And you begin to move forward on it. You take positive steps, like following up with your list of contacts, going to network events, hiring a virtual assistant ~ or buying healthier foods, joining a gym or riding your bike ~ or planning a vacation with your family or creating a profile on Match.com.

And then your mind starts to give you reasons that this is (1) unreasonable, (2) unaffordable, (3) too much work, (4) not really what you wanted after all, (5) not going to work!  You tense up.  You resist.  You feel anxious and afraid.  You judge yourself. You judge others.  You feel downright miserable.

You are on the Edge of the Abyss.

The aspects of your personality that have been comfortable with the ways things are do not want to keep moving forward. To them, it looks like if you keep moving, you will die.  Those parts haven’t been happy, maybe, but by golly it feels safe back here in the familiar, doesn’t it?  And so the family squabble inside your mind ensues.  One part wants to move forward, one or more parts don’t feel safe doing that, and inside you feel anxious, overwhelmed, fearful, confused.  Or maybe you just feel resistant.  You don’t want to go forward.  You just want to feel comfortable again.  And you don’t even know why.  Because the family squabble is all going on under the surface, in your unconscious.  You just know you feel miserable.  And you want it to stop.

So you decide, well maybe next week you’ll actually do the things you learned about in that marketing seminar you took. Or maybe next summer you can go on vacation with the kids.  Or maybe in your next life you’ll really fall in love with someone who can love you the way you want to be loved.  Because it’s just too painful to face the possibility that you might really do your best, and you might still not get what you want.

The fear-based parts of your personality are sure the Abyss is real. To them, stepping out into the unknown is like death.  What lies on the other side of their fear is literally invisible to them.   They cannot see you as successful, happy, healthy, and safe in your new, larger life.

It’s your Soul aspect that has the bird’s eye view. From there all things are visible.  Not only that ~ your Soul can fly.  The Abyss looks like a place to take off into flight.  A place to soar and surrender into, riding the wind.  When you tune into your Soul’s energy, resistance melts, fear turns into excitement, opportunities become obvious, all things become possible.

Want to know how to connect with your Soul aspect, make peace with yourself, and really move forward in your life? Join me for my  Soul Signature 6 week Discovery Course—new sessions starting now.  Check it out at www.stepintoyoursoulsignature.com.

You think you are giving attention to your partner and to your relationships. You think you are expressing yourself, saying what’s true for you, and saying what you need.  But are you actually talking about you?  Or are you talking about your boyfriend or girlfriend, and what you did or did not like about he or she did or did not do?  My oh my, it is soooo easy to fall into this trap.  Even though you may have heard a million times (or maybe not):  use “I” statements, talk from your own perspective, talk about yourself.  You still may find yourself saying or thinking things like:

• “I feel frustrated because I want you to listen better.”
• “I feel neglected when I don’t hear from you for days at a time.”
• “I get really uncomfortable when you say things like that or when you do such and such.”
• “I feel like you need me too much.”
• “I wish you would be kinder, nicer, stronger, lighter, more intimate, more independent, more this, more that etc. etc. etc.. . .”

Sound familiar? And it’s tricky because you do want to speak up for yourself, you do want to be heard, and you do want to be able to listen to when your partner brings things up.  But our patterns of co-dependency are so ingrained, that it makes it difficult to sort out what is what, whose is what, and what is whose.  And our cultural conditioning toward placing blame often makes communication and connection into causalities.

I use the term co-dependent broadly to name ways of relating in which we get entangled in each other’s feelings and needs, and expect other people to do things so we’ll feel better—or are willing to mold ourselves so that we’ll be loved and approved of.  This is basic conditioning, and many parents did and continue to do this actively and purposefully.  They call it socialization.  It’s training, and it can be more or less like dog training depending on how compassionate or aware your parents were.  It’s usually based on rewards and punishments:  do it the way I like it, and you’ll be rewarded, maybe.  Don’t do it the way I like, and you’ll be punished, probably.  Schools operate the same way.  Less so now, but it’s still there.  And it’s deeply ingrained.

Couples get into trouble when you spend time in each other’s business, and not in your own. What I say to clients (and to myself), is come back home to yourself.  What is going on inside of you that you are feeling that way when that particular thing happens?  What story are you living inside of about how partners are supposed to behave, and about what love is supposed to be like?  Where did this story come from, and who is playing what role in the drama of your life?  Do the roles or interactions remind you of anything?  If so, take a deep breath, step back, and try to see the story from a different perspective.  As you step back, you can step out of patterned behavior and see it for what it is.  You might not be able to change it immediately.  But seeing it is always the first step.  As you do so you begin to take responsibility in the sense of owning your perceptions.  And you begin to develop your respond-ability to notice rather than reacting.

So this Valentine’s Day—notice what your story is about what love is supposed to be like, and decide if it’s the one you want to keep living inside of—or not.

And I also know that your words, beliefs, emotions and energy field are powerful creators of your experience. What you thought yesterday created your today—what you think today creates your tomorrow.  That’s from Buddha, loosely translated.  It’s worth it to notice your beliefs, to pay attention to the unconscious—and conscious—thoughts running around just under the surface, and that come out of your mouth from time to time.  Because there is power in the word—yours included.

It doesn’t take money to change your thoughts. It takes a decision, and a commitment to focus your attention.  “To think what you want to think, regardless of appearances, is the hardest work in the world,” said Wallace Wattles in The Science of Getting Rich over a hundred years ago.  And it’s oh so true and oh so worth it.

So here’s an abundance reality check for yourself:  Right now look up from your computer and look around the room you are in. Notice the furnishings, the building, the technology.  Is it water and air tight?  Are you comfortable here?  Is there a phone, a computer, perhaps a television set?  Is there a rug and electrical lights?  Feel how comfortable your living space actually is.  Open your awareness to the abundance that is surrounding you at this very moment.

Reading the “Little House” books with my daughter, the Ingalls family felt deep gratitude when they finally had three rooms for a family of six and tar paper on the exterior walls of the house. Dirt floor, thin windows, wood stove the only source of heat as well as cooking, no running water, no toilet—in Dakota territory, in the winter.  This was only 150 years ago, and many people in the world still live in similar conditions.  Take another look around your room—and open to amazement of modern Western life.

You are living the result of the dreams and efforts of people like the Ingalls family—and your own family. You have what would have been unimagined abundance just a generation or two ago.  Allow this awareness to open the flow of awe within you, awe and gratitude, perhaps even delight.  And even if it’s not what it once was, or what you’ve dreamed of so far, it’s by shifting your perspective to what you already have to be grateful for that you will open your channel to even greater flow, greater prosperity, greater amazement.

Scarcity is a myth. There is more money, more prosperity, more opportunities, and more resources available than ever before.  Do not allow yourself to become part of the downward spiral of the Old World Age that is passing away.  Focus on and join the upward spiral of the New World Age now coming into being.  Expand or contract—which feels better?

Learning to think what you want to think regardless of appearances will set you free.

Repeat as necessary

But it becomes a silent partner. The kind of friend you feel uncomfortable around, but you keep going to see anyway, because, hey, you’ve known each other a long time. It’s like a blanket that you thought was warm, but really it is prickly, only you can’t feel the prickles anymore. They so familiar you don’t even notice that they are there. Well, almost.

And then you realize you can’t seem to move forward even though you want to. When you try to imagine life feeling freer it’s like you’re looking at an empty screen and no images come, much less the actual feeling. Because feelings, emotions, aren’t very easy to feel when there’s fear. Because in order to manage, in order to do what you need to do every day, you have to function. And fear freezes. So you choose not to feel, rather than feel the fear. It makes you stiff. And it doesn’t go away ~ it just goes deeper, hidden. Except, not really.

And when you do try something new, when you make a move, there it is. Suddenly it’s there, the energy rises, you hit the inner barrier that says: “warning, go back, at least you know what this place is like–you don’t know what you might face out there.”

Take a breath. A deep breath, and then another. Feel the fear and breathe. Because the fear gets its strength from hiding below the surface, being your quiet, ever present, uncomfortable, but familiar friend. Breathe and let yourself actually feel the fear. Look around you. Is there actual danger in your physical vicinity? Breathe and feel the fear and welcome it. Because being afraid of the fear is much worse than the fear itself.  B R E A T H E . . .

But before moving on, what about blessing 2009? This year has been a time of great upheaval and change for many, perhaps for you or someone close to you. Accelerating change characterizes our environment and our circumstances right now, and how you respond to that energy makes all the difference. Right now you have the opportunity to reflect on 2009, to choose what to focus on and choose your interpretation of what happened. As the powerful creator of your own experience, how can you understand what happened in a way that empowers and supports you? It’s not what happened that matters so much, it’s how you respond to it and the decisions you make out of it that will stay with you.

Select three moments, situations, events, conversations, or changes that occurred last year. They may be challenges or high points or a combination, and observe how you feel about them as you bring them into your awareness. Notice your body’s reactions. Notice your emotions. Is there anything that needs your attention—something that needs to be said, forgiveness given to self or others, an appreciation offered, a gift or blessing given—either internally or externally? What can you embrace that perhaps you’ve rejected? What can you energize that you want to grow? How can you appreciate and make resolution with this year before even considering going on to the next?

In this moment, 2010 is only a glint in your eye. You know it’s coming, but you know not what it will bring. You have expectations, desires, trepidations perhaps, and intentions. Standing in this moment, at the turning of the wheel between Solstice and New Year’s, you are at a choice point. Your vision for 2010 rests upon the way you hold 2009. 2010 is a huge year ~ perhaps the most potent and important year EVER in recorded human history. What will you make of it for yourself, your family, your business and your life?

Join me for Vision 2010, my fr*ee two part teleseminar, to find out more about why 2010 is so incredibly important, and what you can to make 2010 your best year to date.

Find out more and register HERE.

~ And it’s all FREE ~

Monday December 7 ~ Friday December 11, 1pm and 5pm Pacific Time

7 experts assembled to support YOU in bringing your contribution into the world
authentically and in alignment with your highest values

The changes are real, the opportunities are vast.
It’s all a matter of your beliefs, your energy, and your commitment.

“Ask not what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive… then go do it.

Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard Thurman

Now is the time. It is up to us to create new forms ~ new ways of doing business, new institutions, new ways of building, new ways of relating to each other and to the earth. The old forms and ways are dropping away. It’s time for our courage, our creativity, and our commitment to come forth.

I am passionate about helping entrepreneurs, small business owners, and helping professionals retool our economy around that which truly matters. That’s why I founded the New Consciousness Entrepreneurs Network. Now I’ve gathered seven successful and inspiring business owners to share about how you can use business as a vehicle to create a life of meaning, purpose, and prosperity in the midst of global change. There has never been a better or more important time for you to tap in to your life purpose and do what you came here to do.

Get more information and register for the FR*EE Telesummit

I do think Abraham guides us elsewhere than that in encouraging us to create positive visions, and feel inside the experience of living those visions, of the world as we wish to inhabit it. If you don’t like the destruction of the environment, use your powerful spirit-given energy to envision, attract and help to create with inspired action a different reality. I love this, I teach it, and I seek to live it.

My belief in it got another big boost lately. In the last six weeks, I’ve seen Gregg Braden speak twice. I was never attracted to his work before because I’m not much of a science-head (“Man brain”, he calls it ~ no wonder I’m not into it ;-O). I went to a Louise Hay day on “You Can Heal Your Life” and he was speaking. I was completely, I mean completely, blown away.

He’s out sharing a really powerful message. If you know his work, you know Braden has been studying ancient and indigenous cultures for the last 20 years to understand their perspective on what is happening in our world now. He’s also motivated by the upcoming release of the Hollywood movie “2012” that will portray this time as apocalyptic, with the end of the world drawing nigh, complete with sound effects and images designed to stay in your consciousness, well, forever. And he said so well, we need other, positive images, of what will happen in 2012.

I’ve also stayed away from the 2012 conversation because I thought it was mostly about the world ending, or about ascension, and I’m just not inspired by either. (Another head in the sand position?) But what he’s saying—and you can read all about it in his latest book, Fractal Time: The Secret of 2012 and a New World Age—is that we are now being given the opportunity to seed the energy of the next world age. One cycle ending is 5126 years long, the other is 26,000 years long—both are ending, and new ones are beginning. And with this convergence, comes major changes in our physical environment, including increased global temperatures, the melting of glaciers, and rising oceans—sound familiar. According to Braden’s research, while human impacts on the environment may be contributing factors, much larger forces are at play that are contributing to the challenges we are facing now. The good news, from his perspective, is that we are almost through the change, which he estimates spans approximately 1980-2020 (it’s not a year or a date like 2012). The difficult news is that the next few years may be the hardest (more on this in subsequent articles).

So what Abraham and Braden are both saying, in their own unique and different ways, is that although things may difficult around you, focus on what you can do to bring about the world you want to live. As the cycles end in convergence, rather than crashing as have civilizations in the past, we can break through to a new way of being AND to a New Earth. IF we make a commitment to a higher way of being. Braden advocates heart coherence, and Abraham says find a way to feel good—it’s the SAME message. When we connect with the love that is our natural state, and the spiritual wisdom that is our birthright, we have immense power ~ and we feel good.

Maggie Recommends

And yet sometimes I still felt overwhelmed, confused, and afraid when I looked at the world around me at what I saw to be the ravages of multi-national capitalism and human beings’ devastation of the earth.  I did not know how to find hope.  And that was 1998—before much of the news about global warming and the collapse of the economy!

So I asked my guides. I didn’t know where else to turn, and the information coming to me from human sources both depressed me, and didn’t seem, well, helpful.  So I asked my guides.  And what they said astonished and inspired me.

“It can all change in an instant,” they said. I snapped my fingers, gesturing for them through my body.  “It can all change, just like that (snap!).  When the consciousness of enough of humanity changes, when the vibration is high enough, it can all change, just like that (snap!).”

In the core of my being I knew this to be true, although my mind did not understand it. I still don’t “understand” it.  But I have believed it.  Believed it on faith, and made it my purpose to support the individuals of humanity with whom I have contact (including myself and my family) to contribute to raising the vibration of that “enough of humanity” to make the change.

That has been and is my sole purpose, my soul purpose—to explore what it means to raise our vibration, to learn to do it, to practice, to share, to guide, to be it, as much as possible, every day. And according to David Hawkins, and spiritual teachers around the globe, the vibrations of Love and Compassion hold the most power (more on this in another article), the greatest magnetic resonance.

And now I see it around me, everywhere. I will be bringing you inspiring examples.  For you science lovers, here is the first one.  Spontaneous Evolution by Bruce Lipton and Steve Bhaerman uses the example of spontaneous remission of life-threatening illness as an analogy for what can happen for us and our earth with a change in our belief and vibration:  “a miraculous healing awaits this planet once we accept our new responsibility to tend the Garden rather than fight over the turf.  When  a critical mass of people truly own this belief in their hearts and minds and actually begin living from this truth, our world will emerge from the darkness in what will amount to a spontaneous evolution” (xviii).

We all have choices every day, every moment:

•    To go into the fear, confusion and overwhelm that is fed to us by the media
•    to go unconscious with television, alcohol, consumerism, sugar and false emotion
•    or to wake up, to create stories and images of the world we want to live in, to energize them and take action in creating it, to own our own part (and no more), to go into heart and soul and connect ~ to make connection with yourself, with others, and with the earth,  the highest priority.

TRY THIS AT HOME
If you believed that it could all “change in an instant,” what would you want the post-change world to be like?  What is most important to you, and how would you want to see that valued in your world?  Can you draw on your creativity and imagination to paint a vision that astonishes and inspires you?

Most of us first want more vacation.  We’re tired, overworked, anxious, and just want a break.  Preferably somewhere warm by a crystal blue ocean (okay, that’s my desire).  If you could imagine you already had as much vacation as you needed and wanted.  You feel rested, vibrant, alive.

Now, what is your contribution to the New Earth?  What role are you playing?  How are you engaged?  In what are people around you engaged and what are your interactions like?  Where do you live, how do you live?  You can write it, paint it, sing it, talk about it, breathe it in and out.

Send me your visions and I’ll publish them here in my newsletter and blog.  Let’s inspire each other!

You are tired of struggling and competing and you know there’s got to be a better way. You may have lost your job or are afraid of doing so, or you may just feel inside that it’s time to change, to do something more meaningful to me. You want what you do to be a part of a larger movement that heals our planet and serves humanity and all beings. You are not interested in business as usual yet you want to engage in business and contribute value. You can feel the call for change deep inside your core and you want to know you can answer that call in a way that provides for yourself and your family.

In the next few years, and for this lifetime, you have an unprecedented opportunity. You are among those who are now, and who will be, creating the new methods and structures of business for the new world age. You want the new forms of business and new ways of interacting and negotiating to honor all beings and the earth. You value cooperation, collaboration, compassion, connection, clarity, and caring ~ and you want these values to be at the heart of your business model. You want your work to be sustainable, to replenish rather than drain our resources. Although you may not know how to do this, you know inside that there has to be a way. You are ready to join with others to explore, and create, new possibilities.

Welcome ~ You are a New Consciousness Entrepreneur.

And Adyashanti says:  what if you were to just stop all of your spiritual seeking?  What if you were to just be in this moment, going nowhere, changing nothing, improving nothing?  Just being; in this moment.

When I first began learning about and working with core limiting beliefs—and actually it was a process that unfolded over several years—I realized an underlying belief that I had:  I am not enough.  And of course it spun out from there—I am not enough, you are not enough, we are not enough, there is not enough for me, for you, for us, for my child, for our planet, and so on.  My own personal expression of scarcity.  Personal, because personally experienced and nuanced, and yet also a mass thought form.  Certainly I am not the only one who believes this thought and has it running in their unconscious.  It is piped out all around us, motivates advertising, how we understand economics, and even our environmental movement.  There is not enough.  This belief underlies Western Culture.  Egad.

“Not-enoughness” can lead to the hamster wheel of achievement.  First I did that as an academic—finished my PhD, got a job at an Ivy League university, published a book and a series of articles in less than three years, etc.  All great stuff actually when I look back on it.  (I learned happily recently that my book [published in 1997] is still regularly sited by people in my field, and is required reading for PhD exams—that’s cool given that books usually have a shelf life of about a year, maybe.)  And it was driven by this underlying belief that I wasn’t even aware of.  So great stuff can come out of ways of compensating for limiting beliefs for sure.

And when later I became a spiritual practitioner, I did go at it with an intensity and determination that, well, was at times another hamster wheel.  And I see this in clients sometimes—relentless self examination that is truly exhausting, and often motivated by deep fear.  Fear of isolation, rejection, abandonment:  if I just change, improve, evolve, this and this and this and this about myself I will be safe, loved, cared for, a part of the tribe.  I will be safe.  I will be safe.  I will be safe.

That is a dangerous story.  Dangerous and untrue.  For true safety can never come from outside approval, which is always subject to change and typically fickle.

Let’s jump off the hamster wheel into the arms of self-acceptance.  What if you were to treat yourself with more tenderness?  What if you were to treat yourself like someone you actually loved?  What if you were to acknowledge and appreciate a little something about yourself?  What if you just went for a walk in the sunshine and let the warmth and the light wash over you?  What if you just had the intention of Just Being; in this moment?