We have been playing for too long. Playing the game of “forgetting”, we have forgotten the compassionate sensitivity that resides at the depth of our being. We have swept aside the inner calm that allows us to slow down to smell the roses and we have brushed the belief in our pure potentiality and ourselves off.

We have gotten ourselves so caught up in” the real world” that we have lost track of those things in the inner world.

Whenever you make a choice you tell the universe that, that is what you prefer above and over everything else. With the choices that you make you tell the universe what you value and simultaneously for what you don’t. So really what ultimately is important to you? If you had only one year to live what would you do? Who would you spend your time with?

So what moves your heart to beat faster, to bring forth a more loving nature in you?

What touches your soul and provides you will a sense of pure fulfilment?

What moments do you catch yourself immersed in, feeling free, light and fascinated with the world, with yourself?

Everything in your life is as it should be, seek to embrace your emotions, feel through them. Embrace them to the point that you are able to centre yourself fully in the now with out attachment to them, or attachment to your thoughts or stories. When you centre yourself in the now, the orchestration, perfection and purpose of every person, place, item, background and space becomes magnified and totally in sync. Everything, everything, everything has been perfectly aligned for you in your life in particular ways for particular days. Every moment is serving; seek to find the service in the moment.

The stars share their light, the cosmos align perfectly and the seasons take place to serve you. They illustrate to you the depth and beauty that is within. The very same creator that created the universe also created you, the very same beauty that is in the universe is also inside you. It is sitting, waiting, anticipating for the day that you make the decision to confront your fears and connect with that part of yourself.

But just as you make choices for your physical life you must also choose ways forward for your inner life. We might get caught up with life; we might get absorbed with the things that seemed important at the time in the 3D World. And yes, you bet you they served a purpose in your life. But when these choices were made what happened to the voice of your soul? Why did you stop shedding tears over that song that once moved you emotionally? Why did you throw out the sentimental belonging/ diaries/ cards/ and gifts that you once held so dear? When did you stop chasing those youthful dreams that exuberated hope and an attitude of “I can take on the world”?

What happened to that inner essence that we let go unseen, unspoken and unfelt for all of those years?

It was not made a choice, it was not made a priority and it was swept under the rug.

Obviously there are important items in life like paying our bills, providing and caring for our family, bettering our career and making time to run day to day errands. They are all necessary. Physical reality is vital to live comfortably and secure, but to live abundantly and feel a deep sense of fulfilment we need to live a life true to our soul. A life focused not just on improving our physical reality, but as well on growing our inner world.

Your conscious mind is filtered with the egos influence. Begin today to let go of your ego by being attuned to its influence in your life and allow yourself to acknowledge everything that arises within you, without judgement, story or attachment. When you find yourself calm, collected and centred you will be able to without inner cloud feel the depth of your being. Your soul.

Pure, calm and compassion with an added touch of the feminine energetic frequency are all words that spring to mind when I feel I am at home in myself, in my soul.

It is your soul that provides depth, strength and meaning to your life. Start feeling, really feeling, what moves you emotionally, what lights your excitement, and what stirs your soul.

What gives you unexplainable satisfaction?

This is your ultimate personal truth.

Yes you can have both spiritual and physical happiness. Yes you can have a thriving career; a well cared for family, adored home and a soul fuelled with existence, energy, expression and wonder.

The goal of cultivating the various elements of yourself and bringing about balance in your life are important but what is imperative is the discovery that one finds when you are living in your truth, not tainted with a black and white perspective, but you are living a rainbow explosion of colourful expression everyday.

Yes, you can! Because you created it.

You listened to the calling, emotionally and intuitively understood it and soulfully moved in the direction of your inner truth. Leave yourself behind, let your fears and ego drift away, open yourself up, and be present in this moment. Be fluid, easily adaptable, and curious to the eternal and infinite happiness of your soul. Wonderful synchronicities will manifest and your authentic path will open up, bringing you to the true happiness that you have been searching for all along.

The integrity of your being.

By Sarah Liddle

Life is to be chosen and created. It is not left to chance. Our world should be a conscious and decided upon journey. Not only should our outer world be worked upon, but also our inner world. Our world is a path forged by us, taken in and lived out every day through our actions. Your soul is more than just a part of you, it is us, it is all of us. It is all that is. Your should live in and through your soul your entire life. But the matter of the fact is, its not its forgotten about, hidden and brushed to the inside for the fact that we are ashamed of ourselves and yes of who we may become if we do stay true to our light. I don’t know many people that are real, maybe they are scared. But the years will go and they will not know what lies hidden, buried and dormant underneath.

The souls beauty is the beauty of truth and elimination. It illuminates all the unneeded stuff in ones life. When we start denying the soul we start accumulating things, people, and roles that are not needed for us. A simple authentic hug renews and rekindles one to their soul. But I wonder why, so few of us hug genuinely? Has the acceptance of societies standards taken over from the awareness and acknowledgment of another’s soul? There is no shame in hugging another, in really jugging another.

Don’t loose touch, rekindle your soul, breath it to life.

We don’t need to make sense of it all. We must centre ourselves in the present moment and bring awareness to the inner core of our being. To be so aware that we are able to feel intuitively in the moment what must live and what should die. Where did we loose track and cut off our soul voice. Where did we loose our intuition, our knowingness? We got carried away with what was appealing and magical in the moment. But in hindsight we might not have considered the depth of what we were doing, or didn’t bring consciousness to the situation.

Today consider what you have been holding onto which is not adding value on any or all four of your mental, emotional, spiritual or physical levels. If it holds no intangible value for you, consider replacing it with something that does. By simplifying your life you get closer to not only those things that truly matter and make a difference in your life, but by being a bearer for those things that touch you deeply you are able to give more to others and see with a greater perspective. It’s about not being naive, or ego-orientated in believing certain items; people, places and roles will fulfil you. A little pleasure initially can lead us largely astray; if you have been lead astray you can work on recovering your soul and rebuilding your life based on the things that add intrinsic and fulfilling value to yourself and your life.

What weighs heavily on ourselves is a dead give away that the items are not serving us on any level.  Look honestly, what try’s to capture your soul; to belittle you and make you think less of yourself and your world? For those things that need to die in your outer life must first die in your inner life. Without the initial death internally they will live on. Cut the chords inside and the unfolding will be a mirror of the internal.

Your soul knows that stillness is found within; the external world is a mirror of the internal. Ones real goals cannot be authentically materialized until one knows their soul and departs from the past and pain body. But without the awareness and compassion to ones soul, stillness can never occur. Love will never be genuine and life will be contained as a third dimensional dance of stuff that adds no value. Your own life will remain a mystery.

Day follows night, the epic of your life begins today, and the journey begins now, which will take you on the ride of your life with long white clouds.

By Sarah Liddle

After I’d been walking for a few minutes, looking at the fields and the sky, there was a shift in my vision, as if someone had pressed a switch. Everything around me became intensely real. The fields and the bushes and trees and the clouds seemed to be powerfully there, even to have their own kind of identity, as if they were more than just inanimate objects. I also felt somehow connected with my surroundings. As I looked up at the sky, I could sense that somehow that the space which fills it was the same ‘space’ which fills my own being. What was inside me, as my own consciousness, was also ‘out there’.

This is an example of what I call an ‘awakening experience.’ In awakening experiences, the world becomes more real and beautiful, and an atmosphere of harmony seems to fill our surroundings. We feel serene and whole inside, and our normal problems and worries seem to fade into insignificance. The world seems like a benevolent and meaningful place, and we feel part of everything around us, with an intense empathic connection with other people.

At a higher intensity of awakening, we might become aware of a kind of force pervading our surroundings, a radiant energy which seems to underlie the whole world and to make everything one. Our own identity may seem to dissolve away, as we become part of this oneness. The whole material world may seem to fade away too, immersed in a sea of brilliant spiritual radiance.

Awakening experiences seem to happen when the ‘filters’ which limit our normal awareness of the world fade away. We ‘wake up’ to a wider and fuller reality, and in comparison our normal vision seems incomplete and even unreal. We feel that now we’re seeing the world as it really is, as if we’re seeing it in three dimensions rather than two, or in colour rather than in black and white.

Awakening experiences can sometimes occur for no apparent reason, but mostly they are generated by certain activities or situations. While doing the research for my book Waking From Sleep, I found that two of the most common triggers of them were nature and meditation. Many people I spoke to had awakening experiences while they were walking in the countryside, swimming in lakes, or gazing at beautiful flowers or sunsets. Other people had them while they were meditating, reaching a state of pure consciousness, outside of time and space. Others had awakening experiences after meditating, when the perceptions were sharper and richer and they felt a sense of connection to their surroundings.

Another common trigger is watching or listening to an arts performance. For example, the following experience occurred while a person was watching a performance of Turkish Dervishes:

The theatre fell silent, no babies crying, no movement or sounds from the audience, only the gentle swishing sounds of white skirts twirling and the soft sounds of felt gliding on the stage. There was a feeling of intense peace, happiness and tranquillity. Nothing else mattered in the world and outside the theatre. We all felt as one – it was a mesmerising experience and unforgettable.

Another person described an experience he had while listening to a concert performance of Brahms’ 4^th symphony:

It was like glittering petals of sounds exploded. I could immediately feel the stream of life flowing around me. It was as though I was experiencing heaven on earth. I felt a huge sense of euphoria, an intense sense of well-being. Life became idyllic, and it carried on for days. For five days I felt completely energised.

Some of you have probably experienced something like this during or after sex too: a feeling of well-being which goes beyond sensual pleasure, and is caused by a change of consciousness. Perhaps earlier you felt stressed and worried, as if your life was full of problems – but often after sex everything seems miraculously different. Your problems seem to have disappeared (proving that to a large extent we create our own problems by worrying), and you seem to be glowing inwardly, as if a kind of dynamo has been switched on inside you, filling you with a feeling of completeness and serenity. Here, for example, one person described how she feels after she has orgasms:

I feel as if I haven’t got any weight. There’s a warm feeling running all through my body…Nothing else seems to matter, problems cease to exist, as if the feeling takes you over so much that there’s no room for anything else. I feel capable of doing anything…

I also look at things more clearly, look beyond what I usually look at. The colours seem more distinct; if you look at, say, a tree, you see it for what it really is, not just as a tree. You see it as nature, not just as an object.

Many other everyday situations cause these experiences: sports like running and swimming, creative activities (e.g. playing music or dancing) or reading poetry. The experiences are sometimes associated with religion, or called ‘spiritual experiences,’ but I believe this is misleading. There’s nothing religious or even spiritual about them (although if you are religious, you might interpret them in religious terms and believe that you ‘seen’ or communicated with God in some way.)  I prefer to see them as a completely normal and natural psychological phenomenon – a glimpse of our true nature, and a peek into the meaningful and benevolent reality of our universe.

Spiritual wealth, just like monetary wealth, can be found in many ways. Some ‘get lucky’ in a seemingly random way somewhat like the winning the lottery, whereas others find their riches after years of hard graft, following the advice and rules set out by those who’ve been successful before them. Finally, there are those who are born with a certain acumen – who throw away all the rules and are guided by their own intuitive self-assurance. These people know that material or spiritual abundance is actually within everyone’s grasp.  Unmani Liza Hyde certainly falls into the latter category. What is more, she is a woman on a mission to facilitate a sustained spiritual confidence-boost for the people who attend her group meetings in ‘Not Knowing.’ These meetings are for anyone whose internal voice of doubt has been holding them back from putting into daily practice what their heart has known all along.

The beautifully seductive Unmani – who has men and women falling at her feet – is an unpredictable character, at times teasing words and emotions out of shy participants with a compassionate gaze and soothing smile and other times taking a tough-love approach by bringing overactive egos down a peg or two with a verbal slap-in-the-face. I certainly got a taste of both aspects of her teaching during a recent weeklong retreat with her in the Turkish village of Faralya, a retreat that attracted people from all walks of life: from Jessie, the gregarious millionairess plastic surgeon, to a singer from the 90’s boy band Five, or the big, friendly giant, Burt, who works as a care home nurse in Amsterdam. All come to Unmani’s retreats as pilgrims looking for insights or experiences that will ease their pains.

Some may be seeking an end point after years of searching for liberation or enlightenment and others for space or support to heal a broken heart. Unmani, who is still at a loss herself about why her meetings are so powerfully transforming, confesses, “I don’t know why people are attracted to my message rather than any other teachers, but I do know that what they end up getting may be more than they bargained for!”

Unmani believes that by searching for a perfect formula for enlightenment one is likely never to find it – and she should know after spending over a decade on a journey of self-discovery that brought her back to what she’d always known, but overlooked.  “As a child I didn’t see myself as separate from other people or objects and I often had a strong sense that life was a dream,” she said. When trying to fit into the worldview of separation imposed on her by adults she reacted emotionally: “In my teens I felt enraged about the world – I left home and traveled the globe looking for something to fill the emptiness inside which was consuming me.”  During this time she built-up an impressive portfolio of self-development tools, therapies and spiritual retreats, which included time at the notorious OSHO Ashram in Pune.  However, it wasn’t until she was forced to pause her journey that her biggest breakthrough happened. “I broke my ankle during a therapy session attempting to kill the anger I felt towards my Mother by punching and kicking padded walls and mattresses. The following month spent in bed staring at the ceiling was almost unbearable – but it allowed me to meditate on what Dolano, a teacher from India had told me about ‘Awakening’.  Suddenly a veil fell away, and I was resting in a state I can only describe as ‘not-knowing’.”

At the retreat in Turkey, Unmani’s introductory message was simple, “There is nothing to know – and at the same time, you’ve known this all along.” This paradox was the bottom line she would bring everyone back to during the week ahead. My knee-jerk reaction to such a blasé statement was to wonder how this week would differ from any other esoteric retreat, yet, in the same way that Lao Tzu said that the Tao described in words is not the real Tao, I was soon to realise that what Unmani was pointing to also could not be described in words. The uniqueness of her approach lay in the gentle but certain way she held and guided the group – allowing space for each person’s essence to regain a voice that had long been drowned out by their governing minds.

Each day was molded around two or three powerful group meetings during which Unmani began with a poetic monologue – often pointing out the absurdity of the mind’s attempts to protect itself from painful experiences – before offering everyone the chance to enter into a dialogue with her about whatever matters surface.  And surface they certainly did: a shiver went down my spine on the very first day when the group’s most archetypal alpha-male was reduced to tears within minutes of taking the hot seat for the first time. By lunchtime on the second day, the atmosphere was heating up, with anger, resistance and even doubt about the whole process we were being led through bubbling up to the surface. This boiling pot Unmani was creating boosted my empathy towards others as I felt their emotions rising long before any tears or laughter erupted. At the same time my desire to get caught up in the minutiae of stories and drama fell away. Within all of this Unmani kept her cool and of paid no heed to any personal dilemmas that could steer attention away from the bottom line of ‘not knowing’  - until, of course, everyone had well and truly got it.

After three days of shining a light on the protective tricks conjured up by the ego it felt like my mind had given up and gone home  – wherever that is – and I was starting to wonder if the meetings could go on any longer. If there’s nothing to know, nothing to care about and no point whatsoever worrying about anything, then surely we’ve all got the point of Unmani’s teachings and can just sit in silence?  Yet, whether Unmani planned it or not things were about to take a turn. Wiping the slate clean of ‘mind’ allowed many of the old disguises and tricks to be seen for what they are when they arise again. When Unmani gently brought us back to the topics of sensuality, love and death, all of a sudden, skeletons that had been sleeping in the deepest darkest depths of the proverbial closet started to stir and then, one by one, come out on parade. Stories of abuse, neglect and violence were released and shared openly and with compassion.

The effect of this journey was most clearly seen in a softening of faces and body language, which became more relaxed and exuberant as time went on. Heather, who at the beginning of the week looked like a timid little girl in a stern grandmother’s body, overcame her fear of going crazy or falling apart and she took off the lid that had been covering her heart for over twenty years.  By the end of the week there was a visible shift from a state of confusion to confidence about her true self.  Likewise, John, whose life-long obsession with needing to explain and rationalise everything left him with all the charisma of the well-meaning but hopelessly irksome sitcom character, Mr Brittas. Under Unmani’s ‘nothingness workout’ the façade of an anxst-ridden teenager come military official melted away to reveal a newly-relaxed face that spoke maturity.

Unmani warned me that I’d have a tough job on my hands trying to describe exactly what happens exploring ‘Not-Knowing’. What I do know is that she was correct in saying that we got more than was bargained for during the retreat.  Those expecting a space for peace in her meetings may end up being put in the spotlight. Those looking for respect or attention from others discover value within themselves. By the end of the week there was a strong sense of warmth and unity amongst the group – we were graduates from a spiritual boot camp – with hearts fortified from a staple of ‘chicken soup for the soul’ and egos that were trim and appropriately sized.  Mentally toned but spiritually nourished, we were ready to play hard in the world again.

DR IAN TENNANT

m: 07812 901 685
e: ian@thriveandenjoy.co.uk
Thriving and Enjoying life in Bideford, EX39 4AR

thriveandenjoy.co.uk

Further Information:

Unmani Liz Hyde – for more information on meetings with Unmani go to www.not-knowing.com

Veggie Ventures – experts in natural health holidays who hosted the retreat.  Their slow approach to business and getting to know locals ensures all staff at the venues understand the ethos behind the retreats. www.vegiventures.com

How often are we truly alone with ourselves for any prolonged period of time? How often do we enter into a space of stilled silence? How often do we find sufficient time in order to think and reflect upon our lives? One of the biggest problems we face in our economically driven world is that of over activity – the desire to be constantly striving and achieving. Rushing around, trying to speed up this moment in order to enter the next, never quite knowing that underlying all this energy is anxiety – a deep anxiety that grips us by the collar and won’t let us go.

The modern malaise that currently blights the lives of so many of us is that of workaholism – the compulsive addiction to work. Throughout western societies, and beyond, it is running rampant through the population with no signs of abating. In Japan they label it karoshi, ‘death by overwork.’   In the Netherlands they have identified what is known as  ‘leisure illness‘ where workers become physically ill at weekends and on leave as they desperately try to wind down and relax from the work situation.  In America and Europe the pattern is very similar with workers feeling stressed and over burdened with the demands of the working week. Unfortunately work is often seen as a respectable ‘addiction‘ and therefore not to be discouraged. But it is not just in a work environment that our addictiveness to over-activity finds expression. In much of what we do, in our 24 / 7 world we become driven and over-preoccupied with filling up our lives with busyness and as a result our physical, mental and spiritual well-being suffers……..

Workaholism, and the attendant quest to constantly engage with endless activity are socially unchallenged addictions that must be challenged otherwise we run the risk of being distracted, led away from the fundamental life issues and questions that need to be addressed. Our journey in life, the real quest that we must undertake is that of finding out who we really are so that we can start to define our purpose in life. This, at one level may seem naïve, even absurd to some but I would argue that it lies at the very core of our existence waiting to be addressed. Nothing could be more wasted in our lives than spending time being someone else. Projecting an image of the self onto others which is inauthentic and flawed whilst our true self still lays buried deep within in us. So deep it remains hidden, dormant, but waiting, ever ready to be engaged and nurtured providing we create the right conditions for its awakening.

“ Go to your cell and learn everything.” – Brother Moses – Desert Father

Nothing external to ourselves can ‘ give us ‘ awakening; it’s simply isn’t there. So all we can ever really do is turn within, and with deep presence start to explore, under the right conditions, the fundamental questions that need our attention. But what are these conditions that we must engage with and can they really serve our needs?

Contemplation, a state of wakefulness to the world around us, relies on a simplicity of lifestyle that has, at its heart, a deep presence of stillness, solitude and silence within it.  And it is our engagement with these conditions that will gently lead us on a journey where we become more mindful, more aware, leading to profound insights and eventual awakening. This spiritual process can be simply expressed thus:

SIMPLICITY, SOLITUDE, STILLNESS and SILENCE leads to CONTEMPLATION which opens us up to MINDFULNESS, AWARENESS, INSIGHT and AWAKENING.

Gentle perseverance is the key to awakening and the deeper we go into contemplation the richer the harvest we reap. To others it may appear ‘misplaced,‘  ‘selfish,‘ or ‘wasteful. ‘ Some may say that it leads to  ‘trickery‘ and even ‘delusion.‘ But in truth, providing the circumstances are right in supporting our practice then only a much fuller person can emerge. One that becomes aware of new truths not old falsehoods. One that has a much broader vision, that sees and experiences a feeling of unity, a oneness with all living creation.

We must not get mistaken over what is big and what is small in life. What is important and what is unimportant. What is it that we should undertake in order to grow more as individuals and what is it we must avoid, that which holds us back in the trap of self-diminishment?

Self-awakening knows no bounds and does not belong to any one, single school of thought. Krishnamurti once said that: “ Truth was a pathless landscape,” and what he meant by this surely is that no philosophy, ideology or theology has a monopoly on truth. Arguably all traditions contain profound wisdom, from which we can learn and grow, but not one can be exclusively ‘right.’ The insight journey we undertake to explore and reconcile the lives we lead is unique to each of us. No one can undertake the journey for us. It is a solitary pursuit that demands much of us in terms of patience – making ourselves available to the mystery of existence, the uncertain and the unexpected, the not known. Waiting quietly, silently, deeply not attaching to any expectations, desires or projected outcomes around what might be. Shutting down the machinery of noise and activity, making ourselves open and available like a dry, parched meadow ready to receive fresh, spring rain…….

ACTIVE CONTEMPLATION

Awakening into a new vision – an insight that could shape our entire future – can erupt almost anywhere, at anytime. It need not be the exclusive preserve of a solitary bhikkhu / monk seeking ‘enlightenment ’ through deep meditation. It need not be experienced in a remote monastery on the side of a mountain. It can happen to each and every one of us, in varying degrees, in differing locations. Whether we are strolling in the countryside, hoeing the garden, writing a poem, reading a meaningful book, painting a canvas or simply staring into a blazing, winter fire; all can induce feelings of introspection which can offer up profound, collected thoughts and reflections that, in the normal course of our busy lives, go largely undetected. All can start to map out a deep inner wisdom which is much more relevant and precious to our self development and growth than all the technological advances available to us in our post modern world.

Contemplation is not an evasion or denial of reality on the contrary it’s a direct confrontation with it. It actually helps us to shine a searchlight on the truth – the ‘what is,’ unblemished and untarnished, in full view. And through our exposure to this comes a better vision of who we are and our place in the world. It helps us grow in faithfulness to gain insight on the deepest, truest parts that beat repeatedly at the core of our being and cannot be ignored. But in order to make strong progress here we have to accept that the artificial, false self must die or rather diminish to a level of unimportance so that our new life can enter……

The conditions of contemplation ( simplicity, solitude, stillness and silence ) do not alienate us from reality, they do not disconnect us from our brothers and sisters and they never exclude us – push us out of the reach from our collective location in the order of shared things. Quite the opposite, they help liberate us through new visions of bonding, they allow us to escape from the illusion of separateness and therefore the poverty of real alienation and loneliness.

Contemplation is a by-product of closing down from the busy activity of our quasi–neurotic world. It helps us to penetrate into the realization of our true identity. It’s a surrendering of yesterday ( all that has gone on before ) and a surrendering of tomorrow (all that we fear may happen ) for the precious moment of a fully aware, fully relaxed, fully present NOW.

“ There is a perverse form of contemporary violence ( and that is ) activism and overwork….The rush and pressure of modern life are a form of violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects….. is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our won work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.”

 Thomas Merton

 www.michaellewin.org

Ultimately, that which we wish to create, must birth through our being, our body and our life. This means we must open to receive, and believe it is so. We must literally embody that which we dream and wish to live in our lives. Any feelings of lack of deserving, are thus delaying acknowledgement of one’s divine sovereignty – and thus delaying mastery. Allow the expansion of that which you desire to expand through you. This may feel a little strange, like breathing in a large amount of air at once, as you acclimatise yourself to living an expansive big life.

Conceiving a beautiful life

For something to manifest in your life, you must first conceive this in your mind. It arrives to you firstly with the desire, which has sparked from your soul wishing to explore and expand. Your soul knows your destiny records, which your spirit needs to fulfil – in order to achieve greater mastery over life. The emotions, the heart, emit the frequencies and vibrations of what you need in order to manifest your vision, to commence the vision flowing and therefore happening. Your mind then takes the emotional element and connects with the higher self point of connection. This weaves the theory element into the – the outline of the plan – the blueprint – into the left side of the brain. This side of the brain then “measures” this against the system of beliefs you already have, to see if it fits, your ability to conceive this – to “download” and choose to anchor this as a practical reality. Much like we choose a film, put it into our DVD player, and then choose to watch. You then are able to eventually see this in front of your eyes – in other words, to manifest this in your life – to live your dream. The right hand side of the brain receives the codings (data) of life that enable you to create your dream. Much like the ingredients in a recipe (whereas the left hand side receives the recipe). This then passes into the optical system, also connecting with the solar plexus – regarding the grounding of this dream, through your power of will (choice). The solar plexus chakra is like an incubator – it allows your dream to “power up” – to receive the energy it needs in order to manifest physically. So now your dream is moving in many directions through your physical form, so you may see now how important the body is, as a visual board for manifesting your spiritual self (providing you listen to it!). Then the dream will move through your sacral chakra, where you once again check if this is really what you want. By now, some manifestations may have begun to occur; some of the details of the dream would have come to your life, via opportunities. Your spirit self will be beckoning you forward toward expansion. Finally, the root chakra gives the platform for the dream. You may pass through debates within regarding survival issues at this point. Your body needs to be able to “hold” and contain this dream, whilst also weaving into life, as you are guided to, for the manifestation, through doorways and time windows opening for you, upon which you must take action. It must not be frittered away or exposed to negativity, so cherish your dream and hold it near and dear.

On the other level, the dream moves through the optical system, and through the physical eyes, whilst the mouth and nose take in the breath of life, to literally breathe life into the dream. The dream, as it moves through the eyes, connects with the actual patterning of your soul. We have many of these points on our body, where the divine blueprint may enter and engage with the etheric blueprint in our body (meridians, axiatonal points – which are like the etheric meridians). Every part of the physical body also has a divine function. The heart creates the flow of life, of truth, throughout the body. The heart chakra is the navigator, telling you when you are on or off course. Holding the vision you want in your heart and soul – energetically – as you wake, or as you envision each vision. Not to think of things as they are, which may entail thinking that the vision has not yet happened, feeling deflated that it is not already there in your life. You must hold the energy of the vision first, and this includes the energy imprint, signature etc. The signature of the energy of your dream life is not deflated or with despair, so neither must you be, as you trust and allow it to download, all the while keep holding that vision and pure high energetic signature. Project out to the world that which you truly wish to attract, rather than your feelings of lack of this in your life. Be internally – that which you wish. Be complete in that wish internally, so you can magnetise it externally. It must be within to be external also. This involves a lot of trust in the internal processes.

Thirty Points of Guidance:-

Really Living - We find the doorways of our life opportunity, by listening to the resonance of our soul. By “giving the time of day” to listen to the voice of our spirit, and then not to dismiss it, by non-action. Embrace your divinity~ Give your spirit a voice in the world Act from the love of your heart, to live the world of your soul. Be spirit in action

Life is a flow - Life has a cyclic effect. Life is a flow, not a stopping point, even to reflect (imagine if the earth stopped spinning). If one were perfectly aligned – one could just keep moving. Until you are ready, however, reflection will be your chance to glance at life’s map to steer your direction on the path of the highest light for you.

Alignment - How do we make our dreams come true? Alignment! Align to what is to be. It is that simple. Do not block it.

When you are ready - When you are ready, what is to be, what is to happen, will happen. If not, you are not ready for the actual live manifestation of this in your life. It may cause problems you are not realising because you are so focused on the desire of the dream to be real. Are you really ready? Are you at that level, internally?

Expand - Expand beyond your previous boundaries to encompass that which you dream of. It means releasing where you define “you” ending, and moving beyond your own boundaries and limitations. This can be done on an energetic auric level, where you release the past definition you hold of yourself in your body. In meditation, allow it to relax, and then release your mental definition of that being all you are, and allow space to enter in. In that space the imprints of your hearts dreams for this life can begin to become one with that space. You have expanded.

Moving beyond reacting – begin living! - Why do we even need to respond to something negative? What part of our ego directs us to have to respond – and to react? Why not simply choose to divert our attention in the direction of our soul’s calling? Do you think your soul would want for you to be engaged in negative situations? Do we need to touch or encounter them at all? Truly not holding onto anything allows it to shift into the space it needs to be. Release personal control over all situations.

Another part of you - How indeed to we access our totality? We access it by integrating mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically – once this occurs fully, we move up to the next level, as we release that which we were, and move more into the true centre of our spirit and soul. Only by releasing identification with our past self, can we find out who we truly are now, if only we just allow ourselves to discover this…

Something has to give - In order to fully encompass a new you, something has to give, you have to let go of that which you identified with in the past, in totality of release, completely, allow it to synthesise, just simply let go, and discover yourself fresh in this moment.

Light of Life - What brings you life and enlivens you? What strengthens your soul and expands your presence? What heals you? Sometimes what comes our way, as guided by spirit and called upon by our own soul, may seem unimportant, and trivial. Maybe we dismiss that offering, and discover later, there may have been a reason it was put on our pathway of life. We are here to gain strength of our soul, so that we can accomplish our full mission. This requires a lot of listening on our part.

Conscious Feeling - Be conscious of what it is you are feeling. What you decide and choose to feel (yes, it is a choice!), will be what you eventually manifest. Even “reactions” to media news – it all generates feelings, which shift your reality. Whatever you generate has to find a place to sit in your reality. Once you have generated that feeling – it needs a place to be, a place to rest, and eventually, if it is not something you like – it will need to be transformed and transmuted, or lived out somehow in your life. Either way, something has to happen to that energy. It will then need your attention to harmonise and synthesise it. It will not just evaporate and “go”.

We are (I AM) – Nothing ever happens to us, we become the happening. What we experience – is the change in us externalised, and we adjust this according to how we feel about the mirror we see in the world. Sometimes this is not obvious – as it may come from a denser level of our being that we have not reacquainted with in a while.

Joyfully Creating - Learn how to joyfully create, without seeing what is required as a burden that you wish to release. Energy builds when creating, and for some this feels overwhelming to them. So the person may decide to quit, through a lack of understanding of this. It may be that the person needs to make more space in their life, for the new creation, and may indeed need to let go of more of the old, rather than trying to hold both the old and the new.

Expansion – Sometimes people are afraid – when something they are to do, seems bigger than they are. This is an opportunity to expand, to grow, and it is a process of rising to the higher picture and letting go of that which is not part of this supreme vision. The vision is in the process of becoming, yet requires you to reach and act in new ways that are in accordance with the higher picture, rather than where you are or were – resonating at. Sometimes people say they do not feel ready, but yet they do not understand that life is always in a process of becoming – and that, by the commitment to this vision, and following what they are shown after they commit to this – that it begins to come to be, through their dedication to the new vision. They become the new vision, rather than the vision “happening to them”. They move towards the new vision, enter the space of the new vision, and thus leave the space where the old vision resided, and release the actions/ways/responses of the old vision. That which they were, ceases to be. That which we do not like in our life, we must let go of that part of us, which is that. We must change, in order to change our life, or any aspect of us.

Through us - We are to remember that life flows through us, not happens to us. Often if we think it happens to us, we may feel scattered without proper focus. We may feel stressed, and thinking in terms of time constraints. If we view life as flowing through us, we will know that we always have enough time, providing we pay attention to the messages we are receiving – that are prompting us into action, to prepare. Stress is really only resisting this for some reason or another, or that we lack focus – to keep the flow in harmony.

Perfecting Manifestation - Why is it that sometimes our manifestations are other than which we wished for? It is because our visualisation was incomplete. Our visuals need to include all of the detail we desire to manifest, not just part of it. We indeed, under the laws of free will, are responsible, and armed with the gift of full mastery. For some this gift may feel like a weight, as some may desire to not have the pressure of being fully responsible for that which they manifested. Some prefer others to do that, but this cannot be, for we are the creators, and we get to choose what is in our reality. We can have part of what we choose, if we have only brought forth part of the necessary energetics. The “dream” that our soul and heart yearns for us, needs to be birthed forth through all of our chakras, we must engage all of our senses into this dance of life, and we must keep the energies flowing, for they flow in a spiral, a circular pattern, and not in linear mode. It must be our genius within that learns how to organise our life – and ground the dream, by bringing it forth into the structure of this world.

Allowing Change - If you find that situations in your life are leaving, it is better to release them and allow the space in your life to be created by such departure of an element of your life – rather than hold onto an illusion, of that which is no longer real to your soul essence. At times we may hold onto an illusion, so we feel that certain circumstances in our life are still there, but the truth may be that they have long since left, yet we try, at times, to hold onto them. This takes a lot of energy, and is a distortion of what is really happening. Letting go – frees energy and space up, for new creations. Be honest with yourself about what connections and circumstance are really about. If this is not your highest picture, it may be better to move onto that which is.

Where is your dream? - Why are my dreams not manifesting? A question that many ask…Answer – have you lined up your thoughts and feelings to be in resonance with your dream? Or are you thinking negatively that it has not happened yet? We are creators, and it is for us to dream our dream into reality. We are dream weavers, dream makers, and if we are diligent, we are also living our dreams. It is the heart felt deep, deep desire that builds your inner dream, ready for birthing in the world. It is your thoughts of pure joy and exhilaration at living your truth – the truth of your soul, that seeds and shapes your creational dream, to come to be in reality.

Faith: - to receive manifestation of your dreams completed.

Physical: - Strengthen your soul through activity – by allowing your soul to be the one to choose the activities you participate in. …It is all about the meaning of life, the soul behind everything. What drives you. Not about material possessions or even places, but the people you need to connect up with for your shared missions and events you need to be part of, to fulfil your destiny.

Creation has got to come from fluid source energy flowing through you. Prepare to fall in love with life.

Allow yourself to take in the greater life – absorb and become one with what you love in life (don’t hold back, and/or wait for later).

What if….the reality you have seen all your life, is not the true one? What if the true life of love has yet to be discovered, and thus lived? What if….?

What is meant to be will always surround you. !

You are the pathway - How many times do we look for an existing pathway in our life? Only prepared or courageous enough to tread the path that others have trod. but you are the pathway, that pathway is inside of you. As you move through life, you create a thread of life, which creates a new pathway: – the pathway of you. Your will and divine life pattern are the map, and your physical body moving throughout life in a manner that believes in your messages, create the thread of light reaching the physical – by believing enough to act upon divine inspiration. Not following existing paths, but trusting in your unique invisible pathway – that only takes form once you act upon your messages within, with faith and courage. Way showers often beat paths that did not exist before. That is why we are the way showers. Because we have the courage and mighty divine fortitude to tread on pathways anew, and create something new for the world.

Tread on the pathway you desire, for that is the only way you are going to be on that path (get to that path)…You must be that path…

The Eternal Dream of the Soul – Which way round does creation work and thus manifest? Do you visualise and feel that which you love and your soul desires or do you go about a practical physical life, and tie it in with a written agenda of specifications? Well, it all begins at the blueprint stage. It is orchestrated by your soul. Over-lit by your spirit. And to be implemented by yourself that resides and lives in your body. However, bear in mind – only part of you lives in your body…the other is free as a bird, living multidimensionally, at that same time. To be free as a bird, in the body, is the life you want to live. For your spirit to be the orchestrator of your life, for your soul to be the director, and your physical self to enjoy the grounding of the dream, by acting upon the messages – the instructions. Following through with what appears like ideas, like inspirations, to you. By making room for this in your life. By allowing it to be, by giving it time, space…by believing it can come true, all the way – and opening up to the universe to provide you with anything it materially requires. Life should not be measured by material, but it should work the other way – you decide what you need to live your soul dream, then open and allow it to come to you, by magnetic of the universal law of “knock, and the door will be opened unto you”. The door of the universe, that is. Then the final result is the dream clothed in matter – it has meaning, it has heart, it has soul in it. It is not empty or temporary, but an eternal dream of the soul.

To meditate upon - Is who I AM, who I want to be…is my expression right now, the echo of the past, or the encouragement of my future self beckoning me forward.

Thoughts - Your thoughts become the extensions that flow out to reality of your intentions, of your will. They are more important than you realise – in the creation and stabilisation of the reality you live. Whatever you choose to be true (for you), will be true, and become part of you. This is the unity principle, which is the principle under which divine law is founded.

To do or not to do? - How much time do you spend thinking about what you have “got to do”, and how much time do you spend thinking and feeling about what it is that you really want your life to be composed of? If you do not think it, it cannot be. It must engage in the vehicle of your body to reach the physical world, so it must come through you. So it must engage in the physical senses as the last port of call before manifestation. The first ports of call are multidimensional – where you begin with the concept blueprint. Then you begin to allow it to be…you give it space…you allow the possibility…you begin to nurture it…you give it your time…you give it your energy…you allow it to grow.

Speed of Life - At exactly what speed does life move at? Your speed. As fast as you are able to reach the next stage, it will then be presented to you physically in the form of opportunities and all that is new. Sometimes the letting go part goes deeper than we realise it needs to. Allow yourself to go into those depths more fully.

It’s all you – You cannot create something that is not you. If you have manifested it, it means you became it. You must become on an internal level, that which you wish to physically see in your life. You must unify and merge, become one with, fall in love and surrender to that which you love in life, and would love to have in your life. Allow yourself the time and space to explore that, for it needs space in order to manifest, and it takes time, focus and attention to an alternative path – to strengthen it – in order to manifest (have it) it.

Total focus - Have you considered how much focus it requires for creational manifestation? Consider the woman who is pregnant for nine months, gestating that life. Well, creation works in a similar fashion. Some people think life is a passive journey that happens to you, and that you do your best. Well, sure you do your best, but it is not passive, rather an active happening, that is constant. You make your life, so give it the focus it deserves, so it is the life your heart and soul will sing for!

Believing - How does one enter into the truth of life? One first has to believe in it!! Faith is the passage to allow for this. As you trust in your spirit’s guidance and messages, and allow them to be, to see the light of day, to be in reality – then your truth can manifest physically. Firstly you need to support it, so that the vibration of your truth is on the physical plane level of reality. That vibration must be there – in your allowance and belief in it, in order to manifest your truth physically. In order to change your life physically, you must support your own dreams of life. You must give your dreams focus, energy, intent, and nourishment – be your own well of nourishment to your dreams, by being your own supportive force, your own backing team, your own cheerleader! Spirit will be right there beside you, as soon as you decide to manifest this.

Love yourself - Importantly – is not to dislike yourself just because you have not yet arrived at where you think you “should” be. If you do not accept yourself where you are currently at, it actually also halts the process of transforming from where you are at, because the energy of transformation must encompass where you are at, in order for you to move forward, so if you are hating yourself and where you are at, you are then in denial of where you are currently at, so the energy of transformation cannot move into the space where you are currently vibrating at, therefore the completion of transformation and the shift to the next cycle cannot happen.

Keep on moving - Despite how things may appear to the contrary, it is always possible to keep energy moving, and in the flow of life. If things appear that they are going “pear shaped”, keep in the flow that is being presented to you, and that flow will be like a river that continues to flow.

Create the space:- Create the space within your thoughts, your heart felt dreaming…allow that inner space to expand and spill out into your external reality. You are your own “space holder” for allowing or disallowing a heartfelt dream to come into reality, one that you may touch and experience. One that “Can be”.

Giving time to the positive - This pointer has been repeated and repeated, that in order to create something wonderful in your life, you need to spend time envisioning that wonderful change. Yes, it takes time! Without that time taken, “dreaming” you cannot create a change of mind, thus allowing your heart to fly free into the “fantasies” of what it would like to be true. Without this emotional trigger occurring, the necessary frequencies simply are not there, and you are more likely to suffer feeling that life is not a gift, when the reality is that you did not engage in exploring the potentials widely enough. More time spent on envisioning actually saves time normally spent more haphazardly manually trying to explore the options at a grounded level on earth, whereas the truth is that it always occurs first at a blueprint level, so you will be approaching it from the hardest level of struggle possible to try to create changes at ground force level, and likely experience delays and “things going wrong”. You must change you first, the change must be internal first, and integrated at that internal level. You must believe in the new reality, before it can birth. So, you must become so at one with it, so acquainted with everything about that new reality you so wish to birth – that you exude it, you believe in it, and you give it time.

By Sarah Ince

Sarahince1@aol.com

These days there are many amazing stories of people who have taken on the challenge of cancer and death. I offer my story here because a prehistoric symbol helped me make it through my challenge, and it might help you.

I was diagnosed with breast cancer the day my eldest son died of an epileptic seizure. He was twenty.

I can still remember that moment when two awful events collided. I was picking my son’s coffin out of a glossy magazine catalogue, with the funeral director, when the phone call came in to tell me I had cancer.

The nurse on the other end thought I was in denial when I thanked her for the news and went to say goodbye. She kept saying ‘You have to take this seriously. You have breast cancer and you have to make decisions right away…’

Through the fog of grief and shock I realised I needed to explain what I WAS doing. Not in denial, just trying to cope with overload. One thing at a time. Deal with each issue as it arises. Funeral first, cancer second. It was how I dealt with all the crises in my life. This was no different. Just more.

But this isn’t a story about dealing with grief or the terror of cancer. This is a story about how I made it through that terrible, yet transformational, year of my life using labyrinths, that prehistoric symbol.

For many people the word labyrinth simply means maze. In fact, labyrinths aren’t really mazes at all. They have only one path winding inward. There are no wrong turns, no dead ends, like a maze. A labyrinth is a form of sacred spiral and has quite phenomenal powers.

Of course I didn’t know anything about labyrinths when I was looking for a layout for a board game I was creating. When a book on labyrinths fell off a shelf in a shop, all I knew was that I’d found what I needed for the project. I didn’t know I’d found much more – my way to connect with my soul’s guidance again.

During the year before that fateful day, I’d been very stressed by work, (I was a head teacher in a Further Education College at the time) and life as a part-time single parent. I lost my ability to meditate in there somewhere- losing with it my usual connection to source.

I now think that the game concept came through as a way to reconnect me to what I had lost – to be a very concrete life-line in those turbulent times.

I was obsessed with finishing the game once I’d found the labyrinth design. I couldn’t wait until I could try it out. When I did, the information that came through was powerful and terrible. And I knew, at the very deepest level of my knowing, that what I was being told was not far away and it would rock the foundations of my feminine self.

I was then led to people who could boost my system in readiness for what was to come. By the time D Day arrived I was feeling physically better than I had in a very long time. I had the energy I needed to get through that awful day and the series of awful days that followed.

Although I needed that forewarning; at the time, all I could do was ‘shoot the messenger’. I put the game away with the thought that no one needed to have that sort of fatalist prediction.

But then my obsession with labyrinths took another path. I started working on a fantasy novel shortly before D Day and throughout that year. I called it ‘Labyrinth of Light’ and it wasn’t until I’d published it that I realised I’d been writing symbolically, soulfully, about my experiences of death, surgery, and chemotherapy- and it had aided my recovery.

As I continued to deal with my grief and battle cancer there was an insistent niggle in the back of my mind. ‘Get the game out of the cupboard’, it seemed to be saying. I fought it for a long time. I was scared of the game. For the first time in my life I understood people’s fears of psychics, tarot and predictions. When something could so accurately predict such devastation, it was easy to fear what other dire events might be revealed on the horizon.

In the end, I did what I was drawn to do. But rather than use it as I had first done, I asked Whoever it was that was guiding me, to lighten the game up, find ways that it could give valuable insights without a sense of fatalism. I wanted it to provide some kind of healing so that, even if challenges were predicted, there was a way they could be handled more effectively – so I could have a sense of control in my life. And after all, feeling like a helpless victim at the whim of fate was NOT the way I saw life.

And that was what I got. And what really blew me away, as time went on, was that it wasn’t just me that ‘got’ the benefits of the labyrinth game I’d been given. Other people who played it did, too.

The more I learned about labyrinths and their power, the more I realised that the design for my game had never been an accident. It was yet another way that this powerful symbol was being used to reconnect people to their deepest self, the Earth, and their souls for healing and wisdom.

Nine years have now passed since D Day- a whole cycle, numerologically speaking. As I look back over the adventure that my life has been in those nine years, I realise how instrumental labyrinths have been to my continued journey.

And although many of the people who are first drawn to labyrinths come because they face a major challenge in their lives- often a life/death challenge – I’ve discovered that you don’t have to be facing death to find labyrinths useful in your life.

Draw a labyrinth, build a labyrinth or find one in your local area. Try them out for yourself. They can change your life too!

You can find out more about Australian teacher, Nhys Glover, and her work at http://www.thejourneywoman.info

My aim is to give you an understanding of what depression is and give you the tools and ways to cope with and deal with it. First of all I would like to give you my understanding of what depression is and the dynamics it creates in people.

Depression is a process and a way that human beings cope with trauma and not being able to adjust to the outside world. It stems from some aspect of feeling or perceiving that we are out of control and being depressed is a way that we can take control. This may be a strange way to look at it, but when we are depressed we want only to be responsible for ourselves, we move away from others, sometimes people close to us that really care for us.

We cannot be responsible for other people’s feelings or life expectancies so we isolate ourselves and start to detach from the world as we know it and build our own little bubble, pit or safe place. We call this place, depression, lots of different names, but in essence it is a safe place which we and only we are able to be in.

We feel safe and protected being in our own little space as it gets smaller and smaller, tighter and tighter, pushing others away. We will withdraw from society, work and responsibilities. In fact anything which we feel wants something from us. We are not able to give anymore and this can lead to us hiding in our homes and sometimes even in our own rooms, not even being able to get out of bed, is a common thing. When I work with people with depression the first thing is to get them to understand that this a normal aspect of being a human being, removing the stigma that society places on the depressed state of mind.

Medicine can help people to cope with this state but it will, in my opinion, only ever allow them to function not to move back from the depressed state and will normally never find the route back from being depressed without other outside help from people like myself a Counsellor. People who have people they love always ask me how can I help them to pull themselves together, they never can because they are part of the problem, in a round a bout way. People who are depressed will only see friend’s family’s interventions as more pressure so will withdraw even more, if others who are part of their world try to help.

Counsellors can help because they are not part of the client’s world they are not involved or have any part to play in there every day life. There is no responsibility on the client’s part with the Counsellor. The first rule of any help is we can only help if the person suffering believes A) they need help and B) they take responsibility for their position and want to come back from this place they are in. If they have no understanding of this place they are in then they will not see it as a problem and thus not need to be or do anything else. Sometimes people can live with being depressed for a long period of time before they breakdown, they will never see themselves as depressed, but the drip, drip, effect will slowly build up and then it will be just one more thing that puts them over the edge, which is usually a shock for the people around them, as they will normally see that person as always coping, taking huge responsibility for others, being the one that always want everything just so or has high standards that can’t be achieved, is usually a common trait of people more prone to depression.

In order to understand the process of coming back from this place I will use an example of a person who cannot get out of the house, they have had a long period of depression and that has made them unable to interact with the outside world, because the outside world is so scary, as anything can happen if they step outside the door, they would be out of control in that environment.

The first rule as I said is to help them understand that this is a natural thing to happen, which it is. The next step is to understand why they are here in the first place, what brought them down this path, it will usually stem from an out of control or a perceived out of control situation, loss or rejection, whether perceived or real it doesn’t matter, can be an influencing factor.

When this has been explored then we have to find something they would like to change in their life, something they would want to take control of, this should initially be a small thing, as if you try to change big things straight away they will always fail, and failure supports there view they are not worthy or can change anything. It might be for example, someone who is confined to the house just opening the post, anything that comes through the door will normally be scary, it’s interacting or coming into their safe world, disrupting there routine etc. If this was the case then I would set up a plan, a structure to achieve this task. I would break it down into even smaller steps, say watching the post come through the door maybe first, touching one letter the second, holding it for a small amount of time the third, keeping hold of it fourth, taking it into their room could be fifth, opening it could be sixth, dealing with it could be seventh etc. etc., you get the idea. I would then break those steps down into even smaller ones.

Watching the post is broken down into thinking about it first, not even seeing it just thinking about seeing it, when we think about it we would then record in a book what our stress or anxiety level is on a scale of 1 to 10, we do this in order to see our reactions external to our minds, as the mind or thought cannot be trusted initially, most people who are depressed find it very hard to contain or hold a thought, as even thoughts have responsibility. When we have thought about it and the anxious level has reduced to under 5, this may take a few days in itself and be a very tiring process, but we reward the effort as a step forward, which it is, then when this step has been scored under 5 we would move on to the next step touching the letter recording our anxiety level until it reduces to under 5 and so on.

If we reach a state of over anxious feelings once we have achieved a step, if say we have been ok touching the post and we are at a level of four and then for some reason our anxiety level just increases dramatically we can retreat one step only, no more, as we have already achieved that step and not been anxious about it. If you retreat more than 1 step you increase the failure feeling and this will take you back to the start, it’s a bit like climbing a hill and losing your footing then starting to slide down the hill, if you don’t dig your heels in then the momentum will carry you down the hill faster and faster, ending up in a heap at the bottom.

Moving from one step to another and recording it as you go, so you can look back on your achievements, shows you can change, you can move forward, taking responsibility of your world and bringing you back down that route from the path of depression. You may then look at taking control of getting dressed, again breaking it down into smaller steps thinking about it first recording it then doing it and recording it. Then to moving forward constructing a programme of being able to go out of the door, and so on, till you take full control of your life again. Becoming depressed is a process so it make’s sense that coming back is a process also.

Another tool is to record a Mood Diary, this helps us to look back again on what has happened in reality not in our head. A Mood Diary is a book which records our mood during the day. You enter your mood first thing in a morning again on a scale of one to ten and at then also at the end of the day before you go to bed. During the day if you mood significantly changes you also record that and what is going on for your mood to change, this can give you an awareness of the triggers to your individual depression factors, what changes your mood and why.

Again this process records your progress, bearing in mind Rome was not built in a day so it will take some time to change your mood significantly.

Also the three things we need to help change our mood is.

1. Exercise first thing in a morning a short walk will be suffice of maybe 10 minutes or 5 to start with, if 10 is too much, again increasing and recording it day to day.
2. Have a healthy diet, don’t snack or eat processed foods and eat regularly.
3. Try to socialise even if you don’t talk to people nod to them, but mix with people.

If you plan your strategy and do all these things then you will change your mood and your depressive state and live a healthier life and a more interactive life also.

Take control and have the life you want not the one you think you deserve.

Ian Wallace

Though we may hate to admit it, it is usually simply a matter of our own laziness and lack of determination that sees us running in circles for most of our lives. When we live like this, I’ve always felt our lives become so small, so closed off from anything new, anything… better. We become a smaller version of ourselves, we lose our potential… possibilities narrowed because we do not make the effort to break free from these habits, to learn from these mistakes and grow and make our worlds a little bigger each time we do so. Instead we choose to live in a fishbowl, trapped inside the comfortable routines we’ve made for ourselves, looking through the glass at the wider world, seeing everything we could be and yet resigning ourselves to our current lot.

It’s not always easy – sometimes I’m tired, I’m depressed, I can’t see where my life is going… but often as not, these are just excuses I make to myself when I’m feeling too lazy, when I simply can’t be bothered to do what I should be doing. We are all, each and every one of us, making excuses to ourselves such as these… justifying our lives spent in the fishbowl.

But because I want more than that, I deserve more than that, am capable of more than that (and aren’t we all?), I will strive to break free from these habits. If I make a mistake, I will learn from it and move on – I won’t continue making the same mistake one hundred times over, banging my head against a brick wall. If I can see that a habit, or some other aspect of my life, needs to change – I will change it.

No excuses. Even if it involves forcing myself in the beginning (and it usually does), I will soldier on, knowing that in time things will get easier. An old habit will be replaced by a new one, one that I will consciously choose and control rather than allowing my habits to control me. It may be a two-step-forward, one-step-back process – I’m not saying I’ll get it right straight off the bat and I’m not saying I will punish myself, beat myself up over it if I don’t. I know I’ll slip up. I’ll struggle. I’ll falter. That’s an inevitable part of being human. When that happens, I’ll have enough self-love and self-discipline to get back up and carry on… for though I am human, I am not “only”. I hate when people give the excuse – “I’m only human.”

Another justification for their life in the fishbowl, for the choices they make but are too ashamed to admit responsibility for. Yes, you are human, but “only”? Why not be a magnificent, beautiful, exceptional example of humanity?

It’ll be a learning curve, and each step of the way there will be new mistakes to be made and lessons to be learned. Envisage it like this: the fishbowl is the centre of a spiral. Whenever I break my bad habits, learn from my mistakes and strive to do my best… I start to spiral outwards, my world getting bigger and bigger. In each layer of the spiral, new mistakes will be made and as I learn from each one, I continue spiralling outwards, expanding my life. This is a never-ending process – if anything, the bigger the spiral, the more mistakes I’ll make, the more I’ll learn…

“Making mistakes simply means you are learning faster”
Weston H. Agor

“The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything”
William Connor Magee

I will look within (and above) to find the courage, determination and will-power I need…

I’m not saying this is the right way to live for everyone. I can only speak for myself. But this is my philosophy, how I choose to view and live my life, what I believe is best for me.   Besides, whoever heard of a Cat living in a fishbowl anyway?

Spiritual wealth, just like monetary wealth, can be found in many ways. Some ‘get lucky’ in a seemingly random way somewhat like the winning the lottery, whereas others find their riches after years of hard graft,

following the advice and rules set out by those who’ve been successful before them. Finally, there are those who are born with a certain acumen – who throw away all the rules and are guided by their own intuitive

self-assurance.  These people know that material or spiritual abundance is actually within everyone’s grasp.  Unmani Liza Hyde certainly falls into the latter category.

What is more, she is a woman on a mission to facilitate a sustained spiritual confidence-boost for the people who attend her group meetings in ‘Not Knowing.’ These meetings

are for anyone whose internal voice of doubt has been holding them back from putting into daily practice what their heart has known all along.

The beautifully seductive Unmani – who has men and women falling at her feet – is an unpredictable character, at times teasing words and emotions out of shy participants with a

compassionate gaze and soothing smile and other times taking a tough-love approach by bringing overactive egos down a peg or two with a verbal slap-in-the-face.

I certainly got a taste of both aspects of her teaching during a recent weeklong retreat with her in the Turkish village of Faralya, a retreat that attracted people from all

walks of life: from Jessie, the gregarious millionairess plastic surgeon, to a singer from the 90’s boy band Five, or the big, friendly giant, Burt, who works as a care

home nurse in Amsterdam. All come to Unmani’s retreats as pilgrims looking for insights or experiences that will ease their pains.

Some may be seeking an end point after years of searching for liberation or enlightenment and others for space or support to heal a broken heart. Unmani, who is still at a

loss herself about why her meetings are so powerfully transforming, confesses, “I don’t know why people are attracted to my message rather than any other teachers, but I

do know that what they end up getting may be more than they bargained for!” Unmani believes that by searching for a perfect formula for enlightenment one is

likely never to find it – and she should know after spending over a decade on a journey of self-discovery that brought her back to what she’d always known, but overlooked.

“As a child I didn’t see myself as separate from other people or objects and I often had a strong sense that life was a dream,” she said. When trying to fit into the worldview

of separation imposed on her by adults she reacted emotionally: “In my teens I felt enraged about the world – I left home and traveled the globe looking for something to fill the

emptiness inside which was consuming me.”  During this time she built-up an impressive portfolio of self-development tools, therapies and spiritual retreats, which included time

at the notorious OSHO Ashram in Pune.  However, it wasn’t until she was forced to pause her journey that her biggest breakthrough happened.

“I broke my ankle during a therapy session attempting to kill the anger I felt towards my Mother by punching and kicking padded walls and mattresses. The following month spent in bed

staring at the ceiling was almost unbearable – but it allowed me to meditate on what Dolano, a teacher from India had told me about ‘Awakening’.  Suddenly a veil fell away, and I was

resting in a state I can only describe as ‘not-knowing’.”

At the retreat in Turkey, Unmani’s introductory message was simple, “There is nothing to know – and at the same time, you’ve known this all along.” This paradox was the

bottom line she would bring everyone back to during the week ahead. My knee-jerk reaction to such a blasé statement was to wonder how this week would differ from any other esoteric retreat, yet, in

the same way that Lao Tzu said that the Tao described in words is not the real Tao, I was soon to realise that what Unmani was pointing to also could not be described in words.

The uniqueness of her approach lay in the gentle but certain way she held and guided the group – allowing space for each person’s essence to regain a voice that had long been drowned out by their governing minds.

 Each day was molded around two or three powerful group meetings during which Unmani began with a poetic monologue – often pointing out the absurdity of the mind’s attempts to protect itself from painful

experiences – before offering everyone the chance to enter into a dialogue with her about whatever matters surface.  And surface they certainly did: a shiver went down my spine on the very first day when the group’s

most archetypal alpha-male was reduced to tears within minutes of taking the hot seat for the first time. By lunchtime on the second day, the atmosphere was heating up, with anger, resistance and even doubt about

the whole process we were being led through bubbling up to the surface. This boiling pot Unmani was creating boosted my empathy towards others as I felt their emotions rising long before any tears or laughter erupted.

At the same time my desire to get caught up in the minutiae of stories and drama fell away. Within all of this Unmani kept her cool and of paid no heed to any personal dilemmas that could steer attention away from

the bottom line of ‘not knowing’  - until, of course, everyone had well and truly got it. After three days of shining a light on the protective tricks conjured up by the ego it felt like my mind had given up and gone home  –

wherever that is – and I was starting to wonder if the meetings could go on any longer. If there’s nothing to know, nothing to care about and no point whatsoever worrying about anything, then surely we’ve all got the

point of Unmani’s teachings and can just sit in silence?  Yet, whether Unmani planned it or not things were about to take a turn. Wiping the slate clean of ‘mind’ allowed many of the old disguises and tricks to be seen

for what they are when they arise again. When Unmani gently brought us back to the topics of sensuality, love and death, all of a sudden, skeletons that had been sleeping in the deepest darkest depths of the proverbial

closet started to stir and then, one by one, come out on parade. Stories of abuse, neglect and violence were released and shared openly and with compassion.

 The effect of this journey was most clearly seen in a softening of faces and body language, which became more relaxed and exuberant as time went on. Heather, who at the beginning of the week looked like a timid little

girl in a stern grandmother’s body, overcame her fear of going crazy or falling apart and she took off the lid that had been covering her heart for over twenty years.  By the end of the week there was a visible shift from a

state of confusion to confidence about her true self.  Likewise, John, whose life-long obsession with needing to explain and rationalise everything left him with all the charisma of the well-meaning but hopelessly

irksome sitcom character, Mr Brittas. Under Unmani’s ‘nothingness workout’ the façade of an anxst-ridden teenager come military official melted away to reveal a newly-relaxed face that spoke maturity.

Unmani warned me that I’d have a tough job on my hands trying to describe exactly what happens exploring ‘Not-Knowing’. What I do know is that she was correct in saying that we got more than was bargained

for during the retreat.  Those expecting a space for peace in her meetings may end up being put in the spotlight. Those looking for respect or attention from others discover value within themselves. By the end of the

week there was a strong sense of warmth and unity amongst the group – we were graduates from a spiritual boot camp – with hearts fortified from a staple of ‘chicken soup for the soul’ and egos that were trim and

appropriately sized.  Mentally toned but spiritually nourished, we were ready to play hard in the world again.

Growing up, people would tell me how talented I was because I am musical and could play several instruments. I don’t but I can. Also artistic, which in some ways I have kept up. Being “arty crafty” as my Mother would call it meant I was hugely visual and I believe this is at the core of my past life work.

I must pay homage here to Judy Hall for it was her book, “Deja Who?” which piqued my interest in past lives and started me reading as much as I could find around the subject, which back then, wasn’t much. I started in a tentative way, learning a regression technique which was part of an ongoing series or Holistic Retuning courses. Having learnt the basics, I discovered that I could go in and out of past lives almost at will. A lot of the time it was like living in a parallel reality except that it was always different. I took every chance I could to be regressed and to regress my friends and family, learning all the time.

It is one of my most deeply seated beliefs that to have got to this point in this life and to be questioning in the way that so many of us are, that we have to have experienced a lot of what this great school of life has to offer us. So we have had the good life but also the not so good. We have been victim. We have also been perpetrator. In everything. So over all these lives we have been lied to and cheated, for example but we have also been the liar and the cheat. And worse of course. So all the good stuff but also all the bad. How else could we learn all our life lessons? Sometimes we have come in and missed out on the lesson, after all we live in a free choice, free will world. And then we repeat, not a life but a learning experience. We have lived a whole gamut of things, of emotions, of wounds, disabilities, both mental and physical and we have come to this point. Here and now.

So how can these past experiences help us this time around? Perhaps what you are shown has some bearing on what is going on. Perhaps you received a wound that is impacting on this life. Sometimes we are just shown that there is a different, maybe better way to be. Possibly it’s just interesting. But what is amazing is the eternal journey of the eternal soul. For whatever happens to the mind, body and spirit, we are certain that the soul does go on.

For me, and again this is my personal belief, I think that I have lived hundreds of lives, often in multiples and in other dimensions. I’ve looked at lives going back to Lemuria, before Atlantis and throughout the ages and seen some wonderful things. I’ve also seen some pretty awful things. The trick is to remember that although these things happened you were someone else at the time and they have no power to harm you now. They might make you think but that’s a good thing.

Another of my abiding beliefs is that all of time is happening in this instant, now. After all time is a man made concept. So all our past lives are happening at the same time as this one. And so are our parallel and future lives in whatever dimension they are. So really all our lives are parallel, it’s just easier to think and talk about them as past or future, it makes things much less confusing.

I find that now when I give a reiki session, well that I don’t really do a reiki session as such any more, instead I work on the lives that present themselves to me or to my client. Often the lives we see in this situation are violent and bloody; after all in a healing situation it is an excellent time to heal the wound that has been carried through to this life or that is impacting on this life. This is where psychic surgery comes into its own with quite remarkable results making this a really brilliant way of using past life knowledge and giving my client a real informative healing session.

Using a regression technique can also have good results although sometimes people are disappointed that they weren’t Napoleon or Cleopatra, and that at first the regression can seem very mundane and the life viewed very pedestrian. Maybe somewhere along the way, we miss the point, or misread the life lesson. And then later, a few days or even a few months, the penny drops and something slots into place.

Another way of using past lives is in investigation, the beauty of this being that the work can be done remotely. Using Phoenix Cards as a starting point can be a help but is not always necessary. This way allows the client to send a list of questions to ask, for example “is my Mum in this life in any of my past lives”. It is always exciting when family members bobs up in a different body and it can be revealing about their character and life path. This in and of itself can answer a lot of unasked questions.

Past lives can be an emotive and interesting concept and one that is often pooh poohed by many, even those who walk a spiritual path. That’s not to say that they are wrong and the believers are right, it just means we’re different. For me and others like me, I know that this present life is richer and more fulfilling for me knowing about my past lives. I believe I give a better treatment because of it; the knowledge and experience of those lives can come to the fore at any time if you let them. Try it and see if you get the chance, it could rock your world!

Mind made manifest the universe as we see it today, just as we too manifest our lives and experiences daily.

Earth is a living ball of conscious mind energy that has slowed itself enough to form matter. Man is part of that world. He too is a mixture of living energy and matter. Energy in its fastest form is light. We are all beings of light, of conscious mind energy – slowed physically to form the matter we see.

A baby is pure light when it’s born. It is brand new and of course without tarnish. But during the course of experience and time, this light can seem dim and almost shrouded – as troubles, worries, stresses and fears override inbuilt powers of peace and clear thought.

Each day is full of connections and opportunity, each stemming from conscious and unconscious wants and needs that you hold. You transmit signals back to life every second you are awake. Thoughts make these connections reality. They are the driving force behind the power that is you. They manifest what you are living today.

Each dawning day is a new page – so write upon it as you will. Let the past be gone and let tomorrow unfold as it may. Today is where you are at – it deserves your attention. It’s the place where all possibilities can be made manifest and where real life comes into being.

(I am I). I must second this. You do not need to worry. It is not easy to let go, to let life take control – for the emotions and fears of ego are very strong. All your needs and desires are known because I know your thoughts. They are your direct line to the universal consciousness that is Me. Let go of your fear and let the day flow – as it will, as it wants to and must. Wherever you are now is simply a fleeting moment in time and space, so allow it to exist on its own. I will help you to come back to peace. (I am I).

You are a child of the future. The past you have known has gone. Each generation has the chance to make its own mark upon its own history and timeline. What will you do?

The world is in a state of crisis. Trouble and darkness are everywhere and they will swallow us up if we let them. But will you let them or will you stand in the light? Will you be a beacon for others to follow?

The life you live is by your own design, by your own free will and by choice; you are the master and creator of the self you will become. You are not a pawn in a pre-written game, nor are you at the mercy of the life that you are living. You have firm hold of your destiny in your own hand.

Cause and effect will always play their part and you will live the consequence of your actions, but that is all. You have the ability to step out of the shadows. You alone can channel the steps to a brighter and better version of your future and your life.

Once upon a time a dream was born. It was the dream of a perfect world. That dream can still be a reality if we want it to be – if we really want it to. Many people believe this world is on a course of destruction, and in a way it is, but just as equally it is not. Since time began there has never been such a cry for help as there is now. Life has never been so good, yet for many it has never been so bad. Only we can put a stop to where we are all heading and the changes must start inside each of us. Only we can do what is necessary to bring balance back into this world and into our own lives as well.

We can look around at the world and recognise that all souls mirror our own, that they are all fundamentally the same as us. They, too, are searching for input, understanding, truth and love. The turmoil around every one of us is a physical symptom of the larger unrest that exists on the planet’s surface as a whole. All illness and strife are its proof. More and more people are becoming sick with serious conditions than they are with general bugs and colds. We have mastered infection and sanitation, but critical conditions are spreading faster than ever. This is another symptom of the overload we are facing, both in terms of the planet and of the strains we have placed upon ourselves. Only we can decide when enough is enough and now, in this present time-frame, it really is.

(I am I). Man is love, life, energy and light in motion. He is capable of birth and of destruction. The story of his life is but a chapter in the history of existence and it is this he must now come to realise. His life does not begin and end with his present form; it extends an eternity in either direction. He had life before he was born to his parents and he will continue that life after his final breath has left his body. He is the present manifestation of a living God, capable of creating his every desire. He alone holds the power over the universe that is his own life. He alone pulls the strings and plays the notes that he dances to the tune of. He holds more power in his own right hand than he could imagine in many lifetimes. He is all he could ever want to be. He is all I intended him to be and much more besides. (I am I).

Let go of your fears. Let the past fall away as well as it is able. Realise the power you have over your own reality and future and take one step at a time as you travel continuously towards it. You are placing your own mark upon history and upon this planet itself.

Let each day simply unfold. Live each moment with the highest intention, to the best of your personal ability.  Remain open and honest with your inner most thoughts. Try to complete one or two of the chores that have been waiting silently until you could find the time and inclination to complete them. Take some time out to look around at the state of your own affairs and then take steps to put them in order. You will not regret it. At the end of the day look back to see what has been accomplished.

Become once again like a child.  Be receptive and open to the things that this time frame will bring you. Hold no fears or preoccupations. Know that you are and always have been – an important part of the planet that you live upon. Reconnect to the source of eternal light and to the love that surrounds your every move.

Manifestation is not miraculous – it’s a natural capability we all possess…  It is something we all do every day…

If you connected with this article in any way at all – please visit www.channelledbyspirit.com to view two exciting Hay House books, co-written by Spirit, designed to help you on every life level. They also fund a weekly drop in healing centre – to thank Spirit for their input and constant help.

Happiness and peace of mind are there for all to achieve – we only need remember how to do it.

Stephanie J. King