155

being a human.

being a human means that you will find out what you need when you don’t get what you want. it’s just a game where you don’t get what you want so you can become who you are meant to be. where you forget that everything you need and want is inside, so you can remember that you carry the source.

and of course you do. of course you carry the source, the spark of divinity that exists in all things – that provides and protects and experiences life and manifests miracles through you.

think of all the people, places and situations that rejected you or turned you away. all those opportunities you reached for that were ultimately withheld. it wasn’t even for any good reason, right? no good reason other than to help remind you who you are, what you carry, who you are meant to become, and what you are meant to do. it advanced the plot. it deepened the character. and that’s how it blessed you. it gave you back to yourself by reminding you that you held the key in your own hand, and that there are actually no doors that are locked to you. just better ones you’re being moved towards.

do you think the river curses the obstacles that guide her path and smooth her rocks? no, she doesn’t. she moves around, over and through. because the flow of life is unimpeded even as it is given shape by all manner of growth.

154

showing up.

why should you keep showing up? why should you keep showing up to be unseen and unheard and unmet and asked to give more and receive less?

because this is exactly what God wanted to experience through you. because this is your offering; all of it: your greatest joys and deepest sorrows. because if you can’t see what’s good, then you get to be what’s good. every time the world refuses to show up for you, that’s when you give God a chance to show up for you.

think about it: who shows up for God? isn’t everyone always sharing less and asking for more? and what does God do? God keeps showing up. this is how God gets to live through you and how you get to be like God. after all, what is devotion? and when showing up becomes too difficult, we reframe: we alternate showing up with showing up as.

what if this just rips the same wound open, over and over? should we keep showing up for that? no. we keep showing up to be blessed and reminded by the fact that we bleed because we are still human and alive. that there’s warmth to be had in this world, even if it’s just in you; even if it’s just in showing up for yourself. until you finally want to. until you don’t have to. allow yourself to be surprised by what shows up.

153

why wait?

we only ever let ourselves down in moments of erasure and self-abandonment. it is very difficult to keep a promise after you have already left your body. your addictions serve you while in survival mode; you won’t need them when you’re safe. but it’s hard to release what brings you temporary comfort and helps you waste time, if that’s all you’re trying to release. change what’s calling them in and they’ll gladly follow the rest of the circus out of your life.

if sitting with yourself, in your heart, in your soul, in your mind, in your vessel, feels like the hardest thing you’ll ever do, you will have to do it eventually. sometimes you will have to live the chaos before you can let it go.

but why wait? be brave. be here now.

stop running. you cannot depend on other people, places or things; you can’t always trust yourself. how many times have you let yourself down? it’s ok. that’s how it is to be a human. that’s how we distinguish ourselves from God. you can depend on God and trust in the divine, but learning your lessons is up to you. if we had only an hour left, or all the time in the world, why wait? learn your lessons so you can enjoy your life.

when you set yourself free, it sets everyone else free. where do you think the battle lives? it lives in the heart, in the soul of every soldier. the war ends when we stop carrying it. we must allow ourselves to be emptied of the war within to dissolve the war without.

152

are you willing?

what if it’s coming together in a way you didn’t expect? if all you’ve ever wanted is to be seen, heard and chosen, that’s your inner child. she wants to be listened to and she wants to be believed.

what is she telling you? small, untouched and bright-eyed? she wants to play. life is a game, it is an invitation that she has accepted. her heart is enormous, and for her, life is a fairy tale. she knows that believing is the best thing you can do to make anything come true. and you know she’s right because you still love the songs and the princesses who became heroes because they believed in love.

because what is a fairy tale? it’s a highly unlikely happy ending. it’s against all odds. it’s fate. and when you don’t believe, when you don’t listen to the inner child who is asking you to sit next to her, hold her, listen and believe, if you silence and disparage and yank away that dream, you’re doing it wrong. she doesn’t want your reality. she wants you to share in the dream.

the only reason the fairy tale hasn’t happened yet is because you were meant to live into a specific wisdom that protects her dream, this dream that makes your life beautiful. while she doesn’t need to be locked away in a fortress or a tower, like rapunzel, what your inner child needs to know is that there are no monsters or nightmares in this story –that there are no villains– only teachers. she needs to know that you’ll be kind, that you’ll listen and believe, and that you won’t abandon her, that you won’t abandon love, and that you’re willing for the fairy tale and for miracles to be real.

151

happy now?

there is no honor in waiting to be happy. if we are waiting for people or situations to change before we can be happy, we forego the opportunity to discover what would make us happy in this present moment. this is how time becomes our prison –it becomes scarce– and all of a sudden, we are chasing it or counting down, instead of fully appreciating our greatest gift. while time is an illusion, it’s the one we want, and why we are here. time is how we experience. we get to see how everything becomes, including how we become.

waiting to be happy means exactly that. “happy” is an internal state; it is not “gratification” or “satisfaction” or “pleasure” or “peace” or “reward.” if these words meant the same as “happy,” we wouldn’t need them. it is true that we should learn to wait for the second marshmallow, to choose discipline without confusing it for deprivation. but can you be happy on day 1, the day you take the “before” picture? or did you plan to wait until you could put the “after” photo next to it? why would we choose fewer days of happiness?

as children, we either cannot yet hold all parts of ourselves or we are placed with adults that cannot model how to do this. so we learn to give our energy, parts of ourselves, away – whether it’s to relationships, to the power of authority, to our hopes, dreams and achievements, or to our maladaptive coping mechanisms. these are the ways we post-date our happiness and busy ourselves with longing.

the trouble is that people, places and things will never hold us the way we need to be held, or the way we want to be held, until we can bear to hold all of our own energy. as we bring all parts of ourselves back into the present, we get to find out what would make us happy in real time.

150

a clean house.

what is the difference between surviving famine and acclimating to hunger, to lack? one is strength in surrender while the other is learning to lie. don’t ever say you learned to lie just to survive. the lesson was in discernment, not shrink-to-fit. because if the mask never comes off then you can never go home. and your home is not on this planet, on this stage. your house, your body, it holds the home within. and whoever you find there, that’s the truth.

if you want to be lucky, you’ll make time to clean house – to put everything in its place and discard what’s not yours. you’ll clear enough space and sit in the soft light. your favorite chair only seats one but the kitchen can feed a few more. you won’t let everyone in, but you’ll know what’s right from what’s wrong, and it will be easy to let go. painful, yes, but easy.

hospitality is not meant as performance. if that’s what you’re doing, then you’re doing it wrong. home is your hearth and your heart is a temple. not for worship – just sanctuary, safety and reverence; the altar is not where we put on a show.

do not make your church a house for unrequited love: seeking a God that wears a specific face when God lives in everyone you know.

149

stupid questions.

if you keep going around asking, “is my truth and goodness and integrity and honesty good enough for you to tell me the truth and be good to me and be honest with me?” the answer will always be, “no.” because it’s a stupid question. and stupid questions get stupid answers.

you are inherently worthy of people showing up in your life with integrity. but if you keep asking whether you’re good enough for people to be good to you, then the answer will always be, “no.” until you stop asking stupid questions. until you remember your worth.

listen to your intuition. it’s never going to ask you stupid questions. it will always be that quiet voice inside you that’s telling you the truth. when you start listening to yourself, to your own truth, you’ll stop asking stupid questions and the world will stop bringing you stupid people and stupid answers and stupid lies that waste your time.

you might think you’re always meeting the wrong people. but it’s not the people. you could meet the best person in the world, and still they would tell you, “no.”

you are good enough to be treated well. you are worthy of your desires. stop asking stupid questions. if you keep asking the stupid questions, it doesn’t matter who you ask. the answer will always be, “no.” your world will change when you stop asking and start telling; be your own “yes.”

148

the swamp.

everyone comes to planet earth with shards of shrapnel in their hearts. and everyone that comes around to awaken the wound that’s ready to be healed, is like a metal detector going off, telling you the shrapnel is still in there.

the painful cycles and people and places you keep going to, that keep finding you, they have nothing to do with you. the shrapnel in your heart isn’t you. it’s separate. and it just needs to come out. but you wouldn’t know it until the metal detectors keep going off to alert you to the fact that there’s something foreign, lodged in your system, that doesn’t belong there and isn’t aligned with your goodness and your truth.

so what is it? what is the shrapnel? these are the false beliefs, the illusions and limitations you carry that whisper to you the worst lies about yourself. these people who find you just to hurt you are asking you to stop lying to yourself.

just because the shrapnel is in you doesn’t mean it’s of you. you hear the lies spoken in your own voice, but that’s the assignment: to know that not all the voices inside you are coming from you, the real you, the soul that came here to this confusing and dirty world to cleanse itself of what doesn’t belong and to emerge clean from the swamp.

147

can you let yourself?

they’re always telling people to meditate and journal and pray. but the real question is, “can you let yourself be empty?”

because it’s not empty your mind to improve focus and boost productivity. it’s not empty your heart into a journal for emotional regulation. it’s not empty your spirit of pain and desire by delegating upwards, so that the universe can bring you what you want or destroy what’s hurting you. it’s just, “can you let yourself be empty?” can you not need what you think you need? can you not long for what you think is missing?

can you stop wanting what you want for long enough to understand the reason you want it? which is that you’re experiencing an illusion of lack that is obscuring the truth of the emptiness? that the seeker becomes the witness, the sought after — once she’s remembered the truth?

the emptiness inside you doesn’t want to be filled because it’s lacking — it wants to be filled because emptiness requires fulfillment just as fulfillment requires emptiness.

why are we born hungry? why is lack the feeling that awakens us into the human condition? why does it have to be the shock of disconnection? why do we seek, chase and pursue? why do we run from the emptiness only to find it in each of our achievements and possessions and experiences? our losses ring as hollow as the victories. with time, they may even reverse themselves: our losses become our wins, and gains became our weaknesses. this feels bad only because we think it’s what we don’t want.

there are spiritual practices that talk about expanding the soul, expanding the vessel. but why do you want to expand the vessel? it’s to create more emptiness. so that more light can flow to you and through you. before there was everything there was nothing. God is the emptiness and the dark and the womb, and God is also the baby, the birth, the life that issues forth. everything came from nothing. emptiness is required for fulfillment. even pipes and pots have to be empty before they can be filled.

146

the striving.

do you want to be the person that would be happier with more? or the person that can be happier with less? are we jealous of the person who has 58 of the thing (with more on the way) or the one who only needs ten? what feels better? insatiable or simple?

the answer might feel different from the top of the mountain as compared to the view from base camp, where you’re still assessing the vertical distance to a peak that’s barely visible. but there’s a blindness that arises in the striving, even as it fills our days with longing and animates the future with hope. they say that “the mountain is in you” and that no one can take away the version of you that makes her way to the top. that’s true.

but how many mountains do you need to climb to be happy? to find peace? how many mountains until you can go home and sit with yourself? how many mountains until you’ve earned your rest?

there’s an emptiness at the top of the mountain. and it matches the emptiness inside you. it’s an echo of the emptiness that existed before anything existed. it’s the emptiness of God.

and if you want to continue to fill that emptiness with people and experiences and accomplishments and 58 of the thing, then that emptiness will continue to feel like lack. you’ll find that it empties into a black hole. very scary. if you can meet it for what it is, it might still be scary, but this might also be the exact invitation to draw the curtain, and dissolve the illusion that obscures the real you.

145

how many?

how many tower moments? when what you built comes crumbling down? how many until you can no longer hide behind your accomplishments? until you’re forced to look at yourself? when you realize that the answer won’t come from the outside because if it did, you would have found it or earned it or bought it by now?

how many tries until you can sit with yourself without running away? not because it’s fun but because escape has always put you right back to where you started? how many chances will you give until your coping mechanisms stop working?

how many books and how many gurus until you become your own light? when you realize that the underground forest does not let you out until you’re naked and illuminated from within?

and once you’re out, how many days will you bargain and resist before you accept that your only job now is to surrender, to offer yourself as a living meditation? that you must now be brave enough to live from love instead of fighting from the old habit of fear? to live from your heart, guided by faith, to protect your peace and act from center, radiating only what is aligned and true? it’s you versus you, not you versus the world. real you versus old you. it is completely unglamorous and not at all what they sell you, so it will not be as you thought.

how many tears until your vision becomes discernment and you embrace what feels like the hardest thing ever?

you’ll receive as many as you need to finally thrive in the exact same body that taught you to survive.

144

looking glass.

stop bargaining. you’re not going to fix the world; the world is going to fix you. how about that? have you noticed that mirrors show you as a reversed image? it happens across the vertical axis. this is why a looking glass does not show how you look to another human. it shows you the only way you can see yourself, which is in the reverse.

ok. so what if the world was a mirror showing you a reverse image? you think you’re looking at the world but you’re actually looking at yourself. you are looking at all the ways you reject yourself, withhold from yourself, are blind to the value of your own gifts. you are looking at all the ways you believe you should suffer. you are looking at all the ways you betray or withhold the truth from yourself. you are looking at all the ways you make yourself feel small. you are looking at all the ways you rob yourself or waste your own time.

this means that the fastest and surest way to fix your experience of the world is to fix your experience of yourself. you are going to seek, find and stop abandoning the wounded parts within you that are in pain. they just want you to accept the truth so they can return you to your truth. the only way out is through, and the only way through is felt.

this is what will fix your experience of the world. you’ll stop accepting pain for yourself, and that is how you will stop accepting pain from others. your life will right itself. once you toss your walkie-talkie in the trash, the negativity people broadcast will stop having anything to do with you. it will just be there, like a radio station you don’t listen to anymore: you know it’s still there but you no longer play it for yourself. God only knows how many people are still tuning in for more. maybe they all fell asleep with the wrong station on and that’s what has been making nightmares of their dreams?

143

trouble with gratitude.

are you struggling with gratitude? that’s ok. don’t force it. gratitude isn’t meant to gaslight yourself or spiritually bypass the human condition. you have to know that when gratitude refuses to be summoned, there’s a hidden truth that must first come forward.

you cannot be grateful for a lie (sorry.) you cannot be grateful for pain until you understand the truth behind it. and yes, pain is always trying to tell you a truth: something hurts; you must find out why. you have to dig out the shrapnel, no matter how deep it’s lodged. and sometimes you have to go so deep to find it that when you do, you look at it like it’s gold. and guess what, it is. because you won’t heal, the truth won’t be revealed, until it’s out.

no one is glad to be hurt, disappointed, abandoned, excluded or rejected by the world; this all goes against the survival drive of your body consciousness. if it were rational or second-nature to “turn the other cheek” they wouldn’t be preaching it in holy books. no. the purpose, the assignment of embodiment is to experience and understand polarity. everyone is going to have to figure out how their soul consciousness gets along with the body consciousness, how to balance and unify the masculine and feminine energies within. entropy and harmony do a dance. so the world will hurt. it will register in your body consciousness. and then it’s up to you to understand the soul-level truth behind it. and what’s that now? it sounds like this:

those who forgo the beauty of your light and energy do so in your service – to help you understand your value and to teach you discernment. that is why you must bless those who reject you: because they agreed to go without for your benefit and to their own detriment. rejection is the lie that you are unworthy.

those who attack or abandon you do so in your service – to help you understand that you were always whole and to give you the opportunity to choose yourself. that is why you must bless those who harm you: because they agreed to awaken your strength, and the only person who benefits from that is you. wounds give the illusion that you can be broken, when your truth is your sovereignty.

142

the main character.

you’re playing a role. this is your character. do you love her? do you know what she carries in her pockets? in her heart? do you know what she likes? what makes her laugh? smile? and cry? this is the person, the body the universe gave to you this time. it’s your job to explore her entire arc: does she go from villain to hero? strong to soft? does she rise, only to fall? what is her story?

you get to live it. you bring her to life through embodiment. you get to bring the audience into her world so they can see through her eyes, feel her heart beat and witness what is meant to unfold for her. she is not you, but you get to cry her tears, experience her joy and share in her losses.

life is a mystery and a longing that we all live together; the entire production is the divine playing a game called, “8 billion people.” why? because God is lonely. just as you are. God wants what you want: to experience what is available to us in contrast and density. God has everything; is everything. so the only way to live and die is to pretend that they’re different. the only way to give and receive is to split the one thing into two, if only for a moment in time. the only way to love is to forget, so we can allow ourselves to remember.

we agree to forget the divinity within and then we will seek it out in others before we allow ourselves to return home. and here’s the thing: it’s easy to get lost. for the set pieces and dramatic cues to feel more real than the truth. some scenes are incredibly long and difficult, while others are too beautiful to be so short. the assignment is to feel it all. for you, for your character, and for the audience. none of it exists without you. that’s what makes it all so beautiful.

141

what we agreed.

life’s curriculum is not to learn new things, but rather, to remember what we agreed to forget upon arrival. life on earth is dense. embodiment is dense. we forget that we are whole, we forget that we are loved, we forget that we are divinely held and protected.

we are taught to chase so we can remember alignment. we are taught lack so we can remember that abundance is within. we are taught to doubt and worry so we can remember where it is safe to place our trust, faith and certainty. we are taught to feel empty and alone to remember that all is one, everything is good, and that the present moment is complete.

we explore the limits of body consciousness so we can remember that our soul consciousness exists beyond space and time. the mind speaks through the body, the soul speaks through the heart, and we are here because the soul wanted free will to bravely express itself through the body.

you already know what’s true. the assignment is the embodiment: to know it in the dark, in the silence, in this body. to remember what’s real; even when it’s hard, especially when it’s hard. that’s how the body learns what the soul has always known. pain is the signal that it’s time to remember what’s true. do you know the phrase, “to hell and back?” back to where? nobody ever says and everybody just assumes it’s “back to earth.” it’s not. the answer is: “to heaven.”

140

a different surrender.

we have to bless everyone and everything that in this moment, is helping us turn unknown weaknesses into known strengths. it’s the same as in the gym: exercise shows us that where we are weak today is where tomorrow we will be strong.

pain, delay, disappointment and lack of clarity are not meant to be numbed; they are clear internal signals that things need to change and that we’re ready to step forward, not shrink back. we are meant to transform our triggers into release and relief. trying situations are meant to reveal to us our power to heal what is ready to be healed.

so do you want to be right or do you want to be free? do you want to be right about what is hurting your feelings? or do you want to be free of it? just pretend that nothing and no one will change before you do. if we treat each day like a different surrender, giving everything over to God is just another way of affirming that we trust the divinity within, knowing it is the same divinity that flows all around us. the prayer sounds like this: i am here. i am me. i am in a body. it’s not for a long time. it will be over soon.

this is how we give up what we don’t want instead of defending or controlling. we remember that life is continually unfolding. if you’re having problems, don’t defend the problems. if something feels bad, do not ignore or deny your part in it. it’s a process. and the becoming is painful because it only happens through unbecoming. they don’t tell you that reaching for life and for the light actually feels like death. the old you must die so that the new you can live.

139

this is the gate.

every person and situation that cannot meet your needs is the gate through which the people, places and things that do - will enter to meet you.

these limitations are meant to heal and transform your need to be met by the world (the external) into the power to build your own world and meet your own needs (internally) so by the time the external world rises to meet you, you don’t need it to; you’re not homeless. you have already built your own world, your own home within yourself.

this is the only way you will fully and finally receive what is meant for you. you receive when it is no longer rescue. you receive when it no longer feels required. you receive when you surrender, when you rise. receiving is resonance. when your heart’s desire manifests, this is the energy of alignment. and this is how you can love everything that feels lonely and terrible and misaligned in the moment. this is how you can love all the homes that couldn’t hold you, all the hearts you couldn’t make a home in. see it as a gate. see it as the beautiful wrapping paper that packages your gift.

other people’s limitations are your gifts to yourself; they are the path leading you back to yourself. and also, you signed up for it to be exactly this way. seems strange but that’s how it works. what you want isn’t the gift. what you don’t want isn’t the gift. you are the gift, always. when you want what doesn’t want you, when what you want isn’t here yet, this is the exact gate it comes through. this gate is the threshold you cross to become the version of yourself that can hold everything you didn’t get so that you can hold everything you’re getting.

138

winning the game.

what’s more powerful? “i believe in myself” or “i believe in God”? what’s powerful is when you realize you’re saying the same thing. it can take many years of embodiment to separate the two ideas, to know one before the other, and to finally understand how they come together. it sounds like this: “i believe in the divinity that flows within me and all around.”

it’s in the space between doing and being that we can begin to conceptualize divinity as a level of consciousness where doing and being are the same; doing = being, and the doing is the being. it’s only on earth and in the human experience that action can be surrender. this is special. and the key is not even intention; it’s in the level of consciousness. are we holding the body consciousness together with our soul consciousness? or are we prioritizing one over the other?

finding and maintaining this balance is the entire assignment. life on earth gives the illusion of duality even though everything is the same and all is one. the game must be played and it was meant to be enjoyed. now, is it meant to be won? perhaps not. but after a while, you might be content to believe that winning the game is really more like ending the game, which is what happens once you become the version of yourself that steps out of the game to help the other players who are still in it.

137

only two.

there are only two jobs: keep people comfortable or make people uncomfortable. which one did you get? there is not an easier one: both are hard. both take a position with respect to the dissonance that surrounds us all.

one job is to bring it to the front and give it a name. the other job is to push it back and down and make it small — maybe even pretend like it doesn’t exist. this is lots of people’s job, and everyone on this team gets to have each other. sometimes it’s even fun (probably) to act like there is no game, no field, and that we don’t have two teams in different colors with opposing goals. on the other hand, those whose job it is to “make people uncomfortable” come to understand the assignment just as they are beginning to realize they can’t even switch teams — no matter how hard they try and no matter how hard anyone might want it. this is difficult. and they are vastly outnumbered.

now, while self-sacrifice is inherent to “keep people comfortable,” it is not necessary to “make people uncomfortable.” you don’t need to make people look in the mirror. you don’t need them to change. it’s probably easier if they didn’t, to be honest. you’re not responsible for the outcome. you just need to be the mirror. when you are yourself, you show people to themselves, and that is the entire job of “make people uncomfortable.” meanwhile, the other side is meant to stop any and all “make people uncomfortable.” they are entirely responsible for achieving and maintaining the desired outcome of “keep people comfortable.”

we will all eventually find out which job we have landed. and it’s up to us to make sure we are running in the right direction.

136

only if it is unconditional.

how do you know someone loves you? they do what they’re supposed to do for you because they want to and because it makes them feel good to see you happy.

how do you know you love you? you do what you’re supposed to do for you because you want to and because it makes you feel good to see you happy. seems harder when we say it that way, isn’t it? of course it’s easier to make the grocery list when it’s you shopping the shelves instead of you shopping within yourself. let’s make the list anyway.

i want to be loved in all these ways, by (becoming) someone who: i can trust –not because they are perfect– but because they are human and they’ve taught me that i am safe to shed my armor and stay in my body, sits with me even when and especially when my feelings are too big, gives me the space to figure out what’s right for me, takes the time to honor my needs even when no one else will, encourages me to shine, protects my energy with respect and reverence, knows how lucky they are that i am me and not anyone else, wants to spend time with me because they’re curious what it’s like to be me and because it seems pretty fun, doesn’t let me turn away from the mirror even if i don’t like what i see, reminds me that i don’t need a mirror to know i exist and that i matter, is patient with me even as i slowly outgrow all the ways i have been inclined to seek or fix or serve or shrink or give myself away to anything or anyone outside of me, blesses my journey with kindness and compassion, chooses me because i am already chosen.