Do you have any doubt that you can be everything you want to be? Do you believe you are limited by your history, genetics, karma, or any other factor? If so, take heart. Your destiny far outshines your history.

Scientists tell us that dogs evolved from the wolf. About 10,000 years ago, people began to breed dogs to draw forth traits they valued. Wolves were selected for hunting skills, herding and loyalty. Over time breeding became more and more specialized, until today we have over 150 registered dog breeds and a total of 500 breeds created by specifically mixing the registered breeds.

This theory does not explain why my dog looks and acts nothing like a wolf. Our little Maltese weighs eight pounds, with long white fluffy hair, and a pushed-in nose. She is the cutest creature you have ever seen (I know, except for your dog or cat), with infinite affection for everyone she meets. Yet scientists swear she descends from a wild, scary-looking predator virtually impossible to tame.

If that’s true (unless my secret belief that visitors from another planet created genetic variations is borne out), then we have a monumental lesson: You can make anything out of anything. Everything has the potential to become anything you want it to be. If, through focus, intention and perseverance, you can pull an adorable, tame, loving, loyal, playful creature out of a vicious killer, you can draw forth the noblest qualities from the worst of people or situations.

I saw a news story about a murderer who escaped from prison, found his way to a neighborhood, and took a single female homeowner as a hostage. The woman happened to be a psychologist who was more sympathetic to her captor than afraid of him. As a legion of police and SWAT team surrounded the house, the psychologist persuaded them to give her some time with the convict. Over a day or two the woman encouraged her uninvited guest to talk about what was going on within him and what he wanted for his life. She served as a compassionate listener and supported his well-being. After a day, he surrendered himself. Later she became his advocate and worked to get him out of prison and get back on his feet in society.

This woman’s courage and skill drew a good man out of an apparently bad one. You and I, too, have the power to reinforce the traits we prefer from those around us. (Dale Carnegie: “Give that person a fine reputation to live up to!”) Actually, we are already creating the people around us by our expectations of them and their traits we focus on. Every time you complain about your husband leaving crumbs on the kitchen counter, or you compliment him for taking out the garbage, you reinforce the characteristic you are focusing on. Complaint and praise accomplish the same results — manifesting more of whatever you are giving your attention to.

Belief and vision are crucial factors in bringing forth positive attributes. A story from education annals tells of a teacher who opened her roster on the first day of the semester and was delighted to find high IQ scores next to the students’ names: 125, 136, 131. Thank goodness, Miss Matthews thought to herself, finally a smart group. The teacher gave her students challenging lessons, stimulating projects and creative freedom. At the end of the semester all the students got A’s and B’s. The next day the principal called the teacher into his office and asked her, “Miss Matthews, how did you take a group of low-functioning students and turn them into geniuses?” Puzzled, the teacher showed the principal her roll book with their listed IQs. “Those are not their IQs,” the principal laughed. “Those are their locker numbers!”

The universe, quantum physics explains, is made of energy more than matter, and energy is highly amenable to the power of thought and intention. You can pluck anything from the universe by focusing your attention on an object. Spiritual masters and yogis have demonstrated this over millennia. Jesus turned water into wine, and in more current times Satya Sai Baba has manifested many objects out of thin air. My mentor Hilda Charlton was traveling with Sai Baba when their car ran out of gas. Baba called for a bucket of water, poked his finger in it, and ordered the liquid to be poured into the gas tank. The auto ran fine on the new fuel. (At today’s gas prices, wouldn’t you like to be able to do that?)

As we enter a new season of school and business, it might be worth our while to think clearly about what we want to create. What is your most valued goal for this coming school or business year? How much attention are you giving your highest priority, and how much attention are you giving to lower priorities, or things you do not wish to experience? Each day take a few sacred moments to remember what’s important.

Be not deceived by the appearance of the wolf. There is a marvelously friendly dog hiding inside.

In the past three weeks, I’ve been speaking and listening and feeling a shift in the field, as women increasingly want to be involved in contributing their way to seeing and doing as solutions to bigger problems. I returned yesterday from Mobile, AL, where I keynoted the WomenSpeak 2010 conference on “Women in Circles Changing the World.” I had come to Mobile directly from New York City, where I participated in events centered around the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women. I was there as the leading advocate for a UN 5th World Conference on Women (and Girls).

Since writing The Millionth Circle: How to Change Ourselves and The World and Urgent Message From Mother: Gather the Women, Save the World, I have been seeding circles with a spiritual center and have taken on the role as a message carrier. There was an extraordinary response to what I had to say in Alabama and a shift in receptivity at events at the UN. The online petition “Support a UN 5th World Conference on Women” (go to www.jeanbolen.com, click the GoPetition logo) is another sign (went from 2,000 signatures to 8,000 in a month.

I am looking forward to coming to Plymouth, MN, to keynote and give a workshop at the Alive Aware Awake! Women’s Gathering. The Minneapolis-St. Paul area has been at the leading edge of social responsibility and citizen activism. The largest group of girls (ages 10 to 17) to the 4th World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995 was organized in Minneapolis.

If grassroots activism influences the UN through their governments to have a 5th world conference, the first since the internet and the 21st century, it may very well be the tipping point. Only when a critical number of women become involved in making decisions that affect us all, will the planet be a safe and good place for all children.

When women come together and make a commitment to each other to be in a circle with a spiritual center, they are creating a vessel of healing and transformation for themselves, and a vehicle for change in their world. These are circles of compassion that can become incubators for personal and political change.

An egalitarian circle with a spiritual center is a model most easily created by women, but is a form not limited to women. Circles with a sacred center are the means through which a third wave of feminism, based upon spiritual equality and compassion, can bring about an evolutionary change in human society which would end the conditions that foster terrorism. The premise: A world that is safe for children will not breed terrorists; a world that is safe for women is a world where children are safe. For this to come about, the principles of circle and hierarchy must come into balance, otherwise the acquisition of power over others prevails and no one can be safe.

Holding hands to form a circle immediately connects us, one to another. Touch comforts, the clasp of hands forms an unbroken circle – a non-verbal statement that we are together. When silence for reflection, meditation or prayer is added, it is also an experiential introduction to the archetype of the circle with a spiritual center, which I have been seeding as an idea through lectures, workshops and my most recent books, including Goddesses in Older Women.

When I describe how to form and maintain circles, the analytic vessel and Jungian concepts of the psyche provide the structure and spirit through which a circle can become a vessel of healing and transformation. Further, if the collective unconscious and the morphic field are actually the same, circles become vessels for the transformation of culture, as well. An alchemy or reciprocal effect that changes both, occurs between the individual circle and the archetype of the circle. (In essence, this is an application of theoretical biologist Rupert Sheldrake’s thinking to Jungian psychology; humanity’s morphic field is Jung’s collective unconscious.)

A proliferation of circles has the potential to become a force for social justice by bringing feminine values of relationship and interdependency into a culture of hierarchy and dominance through power. Women as a gender use conversation to bond which makes the circle a natural medium and form.

Women in small groups became the Women’s Suffragette’s movement, gaining women the right to vote in 1920. Women in small consciousness-raising groups led to the Women’s movement of the 1970s. As a result, what was once unthinkable for women to do became usual and incorporated into cultural values. If women’s circles with a spiritual center become the source of a third wave of feminism, the effect in Jungian terms would be to bring feminine and masculine principles into balance within collective consciousness.

Are our desires too big or too much for us to fulfill on our own? Sometimes yes, but more often it is that we are too big for our own desires. By that I mean that once we hit a road block in our search, we let that discouraging feeling get to the core of who we are. We then let that become our excuse for not leading a successful existence.

We forget how divinely powerful we are in our creation process. Others see us hit the obstacle and rush to comfort us – bless their hearts. Clearly we enjoy this affection, so we let ourselves become dependent and stay there, rather than moving further towards our goal on our own two feet. Surely it’s always nice to have those loving and motherly arms around us, telling us it will be all right, and there are times we do need that for a short time, but we must also be keen on when it’s time to let those arms release us.

This is the time we will experience our greatest freedoms, as spiritual beings having human experiences! We are free to make mistakes, free to live, free to simply exist the way we see fit.

The self-empowerment I speak of actually comes naturally to us. Like a bank account that has always been there, we just need to know how to make that all-important withdrawal. Believe it or not, we make the withdrawal by having faith in ourselves. It really is that easy.

Embracing this faith in ourselves becomes the most “power-full” way to live. When starting a project, only see the positive outcomes. Try not to even entertain anything other than the positive. With this inner power, we can and will conquer any obstacle in our paths that would keep us from attaining our highest lifestyle possible! Look at how often we can create a negative situation for ourselves. Know that this kind of creating is just as powerful, if not more so, than the ability to create pain for ourselves.

Step into your power and feel the peace and love radiate from everywhere around you. You’ll know you’re there by the way people respond to you. You’ll feel it, the contentment of knowing that everything is in place and flowing. The occurrences around you will always mirror where your spirit is at any given time. Keep this in mind as your tool for guidance, and I have every faith that you will find your power to create the masterpiece of your soul’s true desire!

Now, get out there and take a risk…alone…and step into the person you’re destined to become! Complete your part of the living orchestra in the world.

Are our desires too big or too much for us to fulfill on our own? Sometimes yes, but more often it is that we are too big for our own desires. By that I mean that once we hit a road block in our search, we let that discouraging feeling get to the core of who we are. We then let that become our excuse for not leading a successful existence.

We forget how divinely powerful we are in our creation process. Others see us hit the obstacle and rush to comfort us – bless their hearts. Clearly we enjoy this affection, so we let ourselves become dependent and stay there, rather than moving further towards our goal on our own two feet. Surely it’s always nice to have those loving and motherly arms around us, telling us it will be all right, and there are times we do need that for a short time, but we must also be keen on when it’s time to let those arms release us.

This is the time we will experience our greatest freedoms, as spiritual beings having human experiences! We are free to make mistakes, free to live, free to simply exist the way we see fit.

The self-empowerment I speak of actually comes naturally to us. Like a bank account that has always been there, we just need to know how to make that all-important withdrawal. Believe it or not, we make the withdrawal by having faith in ourselves. It really is that easy.

Embracing this faith in ourselves becomes the most power-full way to live. When starting a project, only see the positive outcomes. Try not to even entertain anything other than the positive. With this inner power, we can and will conquer any obstacle in our paths that would keep us from attaining our highest lifestyle possible! Look at how often we can create a negative situation for ourselves. Know that this kind of creating is just as powerful, if not more so, than the ability to create pain for ourselves.

Step into your power and feel the peace and love radiate from everywhere around you. You’ll know you’re there by the way people respond to you. You’ll feel it, the contentment of knowing that everything is in place and flowing. The occurrences around you will always mirror where your spirit is at any given time. Keep this in mind as your tool for guidance, and I have every faith that you will find your power to create the masterpiece of your soul’s true desire!

Now, get out there and take a risk…alone…and step into the person you’re destined to become! Complete your part of the living orchestra in the world.

Besides the obvious physical additions some experience to things like drugs, cigarettes and alcohol, an addiction also can be considered anything that we use on a regular basis to distract us from pursuing our dreams.

Rather than taking the time to go within, get to know ourselves or to do the work we need that will allow us to move forward, often we non-consciously use our addictions as our excuse. Do you choose to habitually watch television, share your dramatizing victim stories, gossip about others, binge eat or use other excuses to avoid being the greatness that you were born to be?

Addictions like these rob you of your power to achieve all of the things you were brought into this world to contribute. If you take your “personal stuff,” like your fears, out of the picture and instead focus on how you can help others or make this world a better place, even if it is in a small way, then you can see how your addictions are essentially hurting all those you are depriving of your greatness!

In her book You Can Heal Your Life, Louise Hay explains that the probable causes of addiction are fear, running from oneself and not knowing how to love oneself. Once you are able to see how wonderful you are and understand that big things are expected of you, then you will see that your addictions are denying all others of your unique, inborn gifts, abilities and genius.

We are all here on this magnificent earth at this time in history when things are dramatically shifting for a reason. You chose to come here during this period. As a result, you have some choices. You can choose to be the victim of circumstances, letting things happen to you, feeling like everything is out of your control. Or, you can take control over some things in your life, such as your fears and addictions, feeling empowered, knowing that you are worth it! Deciding to binge eat, watch TV night after night or drink a few glasses of alcohol just to numb out your feelings only delays the inevitable. Eventually you will need to deal with your life and circumstances, and the longer you let your addictions control you, the more challenging it can be to let them go.

Try to spend one evening alone without your addictions. Sometimes you need to let something go to be open to something better. Let go of your distractions and instead focus on your needs today. Once you can commit to this evening alone, then try these ideas:

• Make a list of the obstacles that are blocking your path to greatness. Jot down ideas for how to remove each obstacle so you can move forward. Think about what needs your attention now. Perhaps there are some things that need to be taken care of first to lay a foundation for working on your ultimate goals.

• Write about the greatness you can bring to the world. How can you serve others? Don’t overlook the small things, like helping the older woman who lives next door carry in her groceries. Everything you put on your list will encourage you to think of the value you can bring to the world. When writing about your big ideas or dreams, include what value your goals will have on everyone you touch. These goals will bring out your greatness. This exercise helps to eliminate any fears that may be holding you back from pursuing your dreams.

• Once you have done this, reflect on the experience. How did it feel to spend time with yourself, not being prey to that which controls you? Did you feel empowered? More in charge of your life? Where is it headed?

Being able to feel your value – and how much more worthwhile your time is spent when you are focusing outside of yourself – is invaluable in letting go of those things we use to distract us from our dreams. Move forward in life! Stop making excuses and instead empower yourself to show the world your greatness!

Last November, I was fortunate to attend a Public Forum held by Kathryn Harwig. Kathryn’s gift of channeling her spirit guides, known as The Light Collective, amazed and empowered me.

The Light Collective began the evening with the important wisdom that fear is the number one thing that blocks each of us from reaching our true potential. Reflecting back on how this amazing event ended, I feel like that message was definitely something I needed to hear.

To begin, I wasn’t sure that I would be able to attend the forum because, as the wife of a passionate deer hunter and the mother of three young children, I did not have childcare arranged for that eve of Minnesota’s deer hunting opener. I knew I wanted to attend the event but, because of my fear of the unknown, I had procrastinated in finding someone to care for our little ones. At the very last minute, a young girl who occasionally babysits for us agreed to come over.

I attended the forum alone, which I believe helped me in the end. You see, once I began to experience Kathryn’s channeled guides, I knew I had to ask a question and may not have had the courage to ask with a friend next to me.

As the end of the forum approached, I knew I needed to ask why I was feeling blocked from meeting my guides. Valerie Lis, of Courses for Life, asked the Light Collective from which part of the room should the last question come from. These amazing spiritual beings told the audience that they were feeling a lot of energy coming from my section of the room. I felt as if they meant me! My heart began to pound in my chest with nervous energy, and Valerie asked who in my section of the room had a question that needed to be answered. I raised my hand and the Light Collective agreed to answer my question, the last one of the night! I asked for some direction as I felt blocked from meeting my own guides.

The Light Collective enlightened me with their answer, sharing first that they sensed a lot of fear coming from me, which I was definitely feeling! They then explained that guides have a hard time getting through all that fear. They also informed me that I had been imprisoned in many of my past lives. Because of this, I had experienced a great deal of fear in those lives, but they wanted to remind me that I am not imprisoned in this life. They continued saying that I have not fully blossomed in this lifetime yet, and once I do, I will not feel that fear and imprisonment. They ended by telling me, "You are very strong and very brave." I had tears welling up in my eyes as I gratefully thanked them and handed the microphone back to Valerie.

I have been replaying this amazing, life-empowering event in my mind ever since it happened. I had never really admitted my fears or even recognized the feelings of imprisonment in my life prior to this experience, but I can now see how these disempowering emotions have played their part throughout my life. These feelings have really paralyzed me from becoming the "true me" and reaching my potential. Coincidentally, a past-life regression I experienced only a week before had revealed my inner need to play and feel freedom in order to find happiness. I was a young girl swinging on a swing in my yard, feeling so free, content and completely fearless.

I can definitely say that since this event, I have experienced the true feelings of freedom, inner strength and self-confidence I was lacking before. This has helped me to make great strides in pursuing my life’s dream of helping others achieve their goals in life.

I am immensely grateful to Kathryn and The Light Collective for empowering me to be the strong, brave spirit that I am. They reminded me that I am not imprisoned in this lifetime and have helped me move toward eliminating fear and reaching my true potential! I highly recommend that everyone experience these amazing Public Forums!

Real Happiness empowers you to live the life of joy and purpose that you were meant to live.

Many of our definitions of happiness are shaped by Madison Avenue. They define only the outer shell, or the mask that we show to the world. They describe how we look to others, not how we feel about ourselves. If we accept these definitions, we probably believe that a happy person is physically attractive, rich, influential, liked and respected by others, and powerful in the world. Those are the people we see on television and in the magazines. But if we look a little more deeply at the lives of these models of happiness, we see that they are not really any more happy than the rest of us. They have the same struggles and frustrations that we do, and their lives also fall apart, just as ours do.

Just because we have a good "happiness mask" does not mean that we are really happy. We are just good at pretending to be happy when we really aren’t. It takes courage to pull off our mask and show up as a real person, especially if we have a public image to protect. Yet even if we aren’t famous, we are still trying to save face. We still don’t want others to see the pain that lies behind our mask.

Both Madison Avenue. and Wall Street give us a very superficial definition of happiness. They give us the veneer, not the heartwood. It is easily tarnished. Hollywood doesn’t do much better. Idols are not only made in a flash; they fall and crash just as quickly.

Real Happiness is not based on how we appear to others or what others think about us. It really has very little to do with that. Real Happiness is not about the outer shell, image or mask, but about the inner core. It is not about how good we look to others, or about our ability to please them and get their approval. It is about how we feel about ourselves in our hearts.

In other words, happiness is an internal state not an external condition. It is not about surface things like money, lifestyle, possessions, role or image. It is not about what we do or what we have, but about who we are and how we feel about ourselves.

This is a radical definition. While many people continue to define happiness by how good they are at what we do or by how much money or material possessions they have, the truth is that they can have name, fame and riches and still be unhappy. Real Happiness does not come from the outside. It comes from within. It must be measured from the inside out, not from the outside in.

Real Happiness is a journey

Another important characteristic of Real Happiness is that it is not a static state. It is not just a goal that we aspire to. It is a dynamic process. Most of us are in the process of becoming happy or, to be more precise, "happier" than we have been in the past. No matter how happy we are, more happiness is possible. That is because, at any given time, we are actualizing only a small percentage of our full potential.

So how do we maximize our potential to be happy? How do we take the next steps on our journey to self-actualization?

The same people who gave us the Madison Avenue version of happiness also gave us the most common prescription for happiness. That prescription was "make the best mask you can and put a big smiley face over your pain." In other words, "Deny your pain and pretend to be happy." That prescription doesn’t work for most people. Or else they need other more serious prescriptions to reinforce it. It’s not long before the mask begins to degrade and they return to the doctor for a back-up prescription of Prozac, tranquilizers or sleeping pills, or they might reach instead for a joint, a hit of cocaine or their second bottle of wine.

Numbing ourselves out does not lead to Real Happiness. It just helps us try to cope with the fact that we are not really happy. It helps us feel better for an hour or two when it becomes clear that our mask is not working and the pain behind it is leaking through.

To be really happy, we need to stop doing two things: Denying our pain, and medicating it. And we need to begin to do two very different things: Feel our pain, and heal and move through it.

Healing our pain

Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if:

• You believed in yourself and knew you had a gift to share?

• You could move forward with your dreams instead of questioning them?

• You could face life problems without fear?

• You loved yourself no matter what happened?

You would be well on your way to manifesting your full power and potential as a human being, would you not? So what stands in your way?

There could be several things that stand in your way. For example: You could have childhood wounds and could be carrying a great deal of fear, guilt, anger or hurt inside. While you might have a handle on all that, there may be times when you lose control and what comes out it isn’t very pretty.

Your wound-driven behavior may undermine your relationship with your children and loved ones. It might challenge you at work. Because of your shame around your wounds, you may show up with a mask or a False Self, either apologizing for yourself and seeking approval, or taking charge and dominating others. You might be under-confident or over-confident. You might be hard on yourself or hard on others. You may be a victim or a victimizer. Either way, the bottom line is that you might not like yourself very much. You could judge yourself mercilessly. Or you could judge others harshly, which is the flip side of the same coin.

We don’t like to talk about our reactive behavior or the wounds and beliefs behind them, but they are the root of our deepest pain. If we don’t find that root and heal it, we cannot be happy. We will simply continue to recycle our pain and pass our wounds onto our children.

Loving without conditions

How do we heal? We learn to love and accept ourselves unconditionally. We learn to bring love to the wounded parts of ourselves so that we can heal and stand in our power as authentic human beings. Once we are able to bring love to ourselves, bringing love to our loved ones and our human family becomes a lot easier.

Now this idea is a fairly simple one. Yet, loving ourselves unconditionally seems to be the most challenging assignment for all of us.

Fifteen years ago I wrote a book called Love without Conditions. It was an international best-seller. Other books on this subject followed, including The Laws of Love, The Power of Love, The Presence of Love, and Love is My Gospel. Many people have read my books and subsequently come to my retreats and workshops all over the globe to learn how to heal, to forgive the past, and to love themselves unconditionally.

During the last year I have synthesized and condensed the transformational material from over 35 books into a weekend experience that can be life changing. Participants in my Real Happiness Workshop learn to surrender the False Self and connect with their True Self. They are empowered to stand in their strength, attract honest, fulfilling relationships, and create meaningful work that expresses their true talents and gifts.

A joyful and empowered life

This work assumes that genuine happiness is possible for all of us. There is no defect or deficiency in us that prevents us from being happy. However, there are false beliefs that need to be challenged and hurts that need to be healed so that we can open our hearts fully to love and to life.

I have spent the last 35 years of my life coming up with a roadmap for the journey of healing and transformation and concrete tools that can help us learn to love ourselves without conditions. The Real Happiness Work is the result. I feel that it is powerful, authentic and effective. I hope that you will experience it for yourself and, if it speaks to your heart, learn to teach it and bring its message of hope and healing to others.

It’s supposed to be easy. But, let me tell you, after reading Wayne Dyer’s You’ll See It When You Believe it, experiencing The Futures Group (previously Executive Futures) course and having good friends who “understand” abundance, I am still finding it challenging. One of my clients suggested creating a T-shirt that reads, “This is only my form.” And yes, I know our souls are larger than our bodies, and yes, I know positive energy attracts positive energy — but wait a minute — how do I learn to live in the everyday world when I feel continually connected to my Higher Self, my Higher Power, and everybody else?

I’m sorry to say most of the world still operates on scarcity. For many people, the thinking is purely left brain, right-wrong, hierarchical and polarized. That means either / or rather than and. I dream in a world of intuition, paradoxes, and letting go. Many of my working colleagues believe in control — control of themselves, control of others, controlling the environment. I believe we can create conditions, facilitate, but not “produce” outcomes.

I am evaluated by others for being a “human doing” rather than a “human being.” Can’t they understand I am a process person? I think process people make product people nervous. We are always “in process.” We are always seeing the depth, the complexities, the interactions of everything with everything else. So what am I, a troublemaker?

Yes, I believe people who live in this world of “trusting the process” aren’t understood by many. We seem naive, scattered and downright wimpy to some. I still have my vision, and I hold firmly to it. Yet, I understand serendipity is part of the journey, and I am willing to let go, trust and fly by the seat of my pants when that feels right. Some people have no idea of where I might be going. Others think I have totally lost it. Still others believe I could have really made something of myself if I had applied myself correctly.

The biggest challenge for me these days is to realize I cannot live being true to myself and still appear to be a success in certain people’s eye. Control is my biggest issue, and letting go is both a curse and a blessing. When I immerse myself in my original authenticity, or as John Bradshaw calls it, my “wonder child,” family members and colleagues get nervous.

Believing we are all connected, and that both inner and outer peace is possible, creates a feeling of alienation. I find it hard to play by hierarchical rules. I don’t like to label people and I certainly don’t like being told exactly who I am. I think Maslow, my first psychology teacher back in 1960, contaminated me for life. He told our whole class of 200 that we were far too complex to fit into other people’s categories. He said we defied labeling because we wee so unique, on the one hand, and connected, on the other. Again, a wonderful paradox.

So, the problem with this new level of understanding, this totally rad (to use a modern term) way of living, is that it makes it difficult to relate to many people. It is easier to say, “Act from your center. Act and step back. Act, don’t react.” It is hard to not react to puzzled looks and negative comments from others who think you have finally “lost it.” No, as the popular bumper sticker says, “I found it. You are the one who is lost.”

So what did I find? A new, more peaceful and loving way of being in the world. A chance to realize my dreams and feel an incredible connection to all of creation. However, all choices involve some loss. Something has to go. And, as usual, I would like to pretend life is easy, and one can have it all. I tell you, that is not so. So, what do I give up for this new awareness, this new sensation of faith and unity with everything? I believe I have to give up my need to be accepted into the mainstream of society. I have to give up fitting into a legalistic, hierarchical, controlling system that motivates out of fear. I am no longer invited to certain cocktail parties!

It is difficult for me to stop complaining and criticizing. It came with my family genes. So, to adopt this new way of living in the world means giving up some parts of my former self that connected me with my family. As I see these parts slip away, I feel the loss and sadness. Being launched is not always as much fun as they said it would be.

The obvious answer is to find other people who share the same vision and want to live a love-oriented, abundant lifestyle. I know quite a number of people like that, but it isn’t always easy to surround myself with them. They are often busy with their own journeys, and trying to make a living using their own talents and skills. Because they are living this rad, new lifestyle means they often have difficulty working for others who are rigid, authoritarian, and controlling. So they are on their own, scrambling to make ends meet, creating new organizational structures.

This is where meditation and solitude come in. I find I must spend quiet time connecting with my Higher Power, Higher Self, and Center in order to feel supported in this fifth dimension. Once I realized I had to throw away the old road map, it became more important to realize the new one was not created yet, but only “in process.”

So — sometimes when I am in my regular job, with fear-oriented people, I feel like a stranger in a strange land. Some people do not understand me when I throw out non-hip words like, “spiritual center.” For others, they flash a look that says, “Here he goes again.” I have gotten more skilled at ignoring those looks, for after all, shame only works if you are willing to play the game.

The third solution to the problem of alienation, loneliness and not being understood is to love people where they are and not expect anything more than they are capable of giving. People are indifferent places on their own journeys. Some will someday understand there is more to life than making money, and others will not get it in my lifetime. Consequently, I grieve, but I also let go. I am not the first to be misunderstood, and I will not be the last. I am from a long line of people who are “on the edge” or “in the cracks” or “prematurely mature.”

Someone heard a friend and myself discussing this way of living recently and responded with, “Oh, that’s recovery talk.” My friend and I smiled at each other. “She doesn’t get it, does she?” we both said. We weren’t talking about recover, or getting healthy. We were talking about a way to be in the world, the way that made sense to us.

Dr. Dean Portinga, of The Futures Group, talks about chemicalization. This is the process that occurs when one begins to change from seeing the world as a place of scarcity to one of abundance. “People have all kinds of reactions,” he warned me about two years ago. An understatement, Dean, believe me. Some people never stop reacting, because they fear what is new.

So carry on, I bid you. Continue on this journey toward authenticity, wholeness and ultimate connection. As you let your light shine, remember that the fuel or energy has to come from somewhere — your Higher Self, Higher Power, and the feeling of being grounded and connected. Without those, we tend to flicker and burn out.