I just read an article about releasing bottled up emotions and getting rid of the emotional leftovers from childhood. The woman had been terminally ill, recovered, thought she should only experience gratitude forever more and seemed to think emotions were damaging. Well they can be but not the way she thinks.

I was tempted to respond and tell her freedom is just a thought away but as I read some of her other articles I could clearly see her filter system and realized my comments would  be unwelcome.

Ironically our filter system creates all of our emotions. We don’t have to forgive or release or do any other dance to be happy, joyous and free in the moment. All we need to do is clear out our filter system. We only need to be willing to see things differently and that can happen in a moment or take lifetimes.

We never see reality we only see our filter system

What exactly is our filter system? It is the sum total of our beliefs, agreements, assumptions and attitudes. I called it a filter system because we literally filter our experience of life through it and then ironically begin to believe it is reality.

All of our emotions are the result of our inner dialog which is generated by our filter system. All of life is emotionally neutral. There are no emotions inherently attached to anything but try to tell that to our filter system. We believe our beliefs and have emotions dependent on those beliefs.

We’d rather be right than happy

More people commit suicide during the holidays than any other time of the year. Why? Because we have an image of what the holidays mean: family, happiness, love, peace on earth, joy, peace of mind, the perfect gift, the list goes on and on. When the experience doesn’t live up to our expectations our emotions can become overwhelming. Ironically we define both the experience by what we tell ourselves and we define the expectations or at least our filter system does.

In hundreds of different ways we fight to maintain our filter system and don’t even realize that is what we are doing. No matter what is happening around you YOU CAN BE HAPPY if you choose to be happy.

Listening to that quite still voice

There is the quiet still voice of our spirit, that limitless part of ourselves that sees only love. There is also the raucous, loud, demanding voice of our filter system. I never learned to listen to the voice of my spirit as a child so I was engulfed by the emotional perspective of the people around me.  At times I still am and as soon as I am tired of being off center and I can reconnect with my soul and be at peace.

When you listen to the voice of your spirit your filter system dissolves and you see only peace. You make your choices based on love and magic and miracles become a part of everyday life. It does take practice. How many years have you practiced reaffirming your filter system and believing it?

Is the dog wagging the tail or the tail wagging the dog?

Are we choosing our emotions or are our emotions dictating our actions? The lighter emotions like joy happiness, bliss, gratitude are healing to our bodies. Anger, sadness, hopelessness are toxic to our body. In the Toltec tradition the universe is viewed as a vast energy system. Law of Attraction talks about much the same thing. If we want abundance and ease in our life it makes sense to create emotions that will support that.

Emotions overwhelming?

Simply take a few deep breaths, allow yourself to get centered and tell yourself a story that promotes a feeling of ease. It really is as simple as changing your thinking. Granted that takes practice but so does holding onto your filter system. In five years which do you wish you had practiced?

Stress and the Holidays?

I prefer to think of them as the holydays, an opportunity to celebrate what is and decide what I want to create next. Life can be a wonderful celebration of what is with the understanding that you get to decided how you feel about whatever is. You can empower yourself, begin to create more of what you do want and just plain old be happier. Just practice consciously choosing your thoughts.

With love and aloha,
Susan

P.S. – I have a program designed specifically to help you change your filter system and I just re-opened it with a lower price and a holiday gift. It’s called, The Art of Allowing and the video below explains more about your filter system, where it comes from, and how best to change it using the Art of Allowing program. When you practice listening to the voice of your spirit, and make it a weekly and even daily exercise, you move into that peaceful space and are able to stay there with more and more ease. Find out more about the Art of Allowing and the holiday gift that is still available…

photo by Alice Popkorn

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Deliberate Intent

Suffering is optional

It is Never Too Late to Have a Happy Childhood

Aloha and Happy Thanksgiving,

Here in the United States we celebrate Thanksgiving Day today. It is my favorite holiday. A day dedicated to gratitude and thanksgiving. What could be better than gratitude and love? Lots of people use it as an opportunity to overeat but I love having people over, cooking, celebrating and truly giving thanks for everything. I am so grateful I have a wonderful home, a great family, friends and each of you. Thanks for allowing me to be part of your life.

As the holiday approached thought about what I wanted to give you. I finally decided I wanted to share a story from my book, The Toltec Way. It is about a village of people who learned the power of gratitude and love. At first I was just going to record it as an audio but then decided to make a video instead. I hope you enjoy it.

Here is the transcript of the story if you want to read along.

From The Toltec Way:

The Villagers Find Abundance

It had been a short, cold summer. The frost had come early and many were afraid that there wouldn’t be enough food for the winter. A heaviness settled over the village and people walked hurriedly, bent over, wrapped in their blankets, not even looking at each other. Fear filled their hearts and tempers were short. The Grandmother was saddened, her heart hurt as she saw the beautiful seeds of love dying.

The talk of war started gradually, first with the young braves. They complained about how their neighbors were killing their deer and picking their berries. At first the others laughed because everyone knew the deer and berries belonged to the Great Spirit. But the talk of war soon took on a life of its own. It was a way for many of the people to channel their fear.

The old women heard the talk and wept silently at night. They knew firsthand the pain of war. They had lost many sons and husbands over the years but war had not visited their village since the Grandmother had come to live with them. One by one they came and sat at the Grandmother’s fire; they talked about their fears, and asked the Grandmother what they could do.

“Forget your fear, walk in love. Look at the way others walk through the village. Walk not in fear. Share your love and your light as you move through the village; look at each person you pass and bless them. Share what you have, know that the Great Spirit will provide.”

The old women left muttering to themselves. It was easy for the Grandmother to say; they knew death waited for all of them this winter. Their hearts were too full of fear to heed her words.

The talk of war continued to spread. People no longer shared their meals and families built their fires alone.

The hunters went out and came back empty handed. They cursed their luck and muttered in anger about the neighboring villages. They knew the spirits of the land were against them and that many would starve during the long winter ahead. The grumbling spread throughout the village.

Finally the elders called a council meeting. The young warriors stood outside, their faces filled with anticipation and fear. War was the answer and they all knew it. They would raid their neighbors, kill them, and take the food that had been stolen from their lands.

The meeting had been going on for most of the evening. The energy of war filled the air and the crowd was thick around the gathering place. There was barely room to move, when suddenly the crowd began to part.

The Grandmother walked slowly and deliberately toward the meeting place. As always her eyes were filled with love but there was a sadness and a determination few had ever seen before.

A murmur went through the crowd of women and young warriors as she lifted the skin covering the meeting room door. Women weren’t allowed in the council meeting but no one dared stop her–she was, after all, the Grandmother.

The men fell silent as she entered. She looked around the room, meeting the eyes of everyone present, and she walked over to the Chief and stood in front of him. She looked deep into his eyes, then turned, and faced the fire as she raised her arms in prayer. The fire crackled, growing brighter by the moment, and the wind outside began to howl.

“I call upon the power of love. May only love be present here and may its light wash away any illusion of anger, hatred, or fear. I call upon the ancestors and all those who have gone before us or will come after us. May their wisdom and light be present here as well.”

The air began to shimmer and the people could feel the loving presence of the Great Spirit. The Grandmother stood in silence, her eyes closed, and her hands open facing the sky.

When she finally spoke her voice was filled with gentleness and power. “What is it you want to create? Why did you gather here tonight? Will war really solve your dilemma?”

Everyone started talking at once. The voices of fear were loud and raucous. The Chief stood up and everyone fell silent.

“Grandmother, you know we don’t have enough food for the winter and our neighbors kill our deer. We must protect our village. We must survive.”

The Grandmother slowly turned and looked at the Chief.

“At what price?”

The Chief began to speak and the Grandmother silenced him. No one silenced the Chief. When he again tried to speak she turned and looked at him. Her eyes were full of fire. His mouth continued to move but he couldn’t utter a single word.

“I said silence. I have enjoyed your loving hospitality for many moons. I have never interfered with tribal matters, but you have gone too far. Do you remember nothing I taught you? Do you so easily throw away the gifts of love? This village has grown and prospered because of the love you so freely shared. Do you love only when you feel safe? Do you turn your back on love as soon as fear starts whispering in your ear? Do you believe your eyes instead of your heart? Everything in your life is a gift freely given. If you try to hold on in fear it dissolves and you are left with nothing but your fear. Is that what you want?”

She looked around and stood before Gray Wolf. He had fear in his eyes and war in his heart.

“What is it you want to create with this war of yours? What is your intent, Gray Wolf?”

“I want to feed my family and take back what is rightly ours.”

“Why do you want to feed your family Gray Wolf?”

“That is a silly question old woman; because I love them.”

“So your intent is to show your love to your family by killing other families?”

She looked deeply into his eyes and touched his heart with her love. For a moment he had seen through her eyes and he saw what was really in his heart. He looked away in shame.

She looked around the circle and the men all lowered their eyes. They too had seen what was in their hearts and they were ashamed they had so easily surrendered to fear.

“If your intent is to love your families, love. Love everyone–especially your neighbors. If you let love be your guide you will always have enough. Fear causes starvation. Love never will. Give thanks for your blessings, bless your neighbor, share your bounty, and live in love.

“Your intent to love must be followed by loving actions. Love expands, fear contracts. If your intent is to love, be fearless in all you do, both in thought and in deed.

“Have you ever seen me want for anything? Have you ever seen me do anything but love? Would love deny you anything? My food barrels are full and yours will be too as soon as you open up your hearts and share. Give in love, without fear, and you will always have enough. As soon as fear infects your thinking you can be sure that scarcity will begin to rule your life.”

The Grandmother turned and walked out of the room. The young warriors were surprised when the Chief emerged a little later and ordered everyone to begin preparations for a great feast. All the villagers returned to their homes and took stock of what they could contribute.

The next day the neighboring villages were all summoned to share in their bounty. Laughter filled the village again, there was plenty of food for everyone, and the Grandmother smiled as the Chief said the blessing. He talked about love and sharing. He talked about always having enough as long as your intent was to walk in love.

The village shared their food with many starving people that winter. Their storerooms were always full. Anyone who came to their village was offered a place by their hearths and given all they could eat. They were sent away with a full stomach, a heart full of love, and all the food they could carry to take back to their families. Many learned the lesson of love and intent that winter.

With love and aloha,
Susan

PS. Watch out for what is coming next!

Index Cards

I’ve spent the week in Honolulu and last night I went shopping. When I began my spiritual journey I used a lot of index cards. I’d write down quotes from books, thoughts, affirmations and anything else that would help me retrain my mind. I would carry them with me everywhere and whenever I started feeling afraid, hopeless or miserable in any way I’d read them. Sometimes I’d read one card and reconnect and sometimes I’d read the whole pack.

Earlier in the day I had been thinking about an upcoming class I will be teaching and thought I would make creating a set of index cards one of the assignments. I got back to my hotel and in the bottom of one of the bags I found an index card with an affirmation on it. It says, “ It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.”

What a beautiful conformation of my earlier thought. Get a pack of index cards and get started. Index cards certainly transformed my life.

Spiritual Practices take practice

Creating bookends, something you do every morning and each night really makes a big difference in life. Using them to set a joyous, conscious intent for the day acts like a  catalyst for a miraculous day. We are either consciously or unconsciously riding the energy wave of our intent.

A great question is: What do I want to experience more of?

Once you decide what you want, focus your attention on having it, align  your thoughts and consciously take steps to move toward your desired result.

As my little index card reminded me, once belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen. Convince yourself that you deserve it, that you can have it and be willing to take the necessary actions. It will surely show up.

With love and aloha,
Susan

I was recently asked what one thing changed my life the most. I had a hard time coming up with just one. I know I started my journey in earnest shortly after spending five days in an intensive care unit, on ever machine imaginable and in excruciating pain after a failed suicide attempt. I became very willing at that moment to do whatever it took to change the way I felt about my life. Believe me you don’t have to wait for that kind of a wake up call.

Here are some of things I learned to do that made a huge difference and the one most important thing I did everyday (and still do frequently).

NUMBER ONE:

Realize we really are special. Without each of us the universe would be incomplete, that makes each of us very important. When we learn to truly value ourselves, to love ourselves just the way we are life becomes amazing.

MOST DAILY POWERFUL EXERCISE:

Twice daily look at yourself in the mirror, think of something that creates a warm, loving feeling ( a puppy, your beloved, a sunrise, a hot fudge Sunday, whatever. . .) and then look directly into your own eyes and say I love you. Say it until you really mean it. I did this daily for months and it made a HUGE difference. I resisted and cried at first.

NUMBER TWO:

I dedicated myself to loving and accepting myself just the way I am. Whenever I heard the voice of my inner judge, I thanked it for sharing and once again reminded myself how precious I am.

ANOTHER POWERFUL EXERCISE:

Give yourself a hug, as a matter of fact make it a daily practice to give lots of hugs, lots and lots of hugs. When you give a hug really allow yourself to receive as well as give.

Until next time ….. remember you are loved, you are love and you are lovable.

With love and aloha,
Susan

What really matters to you? What really matters if you want to make permanent, life enhancing changes in your life? What really matters? What do you want to experience more of or less of in your life?

If you talk to a hundred people or read a hundred self-help books you will probably get at least fifty different answers, well at least a few unique ones.

How do you decide what matters?

We can make that choice consciously, based on what we want to create or unconsciously based on our filter system, society or our habitual way or doing things. We live so much of our lives unconsciously. The years tumble by and we look back, wondering where the time has gone. What if instead you developed the ability to be fully present in the moment and fully savor all of life? How would your life be different?

Change is simply a matter of thinking differently. Once we shift our perspective nothing changes and everything changes. We really do swim in a sea of unconditional love and once we fully experience that all of our choices change. We can actually be happy no matter what is happening around us, we make choices that are life enhancing and we create a life that makes our heart sing.

A life that makes your heart sing. Sound good?

What are you willing to do to experience that? Are you willing to consciously choose loving thoughts? Are you willing to have an inner dialog with your spirit? Are you willing to let go of your limiting beliefs and embrace the truth of who and what you are, a limitless being of love and light and laughter?

What it really comes down to is are you willing to allow yourself to be happy? It may not seem like it but it takes a lot of work to be unhappy, to experience limitations, to fail, to feel unloved and to not have enough of everything. Every day you unconsciously have to choose misery, moment by moment and thought by thought.

So let go, surrender to the love and light of your spirit, follow that love and watch your life transform. You are after all a totally limitless being. Let it be ….

With love and aloha,
Susan

Related Posts

When life gives you lemons

How do I find my life’s purpose

Deliberate Intent

Suffering is optional

Are you using your filter system or aligning with your spiritual essence

We are the creators of our life experience. We either create that experience from our filter system and fear or our spirit and love. Where we focus our attention makes a huge difference.

You are a limitless being. Your thoughts are not real and are usually assumptions about reality that have no basis in fact. So often I watch people embrace the idea that they can create what they want when they want it. They are overjoyed because it is reassuring to think we are in control of our reality. If we are in control then we are safe.

That desire for control is fear based.  When you are aligned with your spiritual essence you know you are safe no matter what and there is no need for control. You can easily surrender to what is and savor the moment.

Sunrise, sunset – the tide is in the tide is out

When the sunsets I never worry if it is going to come up again the next day. When I watch the ocean sometime the tide is high at other times low. I have learned to apply that concept to my life. Sometimes I have lots of money, the tide is in. When money is not as plentiful I realize the tide is out and it will turn around again. The same is true about health, energy, love and time. When I view it that way love is ever present. When I feel the need to control things or worry about what is, fear is once again the master.

A change of perspective changes your experience of life dramatically and it also invites different results into your life. Love expands, fear contracts.

Love =  bliss

If you choose love more often than fear bliss is only a thought away. When you surrender to what is from a place of love it is easy to enjoy the moment. When you surrender from a place of fear that often feels like giving up and it is easy to victimize yourself with fear-based outcomes.

LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE. Focus on love, practice seeing through the eyes of love, know you are love and know only love is real. Watch your life fill with magic and miracles.

Times are a changing . . .

Times are changing. The economy is dicey, terrorist abound. In the Great Depression of the 1930’s there were more millionaires made than in any other time in history.  If you align yourself with love you will create an amazing future. If you react from fear, believe in all the news reports and react to them – well I wouldn’t want to live that life.  Breadline of philanthropist, you get to choose.

Guess which world love builds?

With love and aloha,
Susan

Related posts

When life gives you lemons

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How do I find my life’s purpose

That inner voice

Our inner dialog isn’t really the problem. The problem is we listen to that dialog, think it is our true nature and then we believe what we are telling ourselves. We forget that all of our perceptions about reality are based on an illusion. Until we change our perspective generally our assumptions about reality are based on the belief that we are separate and limited. We experience life as if we are our body and our thoughts are real. The world is a vast energy system and we forget that as soon as we start describing it, as soon as we start thinking we have broken our connection with who and what we really are.

You are a limitless, infinite, eternal energy presently inhabiting a body. The voice of your inner critic is an indication you have aligned yourself with your mind and not your spirit.  Many years ago I was told that I couldn’t think myself into shifting my awareness but I could take actions that would help me experience and in the process remember who and what I really was.

The judge can set you free

Whenever the voice of the judge kicks in I can choose to stay asleep, follow along and remain immersed in my old beliefs, ignorant and unconscious of the real me. If I want to experience my limitless nature I can choose to notice the voice and use it as a reminder. “Oh, there is the voice of the judge. Time to wake up.” 

Once I set my intent to awaken I can make new choices and take actions that will set me free. I can begin to consciously create my life and fill it with magic, miracles, wonder and joy or whatever else I want. The inner critic, the judge can be viewed as an alarm clock, granted an annoying alarm clock but an alarm clock none the less.

The two questions I often get are: “How do I remember to wake up and not get caught up in the judgment?” and “What actions should I take?”  The first thing I always suggest is change any should into I could or I choose.

How do I remember to wake up?

Early on in my journey I realized I could spend my time moving away from pain and I would create pain to move away from, not the best option. Listening to our judgmental inner voice will certainly help us create pain to move away from.  At first things would have to get pretty bad before I would take action. I actually tried to kill myself several times.  We can use pain as a wake up call. Once we get tired of moving away from pain (that can take a lot of suffering, it’s up to you) or we can create a routine designed to help us stay awake. I call them my non-negotiables.  Once I did that I began to move toward pleasure, connection, love and spiritual awareness.

I find it is much easier to stay centered and connected than it is to get reconnected.  So, my answer to that question is decide to move toward pleasure instead of away from pain. When you notice you are in pain take a concrete action that you know helps you feel better. I literally made a list of things and put them in the back of my journal. I knew I could read the list and pick one when my discomfort didn’t allow me to remember what to do next.

What actions can I take?

I no longer have my list of nurturing things in the back of my journal. They are so much a part of my life I generally choose to take an action as soon as joy becomes illusive. That list including anything that assisted me in connecting with my spirit, with that sea of love we all live in daily.

When people ask me what actions to take I suggest they make a list of nurturing things, a personal list of things they find uplifting. When I made my list it was a process of trial and error. It was a wonderful exploration. I got to find so many ways to feel loved and connected to that energy of creation, that loving and expansive energy of unconditional love.

Some of the things I had on my list were:

Meditate
Take a walk
Take a deep breath
Write a gratitude list
Call a friend and talk about all the good stuff
Pet an animal
Help someone else
Sing
Dance
Take a hot bath

I think you get the idea.

With love and aloha,
Susan

Related Posts:

What if I had Toltec Wisdom as a child

When life gives you lemons

The World is a Vast Energy System

Suffering is optional

It is Never Too Late to Have a Happy Childhood

It is really important to remember the facts, contrary to your beliefs or your experience of life so far:

1. You are limitless
2. You are perfect
3. You have the power to do anything
4. You can create what you want when you want
5. Anything is possible
6. If you believe it you can do it
7. You have the power
8. You are totally limitless by nature

I just want to remind you again because chances are your filter system has helped you create a very different experience of reality. It is time for you to allow your true nature to surface and create your experience of reality from that loving, expansive limitless place. So how do you get there?

Guided Meditations: another powerful tool of change

Meditation in any form is an incredibly powerful tool of transformation. Guided meditations are another form of meditation. Meditation allows our limitless nature to bob to the surface, remember it takes effort to believe and experience limitations. You are limitless by nature. So making meditation a daily part of your routine will make a big difference in your life.

Guided meditations help to distract your filter system and your habitual thinking long enough for you to experience the real version of reality. There are probably millions of guided meditations available out there. I have a number of free ones on my web site and shortly there will be a lot more. The nice part about guided meditations is, the words also take you on a journey—a journey that can deepen your connection with your limitless spirit.

Looking ahead: The book I had the most fun writing was The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Short Meditations. It contains 60+ meditations that you can use to let go of your filter system. The book has been out of print for some time, but I have some good news brewing on that front and will say more about it soon.

Listening to Some Quiet, Soothing Music

Another way to quiet your mind long enough to feel your limitless nature is to listen to soft, soothing music. I find flute music very soothing … find your favorite music, focus your attention on it, relax and connect with the ‘real’ you. Let your mind chatter on, ignore what it is saying and tune in to the music.

Looking ahead: I have been experimenting with binaural beats in some of my guided meditations and they add an interesting depth to music and to the meditation. You’ll be hearing more about this soon too, so stay tuned.

In the Short Term…

I’ve put together a little bundle of tools to help you out this summer. It includes the music CD I created with Devakant and my audio program on meditation plus some other helpful extras. The special bundle is only available for 3 days starting today…

Summer Music and Meditation Special

With love and aloha,
Susan

I wrote this a number of years ago. I just ran across it and thought it was time to share it ….. enjoy

As so many of us do, I carried wounds from my childhood into my adult life. As a young girl I was molested by some boys. At the time I was devastated. I was sure it was my fault, and when the boys told me not to tell anyone or they would kill me I believed them. Before that I never felt like I fit in afterwards I felt like a total misfit. I was sure life was a complex game and everybody except me knew how to play. When I began my journey of self-discovery in my twenties I ran across the concept of forgiveness and with a great deal of anger and judgment promptly rejected the idea. Over the years my thoughts on forgiveness have changed drastically. Now I believe forgiveness is one of the most important steps we can take toward achieving self-acceptance, peace of mind, and happiness.

We are taught to think in terms of duality: right and wrong, positive and negative, good and bad, black and white, you and me. Our society is based on the concept of domination – the society and the individual are seen as separate – the problem and the solution are two different things. As long as we view the world that way judgment and comparison are very much a part of our thought process. Forgiveness seems like we are letting them off the hook – punishment makes much more sense than forgiveness. We aren’t taught to believe that everything in life is one. But in truth we are all one, everything and everyone is part of the great mystery of life.

There is another way of viewing life, which I call dominion. Symbolically I think of dominion as a huge sphere, a womb that holds everything lovingly within it. How we view events in our life depends upon where we are standing on that sphere. I am not separate from anyone hence no one can do anything to me, they just do it. Viewing life this way makes forgiveness a desirable and understandable component of life. Let me explain. As I embraced the concept of dominion I realized that those boys didn’t do anything to me, I just happened to be in the same place they were when they decided to do something. The boys that molested me dealt with their emotional pain by passing it on to me. It was really all about them. What a gift that realization was for me! Not only was I able to forgive them but I was able to forgive myself and really see the experience for what it was, an opportunity to learn how to open my heart and love at a much deeper level.

I strongly believe that if we learn to live in dominion instead of domination the world would be a much more loving and gentle place to live. In dominion, instead of judging things we embrace them. Life, relationships, and everyday events become an opportunity for us to see our filter system, which is composed of all of our assumptions, agreements, and beliefs. In each moment we have a choice – will I see this through the eyes of my filter system, the eyes of fear and separation, or will I see through the eyes of my spirit, the eyes of love and oneness? In each moment we can choose to either be in domination or dominion.

When I first introduce these concepts to people they usually say I am asking them to be a doormat. They ask me how I can embrace the rapist or the murderer? When they ask that, I share the story of my family. The Nazis killed my great grandmother during the holocaust while a cousin went back to Germany to fight with the Nazis. Dominion allowed me to accept and understand both a brutal murder and murderer. Many holocaust survivors share that they couldn’t make peace with their experiences in the camps until they forgave the Nazis. I believe that as a species we missed a wonderful opportunity after World War II. If you want to get rid of a dandelion, cutting the head off won’t work. If you deal only with what’s on the surface the weed will come right back; if you dig out the root, the weed will be gone forever.

The legacy of Hitler and the holocaust isn’t just about unthinkable cruelty and genocide. Those were just the head of the dandelion. If we have the courage to really examine the root we will find judgment and our need for domination. I believe the questions we ask as a society often define us. What if we had asked ourselves what caused Hitler to have a filter system that allowed him to make choices that resulted in the death of millions of people? What if we had seen judgment as the cause of all that death and suffering and Hitler as the symbol of our collective hatred, criticism, and judgment? What could we have changed as a society? Where would we be today if we had sought to free ourselves from judgment instead of focusing our judgment on what they did?

Everything in life is a process and by definition a process takes time. Getting to the point that we are even willing to think about forgiveness often takes a long time. I believe exploring the concept of dominion expedites arriving there. When we view the world from a place of dominion our perspective changes and we are able to fully embrace the experience. As we learn to embrace the events in our life the problem and the solution become one.

The first step in our emotional healing is allowing ourselves to freely vent our anger and judgment. It is important not to rush through this step. Do whatever is necessary to release the emotional trash surrounding the issue; write a series of letters fully expressing all your thoughts, judgments, and feelings and then burn them; draw pictures; scream and yell; beat on pillows. After all, if we have a lot of emotional trash hanging around it makes it much harder to move toward forgiveness. Once we release the emotions we have attached to the memory we can begin the process of forgiveness and acceptance and then we can begin to see the gift every event in our life contains.

All of our emotions are generated by what we tell ourselves about the events in our lives rather than by the events themselves. As we change what we tell ourselves about an event our emotions will change as well. Our emotions are really signposts that point toward our filter system. Our filter system is composed of our beliefs, the assumptions we’ve made about life, and the agreements we have made with ourselves and our world. We think we are seeing reality when we are really seeing the distorted version of reality created by our beliefs, the assumptions we’ve made about life, and the agreements we’ve made with ourselves and our world; we see our filter system and not the world.

We often say things like, “You hurt my feelings,” or “You really make me angry.” What actually happens is someone does something, then we tell ourselves something about what happened, and those words generate our emotional response. All the events in our lives are emotionally neutral until we attach an emotion to the event by what we tell ourselves. When we realize our emotions are our own creation we can use them to set ourselves free of our limiting beliefs. We can use the events in our life to illuminate our filter system. Instead of focusing our attention on our emotions and trying to change the events in our life we can change the way we think. We don’t want to suppress our emotions, it is important for us to feel them and do what is necessary to release them. That allows us to have an opportunity to see our filter system in a neutral and non-judgmental manner.

After we achieve a degree of emotional neutrality it is much easier for us to see our filter system for what it is – a collection of ungrounded and limiting beliefs. Our mind would much rather be right than be happy. Our spirit is limitless while our mind feels safer within the familiar limits of our filter system. Once we fully embrace that which our mind wants to judge we can then set ourselves free. At that point not only do we forgive ourselves and anyone else involved with the event but we move beyond the need for forgiveness.

As we move beyond forgiveness and toward acceptance we see the beauty of all of our creations. When we view life from the perspective of dominion we begin to see it as a work of art we create moment by moment. Every event in our life is an opportunity to deepen our connection with ourselves, the people in our lives, and with God, the Great Spirit or whatever you choose to call the Creator of this magnificent universe. After we clearly see the role our filter system plays in our experience of life we often want to release it.

Until then we frequently attempt to control things beyond our control so we can be happy or at least comfortable. We try to change the events in our lives instead of how we see them. When we learn to focus on our filter system instead of what ‘they did’ or ‘what happened to us’ we can learn to be happy no matter what is going on in our lives. We can move beyond forgiveness to a deep sense of acceptance of life just as it is. When we finally realize it has been our filter system that has prevented us from being happy we can change how we think about life.

Changing your mind is a process and it can be an easy and enjoyable one or one that is full of pain and struggle, the choice is yours. To make it a more enjoyable experience create an inner sanctuary for yourself, become your own best friend, talk lovingly to yourself, and gently accept yourself just the way you are. Remember, learning to see life through the eyes of dominion and love is a process that takes time. Give yourself the gift of taking as much time as you need.

With love and aloha,
Susan

What a powerful phrase. Emotional poison …. we can poison our lives, we can poison our relationships, we can poison our passion, we can poison … we can poison. That is the point: we can poison anything with our thinking. Don Miguel Ruiz uses that phrase a lot in his teachings.

On the other hand we can also create anything we want with our thinking. It all depends on how we focus our attention. Life is and then we tell ourselves a story. What is our intent in telling that story? Does it allow us to be happy? Does it facilitate a deeper connection with our filter system or with our spirit? Fear or love? Does our habitual way of thinking take us in a direction we want to go? Are we getting the results we want in our life?

If we aren’t experiencing the emotions, events and outcomes we want in our life we can explore changing our perspective. It will have a very powerful result if we are willing to be honest with ourselves and make the necessary changes in our thinking. Life really isn’t about ‘out there.’ Our experiences in life are a reflection of our internal perspective.

Perspective = awareness + intent

Perspective is defined as:

a technique of depicting volumes and spatial relationships on a flat surface

the state of one’s ideas, the facts known to one, etc., in having a meaningful interrelationship

the faculty of seeing all the relevant data in a meaningful relationship

a mental view or prospect

If our intent is to be happy we will focus our awareness one way. If our intent is to maintain our filter system (to be right) we will focus our awareness another way. The results we are getting, our emotions will show us what our intent really is. If you are happy most of the time your intent is to be happy and if you find yourself being judgmental, angry or sad a lot of the time that was your intent as well.

So, how do we change our intent?

Intent is a fun concept to play with. Did you ever play with clay as a child? An artist can no doubt get the clay to conform to their wishes. When we first start playing with clay our outcomes reflect our lack of skill. So it is with intent. As we become more proficient with intent our life becomes a beautiful reflection of our true essence instead of a reflection of our untrained, habitual mind.

So perhaps we don’t need to change our intent. What we need to do is consciously choose moment by moment what we want to create. Practice, play, adapt, play, change our thoughts, observe, modify, play, praise and then do it all over again with love.

Questions can set us free

Using our awareness to notice our subtle inner dialog. Infusing that dialog with questions that lead us to our essence. Questions that inevitably lead us to the limitless, loving, expansive beautiful being that each of us really is.

What do I want to create?
How can I see this through the eyes of love?
What would love do?
Would I really like to be happy right now or hold onto my perspective that is causing me pain?

Or you can use the 4 questions of Katie Byron:

Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it’s true?
How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without the thought?

However you do it give yourself the gift- embrace your birthright to be happy, joyous, free and living the life of your dreams.

With love and aloha,
Susan

PS. Check back soon. I will be re-launching my web site with lots of great stuff.

A friend sent me an e mail and I thought I’d pass it on:

I believe the U.S. Congress needs this wakeup call.  Pass it on.

Please consider forwarding, if you agree

This is something I believe in and I hope you all read it all the way through.

The 26th amendment (granting the right to vote for 18 year-olds) took only 3 months; 8 days to be ratified! Why? Simple! The people demanded it. That was in 1971…before computers, before e-mail, before cell phones, etc.

Of the 27 amendments to the Constitution, seven (7) took 1 year or less to become the law of the land…all because of public pressure.

I’m asking each addressee to forward this email to a minimum of twenty people on their address list; in turn ask each of those to do likewise.

In three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message. This is one idea that really should be passed around.

Congressional Reform Act of 2011

1. Term Limits

12 years only, one of the possible options below.
A. Two Six-year Senate terms
B. Six Two-year House terms C. One Six-year Senate term and three Two-Year House terms

2. No Tenure / No Pension.

A Congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.

3. Congress (past, present and future) participates in Social Security.

All funds in the Congressional retirement fund move to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, and Congress participates with the American people.

4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan, just as all Americans do.

span style=”font-weight: bold;”>5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise.

Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.

6. Congress loses their current health care system

and participates in the same health care system as the American people.

7. Congress must equally abide by all laws they impose on the American people.

8. All contracts with past and present Congressmen are void effective 1/1/12.

The American people did not make this contract with Congressmen. Congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.

Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, so ours should serve their term(s), then go home and back to work.

If each person contacts a minimum of twenty people then it will only take three days for most people (in the U.S. ) to receive the message. Maybe it is time.
LET’S FIX CONGRESS!!!!! If you agree, pass it on.

What a concept!

With love and aloha,
Susan

A student recently posted this on the apprentice e group:

I was recently told of an African tribe that does the most beautiful thing. When someone does something hurtful and wrong, they take the person to the center of town, and the entire tribe comes and surrounds him. For two days they’ll tell the man every good thing he has ever done.  

The tribe believes that every human being comes into the world as Good, each of us desiring safety, love, peace, happiness. But sometimes in the pursuit of those things people make mistakes.

The community sees misdeeds as a cry for help. They band together for the sake of their fellow man to hold him up, to reconnect him with his true Nature, to remind him who he really is, until he fully remembers the truth from which he’d temporarily been disconnected: “I AM GOOD”.

You could do the same thing for yourself. Every morning look in the mirror and remind yourself how wonderful you are. If you find yourself judging yourself or others or thinking negatively once again look in the mirror and remind yourself of your perfection.

At the end of the day take a few minutes to review your day. If there are any moments you think are less than loving, forgive yourself and the once again look in the mirror lovingly. Look deeply into your eyes and remind yourself how perfect and wonderful you are.

Ever event in life is either love in action or a call for love. Love is always the answer so love yourself into bliss and happiness.

With lots of love,
Susan

Related Posts:

When life gives you lemons

The World is a Vast Energy System

How do I find my life’s purpose

There is a wonderful tool called Recapitulation in the Toltec tradition. It literally allows you to remove the emotional baggage from the past so you can see your filter system and understand how that creation arrived in your life. When you recapitulate you can literally rewrite your history.

When I did that I began to remember different events from my childhood. I began to have a happy childhood instead of an abusive one. We create much of our everyday experiences based on our stories about the past so why not rewrite your past? Happy stories create happy present moments. Do you want to hold onto your past or create a joyous life moment by moment? Or as I often ask: Do you want to be right or be happy?

Is the thought of totally rewriting your past challenging?

When I introduce people to this idea the first response I usually get is, “Isn’t that denial?” Remember we never see reality directly, We see our filter system’s version of reality – is that denial? Why not focus on a ‘truth’ that facilitates us creating what we want when we want it?

What do you have to lose by letting go of your “my past is my past and they done me wrong” story? Misery, limitations, being right, blaming others, feeling like a victim, being at affect of the past.

What do you have to gain by rewriting the past? Happiness, freedom, joy, a life of your dreams and the ability to create what you want when you want.

It never is too late to have a happy childhood! When I recapitulated my experience of being kidnapped and molested I got to see my beliefs around being powerless, playing a victim and a variety of limiting beliefs. Once I shifted those beliefs I no longer had a need to judge those boys or feel like it was a negative experience. It was part of my childhood based on some old beliefs. In the context of those beliefs it was a logical outcome. I am free and feel grateful.

At least play with the idea of rewriting what was so you change what will be.

Join me in my free teleclass July 6, 2011 if you have any questions.

With love and aloha,
Susan

Related Posts:

Deliberate Intent

Boundaries without limits

Suffering is optional

As I watched Oprah’s final show I found myself not only deeply moved but having several really great ah ha moments. This seems to be the month for ah ha’s for me. At one point she whipped away tears when she said she had gone from a little girl who didn’t feel much loved to a woman who could feel the love of millions.

I was scheduled to be filmed for one of her angel moment segments years ago but I was driving from LA to San Diego and missed the call. One morning I was sitting at my desk and the producers from the Oprah show called and interviewed me. They put me on hold for a minute and I ran around the house yelling, “I’m on the phone with the Oprah Show.”

At the time I was disappointed I didn’t get on the show now I am grateful. When I heard her speak from the heart about connecting with her viewers, the wind of God at her back and watched her energetically I knew wasn’t ready. Don Miguel had told me many years ago that I had lots of knowledge and that I needed to change that knowledge into wisdom. When I asked him what that meant he gave me one of “those smiles.”

Knowledge is Great But Wisdom is The Key To Personal Freedom

It took me a while to realize that knowledge comes from the mind while wisdom emanates from our heart. As I watched Oprah I could feel the love from the depth of her soul or I could have watched the show and thought ,”How arrogant to tell people how to live life!” I really felt the love and the humility of spirit.

Over the years, one by one I have taken each piece of knowledge and allowed myself to feel it in my heart. To know it from the core of my being and allow it to become a guiding force in my life.

The Toltec tradition teaches that the world is a vast energy system, that everything is made up of energy and that all energy has consciousness.  The Hawaiian tradition reminds us of the power of every word we speak. The ancient Hawaiians had very few words and none for judgment or anger because they knew the power carried by each word.

Over and over again Oprah kept saying, “You have the power. You have the power.” And we each do have the power to engage our spirit as the guiding force in our life. When we do that all of our actions come from our inherent wisdom instead of our often fear based version of knowledge. The statement, ‘I Know’ often short circuits our wisdom, love and disconnects us from the limitless possibilities our spiritual connection can allow into our reality.

I’m Sick or Is My Body Just Busy Healing?

I have had laryngitis for about a week. When I was waking up this morning my first thought was I don’t feel good. That first moment of awakening is called the hypnagogic state and is the most powerful moment of your day. Just as you are awakening or falling asleep your mind is most suggestible. It is a powerful time to set your intent for the day or to consciously choose to use your dreams.

My body didn’t feel good. I had a sore throat, a deep cough, I ached and was sneezing a lot. As I laid there I made a choice. My body is in the midst of healing and doing a great job doing it. I thought of all the times by body got over colds, the flue, healed from broken bones and knitted my skin back together from a variety of cuts and bruises. My body is the midst of doing a great job of healing and in that moment I felt so much better.

I Don’t Have Enough Money to Pay My Bills or I’m in The Process of Connecting With My Financial Abundance?

Can you see the difference? Can you feel the difference? Take care of how you think about everything in life and watch your life transform. I have had walking pneumonia several times. My body knows how to create that and I could feel it coming on this morning but the moment I realized my body was busy healing it was cured.

YOU HAVE THE POWER. You have the power to change you life in this moment simply by changing your inner dialog. Change how you talk about what is and what is changes immediately, unless you keep returning to your old thoughts.

My ah ha: Thoughts become things, think lovingly about everything and everyone. Surround “what you perceive as the truth” with a loving expansive perspective and ask questions that help you deepen your connection to your spirit.

I have known and taught this for years but it has moved more deeply into my wisdom column and it sure feels good. My body is busy healing and I love the process. I feel so much better already!

With love and aloha,
Susan

Related Posts:

Basic Toltec Wisdom

The World is a Vast Energy System

How do I find my life’s purpose

Our mind is an incredibly powerful instrument. Unfortunately for most of us it didn’t come with operating instructions or if it did I sure missed getting them!  Thought by thought, choice by choice, moment by moment we either consciously or habitually create our experience of reality.

A sharp knife can be used to prepare a fabulous meal, carve a beautiful work of art or badly injure or kill someone. The knife is just a tool, it is how we use the tool that makes the difference. So it is with our mind.

Your Mind is the Gateway to Heaven or Hell

Life is. The world is a vast energy system and we harness that energy with our mind.  We are like little radio stations constantly sending out vibrations that are converted seamlessly into the events in our life.

Yes, YOU DO create your reality. I used to hate that idea ….. what about the starving in Africa are they creating their reality … and child abuse and … been there done that, I know all the yeah buts. Please read on with a mind at least partially willing to listen and let go of judgments (limitations is disguise). Okay at least read on because I guarantee you can be happy no matter what and start creating REALLY good stuff. Suffering really isn’t necessary!

I CREATE MY REALITY, EVEN THE BAD STUFF???? HOW DARE YOU! But wait, it is all GOOD, really even the bad stuff, actually especially the stuff we don’t like!

What we tell ourselves about ‘what is’ creates heaven or hell, in this moment and sends out the invitation for the next event about to enter our lives. So, what is your intent? To hold onto your limited version of reality and be right or let go of your old paradigm and be happy?

Hypnagogic State and Intent

Our inner dialog, that endless prattle that goes on between our ears creates an energy state. If we focus on fear based thoughts, judgmental thoughts or victim thoughts guess what we invite into our lives? Guess what we create with worry, judgment and fear?  On the other hand if we retrain our minds to see life through the filter of love and joy guess what kind of events we invite into out lives instead? When life hands you lemons instead of complaining about the lemons make lemonade.

When we are just waking up in the morning or falling asleep at night our mind is extremely suggestible. That relaxed state of mind is called the hypnagogic state. Left to its own devises our unruly mind tends to start thinking about all the things we have to do, the unpaid bills, another day at that job. I other words our minds surround us with fear and worry. However if we set our intent to retrain our mind, if we set our intent to infuse our mind with positive affirmations of love and acceptance our lives change very rapidly.

Use your intent consciously and with awareness of what you are inviting into your life. Next time you get together with your friends instead of complaining about life make the conversation a huge gratitude feast. Set your intent to find a way to love what is …. especially the stuff you don’t like.

Training Tools, Bookends and Meditation

Dogs make wonderful companions if you take some time to train them and become, as Caesar calls it pack leader. Taking time to train your mind will have benefits beyond belief! It will take time, effort, dedication, consistency and a conscious decision on your part but the rewards are well worth it.

In up coming posts I will talk about the training process in depth but for now I will put in a plug for meditation. Of all the tools meditation is the most versatile and powerful, so stay tuned …. and if you like this post please push the like button on Facebook.

With love and aloha,
Susan

How does the nature of prediction change the actual prediction, the predictor and the recipient of the prediction? The Heisenberg uncertainty principle states that it is impossible to know both the exact position and the exact velocity of an object at the same time. Simply put that the observer affects the observed. So how does that apply to life and does it?

Heisenberg uncertainty principle in life

Early on in my spiritual journey I went to psychics. They would make a prediction and then I would sit back and wait for it to happen. I often stopped doing what I had been dong and simply waited. Their predictions rarely occurred. We are the creators of our reality, there is no fine print that says except for this. Psychics can see probable futures, potential realities. It is up to us to create the prediction. Once a woman predicted I would find my dog dead outside my door. I didn’t choose to experience that so I didn’t.

To observe any particle, smaller particles must first be reflected off it. When that happens the location and the speed of the particle is affected. We all have the ability to explore potential realities and then decide which one we will create. The one that we give the majority of our attention to is the one that most likely manifests.

What if you ‘knew’ you were going to die in three weeks? Would you spend all your money? Would you give everything away? What would you do? But what if that ‘knowing’ was based on faulty information? What if three weeks came and you were still alive?

Judgment Day: May 21, 2011

I recently read an article about a Christian family, the parents believe in the rapture. They stopped working and have spent all their time spreading the word about judgment day. Since their children wouldn’t help them they told them they were going to be doomed to hell with the rest of the evil non-believers. What kind of a future are they creating?

I could be wrong but I doubt that God or the creative force of the universe judges. I doubt that only one religion will go to heaven and everyone else will go to hell. Is the end of the world coming? I doubt it will arrive on October 21, 2011 either. Planet earth may stop supporting human beings at some point in the future and a different species may become the dominant one but who knows?

Okay I will  get off my soap box now…..

A prediction I am pretty sure of but I could be wrong …

According to the Toltec tradition the world is a vast energy system. Love expands, fear contracts. If we focus on love, acceptance and joy our lives will expand. If we focus on fear, judgment and anger our lives will contract. And will that prediction affect your life? I hope so.

My favorite prediction is that if you do random acts of kindness on a regular basis  you will feel good and so will others.

With love and aloha,
Susan

I talk a great deal about emotional neutrality and the perfection of everything. I know every event is perfect and that doesn’t mean that at times I don’t have strong reactions, judgments and profound wonderment at our choices as a species. This week I had one of those moments.

Celebrating Osama bin Laden’s death

No man chooses evil because it is evil; he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

I watched the images of people celebrating the killing of Osama Bin Laden and was deeply saddened. It is that very behavior that helps nurture the creation of terrorists. Hatred and judgment creates the perception of the need to retaliate.

Do people really not see the inevitability of al-Qaeda getting even? As with Hitler, I wonder about the beliefs, agreements and assumptions that created these men. I hope some day we will be willing to look at our collective filter system with a willingness to see it and modify it.

I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that. Martin Luther King, Jr

My question is when will we get that? When will we realize that judgment and hatred will never create peace? As long as we live in a world driven by right and wrong we will create a world filled with hatred, judgment and war.

Today My Spiritual Practice Is To Love The War On _____ You Fill In The Blank

Today my spiritual practice is to accept, embrace and love the people that celebrate Osama Bin Laden’s death. I want to be bale to love all the people that believe the war on terrorism or the war on drugs or the war on illegal aliens will succeed and improve the world.

It will take lots of self talk on my part, prayer, meditation, love, forgiveness, more love, more surrendering and LOTS OF LOVE to get there. I may not get there today or tomorrow or next year but it is my intent to release all internal conflict and judgments. I will create peace within, without that there is no hope for peace out there.

I do not know with what weapons World War 3 will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones. Albert Einstein

Blessed be,
Susan

Whenever I talk about the Toltec tradition one of the first things I say is, “the Toltec viewed the world as a vast energy system.” I know the world is energy, that our words have great power and that we create our reality energetically, usually with our thoughts or our words. I know change is simply a matter of shifting our energy. I know this stuff, I teach this stuff. Knowing and doing aren’t necessarily the same thing as I learned last week with my dogs.

Energy and Dogs

I have watched and loved the Dog Whisperer, Cesar Milan for years. I have tried to apply his principles with some success, ok with very limited success. My dogs were still unruly when it came to barking and greeting people. Well the term greeted is relative, if you mean maul, annoy and scare they did just fine.

Moke, the big one smiling at the camera was totally over the top. She is too strong for me to physically control so when people came over she was relegated to the bedroom. The real problem child was Roxie, the one with the pointy ears. We are her 4th home, we’ve had her for about two years and she was getting worse. She has started to get aggressive toward people, mainly the family.

Well, long story short ….. I ran into the woman who had the puppy classes for my little dog, Minty (front row) and told her I was having problems. She told me we had a local dog whisperer. I found his number and called.

It is All About Energy, Eye Contact and Mommy Dog Energy

Taking my foursome for a morning walk had become a nightmare. A car in the driveway was a dreaded occurrence.  Carl, our local dog whisperer came over for a few hours Friday afternoon.  Miracles do happen. I am a witness to that!

He showed me how to do what he called mean mommy energy. He explained that when a mother dog would leave her den to get food  she would give the puppies a ‘mean mommy look’ that said put one foot outside of this den and you may die. He went on to say that any puppy that didn’t listen probably did become someone else’s dinner so they aren’t part of the genetic pool.

We worked for a few hours, I got to feel what mean mommy energy sounded like and felt like. My dogs were perfect angels with him because he came in with that energy. Well in a few hours we all got it. The next day the electrician came over, oddly enough his name is Moke too. For the first time in her life Moke got to wander around a human’s feet sniff and be calm and relaxed. WOW!!!

So If Four Dogs Can Change Overnight What About You?

These dogs have been barking for their entire lives, yet in a few hours they were able to shift their behavior. I was able to shift my behavior as soon as I saw what the desired energy felt like, sounded like and looked like.

So what does personal freedom feel, sound and look like? How would abundance, health, unconditional love and anything else you want feel like, look like and sound like?

We are the creator of our reality. One of the gifts of physical reality is we get to experience energy in three dimensional physical reality. We get to see anger and fear in action. We can feel pain and if we are determined change the underlying energy that created it. We can create whatever we want as long as we are willing to resonate with the same energy.

What about world peace?

I have heard lots of people call for world peace. I have seen people demonstrate against war (I did myself a long time ago) but I have seen very few people hold the energy of world peace and resonate with it. Perhaps the Dalia Lama does but then again he says, “We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.”

So if you really want to see a world at peace you need to find peace within, release all judgment and learn to love everything and everyone including people like Bin Laden, Hitler, child molesters, murderers and anyone else that annoys you.

Most of us seem to think world peace means a world run by our rules and free of anyone who doesn’t act the way we think they should but that is another post.

So Do You Want To Change?

Are you willing to start focusing on the only thing you can really change, your energy? Pay attention to your energy, become aware of the energy waves you are constantly launching into the universe, make sure those energy waves are consistent with what you do want and watch your world transform.

With love and aloha,
Susan

For years I was a loner. I didn’t believe in depending on anyone or anything. I thought I could figure life out by myself and I spent many years trying to do just that. But at some point it dawned on me that every single unhappy day I stumbled through was almost identical to the previous ones. And on that day I decided to really change my life—to finally see if I could figure out if ending the pain and suffering was possible and how to do it.

At first I read books on spirituality, and applied myself sort of randomly to the task of finding joy and peace. I would spend a little time thinking about how great it would be to have a better life and I’d be excited about it for a while. But then my excitement would wane and I’d find myself back where I started: depressed and nowhere closer to my spiritual goals.

Even though I felt I really wanted it, pursuing a spiritual life by myself was hard. In fact, it turned out to be impossible. I couldn’t stay focused and disciplined and it meant I didn’t make any real progress. My choice to go it alone didn’t work very well at all.

Over time I did make some small progress and life started improving slowly as my spiritual journey became an important part of my life, but it was taking forever and that too was a reason for me to feel depressed about it all.

The real turning point was the moment when one of my first teachers pointed out that, “…it’s hard to return to being one when you are doing it alone.” The way she said it made me laugh and I got it.

 

Community Paves the Way

Have you ever wondered why so many religions and spiritual traditions have a community aspect to them? When we come together as a group our energy multiplies and empowers us. It becomes much easier to connect with the divine.

Ultimately becoming one with your essence is about learning who you are and it’s a journey only you can take. The strange thing is,  being surrounded by a supportive group and having the assistance of a loving guide makes your solitary journey so much easier. In fact, in some ways, it’s the one thing that can make it possible at all.

Our limiting beliefs are invisible because our beliefs form our version of reality. It’s the old story of the fish who doesn’t realize it lives in water.

When I first started studying with Don Miguel the classes were taught in Spanish. I didn’t speak Spanish, but I knew that this group was where I belonged. It may sound strange, but even though I couldn’t understand the language my life began to change.

The energy of the group enfolded me and helped me feel safe enough to embrace change. It helped me feel confident in taking my next solitary steps on my journey because I knew I had the group to support me if anything went wrong or just didn’t work like I expected.

Eventually, the group became a very, very powerful part of my journey and ultimately helped me achieve my transformation from depressed and unhappy to grateful and thrilled to be alive. Yes, I still had to do it by myself and yes there were always painful and challenging days, but with the group I was no longer alone when I was by myself, if that makes sense.

Your Filter System is Invisible—To You

I call our belief structure our filter system for a reason. Our beliefs, agreements, assumptions and attitudes filter and distort our experience of reality. We never see reality. What we see is our filter system and we call it reality.
Personal freedom arrives in our lives only when we release our filter system, but seeing our own filter system is almost impossible when we try to do it alone. It’s a lot easier for us to see someone else’s filter system though, and that’s why we are part of a group.

Together, as a group we can see and help each other in ways that are far more powerful than anything we could do alone. We all help each other to see what we can’t see on our own, namely, our filter system and the ways it hides from our view.

Of course, the group also supports you when you forget your goals and wonder where to turn. And we also have the opportunity to support our fellow classmates. In fact, this is an important part of the experience. When someone else needs support, a funny thing happens. As we reach out and help others, there are lessons that we would never have learned had we been sitting in our rooms, alone and unneeded.

So, whether you work with me and our lovely group who get together on the phone every Sunday (as well as online) I really encourage you to avoid the lone ranger routine and seek out a group of fellow seekers who care as much as you do about making their lives as wonderful as they can be.

The Window is Closing Soon

When I completed my apprenticeship, Don Miguel told me to go and teach in my own way. I spent a lot of time in prayer and meditation trying to come up with the best way to share the love and wisdom I received from Don Miguel and his mother, Sister Sarita. Eventually I came up with the format for the tele-apprentice group and it’s had a huge, positive impact on everyone who’s participated.

I haven’t invited new members into the group for a number of years. In fact, in order to join the apprentice group before now you had to be signed up for my Mastering Life course which is a 1-year commitment.

But until May 8th you have the opportunity to join this dynamic group of loving and supportive people. There’s no long-term commitment and the price is a lot easier to manage than the Mastering Life course.

If you think you might be ready to shift your consciousness and move to the next level of creating a life of your dreams, I do encourage you to consider the apprenticeship program. And again, whether it’s with me or someone else, I sincerely encourage you to begin it now—it’s the only time you have.

With love and aloha,
Susan

What a delicious word deliberate is. It is defined as: 1. Done with or marked by full consciousness of the nature and effects; intentional. 2. Arising from or marked by careful consideration: a deliberate decision. 3. Unhurried in action, movement, or manner, as if trying to avoid error: moved at a deliberate pace.

Imagine living your life deliberately

Personal freedom is all about deliberate intent. When we consciously choose our thoughts and actions we can create whatever we want when we want it. We tend to allow our mind to ramble. We think anywhere from 12,000 to 50,000 thoughts per day and today you will think 95% of the same thoughts that you had yesterday. We not only ramble we repeat the same things over and over again.

Our thoughts generate energy vibrations and based on those vibrations we invite events into our life. Our filter system dictates many of our thoughts and generates our attitude about life. We can continue to allow our mind to wander and create our experience of reality or we can begin to choose our thoughts deliberately.

That choice can set you free

Spiritual practices take practice. You can begin to practice being deliberate today, in this moment. Instead of just allowing your mind to wander consciously choose what you think. How many opinions do you have about almost everything in life? Do those opinions help you create what you want or do they just create more of the same old same old?

Our thoughts are either love based and expansive or fear based and constrictive. Energy is always in motion. It is either expanding or contracting. The world is a vast energy system and we are magicians constantly manipulating that energy, creating whatever is consistent with our predominant energy.  When we deliberately set our intent and choose thoughts that are consistent with that intent conscious creation unfolds easily and effortlessly.

Conscious creation happens when we stop our mind from rambling

Imagine your mind getting very quiet and only speaking to you when you ask for its opinion. Our minds are trainable. We can literally install a screen saver on our mind much like we do on our computer. I leave my computer on all day and it goes to sleep when I am not using it. As soon as I touch a key it wakes up and awaits my command. It isn’t demanding and doesn’t tell me what to do unless I ask it to, then an alarm goes off and reminds me of an action that needs to occur.

With our intent and practice we can have the same sort of a relationship with our mind. It does take training and practice but the results are worth it. Begin by setting your intent, then practice consciously choosing what you want to focus your attention on. Your breath is a wonderful tool to facilitate training your mind. You are a limitless being, a spirit inside your body. Your mind was never meant to be in charge of your life, your spirit was. Breathe consciously, use your breath to deepen your connection to your spirit.

So, practice deliberant intent

Give yourself a gift, think about deliberate intent. Think about thinking deliberately. Practice making that choice in your life and see what happens.

I’d love to hear from you . Do you have any questions, thoughts or feelings?

Until next time ….

With love,
Susan

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The Scorpion and the Turtle
Boundaries without limits
Active side of infinity

I know we are all experts at arguing for our limitations. At times I have that honed to an incredibly fine art. Before I know it I am down the path of limited thinking, totally convinced I am right and forgoing the pleasure of being deliriously happy. And don’t you dare even suggest I might be wrong!

The other day I was teaching a class and a woman suggested giving up suffering was dangerous. At first I thought she was kidding but after a short conversation I realized she was really serious. We talked for a while, I made some suggestions and clearly she was very attached to suffering.  I remember making a similar agreement to a therapist I was working with before I began my spiritual journey.

Still attached to suffering?

As I was leaving I said, “I’ll see you next week” to which she replied, “I don’t think I am ready to give up suffering yet.” She wasn’t in class the next week but as luck would have it as I was driving home I stopped to pick up a hitchhiker and it was my suffering lady. The look on her face was priceless as I am sure was mine when she opened the door.

It was about a long ride so we talked. I started by asking her how she was doing with suffering. At first she looked defensive but after a few minutes she relaxed and we talked.  She explained why she believed in suffering, because it was inevitable. I shared some of my thoughts about perspective, emotional neutrality and paradigms and she got very quiet.  Then she smiled and said maybe I don’t have to suffer after all.

Change is part of life – suffering is a choice

Change is an inevitable part of life, suffering is always optional depending upon what we tell ourselves. I have had lots of conversations about Japan lately. The tsunami caused incredible devastation. If I tell one set of stories about it I have one experience. Since the world is a vast energy system I can launch a tidal wave of grief, sadness and feelings of despair. If I choose to see it differently I can launch a wave of hope, joy, love and expansion. The question is what do we want to create more of?

But how do we watch the news and not react to the stories we see? How do we talk about life to our friends? Recently Masaru Emoto sent out a prayer request for the water around the nuclear plants in Fukushima, Japan. After that when I thought of the tsunami I thought of that prayer and sent out an expansive energy instead of one of sadness or fear.

When you talk about anything set your intent to send out the energy of gratitude, love and expansion. If there is a news story about violence send out a prayer of love to all those impacted by those actions. When we decide to let go of suffering and decide to share love instead, our lives become truly blessed.

What is it I want more of?

We talk, we think, we react and occasional we stop to ask ourselves what we want to create more of …. deliberate intent can be a very powerful force in our lives when we choose to engage it. A wonderful practice is to consciously watch the news and send love. Consciously watch your thoughts and choose to think expansive ones. When you notice an old habitual thought that creates limitations and suffering consciously choose another one.Fully engage your deliberate intent.

Next time more on deliberate intent ….

Until next time

With love and aloha,
Susan

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World Free of Suffering
Perfection – is it really all perfect
How can abuse be okay?

For years I have talked about two paradigms- dominion and domination. How you view the world makes a huge difference in the results you get in your life. A paradigm in a sense dictates how you see the world  which in turns affects all of your decisions.

The Concept of Domination

I think you’ll agree that our society is based on the concept of domination, in which we seem always to be in opposition to something. Domination requires that someone is better than you or inferior to you, that events or actions are right or wrong, and people are richer or poorer. It is almost impossible to feel safe or to relax when the world is your opponent. This paradigm pervades society and contaminates most of our thinking, leading us to a limited concept of reality.

Whenever you judge yourself or someone else, or you find yourself comparing yourself with others, or in some way measuring anything in your life against an external source, your thinking is based on domination. In domination we don’t feel safe so we try to control the events in our lives, other people, or ourselves. Domination causes us to make our decisions based in fear. The best result we get when our decisions are based in fear is to generate more fear.

A society based on domination creates some very limiting beliefs about conformity and about shame. There is no room to embrace pain or limitations; you must overcome them; you must win. The very nature of domination requires us to suffer and struggle.

The Concept of Dominion

If, instead, we shift to a paradigm of dominion, our vision of life becomes expansive. In dominion, everyone is part of a greater whole, everyone is an equal and integral part of the circle of life. We are no longer residing in an either/or situation; the whole and the person become one. A person truly living in dominion cannot make a choice that will harm another. Rather than being fear-based, dominion is based in love, unconditional love for the self and all other beings great and small.

Within the context of dominion, the people in our lives become our assistants instead of opponents. The idea of competition no longer makes sense nor does it have any value. It is a totally different way of viewing the world, one in which peace of mind becomes a way of life. Viewed from this perspective, life becomes limitless. We can afford the “luxury” of treating everyone and everything with compassion, love, and equality. We are able to embrace everything in our lives because we no longer need to struggle against anything–we are accepting of who we are as we are. A person is honored for merely being alive; no one is ever judged. This kind of thinking is expansive. Dominion can be symbolically represented as a sphere.

We aren’t trained to think in terms of dominion, so the concept seems frightening to many people. How do you live in a world based on domination and yet get your needs met if you remain in dominion? Won’t people just walk all over you? Well, sure, perhaps some will. However, I believe that for the most part, we receive what we give. When we are loving and non-judgmental, we are treated in a loving, non-judgmental way.

Finally, when we perceive our lives as lived in dominion, the process of our personal transformation takes on a sense of gentleness and safety. As you work through the Toltec Masteries you will learn who you really are and to love that person unconditionally. This will be extremely difficult if you remain in a judgmental state of domination.

So, you get to choose

Part of my personal definition of personal freedom is to live life from a place of dominion. The more I do that the more magical  my life becomes. Once again the choice becomes love or fear.

Until next time with love and aloha,
Susan

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Signs of alignment

Basic Toltec Wisdom

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/22491242[/vimeo]

When I first began my spiritual explorations I spent a lot of time trying to figure out my life’s purpose, what I was suppose to be doing. (I have since realized there are no shoulds and our life’s purpose is to savor every moment but that is another post) I often thought, “If god would jut leave a note on my night stand life would be so much easier.

When I was traveling and doing book signings for Dance of Power a woman heard me say that and was leave a note for me but there was no night stand or table.  Here is one I wrote many years ago. I read it every morning for a long time until I could really feel the love.

A letter from God

To my beloved,

You are wonderful gift to me and to the world. Without you the universe would be incomplete. You are one of my most cherished creations. You are made of love, you swim in a sea of unconditional love and you are absolutely and completely lovable. With each breath I give you the gift of life and free will.

My only desire for you is to be happy. I will give you anything you want, merely focus your attention on it consistently and it is yours. Remember always you are loved, I know your name and I care deeply for you. Share that love, know you are safe and cared for. Know you are eternal, you can never be harmed, you only change form.

You sprang forth out of love and will go back to love. Savor the moment, embrace what is and know I am always just a thought away. I am well pleased in you my beloved.

Your loving creator,
God

A powerful exercise

Write your own letter and read it to yourself everyday for 90 days. Really feel it each time you read it and your thinking and your life will change dramatically but you MUST allow yourself to feel the love each time. If you can’t write about how you stop yourself from believing you are loved. Happiness, joy and the life of your dreams are always just a thought away.

With love and aloha,
Susan

PS My apprentice class will be open until the end of April if you are ready to really change your life.

The three questions:

What was the right time for every action?
Who were the most necessary people? and
How he might know what was the most important thing to do?

Tolstoy’s short story: Three Questions

Tolstoy wrote a wonderful story called Three Questions and the answers to those questions are really a formula for a happy, peaceful and blissful life. It is a wonderful story about the king’s search and the answers life and an old hermit provided him. It is definitely worth reading.

It once occurred to a certain king, that if he always knew the right
time to begin everything; if he knew who were the right people to
listen to, and whom to avoid; and, above all, if he always knew what
was the most important thing to do, he would never fail in anything
he might undertake.

And this thought having occurred to him, he had it proclaimed
throughout his kingdom that he would give a great reward to any one
who would teach him what was the right time for every action, and
who were the most necessary people, and how he might know what was
the most important thing to do.

The answer to those questions are:

Remember then: there is only one time that is important–
Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when
we have any power. The most necessary man is he with whom you are,
for no man knows whether he will ever have dealings with any one
else: and the most important affair is, to do him good, because for
that purpose alone was man sent into this life!”

Now is the only time you have the power to change

How much time do you spend thinking about the past, processing, wanting to change, thinking about changing, wishing things could or would be different? If we take the time to notice we will observe we spend most of our time either in the past or in the future yet the only time we have the power to change anything is right now, in this moment. We have the power to change moment by moment and thought by thought but only while we are in that moment.

So how do you stay in the moment?

That is where it gets easy or difficult depending on the story you tell yourself. When we focus our attention on our breath we are in the moment. When we feel our breath and are one with it we are in the moment until we start talking to ourselves about our breath. Being in the moment is about being, not thinking about being.

Just breathe and be with the moment, be with who ever is with you in that moment and share the essence of who and what you are, your loving presence. It is a wonderful practice that will set you free. When you are in the moment, sharing love success is guaranteed.

With love and aloha,
Susan

Imagine a waterfall – a big waterfall

Imagine standing behind a waterfall looking out at life. It is a big, rushing waterfall. As you look out at the world everything is distorted. The cave you are in feels safe but a bit constricted. When you reach your hand through the water your hand is pummeled so you pull back. The thought of walking through that raging torrent is terrifying and makes very little sense, unless you want to die.

At least with a waterfall you can see it, touch it, feel it and smell it. Your filter system is often invisible. You seldom if ever see life directly, what you experience is your filter system and think it is reality. Our beliefs are translated into ‘the truth’ they become our unwavering, truthful, accurate experience of reality.

Beliefs, agreements, assumptions and attitudes

Your filter system is a mixture of all of your beliefs, agreements, assumptions and attitudes. We, as individuals have a filter system, each country has a collective filter system, as do religions, various cultures and organizations. An intimate relationship can be derailed by the individuals filter system and their collective definition of what a relationship should look like.

Filter systems aren’t a bad thing. If we didn’t have some sort of a filter system we wouldn’t have a body or the ability to experience  physical reality. Filter systems only become a problem when we ignore their existence and make our decisions based on their limiting parameters rather than on what we want to create in our lives.

What DO I really want? What is my story about this?

We never have a desire for something without also having the ability to create it in our life. Unfortunately our thoughts often prevent us from celebrating the appearance of a desire and instead focuses on the disappointment of not having it already or worrying about how we can create it.

The most powerful change you can make to your filter system is to fully embrace the idea that the world is a vast energy system and that you have the ability to harness that energy to create what you want. Your thoughts are your tools. You use your thoughts to manage that vast energy of creation. Change your thoughts and your life changes.

Washing your brain

“This stuff seems like brainwashing,” said the student.
“Your brain needs washing,” replied the teacher.

Realizing that expanding your awareness of your filter system and deciding to release your limiting beliefs will set you free. All of your limitations arise from your filter system, clear that out and life becomes an incredibly magical experience.

Stay tuned for exercises to help you experience your truly limitless nature.

With love and aloha,
Susan

Humans are basically pack animals, we follow the leader or we are the leader, we gather in groups and feel safest when we know we are part of a tribe. That fear of being alone often drives many of our choices.

I remember watching an episode of the original Twilight Zone. This man wanted to be left alone so he could just sit and read books. There was a nuclear holocaust and he survived. He wandered the streets finding food and then he found a library. He went and gathered all his favorite books as he sat down to start reading he dropped his glasses and they shattered. He couldn’t see a thing without them. Rod Serling commented about the irony of this man’s situation in his dead pan voice.

Do you ever feel like you live in the Twilight Zone?

The Twilight Zone had lots of great episodes that pointed out the irony of our choices. Have you ever felt like you were living in the Twilight Zone? Our filter system often causes us to make choices that create outcomes we would rather avoid. If we make choices based on fear the best we can create is more fear. If we make choices based on love we create more love. Seeing the world though the eyes of love takes practice.

I am scheduled to go to Japan and teach classes in June so I have been following the news about the nuclear reactors very closely. It is an opportunity to practice. Back in the 70’s I wrote an article for an alternative newspaper about nuclear energy. It was far from loving and very judgmental.

How do you see through the eyes of love?

When I connect to my spirit seeing through the eyes of love is much easier. When I am connected to my spirit I know I am one with everyone and everything. I was teaching a class the other day and a woman wanted to know why people would make the choice to build nuclear reactors in such a seismically active location. A wonderful question to catch the attention of our filter system and keep us disconnected from our spirit.

Seeing through the eyes of love is facilitated by asking questions that deepen our connection to our spirit rather than questions that feed our filter system, questions that I call mind candy.

What is mind candy?

Our minds are such busy creatures. Virtual thought machines, endlessly thinking, random thoughts, often fear based, filled with limiting beliefs, certain of its version of reality and that it knows the truth about everything. Mind candy feeds that belief and helps solidify the mind’s limited awareness of reality.

Any thoughts that feed that limiting perspective is what I call mind candy. ‘Why’ questions are a wonderful source of mind candy. They allow us to think and think, go round and round with why without arriving at a new behavior or a more expansive version of reality. Anything that allows us to argue for our limitations is also mind candy. It is addictive and helps us stay miserable.

Connect with your spirit and you ARE NOT alone

The antithesis of mind candy is anything that deepens your connect to your spirit, anything that allows you to connect with your limitless nature and expands your awareness. When you connect with your spirit you know you are one with everyone and everything. The more you open up to that reality the more you feel loved, feel the love and know you are lovable.

Once again polish up your bookends, meditate, listen to guided meditations, look in the mirror and say I love you, pray and just remind yourself you are one. You are never alone, you can’t be you are a spiritual being that is infinite so you are one with the entire universe. Allow yourself to be loved.

With love and aloha,
Susan

Messenger of Water

With love and aloha,
Susan

Angels are everywhere just open your mind and your heart to the signs.

Make Angels on Your Shoulder part of your daily routine and share it with a friend!

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about Japan, and the tsunami, and the earthquake, and 2012. Is the end near? No. Not in my opinion anyway; 2012, I think, is the year between 2011 and 2013. It’s entirely up to us what we create.

As I’ve been watching the news from Japan there have been times where I’ve been brought to tears. One of the scenes that I found most touching was a rescue worker and an old man. They came together and they said a prayer. He was looking for his family. It really, really touched my heart, and seeing news stories of little girls selling their toys to send the money to Japan. I saw one little girl that did all these art projects and was trying to sell them to send money.

This week we’ve had the opportunity to come together as a community and reach out in love to Japan. There are many ways to live life, two major ways: Aligned with your spirit, or aligned with your mind, with your filter system—totally different experiences of reality.

If we change our point of creation from our mind to our spirit, everything changes and nothing changes. Our experience of life totally changes. From the perspective of our spirit we can really see the perfection in everything. We really see everything as an opportunity for us to expand our awareness, to share love, to have an experience and then decide what we’re going to do with it.

So if you just practice shifting your point of creation from your mind to your spirit you’ll really be able to see the perfection in events like Japan.

The earth is going through some changes. I think as a species we’re having an opportunity to go through another evolutionary shift. There have been many. When we first inhabited the planet we were hunters and gatherers, and then we began to grow our own crops and we began to become an agricultural society. Then there were the dark ages—not necessarily an upbeat shift, but a different shift. Then came the Renaissance. After the Renaissance there was the industrial age, and now, I think, we’re having an opportunity to make another evolutionary shift.

When we change our point of creation from our mind to our spirit, when we align ourselves with the energy that gives life to our body, rather than aligning ourselves with our body, from that perspective we’ll create an entirely different world, an entirely different experience of life.

In the coming years I think there will be changes. The financial reality has been getting a bit dicey. There seems to be a little bit more unrest in countries. I don’t think it has anything to do with 2012. I just think it has to do with some things just aren’t working, and it’s time to do something different.

In the great depression there were more millionaires than at any other time in history. If you align yourself with your spirit the coming years will be a time for you to savor and enjoy, and have great experiences, and help others, and just really have fun.

If you align yourself with your filter system and you just follow along like a lemming, you might not enjoy the experience as much.

I’m sure there were some people in Japan that weren’t home when the tsunami hit and are still alive. I’m sure there were probably some people that meant to be some place else but were caught up in tsunami.

When we really align ourselves with our spirit, we’re not around when disasters happen.

So give yourself that gift. Give yourself the gift of beginning to really, consciously set your intent to align yourself with your spirit. See what happens. I know my life has improved dramatically as I have.

When you find yourself angry, when you find yourself really arguing from your limitations, take a deep breath. Ask yourself, “How could I see this through the eyes of my spirit? What would love do?” Asking questions like that will make a really big difference in your life.

So, thanks for tuning in. Just remember, you are loved. That’s all that real. You are loved. You are lovable because that’s all there is.

I send you my love and my Aloha, and I hope you have an absolutely wonderful day—unless you have plans otherwise.

So, until next time, Namaste!

With love and aloha,
Susan

And the earth moved under my feet . . .

After the earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan last week I got a lot more questions about what will happen in 2012.  I still believe 2012 is simply the year between 2011 and 2013 and that it will be much like the Y2K bug, much ado about nothing. Not a very dramatic opinion and people teaching about 2012 are creating quite a buzz and benefiting from people’s fears but my question is: What do you want to create in 2012?

In the Great Depression of the 1930’s there were more millionaire made than at any other time in history. The pictures of the depression are mostly of bread lines and homeless families fleeing the dust storms, not of people living the good life. The images of hardship are more dramatic and catch our attention.

Is the world changing?

When I look at the history of humanity I see a number of evolutionary shifts. The first was when we shifted from being hunters and gatherers and became an agricultural society. At that time we also shifted from feminine goddess worship where we were in alignment with nature and followed our food source to a more masculine, domination based perspective of life and gods. Another shift took place during the Renaissance, the art changed, society changed and we began to see the world from a different perspective. The next shift that took place we called the Industrial Revolution.

I believe we are at a point in history where another shift is taking place, one of awareness, where we have the opportunity to become aware of our true nature. We are beginning to realize we aren’t our bodies, that we are the energy that gives life to our bodies. I believe we will begin to use more of our brain and develop abilities such as healing, intuition and perhaps even something like telepathic communication.

Jesus was an amazing man. He could change people just by being in their presence. He could heal them and raise people from he dead. He told is followers that they could do the same things he did and even better. I believe he was a precursor of the next evolutionary shit.

So what do you want to experience?

We can embrace change and even enjoy it or we can be afraid and try to keep everything the same. Life is all about change. We are the creator of our reality. What do you want to create in the coming months? I live in Hawaii very close to an active volcano. I had several people ask me this week if I was afraid of radioactivity and I couldn’t help but laugh.

I think the events of the past week are a wake up call. We are guest on this planet earth. We can view everything as perfect, as a perfect opportunity to deepen our connection with our spirit or we can continue to argue for our limitations and reinforce our filter system.

So what will you create in 2012? For that matter what will you create next week? Love or fear? Joy or sadness? It is after all up to you.

With love and aloha,
Susan

A Teaching Story

I have heard many variations of this story. I love teaching stories. Each time we read them we can glean another piece of wisdom from them, kind of like life when we are paying attention.

One day turtle was sitting by the edge of the pond getting ready to swim across. Scorpion came over and asked turtle for a ride.

Turtle looked at scorpion and said, “Why would I ever give you a ride. You would certainly sting me and I would surely die.”

“Why would I sting you when you were doing me the kindness of giving me a ride? Besides, I would drown and die too if I stung you.”

Turtle though about scorpions words for while and then seeing the wisdom in them offered him a ride. About half way across the pond turtle felt a painful sting on his neck. He could feel the poison flowing through his body. Just before he lost consciousness he asked scorpion, “Why did you bite me? We will both die now.”

Scorpion sadly replied, “It is my nature.”

What is your nature?

To me the main purpose of the Toltec tradition is to change your point of creation from your mind to your spirit. When we are aligned with our mind our filter system will cause us to make choices that are not very beneficial in the long run. As we learn to align ourselves with our spirit our choices become much more loving and far sighted. You are an energy that gives life to your body, your body is merely your vehicle for this lifetime. Much like the scorpion when we align ourselves with our body we make choices that don’t serve us in the long run.

What can you do to align more fully with your spirit?

What can you do on a daily basis to align with your spirit? I find creating bookends extremely useful. Bookends are something you do every morning and each evening to remind you that your intent is to deepen your connection to your spirit. I start my day with  meditation and usually write in my journal.

What are you willing to do to get in touch with your true nature?

With love and aloha,
Susan

Tomorrow, Wednesday, March 16 at 9:30 PM I am having a free teleclass on Coming from the Heart. Hope to see you there.

On my Beliefnet blog I am doing a series for Lent entitled 4o days to love. You might enjoy it and find it helpful so please go to my Beliefnet blog Angels on Your Shoulder to read more.

With love and aloha,
Susan

Let me tell you a little story about water lilies that is really all about life, creating what you want, surrender, acceptance and a whole lot of other useful things.

The ponds, the lily and life

I have several ponds with lotus in them. One pond has pink lotus and the other yellow lotus. For several years I tried to grow a white lotus. Last year I nurtured a white lotus plant for months when a huge bud began to grow I was so excited until the bud finally opened and it was pink. It was beautiful but I was disappointed, I wanted a white lotus. I called the man I bought the white lotus from, he apologized and he offered to replace the pink lotus.

A few months later he called and told me he had a white lotus plant for me. When I went over to get it I bought a few other water lilies and I saw this beautiful peach colored lily. He reached into the pond, pulled out a piece of the lily and gave it to me as a gift. It had very fleshy roots and when I took it home my chickens ate most of its leaves before I got a chance to plant it.

I never thought it would survive. One day I went up to the pond and it was in full bloom but the while lotus didn’t have a single leaf and sure looked dead to me. I simply planted the lily and trusted the process with little or no attachment to the outcome. The white lotus I had struggled with (killed several), really , really wanted one, worried about it and fussed with it.  The light came on!

Energetically, what was I feeding these two plants? One I was feeding love, gratitude and joy while the other I was feeding fear, judgment and control. I thought about it, realized lotus plants are very hardy and let go. This is the time of year lotus are dormant and as soon as I let go I notice 4 tiny leaves (well tiny for lotus leaves) then five and at last count 8. Love, trusting the process, surrender and joy sure is a lot better growing medium!

Letting your life blossom and grow

The moral of the story you ask? Life is a vast energy system and much like a garden. If you send out love you get love back. If you keep your garden fertilized (love) and weeded (choosing loving, expansive thoughts) your investments comes back multiplied and filled with beauty, wonder and grace.

Moment by moment you really have only two choices: love or fear. Love and fear manifest in a whole assortment of shapes and sizes, stories, agreements, assumptions and actions but no matter how we disguise them they are still either love or fear.

Perspective makes such a difference

I never cease to be amazed how drastically life can change when we change our perspective and get clear about what we want to create. Once we clearly choose love life becomes so magical and filled with miracles, grace and ease.

These are two photos of the same water lily from different perspectives. How else could you see what is going on in your life and the world? How could you choose love? And what is it you REALLY want to create?

With love and aloha,
Susan

PS. I have opened my apprentice class for the first time in years for a brief time – check it out!

I often get questions about how it is we create our reality. People often confuse being responsible with being at fault. Bottom line everything that is in our life is there by invitation and everything that isn’t in our life isn’t there because we haven’t invited it yet. Often our invitations aren’t necessarily conscious, “Gee, I think I’ll invite this drama into our life.” Our invitations are based on our default settings, habitual in nature, sent by our filter system and our limiting beliefs.

Are the Holocaust victims at fault?

I recently had a woman say “I spent a few days trying to reconcile inviting things like this into our lives.” and another person asked me. “How can I say that the victims invited such a catastrophe into their lives and could they really make it all go away by thinking happy thoughts?….what am I missing?”

When we look at life from the perspective of our mind we see good and evil; right and wrong; life and death. The idea of life being perfect and everything being pono (right place, right time, absolutely perfect) is an impossible concept. It is hard to even imagine no less embrace. Of course the Holocaust victims aren’t at fault.

From the perspective of our spirit

However, when we see life through the eyes of our spirit we see a totally different world. We see the world as a place we all come together, experiment, play and see the three dimensional version of our beliefs, agreements and assumptions. Death is simply part of the game, certainly not final because we are an immortal, infinite and eternal spirit. We go on even after the game ends.

I had a vision after 9/11 of all the people that died on that day showing up in the after life at the same time, looking at one another surprised and say, “What a hell of a ride that was!” Events like war, the holocaust, rape and murder are all indicative of people that are living their lives from their filter system, immersed in their mind’s perspective and certainly not from a connection to their spirit.

The chance World War II gave us

I firmly believe at the end of WWII we had an incredible opportunity to really change our paradigm from one of judgment and fear to one of love. At the end of World War II we had an opportunity to ask ourselves questions about what allowed the Nazis to flourish and the holocaust to happen but instead we did what we always do, react. If we had looked at the real cause we would have realized it was judgment, fear and a collective belief in separation. When we live from our spirit we realize, “you are me, I am you and we are one.” How could we judge from that perspective? There are choices made in love and ones based in fear. Fear leads to judgment and violence while love leads to acceptance and more love.

What if instead of blaming and punishing the Nazis we as a species looked, sincerely looked at what judgment, fear and a belief in separation has created throughout history. What if we looked for ways to overcome our judgmental nature. Realistically, I don’t think we are ready do that as a society but we can do that individually.

Next time you have a judgment, listen to your heart instead

Asking the question: How can I see this through the eyes of love or the eyes of my spirit? will change your perspective if you are willing to listen to the answer.  A question like this,”How can I say that the victims invited such a catastrophe into their lives?” is based on judgment. The words victim and catastrophe have an emotional charge based on a belief that is fear based.  What you say! Of course there are victims and victimizers.

Stay with me for a minute. If you step back and see the world from the loving, expansive perspective of your spirit there are no victims, just spirits having an experience, granted not necessarily a loving, light-hearted, fun one but it is just an experience. Life is emotionally neutral. No event in life has an emotion inherently attached to it. Death can be tragic, grief laden or simple a transition or a joyous return home. Based on your story you have an experience.

I see every event in life as an opportunity to deepen my connection with my spirit or my filter system. If I judge or react in fear from my filter system (my beliefs, agreements and assumptions) gets thicker and my life becomes more limited. If I choose to deepen my connection with my spirit I move closer to my true, limitless nature.

There are certainly events that require more acceptance and love than others. It is easy to be loving when everything is going well. We have a choice to choose how to act or we react based on our perspective. Choosing to act feels so much better than reacting.  Seeing the Holocaust through the eyes of love and compassion allows us deepen our connection to our spirit, we feel better and have a more expansive perspective. If I judge the Holocaust I feel sad, angry and afraid.

Look at the world fear built

We have been practicing judgment and fear for centuries. What if we gave love a chance? I could write books and am working on a book about this paradigm shift so I imagine you have some thoughts or feelings. I’d love to hear from you and the comment section is waiting!!

With love and aloha,
Susan

Related Posts:

Mosques at ground zero and 9/11
Being Responsible versus Being at Fault
Ripples

Positive thinking, yeah right!

When I first heard the saying, “When life gives you lemons make lemonade” my thoughts weren’t exactly loving, kind or positive. For years now I have taught people the power of accepting life as it is. Not from the perspective of being a victim, “Well this is what is so I may as well accept it” but from the perspective of self empowerment, “This is what is, what can I do with ‘what is’ from the perspective of love, perfection and knowing I am the creator of my reality.”

What a little tweak will do

The Toltec tradition, well any spiritual tradition for that matter, can be used from a fear based perspective or from a loving, expansive perspective. The difference in the results you achieve in life is dramatic.

Life is a vast energy system. Life responds to the energy we project not the words we use. If you are afraid of not having enough money and affirm that money is now flowing to me easily and effortless you will continue to create financial lack. What, you say? But I am affirming abundance.

If you acknowledge your fear, realize your current financial reality was created by that fear and shift your awareness to one of love and self empowerment your reality will change dramatically. If you affirm with fear rumbling in your heart nothing will change. Love allows change to happen.

How do I let go of fear?

Shifting your awareness is the key that unlocks the prison our fears create. We can have a lot of knowledge yet nothing changes. We can connect with our spirit, change that knowledge into wisdom and everything changes. Ironically at times positive thinking alone does nothing but deepen our fear and create a sense of despair.

There was a time I affirmed endlessly, tried to ignore my fear and life kept spiraling out of control. Then I tried affirming and controlling every thought as well as life in general. Neither approach worked very well. Eventually I surrendered, really let go and connected with my spirit. Thinking will never set you free but feeling the loving embrace of your spirit does the trick every time!

Connecting with your spirit

Spiritual practices take practice. I suggest you create bookends for your day, something you do every morning and evening to remind you of your intent to deepen that connection.  Meditate on a daily basis, find a group to work with, read, write, go out in nature, watch a video, light a candle, listen to something uplifting, or doing anything else that helps you remember the sacred nature of life. I am so grateful I found don Miguel and his mother Sister Sarita. I continue to remain open to sacred experiences. Yesterday I went to the top of Mauna Kea to do a ceremony. It was very cold, a long drive and WELL worth the time and effort. Spiritual practices do take practice.

Remembering your perfection

When I do private session with people I often remind them of their perfection I remind them that, “After all without you the universe would be incomplete. So that makes you pretty special.” As you expand your awareness to include the paradigm of dominion you begin to easily see the perfection in everything. That certainly makes life and changing your awareness a whole lot easier.

Next time I will talk more about dominion and how that leads to personal freedom. Until next time …..

With love and aloha,
Susan

PS. In March 2011 I will be opening up my apprenticeship class for the first time in years. For the next few months you will be able to join this incredible group of spiritual people and work with me personally in much the same way I worked with don Miguel. Thanks to technology you don’t have to leave the house, you just need to pick up a phone.

Related Posts:

Some of those obvious truths

Fearless Friday: letting go

World free of suffering

It is so easy to look around at our world and make a perfectly logical argument that this world is full of suffering. There certainly seems to be a lot of violence. As a species, we certainly seem to create a lot of war, pollution, and starvation.

One of my favorite scenes in the movie, “The Matrix,” was when Agent Smith said, “I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species. I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern – a virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You are a plague, and we are the cure.”

What is the cure? Certainly not enslavement. In the movie the future was quite bleak. Humans had been enslaved by machines and turned into the power source used to run them. Until we decide otherwise, we are enslaved by our minds, or more accurately, our thoughts. We believe the thoughts our filter system generates. We see the world through eyes that have been taught to see only what our minds believe is real. Our thoughts generate our emotions and then we think our emotions are caused by external events. We believe our beliefs. We really think they are true and they aren’t. Our beliefs aren’t true they are just erroneous assumptions.

We really believe there is suffering. We forget that everything in this world is energy; that everything is God if you choose to call that energy God. Even the youngest child is a spiritual being and, as such, is a powerful being of light. Part of the fun of physical reality is we get to come in as children and need to be cared for and learn how to operate our bodies and taught how to create our lives. Our childhoods reflect our filter systems and often serve to turn up the volume on our limiting beliefs. When we are ready (often when we are terribly uncomfortable) we begin the journey of remembering who and what we really are.

When we look at the world through our minds, we see suffering. When we see the world through the eyes of our spirits, we see love even in what our minds think of as evil. This is probably a rather challenging thought to your mind. There is no evil – only the love is real.

In the 1930’s, doctors performed cataract surgery on people who had been blind from birth. The surgery was a success except that some of the patients went mad, others killed themselves and the rest refused to open their eyes. Why? Because we actually learn to see; we learn how to organize massive amounts of visual input. We stop seeing a lot of what’s there because it is too overwhelming. We agree to see a chair instead of a swirling mass of energy. We agree to believe objects are solid and that we are our bodies. We translate hundreds of pixels on a computer screen into coherent images, recognize words, and then have an emotional reaction to them.

The love is real; everything else is an illusion. There is no suffering once we stop listening to our thoughts. The concept of suffering is based on a judgment. So, when you perceive someone suffering, what you are really doing is judging that person. Most of what we call love and compassion is really merely control and judgment. True compassion is based on respecting each spirit’s choice – seeing the truth about a situation. In reality, a bunch of spirits are doing a cosmic dance and from the level of our thoughts we may have no idea what it is about.

Does that mean we shouldn’t do anything? Absolutely not; but throwing gas on a fire doesn’t help put it out. Adding judgment and fear to the world only adds more judgment and fear.

Are we sad when someone close to us dies? When my mom died I missed her a great deal. As I have retrained my mind, I can actually feel her presence in a more profound way now than when she was alive. No one and nothing ever dies. Certainly the physical form decays, but the spirit lives on.

Once we have an emotion it is to late not to have it but we don’t have to feed it and keep it around. We can have an emotion, honor it, savor it as long as we want to, then notice the thoughts creating it and change them. We don’t have to change the world – only our thoughts about the world.

Each of us can live in a world free of suffering. When we change our thoughts, our experience really does change. I have led many groups where we have had very different experiences from other people in the same physical location. Once, when I took a group to Egypt, we left the hotel in the middle of the night to go meditate with the sphinx. I was so focused on getting the group to the meeting place on time that I barely noticed the crowd we had to walk through. The next morning I found out we had walked through a riot in which several people were killed.

Give yourself the greatest gift there is – learn to listen to your spirit. Realize that your mind is full of thoughts that aren’t true. Your mind has been taught to see through the eyes of fear. The same world, when viewed through the eyes of love, is full of magic, miracles, laughter and joy.

If you want to live in a world free of suffering, you don’t need to change the world all you have to do is retrain your mind and change your perspective. Peace is only a thought away.

In peace and love,
Susan

What an amazing video. If a crow can decide to care for a starving kitten what could we do as human beings if we decided to act from love as often as possible and opened our hearts to care for one another?

With love and aloha,
Susan

I have a beautiful little meditation hale (house) next to a pond on the back of my property. This morning I went up there with my journal and started to write. I thought what a nice place to share some of my meditative reflections with you my reader.

As I sat here today I was amazed by how much my life had changed. I reflected back to when I began my journey. I had just lost two businesses and had just gone bankrupt. I was miserable and suicidal. I certainly had no idea that someday I would own this beautiful piece of paradise and have this wonderful pond to sit beside and meditate. I clearly never envisioned blogging about my life because at that point there was no internet!

I share the contrast as a reminder that anything is possible. I still have some friends whose lives are still pretty much the same. During the holidays we reconnect and I listen to them talking about the same things every year. The only difference was I was willing to do whatever it took to deepen my connection with my spirit and to clear out my filter system.

Another new year has begun here in the Northern Hemisphere, yesterday was the winter solstice. I use today as a day of reflection and a day to decide what it is I would like to create in the coming year. What is it you would like more of or less of in your life this year? What is it you would like to create and are you willing to do whatever it takes to do so?

2011 is almost upon us. What will you see a year from now when you reflect back on your life?

Until December 31st I am offering a special on my Art of Allowing video class. Choosing to spend a year with that class would certainly make 2011 a year of deep personal transformation and healing.

With love and aloha,
Susan

I just love this video. If we as people could just be a little like these two.

With love and aloha,
Susan

Happy Thanksgiving Day!

At least gratitude created miracles in my life. When I began my journey I was so busy focusing on external events I seldom took the time to be grateful. I kept waiting for a burning bush, the perfect lover or the big score financially then I would be happy and perhaps even grateful.

I was working from the outside in instead of the inside out. The world is a perfect reflection of our filter system so expecting the world to bring us happiness is like putting the cart in front of the horse. My life really changed dramatically when I began to focus on gratitude. When I am grateful fear dissolves and happiness begins to filter into all areas of my life.

The simple act of deciding to be grateful for whatever was in my life totally transformed my life. There is always something to be grateful for even if it is just gratitude for our next breath.

In the United States today is Thanksgiving Day. If you want to live the life of your dreams I suggest you make everyday Thanksgiving Day.

With love, aloha and a lot of gratitude,
Susan

Check out my free video series on the Art of Allowing

What makes you feel safe?

Did you immediately think of external things?  When we feel safe our energy is expansive and our lives will more likely contain events we find pleasant. Ironically, when we think our safety is externally produced we are much more likely to live in fear and create stuff we don’t really want.

When we realize our thoughts create our feeling states and that our feelings or our energy state creates the events in our life we empower ourselves. We begin to realize we do create our reality and understand how valuable consciously creating our emotions really is.

All of life is emotionally neutral until we tell ourselves a story about the events. Our filter system creates our story. If we are willing to change our filter system our lives change and we can begin to savor each and every moment no matter what.

Take world peace for example. I remember as a young girl having to hid under my desk in school during mock bombing raids. I protested against the Viet Nam war in the 60’s and 70’s. I wasn’t at peace within myself so how could I hope to create world peace? When I have inner peace my world is at peace.

I suggest you begin to notice your inner dialog and ask yourself if that particular train of thought will take  you where you want to go? If I am obsessing about not having enough money or the rocky economy will those thoughts bring me abundance? Clearly they won’t.

If you are at a train station and want to go to a particular place you would no doubt take the train that goes there. The same is true of your thoughts. Practice consciously choosing your thoughts based on what you want to create and watch your life transform.

With love and aloha,
Susan

Check out my free video series, Art of Allowing. It will help you transform your thinking.

Life is and then we tell ourselves a story. Our experience has nothing to do with life and everything to do with our story. How freeing that realization is. You don’t have to change life all you have to do is change your story. That certainly is a lot easier than changing the world!

Happiness is a decision we make about events and not created by the events. We really can be happy regardless of what is happening in our life. We can be such experts at creating misery in our lives and the lives as those around us.

What we tell ourselves about life is based on our habitual thinking which is based on our filter system. Collected rainwater is my water source. I put it through several filters so it is drinkable. When the filters get dirty I have no water pressure. When your filter system is filled with limiting beliefs it can be difficult to create the results you want in your life.

Expanding your awareness makes clearing out your filter system much easier. Whenever you have a strong emotional reaction observe your story and ask yourself if holding onto it serves you? Is any belief, agreement or assumption worth being unhappy?

Just some food for thought.

With love and aloha,
Susan

Check out my free 7 week video class

The world is a vast energy system. The Toltec mastered using that knowledge to do incredible things including healing incurable diseases. They were known as men and women of power and their lives were amazing. Today we can use their teachings to make our life a masterpiece, a work of art like no other. We can learn to be happy no matter what is going on around us and we can begin to consciously create what we want when we want it.

And it can all start with a simple smile. Smiling takes less muscles than frowning and it has numerous health benefits. It lowers your blood pressure, uplifts your mood, releases endorphins and serotonin which improves your health, relieves stress and makes you look younger and more successful. Energetically it deepens your connection with your spirit. It is that alignment with spirit that allowed the Toltec to perform things that made them seem like magicians.

Thich Naht Hanh is one of my favorite authors. In one of his books he suggests putting a sign over your bed that says, “Smile.” The simple act of smiling can change your life in so many profound ways.

Whenever you notice you aren’t smiling just curl your mouth up and smile. Do it for a month and see what happens!

With love and aloha,
Susan

A few weeks ago I was watching the television show 60 Minutes. They were doing a piece on the economy and they interviewed some people who had lost their jobs. I seldom watch the show and I found the segment particularly fascinating. In one formerly affluent family the husband had been out of work for a number of years. He had used his 401K to buy a franchise for cleaning air-conditioning ducts and wasn’t really making money doing it.

I could so relate to his filter system, I’d been there and done that. He had a really fancy truck and the franchise name but he wasn’t making money. Chances are he could have gotten the equipment for a lot less, change his filter system a bit and been successfully providing a necessary service while making a good living.

Another woman had been living with a friends brother, cleaning and cooking for him in exchange for room and board. She had just gotten a job with a substantial pay cut. The interviewer asked her if she expected to ever regain her former life style and the woman said no. For me it was sad to see someone give up on her dream.

In the depression during the 1930’s only 25% of the population was severely affected by the depression and there were more millionaires made than in any other time in history. My parents grew up during the depression and were both affected by it emotionally in very different ways.

It isn’t out there that creates our financial reality it is our filter system: our beliefs, agreements and assumptions. Thoughts aren’t real or solid yet they set in motion a vibration that in turn forms the substance of our lives.

Change our thoughts and our reality changes. If we don’t change our core beliefs our lives never change substantially. We just paint a different picture on the surface of the water of life that very quickly dissolves into nothingness. Before you know it we are creating more of the same old same old.

Instead if we change our thoughts one thought at a time everything changes. I enjoy listening to Ester Hicks. One of the things she talks about that I absolutely love is rampages of appreciation. Just imagine how differently you would feel at night if every time you wanted to complain about something or someone you did a rampage of appreciation about the subject instead.

Imagine a world in which the news was all about the wonderful things that were happening. Imagine if you and your friends only talked about how wonderful your life was. Just for today rant with appreciation about two or three things and see how you feel afterwards. Each night before you go to bed find 10 or 12 things to be grateful for and if you really want to change your life tell yourself stories about how wonderful your life is. Use your imagination to dream big and really feel the wonder of that dream. Then see what happens.

With love and aloha,
Susan

I just started a 7 week video class at no cost, check it out!

It is so good to be home. I still have not fully adjusted to the 13 hour time difference so I am still awaking at odd hours. This morning I got up at 3:30 and started to meditate. After a bit of mind chatter I got to that place of no time where only God/universal consciousness or whatever you want to call it exists. It felt incredible to float in that sea of love.

Imagine living all of life from that place! We can if we stop listening to our mind. I find it helps to hold the image of thoughts being a passing illusion like painting on water. The brush causes the water to swirl immediately erasing the thought. If I fight with my thoughts, resist them or believe them they impact my life and the way I feel.

I practice allowing my thoughts to be like the wind and simply allow them to pass on by. A tree doesn’t resist the wind its leaves just rustle, the limbs may sway but the wind just keeps moving. Of course if the wind is very strong it can damage the tree and even uproot it. Our thoughts only have that sort of power if we give them that strength. When we focus on our thoughts or perceive them as real they can uproot our life.

Like the story of the two wolves, depending on which one you feed the other withers away. A simple and powerful practice is to view your thoughts as impermanent, without the power to affect you. Practice being the observer and watching them go by rather than believing them or giving them the power to create your experience of reality.

Thoughts aren’t real. The only thing that is real is that sea of love. Anything we can do to live there definitely improve the quality of our life.  Watch the water swirl and focus your attention on love.

With love and aloha,
Susan

Check out Art of Allowing. Its a great way to shift your experience of reality.

I love the idea that everything is perfect. At first I had a hard time with the concept. How could death, illness, hunger and suffering be perfect? Then I began to explore the idea of my filter system, that my experience of life was really created by my beliefs, agreements, assumptions and attitudes.

When I see life from a limited perspective I miss much of the beauty. What if this really is a prefect world? There are, after all places people can have more than enough and places people can experience lack and limitations. Who am I to say that no one has the right to experience whatever it is they want to experience?

If I demand there is world peace what about the people that enjoy making bombs? I would make them suffer in order for me to feel safe. What if instead there was a world of choice? A place where everyone gets to choose what they want to experience and there is room enough for it all.

Wait a minute there already is! There is a planet called Earth, where there are places of peace and places of conflict, there are people who have more than enough food and others who don’t. There are hundreds of country with different cultures, religions and climates. What if life really is perfect after all?

What if we come here to learn how to see the perfection? What if this is a place where we come to learn how we create our reality? What if we come here to experiment with conscious creation? What if this is a place we come so we can have lots of opportunities to practice, try and then try again? What if we eventually learn to create exactly what we want when we want it, but that only happens after we understand about love and perfection? What if judgment curtails our freedom and our ability to choose?

What if this world really is perfect and it is just a place we come to practice and enjoy? What if we don’t have to change a thing except our perspective?

Interesting thought isn’t it?

With love and aloha,
Susan

By changing how we think we change our lives

By being loving we feel better

By offering love instead of fear we make our corner of the world a little bit better

Life is all about change, we can embrace it or fight but regardless change happens

Happiness is always just a thought away

We can think that thought no matter what is happening in our lives

Choosing happiness takes practice

Life is and then we tell ourselves a story, our experience is based on our story

We can change our stories

Life is a grand adventure and a fatal disease (our bodies all die we don’t)

You are an energy that gives life to your body

You are a spirit, a ghost from the ethereal realms meant to have fun

There are no tests in life just opportunities to connect with our spirit or our mind

We are limitless, all of our limits arise in our minds

Our choice is love or fear, love gets more enjoyable results

You are the creator of your life

You are one with everyone and everything

Life can be elegantly easy and effortless (I love the sound of that)

Care to add a few of your own?

With love and aloha,
Susan

You are not your mind or your body. You are a vast energy that is eternal, immortal and infinite. You are the energy that gives life to your body. You are a magician constantly creating your experience of reality.

The primary focus of Toltec wisdom is to help you achieve personal freedom and to master the art of conscious creation. In order to do that you need to clear out your filter system and retrain your mind.

The Toltec tradition is a philosophy or a way of life that allows you to be happy no matter what is happening around you. If you are a Christian or a Buddhist or a Muslim or an atheist for that matter it will help you be a better one. The Toltec tradition will assist you in creating personal freedom.

Don Juan talked to Castaneda about moving his assemblage point or changing that point of creation. We either create our experience and make our choices from our mind or our spirit. When we view life from our mind’s perspective it is limited and often fear based. As we choose to deepen our connection to our spirit we can experience life from a totally limitless perspective.

One of the first exercises I suggest to people when they begin to work with me is to write their own definition of personal freedom. Make your definition deeply personal and emotionally juicy. Make your definition emotionally rich enough to help you move through some of the resistance you may encounter.

With love and aloha,
Susan

The Grandmother and the children sat at the edge of a large stand of tall pine trees. She looked out over the land.

“We are the land’s caretakers and we must always plant more than we use. If you cut a tree you must plant at least two more. The Mother will always provide for us but in thanks for her love we must also care for her just as we care for one another.

“When we share with each other there is always more than enough, yet when we are afraid of sharing there is never enough.

“In one village the people had learned to live in gratitude, generosity, and love. They were all seated at a huge table full of food. The bowls were always full and overflowing. Everyone had spoons with long handles attached to their arms. They were all laughing and joyously feeding one another.

“In another village the people lived in fear. They had spoons with long handles attached to their arms and they couldn’t reach their own mouths. When they tried to feed themselves the food fell uselessly to the table. Their bowls were overflowing but they were all starving to death.

“We can live in heaven or hell. Where we live depends upon what we tell ourselves. If we live in fear we will live in hell. If we remember the power of love we can live in heaven.

“Look at your world. What do you see? Are you eager to be an adult or are you enjoying being a child? Do you wish you lived in another village or are you grateful for the home you have?

“If you listen to your mind’s endless list of wants you will never be happy. Learn to listen to your heart and you will always find joy. Let your heart guide your choices.

“Let nature teach you how to quiet your mind. Listen to the wind, sit by a stream, and listen to the water or watch the light move on its surface. Watch the clouds. Sit close to a tree and let its spirit teach you. Pay attention to your senses. Feel the magic of life as it flows through your body and your mind will grow still. Feel, taste, touch, smell, and see. Be in the moment rather than thinking about being there.

“Let nature show you the silence of your mind. Be still and watch the love grow. It is in the silence that we see that heaven is a place that lives in our hearts and in our minds. You don’t have to go anywhere to find heaven. It is always just a thought away. ”

With love and aloha,
Susan

Our story and reality often have very little in common. Yesterday I went to lunch in the old part of Riga here in Latvia. The man I was walking with knew a lot about all the buildings and shared his knowledge with me as we took a short tour. I had never thought about the fact that most of the old cities had been bombed to the point of total destruction during WWII.

We walked past one building and he told me that during Soviet times it had been a museum glorify the Soviet Union and now it was a museum about the Latvians people’s struggle for freedom. They also had a large monument to the first Christmas tree. I always thought the tradition had started in England.

The museum in the background of this picture certainly wasn’t inviting regardless of what it glorified. The town sguare was filled with people out for a Sunday stroll.

As I walked through the city I was really reminded that the victor writes history. In our personal lives we write a story, create an inner dialog about what is happening in our life and then we create a reality to reflect our story.

If we want to create what we really want in our lives we need to be conscious of the stories we are creating. The quality of your life is often dependent on the questions you ask yourself.

What is it I want to create?
How can I see this through the eyes of love?
What is the most expansive way I can see this?
How else can I see this?
How can I use this to deepen my connection with my spirit?

Those are all questions that will help you experience personal freedom, happiness, joy and abundance. Who do you want writing the history of your life? Your limiting filter system or your limitless spirit? Moment by moment you get to choose, I suggest you choose well.

With love and aloha,
Susan

I am making videos of some of the most popular blog posts. I hope you enjoy. If you have a topic you’d like me to write about just drop me an email.

Late one night I was sitting at a gate in Seattle waiting for my flight. A young boy sat a short distance away sobbing. His parents were very upset and yelling at him. His mother was telling him how selfish and self-centered he was. Periodically the father would angrily add to the discussion. The boy’s sister sat and watched smiling smugly. The boy was unable to catch his breath he was crying so hard. Several people moved away obviously uncomfortable about the exchange.

The young boy kept trying to defend himself and his mother continued to tell him how wrong he was. I felt powerless as I watched the drama unfolding before me. I wanted to run over and say to them, “Stop! Don’t you realize what you’re doing to your son?” The young boy’s sobs continued to deepen and his whole body trembled. After a few more futile attempts to communicate his feelings his eyes stopped focusing on his parents, his body was present but you could tell he was no longer listening.

As a young girl I too had cried as I listened to my mother yelling at me about being so selfish. I never quite understood what she was talking about. I tried so hard to please her yet I always seemed to fail so miserably. Eventually I stopped crying and became defiant. It was safer to be angry than it was to be sad. Long before that I had stopped feeling lovable. By then I knew there was something inherently wrong with me, how else could I fail to make my mother and everyone else in my life happy. But deep down inside of me there was a little voice I seldom heard that said, “What about me?”

As I watched that young boy I realized I was witnessing the creation of that part of him that would always feel unlovable. With each word and gesture his parents were reinforcing the beliefs that, no matter what he would never do anything right and that he was unlovable. As he retreated further and further into his mind’s chatter I could only imagine what decisions he was making, ones that would affect his ability to feel loved, to love others, to be intimate, and to experience freedom, joy, and happiness.

It is in those darkest hours when we feel so alone, when we have to face the end of a relationship or the death of someone dear to us that we need to feel loved and that is also often a time we feel most unlovable. Recently I realized a good portion of my life I had been unlovable. I wasn’t unlovable because there was something wrong with me. I was unlovable because I had walled myself off from love, no one could love me because I couldn’t and wouldn’t let love in. Love was just too scary and painful.

That realization was incredibly freeing for me. There wasn’t something wrong with me after all. Feeling unlovable was an accurate description that had nothing to do with me being a valid, worthwhile human being. Feeling unlovable simply meant that I was unable or unwilling to allow myself to feel loved at that moment.

Intimacy is such a funny thing. As a species we seem to crave it while at the same time doing everything possible to avoid being vulnerable enough to experience intimacy. I think of intimacy as “into me see.” If I feel defective or unlovable I am certainly going to protect myself. I am not going to willingly allow you to get to know the real me.

Chances are, if I feel unlovable, I don’t know the real me either. I am not going to let myself know what I’m feeling or what I want or need. I am going to find some way to numb myself out – to avoid intimacy with myself as well as you. I may even try to please you in order to get you to like me instead of focusing on my own wants and needs.

When my flight arrived in Anchorage I saw that little boy struggling to get his parent’s bags off the carousel. By now it was well after three in the morning and there was this little boy trying to get mom and dad to love him. Do you remember what it feels like to try to get someone to like you? Have you ever given up part of yourself to try and save a relationship?

I believe that as human beings we need to feel loved or lovable. We all learn to express that need differently. Some of us become demanding and try to control other people’s behaviors, others become whinny, some become like a bottomless pit, always needy. We can cover up that need with anger or indifference; we can hurt one another or even kill one another. To hide that need we can use something such as an addiction or simply wither up and die inside. Unless we face that need directly we actually cut ourselves off from the very thing we so desperately seek.

As I watched that young boy I realized the reason I had felt unlovable all those years was because I was . I was unable to be loved, accept love, or even love myself. Those decisions I had made long ago as a little girl had trapped me in a prison – as a young girl I wasn’t able to realize that I had an endless well of love within my heart; that no matter what others were saying I could use a gentle inner voice to remind me that I was perfect just the way I was.

As a child I was told sticks and stones could break my bones but words could never hurt me. In my life that hasn’t been the case – no one has thrown stones at me but I have heard many unkind words. Those words lose their sting when I learn to be loving toward myself. I am lovable when I am able to love myself.

Freeing myself from the echoes of all the old wounds is a process of learning to be my own best friend. I must learn to listen to myself and make sure all of my internal commentary is nonjudgmental, loving and kind. I need to become aware again of my wants and needs.

Part of me wanted to go over to that little boy, hold him in my arms, and tell him how wonderful he was. I wanted him to know that he was loved and very lovable. I wanted to ask his parents what they wanted to create in that moment. I am sure they loved their son. I’m fairly certain they had no idea how deeply they were hurting their son. They simply wanted him to modify his behavior.

When I think of all the wisdom I dismissed as a child because of miscommunications. My mom wanted to help me avoid some of the pitfalls she had encountered in her life. All I could hear was I was doing it wrong one more time or my mother’s way was the only right way. I wasn’t able to feel her love no less internalize and use the wisdom of her years.

I have learned to go inside and see what I am telling myself whenever I am reacting to someone else’s words. When I need to defend myself or in some way feel judged or devalued I am the one creating those feelings. If I feel unloved today I know it is because I am unavailable to being loved. If I am feeling judged I am the one doing the judging. No one can affect the way I am feeling unless I agree with what they are saying. What freedom, today I can chose how I feel regardless of what is going on around me.

Next time you feel like arguing with someone remind yourself that their opinion doesn’t count unless you let it. Let the other person have their opinion, after all it in no way diminishes yours unless you allow it to. Words can only hurt us if we agree with them.

A wonderful exercise is to carry around a small notebook and whenever you are feeling judged or ‘unloved’ to a few minutes to write down your inner dialog. What are you telling yourself? We swim in a sea of unconditional love yet we have the ability to feel unloved. Noticing how we do that is incredibly freeing and transformational.

With love and aloha,
Susan

I have recently written a series of posts about the controversy about building a mosque in NYC on my beliefnet blog.  For some reason this issue has engaged me. Here is a video blog post. I have a feeling I may have a lot more to say about this topic and I am not really sure why.

What do angels, mosque at ground zero and 9/11have in common? From the comments and e mails I have been getting very few people chose to look at the issue through the eyes of the angels, nor have they asked the angels how else they can see these events.

It was interesting to me. I actually found myself getting rather upset with people’s judgments and of course that meant I was judging them for judging! I view every event in life as opportunity to either deepen my connection to my filter system or to deepen my connection to my spirit. My emotions are a clear indication which direction I am going. Joy, love, acceptance indicate I am getting closer to my spirit. Fear, judgment and anger show me I am reinforcing my limiting beliefs and deepening my connection to my filer system.

Aloha everyone,

I’ve decided to start making videos of some of my blog posts so here is the first one. Enjoy!

With love and aloha,
Susan

Have you ever had one of those white-hot AHA!-moments where you suddenly understood something that  had been eluding you?

Well I just had one recently . . .

I am leaving for Lithuania in a few days and I was trying to get everything done before I left. One of those things was opening up my favorite program, Mastering Life.

I’ve been re-working this apprenticeship program for a while now. As I was going through the class material, I suddenly had a flash. I’m really enjoying the updating process and getting excited about these updates, but I’m feeling really pressured to move faster and try to get it done immediately.

Then my little voice suddenly piped up and said, “Allow yourself to fully savor reading and editing this material rather than just getting it done.”

What a relief. Now, while I spend time in my favorite place in the whole world (next to my home in Hawaii) I will savor re-reading and editing, tweaking and changing.

I was amazed that because I wanted to get things done I forgot to take time to smell the roses. Life is after all a journey best savored in the moment. So I am back to savoring and all is well in my world.

With lots of love and aloha,
Susan

The main objective of the Toltec tradition is to change our point of creation from our mind to our spirit. When I first began this journey I had a hard time discerning whether my inner guidance was coming from my mind or my spirit. Through trial and error, practice, discipline and dedication over the years it has become much easier.

I am in the process of building an addition to my home. The top floor is going to be my meditation room. I have had some doubts about the need for a third story when two would suffice but I have followed that inner knowing and insisted on the third floor.

Yesterday I came home after several days away. The builder had put the floor on the third story while I was gone so as soon as I got home I climbed up to see the view. I was only there a few minutes when a beautiful rainbow began to appear, slowly at first and then it expanded into a full arch. I took it as a sign from my spirit of well done.

Just beginning to show

Getting bigger

A complete arch

I could have noticed or not, saw it as a sign or not and I could have ignored my desire to document the process and take pictures every day (a miracle for me). What really matters is how I feel energetically, expanded and connected to my spirit or contracted, fear based and disconnected.

And if you notice the sky, the sun is shinning and there was no rain anywhere, unusual conditions for a rainbow!

With love and aloha,
Susan

Life really is a series of choices. We can choose to align with our spirit and make our choices based in love and a life springs forth. We can choose to embrace our filter system and make our choices based on fear and an entirely different kind of life arises. If we are willing to honestly look at our life we can see the choices we have been making.

As a child my dad and I had a very tumultuous relationship. He lived with me the last year of his life. What a gift that was for both of us. As much as possible I choose to act from love rather than react from fear. The whole time he lived here I only got angry once and immediately shifted back into love. My dad thanked me many times for taking care of him and told me how proud he was of me. I was able to hold his hand as he died.

As I have said many times – life is and then we tell ourselves a story. I took a moment to change my story and created a very different experience. My dad has been watching videos from years ago. I can see how I responded as a young girl, feel the old stories rising to the surface and still make a new choice.

Life is a dream defined by what we tell ourselves. As I go through my day I ask myself if I want to create a nightmare or a fun and loving adventure. I also remember to ask myself if I want to be right or I want to be happy. How freeing it is when I take the time to notice my choices and then decide if that is a path I want to continue to take.

What choices have you been making in your life? What is your story about life in general and the people in your life? Are there villains in your story? Are you a victim or a powerful magician constantly creating your experience of reality? Is your life expansive and filled with so much love there is more than enough to share or is there scarcity in your life? Do you have a limited amount of love, time or energy?

What choices have you been making and do you want to continue down the path that those choices create?

With love,
Susan

Today is the last day for the charter membership of my Art of Allowing Class. Don’t miss out you have until midnight tonight HST. Here is a great video on taking responsibility. Enjoy!

Fear is such a prevalent force in so many people’s lives and in society as a whole. Choices we make based on fear rarely create outcomes we enjoy. When we let go of our fear, open to love and begin to trust the process of life we automatically live in a totally different world.

The Toltec tradition is based on the concept that the world is a vast energy system.  We can use our emotions like a barometer.  Low pressure usually means unsettled weather and rain while high pressure indicates clear, sunny weather. Fear indicates trauma and drama on the horizon while joy and love indicate smooth sailing.

My favorite story about my time as Don Miguel’s student is when I told Leslie, one of the advanced students that all the stuff we were learning seemed like brain washing. She looked at me, smiled and said, “Your brain needs washing.” How right she was.

I wasn’t aware at that point that I was responsible for my emotions and that the events in my life were all emotionally neutral. It took me a lot of ‘brain washing’ to realize that I didn’t need to change my life in order to feel good, all I had to do was change my thinking.

The irony was that until I changed my thinking the events in my life were likely to continue to be reruns. Once I changed my thinking and began to tap into love more often than fear my life became a magical adventure rather than a boring rerun of the same old trauma and drama.

This morning I climbed to the top of the addition I am putting on my home. I stood where my desk will be and was blown away by the view. Owning a home in Hawaii would never have been part of my life had I not changed my filter system. Having a three story addition built to my specifications was no where in the picture. Barely paying the bills and hiding my car from the repo man was part of the life that fear built. I enjoy my present life a whole lot more.

Take time to let go of your limiting beliefs and see what happens to your life. I can guarantee you will love the results.

Until next time with lots of love,
Susan

This week I opened up my latest class, The Art of Allowing. Until Sunday you can join as a Charter Member. Check it out, it is a wonderful ‘brain washing’ tool.

I love writing teaching stories. I met the Grandmother when I was writing my second book. I started to write story about the Grandmother telling stories to the children of the village. One little girl said, "I want to here the story about the white wolf." My immediate thought was I do too!

She and I have journeyed far together and I have decided my next book will be all teaching stories. Here is the first of many to come.

The Grandmother, the chief and omens

Grandmother pulled her robe closer as she looked up at the stars. It was a cold night for early spring and she wondered what the crops would be like this year.  She loved sitting outside watching the village sleep. She heard the gentle stirring of the wind as it began its morning journey across the land. Off in the distance the coyotes sang and an owl flew overhead.

She felt his presence as he stepped out of his Hogan, silently said his prayers and began walking toward her. Something was deeply troubling him. Perhaps he too felt the quiet whispers of the changes to come.

The horizon was just showing the first signs of light as he approached. Grandmother’s cooking fire was just springing to life as he settled onto the bench he had made for her as a boy.  What a gift watching him become a man. She was grateful he had turned into such a kind and loving leader. Grandmother handed him a cup of tea and slowly stirred the porridge.

They sat in silence, comfortable in each others company. Grandmother heard the owl again and pulled her robe a little closer. Death was in the wind or was it?

“What troubles you my son?”

“I feel the presence of death in the village. I am afraid someone I love will die. What if my wife or my son dies? I know I shouldn’t fear death that it is part of life but I just can’t shake this feeling. The feeling of darkness haunts my every step.”

“Are you sure it is death you fear? Did you talk to the darkness before you gave it a name?” The young man looked at Grandmother for the longest time.

“I am not sure what you mean. I feel the presence of death.”

The old woman poured another cup of tea and looked at the horizon slowly showing signs of the sun’s arrival. He followed her gaze and was struck by the beauty of this valley. He was filled with a familiar feeling of gratitude and peace.

Grandmother smiled as she looked at her young friend. They both sat in silence as they watched the sun come over the horizon. In winter and early spring the light always illuminated Grandmother’s place first, at her age she needed the extra warmth. A hawk flew overhead, circling three times before he screeched loudly and landed on a branch not too far away. He looked directly at Grandmother and began to clean his feathers.

“Each new day is an opportunity. We can fill the day with love and laughter, we can share our light and open our hearts to the gifts so freely given or we can walk with fear.  When we walk with love we have no choice but to see the perfection in all of life. No matter what is happening in the moment we can celebrate or deny the experience and bemoan our fate.

“When I was young I was asked to leave my village. I left in disgrace, failing to see the gift and walked with fear for many seasons. One night an old woman came to me and helped me see life through the eyes of love. She changed my life and shortly after that I came to this village where I was welcomed with love.  Since I met her I see the gift and the love in everything. I have learned to talk with the spirit of all things and am no longer so quick to name things. Once named, they are limited.  Did you talk to the darkness or just name it death?”

He thought for a moment before he replied. “I felt something I did not know. It was strange, like nothing I had felt before. It felt dark and ominous so I named it death. My fear spoke loudly and I forgot to talk with my spirit. Yes, Grandmother I named it before I spoke with it.”

“Really listening to our heart, taking time to connect with our spirit and listening is so important in our lives. I watch people read the omens and watch for signs but not take the time to go within. It is by going within that you will find the answers. If you read the signs, if your definition of the omens comes from an external source they may lead you astray.

“The hawk visited us and if I tell you what that means I rob you of the opportunity to ask your spirit what it means for you in that moment. We often deny our wisdom by projecting the past on the present moment. What you learn from someone else is knowledge. When you listen to your spirit you gain wisdom, a wisdom that comes from the heart of the Great Spirit that is filled with love and will only bring you joy.”

He bowed his head and gently kissed her check. “Thank you Grandmother. I will always remember your words and hold them close to my heart.”

He walked rapidly toward the path that led to the top of the cliff. She knew he would spend the morning there finding the voice of his spirit returning with the wisdom of love.

If only more people would take the time to do that what a wonderful world this would be.

With love and aloha,
Susan

I am on my way home from Peru and still don’t have words for my experience. I am sure it will take me a while to integrate all the ceremonies and experiences. Here are some more images of the trip. If you allow yourself to feel the energy in them you will have a sense of it all.

With awe, love and inspiration,
Susan

I arrived in Peru late last night. Before I left I did my usual, “I hate traveling” rant. While I was traveling I had some insights about my ‘hate traveling’ creation and next time I travel I will make new choices.

I know that everything in my life is my creation and that out there has very little, if anything to do with my experience. It was interesting to see how easily I forgot that and for a few days actually believed traveling was the problem.

Often change is really a matter of finding the actual cause of our distress, our beliefs and changing that as well as our intent. I realized that if my intent is to experience peace of mind and ease then when I travel I have to prepare in a different manner.

Our mind/filter system works on the premise that it needs to be right and remain the same. Our happiness is often a matter of ‘seeing’ life in a new, more expansive manner. I’ve decided next time I travel I will allow myself to have a day of rest the day before I leave rather than have that last day home as a crunch day.

When I look at what is in my life I can easily see my actual intent. If I want to get different results I have to change my intent.

As you look at your life what has your intent been and will that allow you to get the results you want?

With love and aloha,
Susan