163

iykyk.

your life-force energy, the qi flowing within you that animates your bones? that’s God. you’re already filled with the presence of God. you’re whole. nothing is missing. “something missing” is simply an illusion. you seek fulfillment when you’re already filled. that’s a block. and when you unblock it, when you remember that you’re whole and that you have everything inside you, what you want can come.

because that’s when receiving is no longer rescue. not when completeness comes to meet your incompleteness; it would never work that way. not when external connection comes to heal your internal disconnection; it would never work that way. you would never have to (or be able to) earn your self-worth; you’re only meant to remember it. against all odds.

learning to walk in wholeness and certainty is the human achievement. because being imperfect and vulnerable and disappointing is what feeds the overwhelming body consciousness of lack and scarcity. learning to live in the illusion of separation is the achievement of the soul. much like enjoying a movie or rollercoaster, it’s not real and you have to let go. it’s just an experience. for fun.

when i allow myself to fully embody and return to the remembrance that i am already filled/fulfilled by the presence of God, when i stop running for long enough to recognize that my life can only be made full by my own loving presence in it is exactly how it feels to be connected to the divine, this is how and when i am finally able to allow the truth of being fulfilled by God internally to manifest externally.

162

specific love.

God loves everyone. so when God wants to experience being a human, he doesn’t have to learn how to love everyone. he already knows universal, unconditional love. he wanted to experience specific, human love. and how would this happen without a sick, sad world as the backdrop, serving as a point of contrast, so that we would be able to recognize the specific people we came here to love? and to recognize ourselves as one of them?

love for the self is a type of person-specific love and you came here to experience it. in this way, you and God are both finding out what self-love means. when asking “what does it mean to love myself?” is the same as asking “what would it be like to be loved by this person?”

just remember that unconditional love is only really available from within. everyone else, as much as they love us, cannot and should not have to love us unconditionally, in general. it’s just too much. it would have to be a very strong and special connection to withstand risking loving another person “no matter what.” and this is why the safest and surest source of unconditional love is from the self. it might be the hardest thing we ever do, but wouldn’t it be worth it?

161

all that exists.

why do we love love? why do we love the flow state? why do we love to dissolve and disappear into the book, the craft, the task? because separation is an illusion, as is time. because ultimate reality is unity, oneness. and what love, flow and connection offer is a glimpse into the divine, even as we require this dream, this illusion, to experience the universe experiencing itself.

we separate and then dissolve, disappear and immerse to discover what underpins all that exists. we empty ourselves to remember how we are full. clarity eludes us so that we may remember the truth. when we merge with others, when we stop abandoning ourselves, when the miracle comes and the prayer is answered, we see through the veil of this limited reality and transcend separation. we remember we are whole in a world that profits from urgency, lack and fragmentation.

the path unfolds. the flower blooms. the eagle and phoenix rise. but only in time. our friends leave. our bodies break. storms obscure the sun. the seasons pass. and their transience is somehow what reminds us of the eternal limitless; who we really are, and what lasts forever.

160

what is meditation?

meditation is to spend time with the one that chose you. the one that wanted to live the life you’re living now, this same exact one, as you. meditation is getting quiet enough to feel the divinity that chose you and your experience.

sometimes it’s profound love that requires a moment of deep silence and gratitude. other times we have no choice but to retreat into stillness, to soften the sting of rejection, of not having been chosen by the world. but when we remember that our very existence is proof of having been chosen by God, by our own souls, then all of a sudden, we don’t need anyone else to choose us. all we have to do is stop running.

can you choose yourself? can you love yourself unconditionally? no matter what? even if you were terrible, imperfect and weak? even if you couldn’t do any better? even when you disappoint yourself and others? time and time again? even as you find yourself more lost than ever?

because that is the test. and we can remember into the answer every time we are called to ascend the spiral and revisit the next level of this lesson. the one that asks whether you can pick yourself up and give yourself the love you need, even when you stumble or fall into the exact pain your soul called in to cleanse the wounds that are ready to heal.

159

you are on the hero’s journey.

something has been taken from you, and now you need to leave everything you’ve ever known –and every version of yourself you’ve ever had to become– to get it back.

what you will find is that what you thought lost or stolen had actually been taken from you much earlier, closer to the beginning of your story. it’s not a recent thing. and this is what has been breaking your heart. it’s not what just happened. it’s something that happened a long time ago that has been playing out in your reality, up until now. and it’s been your purpose, your mission all along, to retrieve it.

everything has been leading up to this exact moment. what you’ve survived just now has been by divine design. this is what your soul wanted. it wanted a fracture big enough to crack you open. but what you seek, it isn’t what you think. it’s not the person you thought was yours that had to walk away. that person, place or thing carries a resonance to something deep inside you. something dormant, sleeping within: memory of your own divinity, of unconditional love, freedom, safety, a sense of infinity, timelessness. they came to wake it up. it was never for them to provide, but rather, for you to fully embody, to integrate, alone. and when you do that, all else in perfect resonance with it will flow into your reality.

what’s lost will find you when you remember that it’s been buried inside, that you are your own burning fire in the wilderness, that you don’t need to go around trying to warm yourself by anyone else’s light. all around us are the mirrors we need to reflect both our wounds and our worth. separation is an illusion. and you’ll have to cry all the tears that want out before your vision can clear.

158

this person.

how many more days do you get to exist as this person? the one you are now is not who you are forever. who you are forever is always, but this human you live as one day will die.

are you going to spend the rest of this time criticizing her for what she looks like and what she wants and how she learns and what she feels? or will you meet her with curiosity, compassion, love and acceptance? with gratitude? with wonder and awe? that you get to experience life through her and with her and as her for what is actually a very limited amount of time?

time is just one way that the prism of planet earth separates the whole into parts – so that we may remember the whole in all parts. but existence is actually just one thing, which is the present, and even as we numb, run and try to distract from it, “the present” one day having to end is somehow inconceivable.

when that day comes, will you wish for just one more? or can you content yourself with the precious few that you were able to exist in the moment, as you, in this, exactly as it was? waiting but not stopping. wanting but not longing. curious and at peace in a way that was unexpected enough to remember.

157

rules for remembering.

you lack nothing. you cannot earn what you already have. you’ll seek from those who do not have it to give until you remember you don’t need it from anyone outside of you.

first, you give up who you used to be. then you surrender your hopes and dreams and desires and achievements. you surrender your pain and your loneliness. and then you are free.

the purpose of life is to remember who you are. what if your soul was so powerful that it agreed to a wager? that you would willingly descend into material density and spiritual amnesia … just to prove that you could go from divine to human back to divine. because only the light can use the dark as a mirror to remember itself. and that’s what you came here to do.

we are just humans trying to remember the divine. and what is the divine? it’s what illuminates from within and animates everything around us. it is the inevitable that calls for our return. it pulls and pushes the waves. it draws the spiral of our lives. the divine protects us from the worst and shows us that we can survive what we signed up for –not unbroken– but whole and undefeated.

how does one master the material realm? when the material realm is no longer her master. when she has forsaken all other masters in the material realm: no more drugs, no more gurus, no more distractions. when she finally recognizes her own divinity as the only master worth serving. it doesn’t happen overnight. we stop serving our masters when they have nothing left to teach us. when we are ready to become our own.

156

it’s your movie.

when you remember that it’s your movie, you know you’ll be fine. you’re the hero. everything is good. it’s all been scripted for you. you’re safe. it’s not real.

all of a sudden, it becomes so easy to be generous, to give and be gracious, and to be grateful — because it’s your movie and it’s all unfolding for you. now you can be curious, even when you fail and even if you are made to wait. you can relax. there is no urgency to the question, “what happens next in my movie?” because you don’t want the movie to end.

it’s a fun movie when you’re the star and you get to find out who shows up and who doesn’t, what ends up happening and who fades into the background. better friends coming into your life are showing you the friend you are becoming to yourself. better men coming into your life are showing you the strength and beauty of your own divine masculine. better women coming into your life are reflecting the creative flow and receptivity of your own divine feminine. better opportunities coming into your life reflect your self-worth and growing recognition of your inherent value.

tests come into your life, in the form of lack and rejection, as illusions that are meant to clarify your vision to perceive and ultimately, embody the truth. just know that if you are privileging the divine in others over the divine in you, you’re doing it wrong. you exist even when you don’t make a sound. you exist even if no one turns around. your movie matters even if you’re the only one at the premiere.

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?