This model is very powerful for creating change in any area of life however I’m being urged to specifically illustrate how to use it to navigate job loss – as this is a subject that is of real concern to the collective consciousness at this time.

Job loss in particular challenges our sense of security which is a basic human need – however, you will learn through this model, where to place your sense of security so that it can not be threatened by losing your job.

Lets begin by laying out the model (which is a self assessment tool that you can you use to identify which level you are in and what you must release to get to the next level) and then we will talk about where most people in job loss will start and what the most powerful way for them to move through the situation will be.

The first level is Life is Happening to Me. In this stage you feel victimized and helpless…as if you have absolutely no power and that something else has to happen in your external environment in order to make a change. To move out of this stage you have to give up blame.

Life is Happening BY ME

The second level is Life is Happening By Me. In this stage you will feel that you have complete control over everything and that it will happen because you will make it happen. This is the highly driven personal action stage. In order to move out of this stage you have to relinquish control.

Life is Happening THROUGH ME

The third level is Life is Happening Through Me. In this stage you feel that you are here for a reason and that you have a purpose. You have gifts, you ‘re in touch with your Higher Power. You trust that you will get what you need, you don’t even have to try that hard to get it and know that worry just cuts you off from Source. In order to move out of this level you need to release separation.

Life is Happening AS ME

The fourth level of consciousness is Life is Happening As Me. In this stage you feel that there is no separation between you and Spirit and you and others. You show up without the beliefs that keep you separate so you are operating from a perspective of compassion in which you don’t necessarily feel that you need to change others or the environment because you see yourself as an extension of it.

When a person loses their job they are most likely going to start in the Life is Happening To Me, level of consciousness and they may feel like they were just dealt a physical blow.  It is the sense of being attacked by life on an unseen level which tends to create victims of us…in order to move beyond this stage we need to understand that it is not personal, we don’t need to hang the blame on someone or something, we are not really under attack – things are simply changing and we need to learn to flow along with -  instead of resisting that change.  People in general don’t appreciate change, especially change that threatens their sense of security, however all change carries within it opportunities for new growth and provides a path of opening within our lives that is ours to make of it – what we will.   If  we befriend change (no matter what it looks like on the outside) we can use the energy of it to take us where we want to go.

So with that in mind, the next best level of consciousness to move into is Life is Happening Through Me.  Once you are no longer taking it personally, you realize that you don’t need to engage in resistance as a bid for control over your situation.  Getting your old job back and putting everything back the way it was is simply not an available option for you at this time and you start to open to the idea that there might be a good reason for this shift to be taking place and you seek what you can learn from this experience.  Perhaps this was a pretty good position for you, most likely though, you could think of some things you would like to change, new areas of growth you’re interested in pursuing, or situations you’d like to avoid.  As you focus on extracting the learnings – you begin to get clear on what it is that you want to create in the space that vacating your old job has left you.  This space is a great gift – because space is what we need to grow something new.

As you step further and further into the idea of what it is that you really, really want in a job…you begin to see that your old position really wasn’t that great of a match and an excitement about finding something more fulfilling to all the different parts of your self emerges.  This excitement encourages a sense of gratitude to rise up within you toward the original loss as you fully embrace at very deep levels just what an opportunity this is to create a livelihood that allows you to be more authentically who you really are.

From this mental positioning you enter the Life is Happening As Me level of consciousness, fully accepting yourself as the creator and participant of circumstances all working toward your Highest Good.  From this place of ownership, you are able to harness the power of your consciousness into action.

With your knowing in place (like a map before you) you engage the Life is Happening By Me level of consciousness, channeling enormous amounts of energy and enthusiasm into the necessary action oriented steps it will take to get you there.  Confidently creating, your new way of working in the world

So is job loss a disastrous event or an opportunity to work out of your Highest Path and Purpose?  Are we empowered regardless of what is happening on the physical level of our lives?  My answer to this question is….YES, YES, YES!!!

I believe that it is our level of consciousness that determines the answers to these questions…not the actual circumstances that we are experiencing in our lives.  What we think and feel about what we encounter in our day is where we hold our power, when we get the inside to line up with the goals of our physical, outer world needs – we’re pretty unstoppable!!!

This is what I’ve lived in my life and I’ve seen countless clients living it as well.

All my love,

PK

Let me just start off by saying I’ve had a lot of jobs in different industries and I’ve been fired, given a “time out” and told that I had to work from the office or resign just to name a few of the “highlights”…LOL!  I guess this could be looked at as a major catastrophe, or that I had somehow failed.  Closer to the truth was that these were opportunities and they kept me moving in a direction that was more in alignment with who I am.

I was really out of alignment, for example, when I got fired from the Downtown Hilton shortly after I moved to Seattle.  The hotel did not treat people the way I thought they should and their policy of overselling rooms put me in a values conflict every single day that I worked there.  As a result I drug myself to the hotel day after day and couldn’t show up on time to save my life – my inability to be on time was a sign and symptom of how wrong a match this job was for me and so when the manager fired me because I was habitually late there was almost a sense of relief mixed in with my hurt and fear.  I knew I didn’t belong at this place but needed the job and didn’t know what I was looking for.  The motivation to go find something else wasn’t going to come without a little outside help   To some of you this will sound very familiar!!!

I had other experiences that were similar – however, the next example I am going to give you is a little different.

I had a job I loved more than any of the others (up til that point) working for a man I respected in the floor coverings industry when I became pregnant with my first child.  We decided that when the baby came, I would work from at home.  I told him that my husband and I had looked into the cost of childcare and decided that I would need to work at home if I was going to stay in the job.

I was a one woman office whose time spent as a manager allowed me to “mind meld and anticipate needs” it was the big joke with his wife who would come in and ask if he had consulted his brain (me) for permission to place anything on his schedule or tamper with anything else going on in the day to day business of the office.  As you can imagine, being so highly dependent on my skills, my boss wanted to give the working at home thing a go.

Spirit had other ideas for both of us – because neither of us would have made a change as long as we were together.

It wasn’t long before the Higher ups intervened through the office phone system.  The parent company refused to ring the phones over to my home number and my boss who was always on the road was left with no one to handle the phones while he was in the field.  Soon no one could get through and I was given a choice.

He called me in knowing what my answer would be but didn’t feel there was an alternative, he had to have someone for the phones and didn’t have the budget for another salary…I was going to have to come back into the office and daycare my son (which we couldn’t afford to do) or I was going to lose my job.

I felt so trapped and betrayed!  Why was this happening to me?  I wondered, signing my resignation, I stuffed my tears down as far as I could get them to go and wondered if we would make it financially.  While at home with my son I started to explore my interests and eventually started a handmade soap and lotion company.  Two years later, while I was pregnant with my second child that same boss called me to say he had a job that he thought I would be good at.  I asked if I could work from at home and he said, absolutely.

I worked side by side with this man for years and didn’t know anything about his passions.  He was inviting me to help him live them by promoting his family’s Southern Gospel group.  I was shocked that he could sing – and when I listened to the recording I felt my Spirit pull strongly toward the position.  I didn’t know anything about Southern Gospel Music, booking a singing group let alone managing one but before it was all over I would be a marketer, promoter, booking agent, publicity agent and band manager all in one.

I sold my soap company, Elysian Dream, in record time and started working for the group.  Within a few months, Spirit manifested a contact with one of the top 3 recording studios in Southern Gospel Music, a year later my boss and every member of his group took a leap of faith and moved from Washington State to Tennessee, almost a year to the date after their move they recorded a project at the studio with whom we had the contact and I found myself helping them negotiate a 10 year recording contract with the Producer who had been our greatest mentor for the last two years.

After helping my friends achieve their life purpose I realized I had hit on something that resonated deeply within my Being and started exploring myself from the inside out to more fully understand how to manifest this calling outside of the role of a marketer (as Spirit was calling me away from my ego, which was deeply embedded in that aspect of the job).

This experience was the pointer for what I do today – following the passions and purpose of my own Soul.  What looked like loss through the previous experiences was really an opportunity to sync up with something greater – my Highest Path and Purpose.  With each experience I learned and grew and began to understand where my Soul was trying to go.

If I hadn’t been fired and given my other experiences,  I would have been complacent and happy to stay where I was.  However, what looks like a terrible event may just be the push that you need to have the freedom to explore what you really, really want in life because all of a sudden you haven’t got as much to lose.  Many, many of my lightworker friends who were hearing their purpose but were paralyzed like a deer in headlights by the security of their income are facing similar pushes and shoves as the universe urges them to awaken!!!

I wonder if Susan Boyle (the latest unexpected superstar of Britain’s Got Talent) would have auditioned for the show if she had been comfortably employed with her life completely on track?

Susan Boyle – Britain’s Got Talent

Is it scary??? Yes…but it is also exciting and if you breathe into that fear it will transform into an energy that moves you toward the path you are meant to be on!

Nowadays I expect good to come from my storms…how about you?

How I Discovered Coaching

When I first became aware that I was on my Highest Path and Purpose it was very surreal.  I was enveloped in this energy that is securely anchored to Source and even though I had no idea where I was going – it was clear that Spirit was leading somewhere, leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for me to follow.

One day while at my computer I distinctly heard a voice (from outside of my own head) say life coach as if someone or something had been leaning over my right shoulder.  Now this really impacted me because clairaudience is not my usual channel and so I immediately typed it in the search bar to see what this life coaching thing was all about – where was this guidance leading?

As I searched I found several definitions of coaching and what really struck me about the modality is that you see your client as whole, capable and having all the internal resources they need to achieve whatever goal they may have.

My Definition of a Coach

A coach deploys what I call “full-body listening” in which they hold intense focus on their client (with no mental background chatter) using listening and their bodies response system as a way of syncing with the energy system of the client.

This allows them access to all the choices available, to see the situation from the client’s point of view, but also from many other directions as well.  By the coach holding this expanded space around their client and asking questions that guide the client toward the things that are available that they haven’t noticed or been able to see, the client becomes aware of more empowered paths and choices.

The NLP and Coaching Institute of California

One school in particular literally jumped out at me and when I talked to co-founder Kris Hallbom I was so pulled toward the NLPCA’s Coaching Program that I just knew (right then and there that somehow I would attend).

This program was a 23 day intensive.  At the time, my two young children were ages 4 and 7.  The intensive ran in July when the kids were off from school and my husband did not have the vacation to cover taking that much time off.  My mind looked at this situation and began to run statistics on the likelihood of this all working out, however Spirit was in the driver’s seat and simply said to Speak My Truth and trust what manifested.

When I spoke to my husband about it he was immediately on board as he saw what a great match it was to my natural tendencies.  The training itself was not all that expensive but hotel and food would kick it up a notch, regardless – he was willing to dip into our savings to send me.  His parents who are often busy, just happened to be available and were extremely excited about the prospect of having their grand kids all to themselves for several weeks for camping and other fun summer activities.  I watched in awestruck wonder as every little piece of what seemed impossible fell effortlessly into place!

The program itself was amazing. It was set just outside San Fransisco (one of my favorite cities ever!) in nearby and less expensive Burlingame where a quick drive would deposit you on the BART and into the heart of everything there is to do.

Operating Principles

We had five instructors who were the very embodiment of the teachings (each offering a vast amount of experience and a different area of expertise) over the duration of the course.  Covering a wide range of skills deeply anchored in the empowering perspectives of the NLP Operatives:

• Communication is redundant.
  You are always communicating, in all 3 major representational systems – auditory, visual and kinesthetic. You signal this through tone and tempo of your voice, posture, breathing patterns and gestures, as well as your language patterns and eye accessing cues.
• The meaning of your communication is the response that you get.
  Communication is not about what you intend, or about saying the right words; it’s about creating an experience in, and getting a response from, the listener. The “bottom line” is the response you elicit.
• The map is not the territory.
  People respond to their map of reality, not reality itself. NLP is the science of changing these maps (which then changes the way a person perceives and interacts with reality).
• Requisite variety.
  The element with in the system with the most flexibility will be the controlling element.
• People work perfectly.
  No one is wrong or broken; it’s simply a matter of finding out how they function now, so that you can effectively change that to something more useful or desirable. People don’t need to be “fixed”.
• People always make the best choice available to them at the time.
  (but often there are lots of better ones that they haven’t yet learned to access)
• Every behavior is useful in some context.
• Choice is better than no choice.
• Just about anyone can learn to do anything.
• People already have all the resources they need.
  What they need is access to these resources at the appropriate times and places.
• There is no such thing as failure only feedback.
  Every response can be utilized.
• Chunking.
  Anything can be accomplished (by anyone) if you break the task down into small enough chunks.
• Behind every behavior is a positive intent.
  While a behavior may be harmful or seem “bad”, there is always a positive intention behind the behavior.
• Symptoms – pains, anxiety, depression, tumors, colds, etc., are communications about needed action.
• We are all responsible for creating our own experience.
  Even when challenging events that we cannot control happen, we are responsible for our responses to the events. Typically we have much more control than we think we have. Another way of stating this presupposition is that “We consistently create our own environment” through our beliefs, filters, capabilities and behaviors.
• Energy flows where attention goes. (from Huna)

Learning to Coach

In the training we learned how to create the coaching state, holding the client from the viewpoint of the NLP presuppositions in total respect, while cultivating within ourselves a curious, not knowing state that allows our clients to go deep and find their own answers.  We learned to build trust to directionalize the conversation toward the client’s goals, to hold space for their agenda with active listening and specific questions, planning and action skills and how to create a meaningful metaphor on closing our sessions that the client could easily access to help them stay on target.

Coaching Skills and Tools

We learned the following coaching skills:

Accountability, Acknowledgment, Asking Permission, Bottom Lining, Challenging, Championing, Forward the Action, Goal Setting and Planning, Holding the Client’s Agenda, Inquiry, Intrude, Powerful Questions and Requesting Structures.

Along with these NLP skills:

Meta-Programing, Perceptual Positions, Neurological Level Alignment, Well-formed Outcomes, Backtracking, Universal Cycles of Change, Vision to Action, Ecology, Open Questions, Voting with Time, Energy and Money, Working with and Changing Beliefs (Six Step Reframing), Resonance Patterning and much more.

In Retrospect

This course really changed me.  I learned more about myself in 23 days than I had in many, many years and had the opportunity to shift many of my less productive mind patterns while we learned and practiced the material.

It helped me to embody an awakened Highest Path and Purpose perspective and I still rely on the mindsets and tools for creating shifts in perspectives that I learned in coaching in my personal walk everyday.

I made some amazing spiritual friendships and experienced as well as received much healing over the duration of the course.  In, fact you could very well say that this course is what awakened me to my path as a healer…it was the first step that I took toward that direction and I have never regretted it!

Reminder

For those of you who missed the teleclass on intuition the audio is available here (I’m still working out the technology end – so please excuse the static – it doesn’t last long) 

Special Offer

For those of you who might want to take up coaching, NLPCA is offering (this year only) a special price of $3600.00 for their training.  Be sure to head over to www.nlpca.com and check them out if you’ve been considering coach training!

My next post in this series will cover NLP Practitioner and Master Practitioner training

More and more it leads, like a dance I simply follow it without much thought to where it is going.  Lighting the way, with whom to speak,  what to investigate.  Guiding my hand so that souls may be heard, bringing forth an authenticity from within…helping others to understand just how much they already know.

Grow your confidence.   Listen to the messages all around you.  They will guide you – it is of no use to plan it out – simply flow with us – the voices of the core from within.  It will come to you at the moment of need – exactly what to do and what action to take.

Keep listening and we’ll keep whispering as you travel the inside road…

I’ve been walking this path and I am not yet ready to return.  Projects have materialized before me in direct response to spiritual query – I will have much that is exciting to share with you soon

Until then – listen and be true to yourself – you are sacred and loved!

Last week I had a conversation with Source and the Angels that has changed my life.  I matter of factly told them I was done with illusion that I only wanted to live in Divine Truth and to – Bring it on!!!

I’ve been warned that I might want to use a little caution with this kind of enthusiastic statement – however, I am not a very cautious Spiritual Seeker

Well Source said, “O.K.” and it has been a pretty wild ride ever since!

This next story is a teaching about how we can take a step beyond forgiveness with the people that have hurt us most in life.

I was a fly on the wall observing a meeting most of us are unaware even occurs.  Here in this room sat my Higher Self,  Source the Archangels and my Guides discussing life lessons and hiring participants with whom I would dance in my current incarnation.  The candidates were reviewed according to the level of complement for what each Soul was working on – and that turned out to be quite the detailed process.

“What am I observing?” I whispered to Archangel Gabriel.  He simply smiled and said, “The truth”.

I returned my gaze to the meetings before me and a Soul I recognized came forward and was asked if he would be willing to play a role in the life situation displaying before him.  His gaze was cast toward a screen – I turned to watch with him and saw his beautiful Soul willingly take on a negativity that instantly transformed him from the very presence of beauty to something slinking in the darkness.

“Are you willing to play this part?” he was asked by the council.  “Are you willing to take this job in order to help the One before you evolve during it’s incarnation?”

“Yes.” he said gazing at me with such Love that my heart nearly burst – tears wet his eyes and with this answer he accepted the mission.

I began to cry tears of gratitude – it never occurred to me that we could be so loved and so supported by other Souls that they would be willing turn themselves into something despised by others in order to help move us toward our Highest Path and Purpose.

“Gabriel” I said, “is this the true Nature of Darkness.”  “Yes.” He said, “Even the Dark Teachers work for the Light – they simply take a different path to get there.”

When I consider the Dark Teachers in my life (the people I’ve encountered who’ve pushed me to grow with the energies of pain or fear) I’m now grateful for the lessons they taught me – because I understand what it must have taken for them to move themselves out of the Light and into extremely low vibrational energy in order to aid me with my life lessons.  Only the greatest kind of Love and Authority can produce Courage of this nature – and I find myself wondering if I have what it takes to make that kind of sacrifice?  I’ve certainly changed my mind about a lot of things due to this experience and I now know that Dark Teachers are more evolved than most of us believe

I’ve also come to recognize that along the way I made the decision that I no longer wanted to learn through darkness in my life.  I realized that I had an option and that I was drawing negative learning experiences to myself because at that time – I believed that I needed them.  That all ended when I chose to create positive learnings instead.

When we as a collective decide we no longer need darkness as a vehicle through which to receive our lessons and experiences – the Dark Teachers will be able to take off their costumes and return to the Light

Maybe it’s a strange idea that they are here because we want them to be here – but I think it makes sense…afterall we ARE that powerful!

Image by Aelle.

Oh little girl
There are times when I feel
I’d rather not be
The one behind the wheel

~ Depeche Mode

The following outlines a common roadblock toward allowing your Higher-Self to guide your life and provides a process for moving through this resistance…

Do you want help or not?

Most of us think we want guidance…in fact, we ask for it repeatedly to be certain that our request is heard. When asking a service of our Spirit Team, we often hold on to it, out of fear that it won’t get done. By not letting go…we ensure that this is the case, and we are left to wonder why our Guides aren’t working for us.

Understanding Resistance

This bewildering phenomenon is one of the most common forms of self-sabotage that we encounter when working with Spirit. It is subtle and insidious and leaves us wondering why our situation hasn’t changed.

Well, let me ask you this. If you were riding with someone and they told you to take the wheel, but then stubbornly clung to it, continuing to steer the car…could you really drive for them? Wouldn’t your efforts to go this way or that be thrown off by their resistance toward letting go? Would you be confused? Perhaps, you would stop trying as you realize that they aren’t really ready for your help.

Recognizing when you’re holding on

We unconsciously do this to our Higher-Selves and Spirit Guides all of time and while they may stop trying to navigate in a moment like this, they remain by our sides, just waiting for us to release our troubles…and allow them to assist us.

If you have asked for spiritual assistance with something but don’t seem to be experiencing relief, do a quick internal search and notice if there is any part of you that is still holding on. Be with the idea and allow your awareness to scan your body for any tension areas.

The body speaks that which the mind refuses to acknowledge.

An easy way to find them is to start meditative breathing while contracting and relaxing all of your major muscle groups. Using this relaxation technique for contrast, you will be able to identify which areas in your body are not letting go…they will correspond with the part of yourself that does not want to release the issue into the hands of your Higher-Self and Guides.

Internal Explorations

When you are conscious of the part that is hanging on, notice the emotions that are present. Get curious about this operation within yourself, observe with a detached mindset, and allow yourself to accept what you find as simply part of the landscape. Now is not the time for meaning so give yourself the task of simply exploring.

Place your attention on the very center of the physical location of this part. Bring your consciousness into this area of your body and notice how it feels. It will likely make many changes while you give it your attention. Simply be with the changes, going more deeply into yourself with each iteration until you get a visual of yourself as this part. Notice how this you is holding onto your situation, are the hands clenched? Or is this holding on being represented in some other way?

Now notice your Higher-Self placing a reassuring hand upon the you that is holding on. This part of you looks up at your Higher Self and lets go. At the moment of release, step into this other you and experience the support of your Higher-Self and just how good it feels to let go.

Sweet surrender: the bliss of letting go

From this space of peace, observe the larger picture and notice what you’ve learned from experiencing this situation. Notice how grateful you are for this opportunity to receive support and see yourself entering into your current circumstances complete, whole and at peace…with your Higher-Self right beside you, ready and willing to take the wheel.

You decide to relax, and enjoy the ride while you let him/her navigate for a time…looking out the window, you notice that there is a lot to see as a passenger and wonder at what you would have missed, if you hadn’t decided to let go

The real paradox

In reality both you and your Higher-Self are in control…since you are one and the same. Your Higher-Self is simply your highly evolved, spiritual consciousness…but it is still, in essence, who you are. The paradox is, that until you recognize this unity, neither of you is really in control because you can counteract each other’s efforts like in the earlier scenario of two people trying to drive.

Life is a series of contraction and release. The trick is knowing which to do, when.

Navigating life with our Higher-Selves is a kind of dance. A common theme in dance is two partners becoming One and this is the great spiritual lesson of this practice that has evolved in nearly every culture on the planet.

In my coaching and NLP classes we practiced a technique called mirroring. You would find a partner and just move. One person would start and the other would mirror their movements. As you get in sync with your partner, they take over the lead and so it goes, back and forth until you can no longer tell who is leading and who is following…at this point it is simply flow.

I find that in my own relationship with my Higher-Self that this mirroring is how we started the dance. I desired to connect, and so I learned how to “mirror” my Higher-Self. I practiced and practiced until we achieved flow and the lines between us began to disappear.

If you are interested in learning how to “mirror” your Higher-Self, please sign up for my six week Dancing with Your Higher-Self Intuitive Coaching Course. In this program I will connect to your Higher-Self and Guides and download an agenda and homework assignments that are designed to bring you into your own connection with your Spiritual Resources.

As this work comes from your Higher-Self and Guide Team, it will be an act of discovery for us both to see just how your connection with them will unfold. The program consists of six weeks of coaching, one half hour call per week with homework. The price for the program is $150.00.

You may not believe that we are God. That’s o.k., I’m not here to convert you, change your mind, tell you are wrong or to prove that I am right because none of that matters to me in the least…it’s all just mind stuff that serves to distract us from what is real.

Instead, I am here to ask you a very important question and then to offer you one of the most insane and absurdly simple answers to just about any problem. Mastering this pattern, not only attunes us to our full creatorship but also creates within us lasting inner peace.

Start by Questioning Suffering Often

When you find that you are suffering…ask yourself if this is really working for you?
Are you being offered heaven or hell by the thoughts, programs and patterns that your belief systems are generating in this moment?

If your thoughts offer you hell, why not create heaven instead?

Do you think…
I’m being punished for the night we spent together?

l don’t think it’s God who punishes us.
l think we punish ourselves.
Would it not be a comfort to believe…
just for a time…
that we create our own heavens and our own hells?

It would be a comfort.
It would, Lancelot.

Maybe God does not grant you all the comforts you ask of Him…
but offers you others which you refuse to see.
Maybe you should find the comforts He does offer you…
my dear lady, and accept them. ~ The Mists Of Avalon

Creating our heavens requires us to take responsibility for our hells.

Owning the Keys to the Gates of Hell

Step One: Look around and ask, how did I create this?
There are two things that happen immediately when I say this, because of what is implied in this statement. The first is acceptance and the second is possibility.

Surely, if I can create something large and impacting in one direction…it stands to reason that there was a process or a procedure that I used to get there. If I can become conscious of what I am doing that is not working for me…I am in a better position to notice what is missing, what I’m not paying attention to and design a way of simply taking that energy and turning the other way with it.

Step Two: Turn the other way by finding the good.
Ask yourself to find anything that is good and positive about (or as a result of) your situation.

In every set of circumstances in life, you can find opposites. Look for the comforts that are available to you within your problems, see how you might learn from them, how they can help you to grow or how they may in fact be helpful to someone else.

Look for a way to align yourself within the situation. This positions you for acceptance and forward movement by creating space within your problem for new ways of being with it, new thoughts and new emotions.

You are the Kingdom

The Kingdom of God is within you.

When we are at war with ourselves on the inside, the universe lines up our outer circumstances to reflect this to us and it would seem like the entire world is against us. When we comes to terms within, the lightness and ease with which we can move through our inner world follows us out into our physical experience…and everything seems to go our way.

Hell is merely a reflection of the conflict we rage upon ourselves, we create heaven by cultivating inner harmony, congruence and peace. If life is not enjoyable and you lack that peace…it is your responsibility to let go of the struggle, to put down the weapons you have been using against yourself and to make the choice to take notice of the comforts that are all around you.

Accepting Creatorship

No one else is responsible for the life we create. We create with our every thought, emotion and impulse, consciously and unconsciously alike. This is what it means to be a creator…and this is the Truth operating within our lives regardless of whether or not we embrace this viewpoint.

Our power, however, (despite our many fears) actually lies in ownership. When we take ownership of what we create, our creations are of a higher quality…the quality that comes from operating out of our conscious awareness. The more consciously we create the more control we have over our quality of consciousness and the more we grow .

Image Credit

Many clients have ideas about what they want in life and can’t figure out why they are not creating it.

What a client creates can be looked at as a reflection of the connection or lack of connection that they are currently experiencing with their values system. Within the dance of this system is a call to deeply and truly connect with and honor themselves.

For this reason, we have to get honest with ourselves about what is really important to us, and honor it, in order to get what we want in life. When we get clear about ourselves internally, we are ready to shift our external experience.

What Do You Value?

In order to find out what my clients value I have them do an exercise with index cards. I ask them to think about what is really really, important to them, and why it’s important. I then have them write these things on the front of the cards.

On the back of the cards I have them list all of the ways that they support these things with their time, money and energy.

Because much of what we do is unconscious, most people will find that there are areas in life that are really important to them that are not supported by their actions. I like to think of this in terms of voting.

Determining How You Vote

Because time and money equal energy, writing down how you support your values is a really clear way to see what level of alignment you currently have with the forces that drive you in life and where to make shifts that can bring you closer.

For example let’s say that you live in an artsy town and you just love the fact that you are surrounded by creative people because one of your values is to experience unique and beautiful things because this helps you be present to life.

If every time you buy something for your home, you find yourself in Ikea instead of the beautiful little artisan shops in your town, then you probably aren’t voting very consciously toward this value

At this point you can examine the energy behind the thoughts and impulses that led you to put your time and money into Ikea.

The Nature of the Thoughts Surrounding the Activity

In the above scenario we could imagine a thought of going to look for a few items for one’s living room, which then triggers an unconscious reaction which results with the idea of Ikea popping into your head and off you go without further examination. What happened to the value? Why did it never come into play?

Values take conscious awareness to implement and align with. In the above example, I used a value that is often brow-beaten by our unconscious alignment with our societies thought pattern of getting the best possible deal.

When I examine my own thought processes of getting a great deal, I notice a huge undertone of lack. Personally, that’s not the energy I want to put out in the world. This kind of unconscious motivation puts an invisible wall up between me and what I want to experience.

Using Body Wisdom to Determine What’s Most Important to Experience

For many people values are vague concepts floating around in their heads in a way that is disconnected from their experience. Often times they are not yet living their values because they haven’t learned to bring them into their bodies and therefore into their physical experience.

When you place your values inside of your body, you can access them environmentally, in this way you can feel where you are voting with your time and energy and whether or not you are honoring yourself with your actions.

When I place the energy of getting a good deal in my body as my primary motivation, I feel a bit sick in my stomach. When I place the energy of choosing to work with companies with an eye out for the whole as well as themselves, I feel a deep sense of rooted power.

My body will tell me which is the correct action for me. Now to clarify, I’m not saying to completely ignore price, I am only saying to examine the order in which you structure what is important, in other words, to determine which should come first.

Aligning Your Business with Your Values

When I first became aware of some of the unconscious processes that ran automatically in the background when I would search for products and services for my business, I was literally startled by what I found. I instantly made the decision to restructure my business to honor my values and I thought perhaps you might like to join me.

Here is what is on my list to do:

1. Find a hosting company that runs on solar energy
2. Use a credit card processor that gives 10% of their proceeds back to the environment
3. Produce business products, recordings and books on post consumer recycled paper and pop bottles
4. Use a financial institution who works with small companies that want to positively impact the world

Putting it in Action

When the main thrust of my energy enters the world from within my values, it makes a huge difference in how I honor myself and others.

If you would like to experiment similarly, and are searching for an easy way to find conscious businesses with which to partner, I suggest looking in the Co-Op America’s National Green Pages for the services you need.

Image Credit

Andrea Hess, of Empowered Soul drew my attention to project that is the work of one of her clients called, “The Future of Medicine” and asked if I would be interested in highlighting it on this blog.

The movie explores various forms of alternative healing modalities which are based on the idea that the body is capable of healing itself. One of my favorite books on this subject if you’re in for further exploration, is the Biology of Belief, by Bruce Lipton.

The Body Can Heal Itself

The idea that the body can heal itself, makes perfect sense. Our bodies heal themselves all of the time so what causes the conditions of illness? What allows for this healing mechanism to be interrupted?

In my experience we become sick due to imbalances between our physical, emotional & spiritual bodies. When all of these things are in alignment we operate perfectly, and truth be told, we are operating perfectly even when they are not.

An NLP Perspective

NLP is based on a principle that change happens fast, not slow and that lasting change occurs below the levels of the environment because there is an aspect of ourselves in operation that is outside of our conscious awareness. This applies across the board to things like physical symptoms and illness, emotion difficulties, reactions or any behavior that we don’t want to be doing.

For example, one of the most powerful healings I received from NLP solved a physical problem that first surfaced when I was fourteen years old, eczema. In class, we were experimenting with a process called 6-Step Reframe. I decided to see if it would work on my eczema as I was tired of having cracked and bleeding hands.

Once in the process I got the chance to speak to the part of myself that was causing the reaction, get to it’s positive purpose for doing so and have it come on board for finding alternative ways to express itself to me.

Traditional medicine couldn’t really do much. They advised gloves and steroid creams which worked only temporarily if at all. This is not surprising since prescribing creams and such is attacking the problem on the environmental level without ever actually getting at the cause. Since using the NLP process, I no longer have eczema.

The Mind/Body/Spirit Connection

Speaking to the body requires us to use a language most of us are unfamiliar with and this is where alternative healing modalities can help. These methods allow us to communicate with these parts, guide us to tap into them and help us to understand their needs and having them in turn, understand ours.

Because modern humans spend a lot of time living mostly in our heads, we have no idea, just how powerful we really are. Once we re-connect the mind with body and spirit, we have our full system up and running and available to us.

Yesterday at 1:00 p.m. CST, I was blessed with a free session with Paula Kawal which I won by leaving a comment on her article Celebrate the Wellspring and Win a Free Coaching Session found on her website paulakawal.com . If you aren’t aware or haven’t visited in awhile, visit Paula at her site. You will be glad that you did. The writing and the coaching sessions that she does are fantastic.

Patricia blogs in great detail about her amazing results and what her session was like…so if you’ve been curious about coaching and want to hear someone’s first-hand account, then head on over to her site and share her experience by reading her Journey Within Coaching Session with Paula Kawal post .

For a really good comparison of what she was experiencing before our session also read, Cry When You Need To and Feelings.