Positive Energy Guide

At my recent retreat I was doing a sound practice that generates a sense of spacious, eternal power. It was comprised of three different Divine Names, combining their energies. I chose to practice this one fairly loudly, while walking, to bring it into my body and integrate it.

Participants had been invited to use the main hall if it was free. I chose to practice there, to feel contained and focused, with plenty of space to move. Everyone else was practicing outside, or in their rooms.

So here I was, bringing in a quality of divine power, an intense flavor of longing for the Divine, and an attunement with Eternity, trying to ground all this in my body and taking up most of the hall. I heard the door click and feel someone enter. My eyes were open but my focus was right in front of me to eliminate visual cues. I glanced up for a second, saw that it was my Teacher, went “ULK!” inside, skipped a few beats, and went right back into my practice. I had forgotten that my Teacher planned to meet with individuals who had questions in the hall. He had come early.

I am kind of a funny creature. I know that he REALLY SEES me, and accepts me, yet I get awkward or glitchy if he watches me directly during group walking or energy practices. He made himself almost invisible, harmonious with my energies, soft, spacious, and fluid, and crossed the room without a ripple, seating himself in his customary chair. It seemed dumb to run out of there, so I determined continue. I thought he would want me to.

My Teacher began to meditate. He was very much in his own space, but probably noticed that I was walling him off. I was afraid I would get glitchy—which was stupid. So I connected, and let his energy in. As we connected it felt like he was enhancing or amplifying the work I was doing.

Suddenly I got so high I began forgetting the words. At first I would get something similar to the word, or reverse and combine two of the words. I was able to stop, feel for the words, kind of reset, and start again. As we flowed together more I lost the words completely. This was odd because I had just repeated those three words at least 500 times! I looked askance at him and said, “Oh no! Now I’m going to have to go get the sheet and read them!” I began to cross the room. He said them quietly, giving them to me.

In retrospect, I should have sat down and meditated with him on the energy behind the words, which was the next step of the practice, but I didn’t think of it. Instead, I resumed practice. I was starting to change it out a little, lightening it up and getting it smooth by speeding up a bit when his assistant showed up. She stayed out of the way as far as the energetics went, but I realized they were about to do interviews and got out of there. Someone was waiting in a chair outside.

This experience felt almost like a mini-initiation because it took so much effort to keep my mind and ego from butting in on the practice while feeling on display. It was also rather humorous, and at the same time staggeringly intimate and precious.

What events have intensified your ability to sense and magnify your awareness and mastery of energy?

How did you feel about these experiences at the time?

I recently attended a five day silent spiritual retreat during which most of each day was spent doing intensive practice on one’s own. Each day participants were given specific sound practice and meditations, tuned to suit our spiritual needs.

When I attend such an event, I initially feel confined. The practice schedule allows almost no point in the day to think whatever I might normally think, or use my mind in the ways I usually do. Starting the first retreat or two I actually felt panic. I also doubted whether I might be able to subdue or redirect my mind for the purposes of the retreat.

After several days of intensive spiritual practice, I begin to experience a sense of freedom. By the end of the retreat, I realized that what seemed like freedom in the beginning—like mind chatter, reaction, judging, and the various proclivities of an unfocused mind—are habitual, but certainly not free. Even using my mind intentionally, such as for planning and structuring events, produces a kind of confinement or restriction. Mental filters limit experience.

On retreat I have the opportunity to use my mind in open contemplation and to focus FEELING and SENSING to open to new experiences that have ongoing internal value. The mind is used to direct intention and to stay on track, and released if real mystical experience arises. The experiences that can take place are beyond what we think. BEing this way is ultimately much freer than we are when we let our thinking go along in the ways it generally goes. This freedom requires considerable discipline to access, but it has inherent beauty and value.

The rooms at the retreat center I stayed at have an upper walkway and a lower walkway, with steps connecting to the main building. Considering that everyone there is on silent retreat, and we do not necessarily want to encounter one another, walking around the center seems like moving around inside a huge Escher painting. Everyone is in motion within eternity, in their own universe, yet sensing one another too.

Far from being somber, there is something of delight in the way the group I am in relates on retreat. Anybody who feels like it and wants to will smile, share a glance, or send love on the way by. We can smile, or laugh, or share non-verbal humor and intuitive rapport, or point at what we want someone to pass at the dinner table. If someone is not receptive and keeps his or her energy pulled in, everyone respects their privacy and does not look at them directly. Communication is, mutually, on an Invitation Only status. I love the freedom of that!

It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to wander around in the woods on the property, feeling perfectly safe, and being able to open completely because there will be no encounters with people who do not support deep inner work. For an intuitive, the safety to stay wide open without having to erect social boundaries is a luxury. This allows for a peace that is difficult for sensitive people to achieve among the demands and projections of daily life.

I am coming to enjoy the freedom of spiritual discipline–or is it the discipline of spiritual freedom?

In what way has discipline increased YOUR sense of freedom?

Have you been in situations in which you could be totally open and be yourself without having to be anything for anyone else? What was that like?

The wife of one of my best friends died eighteen months ago. He told me that one of the most painful aspects of that huge loss was that “she was the keeper of my memories.” She had been and beside him, sharing countless, varied experiences and life events for several decades. She remembered the names of friends and acquaintances, what they had shared together, their birthdays and their family members. She remembered his personal history, what things meant to him, and the value that people, words, humor, and events held for him in his evolving context.

With feeling rather than mechanically, a person can become almost like the external hard drive on which we have been backing up our life. Shared memories confer a special value on those with whom we remember them. Losing these people can be like losing a chunk of our minds, feeling less connected to ourselves and less connected to people and things that have been important.

Memory is essential to meaning, and life becomes two-dimensional without it. I’m thinking of some neurological cases in “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat,” by Oliver Sacks. When we can’t remember what things or people mean to us we have lost something vital.

Memory plays a central role in intimacy. Remembering the context of another person enhances sensitivity, depth of feeling, consideration, and rapport. Shared humor develops through memory, and accrues more and more value over time. It’s a shared emotional context. We remember what the other person finds funny and build on it. We remember what events mean, and can anticipate response.

When a loved one loses his or her memory, the impact on intimacy is usually devastating and confusing. Devastating because our shared world may be shattered or gone. Confusing because we are left with the icons of that world, yet only whiffs of its emotional substance.

We have been exploring memory and healthy loving connection in the face of loss. Our personal process of dealing with loss varies widely. There is a difference, however, between memory and obsessive nostalgia, between dealing with painful loss and being stuck in the past. A healing process morphs and changes as we go along. This is different than having a stranglehold on the past.

I’ve seen people drive themselves to despair obsessing about positive memories. Intensive focus on the past can function as a way to avoid making decisions leading to an unknown future. When longing and nostalgia become a way to stay stuck, they drain the present of our Presence.

Moving closer and closer to our own essence makes change and loss more bearable. When we are gaining freedom, self-expression, or spiritual development, change is easier to embrace—even when it entails loss.

Learning to embrace loss is challenging, but it can also be engaging and awakening, especially if we can bring ourselves naked into the next phase that life has to offer.

We can begin practicing at any point to age gracefully and ultimately to die well by learning not to struggle to against unavoidable loss. Learning to stay open to possibility is one of the many benefits of cultivating Presence and essence.

Do you ever resist growth by focusing intensely on your past?
If so, what does it cost you and what do you gain from doing so?

What do you do for yourself to support yourself when you experience loss?

In my last post I mentioned cutting my hair to let go of the past. Let’s talk more generally about letting go of the past, and about loss.

Sometimes we are able to welcome releasing things that hold us to our pasts. We do not experience this as loss, or if we do, it is bittersweet. By releasing the past we feel freer, more alive, and more awake in the moment. Withdrawing our energy and attachment from the things we hold to us recoups this energy to enrich Right Now or invest again.

It is illuminating to consider how the losses or absences that we agree to strike us differently than losses about which we feel we have no choice. It’s totally different, for example, to cut off your hair by choice than to be forced to do so, like being drafted into the military. It is different to sell everything to move onto a boat or to travel than to have your possessions stolen, or disappear in a fire.

We have a strange and uneasy balance between letting go of things to embrace new spaces, and suffering loss when we have things taken away from us before we are ready to release them. Choice makes an enormous difference.

One of my clients (I’m sharing about her with her permission) loves spending time in hotel rooms, with almost nothing along with her. She feels herself and her essence keenly, without the distraction of objects. Possessions call out to be managed, or remind her of who she might be in another moment. I’ve had that feeling too.

The same woman, who so enjoys freedom from her own possessions, lost all of her possessions in a fire. She had a great attitude, which allowed even this painful loss to be freeing.

Many of her possessions are now hand-me-downs. “They are like dribs and drabs of other people’s energy and their taste,” she said, lacking the particularity of something she would intentionally choose for herself.

We vary so much with respect to objects acquired from others. Some people value gifts more than items they choose for themselves—even when they dislike the gift. They may feel conflict about shedding a gift that was not chosen with sensitivity to their needs and preferences.

Our possessions reflect what we feel and who we are. Letting go of them can challenge our sense of identity.

Holding onto things can be driven by trying to hold on to states, memories, and moments of life, symbolized by objects or mementos. Many of us do an interesting dance between longing to free ourselves by letting go of things and wanting to hold onto them.

When you hold onto things, why do you want to hold onto them?

What is it to which you are actually attached?

How does holding onto them make you feel?

The energy at some spiritual centers is very powerful. Every time I have visited certain places I have experienced strong energy activation. I felt somehow changed, felt lighter, and returned to my daily life—only to face various unusual challenges. The nature of these challenges has always been unexpected, unrelated to my behavior, and seemingly random.

My primary healer describes this phenomena as “push back.” Push back shows up as having to face significant challenges immediately following significant spiritual growth.

Pushback can be seen partly as training to be able to fully establish and maintain a new state, partly as resolving karma, and partly as resolving more completely ways of being that do not fit with one’s new state. It’s an opportunity to clean up leftover energy that no longer works with the up-level.

My last shakedown had to do with personal safety. When I was at the spiritual center I met a man within whom I had an almost immediate rapport, including a strong sense of safety and friendship. We also had background in common, in bodywork, service, and healthcare, and we are both truth-sayers. He also cuts hair.

During my stay at the spiritual center this man almost insisted in cutting my hair, to liberate me from my past, bring out my power in a new way, and reveal parts of me that I was holding within. This caught my attention because when I had my hair cut two weeks prior, I was thinking that I really ought to cut it short to release the past and move into a new framework. I didn’t feel like initiating it, and didn’t feel quite right. I didn’t feel safe enough. My new friend’s offer came n the terms I had considered, with good energy and with love. I gave him carte blanch to to what he was inspired to do.

Out on the beach, he cut my hair within an inch of my scalp. I avoided looking in the mirror for a few days, feeling, “OMG! He scalped me!”

When I got home, his intentions and his desire to reveal my beauty came forth in his work. Rather than looking butch or harsh, I discovered that I looked soft and open. I never got so many compliments on a haircut in my life! I had been afraid people wouldn’t like it, even though it felt like the right thing to do.

A few days after I got home someone tried to break into my house. He torn off a lock, pulling the bolts through the door with great violence. But he did not make it into the house. Push back on feeling safer to be more exposed in the world showed up this way, compelling me to consider personal safety in a detailed way. I reconsidered my related attitudes and energies and made some changes, including beefing up my home security.

In my healing practice I see push back frequently. It often shows up in the form of illness when someone is on the brink of a frightening life change, really doing it. It shows up when we decide to live differently, or to open ourselves in new ways. The way we respond clarifies our willingness and demonstrates our ability to make the changes real in daily life. It’s like passing a test.

When have you faced a strong challenge following spiritual opening?

What did you need to do to turn that challenge to your benefit?

Are you holding the Universe hostage to your capacity to comprehend it?

Most of us carry about our lives as if the mysterious and unfathomable Universe conforms to our concepts and beliefs. If we sincerely explore life, we begin to attract and allow experiences far beyond the limitations of what we can conceive.

We all have our styles of obstructing ourselves from actively exploring our potentials and ideals.

The quote (Hazrat Inayat Khan), “Shatter your ideals on the rock of truth,” speaks not only to the process of discovering that life itself may not accommodate our beliefs. It speaks also to discovering that our ideals may fall short of what we later discover to be possible.

Exposure to people who allow possibilities that we restrict is refreshing and inspiring if they are people for whom we feel deep respect.

I have met people with traits, capabilities, and development far in excess of what I initially believed possible. My ability to recognize and to take inspiration from these people rests on allowing prior assumptions to be shattered. When we cannot release our opinions in the face of actualities, we close ourselves down and judge others instead of seeing them. That is prejudice, not discernment.

Here are some fairly common patterns that arise when in the face of potential inspiration:

• Turning away from your ideals for fear you will be too hard on yourself, placing demands on yourself to actualize them.
• Focusing on getting other people to live their ideals instead of minding your own.
• Treating your ideals as performance standards instead of sources of inspiration.
• Projecting that those you emulate would view you as unworthy, blameworthy, or in some way shameful for falling short.
• Believing that you lack the time and energy to develop yourself instead of doing it in the midst of life if need be.
• Being consumed by doubt and fear, based on negative speculations, without actually opening to experience.
• Dissipating your interest in too many directions without addressing underlying distress.
• Fearing that revealing your ideals will make you vulnerable, or that those who would help you along might seek to dominate you.
• Living in pretty fantasies about your ideals and acting nice instead of digging in to the gritty actualities we must negotiate to integrate ourselves in daily life.

What is your style of limiting what you are willing to explore and recognize?

Chinese finger traps capture your fingers if you attempt to pull them apart to free them, and release them when you push them further IN. This toy elucidates a number of life lessons, such as the way leaning IN to distress helps to free us, while our efforts to escape distress often keep us trapped.

We gradually free ourself from fears and projections by determinedly practicing accepting life as it is. Whether our concerns prove to be real or imagined, this powerful stance allows us to look inside to see what we are creating. Freed from the terror that we might be responsible for what is going on in our lives, we are far more able to see ourselves, own our creations, see other people clearly, and make effective choices.

How do YOU tend to trap yourself with limiting beliefs?

What do you do to free yourself from these mental traps?

“The worst form of ignorance is that of someone who refuses to accept something they know nothing about.”  Bumper Sticker

Decades ago I worked with a spiritual teacher who read whatever I was thinking. He would give me practices to do, and leave the building. When he came back he would yell a me for something I was thinking half an hour after he left. For a few months I was on silence, or just “yes” and “no.” I was not allowed to ask questions. Every number of days, however, this teacher would sit me down and answer the questions that had built up in my mind. He answered them one after another, almost verbatim to the way I thought them.

This experience would be wonderful for everyone ready for it to have, say, for a good solid three days, at least once in their lives.

We carry on AS IF we can have castle walls and partitions. We partition off parts of ourselves and things we don’t want to know about or be in touch with; parts that we can’t have in the same room at the same time. Then we pretend that just because we ourselves are out of touch with a particular part, that other people cannot see it either. This is one of our various conceits. We try to look certain ways and imagine all the things we think we can get away with.

Our personality defenses are like a series of castle walls and partitioned rooms. Having someone view the contents of our minds, objectively and without partitions, is like helicopter-view access. From the top, all these partitions, walls and defenses do not matter.

The experience of being VIEWED like that is fascinating. After the first day or two of denial, testing, and so forth, comes the scrabbling terror, like a cat that seems to have twenty legs when a child tries to cram it into the toilet. The ego starts to freak out, thinking: No this person can’t possibly see in me what I refuse to see. Your defenses come up.

Suppose the person who sees you completely has no interest whatsoever in these defenses. They are unimportant. They are irrelevant. The person just carries on viewing you completely—and even has a sense of humor about it.

The horror of finding all of your conceits and defenses ineffectual finally begin to relax.

You then become able to realize a few things: You see how much time and energy and tension goes into maintaining these defenses. There is great freedom in this. You realize that your defenses stop self knowledge and growth from happening. You surmise that the person viewing you sees and has seen other humans before. S/he has seen minds and hearts much dirtier than your own. Maybe you’re not so bad.

The net result, to a rational person is: Maybe I can just accept myself as I am. Maybe I can relax and let these things BE here, because they ARE here. This other person sees them anyhow—maybe I can admit them.

Contemplating this experience, you can begin to imagine living without partitions, divides, and defenses; coming to peace with whatever is inside. You now have a real opportunity for sincerity and significant growth. After this experience you no longer assume that people CAN’T see inside your mind and heart. We never do know who can see, hear, and feel what is going on inside us. We transmit clues all day long.

Of our various conceits and illusions, not the least is that we have privacy of mind. As a society, we go along with this conceit, and protect one another within it. Graceful social buffering is often necessary, particularly with those who are not consciously on a path of growth.

I’ve been around quite a few people who routinely pick things out of my mind or read my atmosphere. If it used to make me uncomfortable, at this point I’m not sure I feel fully connected around people who do not.

For an advanced intuitive, it’s as if the contents of one’s mind are floating around in the room and they have to walk in it. It’s not as if they are going IN AFTER it, trying to FIND it, invading you. There is nothing to be huffy about.

You begin to realize when you are walking around that your mind is relatively accessible. Even if you think you are closing yourself off it does not necessarily stop someone noticing what you are thinking and feeling. This realization can change your relationship with people and with yourself. You have to relax with yourself or you will go nuts. You also have the opportunity to clean up the things that you are not happy about instead of thinking you can shove it in a corner. Moving through life with cleanliness of mind because you are not defending, protecting or denying anything is more joyful.

How do you react to being so open?

What does your reaction mean to you?

Life conditions and circumstances can be excruciating. The spiritually advanced people to whom I have been exposed have not had easy lives. They do not flinch from the hard realities. Neither do they become enmeshed in difficulties. They learn bring peace into the world by cultivating peace internally, in the midst of life.

One spiritual teacher I know teaches learning to maintain one’s spiritual attunement through life’s conditions and circumstances. He maintained his rhythm, practice, open heart, and positive approach in the face of financial crisis, loss of a son, and cancer, all three within about eighteen months. (Remind me not to teach that!) He deepened admirably, inspiring his community.

Those who are spiritually advanced are not necessarily better people. Owing to their experience, they make useful role models. Addressing the wounds, resistance, fears and challenges that keep us from fully participating in life is an ongoing process. It takes time, intention, and courage. And under some conditions we just can’t bring those resources forth. If we can still practice generating wholesome energies, such as compassion, forgiveness, and peaceful power, our process becomes easier.

Acceptance of life as it is is not something we arrive at and then own. Acceptance is an active and living accommodation. Acceptance is supported by practicing discernment, and developing a stream of Guidance that helps us to sense what is ours to do and what is not. When we recognize what we can and cannot do, it is easier to release the things over which we have no direct influence.

Involvement in life is as much a matter of Being in ways that make a difference than of engaging in external projects and events.

If we view participation only with respect to what we DO, we miss much of importance. As we age, for example, we can aim to radiate love and wisdom, whether or not we are able to engage fully in external affairs. Our value is not determined by Doing. BEing matters at least as much as what we DO.

Feeling and caring is Being. Prayer, everyday habits that support the planet, and breathing in ways that create a calm or loving atmosphere can be just as important as taking up service to a cause. If we take up too many causes we dilute our ability to do good, exhausting ourselves and dissipating the energy that underlies our positive influence. Living with intention, resting and nurturing our bodies, and accepting our limitations are ways of Being that serve the world too.

Spiritual growth can and does result from what we think, choose, and enact. It is perhaps most greatly expedited by intentionally cultivating particular types of energy. Meditation cultivates calm, even, positive energy. Meditation on Beings who have become spiritually illuminated is even more direct—if one is drawn to it. There are numerous ways to cultivate positive energy.

As we grow spiritually, it helps to keep power and love in balance, by developing them alternately. When love is stronger, compassion may make it painful and overwhelming to keep an open heart. More power is needed. When power is more prevalent than love, we may become insensitive or strident, calling for increased love and compassion. Although not linear, this aspect of spiritual growth is like climbing a ladder, hand over hand, with alternate rungs of love and power.

The more mastery we have over our own energy—and hence our state—the more power and influence we have. This power must be tempered by wisdom if it is to be of benefit without causing problems. As wisdom matures through life experience we realize more vividly how vital it is to sense when to act and when to reserve action and temporarily surrender expressions of personal will for the Highest Option for All Beings.

Do you feel your value when you are BEing, or must you DO to feel you are worthwhile?

How is your current balance between power and love?

From a spiritual perspective, safety is largely a factor of what we identify with. When we identify with things that change, we feel more threatened by change. When what we think we ARE may be eradicated by change, change is frightening.

Profound spiritual growth is more threatening than superficial growth. Patterns and personality, likes and dislikes, or our profession may change. We feel threatened if we identify with these things. Then, when they change, we think we will no longer be the same person.

Essence is not threatened by change.

When we identify with our essence, transformation is less threatening because ‘who we really are’ does not change. The seasoned spiritual traveler realizes that the more we transform the more we feel like our own true and natural selves.

Getting to an experience of essence sometimes requires trauma or disruption. Unless the things we identify with become disrupted through change, we may not challenge ourselves to step beyond preconceptions and assumptions about life.

Until we assimilate trauma that informs our experience, it may be difficult to feel trust. At such a juncture it is good to ask oneself, “Trust in what?”

Distrust of God or Life is important to explore. It can bring up a whole welter of uncomfortable feelings. Sharing these feelings can be frightening, particularly if doing so has resulted in painful conversations—or silences—with people we care about. Matters that involve belief can be fraught with judgement, fear, and unspoken reservations.

The best way to approach distrust of God depends on the individual, not only their beliefs, but their relationship with their own heart, and their level of spiritual development.

It does not work to demand peace and ease as preconditions to feeling trust, or love.

Regardless of our spiritual beliefs, issues involving trust almost always hinge on our ability to trust ourselves. We may need to develop discernment, boundaries, energy related to safety, the strength to speak out, and so forth, in order to really be there for ourselves when challenges occur.

I have been learning to produce in my body and energy systems the resonance of safety and of love, and to bring these forth for myself when I am confronted with conditions and circumstances with which I am uncomfortable. When I am able to create comfort inside myself, through my own compassion, I get new insights as to how to manage circumstances and events. My self trust becomes more comprehensive.

Upon what is self trust founded? These Essential Questions to Self  form the foundations:

• Am I asking life to be other than it is or to prove something to me so I can feel a certain way?
• Am I trying to impose conditions upon which my full participation depends? If so, what are these conditions, and can I release them, even a bit?
• Am I willing and able to keep learning, or to nurture myself until I can be open to learning again?
• Am I willing to use life’s conditions and circumstances as a training ground?
• Am I willing to practice bringing forth the qualities I need in order to remain intact, become stronger, earn my own trust, or bring forth more love?
• If I cannot be willing right now, am I willing to be willing?
• Am I willing to practice discernment?
• Am I willing to make The Highest Option more important than my momentary desires?
• What specific energies do I need right now? What can I do cultivate them?
• If I cannot or will not do what I need right now, what can I do that is constructive?

Note that this work has to do with developing a positive relationship with will.

To benefit most, we need to engage these questions whether or not we FEEL positive, and whether or not our beliefs are working.

Which questions are the most relevant for YOU right now?

Identity is a tar baby. When we punch it we get our mitts stuck.

From the point of view of identity, Being differently is subtilely tantamount to a kind of death. Change is considered not being “yourself” any more. Change occurs more smoothly when we do not make it about who we ARE. Simply leaning into the moment and making an aware choice, just for now, works magic over time.

Let’s use rigidity in shifting from Doing to Being as an example. Someone defines herself as a person who never lets down and relaxes is likely to find spending a week relaxing on a beach daunting or disagreeable. Changing this orientation could feel like having to be a different person. Pressure to change would evoke resistance. Going to the beach and finding something to do there, or practicing relaxing for a little while might be fine. Then it’s not about having to BE someone different, it’s just a choice in the moment.

Discerning our most beneficial response in the moment produces evolution. Keeping with the moment reduces self-conscious, ego-based meddling, and assumptions that spring from grand ideas about potential results. We may have a sense of Becoming, or visions of a potentialities, but each step occurs in the moment—where the action always is.

Non-attachment to the results of our labors is a traditional spiritual value. Applying it with respect to whom and what we become over time helps free us from the confines of identity, which is a limitation on the spiritual path.

From within our moment-to-moment experience, we cannot realize possibilities with which we do not yet resonate. Such potentialities are hopes, wishes, abstractions, or ideals; images of what we “should/could be,” out in the future.

Real choice in the moment requires the ability to call up the energies and create the internal conditions necessary to actualize that choice. For example, we may wish to be loving during conflict. To actually BE loving, we need to call forth the energy of love, creating first inside ourselves a true willingness to open to that love. Then we are able to alter our responses and circumstances.

The things that do and do not occur to us to do, the ways we are able to respond, and the choices that appear before us are contingent upon our “state” and our development. “State” includes: all that we are exposed to, whatever new layer of Self is ready to emerge, any wounds are currently activated or echoing in the background, and the energies we intentionally cultivate.

Our capacity for choice is predicated by the energies associated with our habitual states. In general, we are most able to influence that to which we expose ourselves and the energies we intentionally cultivate. These choices influence our state and our conditions. Cultivating positive influence and energy inspires a wider or more favorable palette of choices.

One advantage of having role models is that they tacitly suggest possibilities and ways of running our energy that do not occur to us on our own.

When we experience futility, feeling stuck, resistance, and a sense of impossibility, we are usually referencing concepts, ideas, and wounds that have become crystalized as parts of self-concept or identity. If, instead of pulling away from it, we gently embrace our sense of limitation—without identifying with the limited state—we become much more able to change our energy.

Changing our energy opens previously unavailable possibilities.

Real choice about how we run our energy in the moment is powerful magic. It requires Doing and Being at same time.

Here are some questions to ask yourself if you tend to become stuck in Doing:

• Is Doing, at the particular moment, a choice or an automatic behavior?
• Is Doing a defense against feeling?
• If so, what are you trying to avoid?
• What might happen if you suspend automatic Doing?
• Is your current Doing based on any particular values or discernment?
• What is your Highest Option and most important value in this particular moment?

Which one of these questions is the most on point for YOU at this point in time?