On January 3rd of 2009 I will have 25 years in twelve step recovery - a quarter century clean and sober. An amazing miracle. I have scheduled one of my Intensive workshops for that day - because it is the Saturday after New Years and fits into my practice of scheduling the workshops on Holiday weekends. When I discovered that Saturday was the 3rd, I smiled and took it as a perfect part of the Divine Plan. Perhaps some of you will join me on that day to celebrate that anniversary.;-)

Anyway, when I first got into 12 step recovery in January 1984, I didn't want to hear anything about God or anything that sounded religious because of the shaming religion that I had grown up in. It was the twelve step concept of a 'Higher Power of my own understanding' that made it possible for me to start learning how to live life based upon Spiritual Principles - aka Metaphysical Law.

"Basically, the reason that life as it is experienced by humans is so messed up, is because we have been dancing to the wrong music. We have had our dance of life defined by fear and shame, by lack, scarcity, and separation. The Twelve Step process helps us to change our relationship with life and self - it helps us learn to dance with music that is aligned with Love and Joy and Truth. That is what is so miraculous and awesome about the twelve step recovery process - it helps us to enjoy our dance.

The True meaning and purpose of life is Spiritual in my opinion. I know that when I started living life from that perspective - the perspective I learned from working a 12 step program - was the first time that life made any sense to me. The twelve steps work to help us align with what I believe is Metaphysical Truth. The basic steps of that dance are 1, 2, 3, - and once we start to get into the rhythm of that Spiritual dance we start to live life in alignment with the Metaphysical Truth contained in the Serenity Prayer. It is the beginning of transformation. It is the path home to Love."- The Miracle of The Twelve Step Recovery Process: The first three steps

Unfortunately there is still wide misunderstanding about the 12 step programs - including people who claim it is a cult. I received a hate e-mail last week (October 2008) from someone who said I should be taken out and shot for misleading people - and included a link to a site that claims Alcoholics Anonymous is cult. It is sad that someone has been so wounded in their experience of AA that they would send this kind of profanity laced threat. Unfortunately the way the 12 steps are practiced in AA - and sometimes in other 12 step programs - can manifest in ways that are not aligned with the Spiritual Principles that are the True foundation the 12 step process.

"The underlining dynamic of codependency is black and white thinking. Drinking or not drinking is a black and white issue. Thus many recovering alcoholics can stop drinking while still empowering the black and white thinking of codependency. Many recovering alcoholics are rigid in their perspective and don't ever do the emotional healing of their childhood wounds because they tell themselves it is not necessary to sobriety - and they are scared to death of their own emotions on a subconscious level. Some of the most wounded codependents I know have 30 or 40 years sober and have never addressed their emotional issues - while justifying their rigidity as doing AA the "right" way.

According to this "old time" AA perspective, "outside issues" should not be discussed in AA meetings. There are many suffering codependents in AA who are not open minded enough to realize that Bill Wilson - one of the founders of Alcoholics Anonymous - would have loved to have had the tools we have available to us today. He would have run to an Adult Children of Alcoholics or Co-Dependents Anonymous meeting where he could have found the roots of the depression which tormented him. The suffering codependents in AA are terrified that if they don't follow a rigid formula - the "right" way - in their recovery, they will end up drinking again." - Inspiration from the Big Book of Alcoholic Anonymous

There are also people who don't understand the concepts of powerlessness and surrender - which in the 12 step process are applied in a way that helps people align with Metaphysical Law.

"Twelve step recovery is a program of empowerment. Many people erroneously assume that the fact that first step involves admitting powerlessness means that 12 step recovery disempowers people. The Truth is exactly the opposite.

It was only when I admitted that I was powerless to control my drinking that I gained the power to stop drinking. As long as I was trying to control my drinking out of ego and will power, I was powerless to stop drinking alcoholically. It was when I opened up to getting help from a power greater than myself that I gained the power to transform my life. . . . . . . . If I had been told in January 1984, at the beginning of my recovery from alcoholism, that the only way I could quit killing myself with alcohol was to accept the standard version of "God" - I would never have gotten sober. I would have been dead long ago. But what I was told, was that I needed to find a concept of a Higher Power that worked for me - a Higher Power of my own understanding. That was what saved my life - the revolutionary concept that I could develop my own idea of a Higher Power, and develop a personal relationship with that Higher Power that did not have to conform to what anyone else believed." - A Higher Power of my own understanding 2 - the beginning of empowerment

As I state so often in my writing and in my book, in order to change our relationship with anything, we need to change our perspective of it.

The perspective I was taught of God growing up was abusive and punishing. The idea that I could find a concept of a Higher Power that was Loving was incredibly liberating.

"The thing that made it possible for me to start getting honest with myself and to start being willing to surrender was the possibility that there might be a Loving Higher Power. When I first came to the program I would not even use the word God - and thought that these people must be a bunch of religious fanatics. I wanted nothing to do with God because I had been Spiritually, emotionally, and mentally abused in childhood with a concept of God that was vengeful and punishing. I had my sexuality abused by a shame based religion that taught me that God would send me to burn in hell forever for even thinking about sex.

Is it any wonder that I didn't want to surrender to God as I understood 'him.'" The Miracle of The Twelve Step Recovery Process: The first three steps

I count my conscious codependency recovery as starting on the day that I realized that my relationship with myself and life was still being dictated subconsciously by the image of God as I had been led to understand 'him' in childhood - even though I had personally discarded that concept consciously in my late teens. The religion I was subjected to in childhood taught me that life was about sin and punishment - and I was a sinner who deserved to be punished.  That day (June 3rd, 1986) was the day that I really got on a gut level something that I had heard and known intellectually - that the Law that governs life is cause and effect, not sin and punishment. That was the day that I made a conscious decision to do whatever it took to change the subconscious and emotional programming that had caused me to live life in a really painful, unloving way.

Given the freedom to search for a concept of a Higher Power that was Loving and on my side - instead of lurking in the shadows waiting to punish me for being human - started me on a quest to find out how there could possibly be a Loving Higher Power in the Universe. That Spiritual quest eventually led me to a multitude of places and the study of a multitude of belief systems from Native American Spirituality, to Mythology, to Eastern & Middle Eastern Beliefs, to Quantum Physics, etc. Because of the spiritual abuse I experience growing up I resisted such things as the Course in Miracles and didn't even know at the time I wrote my book that there were New Thought Churches who interpreted the bible metaphysically. (Numerous times when I spoke someone would come up to me afterwards and say that obviously I had studied the Course in Miracles - just as other people would assume I was a Sufi, or has studied other spiritual beliefs or authors that I had not - the reason for that is we are all drawing Truth from the same Source.)

As I am writing this today, October 24th 2008, I realize that in some ways this was a gift because it caused me to open to a larger paradigm than is taught in New Thought Churches which have been around for quite a few years, or the Course in Miracles. It was also a larger perspective than the multitude of "new age" spiritual teachers that have appeared in the years since my book was published. The guiding principle in my quest was to find a spiritual belief system that was Loving. That was the bottom line - "is this teaching, this belief, ultimately, and at the bottom line, Loving?"

In the article I quoted above A Higher Power of my own understanding 2 - the beginning of empowerment, I talk about a mind boggling, paradigm smashing book that I was guided to read when I was only about 3 months sober. It was that book that helped me to understand that the key to finding a concept of Higher Power that was Loving, the key to finding a way of living that worked, was recognizing that multiple levels come into play in the experience of being human. It was in trying to understand the paradox caused by those multiple levels of reality that I started to study metaphysics.

I realized in writing this today, that when I published my book, I did not even mention the word metaphysics in it. The word I used was supernatural.

It seems to me today, that ironically my using the word metaphysics possibly didn't become normal for me until something that occurred while I was writing a series of articles on the True Nature of Love in early 1999.

"What is Love? That is the question. I have been quite balled up the last week in attempting to write this column. No, that is not quite true - I have been unable to get into a space to even attempt to write this column. I need to get into a certain space - need to be feeling a special kind of creative energy - to write about a topic such as this. It was much easier to write last month's column about "what Love is not." Then I was writing about something much more concrete, much more black and white (the irony of this - since one of the characteristics of the disease is black and white thinking - is fodder for a completely different column.) The dynamics of the disease and the wounding process are very clear in my eyes. I have experienced the type of love that is shaming, abusive, manipulative, smothering, intrusive, addictive, etc., my whole life.

In fact, I learned a new word while writing this column. As I was composing the above paragraph, and taking note of how much easier it was to write last month's column, the word empirical came to mind.

So, I did what comes naturally when a word pops to mind - I looked it up.

empirical 1. Relating to or based on experience or observation. 2. Relying entirely or to excess upon direct, repeated, and uncritically accepted experience: opposed to metempirical.

Aha, a new word.

metempirical 1. Lying beyond the bounds of experience, as intuitive principles; not derived from experience; transcendental.

So, even though I just said that it was easier to write 'what Love is not' because of my experience - in Truth when I say that Love is not shaming and abusive, I am actually stating my intuitive Truth. If I were just relying on my experience, I would say "love is shaming and abusive and controlling," "love is being responsible for other people's feelings and well being," etc. - and that would be the Truth about love with a small l. When I say Love is not shaming, I am talking about the True Nature of Love as I intuitively understand it. Once I started to awaken to the reality that civilized society on this planet was based upon some false beliefs, then I started to be able to validate my intuitive feeling that something was dreadfully wrong here. I Knew deep inside, from a very young age, that this was not my home. I Knew that Love, if it was really such a wonderful thing, should not be so painful - just as I Knew it was ridiculous for both sides in a war to think that God was on their side and would help them kill the enemy." - The True Nature of Love 2 - Love as Freedom

That definition fit with the definition of mystic that I had looked up in 1988 - which I share in the following quote from that same series of articles on The True Nature of Love that I wrote in 1999. I was planning on using at least a portion of this quote here to qualify that in this article, I am not saying that my version of Truth is right and others are wrong.

"So, this brings us to the more Metaphysical and Mystical aspects of this article. I get uncomfortable in writing about my understanding of levels that are beyond human understanding for numerous reasons. The biggest one is that it is not really possible to explain the unexplainable. It is also not necessary to understand the metaphysical levels in order to do the healing. And as I have mentioned previously, some of us tend to focus on such areas as metaphysics, past lives, astrology, extrasensory or extraterrestrial phenomena as a way of avoiding doing the emotional healing - as a way of avoiding healing our internal relationship with self. Focusing on some of these areas can sometimes be almost as addictive as focusing on other people, or success, or any of the myriad of people, places and things that our disease would rather have us focus on than to deal with our own pain.

And my interpretation of these levels/phenomena/issues is just that - my interpretation. Anyone who is serving as a channel for information is limited by their own intellectual/experiential paradigm. Whether the person is psychic, or an astrologer, or channeling information from "beyond," whatever, it is always important to not give too much power to the details of what they say. Listen for any emotional messages that resonate - but be discerning about giving too much power to their interpretations in regard to details. What one person attributes to an angel another might attribute to an alien presence. Whether something is written in the stars or a theme from a past life doesn't really matter. What matters are questions like: How does this information apply to my healing process today?; How can this message help me see myself more clearly?; Can the information help me to forgive myself and be more Loving to myself?; Is the information and the way it is being presented about Love - does it support Love or is it empowering separation?

I didn't really start to investigate any of these areas until after I had been through treatment for codependence in the Spring of 1988. The day before I left the treatment center one of my counselors told me that I was a mystic. I had to look the word up in the dictionary.

That person was an angel in my path because she stimulated me to create the space in my consciousness to be open to a different kind of inner communication. It was as if she had given me permission to own a gift that had become available to me because of the clearing of my inner channel that I had done/was doing - and shortly thereafter I started writing the first book of my Trilogy. I very seriously pursued learning about past lives and different planes of existence and all of the esoteric, metaphysical knowledge I could access. And that pursuit was important in helping me to enlarge my intellectual paradigm - but a few years later I realized that the whole purpose of the pursuit had been to bring about a shift in my relationship with myself, my concept of God/Goddess, and with life. The details that I had accessed about past lives and other dimensions of existence were not really important in terms of how I live my life today - but the shift in my paradigm, and therefore my relationships, was vital. At that point in time, I threw away all the notes I had taken about different past lives and such.

The whole purpose of my quest was to discover a belief system that could allow me to start believing that I am in fact Lovable and worthy. Figuring out how it all works isn't what is important - what is important is discovering the faith to believe that there is a Loving Force in control. That is what helped me start Loving myself more - to start relaxing and enjoying life a little bit more instead of always giving fear and shame all of the power.

So, anything in terms of details, that I share here are my interpretations. The interpretations that helped me to discover a belief system that served Love - that was functional in helping me to overcome the dysfunctional beliefs I was programmed with in childhood. That they may be different from someone else's interpretations does not mean that one is right and one is wrong. There are a plethora of ways to look at and interpret information which is beyond human understanding. Any explaining or defining of God is limiting - and the Goddess is unlimited.

The purpose of sharing this at all, is the hope it may help you to enlarge your intellectual paradigm - help you to build yourself a larger Spiritual container so that you can open up to accessing more Love in your life." - The True Nature of Love 6 - Twin Souls, Souls Mates, and Kindred Spirits

So, in the article below, when I take issue with the way spiritual teachers and New Thought Churches and others are teaching the Law of Attraction - I am not saying they are wrong. They are teaching Truth - they are just not teaching a large enough perspective of it in my opinion. In the quote below from my online book about the terrorist attach of September 11, 2001, I quote from the foreword to my book - and state that I have so far not encountered a spiritual paradigm as large as the one I was guided to on my spiritual path.

In my book, on my web site, and in this article I offer an alternate perspective for people to consider. A perspective that I find very comforting. A perspective that helped me transform my life from one of endurance and suffering, in which I wanted to die on almost a daily basis - into one that now includes inner peace, Joy, and excitement at being alive for a significant number of moments of most every day.

In order to transform my life experience, it was necessary for me to find a reason to live. I studied many religious and spiritual philosophies - and found nuggets of what felt like Truth to me in every one - but no single one that worked for me. While I was searching for an intellectual paradigm that would help me find meaning and purpose in life, I was also in the process of getting emotionally honest with myself. That led me into depths of grief and rage that terrified me. It led me into a 30 day Treatment program for codependence (clinically called depression) in 1988. It was there that I learned the grief process work / emotional release therapy that saved my life.

The day I was leaving that Treatment program I ran into one of the counselors as I was processing out. Out of the blue, she said to me, "You know, what you are is a mystic." I didn't know what the word meant, and had to look it up in a dictionary.

What I reluctantly came to accept is that she was right, I am a mystic. My book is a work of Mystical Spirituality. But then so is the Constitution of the United States of America. The Founding Fathers of this country included a number of mystics whose mission was to create a country where there would be freedom to have alternate viewpoints, to expand consciousness.

My mission in this lifetime is to be a mystical messenger. In this New Age, there are many mystical messengers among us - and many works of mystical Spirituality.

I have been compelled to follow my intuitive guidance and do a lot of work clearing out my inner channel to Truth. We all have an inner intuitive channel to the Higher Mind. We just need to clear that inner channel of dysfunctional attitudes, false beliefs, and repressed emotional energy in order to start tuning into our intuition, in order to start becoming clearer and more trusting of our mystical guidance.

The Spiritual paradigm that my intuition led me to, the mystical vision I share in my book, is one that is larger than any I have ever encountered. It works for me to make my life easier and more enJoyable. What I have found over the years is that it works for many other people also. So, I am offering it here as alternate perspective for you to consider." - Attack on America: A Spiritual Healing Perspective & Call for Higher Consciousness

As I say in this first chapter of the online book about the terrorist attack of 9/11 (a chapter I posted online on September 22, 2001), it is vital to change the dysfunctional intellectually programming - the false beliefs and attitudes. The teachings of the Law of Attraction are very valuable in helping people start changing the intellectual paradigm that is governing their relationships with self and life in order to start owning their power to be a positive co-creator in their lives. It is also however necessary to deal with the repressed emotional energy in my belief.

On this page I will be addressing the ways in which the Law of Attraction is being taught that I believe are not Loving. I am also posting a second page at this time to address the ways in which so many of these teachers and teachings discount emotions in ways that I do not believe are healthy or Truth.

I am going to be sharing long excerpts from various articles of mine here as I focus on what I see as misinterpretation and misunderstandings in the teachings of the Law of Attraction - and I am posting a separate page The Metaphysics of Emotions to focus on the emotional component.

I am writing this article because I believe that the way the Law of Attraction is being taught by most people who are teaching it today is not ultimately Loving. I believe it is being taught in a way that makes many of the people hearing it feel ashamed; in a way that causes people to focus on reaching a destination at the expense of not being present in the now; in a way that reinforces the delusion that there is something inherently wrong with being human, with human beings. It is also being taught by most spiritual teachers in a way that discounts and devalues emotions and emotional healing.

In late 1999 I wrote an article about my Spiritual Beliefs in response an e-mail from to an assistant editor of a Body Mind Spirit magazine in India. She stated that this was India's only New Age type of magazine, and asked for my input for a cover article she was writing about the New Age and what the future held in the New Millennium. She included some questions about changing societies, culture, therapies and the overall evolution of human kind. This was one of the questions and my response to it.

"New Age and its soul-expanding concepts have, over the years, acquired a sheen of superficiality that has reduced the movement per se to a joke. How do you think New Age should evolve to maintain its respect and integrity as a viable alternative philosophy?

The main reason that I have seen the so called New Age movement discredited is that people are not doing their healing. They want to get Spiritual without owning their humanity. They do not want to do the messy emotional healing that involves grieving and releasing the rage energy we are all carrying around. They are out of balance and lack discernment so that they keep looking for the whole truth in one place. There is Truth in all religions, spiritual belief systems, esoteric practices, etc. - but there is also twisted, distorted misinformation in them all. Until we clear our inner channel to allow emotional flow it is impossible to Truly be discerning about Truth. The emotional energy/intuition that is Truth is very different from what we experience as our emotional truth - which is most often largely a reaction to our emotional wounds and subconscious intellectual programming. Until someone has become willing to heal their emotional wounds they cannot clearly start discerning between Truth and misinformation. They keep looking outside for the answers, for someone or something to tell them what Truth to believe - instead of owning their own inner channel to Truth. There are nuggets of Truth everywhere if we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear. If our intellectual paradigm is limited, then we cannot see and hear clearly. If our emotional wounds are being allowed to unconsciously run our lives then we are incapable of Truly understanding our intuition.

And, the bottom line I believe, is that we are Spiritual Beings having a human experience. We are not here to get Spiritual - we are Spiritual. We are here to integrate that Spiritual essence into our human experience. The first time that someone told me that I was a Spiritual Being having a human experience, I got really angry. The reason that I got angry is because I recognized immediately that this statement was the Truth. I also recognized that since that was the Truth, it was not acceptable for me to go up on a mountain and meditate my way to God. I realized that it meant I was supposed to learn how to relate to other human beings - something that I did not want to do because of my wounds.

Many people who are drawn to the New Age movement are still looking for the right way to do things, for the source outside of themselves that will give them the answers, for the aliens in space ships who will save them from the pain of this human experience. The goal in this Age of Healing and Joy, in my understanding, is to learn to look within to find The Source. To own our Spiritual Essence and our humanity - and to integrate Spirituality into the human experience so that we can achieve some balance in this human dance we are doing.

This is a New Age, but unfortunately many so called new agers are still looking for the magic answer that will allow them to vibrate at a higher vibrational level that allows them to escape the human experience. I do not believe it is possible to do that without first honoring our human emotions, clearing our emotional bodies of repressed emotional energy, and embracing the experience of being human." - My Spiritual Belief System and the New Millennium

I started to write this page over a year ago, and never had the time to finish it. What I did then was pull together some of the quotes I wanted to use and start to write the page. The beginning looked like this:

In the processing I did in an addendum page to my Joy2MeU March 2007 Update, I inserted the following the following aside within an excerpt I was quoting.

"I am going to be adding a page to the site sometime soon to expand on some points I make in my article New Age Misinterpretations of Metaphysical Truth - specifically to address what I see as misinformation in the current hot New Age misinterpretation of Metaphysics: The Secret. We are not the sole creators of our lives, able to create anything we want to create - we are co-creators who have the power to choose how we relate to our human experience, not the power to write our own script." - My Fear of Intimacy

This is that page.

In early 2007 I first started hearing people referring to a new DVD that was creating a stir called The Secret. My partner Susan had been told about it by one of her friends who saw a Larry King show focused upon it. One night the friend called to say that the Larry King show was on, and Susan turned it on to check it out.

Our television is usually on Sprout because that is what Darien - my precious 2 1/2 year old step grandson / god son - likes to watch, so it was a little unusual to even be watching some regular programming. But when Susan called to tell me what was on, I wandered in to check it out. I probably watched less than 10 minutes of it before going back to whatever I was working on. My reaction to the few minutes of the show that I had watched was summed up in the phrase "snake oil salesmen."

This must have been almost a year and a half ago, because Darien is going to be 4 in November. I later was able to watch The Secret in it's entirety - and found much valuable information in it. A great deal of Truth. There were spiritual teachers in it that I respect - and also a few I do think of as "snake oil salesmen" because I think that they are more into the selling of the idea (of any idea) than they are into the actual practice of it. That is, of course, just an opinion on my part. An opinion, a judgment, because I tend to have higher expectations of people who purport to be "experts."

Here is an excerpt from Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in the Light Book 2: A Dysfunctional Relationship with Life

I tend to give more emotional power to people who are supposed to be healers because I expect more from them. This is, of course, my expectation, and is one that is maybe not as insane as expecting other drivers to drive like I think they should, but is - given my understanding of the disease dynamics - a bit insane. The healers are wounded also. The are - hopefully - open to growing and learning. Anyone however who is still empowering black and white thinking subconsciously will sometimes give out shaming messages no matter how wonderful their intentions are - no matter how much wonderful Truth they teach most of the time.

Many spiritual teachers and New Age authors have accessed some Truth but have not enlarged their intellectual paradigm enough to stop empowering polarity. There is no right or wrong way to do healing. There are ways that work better, and ways that do not work as well - but right and wrong, and shame, are not part of the Awakening process in this Age of Healing and Joy.

In the online book I wrote about the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, I wrote a plea to some of these New Age authors, healers, and teachers to please stop empowering polarity and shame about being human. Here is an excerpt from Chapter 5 of Attack on America: A Spiritual Healing Perspective & Call for Higher Consciousness.

"The terrorist attack on America is in my perspective an incredible opportunity for growth and Spiritual Awakening. I am publishing this online as a Call for Higher Consciousness for all human beings. More specifically I am attempting to communicate with all of you old souls who came into body at this time to take part in the Transformational Healing process that is unfolding on this planet. This Truly is an exciting time to be alive.

On another level, I want to specifically address some fellow mystical messengers who are the best and the brightest of the New Age Movement. I have been very disappointed by people who are some of the most famous members of our growing community. That disappointment is because I have higher expectations of people who have accessed as much Truth as some of these way-showers and trail blazers have accessed. My expectations are my responsibility and I own that - they are following their own paths perfectly. But I do call on Spiritual Teachers and New Age writers, healers, and practitioners around the globe to please open up to a larger perspective.

In March of this year, I posted a page on my site called New Age Misinterpretations of Metaphysical Truth in which I did some ranting and raving about what I perceive are shaming messages being communicated by some New Age teachers. I was responding on that page specifically to a statement attributed to Marianne Williamson.

After the events of September 11th, an email message with the same kind of shaming statements went around - attributed to not only Marianne Williamson but also to Neale Donald Walsch, James Twyman, James Redfield and Doreen Virtue. This message, which called for seven days of prayer included these statements:

"There are two possible responses to what has occurred today. The first comes from love, the second from fear."

"To us the reasons are clear. We have not learned the most basic human lessons. We have not remembered the most basic human truths. We have not understood the most basic spiritual wisdom. In short, we have not been listening to God, and because we have not, we watch ourselves do ungodly things. The message we hear from all sources of truth is clear: We are all one. That is a message the human race has largely ignored. Forgetting this truth is the only cause of hatred and war, and the way to remember is simple: Love, this and every moment."

Polarity and shame on humans. I hate this. I hate that some really wonderful, en-Light-ened people are giving out this kind of message.

They have not expanded their belief systems enough to allow for a God-Force that is so powerful that everything is happening for a reason. They have not embraced the concept that we are Spiritual Beings having a human experience to the extent that they can recognize that any belief system that blames human beings for the Human Condition is limiting and makes small the concept of a Loving Universal Source. They are still allowing the belief that the there is something wrong with being human to color their perspective.

A statement that Love and fear are the only two choices is polarized and indicates a lack of discernment. They have not expanded their consciousness enough to recognize the difference between vertical Transcendent emotions and horizontal human emotions. They do not understand the human emotional process enough to be able to draw a clear boundary between intellectual and emotional.

Yes, we are trying to change our mental programming to be aligned with Love instead of with fear. That is at the heart of this process. The dysfunctional intellectual programming causes us to magnify and distort fear into a monster that has been causal in dictating the evolution of humanity.

But aligning ourselves with Love does not mean we will not sometimes feel the horizontal emotional energy of fear in our bodies. Love is the only Truth on higher vibrational levels. Here in human body, fear is something we cannot avoid. We want to stop allowing fear to define us - but to imply that we cannot be aligned with Love and still feel some fear is a shaming message.

STOP IT PLEASE!

A great majority of New Age teachers and writers are still empowering polarity and shame about human emotions by communicating this kind of message. Please stop and think about what you are doing. This message is not aligned with Love and ONENESS. This type of message supports the disease. PLEASE STOP IT!

"One of the things that is very important in recovery is to not put people on pedestals. Anytime we put someone on a pedestal and empower the belief that they are much better than us, we are setting ourselves up to be victims - because they will disappoint us. Everyone is human. Everyone is wounded. Which means that the most highly thought of "experts," the best selling authors, the pioneers to who we all owe a debt of gratitude for blazing the trail, are human also. . .

. . . . . . . We all need to have people come into our lives who will help us heal, who will share with us understanding and knowledge, tools and techniques, that will help us on our path. None of those people will be perfect. Everyone is in process. No one is completely healed or enlightened. Putting someone on a pedestal is codependent and a block to intimacy. Any "expert" who buys into believing they belong on a pedestal is being codependent." - New Age Misinterpretations of Metaphysical Truth

Our level of understanding, how clearly we are seeing reality, is directly related to how big the intellectual paradigm is that we are empowering to define reality for us. If the intellectual paradigm is still empowering polarity and shame, it is not large enough - in my opinion." - Attack on America: A Spiritual Healing Perspective Chapter 5

Part of what is so sad about these teachers who are so righteous about teaching Love is that they are still buying into the concept that there is something shameful about being human. How much difference is there between Jerry Falwell saying that the terrorist attack is punishment for abortion and gay rights, and these spiritual teachers saying it was caused by human beings forgetting who they really are. The Human Condition was not caused by human beings!!!

The human condition is a result of planetary conditions that began with the polarization of Energy Field of Collective Human Intellectual Consciousness - the Lower Mind.

"At the core of the disease of codependence is black and white thinking. It is a symptom of the Human Dilemma. Polarized thinking was, in fact, the cause of the Human Dilemma.

The energy field of Collective Human Emotional Consciousness is no longer reversed to the Truth of Love. That is why this is a New Age. It is why it is possible for us to Awaken Spiritually and do the emotional healing. A Transformational Healing Process has begun on the planet Earth

The Lower Mind - the energy field of Collective Human Intellectual Consciousness - is however, still polarized. That will change when enough people have done their individual healing so that the energy of the Lower Mind reaches critical mass in relationship to polarity (the hundredth monkey.)

To understand more about the physics and metaphysics of this, you can read the excerpts from my book on the page about The New Age. I am mentioning it here because the sharing I am doing here about how I take power away from the black and white thinking in my internal process, is at the core of the work that I refer to in the slogan / bumper sticker Work for World Peace: Heal Your Inner Child. What I am talking about here, is how we manifest Love into our internal process - how to integrate Spiritual Truth into our emotional relationship with life. It is The Work - not just to learn how to relax and enJoy life, which it does make possible - but The Work that will change the condition of polarization of the Lower Mind. It is through doing this work individually that we will change the world.

So, I guess you can see why I think it is pretty important." - Newsletter part 2 May 2001 Update

These wise teachers, these mystical messengers have gotten it that We are ALL ONE and that LOVE is our True essence - but they are still giving out black and white messages that support polarity and the belief that there is something shameful about being human.

And before I go on here, I want to include a qualifier here that I included in Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in the Light Book 2: A Dysfunctional Relationship with Life

"[I wrote a whole section here about how our language is polarized - which makes it very difficult to talk about the multiple levels of this dynamic without sometimes sounding like there is a right and wrong. I will probably include that in a future chapter, but want to note briefly here that when I am talking about judging another persons path I am talking about taking ego strength - feeling better than - by judging where they are in comparison to where we are, or where we think they "should" be. When we judge another human based upon the external conditions in their life, or their outward behavior or appearance, to feed our egos, we are being emotional vampires. We all need to observe our self (to make objective judgments about whether our behaviors are working for us) and others (to decided if they are someone we want to be around) - but to judge their worth as a being based upon externals, or to compare ourselves to them (either negatively or positively), is being codependent. In other words, we need to observe and make objective discerning evaluations not value judgments. (To say, "He is an idiot" is a value judgment. To say, "He is acting like an idiot" is focused on behavior rather than being which is good, but still involves some name calling / assigning a negative value judgment to behavior. To say, "From what I see of his behavior he must be really wounded and insecure - probably someone I don't want to spend time with." is a more objective evaluation.)

No one can see where another person has come from to get to where they are now - how much progress they have made on their path. None of us can know the depths of the wounds that are driving another persons behavior. No one can know what Karma another person is settling. A New Age spiritual seeker can be just as self righteously shaming as a religious fundamentalist when they making value judgments about other people based upon a black and white belief system - that is not Loving.]" - Chapter 13 Changing the Music: Love instead of fear and shame

So, I am not saying that these spiritual teachers are wrong and I am right - just that their spiritual paradigm is not large enough for them to stop empowering polarity and shame.

There is a huge difference between allowing fear to define our life and feeling fear at times. A major component of the approach to healing that I teach is to set a boundary between emotional and mental so that we can stop allowing the fear and shame we learned in childhood to dictate and define our lives by learning to have compassion for our own emotional wounds at the same time we are learning to align ourselves mentally with the Higher Truth that is Love.

"So, basically what I am saying, is that codependency (which includes an addictive, toxic, abusive concept of love) is the problem and Love is the solution. Any belief system that empowers separation, fear and shame is codependent in my definition - not spiritual. There is a saying I like: "Religion is for people who are scared of hell, Spirituality is for people who have been there." It is possible to be spiritual without being religious, and possible to connect spiritually within a religion - but some religion as it is practiced is not at all spiritual.

Recovery is a process of learning to stop living in the hell that the illusion of separation - which empowers fear and shame - created, and start living life based upon remembering that we are connected to everyone and everything in Love." - Obsession / Obsessive Thinking Part 1

The thing that sparked me into "ranting and raving" in my article on New Age Misinterpretations of Metaphysical Truth was a statement from Marianne Williamson that "What is not love is fear." That is not only black and white but simplistic and linear as if Love and fear were the same type of emotional energy. I will address the emotional energy part of this in the other article I am posting with this, but I want to emphasize that anyone who is empowering black and white thinking is set up to be shaming and abusive - not matter how much they tell themselves they are teaching Love.

"Counselors and therapist who are taking their ego strength from helping their poor patients learn how to do things "right" are going to be judgmental and shaming. They will usually do it in masterfully subtle ways, but it is still abuse.

"It is important to recognize that no one has the right to judge or shame you - especially a counselor. Counselors and therapist are wounded human beings who sometimes let their own agendas influence what they say to you. There may be things about you that trigger their wounds. Pay attention. Recognize if you have outgrown what they have to offer. Do not buy into thinking that because they were helpful for awhile, that means they are always right." - Choosing a therapist or counselor with discernment

Any person who has their self worth invested in right and wrong intellectual paradigm is set up to be a perpetrator. They will manipulate and shame you to try to get you to do things right - "for you own good" in their delusional / normal thinking. Relating to authority figures / "experts" who believe they are right and you are wrong can be very intimidating for us because as children we were subjected to shaming and abuse by parents, teachers, ministers, etc. When we see someone as an authority figure, when we put another person on a pedestal as an expert, it can be very damaging to us when they shame us for being "wrong."

Anyone - counselor, therapist, sponsor, parent, friend, whatever - whose perspective is based upon a black and white / right and wrong belief system, will project judgment and shame onto the people they interact with / work with / give advice to / counsel. Because they believe they know what is right and what is wrong, they will see their purpose as getting you to do things "right." If they are successful at manipulating / bullying / shaming / "guiding" you to do things their way, they will take ego credit and see it as proof of their worth. If you do not do it their way, they will blame, shame, and be abusive to you.

This is simply a manifestation of how codependency works.

Of course, they will do their shaming and blaming, they will abuse you, in subtle ways that will have you believing it is your fault. As I say on my Choosing a therapist or counselor with discernment page: "There is no one as good as a therapist at turning issues back on you so that it seems to be all your problem." - Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in the Light Book 2: A Dysfunctional Relationship with Life Chapter 11: Codependent Counselors / Therapists / Healers

Any time that one of these teachers makes black and white statements, and discount emotions - they are doing a disservice to the people they are trying to teach. And it makes me sad and angry. Here is another quote from Chapter 13th of that work.

"At the end of the last chapter of this work, I shared a quote from my online book about the Attack on America in which I called on spiritual and New Age teachers and healers and practitioners to be willing to be open to expanding their intellectual paradigm so that they could stop empowering polarity and shame about being human. I cannot emphasize too much how important this is - for all of us who are doing this healing and spiritual work.

I will be talking more about the metaphysical aspects of this in a later chapter, but in this chapter I want to focus on integrating Love into this human horizontal dance we are doing - and how vital and freeing it is to stop empowering polarity. Learning how to stop viewing ourselves, life, and other people from a black and white / right and wrong perspective is the key to manifesting Love into the World.

"I am mentioning it here because the sharing I am doing here about how I take power away from the black and white thinking in my internal process, is at the core of the work that I refer to in the slogan / bumper sticker Work for World Peace: Heal Your Inner Child. What I am talking about here, is how we manifest Love into our internal process - how to integrate Spiritual Truth into our emotional relationship with life. It is The Work - not just to learn how to relax and enJoy life, which it does make possible - but The Work that will change the condition of polarization of the Lower Mind. It is through doing this work individually that we will change the world.

So, I guess you can see why I think it is pretty important." - May 23, 2001 Update Newsletter part 2

It is very normal for people who are: spiritual seekers of the New Age or any type; trying to learn how to be healthier and have better relationships; in recovery and terrified of drinking and/or acting addictively again; attempting to find some meaning and purpose to life that makes sense and brings inner peace; etc.; to be shaming and judging of self and others because they are not in recovery from their codependency - are not doing the emotional healing that will allow them to change the subconscious beliefs that they learned in childhood.

"It is quite common - especially with "New Age" types, but also in 12 step recovery programs - for codependents to give other codependents the message that "you must be doing something wrong" or you would not be: 1. in financial difficulty, 2. sick, 3. out of a job, 4. in a relationship, 5. not in a relationship, 6. whatever. For people to judge others for how their life looks on the outside. No one has a right to judge someone else's path. No one can know what Karma someone else is settling, and what is necessary to settle that Karma. If one person is able to cure themselves of cancer and another person dies of cancer - that doesn't mean one person did it right and another did it wrong. Each of them is perfectly on their path. There is no right and wrong. We are all one. We all get to go home. We have different lesson plans while we are here. There is no right and wrong." - Joy2MeU Journal: My Present Situation - Having "IT" together 6-99

This quote from the personal journal I share in my Joy2MeU Journal is something I wrote in 1999 while I was homeless - something I talked about in the Newsletter portion of my January 2002 Update.

"I spent 6 months in 1999 being homeless. Not on the street homeless - I had an office for my computer - but crashing on someone's couch kind of homeless. The lessons in acceptance and patience and letting go that I learned during that time were sacred gifts. The level of faith that it forced me to access and practice, the depth to which I was forced to integrate my Spiritual belief system into my relationship with life, was a manifestation of Love from my Higher Power that I am now - and have been - reaping great benefits from." - January 2002 Update Newsletter: Part 1

Being homeless for that period of time - something that happened because I invested in starting this web site - was a perfect part of my lesson plan. It was an incredible opportunity to practice what I teach. To keep affirming that my path was unfolding perfectly even as the human part of me felt abandoned and betrayed. It was an invaluable opportunity - a sacred gift - to work on not buying into the polarized perspective of my ego programming that was trying to tell me I was being punished for doing something wrong because of the external conditions in my life.

The fact that other people were giving me the message that I was doing something wrong - were saying things like, "what did you do to cause this?" or "how are you blocking abundance in your life?" - was additional practice in saying, "I am not doing anything wrong, I didn't cause this, I am perfectly where I am supposed to be on my Spiritual path."

It was a very important part of my recovery to stand up for myself in response to people who were conveying those types of judgmental statements. That doesn't mean that I did not have some responsibility in creating whatever external condition those people were judging me for - or that I didn't have a lot of issues around abundance that I have been working through for years. We have been creating cause all of our lives - and what is manifesting in our life right now may be a result of the unconscious behavior of many years ago. In other words, someone who has been on a spiritual path for 10 years gets some kind of physical illness - that doesn't mean that their part in causing that happened since they started their spiritual awakening. It may be that many years of unconscious behavior have contributed to that condition - behaviors that we were powerless over in the years prior to recovery. So, when someone has a cold and you say, "well what are you doing to cause that?" - stop and think about the kind of message that conveys. It conveys a message that the other person is doing something wrong - that they are being punished. That is not a Loving message to convey. Why do it?" - Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in the Light Book 2: A Dysfunctional Relationship with Life Chapter 13: Changing the Music: Love instead of fear and shame