

Paul Walker

An Ego Trip

Channeled by Kimberly M. Quezada

Copyright © 2019 by Kimberly M. Quezada

License Notes

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This eBook or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in Canada

First printing, 2019

ISBN 9781775361633

Kimberly M. Quezada

Edmonton, Alberta

Canada

Failure is unimportant.

It takes courage to make a complete fool of yourself.

\- Charlie Chaplin

Introducing Another Book

Nice title hey...an ego trip. But now that I grabbed your attention, let's talk. Ego has been defined through centuries as a power play between good and bad...usually good and evil. It's one of these words that gets a bad rep because through centuries, different religions and spiritual practices, people have defined it on these terms that are assumed to be one size fits all but really it isn't. I've been thinkin', you know, that maybe a guy like me could share some of his knowledge about the subject; some kind of information that could maybe allow some people to simmer down and get the hell out of their own way. I thought I'd try anyway.

So, I work with a partner. Let's call her...Kim. If you don't know who I'm talking about, read the first book we did. You'll understand real quick who she is and what we do. Anyway, I work with Kim and sometimes Kim can be a little skittish when I say I'd like to do something or work on something new. New is intimidating. For anyone, new can come completely out of left field and have someone immediately say no because it's too daunting. Kim, like a lot of people, can feel daunted...is that a word? Well if it isn't, it is now. So I got this idea to write another book. I can't do these things by myself. I mean, I could but none of you would be able to read it so I need the help of a human. Kim's written a couple of books...what's one more? But...I sort of have to sneak it under the rug that this is what I want to do and if I let her get her feet wet a little...feel it out a little...it'll happen.

It's soothing something we like to call the Ego before it spirals out of control. You all got one, whether you want to admit it or not and even in these "spiritual" communities, it tends to spin out of control. So I wanted to do a book but slip the idea to Kim like it was just another look 'n see into what Paul's up to. She came by, she sees me loading an old pickup truck with a couple of backpacks. I show her messages in ways she gets and sometimes it needs to be trucks and backpacks. She also sees me call my dog. I got a dog here. She didn't make it at birth so I grabbed her when I had the chance. I've had lots of animals when I lived and I still crave and love that energy. So I got a dog. Yes...there are dogs here that still love to be companions and you want to know something about dogs...animals in general? They live in the moment and in that way, they're pretty easily understood. Oh...and animals don't have that ego. My advice...start connecting with your animals. You could learn a thing or two.

So I called her to the truck. Her name's Bentley. Kim asks where we're going; me and Bennie. I tell her she's coming too. She asks again, where are we going? I tell her we're going on a trip. We need to see some stuff that she can share. I wasn't lying. I just wasn't telling her the whole story. She agrees. That was a few weeks ago. I've been showing her some pretty far out stuff. Stuff she can feel out and when it's right for her, she'll share it. She can't share it now and there's a good reason for it.

People aren't ready.

And people aren't ready because deep down, they don't want to be because of the stories they're used to living or the beliefs from others that they've accepted as their own. We'll get into that. Then, just recently, I said I wanted to write another book. You know what she said?

What?

I answered, I want to write another book.

She held her breath.

So like a lot of people that are being faced with some sort of choice or some sort of...new idea, they can listen to that loud reactive voice that says all the reasons why you shouldn't but there's also that voice of truth and reflection that asks why not?

Usually that first voice will win over unless you got me drivin' a pickup truck through time and space saying,

Before you say anything, just hear me out.

Good thing I have a partner who's a pretty good listener and has opted to listen to the quieter softer nudges than the hell no's of the brain...well, most of the time.

Why am I telling you this? Because the hell no's of the brain are getting louder and louder and the whispers are being drowned out when in reality, they're actually supposed to start working together. There needs to be more it is what it is and it was what it was instead of so much good/bad, should/shouldn't, black/white.

That's the logical.

You know what logic is?

It's the ego.

Now...don't get me wrong but this ego is looked at as this big dragon to slay in that it doesn't have a place in living a spiritual human life; that it's very bad and needs to be silenced. Even better, it needs to die. But if that's what you're thinking or hell bent on believing, you need a logic check. There's always going to be logic. There's always going to be emotion and in the middle of all of that will be intuition. Sometimes emotion is a reaction and sometimes logic talks you out of things because there isn't enough evidence to justify what you want to do or who you want to be. Thing is, people are forgetting about the equilibrium of it is what it is and it was what it was.

Sigmund Freud referred to the ego as this "Sense of I". It's the I of life but the I isn't always that self-centered, look-at-me-because-I'm-all-that-matters attitude. The I is also in that I Am. I am all that is and ever will be...it's that central sun.

So, with all that being said, I want to go on a trip. Some might come along. Some might think this is all bullshit and that's cool but I parked my truck back there, deciding to hike this one. You can't drive this road. I got Bentley, I got she who shall be known as Kim. There's some boots here for you too. I'm just takin' a walk. The scenery's different. It's not going to be viewed the same as this guy or the guy after that. But what's a trip without a bunch of people where we don't always see eye to eye and we want what we want but we can always meet back at that middle ground regardless of any of that.

I'm goin' ego trippin' and now that my laces are tied, you might want to do yours a little tighter before you join me. You don't want loose laces on a hike through this terrain. You might trip up and nothing's worse than a scraped up knee or elbow. Nothing's worse than a bruised ego. Now...let's go.

Ego – It Can Be Good

There's going to be something that I will continually repeat in this book and I've said it in my other channels as well. You guys need to understand that life happens but as it does, there are these beliefs that it's good/bad, right/wrong, happy/sad, full/empty...all these things that we try to classify life in to get our heads wrapped around it more easily. But who taught you that and is that really your opinion or has it been driven into you by outside factors? Did you ever get asked or did you ever have that discussion with people, that tried to tell you their stories, how you actually felt about what you're livin' instead of it being this "supposed to" thing taught by outside influences? What I will continually tell you in this book, and I don't even know how long it's gonna be but I'm warning your right now...it is what it is and it was what it was and for all of you that have to peel back some sort of layer of yourself to examine it and make excuses for that period in your life that might be that good/bad, right/wrong, happy/sad, full/empty...that examination will last until you come and see me over on this side and I'll greet you and say, What were you waiting for? Permission from your ego?

Ego makes you examine yourself and everything you've done until it's at some quantum level. The thing is...ego doesn't understand quantum so how could you ever scrutinize yourself to that minute detail and think it's helping? You'll peel back several layers and won't even get to the bottom of whatever barrel you think you're bobbing in while watching everyone else understand that it is what it is and it was what it was and watch them go while you sit in a muddled mess. So that's my disclaimer before I start continuing with this book. The other disclaimer that I want to make is that ego...it's not all bad. It's a part of you. It's in your makeup. So anything that is about you...as a human being...is never awful. It's actually meant to allow you to rise to the occasion. You have the devil on your shoulder and you have the angel. But you also have a wolf. How do you like that? Cool, hey? Bet you weren't expecting me to tell you you're walking with a dire wolf right by your side.

Now a dire wolf is really just an overgrown wolf but the story's good. I like the story. I like wolves. I've run with a few. Why am I bringing wolves into a book about the ego? Because the wolf is the ego. You all have a wolf that walks beside you. You can call it a wolf...you can call it whatever you want to call it but I guarantee that if I'm telling you you have a wolf walking with you...I think you'll be pretty pleased. The wolf is the face of the ego. Now, a wolf guide is completely different. That's a totem meaning and that, as a guide, is not the same as the ego. This ego wolf is huge. It's really really fucking huge. It's very encompassing and it's watching in every single direction you're walking. It's also watching you; your actions and your non-actions. It's stalking anything that even comes two feet close to it and that includes you; the reader. Even if it's your ego, your wolf...it's watching you the closest. It's guarding its territory, including you because to ego, you're territory and when you walk past someone on the street, your wolf and their wolf are snarling at each other to stay away and don't come too close. It's the hesitancy and it's the warning.

Wolves are the example of what's wild in nature. It's the primitive of nature in physical form. It's the gut instinct and the warning light that something's not right. The wolf loves to sit right in your solar plexus area. It's...like when you know something's not quite right and you get that growl in the pit of your stomach that maybe you need to be a little careful, watchful or hesitant because something doesn't feel too good. That's the wolf; that's the ego and we all need that in life. It's just we let it get out of hand and run rampant because it can be so powerful. Through circumstances that life hands us, we end up giving a lot of our power to that wolf without noticing that eagle that flies above; that stays somewhat detached and is willing to see itself from a higher stance than just what's in front of it or around, at ground level.

The wolf also has this great ability to teach us about power; personal power because look at where it sits. It sits in the solar plexus but it also visits the sacral and root too. It's got control over those lower energy systems because that's where it's comfortable and that's where it wants to stay. It doesn't want to venture anywhere that its footing isn't on solid ground or where it hasn't marked its territory and it can't in any of those chakras above the solar plexus unless we allow that to happen...and we do. A wolf marking its territory is actually the human building walls that can't be broken down or penetrated. This allows that wolf ego and subsequently, the human, to always be on; always on watch and while humans do need to look out for themselves, there's a difference between using your Spidey sense and living in fear.

The wolf also convinces us about this idea of human suffering. Usually people think suffering is about something that needs to constantly be pushed away or attacked head on instead of making peace with, overcoming or moving on. So if people are in a place of some sort of suffering...if you have control over that ego, it can be a team player and support you as you discern what's really your own suffering and what doesn't really have anything to do with you. If you don't have control over it, that wolf will continually growl and stare down that enemy with or without striking and start battles or run with its tail between its legs, blaming everyone else for the fact that it didn't have the courage to actually take any action to get that assumed enemy out of the way.

The ego wolf is not the head of the pack. It's the runt of the litter and even though it can pick a fight...it can also get picked on and live in fear. When someone can understand that...that's when there's a good chance that the wolf can be tamed and actually do what it was intended to do which is keep grounded in the primal experience that is human while being that healthy warning of something that doesn't feel right but they'll back off and let you take it from there. That's a healthy ego. That's the angel instead of the devil and that's the way it was always meant to work.

Ego was something you were born with. It's a part of you. If something sort of naturally sits in those energy centers of your body, it came with you and was always meant to be part of your day to day experiences. A lot of the time, experiences include other people and we experience what comes out of the choices we make. There is so much that goes into creating who we are but that isn't always at the core level. When we came we had that core level of existence and when we were born...we were born in truth and purity. We were born without "sin" (Which is a load of shit, sin, but I digress.) We were born connected and we could see and anything that we experienced as a new human being baby on earth was untouched. That ego wolf was just a baby as well and, like all pups, they play. They play and explore without thinking that they have to watch their backs. But pups grow way faster than humans do and we learn about that ego a lot younger than maybe we should. It's because of what I was saying earlier. We are bombarded with the world around us and the ideas of what's "supposed to be" which triggers instinct to kick in. So then naturally, ego (instinct) lights up and in that beginning, ego's actually pretty cool because it starts out as a part of our identity; who we are as individual people and what our truth is. It's what gives us our personality because personality has to start from somewhere and people are born with one that says who we are at our cores but eventually, our personalities get shaped and molded by our individual circumstances, reactions and responses to life instead of remaining how it was always intended to; remaining that personal truth. We have this really cool ability...with the right support...to cultivate really healthy relationships with ourselves and that includes with our egos. Sometimes...we don't have that support and sometimes we decide to come here already knowing about a healthy ego and that's not the challenge or the experience we choose to live. Maybe we chose to have a healthy ego and teach that and be a leader of that and be the face of what is really healthy and complete...a really powerful example that others can look up to and use as a platform for what is possible in their own lives. Usually though...that's not the case. That's like 2% of the whole entire world. Earth, and I've said it before, is this place where we enter if we dare and part of that is knowing that part of being human is gathering that wherewithal to live the best possible life we can. That's in the personality; that's with the healthy understanding of and connection to the ego.

Sigmund Freud said that where the id was, there ego shall be. So what is the id? Well, it's what I was talking about with the wolf. It's the instinct and the prey drive. It's the sexual and the aggressive. It's the hidden memories that either propel us or hold us back. It's a self-serving egoic existence of the human species. Again, let's take it back to our wolf buds. The wolf is self-serving by instinct. It is constantly in survival mode. Even when it's at play...it's still taking in its surroundings and listening with those ears that turn 180 and back. But survival mode isn't always fight or flight. Survival mode is also being able to stand still and notice, with all your senses, what the hell is really going on. It's not just the ego. It's with everything. It's the culmination of the eagle and the wolf. It's taking it all in and using your connection with the I Am plus the I of the ego but it's in a precarious balance and it teeters on a razor blade's edge that is easily falling to one side or the other by a tap on a shoulder. A tap on a shoulder takes a person's attention away from what they're focusing on, at that moment, to what the other person needs them to focus on. It wakes up the wolf and that wolf is either going to growl and snarl...ready for a fight or it's going to flee with its tale between its legs.

So if a healthy relationship with ego is a good thing then maybe it's time we got it out of our heads that it's something that is separate from us. I am saying we because you know what? I still consider myself in it with you guys and when I lived...yeah, I had my moments. I was a young kid that got into some trouble or didn't know which way was up and which way was down. I've had struggles so I'm there with you guys. But I'm also there with you to tell you that nothing is separate...me included and I'm here to let you know that if ego is a part of you and you came to earth knowing that it was something within you that was a pain in the ass but also had a purpose...would that make you feel a little better about allowing it to be used in those higher ways instead of just letting it have control over your entire life. Life is short and for it to be controlled or manipulated by one thing is really unfair to your overall soul. I'm starting this book with the concept that if used properly and with a little more efficiency, all those ideas about ego can maybe take a back seat and we can be smart about what we do with it and we can allow it to do what it's meant to do and by doing that, we can then live that whole and complete life with a better sense of Self than just striving for something that we can't obtain until we know what the whole story is. There's a lot of stories about ego but for me...I'd like to start off with trying to make something, that is rumored to be so wrong, be more than okay. So, as you read these words, be a little more willing to accept what is and control what can be controlled and stand in a little bit of power with a wolf at your side and an eagle in the air and making that work as a cooperation effort instead of a war effort. That's the good stuff.

Okay, with all that out of the way...let's fight a war but let's do it with some smarts and instead of making an enemy...let's make a friend.

Words & Sound of Ego aka Language

I always say that language is difficult for me and it's because I've learned a new language that connects with something different than words from a dictionary. It's a whole new ballgame in communication when that mouth doesn't open and close as much as it used to and you'd rather spend time getting to know someone on a way more personal level than just talking to talk.

Just talking to talk. When you got people just talking to talk, they're usually pretty uncomfortable with silence. They need to fill it with something because that quiet makes them nervous which, incidentally, is a sign of a very busy brain. I'm gonna give you a scenario. Picture lovers in bed, just sort of holding onto each other and taking in that quiet space that just surrounds the two of them. They've shut out the world and only the two of them exist. Yeah, I found a romantic side. Go figure. But it's one of these intimate moments that sort of clarifies what I'm talking about. They are so comfortable with each other and they are so connected to that truth that is them that they don't need words because the silence speaks a million of 'em that they don't have to verbally say but at the same time, they understand. Now, if you have a couple of people that just hooked up and decided to have a play date...no one's lingering in any sort of silence because they aren't each other's truth so one's gonna do that walk of shame, that people label it, or they're gonna fill that silence with stuff like...so where you from...what's your name again and try to make what just happened a joke to cover some sort of embarrassment that says one or both didn't want it to get that far and oops the "alcohol" did it again.

So what am I saying?

Ego is the talk that fills the empty space where love, intimacy, vulnerability and truth don't or haven't been invited to live. And you know what? Space really needs to be filled with those things again. It used to; when times were simpler and there were fewer distractions or in your face advertising that says you're not good enough unless you are this or you have that. Those things that inundate and bombard you with the shoulds or can't do's or anything that's yellin' you're not good enough...that's ego and these days those spaces are full up and overflowing to the point where people don't necessarily get how important the silence or the stillness is. It's a requirement. It's that mini vacation that people need to regroup at a moment's notice but with all that bombards a person on the daily; the high-strung, full up, can't miss a beat mental clutter that sort of takes over what that moment of stillness could make better or clearer, that silence and stillness has no choice but to take a back seat.

Ego is a loud and fast talker. Ego likes to shout and if ego isn't speaking loudly...it's sitting in angry silence or it's sitting in silence that secretly scrutinizes and judges the world around it. It likes to compare people, especially you with YOU, and it's constantly trying to measure up or come up a notch but the only way it knows how to do that is to speak judgements and empty promises so loud...that it drowns everything else out. So even in that angry silence, it's still got your attention drawn to specific things or people that you just refuse to get clear on. Think of the silent treatment. Sure, there's a hell of a lot of silence there but what's it filled with? Is it filled with clarity? Or is it filled with stories about how hard done by a person is by another; what's unfair, what's been done onto another or resentment about what can't be controlled even though you try real hard to do that.

Ego doesn't care who's watching when it's yellin' at you or someone else. Actually if you think about it, the ego will call people and tell 'em to come down for the show because it likes the audience and it can spin drama faster than a mustang on a break-away. It's fast acting storytelling, the quick judgment call and the hard no because it's unwilling to see outside of itself towards that view of potential. If it sees any sort of potential...it's mainly in this sense of what can be gained for that I and not the I Am.

Language. What is the language of ego? Well, for starters, it's pretty clear and concise because it can cut and it cuts deep. It cuts through indecision with one slice and it cuts like it's out to get its own way and it's not taking any prisoners. Ego is the mental jargon that spins and we'll get into the spinning. Just you wait. But the language of ego doesn't like to pause for effect or quiet down. It's like that kid in the backseat asking if we're there yet and you just left the house ten minutes ago. The language of ego is words that then create the feelings. It's not the feelings that create the words. Ego is so stuck in that head that it only has the words to have any understanding because it's the intellectual and intellectual requires the language even if it's slightly unskilled at that listening quotient. I said before, ego is contained in that logic and because it's the logical, it needs to define anything and everything to get to some sort of bottom when anything that matters is really based on that pure truth and emotion that isn't always logical and only felt.

Yes, like I said before, we have the ego because it serves a purpose so it's not this thing that we have to conquer. Conquer's a shitty word. It's a misuse of power. What's better than conquering is actually feeling things out especially words because words are only part of what's really being said. Feeling is looking at the words and language and using that as an intuitive dictionary to decipher what's really your own hang ups, issues and deficiencies and what's more someone else's story that you're trying to measure up to because they have it seemingly better and you don't. That's comparing. That's the logic. That's the 2+2=4. That's the apparently I do need to do and be exactly the same as that because that's how you get places...that's the only way to get somewhere.

Ever argue with a two, three, four year old? The language or the words are pretty simplistic but the stubborn or that unmovable stance comes from the power behind them and we all know little kids. They can hold their breath until they're blue in the face. Thing is...on the flip side...kids that young really know what's going on. They have that marriage of the intellect and the feeling but it's only as they get older and find that voice and grab a clue about what they like or don't like that they are impossible and that intellect starts taking over because now, all of a sudden, they're smarter than you. Sesame Street taught them a thing or two and now they know. I dare you to say no to a three year old that hasn't had a nap and they didn't have their snack. And I dared you so take cover when you actually do it. That argument...that simple no or not fair or I don't like you anymore...they're pretty simple words but the power of the volume or the tone is off the charts. That's ego. Ego doesn't like to be challenged but it enjoys to challenge us; it likes the easy win because at the same time, ego doesn't want the battle of ultimate surrender. We should just surrender because that ego mind knows it all and we need to just trust them.

Ever have the creepiest experience where someone says trust me and the hairs on your arms start to stand on end. Picture it and with that image, I think I made my point. The language of ego...when allowed to run away with itself will make your hair stand on end. Truth will give you the warm shivers like someone just lightly caressed your skin. See the difference? Ego is the lie that didn't start with us in the first place. It started with the creepy guy that just stepped out of the alley wondering if we wanted to buy a watch and we felt guilty or scared about saying no so we bought a watch that ended up in the trash because it never worked. It was just a pretty knock-off; it just looked the part but was a complete fake. Here's the thing about trust me. If someone says to you, trust me...it's up to you to feel that out. Trust me, like a demand, is getting you to put your faith in something that is good for someone else but doesn't mean it's gonna be good for you. When I want someone's trust...especially being this ghost guy, I will ask...do you trust me? Do you feel the difference? Trust me is willing to take someone's power. Do you trust me is willing to hand them back their own to decide for themselves. The ego voice...that language...it's not asking. It's telling you. Truth...ultimately we're (spirit) not your boss. We're here as a support without being a crutch and that's what allowing you choice is; it's asking you to feel out your own intuition to see if you can trust something or not.

Ego will hand you a lot of words but at the same time...the words will hold that negative. It will hold that vibration of holding you back...of not becoming that ultimate you. It will tempt you...it will try to lead you on and promise you candy if you're a good girl/boy. It's the candy in the Halloween pillowcase after trick or treating that the parents pull out because it just doesn't look or seem right. It's your heart starting to question while your mind says, don't question me. You'll hear things like can't, shouldn't, never, no, not good enough, too hard, too much work, too little time, you wish you could be that great, you'll never get there, you'll never be like them, the road's too long or the water's too deep and it will swallow you whole. It'll never say take a chance. Take a leap unless it's a flying leap off a short pier. Then, when you do, it will watch you fall and say I told you so. It will hold you in contempt even if you didn't say anything at all and it will look at your reflection in the mirror and tell you that you haven't measured up so why try. That's ego. And you're asking...how can that be conquered or even quieted? How can I ever be friends with such a loser that talks just to talk to hear its own voice?

Well, because ego is in a place of lonely and if it just had the opportunity to be heard...it would actually settle down. Don't believe me? What do you think validation and affirmations are? What do you say to a three year old that wants its way and you're in a state of peace and calm instead of getting wound up in a temper tantrum with them? Maybe something like...I know you don't want to be in the car anymore but look what I got... and you pull out a juice box, some animal crackers and some movie on your phone to distract them a little bit so you can finish the ride in peace and get to your destination in the same way you intended to get there...in a state of happy and carefree without that outside life noise making a mess of the whole damn trip. Same with the ego. You use the words of positivity and joy, you validate its presence while standing in that heart and soul space. And you tell it that mommy and daddy are a little busy right now but here's your blankie and your movie...bye bye now. Goodnight.

That's the language of ego. It uses the words to elicit feelings of fear, stress and failure and it's all in your own voice. So, being in your own voice, it's easy to believe it. I mean, it has to be true because it's you that's saying it. But you're also trying to tell yourself a love story at the same time. That's when it would be a really good idea to start lowering the volume on those shouts and screams of an infantile you and start tuning into the quiet. This is what I mean about people being uncomfortable with the silence. It's because they've been tuned into the hard rock heavy metal gangster rap radio channel on maximum volume for so long that the silence begins to feel overwhelmingly huge and instead of hearing the constant drums, guitars and fucks that are being fed to you in stereo, filling that quiet space that dulled those senses, the quieter whispers are going to take some time to hear, understand and trust and eventually be comfortable with as a safe place and not a place where you're waiting for some other shoe to drop.

You've been living in this world for a few years now and have been used to hearing a certain frequency for a long time. To immediately change that frequency for another isn't reasonable. It's going to take some training. You can't expect a heavy metal singer to like the softer compositions of classical right away so why do you think you could subdue an ego just like that? It's going to take a certain amount of practice, willingness and support to do that. Listening to music on max volume dulls the senses. You ever go dancing at a club and when you leave you're all shouting at each other because you can't hear anything but static? Same thing with silence and intuition; the voice of spirit and consciousness. It's going to take a little bit of time for your hearing to adjust to the new sounds and frequencies.

The voice of ego keeps your senses dull. I don't care who you are or where you are on this "spiritual journey" you tell yourself you're on. If you're constantly humoring your ego...your senses will continue to be dull. So, to sharpen those intuitive senses up, we talk to the ego and we use words like, I understand, I hear you, I thank you for being a part of me and letting me in on your thoughts but I can handle this right now. You use words that allow you to be who you want to be and you use words that give you permission to try. You use words that the ego would never use but actually wants to hear because that's telling it that you're paying attention even if it's not the kind of attention ego's expecting. It doesn't matter. It just wants the attention. Just like that kid in the backseat. Because ego will tell you you'll fail; that you probably shouldn't bother but then it's your job to stop that conversation by telling that ego, how will we know if we'll fail if we don't give it a shot? Question it. Turn the tables and show ego that true part of you that is actually the one in control. Just like the parent.

"Fail" is a frequently used word shouted by that ego but the opposite to that is success and what creates success is your willingness to experience. Experience scares the shit out of ego because it means you're willing to be more than what your ego tells you you are. It's losing control and will strip you and whip you and say horrible things to scare you off. The thing is, you're a part of Heaven and a part of the I Am; not just the I. So in your arsenal against the so called power of your mind, all you gotta say is, here's your blanket. Thank you for your thoughts. I will take that into consideration but I love myself enough to feel this out this time. I mean, I'm not a script writer but if you could, potentially, write a script of how amazing and beautiful you are because you're a part of life and life is just as amazing and beautiful...you got that language licked and there isn't anything that ego could say that could top what you're already living. Eventually, when you learn the language of silence and connection...Universal Love...that ego will take its own damn blanket and crawl back down to the basement and sulk while eating their animal crackers and listening to the latest mashup of heavy metal meets gangster rap on headphones because you asked it to keep the volume down and now it has to.

Like I said, your ego is speaking real loud but if you are aware of that language of ego which, now I hope you have a bit of a clue, you'll know that it's not just yelling at you to yell. It's yelling at you to let you know where it's not comfortable; that something's wrong and it doesn't know how to vocalize it in some mature and adult way. I mean, let's get real. Not all adults are mature. I wasn't until my thirties and then I still had some work to do and if I'm going to be honest, because of maturity levels, I wasn't completely sure how to put into words how to decipher the Morse Code of ego temper tantrums for you guys. Just like a kid, and some adults, that don't have a great hold on words, ego has trouble expressing how it really feels and what it needs without coming off as an asshole that needs wiping. So we need to start asking questions by telling it I hear you and if you would just calm down, I can understand what you're saying to try and help you out.

So, one earthly night, I was thinking about this and how to explain it while sitting with Kim. She likes to scroll through uplifting images on social media to wind down and I'm lookin' over her shoulder and just like that, my new hero, a woman by the name of Brianna Wiest, deciphers the Morse Code of ego for me.

Brianna Wiest explains, pretty simply, that your anger is telling you where you feel powerless. Your anxiety is telling you that something in your life is off balance. Your fear is telling you what you care about. Your apathy is telling you where you're over extended and burnt out.

She continues to write that, your feelings aren't random, they are messengers and if you want to get anywhere you need to be able to let them speak to you and tell you what you really need.

I bet, after reading that, Brianna Wiest is your new hero too. When I was saying that ego is the words that create the feelings...well Ms. Wiest explained, better than I could, that you have to start listening. You want to train your ego? You need to start listening to it. Everything is here to speak to you and tell you what you need to hear. Instead of saying, I'm pissed off and living in that...ask yourself why and start being honest about it. If you can't give a shit where before it meant everything...what are you so tired of and do you need to take a step back and re-evaluate because something needs to change. If things aren't lining up, maybe you need to get over the fear of I can't and start taking some action in what you don't want to live anymore.

People need to stop sitting in the labels of feelings and start using them to tame that ego before it gets out of hand and not after the fact. Use that language of ego to figure out what needs to be put right side up instead of what's against you or what you can't change. That's just being a victim and we will walk that path...just you wait 'n see. Don't worry, though. I'll be a nice guy or maybe I'll just say it like it is. I'm pretty good at that even when language gets difficult. But I'm part of Spirit now so I think...I'll just whisper.

It Is What It Is & It Was What It Was

Eckhart Tolle wrote, the ego isn't wrong; it's just unconscious. Plain and simple, ego makes uneducated guesses based on ignorance. I could say it's only because ego's being naïve but being naïve means you don't know any better. Ignorance is knowing better but keeping yourself uneducated because anything more would be too much to handle. Ignorance is only making choices based on past experiences because it can't get over what happened so keeping itself safe and secure in whatever happened in the past will make damn sure that any chance of that history repeating itself won't materialize. And that is only by keeping itself...well...ignorant to anything that could be possible.

The perfect home for ego sits in the past and the future. It has no idea what living in the moment feels like because ego loves that straddle between two places that don't exist. If you're straddling a raging river (according to ego), you're looking down just to make sure you're not going to be swept away. The problem with looking down all the time is that you're not looking straight ahead or around at that 360 degree wheel of choice and because you can't see choice, choice doesn't exist and the plethora of possibility is just an illusion. But the ego lives in illusion; ego is living a dream inside a daydream and that, readers, is living without substance.

So why am I saying this in a chapter about it is what it is and it was what it was? It's because I want to re-direct your attention to the now moment without any sort of projection into pasts and futures. Standing in a middle ground place is the only way to see potential and the whole spectrum of what that could be. If you're making choices based on what happened in the past, you fail to see the truth of potential because it's wrapped up in the cellophane of what if that bad history repeats itself. That's why you're looking into the past right? To see if something's about to go down again? Same ride different theme park? And if you are constantly putting your attention beyond a horizon, you're a little hesitant about what could be out there because it's a surprise and it could just be a repeat "lesson" that you believe you already learned so if you've already learned lessons, why are you worried they're going to repeat themselves? You've already learned them. Unless there's something that you regret or still feel bummed about. Know what that is? That's believing in this thing called karma and a little tip that I'll give to you here, in this chapter, is karma only exists when you think it into existence. Karma doesn't run any sort of show anymore. That's checks and balances; judgement and punishment. That's an ego trip and if you're tapped into an ego way of being, you will continue to experience this karma that people still choose to give their energy too when that revolving door doesn't have a hold anymore unless you want to ride it.

So now, if you're giving your energy to karma, you're dissecting who you were and/or are just to make sure karma doesn't creep in to make itself known using a repetitive cycle. So just in case, you will scrutinize yourself down to the very DNA of your makeup to try to make peace with everything you've done or been, whether that's this lifetime or the last one. But if past and future lives don't really exist and everything exits in one place and time...what are you scrutinizing? What can't you leave alone until you're this clean slate that ego is constantly telling you you need to strive for. Every day is a clean slate. Every moment is a clean slate if you want it to be. But that's a choice. Trying to make yourself squeaky clean before making any sort of choice or action in the now moment...that's a revolving door with no exit.

Let me give it to you straight.

Remember those layers I was talking about and probably will again? Like right now? By the way...that's a real old school idea that still exists today but has no real footing anymore because, again, it's looking at pasts and worrying about that making an impact on your future. I'll get into those old school beliefs in a bit but the layer concept is choosing to live in the past...choosing to keep revisiting stuff that's long gone. Sure, you're made up of yesterdays but they were yesterday. This layers notion is having a foot in the past to get ready for some future you want to see happen but can't get there until you pay the ferryman a toll of layers that made you who you are and if that passes, because you ticked all the boxes, you get the passing grade and the free ride. FYI, there is nothing wrong with who you are and yes, you've made mistakes...according to your ego. Point blank, you've made no mistakes and you aren't judged by anyone here, where I am, and we don't want your payment of layers before you think you're ready to participate in a future. You've experienced a few things and your ego has taken those events and ran with them. But that's the human condition. That's the duality you all live and either ego will take that and run with it and keep you hostage or it is what it is and it was what it was and what can you do differently the next time because you certainly can't change what's been. We, spirit, just want you to participate. No matter what's happened or will happen...we're not circling numbers on a calendar just to make sure you keep a date on the off chance you're available after you've gone through your self-examination. That is not what spirituality is because your spirit is a part of God and God does not sit there and dissect or examine your layers so why do you? Dissection is high school biology class where teacher hands you a frog and says see what's under the skin. God high fives you on the way back in and says job well done because you chose to participate in life regardless of the hard or easy...the scary or the comfortable. You participated. Yeah, you get a life review and you learn a thing or two about how humanity could treat each other a little better but you're not held accountable and thrown into some hell. You're taught and explained to and shown all these other potentials and through those potentials that could've happened, if you decide to come back, you choose from those and you have a willingness to try again. Why does that have to wait until you get to my side? Why can't that willingness be a mindset for everyday in this life right now? It can be, when a person adopts the attitude that it is what it is and it was what it was and what can we take from or build on to do better, more or less of to actively participate in our tomorrows.

No matter how many times you tell yourself that examining layers is what you need to do...the more you peel back, the more something will rush in to take that examined layer's place and most times, that something is what you need to look at NOW...today. Not yesterday. Not last week. Not last year but today. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year...but today. The now dictates that. NOW. A moment dictates what will happen ten minutes from now. You read these words with a sense of it is what it is...you've just changed a potential instead of...okay now I have to go meditate on something that happened at nine this morning and see if maybe it's relatable to a past life. You guys...some of you snowball yourself into this trap and guess what...now I gotta write a book to get a message across. It is what it is and it was what it was is a person stepping back and saying, Huh...that just happened. Okay...while I appreciate that...it's dealt with. Moving on.

It is what it is and it was what it was is practicing awareness with a dash of surrender just to make it go down easy. Becoming can only happened when someone is willing to begin again with a clean slate because there's not just one chance. Ego says you have one chance. That's living in your head. That's the singing audition that goes to shit because they can't get out of their head about what could go wrong instead of surrendering to the moment while being very aware of what could go so right. With this perception you will begin to get that that one chance is actually one, two, three, four...even five and if you need six...you get six but chances, like anything, aren't just handed to you. They are created by choices and decisions that you've made up until the now moment and if those choices were made with awareness and surrender, you ultimately trust that you put yourself on that fast track to manifesting miracles...for you, which is a pretty damn good thing. With chances, they are infinite. 360 is just a measurement but if you look at 360...that's a circle and the circle is God...The One Source and that is infinite and forever. So, in this linear time line of infinity (which is not linear but I'm speaking in human) some chances are close together while others seem pretty far apart and this is when ego yells, Way to go. You just missed the boat! You haven't missed any boat. The reason some chances are far apart is because a re-vamp and a re-build sometimes takes a little more time because of how much energy a person can give to it in any given moment and today that could be a baby step and tomorrow that's a leap and a jump but all ego sees is that you've missed out. You haven't. I guarantee it. And it's not even a test of faith. It's an opportunity to see how much faith you have and to use that faith while allowing ego to just give you those signals that it was only ever supposed to give in the first place. Ego is not the boss of chance. You are because you create them (chances).

Now another way to look at it is you may see chances or opportunities for other people. Ever experience that? This person is talking to you and you get giddy because you see something or know something and you just want to spill the beans because you could totally direct their lives and why not? You know them. You love them...you can help them. But if someone is coming to you because they don't see what's available to them and they are at a point where they feel lost and don't know what direction to go...you can hear them out. You can give that support and a shoulder; you might even be able to suggest but if they don't ask, it's not your place to give. Here's what I mean.

When was it ever your call? Even if you love and adore someone and you see them living this life that are full of "mistakes"...when was it ever your call to take that on, fix it and live in their pasts and futures plus your own. Yeah, as parents we have a responsibility to guide our kids in that best direction but sooner or later it's their call and we can be there for them but our steering days are over. We need to trust in the job we did as parents. But adult to adult...when was it ever your call? Guidance...support...sure. Dictating, planning, shoulds, nagging...things that husbands say their wives do all the time and, secretly, vice versa. Still...not your call. You may think that choices made by someone close to you dictates how you live so you need to be involved but if you are, it's an arm's-length-hands-off sort of approach. Ultimately, decision and choice is a personal call. You can't save anyone. Wanting to save a world is self-serving because really, you just want people to see your way because then you don't get that conflict and everyone agrees...crisis averted because you taped a superhero cape to your shoulders and saved the world. Uh...heaven can't even do that. We can't interfere with free will and choice unless asked and even then it's really hard because free will and choice doesn't just affect one person. If you're involved in the free will and choice of one...you're involved in two, three, four...whatever because of that little thing called the ripple effect. When you try to save a world, the base of that is usually your own personal safety net and not so much the others. People need to find that strength and save themselves and that's not going to happen when you continuously swoop in to save them. That happens with nourishment and encouragement and not doing for. Cultivating a sense of self is not buying into the shoulds of the next and best self-proclaimed super hero guru. A guru is someone who sees things as they are. They aren't looking down but at the world around them and they see that 360; the circle of infinity and they point it out while giving another space to use their own intelligence and intuition to freely choose for themselves because that guru is supporting that for them and not giving them the shoulds of their own self-reflection and what worked for them. Gurus say, Here is your chess game. This is how I play. But now the board is yours.

Now shit's about to get real.

It is what it is and it was what it was contains no blame, no regret, no resentment, no if only. It has no rule...which we'll get to. It has no judgement and it has no shame. It doesn't tie you down. It's this attitude of detachment while remaining aware of what just happened or didn't happen...maybe a little bit of what did happen that still haunts you in the tiniest of ways. It's considering that it was all you or for you or with you or not even about you and it doesn't have to continue and it doesn't have to come back and bite you in the ass. It's an indication of evolving. It just is and it just was and it leaves that wide open field of let's agree to disagree, I forgive you, this is me taking a walk because I know there's something better for me in a different direction. In other words, like evolvement, this signals amazing growth and not just in baby steps but in leaps and bounds. That ego is getting quieter and quieter when that whole what is and what was starts to take effect. This is the whispers and the nudges of your soul that is connected to the I Am...to the Higher Self.

Old school spiritual practices is the doctrine that will teach you what and how to think. Old school practice will say, this is what it is and this is what it was even if they don't even know your first name. The spirit or the spiritual; either YOU, the I Am or another one who practices the I Am will share their truth...respectful of everyone around them; they will share their personal story, the life experiences they have had that have brought them to this face to face conversation with you but in that next breath they will say, Now what do you think? How do you feel? What is your story? Is there anything that I can do to lighten your load so you feel better equipped to handle what you got going on right now? Now I'm just scripting but my point is...they will show you the 360 of option without attaching anything to that. It's the practice of being the example of free will and choice. That's said a lot in these spiritual circles and I wish I could give you guys a different phrase or a different sentence than that. Oh wait...I did. Turn back the pages to the beginning of this chapter. There's a title you need to read.

Plain and simple, after everything is said and done, it is what it is and it was what it was is the spiritual knowledge without the Aesop's fables of storytelling. But Aesop...I like the guy. He teaches morality. Okay...scratch that...the Brothers Grimm. They were kind of sketchy. Let's go with them. That's pretty graphic storytelling right there. Have you read the original Brothers Grimm? It's fear alright but it's also something to save for Halloween and not for your every day. People, it's time to come out of hiding. Come out from the past and come back from your futures. There's no candy there anyway.

Trick or treat.

Duality

When I first thought about doing this book and then actually decided on it, I prepped my partner and by prepping her, I got her to read some books that she normally wouldn't read. But things started to grab her attention and we started a conversation. We like to talk. Our dialogue is a constant part of our lives and part of those conversations was this idea of duality. Is it a real thing and, if so, how real is it? I'll start by asking you...is duality just part of that illusion of Earth? Or, is there always duality in all things? Even here, where I am, do I live in duality?

No. I don't. I live here and now. Does here and now have a hint of duality? Nope. Not from where I'm sitting. Here and now...it is what it is.

I now reside in a place of spirit; of energy that some people term as Heaven. I like the term. It's not a fixed address that something can be mailed to but I like it. It's comforting. In other channels I have said that it exists all around you and it doesn't keep a person in this place of separation. We return to this place of Heaven and that's because we are born from it which is the ultimate and that can't be labelled. Here's the thing, labelling ego as something is also keeping it separate or something to overcome or get over when ego is actually a very natural part of you. So when you try to label Heaven...it's something that is now separate from you. It's something you have to strive for. It's something you have to reach to stay connected with. Same with the ego but it's not something you strive to connect with. It's something that you strive to keep at arm's length. This is what labelling does to anything. It keeps it in a category made up by someone that thought they had a clue. Things that are not tangible can't be labelled. Feelings cannot be labelled properly because emotion is not fixed. It's a part of the human being and is the one thing that is probably the greatest gifts to connect with because it's a part of Heaven which is a part of you. It's the heart and the heart has been termed as Christ Consciousness. That is a label. Again, it's something to strive for when it's already a part of you. Ego; something you turn away from, trying to ignore the fact that it's there and that it's a part of you. What am I talking about? Put all that information on a line and see how opposite it is. It's duality. And duality keeps a human being separated from the I Am...the All That Is. Duality is the I.

Let's take a look at kids and animals. They have something contained within them that hasn't been tainted yet. It's what's known in Chinese Medicine as true Qi. It's energy that is pure and innocent. That innocence quickly gets struck down by the world of duality that we choose to experience. Now, the difference between a child and an animal is that the child has an intellect that is still growing and learning and evolving. Animals do that in a very natural and authentic way because they are unbiased and they can only understand what is in the here and now. They can only understand the world that they are living in now and opposites don't hold any weight because they only know the story of the lion or the dog or the bird or the cat and that's their role to play; that of an animal. A tree only knows how to be a tree. It isn't fed any other storyline than being a tree and so that is what it does. Children get swept up in the world around them because they have to learn how to integrate within a society with a bunch of social standards and rules that only apply to the human and then we blindly trust that the human will...after getting swept up in the duality of the world, care for the purest things on this planet, that being the animal kingdom; that being nature. How does that work when everyone has their own different personalities and has their own ideas that have been slightly altered from a generation or two before them? Nature does not live a dualistic life. It lives. It has its own rhythm that isn't being fed something by anything outside of themselves because they are rooted and grounded to their place on this earth. Animals are quick to forgive and say thank you. You can have the most abused animal that crawls in from the streets and the moment that they get help and attention, they live in that moment and they concentrate on what they're receiving which is love. They don't stay a victim. They don't place blame. Pain and suffering are no longer a thought in their mind because they aren't aware of that duality. They aren't attached to the suffering and having that become their world. They continue in their now until it changes and then they live in that now while showing gratitude for the love that they receive. That's in most cases and I'd like to share with you the positive side of that and not the flip side of that. Why not?

You could take a lesson from that animal.

Duality is this constant search outside of you for the Self. People have this fucked up notion that they are separate from themSelves and are constantly on the lookout to find ways of uncovering that only to keep burying it under someone else's idea of what that means. People are grasping at straws or quick fixes because duality plays this game with ego that is, if you scratch my back I'll scratch yours and so duality says that I have to search for self outside of Self and ego says keep looking because you'll never find it. Like language, when you get used to the quiet, you'll stop taking direction from these two ideas and you'll begin to recognize and hear your Self that is actually contained behind the wall that you built with ego and if you sit a little longer each time and you practice being still in your minds and in your bodies, you can actually let that Self emerge from within. Your ego kept Self hidden behind a wall while duality hid the map. Duality lives in a maybe sort of existence where it's this fence sitting and one day you want to jump over the back and one day you want to jump over the front because the backyard wasn't exactly how it was explained to you by someone else and so maybe the truth will be in the front where the grass looks greener but it's actually food coloring so you jump back over to the backyard hoping that something's changed. This is idling. This is the crossroads where we take a step in one direction and ego asks, are you sure and then we take a step in the other direction and ego says, keep dreaming. So instead of listening to that internal compass that you all have called the Self, you're following some map to someone else's compass that has more crossroads to choose from and then you start backtracking to the path that was meant for you in the first place. Again, this keeps people separate which the ego loves because it doesn't want to meet up with another wolf. It wants to keep that mysterious "lone wolf" persona. But...it's still a pack animal, here's the duality. Here's the tug-of-war at play because it needs others' company and team effort while trying to maintain a secluded and walled up life so nothing can get in and disturb that.

Duality keeps people in this struggle of you don't know who you are, but you do know who you aren't. Duality keeps people in this loop of trying to make up for something that they didn't realize they did in the first place. Again, these are society based, religious based or based in traditions from generations before you. Duality keeps people second guessing. It's like...you're told one thing but you feel another and because you have that ego working with duality, that ego's going to urge you to go with the rest of the crowd because you have to measure up or you're an asshole if you don't; guilt, blame and shame sprinkled with a healthy dose of worry and fear. Ego doesn't like a hero. Duality keeps you guessing if you actually are one (a hero). It's all in the head. It's this constant question of who am I and the answer is usually based on some sort of label that you're given by someone or what you resonate with from the outside world. This is going on profiling. People profile themselves every single day in terms of what this world has to offer and what they have to offer it based on the inundation of outside life noise and information and a lot of the time...it's conflicting. It gets minds racing and then feeling depressed and stressed because people can't find the answers they're looking for because nothing fits or feels right. Nothing's taking root the way you need it to. Everything's fleeting. Nothing sticks because you got a monkey in that brain that's jumping from tree to tree and you're having a hell of a time trying to keep up.

The mind...even looking at the physical brain, you got your right hemisphere and your left hemisphere and they each have their own jobs. Duality. I'll let you in on a little secret. One day...those hemispheres of the brain...are going to act like one well-oiled machine. You heard it here first. There's going to be a fusion because duality is going to be phased out when ultimate truth is realized and that can only come from one place and that's the heart. That's consciousness.

Anyway, that monkey you're try to keep up with is swinging from trees and vines that you planted. So what are you planting in your mind. Is it a bunch of what if I can't? What if I'm wrong? What if they do this to me? What if I get in trouble? What if I fuck up? Or is it stuff like, that sounds great. I can do that. That is very possible. It's a starting point. Bring it on. I'm up for the challenge. Or...is it a bit of both and you're sitting at a crossroads trying to read another person's map or script while a tornado of labels comes headed straight for you to sweep you away for good.

The mind is a pretty fertile place. It takes seeds and it fertilizes them with whatever's available. So what are you growing in that garden? Are you growing thick and lush or sporadic and spotty. Are you growing things you like to see or are you growing weeds that take over Sleeping Beauty's castle? And what prince is gonna cut that shit down? Not me. You want to know why? Because it's pretty thick and with one cut, another layer takes its place. Did I talk about layering? I think I did a little bit. Let's move on.

Are you growing things from the act of personal creation or are you growing things that someone else gave you an idea about? Are you growing a garden in hopes that it eventually looks like someone else's...like those cookie cutter houses with the same yards and the same fences. I think that's a world called Pleasantville and it was black and white for a reason. Because when things are re-done, copied or left to spin...they get dull and they lose their color that only an individual can give them with their own personal stamp of creativity which is another term for personal truth. If you're sitting with an overactive brain...you're spinning the shine and the sparkle right out of your life because too much polishing to make something perfect...makes the surface pretty dull and a little inconsistency makes thing a little more interesting...in my humble opinion. Japanese fix their broken china with gold. Just sayin'.

So, you took a seed and you've planted it and so now what is it becoming? Is it either/or? Is it black or white? Is it loud or quiet? Beautiful? Ugly? Duality is choice. You choose how you want that garden to grow. You choose how you want your life to unfold and if you're constantly giving your power away to your ego or the ego of others...the ground gets a little shaky and the separation gets wider and wider and everything just collapses into this abyss of a mental sink hole.

Duality is a manmade concept that keeps a person guessing and grasping for the "right" way to be or do. Duality creates a void where all questions are asked and pondered but nothing gets answered. It's just a constant groundhog day of question, question, question. Duality provides no action. It provides no step in a direction unless you begin to listen to the soft whispers. Again, duality is a void. Duality is a dark tunnel where the definitive is lost and can only be found when you...YOU shine the light on it. No one else but you. Duality is an either/or scenario but when combined with an overactive ego it's an either/or and what's the consequence of that; never the outcome.

So, now that I told you duality was an either/or and a manmade concept, what if we replaced either/or with it is what it is. Does that make that void a little bit smaller because you can then pin point a beginning to start from and consider that you're now moment minus all this other stuff that the ego says takes precedence? Does that keep those vines away from Sleeping Beauty because nothing's going to grow and take its place and now Prince Phillip can actually get in there and wake her up to a reality that isn't so overwhelming, tiring...so unrealistic that it's a nightmare instead of a cool dream to create from?

What if duality never existed? What if people realized it was just an idea and they forfeited it and now they have this sense of peace because things are starting to make sense instead of being so confusing and indecisive? Where there's no consequence and only outcome? Where there's no judgment, not really because you start living like nature and you root yourselves into being what you are on a personal level and not what another dog or cat or tree says you need to be. Would that ego settle down? Would you start giving attention to cohesive thoughts that actually made some sense rather than a muddled, mixed up, confused, scary scenario that you've made so huge that it's overwhelming and claustrophobic...making it hard to breathe or see your way out of?

And what if, like ego, duality was this concept that kept you separate from your universal selves...your I Am and in doing that...you kept striving and reaching for instead of emerging and becoming. And if duality is just a concept then isn't it part of that illusion that everyone talks about and isn't that illusion personal for everyone? You don't all dream the same dreams at night. You don't all live the same life...but you sure as hell try to, believing it's right because heaven forbid you climb over the wall of fear that you built hand in hand with Mr. Duality and Mrs. Ego and you look at a horizon that was painted by the finger of God.

You know what the biggest conundrum about duality is? The biggest question mark about the whole damn thing? The biggest head scratcher from a point of view that used to be human but isn't anymore? A soul can be free but the mind can continue to be trapped in conditioning brought on by years and years of the same old story that's unwilling to change and why should it. It's brought humanity to this point and this point seems pretty okay as long as people stay in their little bubbles and let others look in while they block your view from what's potentially out there for your greatest benefit. Because of this ultimate duality, people are walking that razor's edge of what they yearn for and what could actually be because of this continual probation people buy into. This book is breaking that bubble of thought that sits there above your head until someone writes the words of what you're thinking for you. It's my effort to try and nudge you into listening to those soul urges and maybe taking a chance and throwing yourself a coming out party because once you follow your soul...no closet could ever hold something that huge ever again.

I don't know. I guess I'm just thinking out loud. Maybe I just planted a seed or maybe I just laid the foundations to a bridge that wasn't attached to a crossroads but is actually a straight line that only pointed north; true north for you and the destination was Never Say Never Land...not just Neverland. But that's just my map. Where did you say yours was?

The Masks You Wear

Truth. What's your truth? Not just what you're doing in your life that you love. That's just doing something that you love but I want to know what your truth is. Is there something that you do in your day to day that's your truth? Is there this mentality of your day to day that is 100% can't go wrong and lifts you up? Or, are there some little...infiltrations of a few tiny question marks that sort of make you consider that maybe something's not right anymore. Maybe something that used to be cool, you know, before you grew up and started to get to know yourself a little better, maybe that truth just isn't true anymore because you lived it...for a while and now it's sort of got this dull appearance. Maybe it appeared to be your truth because of the people you were around. Because of those friendships or those family dynamics that always play those parts; the parts that share their truth and you agree or you take it because it's just that way of life. Maybe it was true for you at that time because it's what you knew. But along the story of your life...what's your truth and as you start to change and evolve and get to know what's under that skin of yours, is that truth still the same or are you getting tired? Is something not sitting right? Are you rolling your eyes more than you used to and you just don't want to return a text because the person that sent it...just doesn't feel right anymore. Who's your truth? Did you think that it was someone that lit a spark way back when but because they lost theirs, that spark has sort of disappeared? Was it a job or a career that you defined yourself by but the more you worked it, the less you really loved it and started looking out that window and wondered what else was waiting for you?

People feel stuck when what they really want to feel is lit up. Feeling lit up is truth. Thinking back, the life that you were just sort of going with the flow with...did it light you up? Or was it more comfortable because it was just the way things were and anything outside of that never peaked your curiosity? But then...you grab onto something that lights you up; that seems like this new big deal that you feel is your new truth. Now, do you just give a big 'ol middle finger to everything that brought you to this point in your life as a thanks for nothing you big lie and become resentful and blame all those other players that had no idea what they were doing "to you" because things seemed to be going so well and they were just living what they supposed was their truth? Or, do you show a little gratitude for everything that had a hand in making you the individual you were always meant to be. It wasn't a lie. It was never a lie because at one point, you accepted it as your truth. You accepted it as your truth because you saw it worked for everyone else and so it must be right and went along with that as your story.

People are the best storytellers. Did you ever get that? They like to weave all these tales about how life is and how people need to live to be this or that or they like to share how they feel lit up and hey, why don't you give it a try because then you'll feel lit up too and then you try and you feel lit up a little bit but what's really going on is that you're playing a part that you thought you wanted to play but taking a closer look at it, you put a mask on. You put a mask on to hide your natural face because in showing your natural; that nakedness which was truth for you, someone handed you a mask because they didn't like your natural or they had their opinions and this mask that they "suggested" you wear was even better looking than what was your natural; your truth. The excuse for this mask? It's a cover up. It's a curtain drawn. It's a dimmer switch. "Everyone's playing this part so you should just join us in the chorus line instead of trying to be the main event. No one ever gets the lead role without slugging away for a few years so just join the chorus line because you'll make decent pay, you'll still get to use all the gifts God gave you but you'll be more comfortable that way because you'll have us." That's the creepy back alley watch dealer that says, trust me, this is a great watch. So you play the chorus line until a guy like me calls you up front because today, you forgot your mask and I see you as the individual you are and I ask you to sing for me. I ask you, hey, what's your truth?

So, what is it?

It's not an easy answer and it's because of the masks people decide to wear on any given day depending on who they're seeing or being with. You have your mask for your job, your friends (And that's not just one mask. That can be a few. How many "friends" do you have on Facebook?). You have a mask for your partner, your parents, siblings, girlfriend, boyfriend, kids, teachers...whoever it is. The masks you wear come from that ego feeling the situation out and telling you to hide behind this façade because then the ripples or the waves of uncomfortable won't be started. But then, you make everyone else comfortable at the cost of being uncomfortable yourself and this is usually due to the worry or this stress that to be worthy of any of these people, you sit down and shut up and play pretend until you get to the safety of your private home, room, sanctuary and you peel that mask off to take a deep breath. Thing is, you take that mask to bed and you think about it and all these thoughts...all this run off about how you think you did or what you could have done, said, been, this all circles around and you examine it. Then, before you know it, that alarm wakes you up for a brand new day and you reach for that mask to play dress up again and the cycle continues.

Now, another side of that is that you lash out. You lash out because you're tired of being in the chorus and you're not getting what you want so you lash out. Buddy's been kept in a cage for way too long and now instead of finding his own key, he's lashing out in anger at those he believes have kept him imprisoned without owning up to the fact that he went in willingly just to be something he never was in the first place. We got two sides of the mask and neither of them is the person deciding to put all that away in some tickle trunk and looking at themselves in the mirror with nothing but a freshly washed face and asking that reflection...what's your truth?

The reflection's not going to answer right away because a few things have to happen before it can. The ego has to be put to bed with a bottle, a hug and a kiss. You're gonna have to get used to looking at that face and body without anything hiding it and accepting it as is and you're going to have to start practicing some honesty with yourself about what doesn't feel okay anymore or what never has and practice a little forgiveness for living, what some might consider a lie, for so long and accepting that as your truth. When you start using that heart and listening to it and believing in that it was what it was and now it will be what it will be, you leave space for that truth to emerge from inside of you because the layers that you believe you have to peel off are only masks that you've been wearing and if you have to examine that, you're still continuously examining everyone else's truth but your own.

Think of layers. If a human being is the universe with skin and bones and that universe is multidimensional and multi-fractional and has realm after realm all wrapped up in itself, sitting on top of another universe...how many layers do you think are there and do you believe you'd ever get to the bottom of that? Or, would you rather just let your true Self; that purest version of you come up and out and push all those old layers of masks and stories, that are there, up and off. How do you feel when you stretch your body? It feels pretty good, right? It feels like everything that's holding you down sort of breaks away and it feels a little lighter, right? So then, when all these masks/layers are pushed up and off...you can then take that new truth and feel the vibe of that sort of radiate from within and ripple out, making you look and feel younger...feel brand spankin' new and allow people to see you in this new light instead of exfoliating layer after layer until you're so raw you're bleeding. That's still surface stuff, even down to the bone and it will continue to be surface level until you start accepting that maybe that whole layering concept is pretty outdated and if you want a whole new world out your window...something's gotta change. That old idea or belief is one of the first ones that has to go. People are here on this planet, now, to feel out what is not working. They are here to remove masks, make-up, costumes, stories, make believe, fantasy, lies...everything that has kept a person of this planet on the same merry-go-round has to go. There's a lot more to do and see in the amusement park of Earth than just a juvenile merry-go-round. You know what I see? I see people are ready for the thrill rides that really get that heart pumping. People need the exhilaration to shock them out of the old and jump start them into the new. That is the reason for the thrill rides. So get a ticket and get on. And by the way, those tickets are free and unlimited.

Another thing with the masks...guys...are you really that positive happy happy joy joy all the time? You know the people I'm talking about. The ones that yap all the time about being so happy and joyful and sound like they're trippin' on something and life is lived in this haze of a chemically induced euphoria? Not saying these people are chemically high. I mean, some might be. But those people that have the chorus line so rehearsed that they become the chorus line robot and it's so fake. It is so fake and you want to know why? Because Sergeant Ego is making sure that trip continues in a do or die sort of way and it's the ultimate hostage taking in the disguise of happy happy joy joy because that's what people are supposed to feel and dishonoring the pain and the hurt and the fear is a disrespect to everyone that's just trying to keep the peace and calm by hiding under clown masks. So let's hide that from sight like a parasite that eats away at your truth to make the outside world feel better about what they aren't showing either. Do you see how fucked up and scary that is? To a guy like me that sees it all for what it is? Do you see what a dangerous game you guys are playing? Because when that person wakes up one day and finds out the world, and people in it, have passed them by without even acknowledging their existence or who they really are because they chose to get stuck in some sort of lie of happy disconnect...they will crumble. What I'm talking about is the extreme ostrich effect and instead of the fear or the anger or the comparing, they turn away and hide their face which is usually one full of pain and rejection that they can't bear to look at or watch in that mirror you all have. Big strong adults aren't supposed to cry. This is the extreme of ego. This is the extreme of layering. This is the extreme of the masks. This is the pain that is so intense that to hold on; holding on by a thin line of a tight smile...those eyes, if you watch them, they aren't making that contact because they can't. If someone sees that their truth is unbelievable pain, they will run and that escape is usually to my side. It's usually the end game. It's what's termed as self-inflicted death...suicide. And when I find them, and I will, I'll take them in for a hug and a kiss because wearing masks or sticking heads in sand came to a point of can't do and that's what I call a tragedy. It's an egoic epidemic that has to stop. It's a conversation that must be had and cannot be covered anymore by there there, it will be okay, trust me. It's not okay...not for them and it cannot be hidden behind masks of shame, embarrassment or a refusal to understand or communicate truth. No one should have to feel the need to end a life because the layering has gotten so thick and honestly...what's at the base of all of that was just too ugly and painful anyway so instead of hiding behind a smile...it's time to go home.

Now, when I bring it up as something important, it's because it is. Take the masks off. Start recognizing each other as what you really are; a piece of heaven on earth and regardless of what that looks like...it's pretty fuckin' important. Come out of your closets. Wear what you're gonna wear. Be who you're gonna be. Love who you're gonna love as long as it starts with you first so you can share that willingly and not just because someone told you you "should" and "trust me".

A chorus sounds great but a soloist...a bunch of soloists getting together...that's like the best Broadway show around. That's someone lit up joining another person that's lit up joining another until it's a fire. You know what a fire does? It spreads and it's pretty hard to contain once it gets really big. So light it up and burn it down and see what emerges. I swear to God...it'll be truth. You want to know what else? I wasn't one for a lot of cover up. And clowns...well, Stephen King wrote about 'em for a reason.

Little Red Victimhood

I'm going to start this chapter with a story of how I met a guy named Doug. Doug was a pretty cool guy. He was a fan of what I did when I lived as Paul and I really like my fans so I check in on them once in a while. The thing about Doug was that he was, when I went to see him, in this constant state of personal suffering. He would go around and around this constant thought of why me, why me, why me, why me. I have a lot of patience when it comes to people. I like to figure them out and make them a case study for my own personal "need to know" why so many people think in these terms of why me.

So I paid Doug a visit one day. Of course, like most people, they have no clue that I'm there. His soul did though. So did his ego. He had this big bad wolf circling him with its head down looking straight at me like it was fiercely guarding something so important. I saw Doug in the middle of what his ego was circling. He had his head in his hands and was just whining, why me why me, why me. What I noticed right away was that Doug, the real Doug, the one that all his friends and family wondered about why he was so lost, was actually not saying much of anything. He was getting fed these why me statements from the ego that was attached to him but circling around and around...about five feet away, pissing to mark its territory. So I stood there and watched. Why me, why me, why me. It was the worst elevator music, that you could ever imagine, pumping high volume into my ears.

I kept my distance. I watched this go on for a couple days. I learned that Doug had lost his job. His marriage was on the rocks because of miscommunication and stress from making ends meet, and those two things began a descent into what Kim calls the why me-ums. Why me. This simple question started snowballing into a negative way of thinking which created more instances of bad luck because that negative mind set was like flies to shit. First it was in the little things that seemed bigger to Doug than what they actually were in that grand scheme. Doug lost his wallet. He dropped his cellphone, forgot to pay a bill, someone hit his car with a shopping cart (that was annoying). Then, his kids picked up on the why me and started distancing themselves from him, preferring their mom's company instead. All these things and more joining up and creating a personal hell because of this why me. Why can't I catch a break? Why can't I.

Look, I can take a bit of this before I start to lose my cool. It was so blatantly obvious what was happening but Doug had no clue. He just knew his life was on a downward turn with no up in sight. This was daily for weeks that, inevitably, those darker thoughts began to creep in because why me was starting to turn into I can't; namely I can't do this anymore.

Now it's a 911 call. And now was the moment that I decided to take this into my own hands because I like Doug. Doug's a cool guy. He's giving and has a sick sense of humor and he's a softy for a good romantic comedy. It's one of his dirty little secrets and something his wife was pretty attracted to when they hooked up. And that's just the stuff that I can say here. Who doesn't like a romantic comedy? Guys? Am I right? I almost did a Nicholas Sparks movie. You know that author that writes all those romances and makes women think love, like that, really exists (big hint, it does). Actually I was on deck to do it...then a car crashed. I like the mush a little bit. Sort of gets the ladies in the mood. But now I'm rambling. Let's continue with Doug.

So I eye this ego; this wolf that has, coincidentally, gotten a lot bigger in size. He's marking more territory and now he's seven feet away instead of five. It's not good. It means Doug's seclusion is getting out of hand. I hear it again...why me and I answer him.

Because you.

Big bad wolf did not like that. Now ego's pissed off and Doug's feeling it. Doug shot his head up and glared at me, pointed in my direction and stomped towards me with a wolf at his heels; snarling and snapping because it was scared. You want to know why ego was scared? Because I was about to show it some hard truth and tough love. Just because I'm Paul Walker, doesn't mean everyone's gonna like me or appreciate my help. This is just a big FYI for everyone...I don't care. I'll step in. For the greater good...I'll step in. Here's another big FYI for people. It's amazing what happens when people go into dreaming where they can actually see and hear me and experience a little Paul love. It's just remembering the details of that can be a little tough sometimes.

Anyway, so Doug's mad. I pissed him off. I called out his ego.

Fuck you, Paul. You don't know me. You don't know what's going on. All this is my fault? Fuck you, Paul. You had it good. You don't know. You can't understand. You can't relate. You had it way better than me. On and on and on.

I just stood there and watched. I was unfazed. His words were empty. They were rubber bullets. It's that I'm rubber, you're glue but reversed. It was projection and it wasn't working even though he was trying real hard to make me leave by making me feel guilty (ego) that I had it good. When he was done yelling and having his temper tantrum, I had my turn.

I wasn't talking to you, Doug. I was talking to that.

And I pointed to ego.

It stood its ground. It didn't move. It was scared for a battle because I wasn't backing down. I wasn't interested in surrendering to it and it knew that. I smiled at ego and I repeated myself.

Because you.

I said it again and again and again. And every time Doug went to sleep, we'd meet in the same place and I didn't address his soul. I addressed his ego.

Because you.

As I kept repeating that statement, ego backed off so I could get closer to Doug. As I was getting closer to Doug, I started saying just three words to his heart.

Why not YOU.

My point is...why not you? All of you readers. Why not you? What are you worried about? What is that ego showing you that doesn't exist or isn't as big as what it's telling you it is. Nothing is the end. Big changes...maybe those big changes that are assumed to be "bad", are just new beginnings and rocky relationships are just people miscommunicating because of pride and little losses, like a lost wallet, could be because your driver's license expired and you needed to get another one so you didn't get a ticket that would've cost you a lot more. But because people choose to stay in this place of why me, why is it only or always happening to me...well...it's going to keep giving you what you expect; the hard, the worry, the difficult, the illusion and the defeat.

This is being a victim and being a victim is a real easy thing to do. It becomes a pattern because people aren't willing to admit the part that they play in everything and everyone's existence that surrounds and shares in the daily bread called life. Being a victim is being dragged off to a hanging when you could really be riding off into a sunset. But it's a choice. It's a choice and one that refuses to be identified because people are so wrapped up in their personal turmoil and personal attacks that they don't understand that to surrender isn't really giving up. Surrendering is being brave enough to take a 360 degree look and identifying how you can be a hero and steer your own sinking ship into some calmer waters to be patched. Surrendering is also letting us, in spirit, give you a hand and you can feel that because by seeing in 360, you can see us in your peripheral vision. Here's an example. You got Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean and he's in Davy Jones' Locker talkin' to himself and he's totally okay because he's oblivious. He has no clue what's going on. He's just doing his thing because it is what it is. Then you have that bunch of pirates who are trying to rescue him who are confused and panicking and not knowing what to do until they start to look at things differently. Until they start to consider that maybe the opposite was true and what appears to be not working might be for a bigger reason than what your fixated on like the why me.

Now, sometimes people consider themselves a victim of circumstance. To me, a victim of circumstance is demoting yourself to the back of the line because you've convinced yourself there's not a chance and no can do. You've already convinced yourself that you can't make the cut or make the grade so you handcuff yourself to circumstances that you don't like. Or, the other side of that is you convince yourself that anything different would be too hard, too big, too different and it's safer to stay where you are than stepping out of your comfort zone. Or, one of the biggest ones is the victim of circumstance combined with being the victim of someone else which is the perfect storm because there is no lighthouse to show you the way. There is no lighthouse to help so you have to remain trapped in the darkness of someone else's shadows.

Being a victim of someone else is a very conscious thing. Where a circumstance is circumstantial, the other individual being a victim of another person is evidence based. The person can obviously be a...I can't say it here. I could say a lot about bullying but I'm supposed to be ego free these days so I'll reign it in a little. Okay. There's a couple of things to do with this. First, you're dealing with someone that has a victim mentality. Take Doug's wife. She lived with him and so she lived with this guy who she started to disconnect with because of his why me attitude. Look, you can't save anyone. You can't be a hero, pick someone up and have it stick. It won't because the more someone swoops in to save someone, the more reliant that victim is going to be on you and your good nature and honest intentions and it will get exhausting. I've seen it a thousand times. It gets tiring and people don't want to carry the dirty laundry of these people when they have their own dirty laundry to take care of. You cannot live a life for another person and they can't live their life for you. They can join you. You can join them but while you're side by side, you're each playing a part and one is not to rescue and the other is not to be rescued. On the off chance, there might be a 911 but that's completely different. That's instantaneous. I'm talking about load bearing, dirty laundry stuff that goes on for months or years. At some point...someone's going to crack and I guarantee it's not the person who keeps asking for a rescue while choosing to remain on the floor, refusing to get up. It breaks relationships because you are no longer a hero to that person but a slave to their fear; to that ego. If someone you know, that you keep serving, does not want to save themselves from some story their ego's tellin' them is true, be the example of something different. Show that victim ego what a hero of a soul is. Be something that victim ego can't argue with because their monkey brain won't settle down. Walk away from that zoo that you're enabling and maintaining and take care of you. You'd be pretty surprised at the outcome of that. See what I just did? The outcome because there's rarely a consequence when you start nourishing yourself first.

Now, the victim of someone's abuse is never okay. It is never okay. And you can give all the excuses you want but at the end of the day, trying to make it okay is fearing the consequence of them, the bully, if you don't. You convince yourself that you did something bad, that you deserved it, that they didn't mean it...it was only one time. That's a choice because no one is so brainwashed by someone that there's not that little voice in the back of their broken heart that says this is not okay. I need some true love. This isn't love. Staying a victim of someone is riddled with excuses. Excuses are co-creating and maintaining that victim of abuse status while one plays the part of trapped and one plays the part of violent kidnapper. Now it's an over the top blame game where there are no winners and people...they love the blame. Especially the angry people. They just love the blame. The angry and scared people...they use scapegoating. That's human deflection. That's cornering someone and threatening someone while using the excuse, you made me do it or if you would just do what I say, I wouldn't have to get so upset. Blame is that escape of personal ownership; it' that sidestepping. It's that hiding in some cave where nothing can touch you because you're innocent in all of it and your hostages "made you" kidnap and abuse them because of something they did or didn't do...depending on your mood. But if you're innocent than so is everyone else and now you're just being a bully because your ego is so desperate to hang on to some control it thinks it has because it pissed all over the cave you decided to hold yourself up in. A person has no right to harm another in the name of power. And no one has the right to choose to stay in that and remain a victim because you refuse to recognize your own power or you don't recognize that there are people out there that can help you. That's refusing to see the 360 because of a do or die, survival mode, and keeping low. One is the growling wolf. The other is the wolf sitting on its tail. But it's both the wolf, just different sides.

In the fairytale, Red Riding Hood gets eaten but she also gets rescued when the hunter (that's personal power) cuts through the belly of the beast and pulls her out so she can keep living. It's the same thing with people. You got your kidnapped who are constantly on watch...they got that 360 view, looking for an escape, and they take a chance and actually get out plus you got your abused who reach for the phone and dial 911. In both instances...being the victim is temporary and the Universe...spirits like me, won't let that stick and at some point there's a click where that heart and that mind start working together in what's called all knowing. We'll get to that. But it happens because being Little Red Victimhood...doesn't last. It's based on lies and when someone's living a lie...there's only so much staying power a lie has. The energy just sort of fizzles out and just like that wolf in the fairytale, there's an ever after. But the choice to make that a happy ever after or a why me ever after...that's completely your call. Now, make it. 911, that's an easy dial and if you used all your quarters and they're not picking up because of the constant "crying wolf"...you know that it's time to pull up your socks, own up to your part and start washing your own dirty laundry.

Victimhood. Sort of a touchy subject. I just call it like I see it and I call it because the world, as you know it, it's at the tipping point and just like those pirates did for Captain Jack Sparrow, I'd like a hand in putting it right side up. Maybe that's just by laying it all out there, showing you the options and pushing you in the direction of choosing something that will create that snowball effect of change...really great change because you don't have just one chance. You have 360 of them but you have to take at least one to see that.

Self-Respect and Spiritual Sidestepping

Tene Edwards wrote, know your worth. You must find the courage to leave the table if respect is no longer being served. People get so hung up on making an impression, making the cut, making the grade that they will put up with another person's or persons' bad behavior with this architectural belief that you have to take it on the chin to be able to make something of yourself. There's this belief that you have to suffer to actually achieve. I happen to disagree. No one has to suffer to come to this standard of acceptance. Again, that's a story that someone concocted that people have shared over and over again like a broken record and only now is it being recognized as a pretty crappy fairytale on the way to true success. People have been told they have to continuously be in service to everyone and everything that is not you to make it up that ladder of some thing. It's based on the fear of being left behind or that someone, other than you, will beat you to that starting lineup because you were told that you'd never qualify unless you passed this and that test. The thing is, when you hand over your power like that, when you allow others and your brain to fill your head with a bunch of jargon because ego's staring some sort of competition down while the competition does the same thing, you ultimately show that you lack self-respect and therefor, you allow that same disrespect from others as well as a little neglect on the side for an extra treat. It's human nature. It's survival of the fittest and eat or be eaten. It's that primal instinct that everyone has but it's left wild and untamed. You know where it starts.

At home.

Home is supposed to be the safest place for a child but as the years have gone on and times have changed and people are intricately looking at parenting through a microscope because some expert thinks they know something you don't...that whole survival mode starts younger and younger in the very environment a kid goes to feel safe, comforted and okay to be just a kid. There's pressure for parents to get their kid into the best schools, to get them into the best activities; a different one every night and one of those activities must be to learn how to protect themselves because it's a shitty world with a bunch of shitty people and a kid has to learn how to take on a person double or triple their size with a karate chop or kick. Now, I understand where that's coming from. There are some people that carry out pretty inhumane things on other humans because, again, it was done to them and that's all they know or they have a tendency towards narcissistic behavior or whatever that is for them and they can get pretty vile and when it happens to a kid...it's the worst thing in the world because a child is so innocent. At the same time...these kids are losing their innocence younger and younger because mom and dad need this kid to be a superhero and a superstar to the outside world while neglecting to nourish the I Am quotient that is required for that superhero costume to fit right.

People are taught they must measure up to standards even when they're chubby babies or skinny babies and the doctor plots them on some graph to make sure they're growing right. I get why. I get that if there's a problem with growth and development that it has to be addressed and the sooner the better but do you ever wonder what happens after those moms and dads leave that clinic and meet up at parenting circles or pre-school groups? They compare. My kid's in the ninetieth percentile for height. My kid's already saying dada at three months old. My kid's weight is perfect so organic and vegan is the way to be. All this stuff...My baby weighed nine pounds at birth and was twenty one inches long. Well my baby was eleven pounds and I delivered naturally while hypnotized as my doula sang me lullabies in Latin. I didn't feel a thing. Are you fucking with me? You didn't feel a thing? You sure about that? Because it sure as hell looked like you broke your partners hand by squeezing it and yellin' you wanted to die. That's just what it looked like to me. I even think you sent your doula out of the room and demanded a C-section because a natural delivery wasn't delivering any sort of divine feminine to you and your goddess quotient was hanging on by a very thin thread.

Do you see? The survival mode; topping each other and competition starts real young and it's a song and dance that parents do straight out of the gate and it continues until that kid has to face the real world; not just having to make the cut with its parents, but to make the cut with the outside world and all its strangers too. Big egos teaching little egos everything they know. It's a cycle and one that I'd like a hand in breaking. Instead of teaching kids how to defend themselves or make themselves bigger and more important than how they actually feel...what if parents started sitting their kid down and asking them, how do you feel about blank. How's life? What's new in the world of Paul Jr.? Is there anything on your mind? Are you worried about anything? How can I help you with blank?

We need to start teaching kids to get in touch with their feelings and their truths instead of connecting to what they might lack or what they might not measure up to in the real world. On the flip side of that, we need to start being honest with our kids that no, sometimes you don't measure up but that doesn't mean you gotta kick some ass just to get somewhere in life because it's this uneven playing ground. Life is meeting us at an even playing ground. It's not a competition. People are just taught from six months old that it appears that way. Life is what you bring to the plate...what you bring to bat that actually makes a difference and that means heart and soul and not just brain power; not with some sort of will to just survive but to actually experience the fullness of what this world wants to bring to you. FYI...what this world brings to you...since it's an even playing ground...what are you bringing to it?

Teenagers. Shit. Teenagers. Guess what? They are in a situation where they are teetering on the edge of ego or heart. They have their first taste of the outside world while their egos are high on hormones and they are either an asshole or the runt especially depending on how they physically look to someone looking from the outside in. If they aren't making the cut at home because mom and dad have expectations that really can't be met because they chose to toss their kid into their own dog fight with society...these teens aren't making the cut outside either and it's because these parents demanded something else instead of nourishing the gifts they saw that came naturally. These parents wanted that ninetieth percentile when if they nourished something different than a survival mode; something that even allowed them to think out of their tiny bubbles of illusion...their kid; that teen would've made the ninety-ninth.

So teens don't make the cut at home...little wolf pup goes out into the world and is going to eat or be eaten and the cycle gets bigger and bigger and pretty soon these kids are the bully or get bullied and if they make it to adulthood...that either/or of bullying and disrespect follows them into relationships and careers. Psychologists are inundated with mommy and daddy issues and are hired to "fix" something that really wasn't broken...just a little misguided by the misguided themselves. It's the blind leading blind which is also known as history repeating itself in traditions of the outgrown family dynamics that kids, these days, are born to change.

So, if respect, from anyone, is no longer being served...leave the table. And if you're dealing with a situation where you just can't get through to someone because you're tired of their righteousness or their victim mentality and you've done all you can to the highest and best of your ability...you need to go eat somewhere else. And I guarantee, when you start respecting yourself, you'll be served a king's meal when that important person that you can change the world with...notices the change in you and wants to be at your table to create a chain reaction of something better.

Self-respect, in a nutshell, is when you come to play with a full house while respecting the world around you. It's authenticity without the expectation of a payback. It's always paying forward while being grateful for what you got at all times. Self-respect is honoring everything that has brought you to this point, right here and right now, while understanding that it was all done for you because Heaven thought you're pretty amazing at being you and because that level of trust is so deep, you get the rewards in all ways, shapes and forms. A major reward, when showing respect to yourself, is the gift of another day; another day to grace everyone and everything around you with your presence. The ultimate of that is giving humbly and graciously with that idea that you're not owed and you don't have to justify anything. You just came and did and let those chips fall and you went to bed knowing that you did the best you could do on that day and the day before that and you give yourself a pat on the back because you never asked yourself to overextend to the point of abuse. That's self-respect and sometimes that's learned the easy way and sometimes that's learned the hard way because you have to erase all that conditioning and mind control that brought you up and get out of what you were taught and guided through by outside sources. Self-respect is walking with grace and your head held up high no matter what they whisper behind your back because you know it has nothing to do with you so why should you bother paying attention to anything that you did not give your own personal stamp of approval on.

There's this jingle that used to be played in those sex education classes back in the day where sex ed films used to be a bunch of cartoon characters. It said, my body's nobody's body but mine. Cute, hey? But read it again. My body is nobody's body but mine and that's not just with the skin and bones that you wear. That means everything that comes with it too. That means your heart, your soul, your energy, your time, your love, your respect, your voice, your power, your intuition, your talents, your skills. It also means your anger, your jealousy, your mentality, your pride, your faults, your mishaps, your judgements, your mood swings, your lacks, your questions...all that stuff is yours too and it has nothing to do with anyone but you.

Blame. Blame is a dumping ground of fear, worry or taking ownership or some sort of consequence of failure that's put in the black garbage bags for the crows to pick through. Blame is not having the courage to face what you invited and pointing at someone else saying they made you do it. It's that wolf that's running with its tail between its legs and it's not stopping for no one unless they offer a way out that's even sketchier than blaming someone else and staying in denial about what really happened in the first place. Blame is spiritual sidestepping.

Spiritual sidestepping is an unwillingness to practice what you preach because you're distracted by what everyone else is doing in their growth or work and looking at your own is too hard or difficult because it lacks or isn't the same so you distract yourself by playing the same game as all these other people that you feel are more advanced or aware than you are. It's a game of copycat because to actually get real about your journey, you have to be willing to look at every single part of you and tell yourself you're okay because this spiritual game is the most personal one you'll play in your entire time here on earth.

Spiritual sidestepping is getting distracted by the illusion of an easy street or getting that hall pass to the bathroom of enlightenment. It's ego convincing you that you don't have to do the work, that spirit is the God of existence and in that, there's no work involved because if we came here already in the image of God, we can just ride it out. So I'm going to ask you something. How fulfilling is that for you and in your determined path of easy street, do you feel like you're missing the boat because life just isn't making sense and you're not making sense to life? Here's the deal, your soul is truth and the illusion of life isn't. Missing the boat is you being sold the sheep story...that if you follow the flock, your reward will be Heaven so you listen to that guy and that girl and you fall down in some stupefied amazement at their proclamation while neglecting your own worth. Missing the boat is sidestepping this idea about what it means to bring all of you to bat because ego says that you'll never play in the big leagues so just rent someone else's equipment...or...be the equipment someone else can rent so they might be able to make it into your special club. Does that ever get lonely? Because, with that way of thinking, the only connection you ever really make is with me, myself and I instead of the I Am that is the ultimate surrender and ultimate connection to and with everything and everyone stripped to the barebones of love and acceptance. And in doing that, you can be completely naked and raw and bring all that you are while meeting others in this very vulnerable place because you're all taking a leap of faith into the unknown of that spiritual amnesia together. You can't sidestep that. You cannot demand an easy street because you've convinced yourself you're already a part of God. Then, with that attitude, you call in others to watch and believe your side show that, ultimately, people lose interest in real quick because it makes no sense. Ego will tell you that you make a lot of sense but if the audience leaves mid show...who's the one that makes sense with no audience to convince of that?

God said take all that you learn and all your experiences; all your joy and all your sorrow...take all of that which you live and bring it back to me. You want to know why? Because God likes to live vicariously through that part in your chest called a heart and They aren't afraid to admit that They have a lot to learn from everyone's personal experiences and illusions because it's not just one thing. It's a billion and one and it takes the want and aspiration to be the best you can be...to take that bull by the horns and go for a ride that makes you have the desire to observe and feel out everything deeper than face value. That's the compass pointing north towards those mountains you have the audacity to climb and not hitching a ride from some back alley watch dealer telling you to buy a watch that works. Guaranteed or your money back and all it costs is your soul.

No one who was a teacher in these things ever said that it was going to be easy. Spirit would never feed you a bullshit line that would tell you, as soon as you become spiritual and "aware" your life will be a piece of cake. There's not one teacher out there that hasn't been in a pit of despair or confusion and if they tell you they haven't...that's part of the illusion they're probably telling themselves, every day, just to convince others that they beat the odds. To become a teacher or an example...and to be willing to share that without the song and dance...it's because they took it upon themselves to be the Wayshowers; the ones that paved the way to give you and everyone else some sort of hint that it's going to be painful and somedays it's going to be uncomfortable and that costume of skin is going to feel restricting and heavy. This is the opportunity to get honest, to practice what you preach and to look at that reflection staring back at you with the eyes of love or with the eyes of ego which, in some cases, is a lot easier to do. Even if you label yourself a Wayshower, you're doing it because you have the ability to get down and dirty first and show everyone, that gives a shit to even look your way, that you can always come out clean even if there's a couple of bruises to show that sometimes the battle was a hard-won victory. No one said that reuniting the soul with the spirit was going to be easy but people continue to choose sidestepping, skirting the issue or what the bigger picture is in the hopes that it will just go away. It's the ostrich effect. If you don't see it, it doesn't exist. It's the spiritual self-deception that no one wants to admit they're doing but will do it anyway because it's the easy path. These are the things that the ego will tell you and justify them through showing you some sort of pot of gold at the end of this rainbow. Ego will show you the mirage in the dessert when you're dying of thirst and only need one sip to continue. Why take one sip when, if you looked past what your ego was showing you...you'd see a tropical lagoon to soak in and have a tutti frutti drink on the side. Ego thinks small. Ego thinks one sip will do. Ego thinks one way on a two way street when, in truth, that two-way street is an opportunity to meet your heart and soul at a level of compromise and this is what I can bring now...can you meet me there because right now it's all I Am that I'm able to recognize. It's the "I Am That I Am" at this moment and even in the smallest ways it's even more than one drop in an ocean. When coming to play like that, without the sidestepping and hiding and pretending...that is the human being becoming the whole ocean in one single drop.

Doughnuts & Other Rules

Kim likes doughnuts. You want to know why Kim likes doughnuts and bread and anything that says CARBS? Because she gives herself permission to enjoy them. Because the outcome of giving herself permission to enjoy carbs is feeling fulfilled and knowing that she takes care of her body, she's allowed a treat or two or...three. Two years ago, she wouldn't pick them up because of some nagging guilt or grief about wanting something "bad" for her and by eating or drinking something that was "bad" for her, this nagging voice of guilt or grief would also sell her a bullshit line that her energetic frequency would decrease and therefor all her spiritual talents and abilities of connection would be trashed. Big talk for a little ego, right?

What a load of bullshit. What is wrong with gifting yourself? What is wrong with being generous with yourself once in a while like you're generous with others? What is wrong with experiencing human pleasures that wake up the five senses you're born with to create that fulfillment that then tells you, you know...life isn't half bad?

Start gifting yourself here and there regardless of this concept of right/wrong, good/bad, healthy/unhealthy, should/shouldn't. Again, these are born out of old stories that the people of today, here and now, are to rewrite and you can't start rewriting the rule book on how to get more spiritual or connected without that experience of fulfillment or joy because in fulfillment and joy lives freedom and that is the truth of connection. This is not me giving you permission to fill your body with a toxic dangerous mess. This is not me giving you permission to fill some hole of lack or lonely with things that would distract you from figuring out why you're feeling those things in the first place and what do you have to do to heal that. The permission that I'm giving, which you don't really need in the first place, is to enjoy the little things. You are allowed to enjoy the little things and take pleasure from those little treats and in doing that without the guilt and without nagging yourself that you screwed up by eating bread, by having wine or beer (my go to), by eating chocolate and ice cream...you begin to reintroduce yourself to the fun in pleasurable things. Eventually, when you indulge here and there no matter if you're doing a cheat day on a diet or if you're trying to have a better connection to ghosts, it boots that ego, that loves to toot its horn about rules and regulations, back down to the basement where you can't hear it so much because now you're feeling more joy than worry about what you're probably doing wrong...according to others.

Ego likes the rules and ego learned some rules that some things (not just diet) weren't allowed if you wanted to be or look or smell or see or sense like group "B". Group "B" was where it was at because that was passing the grade. That was doing like or being like and Group "B" was safety; the tried and true of how to live. FYI, you'll always be group "A" to me. That group contains the renegades. They are the shit disturbers. They are the people who are willing to step into the curious and make that true because that place of curious is actually a place that's easier to breathe and be who you always knew you were; at the heart of it, it's the place that is always going to be your truth and these rules are not meant for everyone. They are meant for a very select few but the people who are reading this, again, you're meant to rewrite an old story and that is always going to be group "A" to me. You are the what if factors...the faith factors...the wild cards no one thought even existed. That's what you readers are to me but it's up to you to accept that and not let your egos talk you out of that because group "A" is where the excitement is and that's where the thrill of a new time and place exists; a place where it's heaven on earth that you create and that's, again, a place of freedom...of free will and choice...of outcomes and multiple chances to do good and feel good every moment of every day just because you give yourself permission to do that for you...not based on anything but the desire to be the best version of you on this planet today. But that's just my personal high five for all of you. I like you regardless of anything that tells you something different.

And sure, it's a perfect world when you treat your body like it's working for your best behalf and not against you but cut yourself some slack. I'm only saying treat yourselves once in a while instead of being so strict with rules that weren't necessarily written for you and only you. It's a big world out there so anything that is read or listened to...you got hundreds, if not thousands, listening to the same thing. It'll float for some but not for others. So give yourself a break and tune into what your story is...what your urges are and what your five senses are trying to tell you because when you do that...it opens up the other senses that humans aren't necessarily supposed to have...according to that basement dwelling ego. I'm talking about the psychic senses...the ones that people push so hard to grasp or act on their best behavior so they can get that gold star of psychic awareness and enlightenment. But I have to say...when you start connecting to the things you already have...those five senses and you start using them to your benefit and joy factor...you start opening up a whole other world that's just meant for you and guaranteed...people like me (ghosts like me) will be standing there and meeting you to welcome you for your visits. Your five senses is your body telling you what it needs and if sometimes your body needs doughnuts and a beer to wash them down...do that. If your body wants a burger and fries once in a blue moon...do that. And I'll explain why the further this chapter goes on but listening to what your body needs with those five senses isn't necessarily about overindulgence of carbs, sugar, alcohol, meat and on and on and on that "experts" say you should stay away from. It's not about these labels of thin vs. fat, in shape vs flabby...connected vs. disconnected. What is actually detrimental or more detrimental to your health than giving into a bag of chips once in a while is the guilt and shame you carry because of those hard and fast rules made up by other people those rules worked for. This guilt and shame keeps you blocked and this guilt and shame or a personal judgement call digs a hole in your emotional body and your conscience that gets deeper and wider that, then, keeps a person feeding and filling it with unhealthy things and it starts at doughnuts or beer or shopping for the perfect pair of shoes and builds to binge eating, binge drinking on hard liquor, drugs and a situation in your home where you can't walk around all your piles of stuff and there are rats nesting in some shoe box that you can't remember buying.

Look at Deepak Chopra. There was one day where he was in a restaurant and he ordered a glass of wine. Buddy comes up to him and recognizes him then proceeds to question him why he's having alcohol because he's this spiritual guru so should he really be drinking? You know what Deepak said. He answered that he wanted a nice glass of wine with his meal so he's having a nice glass of wine with his meal. Take notes. That little tidbit was for a reason. He didn't order a bottle. He had a glass because he wanted to enjoy it with his senses instead of cringing that he ordered one and that he should be setting more of an example.

Yes, meat contains the pain of the kill but saying thank you or giving that blessing of gratitude...even trying to eat organic when you can, those actions immediately change the vibration of the food on your plate. Acknowledging the nourishment...not just on a physical level but also in that special-treat-creating-happy way like in the case of Kim's doughnuts...it automatically provides nourishment to all of you and not just the physical because it changes the energetics and it gets way higher to meet your senses at the level where the intention of eating it was in the first place. Doing that, there is no way your body or your ego can ever hold that against you.

Some spiritual practices, that were born before 2008 (if I'm gonna be honest), tell people to examine themselves before they can move onto some higher plane of enlightenment. It's the school grades of spiritual learning and if you don't pass, you don't continue. You're stuck in the revolving door of grade six. That's old school spiritual philosophy that was built on thoughts and ideas from a different time and place that don't change. But...that time and place doesn't exist anymore and neither does the junior high of their spiritual school. Those were starting points. Humans have evolved and the spiritual learning or rules have not kept up with that evolution but because they're rules...humans obey by being the gold star student; they choose to keep themselves held back by old philosophies. Now, I'm asking...is that working for you? Because from what I can see...people are craving more.

Spiritual rules taken and manipulated by ego is the ancient religions that keep a person constantly on edge of checks and balances instead of feeling okay and worthy just for what you bring to the table and no one, where I am, ever said you weren't good enough to connect just the way you are. With all your preconceived faults and baggage, with all that you're trying to be and do...no one here in heaven said that it was never good enough. We're not waiting for you to have the collection of tarot and oracle cards or the crystals or being vegan or vegetarian or of getting sober and meditating at least two times a day or doing the mantras, the cleansings and the clearings...no one from my side ever said you couldn't connect with us until you had or were healed from any of that. We only invited you to connect. But we're also not waiting around. We're actually supporting you in your re-learning and your re-vamping of what was to what is now which is very different and guys like me, we're pretty excited about what that looks like. Because we see you tuning into those senses, listening to them and giving them the chance to gift you as you gift yourself new experiences and little indulgences along your path of connection.

So, with these rules book (and they're not only written about food and drink), people are starting to see right through it because connection means getting in tune with all of you at your very heart center regardless of all the books, videos, podcasts and articles people get inundated with. Those aren't rules. Those are suggestions. Those are not how-to's. They can't be. They can be the how-to's for the ones that wrote about them or spoke about them but for the outside world that they share or sell them to...they are suggestions and not one person deserves a guilt trip or a shame and blame speech just because the audience realized it wasn't for them. Kim likes the saying, fuck off with your mayonnaise. She heard it from one of these YouTube videos, The Irish Try from Facts. It means cut the crap and when Kim says it, she means she sees right through your mayonnaise jar of judgement, blame, shame, guilt, projection, shoulds and should nots. It's because your mayo that you try to spread on others, because of some rule book you bought into without getting to know yourSelf first, doesn't belong to anyone but you and when you wear egg on your face, you might want to get okay with that because no one took those actions or non-actions that went completely south...but you.

Look, there are rules and regulations for everything. Like that song, sign sign everywhere a sign. Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind. Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign... That's by Five Man Electric Band and I sing it because it has an important message; blocking out the scenery, breaking my mind. So, my advice to you is to start looking past what's trying to block you; what's trying to hold you back from what could be because beyond what's holding you back is invention, creation, innovation, a new way of learning and being that spreads to ultimately build a new world that everyone agrees they want to see. So when researching the rules, there's also another book that you might want to pick up. I want you to consider it as a "Cole's Notes" and that's the Cole's Notes of discernment; what's right for you and what just doesn't fit. What can you take a little of to personally build on and what can you just thank and say, I'll take it from here.

There is a societal structure that we all follow or have to follow to a degree but I'm more talking about the spirit and the soul. I'm not telling people to get arrested because they take this chapter as permission to break the law or have your ego tell you it's okay to do something stupid because Paul Walker said it was legit. If that's what you got out of this...do me a favor and close the book until you're in the right heart space and not the right mindset. Your body and your senses will feel it out regardless of the stories or the nagging your ego will react with. Now, let's talk about the actual body and its cravings and what's okay and what's not.

It's all okay. Depends on the intention and the attitude you bring to it. Now, in saying that, how can there really be any hard and fast rules to that? Allow me...

There are moments when a body is going to crave a little more fat. There are moments when the body is going to crave a little more sugar. It's going to sometimes crave those heavier things that sort of weigh it down because in those moments, it needs to be weighed down. There are these rules that you have to eat lightly or no sugar or booze or whatever and I get that. I agree to a certain extent. But, moderation doesn't kill you and moderation doesn't cut off connection. Moderation is a once in a while treat when every other time, you treat your body good like you understand that it's the only vehicle you're gonna get for your entire ride as you. Because, like it or not, you get one body and what you do with that body is your choice. However, these moderation moments that I'm talking about are the ones where they say, in the spiritual articles and rumor mill, that your body is ready for this...upgrade. These are days...even weeks...of energetic upgrades because while you live, your body is continuously changing in energy and vibration. It has to. The Earth is doing the same thing and you are a part of Earth so your physical body will follow that trend. Here's the thing. When your body is vibrating really high, it takes a lot of energy to keep that up. When it's going through those upgrades...it's taking a lot of physical energy to do that. I'm talking Hobbit breakfasts and and elevenses and lunch and tea...dinner and suppers; because you just can't keep that stomach from growling and not only that...it's craving those heavier foods and it's usually junk or those awesome pasta dishes or fried foods. It's okay. Those foods are okay. It's because your body is climbing that vibrational ladder so it needs something to ground it to Earth. These heavier foods...maybe foods that you don't normally eat or haven't in years, are being craved because your body needs those extra calories and that extra weight to actually convert it to that fuel it needs to climb that vibrational ladder.

This is grounding. This is different than if you were in a dark night of the soul or spiritual depression. It's very different. It's like...you're active and you're dreaming constantly or you're feeling really...electric. You sometimes feel anxious...like you want to climb the walls or something and you just can't pinpoint a reason why. It's like...during the day...you have this pent up nervous energy and you just need to go and run and after you run you have to eat anything and everything in sight. Allow it. Because it's only once in a while and you'll burn that off just like that Buddha belly that you've suddenly acquired...where even dudes look six months pregnant...and after all is said and done, one morning you'll wake up and all will be normal; belly gone and your energy has stabilized just like that. That doesn't sound like a bad thing to me. That sounds like you're giving your body permission to slack a little bit and have a treat for how hard it's working for you every single second you're alive. Again, it's not every day. It's maybe...well, these days the pace has picked up...probably about once a month.

Alcohol...wine and beer. Not so much the hard stuff but the wine and beer are very grounding and you'll actually feel, after you've had a glass, if you're into that, you'll feel more balanced and less ready to pounce. All's it takes is a half a glass and that will do it. I'm telling you, it gives your body that sort of heavy groundedness that it needs to not fly off the handle. Now, the people who want to be shits about what I just said will say that I'm giving permission for people to drink to abundance because now it's good for them. I didn't say that. It's always moderation. Half a glass of wine or a glass of wine with dinner is actually a nice compliment and when you're drinking that with the mentality that you're doing your body a favor...your body will thank you for that by working in more efficient ways.

But what if I don't drink, Paul?

Then you eat some chocolate and you get yourself a pizza and I'll call that squared up. Because it's not always going to be wine and beer. It can be anything. It can be doughnuts. Doughnuts are right up there with booze...it's just not liquid and it gives you a different high than what the alcohol does. So you don't drink? Even better. So order the large meat lovers pizza and I'll come join you. We'll drink coconut water instead.

Now, the other side of a spiritual upgrade is the dark night of the soul and this is when you climb so high that you may, eventually, fall right down. It feels like that anyway and that's the ego's happy place. It loves the dark night of the soul because your energy is lower and it takes a lot to find that happy place. It's because you don't recognize this new you and everything is up in the air and confusing and you get depressed because you feel lost. I'm not going to get into all of that. There are conversations that have been done with all that information in it. But this is where you want to give your body the opposite of all that heavy grounding fatty sugar laden food. Because while that's great for when you're vibing really high...the reason for that is to keep your feet planted on the ground but if you're kneeling already and curled up because you just want the world to go away...you don't want that food or that booze. Beer bad. Herbal tea good. Very good. You want the lighter stuff. You want the fresh fruit and vegetables. You want the stuff that your ego says no to but your body says it's probably for the best. Because, if you notice, when you're in a funk and you eat garbage...your body reacts by feeling sick, heavier and your skin breaks out in acne you used to get at twelve. Plus, you have more guilt that you ate like crap on top of the guilt that you're this spiritual person but you don't feel very spiritual while you're down on your knees wondering why you feel you've lost your way. See how that works? So when that headspace isn't quite where you feel like you can be joyful and you're in a place where you feel sad, lonely, guilty, judged and all of that stuff that your dire wolf is telling you is going on...out of place with society...a total loner...you don't want to add to that with foods that are categorized as depressants. Do you see the difference? It's a big one. When in a funk...eat light and healthy...fish is great. Nuts are better. Any Omega 3 will help with that. But if you're high as a kite and on cloud nine and don't get why you're buzzin' and just in love like a hippie that's had their third LSD trip that day...get yourself to the best burger joint or the best Italian place and order yourself some of that carb laden cream sauce alfredo that your body wants and will actually work better on your behalf when it's given a treat or two because it's doing a bang up job getting you from ladder rung three to five in a matter of seven to ten days.

These two spiritual places...the vibing high and the dark night, will happen interchangeably. One will follow the other. Could be dark night first. Could be cloud nine first. Listen to the energetics of the physical body to help you get to know the signs and what you need to do to make it a little less intense. This is the rule book. The hard and fast...nah. Like I said...those are suggestions. Not how-to's. You know who you are and what you need so honor that...no matter what that ego is nagging you about. It's just nagging. Look at what you're about to nourish your body with and ask yourself, is this the best for me now. Your body will tell you and you can jot that down in your own notebook and call it Paul's Suggestions for Spiritual Freedom. That or, My Cole's Notes of my Personal Journey. Volume II, What my Body Needs Because My Body's Nobody's Body but Mine.

Now...after all that's been said and I've made myself a few ego enemies, I do have one hard and fast rule. Instead of the coffee and the tea and the soda and the wine and the beer and whatever else it is that all of you like...7-11 does a lot of business in the summer. Fast food joints really like to give those free refills. But you want your aches and pains to get a little less intense every day? Drink more clean water. You want your emotions to flow a little better? Drink more clean water. You want your hormones to be a little less erratic? Drink more clean water. You want to lose some pounds? Drink more clean water. You want your body to actually creak and groan less. Drink more clean water. You guys...a lot of you are really dehydrated. You want a good rinse of your insides? Drink more clean water.

You want a rule? One golden ticket piece of advice? Drink more clean water. Period. Then, when you've had some water, those cravings that you get might not need to be filled because all your body really wanted was a good drink of something pure. That's a big hint for anyone. Moving on.

Intelligence...Not Just Knowledge

People tend to think or believe that a spiritual life is all about trying to absorb or know all of this knowledge that's out there so you can get the gold star of enlightenment. But there's a big difference in learning all this stuff and actually putting it into practice. You can be the most knowledgeable of the bunch; you could read all the books, listen to all the YouTube, watch all the Ted Talks on anything you think will give you the golden ticket to spiritual knowledge; to make life easier because now you're in the know. But then, to use it is a whole other ball game because the action of all that stuff is a lot different than the studying and if there's no immediate difference or benefit to what you're livin' in your day to day, it turns into all a bunch of bullshit and now there's no use; what's the use. Let's take nurses for an example. I just pulled nurse. It could be anything but nurse is a good one so let's use nurse.

So those nurses have to start somewhere and that's usually the schools; colleges and universities that offer the program. And these would be nurses are stoked. It's their calling. They are on the right track of life. Mom and Pops are gonna be so proud. They start their first day of class with the desire to save and nourish and help with all that they're gonna learn in those books that are going to give them the inside scoop on what to do. It's the driver's ed class of nursing school. Cool. They're studying hard. It's going great. They feel so fulfilled with what they're being taught. Then they have to pick what area that they want to really get their hands dirty in. Is it emergency? Is it gonna be the operating room? Is it gonna be psych? Pediatrics? Well today we're gonna pick labor and delivery because hey, who doesn't like to hold a baby after it's born? That fresh new life is a refreshing thing to see after taking a turn in the emergency room. Okay, so they're gonna start in labor and delivery.

It's the seven o'clock shift. Today is an exciting day. They know the theory so now they're gonna just be able to go out there and use it practically. Doc say, we're short in the OR. I need a nurse, give me anyone. This is an emergency. This student nurse is all they got so they're in. Golden. Now shit just got real. We're going into the operating room. They've never been in the trenches before. They walk in and see a half-conscious woman on the table and the obstetrician getting ready to make that first slice. Now there's cutting and now there's blood and tensions are high because now there's a face that's being pulled out of this woman's body and it's not with white glove service either. Any more force and it looks like that baby's head is gonna pop right off. Again, shit just got real. That nurse, remember the one that knew all the theory, she aced the papers and the tests...they just got a taste of what that theory's for and it really wasn't what they thought. This was war. This was taking the good with the bad but the bad was what they got a taste of first. This wasn't what they signed up for. Game over. Too hard.

That's what I mean and it could be an over the top example but I needed to get your attention to get a feel for what you're really getting into or what you "think" you're getting into because the moment you decide on this path towards some sort of enlightenment you've been told about, there's a lot of assumptions that get wrapped up in that word. It's not just theory that's gonna make you the head of the class. That's not the way this game is played. That's not how the game is played in any situation. The actuality of what you're learning can be really really hard and because of that first taste of action, the part two or the part three to continue that action is rarely taken and if it's taken, the steps are very controlled and kept to what's okay for you and not the other. Why? Because that ego overthinks or it says it's too hard, I can't, that means I'm a pushover...all this stuff that spiritual philosophy teaches, that ego makes the action near impossible unless it's done in a way that is comfortable for it which sometimes lasts a couple weeks then it's back to the books. The knowledge can be there for a lifetime but to make that knowledge stick...it's a lifetime of action which leads to learning more knowledge which means taking more action with what you learned. Just like a marriage. You don't quit making an effort after the wedding reception just because you have a piece of paper that says you're locked in for life. It's in the daily. It's the daily action to make it work but if your ego's idea of action is blood, sweat and tears instead of give and take, honor and hold each other's hands in sickness and in health...that marriage...that awakening...it's not going to take hold and fly.

And being who I am now; sitting here and watching...here's my take on it. Let's take all that knowledge that worked for others...take out all the rules they say you should and shouldn't... take out the choice and consequence...what if all it took was just living as a decent human being and treating others, plus yourself, with a little love and compassion and giving each other a break because life is hard as it is. People don't need judgement, blame or abuse to top that off. And I'll give you an FYI. Enlightenment is spiritual intelligence which is the theory plus the action of that theory in every moment of every day. Even when you feel you have nothin' to give, you still are giving just by being the best YOU in every moment; high or low.

Now here's a trip. Albert Einstein said, more the knowledge lesser the ego, lesser the knowledge more the ego. Let me break it down. The more knowledge someone acquires, the less that ego has room to move. It's like those spiritual textbooks and videos squish it into a corner to keep it at bay with some pretty big words. The less knowledge people have about kindness and truth and compassion and forgiveness, the more that ego is able to mark its territory and it's the knowledge that gets shoved in a corner and only speaks when spoken to. If people aren't willing to use what they've learned or put that into practice, ego continues to keep them in seclusion; keep them in that corner. It continues to nourish that sense of separation when, in reality, separation is part of the fantasy or that illusion everyone's talking about and to understand that separation is just that illusion-make-believe world, that spiritual knowledge and theory have to have action behind them and people need to start treating each other like they're all on the same page. They all want the same thing and that's to just get along, realize peace and all of that Kumbaya stuff just means connection which is another spiritual theory called the String Theory or...Oneness.

Charles Dickens said, there is a wisdom of the head and a wisdom of the heart. This is that logic coming together to work with the emotion; with the feeling. Sometimes the head doesn't want to work with the heart because the head is making up stories to make the thinker feel better or ignore the truth of what the heart is saying. This is imbalance. But the flip side of that is when the logic is speaking but the heart is a blubbering mess and it can't hear that the logic is actually the compass that will turn that whole emotional mud puddle into a garden where things grow. It's a very fine balance. It's like, what does your garden grow? The mind is the seed and the heart is the soil and together it's planted and nourished into something pretty amazing. That's when the logic and the emotion...the feel quotient come together in perfect harmony, like a Coca Cola commercial, I'd like to teach the world to sing, in perfect harmony...

Never mind.

But when they come together in that balanced kind of way, this is what is called intelligence and this intelligence isn't just a onetime shot at knowing something. It's knowing something and then nourishing that so that more can come in and support what you already know. It's like a hypothesis and the more you experiment, ponder over it and action it...the more new knowledge can come in to support what you already know and make that hypothesis a proven fact. But some of this is lifelong. It's not in days or weeks or months or even years. Even the most intelligent people of this planet made it their mission to keep that intelligence growing so there could be new and important discoveries that would make progress on this planet instead of just inventing one thing and that one thing made everything perfect. No. It didn't. And you know who knew that? Nikola Tesla. With all his theories, they grew and he allowed them to grow because he knew it wasn't just in one thing. It wasn't just in the knowledge. It was the logic plus the heart...the spirit that things really took off. Tesla said, every living being is an engine geared to the wheelwork of the universe. Though seemingly affected only by its immediate surrounding, the sphere of external influence extends to infinite distance. Also known as the ripple effect, also known as it starts at one. It starts with the person reading this and it starts with that wheelwork of mind, heart and soul that turns round and round creating a spiral of intelligence and feeds itself and, eventually, all things because it connects to all things. This is Oneness. This is String Theory. These people like Tesla and Einstein...even Dickens, weren't just put on earth to teach one thing. In all of their teachings; in what they continue to share through their legacy, it all connects as that bigger picture that is the intelligence of the human race which connects to the earth, which connects to the heaves which connects to All That Is...God. Now think backwards and while holding onto God and the heavens and the earth and the human race, picture yourself bringing all that in as a group hug, breathing it in and having that be a part of you. Because it is. That's Intelligence and you will get nowhere with understanding that or living it when the ego says, too much and too hard.

The spiritual cannot be just logical. You can't squeeze infinity into an empty Corona bottle just because you "think" you did the math right. That's a big assumption and that's the ego pushing knowledge into a corner so the heart can't call it up and say let's make a date to do something. And God forbid the heart actually gets through to the logic and says, wait a second. That doesn't feel right. This is ego's worst nightmare because now you're questioning it. The thing is, it's good to question what you thought you knew or what you thought you believed. This means you're willing to grow out of what you knew, smash those glass ceilings and be willing to evolve. Evolution is having the guts and the audacity to go beyond what you thought you knew. This is the heart making a date with logic and having a deep discussion before ego notices they're together. This is the Romeo and Juliet of a secret love affair that just by getting together, Romeo and Juliet now have a bouncing baby called Intelligence that will take that human further than it ever "thought" it could go in the first place with just a bunch of information swimming in the brain. Gotta love those secret love affairs. What's meant to be will always be.

So now that bouncing baby called Intelligence is going to have a big talk with ego and it's going to talk to it like it's that person they have to live with (remember it's a part of the human being) so let's see what we can do to at least get a long if we have to live in the same space. Now that intelligence...because it's so smart...it can outwit that ego and it's gonna say all the right things. It's going to validate it. It's going to hear it out. It's going to take what ego says into consideration. It's going to take the "head's up" warning signals and use them to their advantage and not as an invitation to lock themselves in a safe room and throw away the key. And now that ego feels like it's actually part of a team; that it's part of a healthy relationship instead of pushing so hard to get ahead. Now there's no need to exaggerate a point. Now there's no need to puff out some chest to get people to believe you "know better". What people see is a pretty all 'round put together cool kind of guy that they want to be around and they want to learn a thing or two from because they aren't just smart nor are they just an emotional hugging machine. They have this look about them that says, I know a little bit about that. Would you like me to share? Do you trust me? That balance...that's spiritual knowledge. That's intelligence; an I before E except after C.

The I & the I Am

I have a tendency to separate these two terms and for good reason. They are very different. When a person is talking about the I, they are pointing to their chest and they're usually trying to indicate what they want or desire, what they would like to control or what they want to see differently and this is all about their personal comfort level. The I is about how someone prefers the world, that they interact with...how they want it to meet them at some dictated middle ground. The I is the outside of a person. It's indicative of the ego. The I is how you are perceived. It's an indication to others of how you speak and how you act, if there's entitlement there or if you're willing to come down a notch to not only meet someone where you're okay with meeting them but where they are okay meeting you. The I is self-service based on what a person compares themselves to in that outside world that surrounds them day in and day out. It's the fair play or the cheat. It's the either/or based on desire. It's not the give and take. The I is a game of what's in it for me. Now, because I'm talking about the ego, I'm going to relate the ego to the I because the I is the id that Freud was talking about that I sort of explained earlier. It's the logical and it's the self-service that makes you, personally, okay while sometimes forgetting that you don't live on an island by yourself. The I is a personal statement; it's the logical without question while the I Am is an open gateway to anything is possible and here's why.

The I Am actually comes from the inside of a person and is not dictated by outside influences when it's in a healthy balanced state. It's the whispers and the nudges. It's the spiritual intelligence. It can be the label but it's more of a direction of where you're going and where you've been while remembering what got you to your here and now and eventually where that could take you. The I Am is the swirling that's within you that ripples to the outside world while also connecting to what's beyond this world; what's beyond space and time. It's the truth of you that is an example to society and it's the part of you that connects to the All That Is which sort of combines together in this perfect melting pot of existence. It's the human being a bridge between heaven and earth while simultaneously being part of a dimension that you are quickly outgrowing. However, the I Am is also prone to be that spiritual intelligence that is kept at bay by the logical mind because sometimes the I Am doesn't make a lot of sense to logic and a person might think it has to. In all honesty, the I Am is the equal balance of the logic and the emotion and when that comes together...it's pretty potent and powerful. It's so powerful that it's one of these tools that is used in The Secret of personal manifestation to obtain some sort of bigger picture. But, and I don't say this lightly, the I Am can also be very detrimental depending on how it's used and that, my readers, is why I bring it up because the I Am can be manipulated and kidnapped by that ego mind. The ego has figured out the power of the I Am. It sort of takes that statement of manifestation and mixes it with a person's doubt or fear...it mixes it with some anger or some comparison, maybe even a sprinkle of sad or feeling lost...maybe a little alone and there's this automatic reaction (eat or be eaten) from a human being to use that very destructive combination as one of these masks that they feel they need to put on to make their mark even if it's not coming from a pure place. It's because the ego has figured out that the I Am is more of the whispered God presence of the human being and since it is so quiet, it can be high jacked without the person's knowledge unless that person is already "aware". Some like to call that "awake". Ego's figured out that just by sneaking in and tweaking the whispers to the beat of its own agenda, the I Am now has a tendency to keep a person stuck and in this sort of robotic mode where people automatically believe something that's not even true because they now compare and label themselves as something that they are absolutely not. I Am ________________.

The I Am is used a lot in affirmation work but you can spew all the affirmations that you want in your reflection without one single thing being or becoming true. Those are just words. If you don't feel the words or the intention behind those words, that affirmation isn't coming from a pure and honest place of value and truth and they won't do much. They are just empty promises and when someone says look at yourself in the mirror and do your affirmations...that's falling into this trap of the how-to's without really being educated on the intricacies of how that's done. The first step, before all the I Am affirmation statements, is you need to start looking at yourself in the mirror and telling yourself that you love yourself and make that true before you start believing in the labels that you try to create for yourself using the I Am. That's the tricky thing. The I Am has a tendency to turn into the I just because someone has this need to convince themselves that they're worthy to even be living amongst the flock. Here's the thing. When you are using the I Am for affirmation work, start using it with how you want to feel instead of what you are. I feel happy. I feel at peace. I feel like the perfect me right now. I feel loved and cared for. I feel safe. All these things are small steps towards being able to create those bigger affirmations in truth and not just wishful thinking. Because the I lives in a fantasy world where hope is a beggar. The I Am lives in a world of truth where hope is a leap of faith and falling into the arms of trust that you're supposed to be right where you are today...this very second. The I Am, however, needs to be backed by honesty. You can feel like shit and look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself, I Am tired. But in that same breath, you can also tell yourself, I Am tired but I Am still bringing all of Me to the day even though it feels a little less than usual. God never asked you to fake it 'till you made it. God asked you, even if you're feeling tired and burned out, to bring what you could to life and God would meet you at that place and take it the rest of the way. If you look at yourself in the mirror and admit to yourself that you're tired but are still willing to live even if the glass feels a little half full, The Universe will still meet you there because your attitude was that the glass was half full and not half empty. It's perception.

The I Am can very easily be turned into the I without a person even knowing about it and that is based on how much control you give your ego and how much you're willing to really get honest with yourself and begin to feel things out while practicing a little authenticity. That ego, like it or not because it is a part of you, is with you when you look in that mirror and when you start saying affirmations without falling in love with yourself first, that ego will stand behind you and question if you're serious or not because everything you just told yourself didn't mean a damn thing. And, again, it will talk really loud to get your attention and if you're down on yourself while affirming something you don't really believe in, you instantly make that real instead. Get in touch with that love first because when that grows, it makes that wolf take notice and that's when it shrinks down and allows the spiritual intelligence to work in the way it was always supposed to; for your best behalf and not to keep you in fear or lack.

The I keeps a person separate. It's the ego. It holds onto separation like it's a life line to its own personal need and greed. The I Am builds community and like minds to support and back each other when you really need it. The I Am is the silver strings of connection that unites all things. The I keeps a person and a soul in seclusion and only lets it out to play when it's dark and can't be seen. The I is the two year old that doesn't know any better and says gimme gimme me me me. The I Am is the nine year old that asks his friend if he wants to share because he's had that support and training from the parent that actually gets it. By the way, it's time to start teaching kids, these days, a sense of community and not entitlement. Entitlement creates competition; eat or be eaten. Community is the all for one and one for all mentality that goes a long way in creating peace and not a situation of two against one and the one ends up on the receiving end of physical, verbal, emotional and mental abuse. But that sense of community isn't always nourished because this world has struggled with this idea of entitlement or lack for hundreds of years. The world has been brainwashed with this idea of "levels" and to get "higher", you have to have the blood, sweat and tears mentality when really, that push is creating more distance from what you think your goals should be. If something was really meant for you, it would be an easy in. Doors wouldn't be locked and you wouldn't have to play this game of sabotaging yourself and manipulating others to actually build the life you want to live; one that would create sustainability while also offering you a sense of congratulations for a job well done because you didn't have to step on any toes or piggy back...even stab someone in the back, to get what was truly yours anyway. The I is the Hunger Games. The I Am never asked for a war to get somewhere.

The I Am needs to be nourished and the only way that's going to be nourished is to practice some self-love and self-acceptance as you are now. Accepting and loving who you are now...standing in your own pair of shoes is a really big hint that I'm going to give you to manifest anything. It's because you're willing to be grateful and say thank you...even if you don't like where you are, the only way to move in any sort of direction is to be thankful for the experiences and the lessons that you've been given to open you up to more of that. It's the key that opens the prison doors. Gratitude...real gratitude opens the door, for all forms of love and acceptance from anyone especially you to you. You made the choices. Even if those choices were made with the I and not so much the I Am you were still the one that decided on the paths you took. That could be pretty disappointing and pretty disheartening so if you feel you've had a rough go of things...your I Am; your spiritual intelligence is craving a little nourishment.

The I needs to be fed. The I am needs to be nourished and the difference between feeding and nourishing, just like the doughnuts, is the intention behind the action. You can feed the ego anything it likes. It's got a goat's stomach and appetite and it will chow down on anything and everything that will satisfy its greed. Nourishment is the gluten free of food. It's a specific requirement because just like those celiacs out there...they need to eat the best for their bodies so it's nourished and not just satisfied. Just being satisfied with whatever will put a celiac in the bathroom or worse...the ER. Anything with substance needs nourishment. Anything with a vibe to it needs to be nourished. See, connection; the I Am connection...those intuitive and psychic abilities need to be nourished and this nourishment is actually utilizing them and practicing them. Connection isn't just handed to a person without that person having just a hint of what it's all about. People that don't think they have a connection, fail to really understand what connection really is or they take it for granted and the magic beans just turn out to be your regular garden variety of green beans. If you're looking for magic without any care or compassion or an ounce of emotion...of heart, you're taking magic for granted and eventually, it will be lost. Even the most intuitive, psychic or spiritually minded knows you have to continue to nourish the heart and the soul to maintain a healthy balance with the mind. If not, everything just tends to get screwed up. Things go missing and your ego wonders why it's been booted off its spiritual high horse. Usually, when an ego is on a spiritual high horse, it had nothing to do with the spirit and everything to do with the I and what that I could sell and/or gain and sure as hell what it will not lose. Because what's mine is mine and if you try to take it, I will fight or I will flee because those were the only two options that I was willing to see.

I'll end with a story of a person I know and love. They're no one famous, no one that anyone would take much notice of. They're pretty quiet and unassuming but have one of the most powerful I Am quotients that I have ever witnessed or experienced. Of course, they have their moments like all people do but it's in their ability to recognize the manipulation of the I, from anyone, and snap it back into its rightful place that is pretty cool to watch. Sometimes it happens in a moment, sometimes it happens in a day but this ability has been a learned one; one that could only be learned from a history dealing with the I from a lot of other people that, eventually, this person had to walk away from. Because in these situations of other peoples' I's, it started bleeding into and strengthening this person's I which manifested in fear and flight.

This individual, that is pretty close to my heart, was raised by a narcissist. The narcissist is the epitome of the I. They are the most self-serving, deserving, spiteful and hateful species of this planet and the worst part is that the narcissist uses these qualities to bully, manipulate and abuse those closest to them for this sick victory over something or someone that they believe they possess. And as I'm tellin' Kim to write that...she doesn't want to because it sounds very harsh. But a narcissist is harsh. Still, she wants me to explain a little more about the narcissist in a way that...okay look, people choose to play that role. That doesn't mean that they are that big of a dip shit in Heaven. That's a role they choose to play because a narcissist is usually born to bring attention to a situation that has to change and they take on the role of supreme asshole to do that. Now that being said, a spirit that chooses that role is extremely high vibrational. It's a Jesus quotient completely turned inside out. You want to know someone very high up there on the narcissist scale but vibes really high? Hitler. Look at the completely barbaric and disgusting acts he started on this earth. So yeah, I have a hard time excusing the behavior of any narcissist on any level. But, Kim's right...where I am, they get back and they are given so much love because playing the part of a narcissist, on any level, is the hardest part to play for any angel. I don't make excuses. I'm just tellin' it like it is. I don't excuse horrific behavior and acts of violence. The narcissist does a pretty good job of doing that on their own.

Abusive households are pretty much run by at least one narcissistic parent and it's a situation where these children are being held hostage; being held captive in the one place that they should feel the safest and that is the home. This is how my friend was raised. What that does to a person; an innocent life that knows nothing different or better is it keeps them small and anything that is perceived bigger than what they believe themselves to be...is really petrifying. Almost to the point where they are unable to function "normally" if they don't receive some sort of help or intervention so they don't continue the cycle themselves through some other means that could be equally destructive. These are perpetuating cycles and narcissists don't always breed more narcissists. They tend to breed children with no self-confidence, with such extreme withdrawal from the world because they've never been taught any sort of healthy life skills to be anything but a doormat or, they raise children with so much resentment and anger that these kids lash out with abusive tendencies of their own because that's all they know to do.

Back to my friend.

My friend was born with a pretty big I Am quotient. They didn't know it. They couldn't discover it for themselves because of the oppressive atmosphere in the home of the I parent. But as my friend got older, they started to hear the whispers of their I Am and what was happening around them was now not okay and my friend knew, without a doubt, that they had to escape. It was a hostage situation where the hostage was starting to sense there was a way out, they just had to find it. So with nothing but a bed and the clothes on their back, my friend moved out. When my friend told their parent, that parent did everything in their power to keep my friend locked away but because my friend was a young adult, it was more a mental and emotional hostage taking and not so much the physical. This emotional and mental stuff sticks like glue to a victim of abuse and it's not easily removed. It's tar and it continues to be a magnet for more egos if not removed...asap. My friend didn't get it removed. The tar stuck to them for a few years after they escaped, creating addictions and unhealthy relationships that they thought were true and appropriate because they had no clue about anything different other than letting themselves be used by the I...of anyone.

So, my friend left their home with the residue of all of this abuse overshadowing any sort of freedom that should have felt good but didn't because of what was hanging over my friend's head. This was guilt and shame for abandoning their home, their siblings and making the choice to not contribute to that home in the ways this parent demanded. Every phone call, my friend sat in silence as their parent, for hours at a time, would berate them with their I statements, making this person, who is so important to me, smaller and smaller and smaller. As I look back on it, I get very upset and I try to keep it as simple as possible because the amount of emotion I feel is automatically shared with my partner and I would hate for her to have to feel this amount of pain. But I have to share this in this book because this is the severity of what the I vs. the I Am can become.

Finally my friend decided to cut verbal contact. Then the letters or the emails would come and my friend's partner, at the time, would screen them because they knew how emotionally raw and delicate my friend continued to be. This was years, you guys. These letters didn't start coming until my friend was twenty six years old and that's only after they refused to answer the calls thanks to Caller ID. That's twenty six years of experiencing the I of a narcissist. Anyway, to drive home a point, because my friend's partner could see through all of this I bullshit, they circled how many I statements there were in those letters. You guys, it was every second phrase. There was no regard for this parent's child or what they put them through after being told; my friend trying to make this parent see the harm of their abuse and what it was doing to their life. Nothing. Instead, this narcissistic parent was now the victim of the abandonment of their child. The tables have turned. The abused is now being blamed for abusing. Twisted right? So fucking dumb.

My friend had a choice. They could continue this way. Absolutely they could give in and go back. But my friend and their partner were now expecting a baby; they had started a family of their own. They were going to have a kid. So my friend had two choices. They could either stop this or continue this and have their child be affected by this I cycle as well. Now we're into generations. That...if it continues...is a nightmare and I see it every day. These generations of abuse that goes on and on because it's an idea with an action that is recycled in the most vicious ways. But the good news is, there is always one person born into a family of I's that is meant to break cycles and it's the one that is born with the greatest I Am quotient that is meant to make this very difficult choice and do this specific job. It's a sacrifice to some and a liberation to others. My friend decided it was a liberation and there was no looking back. And they haven't...mostly. They don't have very much family anymore. They had to rebuild their family through friendships and not blood which is pretty painful and sometimes makes a person feel forgotten, orphaned or lost. But the I Am that my friend found took them to a place where...they are connected; they understood TRUE connection. They are so connected that they balance living in two worlds and through my death, I gained one of the most important connections I've ever known and we connect in a way that is the best for both of us because it's based on the freedom of our individual I Am's and I sure as hell wouldn't be where I am today if it wasn't for this connection with this person that is very close to my heart.

My friend nourished their I Am despite the ego of I that had inundated their life through their own fears and how others in their family expressed their own I's to them and that was a personal choice to make. My friend, through nourishing their I Am, felt liberation instead of obligation. They found the connection to other people through love, giving and receiving and complete acceptance of others. They found more fulfillment in the everyday. They started to look with the eyes of the One Source instead of with the eyes of ego. Now my friend has a pretty okay relationship with their ego. That ego's pretty tame. There are still some bad days...some anxiety issues that creep up that psychiatrist like to term "post-traumatic stress" but my friend has come to a point in their life where by relying more on their spiritual intelligence, the I Am, and not so much the fight or flight of the I, there is no way they can return to what was. They will only travel in the direction of that best and highest good for anyone that comes into contact with them and they will travel in the direction of the highest and best good for the generations that are created from my friend's example of the I Am...that personal hero quotient...what heaven only ever wanted for them in the first place.

Now back to why this chapter was written...I needed to show you the difference. A person can teeter between the two on the daily; no question. But a person can also make a very conscious choice about what they would prefer...what would be easier or what would liberate them and create that healthy relationship between the two. Because living in a world of duality...it's a choice to be either/or...or...create an equilibrium where one is used as the ground and one is used as the sky...just like that relationship between the eagle and the wolf. Just like that relationship between heaven and earth. It is the relationship between the I and the I Am. Let's change the way we think about it and the more we change that perspective, the easier it will be to snap that I back into place and to go forward with more of a spiritual intelligence and not so much a frantic look around for an escape route. SNAP.

And so it is.

There's No I in Team

Now that we've talked a little bit about the I and the I Am, what do you think teamwork's about? Teamwork isn't just connecting with other people on the field. Teamwork is about connecting to all parts of your personal you to make that work like a well-oiled machine. If a person finds themselves criticizing any part of their body or how they fit into where they are or who they interact with in that day to day, that's segregating themselves and that's holding onto the I but, as we have all been told in those corporate and sports pow wows, there is no I in team. And there really can't be. Team is cooperation and inspiration; giving someone a high five of encouragement instead of reprimanding them for dropping the ball. The I is competition and from what I can see, there's a hell of a lot of competition with person to person and/or self to self these days.

People tend to indulge in a little teamwork or team building when it feels okay...until it takes them to a place they're a little unsure of or that they just don't want to participate in because a part of them rolls their eyes at the stupidity of pow wows with other people thinking what's the point, or, some part of them really can't stand team sports. They have loner tendencies. Again, preferring that separation. It's usually because of control issues; because of assigning what's mine is mine and that's yours do don't even think I'm going to take that on. No one said anything about taking on what's not yours but even offering some help or a shoulder to lean on, for another's troubled times, is still teamwork. It just isn't perceived as that textbook definition. In teamwork, what makes it take off in a 1st place championship direction is that all these people with individual talents, abilities, strengths and aspirations...they all come together in this solid foundation and even when it cracks, there's always that solid base formed from everyone having that same goal or outcome and those cracks are easily repaired. Cracks are filled and repaired by a willingness and an effort to communicate honestly and with a motivation to work as a unit even if there are days where that unit has to break apart to come back stronger than they ever were before. So even in times of a separation or going their own way for a little while, that common goal is still there and if we're talking about a common goal on that global scale, if the egos were tamed and the idea of teamwork really got off the ground, what would be the outcome? How about a little world peace? How about no starvation? How about the voiceless, like animals and nature, were actually heard and the world started spinning in that clockwise direction instead of being so tipsy on its axis and being on some sort of precarious tipping point. That's the outcome of teamwork and yes, sometimes there is going to be the I of ego that rears its head because, like I said before, ego is a part of you. But what if it was just the drowsy wake up from an afternoon snooze just to make sure the sun was still shining and nothing lurked in the nearby woods and then, content that there's nothing really to worry about, the ego went back to snoozing while the world continued to spin in the direction it was always meant to...straight and steady towards those new day horizons.

From where I am, I see this condition creep up. It's like a bad cold. You know those bad colds where you can't breathe, you cough and hack and you give it to everyone else that's around you because it's just that infiltrating and catchy that by the time the month's over, the whole crew's gotten it and it may even repeat itself the next month if the house doesn't get cleaned up? Lesson for the bad colds is wash your hands. People don't wash their hands enough and so...you're kind of asking for it. But now I'm off topic. This isn't a medical pamphlet in a doctor's office. So what is that catchy condition? What's this other virus that spreads pretty quickly around circles of individuals that are in close proximity or they just held the door open for someone while entering the store for some Tylenol Cold and Flu. It's the attitude of being "right" all the time. People have this genuine belief that they have to prove something's right or wrong for it to make sense and you throw an ounce of passion in there and it's a battle that's being drawn where everyone has their own side or team to choose and no one's willing to meet in the middle. Because being proven wrong is a perfect recipe for losing some footing that you thought you had to begin with by being so stubborn in your views. Stubbornness; the main ingredient of competition. That and pride. It's the yeast and sugar that makes dough rise.

I once said that the more someone's shouting and trying to make a point, the more they're trying to believe it for themselves. Trying to prove you're right is fearing that there's this tiny possibility that you're wrong and if you fear it...it's probably because it's true. Because you're unwilling to look at all sides and you're only focused on this point when this point is a fraction of what really is. But that ego...you know...that ego hates to be wrong because that ego is logical and it's either this way or that way. This ego will stand its ground no matter what the cost and the cost is usually looking stupid, losing respect or people walking away because they just can't connect with you or get through to you. When that ego stands its shaky ground, believing that it's right, there can be a lot at stake; especially when it comes to bigger issues. There are things that some people just don't talk about; things like politics, religion, education, healthcare, sexuality...things that make a person uncomfortable or maybe just make a person believe that staying on this side of the fence is safer because then your life looks pretty cut and dry and pretty polished because you think this way. Anything else would just be wrong. Your country would go to shit, you'd have a one way ticket to burning in hell, you'd have to see gender as this open place where love is love and maybe it is okay for someone to be a little more artistic and not so academic because they could have just as much success writing novels or painting sceneries than they would being a lawyer fighting for causes that they just don't believe in but it pays the bills so they will anyway. Look where always being right gets you. It gets you stuck. It gets you stuck in a system or a way of being that produces nothing but being "right". It produces this place where it's too comfortable to leave even if the world is running away with itself in these new age, hippie terms...it's better to be penned up in your overall righteousness than feeling a little freedom for being open to explore other ideas or concepts that might make that comfort zone a little more wide and give you a little more space to breathe; take deeper breaths. Plus, when you give yourself more room, you have more space for others to join you in likeminded causes.

Then there's this idea of compromise that is the Tylenol Cold and Flu from the drug store. It makes the virus a little less symptomatic while you still have the cold. It gives a little relief and a little comfort while you're able to rest and get back to some sort of normal that you like to be in. It allows some rest where you're able to function normally without the battle of the constant drippy nose. That's right. I'm comparing compromise to Tylenol Cold and Flu. I'll use what I got and just like a cold remedy, compromise allows a person to see a bigger picture even if it doesn't agree or resonate with them but if someone can see a bigger picture and show a little understanding and it is what it is, it allows for an amazing amount of growth, respect, honor and acceptance which the world could use a little bit more of these days. But that's just me. Compromise...in other words, is a take it or leave it and evolve from those places that used to keep you stuck. Even if you don't see eye to eye with another person, what is left after those deeper and honest discussions about this person's ideas and the other's is still a lot of respect and understanding for where each of those people are at that point in time and that elicits a sense of community and teamwork because the goal is the same. When there's a continued need for a battle or an argument, relationships crumble and one side is walking away.

Now, this whole I'm right and you're wrong has a really deep hold on a community that toots this horn of "spirituality". When a person first gets into this game of spiritual awareness or these gifts of connection...they can get pretty high because it is a high. It's getting blissed out and what does this blissed out, euphoric and overall fuzzy feeling get you...an addiction. An addiction to the same feelings all the time every day and if you don't get that you try twice as hard. When a person tries twice as hard or three times as hard and they are convinced that this is the only way to do one way of spiritual awareness, they sit on that pedestal and they preach the same fucking thing until people start to listen. It's this way and only this way and if you don't come my way well...you're way less spiritual than me. I'll let you in on something that I see every single day. The ones walking away from some person that put themselves on some sort of spiritual platform that has that megaphone to their mouth...the ones walking away from that, if I'm measuring, have a lot more of that spiritual quotient than the one convincing or judging those that aren't listening to them proclaim. Do you want to know why? It doesn't matter. I'm telling you anyway. Because the ones walking away from the show are the ones that are willing to learn more and be more than just one way which is an invitation for us...here in Heaven, including the One Source, to engage with them more intimately because they are more willing to give us invitations that could look different every moment of every single day instead of being stuck in a my way or the highway type of attitude. That creates connection and a team of spirit and human that share that common goal of creating a new world; one in which is comfortable for everyone even if there are slight differences in belief.

I, as a spirit...an energy, don't have to come in only one way. I can come in and see you in so many different ways. I can come in to see you in the way you will recognize in the place where you're at. When you're only at one place, it makes it real hard for us to break through that wall because that one way is usually what's being told to you or demanded from you instead of that place of freedom of choice. Ego is about yes or no with no chance of a maybe. It's good or bad and if it's bad then you are guilty and judged from another's point of view. If a person constantly fears that they'll be judged by opening themselves up to something that's not understood by megaphone person, they won't open to the idea that we (Spirit) come from a place of freedom and we can come and visit only to a place of freedom as well. Ego keeps you locked up and throws away the key. We can peak into those places, through the bars of that jail, but it makes it really hard to stay so you'll recognize that all we ever wanted was to love you and never make you choose.

So, yeah, the people that walk away from megaphone person...they are the definition of more spiritual if you can even give spirituality that "more" quotient. Really, you can't. That's a measurement and how can you measure something so infinite as...God, Source, Spirit, Energy or the Divine; whatever that is for you. You label it anyway you want to. However you label it, make sure you're ready because you put that on YOU as well.

See, ego is in a constant state of competition because it fears the loss and wants the gain. When you look at right or wrong, you're looking at a competition for one to take over the other and hell will freeze over if the "wrong one" wins. Ego doesn't want to be wrong. Ego could never be wrong. It fears the place of wrong because that wrong is being judged by someone else. That wrong is being on some lower bar than the one that's right. That place of wrong is scary because what do we know then? What is life if life is supposed to be right? When a person is constantly in this state of competition and not compromise, you will bite your nails down to the quick in fear of being wrong or wronged. Why? Because you will never be settled or okay with the world you live in and with the people in it. Why? Because life is you win some and you lose some and it's what you choose to take from that to evolve on all levels and not just one. A lot of people probably assumes that they are secretly judged or blamed or that they aren't quite good enough for others this way so you're going to toot your horn your way and then place blame and judgement on them. See how that works? That's the UFC of egos running the show but when you have that healthy ego...none of that matters. That healthy ego will tell you that there's a battle about to go down and it's your choice if you want to be involved in it or if you want to stay the course. Now with that warning...your intuition can take the front seat, pat that ego on the head and say thanks for the head's up, I'll feel it out from here. So again, the ego is not the bad guy. It's the dog that's just been chained in the back yard with nothing else to do but bark because of boredom or fear or the need to protect its dog house from a squirrel. The competition is when there's two dogs on either side of the fence and it gets so out of hand that the gloves come off between neighbors that could never get along in the first place because of barking dogs.

Now, instead of a UFC match, let's talk about some team sports. In the book, The Power of Eight by Lynn McTaggert, she writes about experimenting with healing groups using the power of intention. In a bunch of different trials based pretty much on hypothesis from Lynn's previous research on quantum physics, Lynn tested the theory that healing would be more pronounced and quickened if a group of people held that intention for that one cause and while holding that healing intention for one person or cause, the people with those intentions, to help someone other than them, would also reap the rewards and gain healing as well. While I was reading this book (yes I read), I really thought that this woman was proving the existence of miracles because that is exactly what a miracle is. It's built on intention and the energy that that intention is given and it can be with anyone and for anything...groups manifesting these miracles even faster than just the one. But it works regardless. By the end of the read, spoiler alert, she could not negate the power of group intention or thought in regards to healing work. Prayer groups in churches work the same way. Someone asks for prayers, a bunch of people sit or stand in a circle with the prayer in their heart that someone be helped, healed or saved and it's a measurable outcome. Group meditation has been known to stop hurricanes, to bring peace to war-torn nations and to put cancer patients in remission that doctors believed to be terminal. This is the true definition of teamwork; being part of a group of individuals that only want to do good for others because in serving others or helping others for that best and highest outcome, they receive the same, if not more, of a benefit than the one they're actually trying to help. You think these individuals that meet to meditate or help another person out, are all from the same background or all have the same belief structures that make this work? No way. They are all individuals but what they bring to the table is the same. It's the willingness to help. Some might not even like each other outside of what they're trying to achieve but because the goal's the same, they put all that to the side and just get the job done. Here's a clue. You pay it forward like a meditation or prayer group...the universe will pay you back. That's just how it works. Ego, on the other hand, wants the pay back. Ego loans you a twenty, it wants thirty back just for the convenience of its one time offer.

People talk about this veil but the veil is really the ego. The ego stands between humans and spirit but when you pray and meditate, the assumption is that you're willing to believe that all are equal and all are deserving of all good things. So, in saying that, why is there separation between the sinner and the saint, between the good and bad or right and wrong if everyone is...equal? Prayer and meditation is participating in a conscious connection which has no separation only All That Is...that I Am. Hence...connection and when consciously connecting, like a magician...that veil just disappears.

Sometimes competition is a really healthy thing. It gets people taking action. It gets people out of their little boxes and it moves them to try and achieve but, like the balance of the I and the I Am, you can be in competition with someone but keep it friendly. Friendly competition is supporting each other and getting the fact that there will be one outcome but both parties are generally okay with that because they just came to play and have a little fun while doing it. That mindset, in a competitive situation, will always churn out the winners because there really isn't such a thing as the loser because all sides know that it was in the experience that more was gained than just a plastic trophy. Again, life lesson for the kids. It's what you put into it rather than what you get out of it because if you came to play, the outcome will always be the same. You'll be pretty glad you did. Especially if you're a loner. If you're a loner and you have separation tendencies and you gave a team sport a shot just because you wanted to, the end result of that is the balance of staying that individual while learning something new from others as well and you don't have to continue with the team pow wow if you don't feel it's for you. But you can always say thank you for the experience and come away from that with a better understanding about how the world works when you're willing to step out of your comfort zone and what you know...just once, into something that could potentially take you in a whole other direction just because you said yes to an evening of beer league baseball and met someone that planted a seed.

Loner...team mate...whatever person's reading this, we all want a high self-esteem but what does that really mean? It means you feel good enough to meet people at the same level as what you can give and in that way, you build each other up without tearing them down. See, the ego wants to build itself up on the backs of people who it thinks are less fortunate than them and everyone's got that ego so everyone can have those same tendencies. I don't care how spiritual or loving you say you are...everyone has bad days and moments. But when you start using that spiritual intelligence plus those good intentions to do the best you can...to do good things on any given day...you realize that the goal or the end game is all the same. At the heart of it, everyone just wants to be loved and accepted for who they are. That's all everyone really wants because when that happens, personal worlds just fall into place regardless of differences and you have a box of doughnuts with a hell of a lot of sprinkles that everyone can share in and not bicker about. Remain who you are as you accept and receive people for who they are. And by living like that, just on that one level...that's team sports and you just proved that you came to play. Batter up.

A Bruised Ego

Life can be taken seriously. It can be lived with this belief that it's a job and jobs are to be taken seriously. Even connection with the spirit. This is serious business because you're starting to connect with the big guy in the sky and it takes a certain amount of piousness to do that and with being pious, it's serious stuff. It's because reverence has rules; it's not silly. It's not frivolous. It deals with where your soul will end up depending on the job you did as you lived as a human being...pious or not. It's nothing that's supposed to induce any sort of giggle attack but a bow at the knee and whispered chants. Life is serious. Spirit is serious. Everything is serious business.

Anything could happen and so human beings need to be prepared for that just in case and that preparation...that's serious stuff. Now, with people that are waiting for this other shoe to drop, aka preparation, they're barely breathing. They are constantly holding their breath and that's just one person. Now take that one person and look across the street. Another one's holding their breath and then you look down the block and you have another one holding their breath. Down every street and every block...every town, city, state, province, country...you got all these people waiting for different shoes to drop. Hello to the people whose faces are turning blue. You all have to take a collective sigh and breathe out...take a load off because there's no joy factor in turning blue and purple; happiness can't find a way in to your chosen suffocation. With all these dangling shoes, every single one of them has a personal story and every person, with these personal stories, fails to understand any sort of compromise and they are hell bent on believing something that is only true for them that others will not see and so you get this situation where people are butting heads together in a struggle of I'm right you're wrong. When a person is always looking above their heads at that dangling shoe, they're waiting for something to rob them of the one and only thing that is going right for them; something that could be taken away...it's the shaky floor they built their identity on. Peoples backs are up. They are ridin' high on a wave of stubbornness with a sprinkle of righteousness because it's an act of protection. Being stubborn is an act of protection to protect the few things that are "right" about their life and anyone that comes and says otherwise, carries a heavy object with them and takes a swing at that wall of protection. What did I say that wall of protection was? Ego? And when someone makes contact with that wall, or that wolf, with their own sledge hammer of stubbornness about what they think is "right"...a dent, hole, crack...a wolf cry or yelp is felt or heard...that wolf gets injured and bruised. It's the bruised ego.

I'm going to tell you guys something that might trigger some righteousness. Right and wrong is a concept that was created so judgement could reign supreme. I want to talk about this idea of sin for a second. Sin is defined as an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine love. Now, that definition was made up by someone who defined spiritual law as something that was right or wrong...saint or sinner. Humans were born in sin; little babies were born to sinful parents and so cute little babies were considered sinners right out of the gate and immediately had to do "right" to make up for some sort of "wrong" they were consequentially born with. This, my friends, is the cycle of sin. But before right and wrong, forgiveness and judgement, saint and sinner...someone...a group of someones had to define that.

When you get into this game of spirituality, you hear this term that there is no right or wrong (it is what it is) but right and wrong is very real to people. It was to me when I lived with all of you, but this whole dialogue of right and wrong had to be heard because to understand and really get that there is no right and wrong, you had to live right and wrong; live with the judgement call of various egos before you could learn to live with ego in the way it was intended...before living the concept of it is what it is and start letting go of old stories. This is living with a very healthy solar plexus chakra. But humans have to live with old stores to know old stories to change theses stories to new ones. However, in this process that has taken thousands of years, there are these battles and war zones and, in all battles, you got some injuries and wounds to lick. You got some bruises to ice.

A bruised ego. I get the term. What does it look like to me? It looks like a person is hard done by, that they thought they knew it all and someone came by and told them how it really is and so some pride got in the way. A bruised ego is that person who strutted around, let's say as a peacock and then buddy came by with some bigger and brighter feathers and took that pedestal down a notch. It's a personal fall from self-righteousness, what some would term a fall from grace but that grace wasn't divine. Grace is more like a floating feather. Ego's more like a clumsy crash because a person wasn't paying attention. A bruised ego is falling head over handlebars. A bruised ego is...a person coming into something with a lot of expectation and when that expectation isn't met in the way someone wants it to...they pout. A bruised ego can have someone, on a total high of life, get bulldozed with truth so real that ego has no choice but to walk with that tail between its legs. A bruised ego is unexpected; being told something opposite about what you're kidding yourself about in the first place and is a one-way ticket to some other story because yours didn't make the cut even though you were absolutely sure it would. A bruised ego is based on expectation and desire.

Now I'm going to tell you something that might be difficult to hear...or read. Sometimes a bruised ego is necessary to bring someone down from that high to get real with the life their living instead of getting carried away with something that just doesn't fit, aka: overcompensation.

Take cars. The more aero...the more speed...the more precision...you got all these cars lined up in a parade before a big race; you bet your ass those drivers are staring down every other driver, figuring out what they lack under the hood and what you don't. The drivers eye the competition...it's the macho, car loving whip-it-out-and-see-whose-is-bigger, type of day. It can end real fast because at the end of the day, when it wasn't your car that won that race...you know there's some decisions and steps to revamp before you can ever make that race again and you know what? That's not always a bad thing because now, instead of showing what you assumed you had, you're showing what you got; homegrown and totally authentic without the bells and whistles that you saw someone else with and that you just had to have. Looking back though, intuitively you knew you didn't need all that to even qualify. You had what it took and all that nonsense of bells and whistles was only weighing you down in pretend of someone else's dreams anyway.

Now, that driver could easily take the fact that they lost very personally and skulk about it...taking that bruised ego and drowning himself in the blame game of their team not pulling their weight so buddy could win a race or, they could practice some honestly and say, yeah, I fucked up. I should've listened to my gut and got the other car instead of buying into someone else's performance story. A bruised ego comes from the unwillingness to listen to your wisdom factor and believing in someone else's and adopting that as your own personal story or way of life. When you're looking at another way of life that is based on that should factor...you're ignoring your own will and intuition to do what's best for you and when the shoulds run out and you're left with looking at yours truly in the mirror, what are you going to finally tell yourself? Why me? No. You're going to look at yourself in the mirror and tell yourself there's a better way for you and you'll act on that regardless of what it looks like or appears to others because what was working for others and what was fed to you with a silver-plated spoon made you ask the tough questions and start being honest with yourself about what really is and what really isn't.

A bruised ego is the unwillingness to look at what happened around you with just a little bit of a sense of humor. Charlie Chaplin once said that life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot. You ever experience something that made you really upset when it happened but when you look back on it, it just became funny and you shake your head with a light chuckle and ask yourself what were you were thinking? It's usually when adults look back on their teenage years. You know everything is so dramatic when you're a teen. It's because you're trying to find your own way without the influence of others but, in the same breath, you base a lot of your likes and dislikes, social communications, dress codes and hobbies on the influence of others so being a teen...you can't win. But when you got a little older, maybe a little wiser and grew some roots, you can look back on a time, that was so up in the air and you can have a laugh about it and you can tell your own kids how ridiculous you were in the hopes that they don't repeat the same stupid shit that you did; so they don't have to suffer the bruised ego or the laugh after the fact. My point? People need to start growing a bigger sense of humor about life. This is the best thing to combat a bruised ego because you have a willingness to keep it light instead of keeping it so grey or dark.

Be willing to laugh at yourself a little bit because if you don't...who will? If someone sees that you're able to have a sense of humor...take a joke, be a little light hearted...they will come to you with the same attitude and those butting heads aren't making contact quite so hard. Those butting heads turn into what my partner and I like to call a little bit of friendly banter. No one gets hurt, no one tries to pull an ace out of their sleeve to win some sort of game. They just banter. But in the banter...things tend to get said that can sometimes be hard to say if everyone just goes into it with this big load of seriousness to sit in. I don't go into a conversation with my partner with a serious attitude unless it turns serious and I have a point to make that people need to hear. Other than that, the number one rule that Kim and I have is to keep it light while feeling safe to let it all out and let it all go regardless of how that's looked at by an outside world. Same with human to human. If you don't have the boldness to find humor in the everyday, you will live a timid existence where everything will be done to you and everything will be a slight to how you act and what you believe. Humor...laughter is an extremely powerful tool. Laugh it off is the same thing as shake if off but with laughter...it spreads. Ever go to one of those laughing groups? They just sit around and they laugh and it starts as fake but it usually turns very real and by the end of the laughing group...they feel like they just unloaded years of burden in one hour. Yeah...check it out. I don't mention things just in passing. Laugh and laugh with others.

Have a willingness to laugh at yourself to move on from the trap of seriousness; life and spiritual. When you notice that ego calling you stupid or saying you shouldn't or calling you out for something that you feel stupid or ashamed about...smile. Start smiling more. When you smile...when you smile at ego, you tell it that you know more than it ever will and it's a secret between you and heaven that ego can't know about because ego can't see that far. It can't see past that horizon so smile because you can. When you smile, you see past that horizon into other dimensions and realms that show you what ultimate truth is...something ego isn't aware of. Smiling is an icebreaker for anything...even when you're sad. A sad smile means you're willing to make an effort to try and turn things around and you're ready to be vulnerable enough to share what's on your mind and ask for help. If you're scowling all the time...that's not an invitation. That's a push away. That's telling people to stay away because to give them a chance would be a waste of time. But here's the thing. My bud, Charlie Chaplin, also said, We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery. But to live by each other's happiness, we have to give an invitation to each other and that's by smiling...even when it's just a small one-sided thing that says I could sure use your help. I could sure use your strength to lean on. It's humor that makes that happen. It's not hate. Hate is ego pushing people away so they don't intrude on your bad day. But an attitude of hate is a perpetual bad day with no end. It's that revolving door with no out.

Ego is not your personal story. It's the outside world's story making an impression on you because you haven't exercised that personal truth...what you stand for and what makes you tick. Ego is what's been taught to you based on another person's idea of life. But you make the ultimate choice about how to react to that or how you respond to that. Ego is what you learn, absorb and use while living in the real world; what some people call the illusion. If you get that and understand that it's just that ventriloquist's dummy, it becomes a little more humorous and Are you kidding me? You're joking, right? Question the reactions and the storytelling. Know you're doing the best you can do and smile about it.

Do you ever look at someone that just had their ass handed to them after being corrected and they sort of retreat into the background? They retreat because they feel beat up and they blame whoever handed their ass back to them for the humiliation that they feel. I'm going to tell you something about the hermit. The hermit is someone like St. Francis of Assisi. He went to find spiritual enlightenment by turning away from the world and living with himself for an extended period of time. He needed to get away from the noise of the world around him because he had a longing to get to know himself; the I Am. But to know himself, he also needed to get in touch with his ego; to learn the real meaning of it so he thought going into seclusion was the best way to do that. Instead of spinning his tires in his exhaustion about life with his bruised ego, he went a step further and decided to hear it out and understand what it was all about. St. Francis also knew he needed to find his own voice behind all of the background noise that was flooding his brain with the rules and regulations of what that time fed him. Before that guy could find solace in prayer, he first had to seclude himself to find that solace with his personal I Am. That meant tuning everything out. So, like St. Francis and like the hermit...the ego retreats to sort of regain something it feels is lost. But here's a huge revelation for you guys. That's not so much the ego but the soul looking for that Tylenol Cold and Flu to get some relief. However...this seclusion, like the hermit, is happening so much that people find it easier to hide away than to come out of their shell. The hiding away has changed. It's changed from re-grouping to running away. It's when the ego says, Damn, shit just got real...I'm out. See ya because that idea of spiritual enlightenment...of that I Am got tangled up in a whole lot of seriousness and fear.

Start coming out of your hermit caves because the premise that the hermit cave is a place of healing is long gone. It's a place of escape where "just being" is over thinking and not necessarily a place where your soul can get back to square one to start over with what they've learned from these so called "mistakes" that others label you experienced according to how they see, feel, or understand life to be. When you go into your cave of seclusion...there's nothing there to lift you up. There's only the hamster wheel of thought which is an avalanche just waiting to happen. But if people learned the art of honest and truthful self-expression...to share themselves with people that can help lift them up...we have a ripple effect instead of a snowball effect and with the ripples, learning from a vantage point of a willingness to share can bring like-minds together towards the same goal instead of butting heads in a challenge of who's right and who's wrong.

There's a very fine balance with the hermit...just like there's a fine balance with the cooperation between the ego and the soul. The hermit spent a long time alone to try to find connection when the real connection was actually knowing when to take a step back and feed yourself and when to connect with others that can support you regardless of what you think of yourself or assume about them. This, then, turns into an invitation to start that community...that soul family; something your out of control ego never wanted you to know or find out. Community lets strangers into ego's territory and when a person allows this to happen more and more; connection, sharing, laughing, playing, giggling, joking, banter...it has that added effect of domesticating and training that ego to also work for your better behalf...to also be a part of a community and to be used in the way it was always intended. To be used as that piece of personal power that was only yours to keep and grow sustainably and never to give away.

Laugh. Smile. Be brave. Be willing. Allow. Be inviting. Be honest. Talk. Share. Learn. Teach. There's a song out there by the Script called The Hall of Fame. Part of it goes...

Be students, be teachers.

Be politicians, be preachers.

Be believers, be leaders.

Be astronauts Be champions.

Be truth seekers.

And by doing this, you stand in your personal hall of fame. You can't go bangin' on God's door with a bruised ego thinking that you're so hard done by that you're a victim of everyone else around you because they just knocked you down a peg or two. You go bangin' on God's door knowing that They'll bring you up a notch because you're willing to find a sense of humor...lose some of that seriousness and keep a chuckle in your back pocket to continue to do what you set out to do. Every athlete that ever got somewhere didn't do it with a chip on their shoulder. They won because they were willing to learn from what didn't go exactly as planned. They didn't shrink back into their cave for long periods of time, closed off by their own shame and blame game. They licked their wounds but they also chose to come back to play again and ultimately, with that mindset and heart space...they became the champ. Everyone's a champ. Every single person is a champion. But it's a choice and it's an attitude adjustment. Now when you, the reader, decided to take a chance on this earth, you told yourself you were coming to play. Alright then, let's play and let the chips fall where they may because you were the one that tossed them out anyway so what do you have to lose? I'd say not much.

You have everything to gain.

Spinning - A Mental Hamster Wheel

Rupi Kaur wrote something so amazingly simple. She does that a lot but she wrote, to hate is an easy lazy thing but to love takes strength everyone has but not all are willing to practice. To hate is easy. To hate is sharing no responsibility to anything that you perceive is going on around you. It's easy to spin in hate. You can spin in hate and contempt and prejudice and bigotry and have nothing touch you. But if the name of the game is love and that meant that everything was meant to touch you; make you feel in some way...wouldn't spinning in hate be a major waste of time? And when I say hate...that can mean a lot of things. It can be as little as complaining about what you got or don't or, it can be as dangerous as wanting to destroy. Still, it keeps a person separated from anything that could comfort; that could build...that could bring a peaceful countenance to the every day. And where does hate reside? It's the spinning top; it's the fidget spinner in a kid's hand that keeps it from bouncing off the walls instead. It resides in the head; in that brain and you know what...that brain loves the spin. It's the hamster wheel at night when you just want to sleep but hear the rattle of the wheel in the cage. Do people always hate when that hamster wheel is spinning? No. Not always. But if the hamster wheel is spinning day and night, you got a lot of thoughts taking your attention away from what you really want and need in your life; getting you to sit and stew about everything that's wrong or what's so confusing or what you need to mull over before you take any sort of step in any sort of direction because you're waiting for some sort of permission from the hamster that's on the night shift in the stress and worry department.

So what kind of thoughts do you have up in that head of yours that refuse to come down? Are they of people you love and want to see all the time? Are they of the good day? Are they of the kid that just kissed you goodnight or the partner that sleeps contently in your arms while you watch them? Are they about the job you absolutely love and can't wait to do another day of? Or are these thoughts of what you're stressing about; what decisions you need to make but can't because you're worried of a fall out. Are these thoughts worries about money or if you're making people happy and if you're worrying about making people happy, that's a really big clue that you haven't given your own happiness a thought because those people that you're trying to make happy are happy...you just lack a little confidence to trust that you're actually loved and wanted around; that you're possibly a disappointment. The hamster wheel of thought keeps you guessing. It keeps you...like all that other ego stuff I've been talking about...it keeps you stuck.

A person doesn't have to think about how to make life right. A person doesn't have to think about what next steps to make to keep someone in their life. A person doesn't have to think about what they need to do just in case they might be ignored by someone the next day and make all these assumptions that someone's pissed off at them just because they didn't get a text or they don't click like they used to. If you're running thoughts about others...you're lacking attention to yourself...some much needed attention and if you have the strength and want to obsess over others in your life...you just proved that you have the strength and the will to worry and it's time to put some of that will and strength into practicing a little self-care. When you're runnin' thoughts...you're making a lot of assumptions that have the really big possibility of making an ass out of a lot of people you know for no other reason but your lack of self-confidence and self-love. Making asses out of people happens because people, again, make the choice to keep themselves separate...to hide away like the hermit and "be" with something their brain says they got going on. It's the hamster wheel brain kidnapping the mind because all ego wants to do is keep you spinning in rumor and not so much truth. "Being" with something is fine unless you're runnin' your brain. If you're sitting and trying to convince yourself of something...there's no feeling things out; there's no emotion there and "just being" is turning into hiding in a cave until something on the outside of your personal rock formation changes or makes a choice for you. Again...keeping you separate. These are walls being built. You are barricading yourself into a mental prison with no way out because you've lost the ability to see clearly with that spiritual intelligence. Rumi wrote, your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. The guy is completely right. When a person is secluded in their thoughts...are they thinking about how to deconstruct barriers or are they thinking of ways to keep them safe from all these other things that need their time and attention that they aren't willing to give? But instead of being honest about it, they answer with an I don't know and they turn and lock themselves away to "just be" but that just being is overthinking about the person or situation and refusing to take a hard look at what you are or are not contributing to start breaking down some barriers. Breaking down barriers would result in allowing yourself to be a little vulnerable to someone else's feelings and/or emotions or actually be vulnerable enough to start getting honest with yourself and others about what's working and what's to create some necessary changes; beginnings or endings.

Spinning and hamster wheels are sitting in untruth...what some people would call lying to yourself. It's sitting and trying to convince yourself of no responsibility while pinning that responsibility on something or someone that should or shouldn't according to your runnin' mind. Here's the thing. Truth comes from an intuitive reaction and this is why truth is personal and individual for so many. But if you're spinning in what you think other people need from you...that's not truth. That's trying to convince yourself of something that probably doesn't even exist. If you're spinning about it, you're usually seeing things that probably aren't even there. It's the personal conspiracy theories of so and so and who is who. Spinning is the ego creating illusions within illusions and like I said before...that's living without substance.

You hear it all the time. Be the observer but the observer isn't just watching around you and being on guard for that other shoe to drop. Being the observer is also being the observer of your thoughts...where they're starting from and where they're trying to get you. Being the observer is quiet reflection. It's not being the stalker obsessing over your own lacks or discomforts and certainly not anyone else's. No one likes a stalker. It creeps people out. It gets people looking over their shoulder way too often to actually concentrate on what's ahead. The stalker is always making people look back to see who's there; including you with you. If you're stalking your own life...runnin' that brain and triple checking every move you make, there's a lot of stuff that you could potentially be missing out on. That rearview mirror is for three things only. What's in the back seat, what's tailin' you and what you've left behind or missed. The stalker's in your backseat and it sits in hate and jealousy...not even envy. Envy's innocent. Jealousy...that stalker knows what it's doing and envy...that was stage one. Envy turns to jealousy because of that runnin' mind...because of the spinning. Stalking is holding onto a lot of stolen goods while resenting them. Stay the observer and let whatever it is, that you're spinning about...that you're choosing to keep that hamster exercised with...let it go. You're drivin' past it anyway. It's probably gone from sight. You just haven't wanted to see that yet.

There's this idea that people get big profound insights through the crown chakra and those ideas sit in the brain to get "thought through" and that's the hiccup. It can get trapped in there and that's where that whole concept of becoming the observer came from. I'm going to give you a completely different scenario, one that isn't really considered but if people can get their heads wrapped around what I'm about to say...that whole idea of thought is going to be taken with more of a grain of salt and the actual seed, that the Universe always intended as a profound insight can actually be planted and allowed to grow and spread.

Yes...thoughts or ideas come down from the crown. These are ideas that are really what the fuck in nature because there is no explanation...they are what's termed those a-ha's. But have you ever found yourself in a situation where those a-ha's lose their steam or their punch because they're taken by the brain and chewed on until you're scared to even make a move on some big potential that the Universe just handed to you because the Universe knew you could do it and that you were ready to make that much of an impact? It's really a simple thing to do, mentally chewing on something, and one that people aren't aware they're actually doing. Wolf ego likes to pounce for the kill and that's why a lot of these a-ha's are sort of just fucked up and turned into something so uncomfortable, so strange and daunting because they weren't given the chance to be planted. Ego mind just pounced but instead of allowing the ego to pounce, what if you just observed your thoughts; sort of looked from the outside in with curiosity or intrigue? So you have the idea...that really great profound thought that was delivered to you. You don't know where it came from. It just came from out of the blue but that's your first clue that it's a gift the Universe just handed to you. So if you know it's a gift...don't pounce. Be the observer because by being the observer you don't attach anything to that thought or that a-ha and you allow that thought to float. If it wasn't for you, like a cloud, you let it float away or, you allow that thought to float down and get planted. Here's what I mean. Thoughts come through the crown but they also need to be grounded to earth. That's a human's job. Let's take a look at sisters. One's called the observer and one's called the spinner. They're twins but they're pretty different. How different? Well, let's dive in and see how each one plants a seed.

Thought comes from the cosmos. If you're twin "A", the observer, you let it go down to the third eye. If you're twin "B", the spinner you attach to it and dissect it. Done. Over. That was quick. Let's go a little further. So let's say she gets past the attachment. It floats down to the third eye. The third eye feeds it her personal view...her personal insight. If she's spinning in ego, ego turns that insight into an illusion which gets added to the illusion she's living and like illusions, they *puff* disappear. It's the worst magic trick in the world because now...that cosmic thought that became insightful...now it's gone. So cosmic thought becomes insightful. If twin "A" stays the observer, it floats down to the throat where that insight becomes personal truth. It becomes real for her. Twin "B", spinner, her ego turns it into a make-believe-fantasy world...a lie that she could possibly live or not live. She hears phrases that lie to her to keep her down. You shouldn't. Too much work. Not good enough. Stupid idea. Wouldn't fly. People would laugh. That's the spinning throat and the throat is connected to the ears so spinner hears lies from ego and she speaks lies to herself. And with the lower that feather floats into the chakras, the more intense that spinner spins and the intensity really starts to get out of control at the throat. Twin "B"...man...there's still hope.

Now, for the observer, those insights turned into personal truths and those truths hit the heart. That heart gives it love. It gets excited. It gets twitterpated and it gets those first love feelings of anticipation of what could be. But look out spinner...because those lies she was hearing go down to the heart and spinner starts to mourn what she didn't make hers to begin with. She starts mourning what could have been due to the fact that she believed the lies ego told her and so she figures she missed the boat on something that could have been so profound that it could've changed her life. Again, she's the over-thinker...the spinner. See how this is working? Have you noticed something of yourself in here somewhere? Even the littlest bit? Maybe? Okay, let's keep going.

So the observer allows herself to get excited about this cosmic thought that has created insight and personal truth and she's stoked about it because she's fallen in love. Now insight, truth and love goes down to the solar plexus where she has that power to take action. The observer is taking that first step in the direction of what could be the rest of her life. But spinner, she's feeling ashamed that she even thought she "could" or that she took a chance on something to begin with because everyone's staring at her thinking that she's ridiculous or wrong and she shouldn't even have started in the first place. Spinner is choosing to hand over her power to the outside world that hates change and so the spinner is feeling shame that she wanted to create change in the first place. Because how could she? The observer...she's taken the bull by the horns. She is Miss. Positivity and so all the outcomes that have happened because of this one cosmic thought...they've given her such joy and happiness. She's experienced so much pleasure from actually doing something so great for her while being very conscious and considerate of sharing that with the world around her. The spinner...she feels guilty that she even had the audacity to try. She feels guilt for even wanting to be happy because no one around her is happy so why should she feel happy. She's not good enough to feel happy or joy with her life so anything more than what she's living...that's not fair to others in her circle or her family so because of the guilt...well...she can't. Observer, because she feels so great, plants that seed and she ends up living the dream. That's the root. That living the dream is the cosmic thought that has been grounded into her personal reality and now she's "living the dream". Spinner, well, she's fearing anything different than what she's living now. It's excuse after excuse about why she "can't". She fears coming out of any sort of closet. She fears being a shit disturber or living differently; living in truth so she'll just...spin.

Now the observer...she planted that seed and you know what the effect of that is? It's allowing that seed to come up and bloom from the inside. Remember that layers thing? That's spinning. That's dissecting when being the observer...that's growth and it all happens by taking that cosmic thought, grounding it to earth and allowing it to bloom from within to spread out and be an example of a miracle. THAT is being the observer. The rest of that stuff...that's just spinning in fantasy or nightmare but it's a choice. Plant it. Plant what the cosmos gift you because...it's for you and no one else. The only thing that destroys any sort of potential is that ego pounce. Detach and watch then step back and watch YOU unfold.

The mind was always meant to be open. People call empaths a sponge but the mind...it's the best kind of sponge because when it's opened up to anything, anything can be delivered from anywhere. It's just after the cosmos delivered you that personal package, did you just accept a box with a ticking time bomb or was it your Amazon order with that book you always wanted to read. Ego keeps the mind in a tight little enclosure called the brain. The brain is the monkey. The monkey and the wolf are best friends. I think I said this before or Kim has...have you ever watched a monkey? It can be sweet and cuddly one minute and the next it's rippin' into another one and it's a fight to the death. Little monkeys are prey to big monkeys and it's a dangerous game. Also, those monkeys can only stay in one place for so long until they get bored and need to start swinging from vine to vine. This is grasping at straws which some like to term the monkey brain. This is ignorance but the tool against any ignorance is education. Education opens the brain to connect to the mind that was always meant to be an open door to the Universe and Its intention for you. But you can't open the mind without learning and discerning first. Start educating yourself on all possibility instead of relying on what you think is "best" based on a learned behavior or old school thinking that is changing...even based on boredom or a bad attitude. Things are changing and whether you like it or not, thought patterns are changing too and either you get open to that now or you wait and play a game of catch up when you see others willing to educate themselves without waiting for you to decide if you want to join them or not.

Logic relies on education and not just beliefs because with education comes knowledge and with knowledge comes observation and with observation comes what the hell, let's take a chance and see what happens. Learned behavior or belief is based on something that was or should be and continue to be. Education is based on facts and choice. It's this whole buffet table where the choice is yours and every subject is there for your evolvement if you so choose. When you decide to use your logic with an enthusiasm to nourish and educate it, that enthusiasm is using that heart and that's a joy factor. So like I said before, when that logic and the heart come together to play...you just created your spiritual intelligence that, then, leads to something people like to call a spiritual awakening. But a spiritual awakening doesn't just happen one time. It happens in little ways and it happens in big ways. Even me, as an energy...as a ghost...I'm still evolving. I don't stay the same. It's impossible. Growth is inevitable from the smallest living thing (DNA) to the greatest thing like Source Creator, what some people like to term as God. Again, God said to you before you got here, learn and experience and bring all that back to me. I'm paraphrasing but you get it. God means to live, experience, take chances, take risks, dare to dream and dare to love and share that with everyone because everyone you come in contact with is a piece of God. Eventually, when you connect with your intelligence factor that way, you get this hunger to grow instead of starving yourself to remain the same. As a person grows into their intelligence, they naturally start to come out of hiding and begin to connect and ground instead of spinning and swinging from vine to vine. Nikola Tesla said, what we now want is closer contact and better understanding between individuals and communities all over the earth, and the elimination of egoism and pride which is always prone to plunge the world into primeval barbarism and strife...Peace can only come as a natural consequence of universal enlightenment. Translation: get educated and stay out of ignorance. Ignorance is unwilling to see a bigger picture and only going on what history has dictated for you for centuries. Thing is...history is in your rearview mirror unless you invited it into your backseat. It's the hitchhiker in the backseat that just won't shut up. History was documented so we could learn from another's legacy and it was documented so it didn't have to repeat itself. The history books are not the rule books. They are reviews; they are the synopsis book report of what happened usually with a little flare to brighten the mood. They are also not the movie trailer of times to come but the only way that movie trailer is going to change is with the willingness to educate and create that open space where more of that potential can seep in and more of that cosmic thought can float down and be grounded to eventually bloom into a new day. But the Universe can't hold your hand and do it for you. You have to have the curiosity to take the first step so we can take your hand and support you while you lead the way to your own destiny.

I'll end with a quote from someone who wrote anonymously and who will remain that way unless she tells me otherwise. It's a she, that's all I can say. But this is what she wrote after she learned a thing or two about spinning. She also knew a thing or two about destiny...angels usually do.

Please stop overthinking life like you have to have an answer to every feeling or situation. That's not how life works. We figure it all out by just living, by fucking up, by missing an opportunity, by seeking advice and not taking it. We learn what's important and what isn't. Sometimes we have no fucking idea what to do and it's scary but it's okay. Always trust your gut and know that everything will work out exactly the way it is supposed to be. It always does. Relax, we were never in control anyway.

Gotta love Anonymous.

Transcension – Ego's Freedom

What if I told you that ego, in anyone, just wants its freedom? What if I told you that an ego craves those fields of gold just as much as your heart does? Would you believe something like that or does that go against everything that you've been taught? But even freedom, something so big, is pretty terrifying to a caged animal that's just been set free. That cage that ego's been trapped in...it's all ego's ever known so it could, potentially, lash out at the opportunity of freedom and the only reason for that is because ego has convinced itself freedom doesn't exist and is a deceptive lie. When kept animals are let out into the wild and they react...it's not because they're vicious creatures that can't act any other way. That's the image it portrays because that's the outside...what they present to the world but at the heart of it, an animal is just scared because everything outside of the territory, it's always ever marked as its own, is way to huge and overstimulating to deal with. Have you ever seen a cow go out to pasture after it's been rescued from a five by six stall because no one wants to cut through a tough steak? Maybe think about that. The cow doesn't move until it's sure the dream is real. So what if I told you the ego won't move until they see the dream is real. This is what's known as transcension but the ego isn't left behind. Transcension isn't about kicking anything to the curb. It's rising above while really getting, whatever it is you're trying to transcend, that it's still a part of you. You're just going to be living with it in a completely different way; a better and more productive way. Both the heart and the mind know about that healthy balance and for once, with this whole transcending freedom thing, the heart leads the way and the ego comes up from the basement as one of these acquaintances that checks in every once in a while but is really meant to go graze on some greener grass.

Another way to look at things that might elicit some compassion for the ego that's a part of you is...think of cages at a zoo and then think of a sanctuary. Even if it's not complete freedom, what's the difference between a zoo and an animal sanctuary? The zoo is a lot smaller, there's not a lot of room to roam or sniff; it's pretty much a box. It's pretty much a lazy day of just laying around and growing lethargic and passive. The animals in a zoo can't really exercise that instinct or that drive. They just sit in a box with people staring in and poking their fingers at them; laughing or judging what they are or are not doing. Sound familiar? Sound like that's sometimes a part of your day or week? Ever feel like you're a walking zoo? Especially on social media? You ever feel when you log in and you read all those comments you hope are there...some hurtful...you ever feel like you're on display and have to act a certain part and be damned if you don't? Zoo. It's society's zoo cage. As an aside...social media...hot button issue for me. It's lost that good intention of being this tool to elevate this planet; a lot of the time ending up being a tool of destruction and competition of what's not even reality to begin with. Zoo.

Now a sanctuary. It's huge. It's acres and acres. It's still fenced in but it's so big that ego wolf doesn't care or, even better, it doesn't know about the fence. Ego wolf has room to stretch, hunt and socialize while still being able to lay around; everything that wolf was meant to do can be done in the confines of an animal sanctuary. Earth is a global sanctuary. Before shit hit the fan, in the times of Lemuria, Earth was created as a sanctuary...the walls being the atmosphere. Big reality check for you, right? Sort of unbelievable that Earth was this huge sanctuary and ego wasn't labeled as anything but instinct. Then Atlantis happened and ego got bigger and bitter. That's when shit hit the fan. That's when that sanctuary got smaller and smaller and smaller until it turned into social media chatrooms or Instagram where you better have a filter on your picture to be able to compete with the pretty faces. But...what if Lemuria came back? What if that sanctuary was coming back? What if it was that bridge between where I am and where you are? What if this zoo, that humanity put itself in, is actually getting wider and connection between people was getting stronger and in that connection...there was freedom there because with honest and pure connection, people can be who they are. They can be free to be whoever they are and be respected for that while offering their friend, neighbor or strangers on the street the same thing. It's coming. Earth is returning to that sanctuary; that place of safety and security and it's all about transcending the ego and liberating yourSelf while giving ego that freedom to be what it was always meant to; the gut, the instinct...the Spidey sense of the intuition. That's ego's freedom and that is liberating for the whole human being and not just one part of them.

In zoos there are attachment issues also known as Stockholm Syndrome. The ego animals develop this fucked up friendship relationship with their captors just to stay alive. There's also competition because that space is so small so you either get along with each other in any way you have to...which is about what wearing that mask is all about, or you become the enemy that's always at war just to get what you want to survive. Both based on the game of eat or be eaten. There's attachments to creature comforts (illusion) because one day, you might not get them anymore; whoever's controlling that zoo environment might be gone tomorrow so you hoard away or you take from others weaker than you. You are constantly relying on others, either by masks or battles, to sustain your existence but it comes at a price. You either have to become a robot or you have to shapeshift to blend in. And shapeshifters are everywhere. I'm looking at one right now that just read those words Kim just typed. Hey there. I see you.....

By definition, shapeshifting is the ability of a being or creature to transform its physical form or shape. You can see this happening with women a lot and here's an example. So a Kardashian makes a new lip kit. Can you even believe I knew that? How did I know that? Probably because I needed to make a point. Don't judge me. Let's continue. Ms. Kardashian wears it. She posts it on Instagram. Someone sees it; someone who's pretty impressionable, thinking that if she gets this lip kit she will suddenly be transformed into that Kardashian's Instagram photo. Bam! Shapeshifter. Harry's wife...Meghan Markle, beautiful woman. She gets a handbag, maybe wears a new coat. It's plastered all over the entertainment news as important stuff and handbag sells out in minutes, the coat sells in seconds. Women get these things and feel like high society. Shapeshifter. Buddy likes basketball and yes I'm totally stereotyping. Humans do it all the time. But buddy likes basketball. He goes to the games. He plays. He sees LeBron James wear these great shoes on a commercial. Buddy wants to play like LeBron James and LeBron...he's selling this shoe saying that if you want to be an athlete like him, buy the shoe. Buddy buys the shoe. Shapeshifter. Little dude goes to school. He wants to be a cool kid. His best friend is part of the "in crowd" so he wants to be as well. Little dude follows these kids everywhere. Friend says, I got these pills from my parents' bathroom. Let's try. Little dude tries. He fits in but now he's in critical care at the hospital. Shapeshifter with shitty consequences. Shapeshifting using ego...using what's outside of yourself to gain; shapeshifting because you fear being different and you need to be the same to get somewhere or have anyone look in your direction. It's exhausting. How exhausted are you? And FYI...that ego; that fear or that fight, it's tired too because it can't keep that up. It will never keep up. There is always something more than and trying to get, gain or achieve more than, just to keep up, is running in place; that treadmill of existence. It gets boring, hot and sweaty and no one can run forever. Something gives and something breaks and it's usually in the form of burn out and fall down; depression, withdrawal, hopelessness, anger, resentment...or worse. Now take those shapeshifting ideas and think about the world...is that sustainable? Was Atlantis sustainable?

People talk about the "death of ego"; ego's gotta die. But the name of the game has nothing to do with killing off your ego and has everything to do with transcending it. Transcendence; by definition is the existence or experience beyond the normal or physical level. When we talk about ego, it's on those "normal" or "physical" levels that humans have only ever learned or chose to experience based on a very narrow way of thinking and what's been taught to them. So all these adult egos are training other little kid egos on how to be when, in fact, there's more to consider than just the human textbook definition of what is considered the ego and what its rightful place is. Alex Grey said, artists are most themselves when they are out of their minds, transcending the ego skirmishes of conceptual thought, and intuitively relinquishing control to the greater creator. But that doesn't mean ego's being killed off. It means a deeper part of you, the part that is the seed that you planted from the cosmic thought that became the insight and vision, it means that you're allowing that to come up and out instead of being stomped and held back by anything that's surface level and when that happens, that's rising above with whatever's coming up and out and not giving that ego mind much of a chance to keep it hidden. People are all artists. There's this phrase that people keep hearing; that you are the creator of your existence here on earth and it's so true. You don't have to be a painter or an author or any of that stuff. Your choices and your game of chess moves in your day to day is creation. But it's a lot more fulfilling when you're willing to use that education and spiritual intelligence with a whole lotta respect, compassion and love for yourself and the world around you to create that day to day.

Here's the eventuality that I see and share, hoping to speed up the process by giving you some hints. Transcending ego is breaking it out of the zoo and watching it have a taste of freedom in the light instead of it being chained to the dark where it "belongs". What's dark? Dark is the absence of light. What's shadow? Shadow is a dark area stuck between your boundaries; your walls you built and your light that you shine regardless of who you believe yourself to be. So if ego is a part of you; not something separate and honoring that, you made the conscious decision and effort to shine more of your light on the shadow or the dark that is termed ego...would that support a place of freedom for both? Would that create more healthy relationships, more compassion and a sprinkle of understanding about the worth of you and the worth of others that are here to build up instead of tear down? It's just an honest question. An easy multiple choice where D) All of the above means you just aced an exam. To transcend you must be willing to experience and that is both the ego and the soul because it's 100% who you are. That is both the dark and the light and transcending the dark is allowing your light. The definition of dark is the absence of light but light always exists so is it really absent or is it just not familiar because of the place you sometimes find yourself in? I'm here to remind you that even in your darkest moments, there is still hope. Even in the hard no's there's still a directional shift that can bring a yes and even if things are feeling impossible one day, there's still a new day to come and that is the light. It's not absent. It's never absent because it's all contained in the human that is you and it continues. Nothing dies.

You don't have to wait until someone titles you a master to be light. You're already a master. It's recollecting the memory of that that's difficult when you're born to Earth to forget. Ego wants you to forget because ego doesn't want to remember the sanctuary of heaven because separation from heaven...from Spirit is intensely painful and what if ego was teased with a heaven and it got taken away or it was a complete lie? What then? So it tries to protect itself and take you along for that ride. I see a lot of people getting off that ride because they see a new day. They see past that horizon and they are willing to pull out their compass, see that it's pointing true north and follow that and that is what's defined as mastery.

When you begin to take the first steps to not only transcend your ego but to work with it as well...you will begin to live. It's okay to feel disappointment. It's okay to feel frustration. It's okay to feel tired. It's okay to feel sad. It's okay to cry. It's okay to see dark. It's okay to fall. It's okay to react. It's okay to feel less than okay. It is a part of you. It's a part of your makeup. Humans are built to feel. But it's also okay to feel good, to feel worth it, to feel confident, to feel sure, to feel supported, to feel loved, to feel respected, to feel powerful, to feel like a leader, to feel like an inventor, to be intuitive, to be inspired. That's good too and none of that is cocky. None of that is bullying. All of those things is living in that balanced state of yin and yang. No one said yin had to die. What's yang without yin but then...what's yin without a little yang because there is always light in the dark. Always. And when used appropriately, kept in that sanctuary and not in that zoo, you got the equilibrium of life. What's the masculine without the feminine and what's the feminine without the masculine? Plus, what's the masculine if it can't nurture a little and what's the feminine if it can't be strong? Everything has balance. Ego and soul are a balance. They are the tango of life. They are the cooperation of a whole and not only a part.

People are really scared of death and I get why. It's the unknown. Ego...petrified to die. Ego is constantly living on death row. But if death doesn't exist...why would ego be petrified to die? Why would people be scared to "die"; of some ending when life happens in cycles and it spirals into other cycles without beginnings or endings? Life continues looking different. Death does not exist. Life is light. Light is always there. That term "death"; it's a costume change. Energy never dies. Life is the conduit of energy and life allows energy to flow but life isn't contained only in a human being. It's contained in the soul and the soul cannot die. When a person "dies"...that ego goes with them and after a while, that ego gets absorbed into that higher self...into that piece of God that is you because God said bring all that you experienced back to me. And you know what God does with all those egos...they are transcended and transformed into Universal Love because love's all that exists in that...liberation exists and freedom exists. God doesn't point to you and say I will only accept part of you. God accepts ALL of you. Do you get it? Did I make some sense? Did it all just fall into place for you? After everything I have said in this book, just by reading that...can you see further into that horizon. No one has to fear a "death"...not even ego. Everyone is loved...even ego. Through deconstruction and construction, through change and stagnancy, through fears and through confidence...through strength and weakness. Everyone is loved. So if that's the case, when are you going to start living instead of always preparing for some sort of death or ending?

Toni Morrison said, freeing yourself was one thing, claiming ownership of that freed self was another. Claiming ownership of your freedom is yours alone. No one's gonna give you permission. No one's going to wait for you to be ready because everyone has their own agenda and their own freedom to claim. But the great thing is, when everyone claims their freedom...the world, as you know it, is liberated and that's where progress lives. Stake your claim on your I Am. Believe that ego is a part of you and it's something to work on your behalf and get enthusiastic enough to take that wolf on as a companion and not something that circles you only to hold you back. Take off the masks and dare to go au naturel. There are bigger meanings in life than what has been known or dictated and all that stuff that your soul wants to try...it lies just outside of where you choose to be. Go experience that. When a kid sits beside a window in class, they look out of that window and anticipate getting out there. Get out there. The bell just rang. It's recess in the school of life. Go play. You're dismissed.

By The Way...

I didn't write this book to give anyone shit about anything. I didn't write this book with any sort of intention to call anyone out on anything despite what my partner has told me which, I'm sure, she'll write about because I asked her to. I know the differences between me and you; spirit and human. But regardless of any of that, I just see and hear a lot of things that don't make much sense to me...maybe they never really did, even when I was there...on earth. I hear and feel a lot of excuses not to try or actually even achieve anything that your heart says is okay to and because of all that, I wrote a book. I wrote it because I choose to believe in the greater good. I choose to believe that people desire only the best for anyone. I choose to believe that even though people have moments that feel like all is lost...that wars still go on, presidents are out to lunch and relationships just make you want to run and hide...I choose to believe in the other side of that. Where people are found, where wars aren't even part of the equation, where presidents can be humanitarians and relationships are on equal footing and not on different levels; better than or less. I choose to believe in a heaven on earth and I choose to be a player in making that happen.

I choose to invite you to share that with me and I offered you some boots to do that and mentioned that you might want to tighten those laces. A hike through ego can have its pits and slips. A hike through this terrain can make you wonder why you even came along to begin with. But I promise you...those views are something else. When you get to the top and you can see past what you thought was holding you back...man...that's heaven. It's Instagram worthy and when we take a selfie together, smile, because you know you're not gonna need a filter for that one. That, I can guarantee.

Say cheese.

Afterward

Usually I'm in a position to introduce a book that I've channeled; not have the final word. What do you say after a topic like this? I really don't know so, with anything of this nature, I'll just start pen to paper and see where it goes.

Normally with Paul's writing, I tend to have a very hands off approach because it's his moment to say what he wants to say so when he asked me to write with him (*gasp*), I declined. Then he asked me to write something after-the-fact to wrap it all up and I chewed on it before agreeing because I didn't feel like I could contribute anything meaningful. I mean, here's Paul, a spirit who sees more than I ever could, asking me, a human girl, to contribute to something I didn't really know a lot about. Sure...we, as people, tend to throw this ego word around believing we know what it really means and I guess I knew what it meant. But, in saying that, I didn't realize how impactful or how deep and intricately ego could spread to any parts of these lives we choose to live and we "think" we have a clue but we victimize ourselves any way. From the subtle to the most impactful, ego tends to have its fingers (I guess I should say claws) in a lot of facets in our lives and we allow that to happen. We unknowingly have given ourselves over to ego with this misconception that it's using our personal power when...it's been an abuse of power; personal or otherwise.

After a book is written, if it's not fiction, my editing is strictly about spelling and flow. I don't want to put words in any Spirit's mouth. But then I got to reading, really reading what Paul was saying. I couldn't help it, and I have to be honest...I became Doug. Remember Doug? I was Doug and I was getting really pissed off because here I was, reading this book and feeling like I was being called out for behaviors and actions that Paul was watching or noticing...but I wasn't noticing until after I read his words. I was caught with my pants down, figuratively speaking. I also noticed, from what Paul wrote, some behaviors from people I personally know and am close to...from people that I watch on television or read about in news articles. I was mad because I had been made a fool of by my own ego and a lot of other people's as well. Now I'm up in arms and the only thing that he answered with was, "You just proved my point." So now I'm giving Paul the silent treatment. It never lasts long. I need my little temper tantrums here and there so I can start to see and hear life straight again. It's just my process. He knows it and he waits for the dust to settle so we can talk. The first thing out of Paul's mouth was, This is important. Read it without the brain.

As I started to read it with more of an open heart, I began to have this deeper and broader understanding about ego and what Paul was trying to say. I mean...we, as human beings, have so much within us that we use very little of or we use a lot of...depending on the day. Sometimes, what we use a little or a lot of...at the base of that is this survival mode where we feel like we are constantly on some sort of defense or we try to excuse our behaviors and/or another's behavior to make the world okay; choosing not to see what's really going on because of discomfort with confrontation or of taking center stage just to be noticed in our authenticity and truth. Especially in the spiritual aspect because if we're practicing love and acceptance that the spiritual says we're "supposed to", we automatically believe, to a certain extent, that we can be a doormat or a push over because any sort of negative feelings aren't allowed. We dishonor our shadows and our egos as something that's not "supposed to be"; trying to shove it away somewhere without understanding that shadows and egos can be used for a greater good when we know how to use these things appropriately; as learning tools in their own right. I'm guilty of it. I will 100% admit that right here. But through this whole book, I began to really grasp the whole concept of the Self, all sides of it...the light and the dark, and how to nourish and accept the Self first, as is, or that ego will have an easier time of rearing up and lashing out or running full tilt away from anything that it believes is a threat, bringing us along for that ride. I feel that, as a society, we give so much of ourselves to make others happy and content first so no feathers are ruffled or no outside feelings are hurt but where has it gotten us? It's gotten people to a point where they feel neglected, unloved, underappreciated, undervalued, misunderstood, unwanted, unheard...exhausted. We, as a society called humanity, are exhausted.

We expect great things from those around us because of promises that have gone unfulfilled. We've put our faith into empty promises and empty words which excuses people from dropping the ball in every direction around us and by being willing participants in this, we drop the ball as well. We use the excuse, they aren't so why should I. So when will we start to take the initiative to promise and keep those promises to ourselves first without relying on others to complete or fulfill something for us or in us to begin with? I feel that Paul just wanted to make those, who choose to read his words, recognize that we've been fooled by our own idea of egos for so long, that it's gotten somewhat out of hand and it all starts with us; you, me, him, her. He's totally right, we could be the most loving and giving and generous to others...quietly expecting that in return and when it's not, in the way we want it, we hold secret grudges and animosity without feeling like we can be honest because we were never honest with ourselves in the first place; honest about what we needed or what we were scared of or what we were even scared to admit to ourselves because our truth, over the years, has become very different from those we choose to be around. People fear being individuals in a collective because what we're taught is that joining the crowd, before becoming the person, is the safer and easier bet. It seems easier; there's no confrontation or boats being rocked. But then we look back on our lives, up until a certain point, and get upset and/or disheartened...maybe a little irritated by it all, and we question who we are or who we ever were to begin with. So what's better? Fitting in or feeling duped?

Are we ready to make friends to transcend or are we just going to continue the self-examination, personally and globally, that will usually end up as swift judgement calls on what we and everyone else lacks, can't get or achieve? Throughout this book I have realized that we continuously have a choice and we make it...every single day. I feel that maybe we could be a little more intelligent with those choices because with intelligence is an invitation towards unity. Even the yin and yang is presented in a unified form, containing the infinite while remaining individual. It's all a circle and never a cycle. Cycles, not circles, were meant to be revamped or...if circumstances nudge...broken. Circles are the symbol of the One Source and that is All That Is...what we are but rarely give ourselves credit for.

We are everything and anything contained in the flesh and bones of a beautiful human shell but the shell was never supposed to be so hard and thick. It's just been peed on, here and there, by a wild animal that doesn't know any better. However, it's all easily cleaned up and when we soften those boundaries, we are able to live in a way we were always meant to...as a unified source; the One Source...a piece of Heaven on Earth. The I Am.

Love 'n Hugs,

Kimberly

