I have found that the key to self-esteem is the separation of identity and behavior. I am spirit, we are all spirit, therefore consistently good in our essence. Our behavior is our ability to manifest our potential at any given time, which is constantly changing and evolving. I have experienced and observed that when we are in touch with our essential goodness, our behaviors improve, potential develops and most importantly we feel no lack, no longing and no need to prove ourselves. Life becomes all about creativity, learning, and loving.
Journal
Take Action: Try Movement
Resentment is a barometer telling us we need to make a change. The change can be an attitude change or taking a new action. The third eye can help with discernment. It can be easiest to start with an attitude change. However, if sustaining a more positive perspective becomes very difficult then take action.
Another way to think about this is that resentment is a stagnation like a log jam, with movement the stagnation breaks up. First try internal movement, if the log jam persists try external movement. Movement support health, growth, and well being.
Be the Emotional Standard
Strengthen the attitude, “Given what is, what am I to do.” Donʼt expect harmony in the external situation. Be the light, be the emotional standard, instead of looking for it elsewhere.
Work to sustain a positive inner environment regardless of circumstance. Be like an iceberg majority under the water, minority exposed to the outer environment. This is the image I use to describe a deep, stable inner life that supports the outer life of daily details, challenges, and expression.
Choose Compassion
Compassion is the pinnacle spiritual principle, so inclusive of other principles, such as peace, balance, acceptance, loving quality, openness and positivity. Hold the vision of being compassionate in all circumstances.
When we donʼt know what to do in a situation, we can always go to compassion. From focus on compassion we go deeper then the surface of events, which can move us out of fear and reaction into wholeness and appropriate action. What we focus on is what we develop.
Find Inspiration in Your Everyday
Make an inspiration list, see it as a tool. What always inspires you? What sometimes inspires you? Weave inspiration into your everyday, flowers on your table, dancing in the living room to your favorite music, helping children, flying an airplane. The power of inspiration shouldnʼt be underestimated. It has the power to keep us feeling connected and glad to be alive. Just remember that everyoneʼs inspiration list is unique. Understanding what inspires another is a key to forming a close relationship.
Integrate Letting Go Into Everything
Integrating letting go into everything – the more we practice letting go of attachments, the more easily we can stay focused in the third eye, the easier it is to take appropriate action. My guides say, “If there isn’t acceptance of where you are, it keeps you there.” Letting go of attachments brings us to acceptance of what is. Then we can decide what to do from balance.
Focus on Essence in the Midst of Daily Life
Many years ago I was driving up route 91 into beautiful scenic Vermont when my guide gently whispered to me, “If you want to be truly happy, you must learn to love all people.”
He did not mean that I should invite everyone home for dinner or even that I should necessarily like peopleʼs behavior. But rather develop the ability to perceive the remarkable spiritual essence that resides in everyone, a drunk on the street, a new born baby, an annoying check out clerk, and of course myself in the bathroom mirror.
It is quite easy to feel love when we see and feel the spirit in ourselves and others. After all in our essence we are all quite amazing. Focusing on essence in the midst of daily life is a perception that brings about a feeling of connection and I believe that feeling connected is a key to happiness.
Balancing Between Destiny and Choice
Many people in spiritual circles believe that they can create their own reality, while others believe that our lives are destined. These contradictory philosophies can be quite confusing. My guides say that there is both creative choice and destiny and that some people have more destiny in their lives and others have more creative freedom. I say, “Some people have a long leash life, while others have a short leash life.”
One approach is not more important then the other, it is simply that different lessons apply. A person with more destiny has lessons surrounding patience, trust, timing, while a person with more creative choice is learning to be proactive, confident, powerful. You can use the third eye and meditation to help you attune to your life situations to determine whether to follow the destiny or create new opportunities. We actually each have some destiny and some choice, wisdom helps us tell the difference. I have had a lot of choice in interior decorating, but not much choice in my career.
Aim for Growth, not Happiness
The state of openness to the free will choice of others naturally brings us to compassion, out of reaction and into the process of growth. Do not be afraid of the imbalances of others as this is why we’ve come to the earth, to learn, to see, to actualize. It’s important to learn to wish growth rather than happiness. Happiness is the arrival, growth is the process. Most people are not ready to arrive yet; so wish growth.
Wise Education through the Chakra System
My approach to learning about the chakras was inspired by French child psychologist Jean Piaget. When I was in college I thought I was going to be a child psychologist and when reading Piaget I was inspired to learn that he began his interest and theories about child psychology through the observation of the development of his own children. I decided when I had children to begin to gather information about human development through my watching as well, but because I had a natural clairvoyance since childhood my examination included watching energy patterns in the chakra system.
Because of my interest in children and education I am thrilled to be partnering with Creative Lives Director Maureen Burford. Maureen is integrating concepts and techniques from my chakra book into her training of educators and programming for youth. Together we are working on “A Framework for Wise Education: Based on the Chakra System.”
Back to Basics
My guides say, “When you are having a hard time go back to basics.” The basics they refer to include the disciplines of the body, mind, and spirit. Make sure you get enough sleep, eat well, and get some exercise. Create some order, pay bills, fold laundry, work on a project. Do some meditation, cultivate positive attitudes, and of course use your third eye! When our disciplines are strong we feel more stable in our lives and less overwhelmed. Putting the work in – pays off. My guides also say, “Be as disciplined as you can and as spontaneous.” Together they are a wining combination.
Relationships as Enhancements
Our cultural conditioning emphasizes that we as individuals are not whole or ok if we are not in a partnered relationship. This prevailing social attitude fosters feelings of neediness or sometimes desperation for partnership, as well as creating confused expectations within existing relationships. The affirmation “I am whole and complete in myself. I do not need another to complete me. I come together to share, to learn, to love and create,” when repeated can help antidote our negative conditioning, while healing the identity chakra. Then relationship becomes an enhancement rather than a necessity. This attitude change has wonderful far reaching ramifications.
Forming Healthy Synergy
The knowledge from the intellect, the clarity of the third eye, and the feelings from the solar plexus should work together to form a healthy synergy and attuned choices.
The Heart is a Radiator
I cannot emphasize too much that the heart chakra is the center of love not the center of discernment. Individuals having difficulty making life decisions are often advised to “follow their heart.” Doing so is a problem if a person is focused and operating from the solar plexus chakra rather than the third eye, for then the heart chakra will function as an emotional, reactionary, or needy center, which prevents the heart from giving a clear message. Like the sun that shines on my lawn and yours, the heart radiates without discrimination. “The heart is a radiator not a discriminator.”
I am Spirit
When we cultivate an “I am Spirit” consciousness, a by product becomes comfort with personal power and the throat chakra opens and expands. However, often people are afraid to claim their power because they are afraid of either taking responsibility for or accepting the consequence of their actions. Yet if sensitive people do not “speak up” but remain intimidated, they relinquish power to less compassionate or thoughtless individuals.
Activating the Third Eye
An open crown chakra without the use of the third eye can actually be dangerous. Like an open trusting child who goes home with a stranger. Without the discernment and wisdom of the third eye, the opened crown chakra will promote trust in life but without discrimination, and thus blind faith can occur. You can see this pattern of blind faith in many kinds of people who follow specific religious doctrines without questioning the accuracy and appropriateness of the information.
The third eye is like a minerʼs light on the forehead, illuminating each individualʼs life path in the midst of the worldʼs confusion and complexity. The third eye is activated through focus and concentration.
The “Key to Happiness” Chakra
I call the crown chakra “the key to happiness,” for when it is open one experiences expansion and joy. When the crown chakra is open, the feeling that life is good naturally occurs and depression and other painful emotions are alleviated. There exists a sense of trust that experiences have value and purpose – even difficult ones – and that one’s life is a part of a larger evolutionary plan. Inspiration, trust, devotion, and spontaneity all open the crown chakra creating a feeling of spiritual connection.
Death is Not an End
When we remember that we are Spirit and human then it becomes natural to accept that death is a continuation of life. In our culture, death is commonly viewed as an ending, rather than a completion of one phase and the entering into a new chapter of existence. The awareness that death is not an end allows for greater enjoyment of the entire process of life, including the transition into the spiritual world.
Spirit and the Human Condition
Some people fall in love with potential. The Spirit is magnificent and simple and can be grasped in a flash. The human self is complicated and has many sides and takes time to know. The human condition has enormous complexity. How many different moods, feelings, interactions, and events take place for each of us on just one day? And this happens the world over, for the billions of people in it. All this complexity and variety makes up the human condition.
To understand someone we encounter, we need to see the person’s Spirit and the person’s human condition, we need to see them together. The same holds true if we want to understand ourselves. We need to see our Spirit, which is our essence and potential and our human expression, which is our stage of awareness and actualization at the time.
Seeing Spirit
Many of us are not aware of Spirit because we have been conditioned not to look for it. In our childhood, we were taught to focus on, identify, and name objects, and to look on the surface at how people appear in the world. What you are conditioned to focus on is what you see. We usually were not taught to see the light and energy around objects or to perceive the inner life of people. To see Spirit, we basically need to change our focus, as trivial as that may sound. Then when you concentrate on seeing beneath the surface at the essence, the Spirit, of an individual, it moves to the foreground, and you start to see, feel, and know this essential goodness and beauty in everyone.
Welcome to my New Website
Hello and thank you for visiting my new website. It has recently been redesigned, with new features and ways to navigate my work. I will also be posting articles on my journal and will be adding video content soon. As always, please feel free to get in touch with me through the contact page.