nature, equally subject to laws of the universe. balance is coming for you or balance is coming from you.

108

top of the mountain.

sometimes you have to be the worst or weakest version of yourself before the real you can emerge. the onion analogy is fine, but there’s nothing at the center of an onion. how about this instead: for as long as a snake is alive, it has to continually shed old skins and avoid suffocating inside expired identities. there is a future that must be told. energy wants motion. when we remain stagnant, it’s what we don’t want that grows stronger, instead.

what is the difference between temptation and an invitation? temptation beckons with an obvious reward; you already know what happens next. temptation brings a false sense of certainty with the bargain, and reward becomes punishment. invitations are initiations; something will have to be destroyed or exchanged for something else, and you won’t know what exactly. invitations are gifts that arrive sealed, in an envelope, and you accept when you decide to open. now, you’ll have to remember that discomfort is not punishment. the old shoes have to come off before you can put on new ones. and we may have to walk awhile barefoot, in full faith.

what next, after you get to the top? don’t worry. there is no “top of the mountain.” it’s just the next peak after the next peak. but you’ll be wearing nicer shoes and having a better time. there will be plenty of mountain until the end.

107

everything wonderful.

want something you don’t have? maybe you need to want it more and need it less. when we don’t need anything, we are open to receive what comes. more will find its way into your hands if they aren’t locked into fists. when we know we are whole and worthy of everything wonderful, the illusion of lack dissolves, we release the distortions of inadequacy that keep us small, and what we want flows easily.

we build strength as we carry the weight of our solitude (happily, as we become stronger, the load itself becomes lighter) and embody certainty as the path unfolds. can you close your eyes and see? can you decide from the inside out and not from the outside in? can you distinguish between the voice of your ego and the call of your soul? can you let your full heart guide you?

if everything in your life is a blessing or a lesson, then everything in your life is a blessing. if rejection is protection or redirection, then everything is love or it is bringing you closer. if disappointment is opportunity in disguise, then everything is always opening up for you; there’s no reason to wince or shrink when things happen. anytime the world tells you, “no,” you must tell yourself, “yes.”

remember that you are not just in this world. you are in this universe; your life is a conversation with the universe. you are how the divine dances with itself.

106

want it.

if it’s not mine, i don’t want it. i only want what’s mine. this is the mantra, the affirmation, that will simplify your life.

you have to want what you want bad enough that you become unwilling to tolerate what’s not yours. the changeling is a powerful concept that asks if we can tell the difference between what’s ours, what belongs to us, and what’s not. the changeling is what the fairies place in our lives after they’ve taken what’s ours. it looks like ours but it doesn’t feel like ours because nothing can be what it’s not. we are not meant to be content with the substitute or replacement for what belongs to us, and to us alone.

they say that what’s ours is ours, it’s already on the way and what belongs to us won’t miss us. that’s great. but what about us? what if we can’t tell the difference? what if we continue to hold, cling and grasp onto what’s not ours – what belongs to someone else now? what’s ours will have to wait. what belongs to us will remain on the other side of the door.

what stands between us and what’s ours is everything that does not belong to us: the lies, the confusion, the illusions, the limitations, the pain and the fear. it all has to go. we must tolerate the space and uncertainty that comes with releasing what’s not ours. we will experience a temporary emptiness until we can remember there’s nothing we lack.

you want something? say, “God, give me what’s mine and don’t let me waste my own time.” you don’t know why? say, “God, show me what’s meant and do not let me force my intent.” surrender becomes our certainty and that’s how the door opens.

105

inside out.

saying, being and doing. which one is most powerful? it depends. our words are the magic spells that connect and divide us, that can just as quickly destroy, or serve to elevate and affirm. words are power when we believe them; they take a life of their own as they repeat in our minds. words are oral history and can bridge us to the future. but have you ever made empty promises to yourself or wasted words telling people what to do? words have their limits.

we have a practical preference for more doing and less talking. words carry wisdom and they can become tiresome. beyond the exchange of thoughts and ideas, we are here on earth, as love made manifest, to ourselves make manifest. what are we doing with our lives? whatever we want or dream about, we naturally want less talking about it and more being about it. energy is the loudest force in the world because energy doesn’t lie. who you are is more resonant than what you’ve said or done. energy both animates and obscures the speaking and doing. people come and go, life moves forward or we stay stuck, not because of what we say or do, but based on the energy and frequency of our vibration.

your presence is your purpose. who are you as you sit with yourself? do you have more to uncover and grow? “good to others” and “good in the world” is a reflection of who you are inside. power moves from the inside out. we are here to remake and reclaim ourselves; this is the force that changes the world around us.

104

have your cake.

pain, discomfort and pleasure. these are your guides. pain alerts us to what’s wrong, what needs to go. pain requires us to detach from danger or negativity. pain often presents as a puzzle: why are we constantly trying to push it away, push it down or pretend it’s not happening? because it arises with people, places and things to which we are attached. pain lets us know where we are not free.

discomfort is the path; pain is not the path and neither is pleasure. what’s making you uncomfortable? whatever it is, it’s telling you where you need to change. discomfort is the price of growth. there are people who are comfortable being miserable; they have already abandoned themselves and they will just as easily abandon you. while you cannot trust a man with a high tolerance for pain, you can trust the man who is willing to tolerate the discomfort of his own transformation.

pleasure is a tricky guide. she could easily lead you down the path of comfort, complacency and empty desire. but you want her to show you what’s good, not reveal your greed. pleasure connects us with the body and to earthly delights. we are here for two reasons: to grow and to enjoy what’s good. pleasure is a guide that must be tempered with discernment. you may have to allow her to lead you astray before you can fully appreciate the paradox of pleasure; it is entirely possible to have your cake and eat it too.

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.