This isn’t to suggest that she doesn’t have her moments, or even days, of stress. She most certainly does. But, behind these waves of anxiety lies a deeper pool of confidence that’s centered in her Spirit. Her trust in Divine Source reassures her as she lives day to day. The end result is that even in the face of financial uncertainty, she’s able to enjoy her life—and does. And, miraculously, she’s managing to stay financially afloat.
I have a client named Alan who, paradoxically, is in a sound financial situation yet is obsessed with worry about losing it all. As a highly disciplined self-employed man, he has managed to pay off his mortgage and car loan and save a hefty amount for retirement. Yet because he resonates with ego mind over self-love and his Divine Spirit, he’s consumed with fear and anxiety about his security all the time, which makes him agitated and short with friends and loved ones. It caused him to lash out at his two employees, one of whom had had enough abuse from him and recently quit.
Because judgment and self-loathing have infected his consciousness, he believes that the entire financial world is on the verge of collapse. He rehearses disaster after disaster in his imagination and doesn’t allow himself any reprieve. His ego affords him no time off, no vacation, and no rest for fear that if he allows himself these things, his security will be sacrificed. He’s so buried in his “stuff” that he has completely lost sight of all objectivity.
Without self-love or connection to his Spirit to guide him, he’s absolutely miserable. He can’t feel peace in his own accomplishments. Furthermore, his negative energy infects those around him with the same unhealthy frequency, setting off a chain reaction of misery. It’s not a pretty sight.
Alan isn’t unique. The majority of people I work with suffer similarly. Not knowing that their challenges are simply cultivating a self-loving Spirit, people wallow and struggle in victim hood. The way out is simple: Just own your stuff. In other words, acknowledge your challenges and understand that they’re not personal assaults on your worth (even though they do feel like it at times), but rather lessons your soul simply wants to learn, and can.
For example, I want to learn how to create intimacy without getting swallowed up by my partner. Debra wants to learn to use her wealth of talents to manifest material wealth. Alan wants to learn self-worth. So far, he’s not learning very quickly, but eventually he will—as soon as he stops relying on his self-loathing, fearful ego to guide him. It’s only when he starts loving and following his Spirit that he’ll find peace.
In what areas do you feel victimized? Wherein lies your frustration? Pain? Challenge? Irritation? Annoyance? Struggle? Loss? Where those are, so are your soul lessons.
Next, ask yourself if your ego is taking a beating or if it’s beating up your Spirit over these lessons by being judgmental, impatient, critical, wounded, angry, embarrassed, indignant, fearful, or disgusted. If the latter is so, you’ve fallen out of integrity and alignment with your Spirit and have disconnected from self-love.
Negative energies only further deepen or complicate your problems and prevent you from learning. Step back and view any problem as a soul lesson—not personal penance or punishment—just a class, like any other. The only way to successfully “pass” it is with detached self-love and connection to your Spirit.
If we look at our stuff from the perspective of the ego, we take it quite personally. We get overwhelmed, demoralized, weakened, and fearful. If we choose to view our challenges and lessons from self-love and Spirit, we see them as the game and sport they’re intended to be. This doesn’t mean we won’t feel pain—pain goes with the human experience. Rather, it just reminds us that our Spirit is greater than any hurt the ego or body will ever feel.
The only way to meet life’s problems head-on and overcome them successfully with peace in your heart is to approach them in Spirit. Filled with self-love, you’ll discover that the sweet love your Creator has for you will ease your way, remove obstacles more quickly, and help you navigate everything on the human plane with grace. The greater the problem, the more critical it is to love yourself. Problems aren’t your fault. They just are. And solutions can always be found through love.
Simple Practice: Keep Moving
Your Spirit is an active, powerful energy—it’s a dancing flame, a rushing wind, a crashing wave of holiness. Your ego has no life force—it’s a robotic machine churning over and over the same fearful, controlling, negative patterns and messages. They each have distinctly different vibrations: One is alive and engages with life; the other is empty and drains it.
When you’re aligned and resonating with your gorgeous Spirit, every cell in your body is energized. When you resonate with your ego, your body often comes to a paralyzed standstill. It becomes locked in negative patterns much the way a computer with a virus gets frozen and seizes up.
One of the best ways to prevent yourself from getting “seized up” by the ego and its debilitating frequency is to consciously align with life and use the life force of your Spirit to move. When you do so, you engage your Spirit. Have you ever heard the expression “The Spirit moved me”? When your Spirit is embodied, it does move you, and in a way that’s far more profound and graceful than the movement that comes from struggling with the ego.
I was just watching the popular television show America’s Next Top Model. On the program, 12 gorgeous girls all compete for the honor of being named America’s next top model by going through a series of challenges to capture a great photo. The show I happened upon was one where the models had to dance while being photographed.
Here’s where it got interesting: Although they all moved to the music, only some of them were moved by it and truly danced. By that I mean it was visually obvious which girls were going through loveless, spiritless, fearful, controlled motions and which ones were surrendering to their inner rhythm. It was difficult to watch the models who were controlled by their fearful egos; at the same time, it was thrilling to watch those who fully surrendered their Spirit to the dance.
On strictly a skill level, all their movements were equal. They were all flopping and bopping in much the same way. It was the energy and essence of their movements, rather, that made the difference. The ones who let go were beautiful and inspiring to behold; the ones who didn’t were awkward and painful to watch.
At first I wondered if I was being overly discerning, as I’m so tuned in to Spirit. Apparently not. The judges had exactly the same reaction I did. The girls who let their Spirit go were advanced to the next level. The ones who didn’t were eliminated.
All right, I can hear the objection: Not every person is a dancer, right? Except the truth is, everybody is one at heart. The human Spirit expresses itself best in dance. Only the ego blocks the dance of Spirit, something that’s painful to see and even more so to live.
In fact, one of the best, most direct, immediately self-affirming Spirit-loving activities you can ever engage in is dance. And by that I mean move with commitment to the rhythm. Turn on some great music that speaks to your Spirit and go for it—you’ll see what I mean. Like laughing, dancing catches you by surprise and pulls you in if you do it long enough.
Even if you initially don’t have the urge to dance, give it a few minutes and see what happens. Often the ego surrenders after five to ten minutes, and your Spirit can then step in. Your ego will still try to get you to stop, but it only has so much energy for resistance and then it usually gives up. Once it stops resisting, you soar to a higher vibration. Dancing completely expresses your Spirit and invigorates your vibration with pure joy.
Recently I was teaching this lesson in the U.K. when an indignant woman raised her hand with an objection. “What if you’re handicapped?” she asked, with “gotcha” gusto. To this I shared the story of Jennifer, my client who walks with crutches—and with great difficulty at that. Not to be deprived of her dance, she has put long colorful ribbons on her crutches and lets them sway to the music with her as a way to dance.
Another client, Mary, who was born
without legs and only partial arms, bounces up and down and sways side to side in her wheelchair. She cites dancing as one of her most physically and soulfully liberating outlets. She loves it, and it’s obvious.
So to such objections I answer that dancing is an attitude more than an aptitude. It allows your Spirit to step forward and take over. If you want to dance, you can.
Years ago I attended a lecture here in Chicago given by a well-known anthropologist named Jean Houston, who sang the praises of dancing as being essential for the Spirit. She shared a story I’ll never forget. She said that there was a little-known tribe in Africa who had virtually no history of conflict. When the group was studied to see how they resolved difficulties, it was discovered that whenever there was an argument or issue among members, the entire tribe went to the center of the village and danced until everybody was over the problem. What a marvelous idea!
Can you imagine if world leaders were asked to dance with each other until they surrendered to the movement, and only then could they negotiate? I’m certain we’d have very different results on a global level.
Dance isn’t the only way to live your Spirit through movement, however. Something as simple as taking a brisk walk for as little as 15 minutes is also an effective antidote for an attack of ego in order to get back to your Spirit. It’s a fail-safe, self-loving method for leaving the energy of ego mind behind and moving to the peace and tranquility of Divine mind.
For the energetic, taking the walk up to a run works wonders as well. The minute you run, your ego has to give up control because it’s your Spirit that advances you. All runners I know call it a spiritual experience. I call running (and walking and dancing) a “Spirited” experience.
Whether it’s walking, swimming, running, dancing, skiing, biking, Rollerblading, skipping, or any other method of movement that calls you, my point is to love yourself and live your Spirit through physical activity every day. Committed movement calms the ego, clears the brain fog, quiets the chatter, and leads you to the frequency and vibration of Divine mind. It’s hard for the ego to rant, rave, and ruminate while your blood is pumping and your heart rate is up. The body serves the Spirit, not the ego. When you move, you engage your physical self as your ally.
I once read that if a person who was abused or victimized gets caught up in a flashback, the first thing they must do is stand up and start moving quickly. They can pace back and forth, jump up and down—anything. This unfreezes the negative loop of past memories and brings the person back to the present time and a higher vibration. Since we’ve all been abused or victimized at some point (or at least our egos believe that we have), this is a powerful tool of self-love and Spirit expression that we can all use.
Part of the reason why I believe people have gotten so far away from movement and from being comfortable in their bodies is because our education system calls such activity “extracurricular,” something not essential to our learning process. Children are still deprived of movement and recess if they misbehave. Instead of being allowed to go outside and shake things out a bit and call their Spirit home, they’re put in corners, forced to sit and stew in bad vibes. It’s so utterly wrong.
We got—and still get—the message that movement is an unnecessary indulgence rather than a basic tool of self-love and of living our Spirit. It’s time to cast that oppressive message off. Movement in whatever form calls us should be part of our spiritual practice. It’s essential to keeping our Spirit embodied and present.
You don’t have to sweat to get the self-loving benefit of moving. It’s optional, even recommended, but to some a good game of golf or a stroll through the arboretum is as soul satisfying as jumping on a trampoline. In fact, the best way to confirm that a movement is engaging your Spirit is to notice your vibration before, during, and after your activity. If you feel grounded, peaceful, and calm in your heart and “in” present time, your movement has served you well.
Movement is certainly one of the first tools to reach for when your ego mind is manipulating you into self-doubt. The more quickly you move, the more quickly you ditch the ego and free yourself to get back home.
In addition to simply moving, you can take the power of this tool to self-love even higher by going out of doors when you move. Outside is Earth, your Divine mother who delights in you. She gives you beautiful gifts that you can only notice if you do go outside, such as trees, flowers, sky, birds, squirrels, beaches, mountains, and valleys.
Just this summer my ego mind had seized up on me and was causing a hearty round of rather disruptive anxiety about how I would ever find the time to write with my travel schedule laid out as it was. Fed up with the distraction, I marched outside and over to Lincoln Park, near my home. As I walked, I became mesmerized with all I saw: barbecues hosted by people of every nationality in the world, volleyball games, drumming circles, and soccer matches, all against the backdrop of a crystal blue sky and an azure Lake Michigan. The city was at its best and nature was, too.
Continuing my stroll, I happened upon a bird sanctuary that I knew was there but somehow had never visited. It was teeming with gorgeous birds of all sizes and colors, and butterflies as well. I was absolutely captivated by the beauty. I only walked for an hour all told yet felt as if I had traveled around the world. The best part of my walk outdoors was how, shortly into it, I completely forgot my worries. Even my ego was enthralled with the marvel of the outdoors. It gave me perspective and I stopped worrying, and that was that.
Going outside and moving with nature are wonderful ways to love yourself and live your Spirit. Nature feeds your Spirit. Venture outdoors and notice the scenery right now and observe how you feel afterward. Are you in ego mind or Divine mind? See what I mean?
Taking the idea of movement to another level, a simple way to love yourself and live your Spirit is to change the scenery. Doing so is like switching the channel from ego mind to Divine mind. When you intentionally change the scenery to get a break from the disruptions and upset of ego mind, you affirm your right as Divine Spirit to live in peace. It’s a proactive way to choose peace.
I’ve experienced the power of changing the scenery firsthand many times over. Years ago my husband, Patrick, and I—at the time the parents of two young children and in the midst of renovating an old Victorian home—often found ourselves overextended and overwhelmed. As a result, we started snapping at, nagging, and fighting with each other out of fear, because we both felt so out of control of our situation, and it made our egos miserable.
Every time it got particularly tense at home, we hopped into our car and took a drive into Wisconsin, about 100 miles north of Chicago. For the first 50 miles or so we wouldn’t even speak to one another. During the final 50, however, we’d begin to chat about the scenery. Then we’d turn around and head back, agreeing to talk about anything but our problems. We made a policy not to discuss our conflicts and only to enjoy the drive. By the time we returned, our troubles felt less serious and we could look at them more objectively. Changing the scenery gave us perspective and helped distract us from our fear. Those drives got us through the most difficult years of our married life together.
Changing the scenery is actually an age-old wisdom. It’s called “vacation.” A vacation gives the ego and all of its concerns a rest and feeds the Spirit with adventure, nature, relaxation, recreation, different foods, new people, and most of all, a huge dose of being in the present.
When you enter the unfamiliar or out of the ordinary, your ego doesn’t have the luxury of droning on and on about past and future concerns and fears. It has to pay attention to the now. The ego mind lives in the past and future. The Spirit, however, resides only in the present. So when you’re required to pay attention, you’re in the now. When your Spirit takes over, your vibration elevates, and the peace and quiet of Divine mind kicks in.
STEP 9
Engage Music
Simple Lesson: Engage Music
This step gives you direct access to your heavenly resources and i
mmediately lightens your heart through music. It shows you how to consciously engage music as an antidote to the negativity of the world and use it to keep your Spirit strong and resilient no matter what occurs around you. The practice that follows aims to have you choose celebration and joy as a daily experience rather than hoping it happens to you. You’ll start to experience life as a gift and waste no time in enjoying it fully.
Music is vibratory fuel. The Spirit is a vibratory body; and music steadies, reinforces, and grounds it in our denser physical vehicles and keeps it happy.
When we hear music that resonates with our Spirit, we immediately shift away from fear and reconnect with our timeless Divine nature. Music moves the body and connects us to the flow. When we hear it, we momentarily take a break from thinking and simply feel. It clears negativity, brings us into the present, and opens our heart.
When connecting to music that speaks to our heart, we relax into the vibratory frequency of trust. Music rejuvenates us on a cellular level. To connect with the particular variety that moves our soul is one of the easiest self-loving choices we can make. Music is the language of Spirit, and it brings release from all that bogs our lives down.
Listen to beautiful music every day—it will strengthen your inner light. The key is to do so without interruption. Tuning in to the radio, with fast-talking DJs and commercials, doesn’t create nearly the same level of inner brilliance as does listening to music without breaks.
Be certain to listen at a volume that moves your Spirit but doesn’t assault your body. It’s self-defeating, for example, to play “Stairway to Heaven” while destroying your eardrums. That’s not self-loving. You want your ears to enjoy what you’re listening to and not feel bombarded by it.
I have a friend named Elizabeth who found clarity and solace in music after experiencing an extremely tumultuous year. Her husband all but abandoned her by relocating his business to another city without discussing it with her first. To add insult to injury, she discovered by accident that to finance his new venture, he’d mortgaged their house for over a million dollars and started a partnership with a man who was in federal prison.
The Answer Is Simple- Love Yourself, Live Your Spirit! Page 13