growth | Ascension Lifestyle

06 Mar 2017
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Imagine Nation

“If I could tell the world one thing

It would be that we’re all OK

And not to worry ’cause worry is wasteful

And useless in times like these

I won’t be made useless

I won’t be idle with despair…”

~ Jewel, Hands

Here in The Great Turning, the predominant emotion is often fear — the same energy as excitement. What we feel is a matter of interpretation.

It’s a time of incredible expansion, according to every cosmic weather report I’ve seen: an opportunity to compost our “harrumphitude” concerning Trumpelstiltskin (thanks to “mythic news” weaver of context Caroline Casey for these deLightfully winnovative words). If you have skin in the game vis-à-vis Trumpelstiltskin, this is the ripe moment to play your Trump card.

A Subtle Shift Makes the Diff

The key is our collective readiness and willingness to segue from living in Alien Nation to co-creating a global heart community, Imagine Nation. The shifts are subtle yet substantial: from thinking we’re alone to realizing we’re all one.

In Alien Nation, self-flagellation is popular. “I’m the only one I know who can blackball myself in my own community,” a woman despaired recently, explaining how, in angrily speaking her mind about an issue vital to her, she piqued the one person who might have proven most helpful, had she spoken with Spirit Tongue. I empathized, as I’ve often carried my own whips, too. Practicing self-love is the hardest task most of us will ever master.

Yet it’s so apparent that everything is vibration: while food shopping in a happy frame of mind at my local organic grocery, trading quips from old Monty Python routines with the customer in front of me at check-out, I was bowled over when the young cashier offered, “Would you like me to burn you a CD of their skits?”

True Happy Hour

A New Yorker cartoon shows a man standing in front of a sandwich board outside a bar. The board reads:

Happy Hour: 6-7 p.m.

Are you truly happy? Hour 7-8 p.m.

Have you ever been happy? Hour 8-9 p.m.

Wish you were home with your cat. Hour 9-10 p.m.

Would we need “Happy Hour” if we genuinely understood how to be happy?

When 9-1-1 happened in New York City, I penned, This IS A Test. A still-relevant excerpt:

“This event is a volcanic eruption, and in hindsight, the rumblings many of us have been experiencing the past few weeks presaged it. Several players on the path have been sharing stories of total strangers (as well as of acquaintances and friends) suddenly, savagely and inexplicably dumping truckloads of mental trash on them. Everyone has been feeling ‘the quickening’ of these end times, but, since we’re at different stages in our growth, those who have no context for what they’re experiencing also don’t know what to do with these volatile energies. The anger’s been leaking out, and finally, here’s the explosion.

“It is, in a very real sense, a planetary birth process. Something old has to die in order for the new to emerge. We are all learning how to transform the war within ourselves into spiritual warriorhood.”

Radical Evolution Redux

We don’t need tosh everything we disagree with; we can compost hubris into humus (another subtle shift). Rather than radical surgery, we can perform a Trumpectomy using radical evolution.

We’re all members of the surgical team now; all cells in the body of Gaia, our Mother. Malignant cells have lost the ability to cooperate with other cells for the greater good of the whole. Yet cancer does not arise in an instant; it grows over time. If we plunge ahead intent only on annihilating the cancer, we also destroy healthy cells, and possibly the entire body of humanity and all other species. By excising what no longer serves the collective, we can return to high health.

As the old evanesces and the new ripples into being, we build the Imagine Nation of the One Heart, where we are each re-spected (seen again), re-sponsible (able to respond), re-cognized (known again) and re-warded (honored) for our gifts.

After all, Earth is simply “heart” with “h” at the end: the ∞th letter of the alphabet, infinity, the secret of happy, the beginning of home.

About the Author:

Amara Rose is a metaphysical “midwife” for our global rebirth. She offers spiritual mentoring, e-courses, a CD/mp3 of the journey to awakening, and an inspirational monthly newsletter.

Learn more at LiveYourLight.com. Connect with Amara on Twitter and Facebook.

02 Feb 2017
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Pax Gaia: Putting All the Peaces Together

“Only now can we see with clarity that we live not so much in a cosmos (a place) as in a cosmogenesis (a process) — scientific in its data, mythic in its form.”

~ Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry, The Universe Story

Environmentalist James Lovelock proposed that the Earth is not only alive, but innately intelligent, regulating the conditions that allow life to exist. Now we’re learning how to co-exist — not only with our global siblings, but with our Mother. Our ancestors grasped this connection organically: they knew they were kin to Gaia, because they had a direct daily experience of how the land produced their food and materials for shelter.

Divorced from our origins, we’ve fallen into the sleep of self-forgetting. Lynton Caldwell, who helped write the U.S. Environmental Protection Act, said, “The environmental crisis is an outward manifestation of a crisis of mind and spirit.” Wrapped in our smart phones and iPods, living at 110 decibels, we’re anesthetized against an undefined yearning, what Teilhard de Chardin called “almost a sensual longing for communion with others who have a large vision.” Having lost touch with the wilderness within, we savage the Earth and each other in an effort to combat our loneliness.

Living intention, rather than in tension

Yet despite pacific cultures, past and present, peace is not intrinsic to the human experience. Cultural historian Thomas Berry writes, in The Dream of Earth: “The universe, earth, life and consciousness are all violent processes… The elements are born in supernovas. The sun is lit by gravitational pressures. The air we breathe and the water we drink come from the volcanic eruptions of gases within the earth. The mountains are formed by the clash of the great continental and oceanic segments of the earth’s crust.”

So if life itself is born from struggle, how can we hope to be peace? By embracing the hermetic dictum, “As above, so below”: knowing ourselves as the universe, and beholding the cosmos in each individual. Blake put it more poetically: “To see a world in a grain of sand/And a heaven in a wild flower/Hold infinity in the palm of your hand/And eternity in an hour.”

Human and planetary survival now depend on a resourceful resolution of our antipathies. In other words, neither violence nor peace is the answer, but rather, the highest state of creative tension that we can hold as a species.

To create Pax Gaia, the Peace of Earth, we need to truly view Earth as a global village — biologically, geologically, theologically. Berry says, “The Peace of Earth is indivisible. In this context the nations have a referent outside themselves for resolving their difficulties.”

Now we’re getting juicy. Evolutionary emissary Jean Houston speaks of her tendency to “mythologize rather than pathologize… What often appears to be chaos is really cosmos in its most literal sense — world making and remaking.” How might we adapt this philosophy on a planetary scale, so that instead of seeing problems needing solutions, we seek the grander story, the connective tissue that unites the issue?

Tom Atlee, author of The Tao of Democracy, tells a fascinating tale of being part of a mobile community that reached consensus without making a decision. Somehow, the group “knew” how it was going to function on the Great Peace March of 1986. Much later, Atlee learned that this is standard operating procedure among the Iroquois: in the tribal council tradition, participants simply talk until there is nothing left but “the obvious truth.” It’s a bit like boiling sugar down to syrup, or an oyster spinning a pearl from the irritating grain of sand in its shell.

Thinking like a flower, not a tailpipe

How do we midwife the obvious truth? Atlee admits the Great March breakthrough came only after all the feelings, stories, and information had cooked awhile in group consciousness. “[It’s like] the necessary cultivation of the earth in preparation for planting, like making compost… ‘setting the conditions’ needed to help the natural truth emerge, that takes into account all the different pieces of the puzzle. The struggly, juicy work early on provides the nutrient base for the ultimate discovery of that big truth” — which is then birthed in “an ad hocracy rather than a bureaucracy,” to borrow Houston’s evocative phrase.

The more we can perceive ourselves as cells in the body of Gaia, ever-evolving, willing to leap creatively across chasms of confusion and miscommunication to form elegant, improbable connections, the greater the possibility we seed for creating the Peace of Earth, rather than the pieces of Earth over which various factions routinely fight. As the cosmic comic Swami Beyondananda says, “If we put all the little pieces together, pretty soon we’ll have one big Peace.” One planet, indivisible. It’s a thrilling concept, and a refreshing response to the disruption and divisiveness playing out in the wake of the 2016 election.

As one strand in the system grows healthier, the others must follow, since we are all interdependent. Kirstin Miller, executive director of Ecocity Builders, suggests we “start thinking like a flower, not like a tailpipe.” Devise ways to pollinate instead of pollute.

We might also invoke the essence of the creative commons license, which allows people to share their work as long as proper credit is given, and no third party profits. Our air, water, and land resources are all ripe for “creative commons” protection and usage.

And this kind of cultivation, at once mythic and mundane, will accelerate our global guardianship into warp drive.

About the Author:

Amara Rose is a metaphysical “midwife” for our global rebirth. She offers spiritual mentoring, e-courses, a CD/mp3 of the journey to awakening, and an inspirational monthly newsletter.

Learn more at LiveYourLight.com. Connect with Amara on Twitter and Facebook.

06 Jan 2017
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Inner Space, the Final Frontier

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family.

Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.”

~ Jane Howard

In the 3^rd millennium, we’re designing ways to travel that weave us more deeply into life’s web. People are opening their hearts and homes to intrepid travelers from around the world. Airbnb is in nearly 200 countries and expanding by the micro-minute. FriendsinRoute.com caters to travelers over forty, with the same basic concept: stay in a homey environment instead of a sterile hotel, and learn about your destination from the inside out.

This Earth Trek might be the ultimate social network. Because we’re searching for something beyond simple travel comfort.

We’re all driven by a fundamental need to be heard, acknowledged and loved. One of the greatest challenges is remaining present, open and loving when the other party — often a family member — can rapidly reduce us to a needy, sensitive child. When another’s reality clashes with ours, we must find a way to bridge the chasm. And sometimes the people who share our DNA are harder to reach than strangers.

Photo By Alessio Lin

Awakening guide Gillian Macbeth-Louthan writes, “You are asked to become the healer, you are asked to become the scholar. You are asked to become all that you shirk. You are asked to redesign yourself in a collage of life imitating art. You are asked to step up to the plate and sup upon what is needed to be done, let it fuel your life force. Instead of allowing life and her daily deeds to suck all of your energy, allow it to give you increased energy from all circumstances that surround you. Stop whining about what has befallen you and see it as a heavenly helping hand, a piece of the soul puzzle you seek to fit the picture in your heart.”

That’s the ultimate cosmic kick in the root chakra!

Getting here calls for a subtle shift in perception and behavior: from require to inquire, from escalate to elevate, from accumulate to appreciate. As we cease consuming planetary resources and each other at the speed of greed, let go of buying more in favor of being more, we reclaim our true heritage as Earth stewards, heart stewards (Earth and heart are the same word; only the “h”, for Home, relocates). Then barrenness transmutes into bounty. Separation into synergy. Fear into faith. Longing into Love.

During this season of transmutation, as we reach out to build connections with our brothers and sisters in diverse communities
and circumstances, let’s remember to fill our own wells first, so we have enough overflow to pour ourselves into another’s outstretched cup.

We become self-renewing by gathering knowledge from our experience, forging it into wisdom in the alchemical fire, and serving as vessels to share the gift. Conscious evolution favors the curious and kind mind. Truth nourishes us in ways we might never have imagined. Synchronicity takes us by the hand and we laugh in child-like wonder as we witness Spirit-in-action, again and again and again.

This is how we “win” the space race: by boldly going where no one has gone before, deep into one another’s hearts. May you journey well.

About the Author:

Amara Rose is a metaphysical “midwife” for our global rebirth. She offers spiritual mentoring, e-courses, a CD/mp3 of the journey to awakening, and an inspirational monthly newsletter.

Learn more at LiveYourLight.com. Connect with Amara on Twitter and Facebook.

03 Dec 2016
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Homecoming

Home. Except for love, perhaps no word in the English language conjures more evocative imagery. We crave the cozy, nurturing, roaring-fire scene depicted so effectively on film. Home houses our identity. It’s less about the four walls than what they represent: “the abode of one’s affections, peace or rest,” according to Merriam-Webster. At some point in our lives, many women (and men, too, if they will admit it) harbor a fearful fantasy of becoming a “bag lady/guy,” carting our belongings out on the street. We see the homeless and quake — “there but for the grace of God go I.”

What we’re seeking is a sense of security inside ourselves, a home within that can never be taken away. As national boundaries dissolve and corporations invite poets and spiritual mentors into their boardrooms, the hunger for this broader definition of home has never been greater.

From Me to We

Creating this inner sanctuary will entail a quantum shift for many of us: out of the competitive, “What’s in it for me” worldview into a more collaborative, compassionate perspective in which the operative question becomes, “How may I serve?”

For instance: as record numbers of us skate towards elderhood, home care has become a hot topic. What does this mean? On one level, “home care” is about providing caregiving in the home to enable our elders and homebound to remain in their comfort zones. But the larger view begs our attention. Before we can care for our home, we need to know it viscerally. We must embody the place of wholeness that wants to be born in us.

Our own bodies and the planetary body are inextricably linked. Anthropologist Gregory Bateson speaks of “the pattern that connects,” the common ground of our unity. We exist in relationship to everyone and everything else on Earth. What kind of home care is our aging Mother receiving? Maybe that’s the real key to conscious aging: caring for the personal and the planetary with equal reverence.

Living in Tune with Nature

In other societies, the old ones are the keepers of wisdom. So-called developing cultures that honor their tribal elders also honor the land in which they live. “Home care” is a unified practice for them, as indigenous as the planting and the reaping, as natural as celebrating life’s quotidian rhythms with ritual.

In this visionary view, we’re all caregivers — Earth stewards, some say. Home care for our elders is rooted in how we create home in our daily lives. What kind of home do we want to cultivate and care for, inside ourselves, interpersonally, and as part of the collective “home body” we inhabit?

Try this: for the next week, take a time-out from worrying about the economy, your teenager’s pierced body parts and the latest virus scare to live into the larger questions about the quality of life you’re choosing in every moment, by the way you live, by what you do and don’t honor. Does your definition of home serve you? Is it inclusive or exclusive? Will your practice of home care help create a sustainable future for us all?

Within a decade, for the first time in human history, the number of people in the world aged 65 and older will exceed that of children under five. If you’re not already among this exhalted majority, one day you will look in the mirror and see your grandmother’s or grandfather’s eyes. Will they reflect the wisdom of generativity, of the home that you carry with you always, as a turtle does, caring for it because it is an intrinsic part of you?

Native Americans call this planet Turtle Island. I imagine this is what they mean.

About the Author:

Amara Rose is a metaphysical “midwife” for our global rebirth. She offers spiritual mentoring, e-courses, a CD/mp3 of the journey to awakening, and an inspirational monthly newsletter.

Learn more at LiveYourLight.com. You can also connect with Amara on Twitter and Facebook.

01 Nov 2016
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Living In the Zone

Twice a year, approximately 70 countries worldwide create a collective illusion: saving time. We move the hands of our clocks, and think we’ve harnessed the sun.

Cultures that live in tune with natural rhythms do not alter their clocks, because clocks do not define their time. The seasons and the stars do.

“The stars want to see themselves!”

Thought leader Deepak Chopra, MD, once shared how he explained existence to his three-year-old granddaughter as they walked along the beach at sunset. Essentially, he told her she is made of starlight, and that the spirit of the stars is reflected in her eyes. Tara was silent for fifteen minutes while she digested this information. Then she said, “Nanna, look up!” When Chopra asked why, she replied, “The stars want to see themselves!”

Time is elastic. Athletes know this. When athletes move into the space known as “the zone,” time slows down. They see every move or play with perfect clarity, and execute the correct maneuvers as if in a dream, sensing the triumphant outcome. Something expands within them that translates into successful action.

How many people do you know who never seem to have “enough” time? We are each gifted with the same twenty-four hour cycle to use as we choose. People who are time-deprived are exhibiting one aspect of our pervasive scarcity consciousness.

How limits expand possibility

In The Energy of Money, psychologist Maria Nemeth writes, “Scarcity is a reality in the physical domain. As a minister friend of mine once told me, ‘It’s as though we got bored living without limits. We decided to incarnate — which means, literally, to turn into meat. We further chose to work with the limits of form, time and finite energy. This was to see how much of the divine we could bring into the mundane before it was time for us to leave.'”

As paradoxical as it may seem, says Nemeth, “We reach the infinite through living fully in the finite. The infinite is not reached by trying to ignore limits, as many of us try to do.”

And in Eastern Body, Western Mind, chakra expert Anodea Judith observes, “Manifestation requires an acceptance of limitation. A boundary allows us to contain, and thus collect and build.”

What “enough” really means

So holding the “both/and” is a prerequisite to freedom, whether from the constraints of the clock or the tyranny of the paycheck: We must accept limitation in order to transcend it. This is what zone athletes do.

As we set our clocks back an hour this Sunday (in the United States), let’s look out at the stars and remember what we’re made of. Recognize the expansive possibilities that exist within the limits of form.

There is enough. It’s just a question of consciousness. Choose to embrace the both/and, and you’ll grow with the flow!

About the author:

Amara Rose is a spiritual artisan and “midwife” for our global rebirth. She offers one-to-one guidance, e-courses, a digital download CD, talks and playshops to accelerate your evolutionary journey, and is widely published in health, business and new thought magazines, both digital and print. Learn more at LiveYourLight.com, where you can also subscribe to her free e-newsletter, What Shines.

http://twitter.com/Amara_Rose

http://www.facebook.com/LiveYourLight

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amararose

29 Aug 2016
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The Gold Standard: Morphing Out of Materialism

“You sit here for days saying, ‘This is strange business.’

You’re the strange business. You have the energy of the sun

in you, but you keep knotting it up at the base of your spine.

You’re some weird kind of gold that wants to stay melted in

the furnace, so you won’t have to become coins.”

~ Rumi

While many of us realize this pivotal moment we’re living heralds a return to unity among all peoples and all life on Earth, visionary author Moira Timms takes the shift a step further, painting a lucid picture of how wealth and wholeness are one. As we remember and reclaim our wholeness/holiness, we elevate the concept of abundance to a “whole” new level.

In Beyond Prophecies and Predictions: Everyone’s Guide to the Coming Changes, Timms describes our emerging “true wealth” consciousness this way: “The mind analyzes — the heart synthesizes. The turning point is where the heart is awakening. The United States motto (inscribed on the banner in the beak of the eagle found on the Great Seal, on the back of a one dollar bill), reminds us that America was founded on the principle of ‘E Pluribus Unum’ — ‘Out of the Many, One.'”

Further, the inscription beneath the Great Pyramid (also part of the Great Seal) says, “Novus Ordo Seclorum” — which translates, appropriately, as “A New Order of the Ages”. Isn’t this amusing? The answer is in money, but it’s not about who can become the richest at others’ expense.

Morphing Out of Materialism

We’re morphing out of materialism. If we insist on consuming planetary resources and each other at the speed of greed, the money will not follow. By the same token, as we reclaim our heritage as Earth stewards, we’ll get funded — naturally. True wealth/prosperity/abundance flows from alignment with purpose. “Get with the program” is not a reference to the latest shopping app! It’s about tuning in to a higher frequency.

The energy of both money and sexuality resides on the second chakra (the Sanskrit word for the seven “wheels of energy” that spin from our root to our crown along the spinal column.) Located in the pelvic region, the second chakra is our “survival center,” says renowned medical intuitive Caroline Myss, Ph.D.

A disconnect in terms of our sexuality might manifest as aggression, hostility, sexual abuse or sexual dysfunction, says Myss. Disconnection in terms of money can manifest as financial loss, or fear of loss of control — which in our culture often expresses as out-of-control spending.

Consumption Flu

A fascinating description of this affliction, “affluenza,” originated with a PBS television special. The report defined the epidemic as “an unhappy condition of overload, debt, anxiety and waste, resulting from the dogged pursuit of more.” (Intriguingly, “Consumption” is also the old term for tuberculosis, a disease that infects the lungs. Hard to breathe when you’re stuffed to the gills with stuff!)

Misguided by the notion that buying more equates to being more, we often end up bankrupt, literally and spiritually. “Retail therapy” is a throat lozenge, when we need the spiritual equivalent of rest, warmth and nurturing — healing salves for the soul.

Living in true prosperity requires us to replenish our emotional bank account. It lends new meaning to the term “trust fund.” Since we’ve been schooled to put our trust in a specific income stream as the source of our abundance, rather than in something beyond money, even amassing a fortune can feel hollow.

“Affluenza” substitutes for connection with others, confirms prosperity coach Joan Sotkin. Sotkin says we can’t run out of money, only people. Because money flows from our connection to others, if you’re running out of money, “you’re afraid of being left alone or of abandoning yourself. Money is the energy of relationship. How you deal with money is how you deal with your relationship with yourself and others. You have to make that connection in order for the energy to flow back to you,” she says.

Wellness is Well(th)

Myss expands on Sotkin’s observation in the first of her groundbreaking books, Anatomy of the Spirit. She writes, “Money, like energy, is a neutral substance that takes its direction from the intention of the individual. Expressions such as ‘Put your money where your mouth is’ and ‘Talk is cheap’ refer to the cultural view that what people do with their money says more about their motives than any spoken intention. Money is the means through which we make our private beliefs and goals public. Energy precedes action, and the quality of our intentions contributes financially to the results.”

Since the second chakra sacrament is Communion, according to Myss, it represents union with the Divine. In Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can she says, “If breaking bread with (someone) is the physical act of communion, Symbolic Communion is the sharing of energetic ‘bread’ with them. When the second chakra is united with the sacrament of Communion in a positive way, it becomes focused on building healthy, clean, and nonthreatening relationships to money, power, and sex. A sense of safety is always present, giving one the feeling that no matter what problems arise in one’s physical life, a way out can be found.”

We become truly wealthy by stepping fully into the lifestream. Intriguingly, all of our typical money metaphors contain water imagery: cash flow, liquid assets, currency (currents), reserves (reservoir). “Affluence” literally means, “to flow abundance”. The more we flow with life rather than fight it, the greater our own rising tide of prosperity.

Consider this: from the materialistic perspective, “sliding scale” refers to adjustable fees; as we resonate to a higher octave, sliding scale becomes synonymous with harmony, “The Music of the Spheres.” To reframe one of the most popular songs of an era: we don’t buy the Stairway to Heaven, we climb it — right up the ladder of our chakras to the stars.

The energy of the sun (fire) lives in you. Fire and water are complements, the masculine and feminine principles of life. Once you’ve been forged in the alchemical fire, how will you offer yourself to the world as coins? Newly minted, you are the currency of transformation. Spend yourself wisely, and draw the healing water you need from Life’s well.

About the author:

Amara Rose is a “midwife” for our global rebirth. Her services include transformational guidance, talks, e-courses, a digital download CD, and an inspirational monthly newsletter. She is widely published in health, business and new thought magazines, both digital and print. Learn more: http://www.liveyourlight.com

http://twitter.com/Amara_Rose

http://www.facebook.com/LiveYourLight

https://www.linkedin.com/in/amararose

01 Aug 2016
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Becoming Whys

“If we have our own ‘why’ of life, we shall get along with almost any ‘how.'”

~ Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher

Becoming “whys” — owning our raison d’être, or reason for being — is the core question of our lives. Why am I here? What is my purpose?

We were taught to put our attention on form rather than function. The popular childhood question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” was reinforced by aptitude tests and guidance counselors who helped us select possible careers. We’ve identified with these labels ever since. So I’m hearing clients, colleagues and friends asking, Should I do my art? Teach? Get a real estate license? Go into sales?

Are You Looking In the Right Place?

My suggestion is, allow form to emerge from focus. Begin by becoming your whys: why are you here now? What are you passionate about? What is your heart calling you to communicate? Once you know your essence Self, how you express it can take many forms.

One client reported, “The most significant moment was when you asked me, ‘What is your work?’ The irony was tremendous… I had been looking for a job for over two years, interviewing with companies all over the country, and your question totally stumped me. What was my work? The question came as a breath of fresh air in my already congested life.”

Molly told me her purpose is “to stand for peace.” But she’s not an activist, organizing marches or chaining herself to fences in protest. While these are certainly viable avenues for expressing one’s truth, her path to peace takes the form of bringing new color and clarity to the magazine where she’s a graphic designer, to the people whose lives she touches. By embodying peace, she stands for it every day in a quiet fullness.

Your Awareness Inspires Others

And irony has transmuted to inspiration. Coworkers at her previous and current jobs have said the identical words to her: “You’re a breath of fresh air.” This is what Gandhi meant by, “My life is my message.”

Suppose your whys are about the next generation: you feel inspired to assist children’s spiritual development. Once you know this purpose in your soul, it might take the form of lobbying for changes in public education, writing a book, or becoming a teacher in an alternative educational system such as Waldorf or Montessori. You might decide to home-school your kids, start a neighborhood discussion group, give workshops for parents, or speak at new-thought churches such as Science of Mind and Unity.

The possibilities are limitless. And it all begins with becoming —embracing and embodying — your why.

9 Ways to Clarify Your Why:

Relax. We don’t find what we seek through endless searching.
Stop. Give yourself permission to stop doing, stop running, stop hurrying. Stop thinking you already know. Relax.
Ask. Ask anything you want, but make sure it’s about your own development. Then wait. The answer will come.
Listen. Listen with your whole being. You can listen while you work. You can listen while you sleep.
Be neutral. Nothing is inherently good or bad in and of itself.
Allow. “Trying” builds a wall between wanting and having. In the relaxed space of allowing you begin to receive.
Learn. We learn by opening. Begin to balance the energy of opposites within yourself.
Stand in it. You’ve learned who you are. Now stand in it. Be it.
Give it. You learned it. You’re standing in it. Now give it. Take a chance. Be honest. Be humble. Give as you were given. It returns a thousand-fold.

About the author:

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07 Mar 2016
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Facing Your Demons – Are You Ready or Still Cheating?

(Image Source)

It’s been rough, I get it.

Challenge after challenge thrown at you at the most inappropriate moments.

Everything that you try to fix and get straight is sabotaged and made more difficult by a dozen new things that threaten to make your life fall apart.

Except it is constantly broken down and falling apart anyway, and the more you try to fix and control, the more painful it gets.
The thing is, this is going to last a while – the condition of being somewhat in limbo. It’s a breaking up, down and through – on all ends, in pretty much every area in life you could think of.

Why is it happening and what causes this feeling of tremendous tension, urgency and downright sledge-hammer pressure on your soul?

You’ve been hiding and escaping, that’s why. Because you’ve been buying into your past conditioning for too long, *but* smart as you are: you became aware of it. Greatness!

Why the heck the adversity then, and being on the brink to madness and losing your mind time and again? You’re doing the damn work! You’re growing and evolving – thank you very much!

Here’s the thing: Even growth-wise there is a plethora of ways to cheat.

All those new-agey “love&light” folks are cheating. The coaches who only post their neat memes and never mention that they fuck up and struggle a lot, are cheating. Those who made it through a ton of heavy duty terror and use it as an excuse for not being able to find fulfilment and success (but hey, they survived and that’s an achievement in itself)…. Yes, kind of true, but also cheating.

If you hide from the life that’s got your name written on it, if you ignore the calling because it’s terrifying and feels too big (that’s the common thing with callings, bummer!) – what do you expect your life to be like then?

Truth is you’re restricted and confined by limits you set for yourself. By making excuses that you invented and uttered so often that they became second nature and your ultimate “truth”.

As the Universe and nature have it, you’re an orgasmic being with a perfectly crafted heart, mind and body. There’s no initial intention of the higher forces for you to wallow in fear, self-pitty and excuses.

(Image Source)

I get it, what’s calling you seems to be horrendously big.

It makes you feel too small and too weak to do it, but if you pierce through the veil of denial, fear and overwhelm you see something different: You’re embarrassed because your hunger feels like an insatiable one, like you’re demanding, greedy and too much.

Because wanting what you want is not appropriate.

You’ve been taught to be giving, considerate, moderate, average, invisible. Don’t cause trouble, don’t bother others with your shit. Do your work and be fucking grateful for your existence.

But tucking away your truth, your hunger and desires won’t help you maintain gratitude.

Being quiet and cheating on the real, big and terrifying transformation that’s actually possible won’t get you a halo and a badge for being the nicest and most appreciated person. That’s wannabe-level. That’s playing it safe.

Once your desire is sparked and you’re not able to overhear your soul’s whisper (that turned into an ear-deafening call meanwhile) any longer, you won’t find serenity and peace without allowing to be pulled on your very heart strings onto the path that’s yours.

Hiding is not part of it. And staying small-ish and quiet isn’t either.

Many people mourn and complain these days, feel unwell, drained and uninspired. They get severely sick, injured or otherwise held in check by their physical condition.

It’s a common phenomenon. And it’s not your body that fucks you up in the meanest ways: It’s your psyche – the servant of soul – that stops you in your tracks and develops all kinds of ailments.

Because you didn’t listen otherwise. There’ve been tons of nudges, signs and messages for you – everywhere. But you were busy looking away. It didn’t match your level of comfort.

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I have a few words of comfort though, or maybe even the impulse you need to get moving:

Comfort is not sustainable and it isn’t a thing to pursue anymore. Whatever comfort you’re seeking – this year it’ll get ripped off of you as quickly as you tried to use it to patch up the holes on your soul.

Let them show and let the light in through them. Any external comfort, and any internal comfort as well (like lying to yourself with positive affirmations that you just don’t succeed to buy into anyway) – it holds you back, it makes you heavy and slow.

I’m actually terrified myself, writing this to you. This is nothing I’ve deliberately put in a smooth, catchy and articulate paragraph, this is coming through me from a place outside of me.

And the message is valid for me, too. So of course I’m thinking:
“Argh, what does this mean for me? Anything about to get taken away from me? No playing small, no hiding? Damn. Sounds like work! But I’m tired!”

But I don’t really have a choice, and you haven’t either. That is, if you are determined to grow, stretch, expand and transform. If you are dedicated to bust through shame, fear and constrictions.

This is not about some tweaks in your everyday life.

This is about the deep, scary and yucky stuff. About the things that have tremendous power over you while you can’t even name them.

Right now, right here, looking into your phone, computer, whatever….. Take a breath and feel it. It’s there, it want’s your attention. It’s wanted your attention since lifetimes. Do you want to drag it around for another round and suffer some more?

If yes, I totally get it. I’m into suffering big-time myself. I’m very passionate, too, which is basically the same as being a bad-ass skilled sufferer.

The term itself has its root in the Latin word “passio” (I have 5 years hardcore Latin under my belt, so I tell you this without even straining Google and trying to look smart^^). So, here you go: “Passio” means “suffering”.

I can really get off on suffering. And many times I let it swallow me.

But there are other times when I’m having these very lucid moments, not polluted by anyone’s well-meant advice or judgement, nor by my own small-mindedness.

These moments have been more frequent and I have a strong desire to share this with you, to remind you that you do have the power to create whatever you please. The power to conquer and transform whatever is weighing you down.

Yes, that demon of yours may be huge – and that’s exactly why you want to face it and make it your ally instead of your enemy.

Much creative energy and power is sitting there in the dark. Do you want to waste it or taste it?

You can escape into all kinds of stuff that keep your mind and body busy.

Sex, food, substances, sleep… even chanting mantras or any kind of physical or spiritual practice can be a mere distraction, if used to suppress unpleasant feelings, memories and patterns from coming up. It’s not healing then, but escapism.

I’ve recently had a ‘very spiritual’ person telling me: “Why would I do this to myself – revisiting this painful episode from my past? I don’t want to feel this way. I want to bring healing and joy.”

With that said, they got busy practicing, singing, and giving advice regarding dealing with shadow to others.
Funny, innit?

I’m all for facing your shit and dealing with it. For telling your story. Saying it out loud. Telling it again. Repeating your excuses, over and over again until you find them hilarious yourself and *snap* a part of you no longer is tied up with this crap. Getting off on your suffering. Alchemizing it.

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I do this, too. I’ve stopped counting the times I referred to my own fucked up past. It makes for killer excuses, great stories and makes me look almost invincible, and definitely powerful and bad-ass.

I noticed how the old story loses its power over me, though. It’s a process and I’m impatient, but I see how it’s started shifting.

The story doesn’t cease to be true, but my role in it changes. I can tell it as a victim or from an empowered perspective. And it doesn’t define me. I can create something new.

I’m not a saint. I’m broken-winged and still healing myself. But I stand up for myself and I stopped being invisible (disobeying what I was taught to be) some time back. It’s been worth the anxiety and panic attacks.

Strength comes from a willingness to expose your darkest and weakest spots to the light.

I want to be surrounded by people who don’t just “have faith”, but are also genuinely interested in getting their lives together, taking responsibility and stop being co-dependent and attached to their misery or starving artist image.

You are confined only by the limits you impose upon yourself. I already said it, but it’s so important, it deserves to be said over and over again.

Some questions that I’m pondering and that I want to share with you:

What if you challenged those limits?

What would you have to let go of?

What would you gain?

And where would it take you?

You are so much more than you think. Dormant potential and ecstasy.

Get honest with yourself – is now the time?

About the Author:

Lina Boldt is a mentor and writer, she has a Ninja-warrior survival record, and can often be found in the thick of deep transformational work, which made her gain quite some expertise in breakdowns and breakthroughs. Her current mission is all about surrender, and she can’t live without chocolate. You can connect with her via her website Disobey With Grace or facebook, where she also hosts a group for rebels and messy souls.

19 Jan 2016
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Fire and Water: The Deeper Meaning Of What We Unleash

When I was deep into my spiritual awakening, I had startlingly prescient dreams; in one, the words, “violent emergency” reverberated through my mind. It was a violent emergence; birth is fierce. There is an ocean of difference, however, between Nature’s ferocity and that which is deliberately inflicted by human beings with their own agendas.

Theologian and author Thomas Moore writes, “Deep in the etymology of ‘violence’ is a strong Latin word, vis. It is the power in nature that we sense in the surging sea and the growth of grass. In our experiences of violence we witness the vain attempt of life to push itself into existence and visibility. This is a sexual power. Sex is not just about making bodies but making souls as well. The people of the world need every opportunity to be creative and visible. They need to enjoy life, not just survive. Without that opportunity, they will turn to violence, in spite of themselves.”

Life’s Novocaine

We tend to go through life anesthetized against our own yearning. The call to claim our power can be terrifying, because it means accepting our invitation to the Dance — and most of us have forgotten how to dance, if indeed we ever knew. We find it easier to lash out in anger: rage, the undiscovered country. If being “outrageous” means getting the rage out, Americans are black belts. Having lost touch with the wilderness within, we savage the Earth and each other in an effort to combat our loneliness.

War is the grand expression of this misdirected energy. It’s akin to our ability, or lack of it, to harness the power of the sun. Yoked to our solar egg, we could shine on in all our ecological radiance for millennia. Yoking means union, but we’re used to living the more limiting definition of bondage. Trussed to our desperation, we sigh, “That’s life!” Since interdependence — becoming what Kenny Ausubel christened “Bioneers,” or biological pioneers, co-creating with Nature — feels so foreign, we stay (un)comfortably in the familiar, pump up the volume, and wearily watch as the world turns.

There is a way out: it’s through. The trees are gods and goddesses who in their stillness keep the Earth’s counsel; the animals are our allies. We can commune with a snake or a sea lion as easily as with the people we call kin. The key lies in reclaiming our wildness — not as violence, but as an abiding, sensuous connection with Nature. Instead of experiencing everything at one remove, we can allow it to enter us.

My Inannic odyssey delivered me deeply into this truth. In illness and vulnerability, I threw my arms around trees and sobbed out my grief, feeling their loving embrace. I began talking to crows, paying tribute to their visceral wisdom in a poem that concluded, “A coded conversation/In guttural cries/Opens my eyes/And lifts me higher.” Stunned from exhaustion, I’d never lived in such clarity. With my brain on an extended vacation, I was forced to access a more primitive part of my being, to participate organically in the instinctual world, not merely watch.

How Peace Begins

This is how peace begins: by singing the wild symphony of Nature back into our cells, feeling the music of the spheres in our marrow, embodying the feminine creative principle. By raising our resonance, we become “the vessel which can contain all blessing,” as one ancient text describes peace. This is also how we heal our bodies, and the body of Gaia: “immune” means sacrosanct, inviolate, whole. In celebrating all life, we pulse a radiating joy that resurrects our daily dance. And you can’t wage war while dancing.

We’ve entered a new era. It is only in recent memory that strong antiwar sentiment (Iraq, Vietnam) has held sway. For much of human history, war has been an acceptable means of “protecting our interests,” “keeping the world safe for democracy,” or any number of other platitudes. If thousands, perhaps millions, of innocents had to die in the process, well, they were war heroes. And the villagers in other countries, slaughtered in the name of whatever deity one invoked, deserved death because they were “the enemy.”

Jeannette Rankin, the first woman elected to the US House of Representatives and the only member of Congress to vote against US entry into both World Wars, once declared, “You can no more win a war than you can win an earthquake.”

She makes an enduring point. Did anyone “win” the Indian or Chilean ‘quakes? Are we “winning” the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan?

What’s really going on here? What is the higher purpose of the impulse to violence we all harbor within, to a greater or lesser degree?

Fire and water are complements; harmonized, they elevate consciousness and catalyze healing. I sang these words often during my own dark night of the soul. Instead of the old, tired dominator matrix, using firepower in an “us” vs. “them” scenario, we can embrace the true fire within us, and discover the myriad ways to channel this potent energy for good.

Embracing the True Fire Within

Becoming a spiritual warrior is a profile in courage (which means heart.) Spirit asks, “Have you the conviction to stand by your heart? Are you willing to transmute war in the alchemical fire?” The fire within is the perfect peace of God/Goddess/Creator/Innate Intelligence, which expresses outwardly as enthusiasm (from the Greek, “possessed by God”), inwardly as a calm awareness.

We’ve mastered communicating from our wounds. Now we’re in a pivotal age, creating a context in which it’s safe to share who we are in love, in truth, in well-being. Our collective task is to marry scared and scarred with sacred, density with destiny, jaded with jubilant; to become inclusive not exclusive. Because none of us is truly free until all of us are.

This is one of the meta gifts of these disasters (which means, “against the stars”): they bring us face to face with The Other, in our psyches and out in the world, so we can see how they’re one and the same. All anyone can do is introduce you to yourself. So as you look in the mirror of your brother’s or sister’s face, be kind to your own confusion, criticism, sadness, or fear. Acknowledging your strand in the evolutionary web is, in itself, a giant step on the path to peace.

It’s time for each of us to create a personal crucible: a safe container for our energies. Envision your inner chalice. Then place this cup, brimming with fiery potential and the waters of life, into your heart, where it will become a perpetual font of inspiration and renewal — and, in time, of unconditional love.

As the Maya say, In Lakéch: I am another yourself.

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About the author:

Ascension Lifestyle author Amara Rose is a “midwife” for our global rebirth. Her services include transformational guidance, talks, e-courses, a digital download CD, and an inspirational monthly newsletter. She is widely published in health, business and new thought magazines, both digital and print. Learn more: http://www.liveyourlight.com

14 Nov 2015
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The Lesson Repeats as Needed – Organic Transformation aka Learning Things the Hard Way

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Lessons repeat as needed.

You know, these situations when you think – damn, I’ve been here before. Sometimes you’ve been in that place even several times.

So why does this madness repeat? It’s not meeting you at the same old level of awareness and evolution. You’ve made quite some progress in the meantime. Look closer: It’s not exactly the same, right?

To level up, add trust and openness. Like, the ‘heart cracked wide open’ kind of openness. Things will change quickly, avalanches of insight will fall into your heart.

The moment you switch your head off things get more dangerous and – paradoxically enough – safer than you could ever wish for. You hand yourself over to invisible hands.

Faith. You get still and listen. It’s like an exam. To pass it you need to apply what you have learned so far. The night is darkest right before dawn. It might feel and look like everything’s over, no way out.

But there is always a way out, many ways even. And your task is to find the one that’s most aligned with your calling, your spiritual skills, with your SOUL ultimately.

It’s the nature of the Phoenix, you fall, you burn and die (a little or a lot, it depends, you never know beforehand), and then you soar, purified, stronger, you soar higher than ever before.

Hint: Next time therefore you’ll probably fall deeper, but your soul will be wiser and stronger, you’ll manage to navigate the next Phoenix-cycle, like you were able to deal with those in the past.

Your evolution isn’t linear, it has ups and downs, and it’s a labyrinthine route, steep, and meandering, spiraling upwards in changing pace. The spiraling nature is what gets you to the point where you think you’ve just returned to ‘Go’.

You think you’ve tackled shame once and for all and then it comes back, washing over you worse than ever before, on such a deep level, you feel like you’ll never work your way towards the light again. Not in this lifetime.

Or Jealousy? Fear of rejection? Recurring scarcity? Grief? All these “issues” make you feel like you’re isolated from the world, seeing everything through blackened glass, not able to participate in the blissful, carefree life “out there”.

Craving connection, a sense of belonging. And yet consumed with the lonely business of working through your shadows.

There are glimpses of light, of Enlightenment even. But you’ve signed up for a thorough field trip through the minefield of the human soul.

It sucks. But it’s serving you, it enables you to get you to a place where you finally experience wholeness, Oneness. You are not a separate being.

Things sometimes (often) feel pretty frustrating, especially if you’re like me – a rebel (with extremely thin skin, though), coming with fancy features like a shit ton of stubbornness and refusal, but the willingness to move forward and learn to grow into the things that are calling me.

That’s a very organic approach to transformative learning. We have to feel things out, get our hands dirty and our hearts and egos broken to learn, to have the lessons really sink in.

By experiencing everything yourself, with all your senses, bruises, broken wings and all, you gain wisdom that others never will access, because they didn’t want to dig into the dirt.

You’re not a pseudo-awakened spirit, you’re a real Soul-Alchemist. You know how to work and play hard, how to fall deep and how to get back up. Again and again and again and…. You get the picture.

You try to make yourself comfortable in the discomfort, in the realm of paradox which is characteristic for the thing we call human existence. It’s an illusion, Maya, a thousand truths but none of them is real.

It’s a cosmic game. To play a game that has no rules is tricky. It could be so easy: No rules – no mistakes. Nope. That would be boring. The Universe likes exciting twists, sudden turns, magic, terror and wonder.

We are made to FEEL. And, to tell you a secret, in private, there is one hidden rule underneath the no-rule premise: Keep going. Keep getting up, crawl if you must.

I don’t mean in a physical way, quite the opposite. Rest is vital to this journey. You need time to integrate, you can’t always run on full steam. Believe me, I’m someone who’s often persistently trying to do just that – can’t recommend it… Working on quitting this harmful habit.

But don’t ever stop exploring, don’t stop growing. Don’t settle.

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I’ve got an example of organic transformation from my own latest experience for you (work in progress, of course):

I’ve been asked to be patient and wait until a magical date with destiny – literally. It felt like forever and I often felt like turning around and call this waiting game quits. I’ve been in this situation a few times before – the lesson repeats as needed, you know….

In the past I didn’t manage to endure the tension of the wait, I got angry, mistrusted the process, ran from it, deeply hurt and frustrated.

What I thought I’d learned was that I had to protect my heart and soul even more fiercely, to block out any attempts of people trying to get in touch with me. Too dangerous, too painful, too straining.

Meanwhile it’s a mere few weeks from now until the long desired re-union. I’ve waited and prepared for this moment what feels like my entire life, I’ve manifested a connection that suddenly fell from the heavens, divinely orchestrated.

I got the whole package, including testing and probing, challenges – how far will I go, how bad do I really want it? How serious am I? How mature in my approach? Triggers were fired at me, buttons were pushed,

I raged, mourned, cried.The lesson, yeah. Damn. I’ve made a vow to never go through this again.

And to get me into this place where my soul is being pulled that strongly – I didn’t believe this was possible. It would take an extraordinarily deep bond, one that I couldn’t deny and fight, no matter how much I resisted.

Well, this bond actually does exist, this connection haunted me even in my dreams. No way I could ignore it. I’ve tried, of course, I remembered my vow!

Then I started pondering what the lesson might be. I had wished for such an encounter, I knew it existed, I felt it for so many years. But I also was scared. And again there were obstacles in the way.

This time I chose to trust the process, to use it as catalyst for transformation. I worked on past trauma and deep scars, on trust, openness and surrender, radical acceptance.

It was like a fire, burning everything that doesn’t serve me anymore, it’s working quick. Just to make me discover that underneath the issues there are deeper things to be released. Growth is a never-ending story.*sigh*

So there I was, with waterfalls of liquid fire in my belly, bursting into fireworks. Energetic short circuits on a daily basis, palpable electricity, increasingly so, the closer I got to the magical date.

Temporary total breakdown and exhaustion. Hard to hold space for such a powerful connection. Not even being asked, just having it washing over me. It’s not about me, by the way, it’s about something way bigger, the heart of hearts. Spiritual Alchemy.

My ego got grinded and burned, until I was standing in the biting cold. Naked, clueless. Not able to keep up all the defensiveness and resistance. “So this is how it starts?”, I asked.
“Yes.”

I saw codes of the matrix running on the ceiling, in my hands, like sand in an hourglass. Losing matter and reality, seeing them run through my fingers. Time stopped.

I got hints and keywords along the way. My soul spoke to me clearly. Letting Go. Alignment. Exploring my Darkside. Self-Love. Surrender. And a few more.

This was the work of almost two very intense years. I did the best to get it right, to keep up with the pace that was demanded. I was fierce. My energetic and physical body got a makeover, refinement, my skin got even thinner – massive sensitivity.

Now daylight hurts. I’m reading other people’s souls as I walk by. If I want to escape the craze, close my eyes, it gets even worse. Visions, messages, entire downloads, I’m chased and surrounded by spirit beings. I stuff my ears, cover my eyes – in vain.

I’m scared by all the intensity. The unfathomable truths that peak through Maya – illusion. Accessing universal consciousness, being pulled in a dozen different directions at the same time, trying to hold all that shit together without getting dissolved in the process, without losing my mind.

I want to scream, I want to wake up. But I can’t, I’ve woken up to the fact that I’m dreaming a long time back.

There are layers. Dreams inside of dreams, black holes, rabbit holes, you never know where and when you reach the surface again, Maybe never? My mind gets dizzy just writing this. Can anyone understand? Does anyone see it, too?

My soul is bursting in hysterical and equally pleased laughter. YES. That’s exactly what it wants for me. That’s what I’m here for to endure, to grow into.

I often feel like I can’t. It’s impossible. But I continue stumbling forward. One step in front of the other. My knees weak, my heart racing.

And if you ask me where I’m going, I answer with shaking voice: I’m being called, that’s the only thing I know for sure. The calling is ear-deafening. And I meet others along the way, like you, blinded, golden at heart. Lighthouses, messengers, guardians.

I’m about to connect with one. A magic fusion. I’m scared. Of course. I’m a pro in being scared, in case you haven’t noticed yet. I’m also excited. I have nothing to lose, except my mind. But on the path I’m called to go, we all are called to go, the mind is but a tool.

It’s a soul-path.

Intuition is the compass, and the invisible hand is pulling the strings to get us safely where we’re meant to be. Did I mention that I’m allergic to strings?

Every time I hit a low I think “I can’t do this anymore, I’m tired, have mercy, it’s so hard to fall down and climb back up time and again!”

And suddenly, out of nowhere and when I expect it the least, a bout of strength gets unleashed in my heart, I get up and do what I can best, trust that somehow I’ll be safe, somehow everything will make sense eventually.

And on I stumble, with sore feet, singed wings and tear-stained skin.
Carry on.

That’s what I’m here to tell you: Carry on.
You’re strong. You can do this. You have the capacity to stand the confusion and pain, to metabolize ashes to sparks of divine light.

Keep going, crawl, if you must. It’s the only rule of the game. You know what’s demanded of you. And you know that it’s demanded of you, BECAUSE YOU ARE CAPABLE.

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We’d love hear your stories of transformation. Join the conversation in the comments below.

About the Author:

Lina Boldt is a seeker, healer and writer, she has a Ninja-warrior survival record, and can often be found in the thick of deep transformational work, which made her gain quite some expertise in breakdowns and breakthroughs. Her current mission is all about surrender, and she can’t live without chocolate. You can connect with her via her newly born website Disobey With Grace or on facebook, where you can also join her group of non-conformists and messy souls.