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

 

Spiritual Teacher and Codependency Therapist Robert Burney, whose work has been compared to John Bradshaw's "except much more spiritual" and described as "taking inner child healing to a new level," has developed a unique approach to emotional healing that is the next level of recovery from codependency so many people have been seeking. He has pioneered an inner child healing paradigm that offers a powerful, life-changing formula for integrating Love, Spiritual Truth, and intellectual knowledge of healthy behavior into one's emotional experience of life - a blueprint for individuals to transform their core relationship with self and life.

Robert, whose process is firmly grounded on twelve step recovery principles and emotional energy release / grief process therapy, specializes in teaching individuals how to become empowered to have internal boundaries so they can learn to relax and enjoy life in the moment while healing. It is the unique approach and application of the concept of internal boundaries, coupled with a Loving Spiritual belief system, that make the work so innovative and effective.

His personal belief is that we are Spiritual Beings having a human experience that is unfolding perfectly from a Cosmic perspective - with no accidents, coincidences, or mistakes. He considers Spirituality to be a word that describes one's relationship with life - and anyone, regardless of religious belief or lack of it (who is not completely closed minded), can apply the approach he shares on this web site and in his book, to help them transform their experience of life into an easier, more Loving and enjoyable journey.

In his book Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls "A Cosmic Perspective on Codependence and the Human Condition" he postulates that Codependence (i.e. outer or external dependence) is The Human Condition - and that we have now entered a new Age of Healing and Joy in which it is possible to heal the planet through healing our relationships with self. He combines Twelve Step Recovery Principles, Metaphysical Truth, and Native American Spirituality with quantum physics and molecular biology in presenting his belief that we are all connected, we are all extensions of the Divine, and that ultimately Love is our True essence.

"The reversed condition of the energy field of Collective Human Emotional Consciousness and polarization of the lower mind have dictated the course of history up to the present time. Humans are not bad or shameful. There was no original sin. It just felt like being human was a punishment. The human condition is not the result of flaws in human nature. Both the human condition and the evolution of human nature have been dictated by planetary conditions and are a perfect part of the Divine Plan. We have now entered a New Age. What I call the Age of Healing and Joy. The evolution of humans back to the Light has been a gradual process brought about by many Master Teachers who were vehicles in introducing Truth and Love back into human consciousness. It culminated in the reversal of the energy field of Collective Human Emotional Consciousness back into a positive alignment with Truth and Love in the late 1980s. This is Truly a New Age in which we have more, and clearer, access to the Higher Mind and to healing energy from higher vibrational sources than ever before in human recorded history." - My Spiritual Belief System and the New Millennium

{xtypo_info}"I spent most of my life feeling like I was being punished because I was taught that God was punishing and that I was unworthy and deserved to be punished. I had thrown out those beliefs about God and life on a conscious, intellectual level in my late teens - but in Recovery I was horrified to discover that I was still reacting to life emotionally based on those beliefs.

I realized that my perspective of life was being determined by beliefs that I had been taught as a child even though they were not what I believed as an adult. That perspective caused my emotional truth to be that I felt like life was punishing me, and that I was not good enough - that something was wrong with me. I felt like a victim of life, like a victim of myself, at the same time that I was blaming others for not making me happy.

I had to start trying to find a concept of a Higher Power who could Love me even though I was an imperfect human. If my Creator is judging me then who am I not to judge myself? On the other hand if the Goddess Loves me unconditionally then who am I not to Love myself? And if the God / Goddess / Great Spirit / Universal Force Truly Loves me then everything has to be happening for reasons that are ultimately Loving.

The more I came to believe and trust - what some place deep inside of me I could feel, could remember, was the Truth - that all of the pieces of this puzzle of life fit together perfectly, and that there are no accidents, no coincidences, no mistakes, the more I was able to accept and Love myself and others. And the more I was able to trust the process, myself, and my Higher Power."

 

"Due to the planetary conditions, the human ego developed a belief in separation - which is what made violence possible and caused the human condition as we inherited it. The reflection of that human condition on the individual level is the disease of Codependence. Codependence is caused by the ego being traumatized and programed in early childhood so that our relationship with ourselves and the God-Force is dysfunctional - that is, it does not work to help us access the Truth of ONENESS and Love. It is through healing our relationship with ourselves that we open our inner channel and start tuning into the Truth." - Jesus & Christ Consciousness

"We are Spiritual beings having a human experience not weak, shameful creatures who are here being punished or tested for worthiness. We are part of / an extension of an ALL-Powerful, Unconditionally Loving God-Force / Goddess Energy / Great Spirit, and we are here on Earth going to boarding school not condemned to prison.

. . . . . . . . . . . . So there is good news and bad news. The good news is that a New Age has dawned in human consciousness and that we now have tools, knowledge, and access to healing energy and Spiritual guidance that has never before been available. We are discovering the rules of the game that we have been playing for thousands of years by rules that don't work.

The bad news is that it's a stupid game - or at least it feels like it some of the time. The more we understand that it is a game, that this is just boarding school, the easier it becomes to nurture ourselves by not shaming and judging ourselves. We are going to get to go home. We don't have to earn it - that's what Unconditional Love means." - Loving and Nurturing self

Immediately after the terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center and damaged the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Robert began writing - and publishing as it was written (first chapter published 9/22/01) - an online book sharing his Spiritual perspective of the unfolding events. Immediately below is an excerpt from the end of Chapter 7 of that online book: Attack on America - A Spiritual Healing Perspective & Call for Higher Consciousness:

---

"I believe that it is important not to get too caught up in past lives or Metaphysical intellectualizing. That stuff is kind of fun, but it can be used to distract ourselves from dealing with here and now - with doing our emotional healing and recovery work today. . . . . . . The bottom line is finding a way to live life that works to help us be more Loving to ourselves. That works to help us open up to happiness and Joy and freedom from living in reaction to the past. I am sharing my relative Truth with you as an alternate perspective for you to consider. It has helped me to Lighten up and enjoy life. (We are moving from dark to Light and from heavy / serious to light and not so attached to the illusion - learning to relate to life more as a sitcom and less as a tragedy.) A quote from that personal journal I write for my Joy2MeU Journal states it quite nicely I think.

"I was explaining to someone in a phone counseling session the other day, about how important I believe a Loving Spiritual belief system is in recovery. She said, but that is just a crutch, you are just playing a mind trick on yourself.

I said, so what. It works. Who can know what the Ultimate Truth really is? Not me. I choose a belief system that helps make my life easier and more enjoyable today. That works for me. That is the bottom line - it is functional.

I also happen to believe it is the Truth. What I have discovered as I kept surrendering and enlarging my paradigm - is that each new level I arrived at made perfect logical sense. I have to surrender to the intuitive, emotional side in order to reach a higher perspective, that I can then see makes perfect sense in a rational logical way.

That is how I have arrived at a more balanced way of living life, at a way that makes life a lot more enjoyable. If god really is judgmental and punishing, I will find out soon enough - that doesn't mean I have to let it mess up my life today. ;-)" - Joy2MeU Journal: My Unfolding Process - Transition, June -July 2001 - posted 7-01

I really like that: why let it mess up my life today. ;-)

So, this is what this chapter ended up looking like. Interesting. . . . . . In the meantime, I am going to end this with a capsule summary of my Cosmic belief system. This is the understanding of Truth that works for me.

The True meaning and purpose of life is Spiritual evolution. Life is not about money, property and prestige. Life is not about success and failure, sin and punishment, right and wrong. We are not limited, shameful human beings who have to earn some spiritual afterlife. This life experience is not a test we can fail.

We are Spiritual Beings having a human experience. We are a perfect part of the ONENESS of the Universal Source Energy / God / Goddess / Great Spirit. We are all extensions of, manifestations of, The Universal Source Energy. We have always been a part of the ONENESS - and always will be.

A small part of who we Truly are has extended downward vibrationally into an space/time Illusion of reality. Linear time exists only within this Illusion. Within this Illusion our consciousness is experiencing separation and evolving back to consciousness of ONENESS. This Spiritual evolutionary process is experienced as a journey through multiple realities, and multiple lifetimes within these illusions of reality.

The lifetime which you are experiencing at this moment is leg of that Spiritual evolutionary journey. We are here for a short time going to boarding school. This lifetime is only a small segment of a much longer journey. When we leave here, we go to the next segment of the journey. It is as if when we die, we are going off to college. Eventually we get to experience going Home to LOVE. In Truth we have never left, we are just experiencing a dream.

"Once upon a time, in a place where there is no time, in a place where there is no place, God was alone.

God is a great sea of living energy that has always been, and always will be. This energy field, the great sea of living energy, is ALL THAT IS in Reality. Nothing has ever existed, or ever will exist, outside of, or separate from, the energy field of ALL THAT IS. . . . . . .

God is, was, and ever will be, ALL-ONE.

And God was alone.

Now it came to pass that God, being the Mental energy of living intelligence and therefore ALL-Knowing, had a brilliant idea.

This idea is so brilliant that it has allowed God to remain ALL-ONE without being alone. In other words, this ingenious concept has allowed the Eternal I AM to share consciousness of the blessing of Infinite Bliss in ONENESS without changing the Reality of ALL THAT IS. Through this idea The Holy Mother Source Energy has created children composed of the energy of ALL THAT IS for the purpose of sharing LOVE.

(This Goddess is one smart cookie.)

For God's idea was to dream of creating a reality different from the Reality of All THAT IS. Such a dream is properly called a Creation Dream. The story you are about to read is about the Creation Dream which you are experiencing at this moment.

For you are one of the children of God/Goddess." - The Dance of the Wounded Souls Trilogy Book 1 History of the Universe Prologue"

 

 

---

This is an excerpt from My Spiritual Belief System and the New Millennium - a page on which I answer questions about the new millennium posed to me by an Indian New Age magazine. (Indian as in India.):

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.

"It is however, vital for humans to realize that doing their emotional healing is a vital part of opening up to Love and en-Light-enment. For any human to focus on anything but healing their own self is counterproductive in this New Age. To put their time and energy into belief systems that do such things as: attribute all of the significant events, and the important people, in human history to the intervention of aliens from other planets or other dimensions; buy into the belief that they are being manipulated and/or led to Truth by some hierarchy of beings from higher vibrations; or need the intervention of discarnate entities from the Astral plane to teach you Truth; or any of numerous other ways in which people focus their attention on some of the myriad of false gods that are outside of their being; is to deny that they in and of them self are Lovable and worthy simply as beings who are extensions of The Holy Mother Source Energy. To attribute messages that are coming through your inner channel from your own Higher Self to someone or something outside of - or separate from - you, is to give power to the shame and separation that is the evil in this Creation Dream. And the reason humans are doing these things is because they are scared to do their own emotional healing. Honoring, respecting, Loving self enough to heal the emotional wounds from this lifetime is what will clear the inner channel and open self up to Love - not connecting with some being from the Pleiades."

"We will talk about how entities of the Astral plane have interfered with the inner channel after you have recalled some more memories of the future and past. For now it is enough to note that any communication that requires unconsciousness on the part of a human being - including entity channeling, automatic writing, drugs, meditative trance, etc. - has always resulted in as much misinformation as Truth, and will in this Age retard the beings growth process. Of course, the path for some beings has included some of these things at certain points prior to the information about what works best in this Age becoming available to them. The key is balance which can only be attained through emotional healing. Each person must strive to be emotionally honest with themselves and that requires taking responsibility for one's own path. This Age of Healing and Joy is about awakening to consciousness of one's own Spiritual Nature and Spiritual Purpose - and that is accomplished by healing the wounds within, by healing the 'inner child' that is the soul. One cannot awaken to consciousness by turning over responsibility for one's own path to anyone outside of Self. That includes gurus in body, aliens from the Pleaides, and/or entities of the Astral."

---

The e-mail I received was from someone who was in a relationship with a spiritual teacher that had taught this person a great deal. The teacher was a Reiki Master and Spiritual Minister who was very invested in the concept that there are no limitations to the spiritual power available. The teacher was also a practicing alcoholic/addict. The person who sent the e-mail was relatively new to spiritual teachings, and was confused about the behavior and inability to set boundaries exhibited by the teacher. My answer in part:

There is a page that is part of one of my Update Announcements that you might find interesting. In the bottom half of the article on that page http://Joy2MeU.com/news.htm (the news addendum I refer to at the beginning of this article.) I talk about misconceptions and misunderstandings of Metaphysical law that many spiritual seekers fall into the trap of empowering.

Although I don't speak directly to the concept of limitations - the same principles apply. That the Universe is capable of any miracle, that it's power is unlimited, is an absolute Truth. That we have access to that power is also a Truth. That it is important for us to be open to that power and not put limitations on ourselves in terms of the attitudes, beliefs, and definitions we allow to dictate our relationship with self, life, and The Universal Force / God / Goddess / Great Spirit is very True. But it is also true that we are here to do Karmic Settlement and heal wounds from the past - and that Karmic Law and physical existence do impose certain limitations on us. The wounds that we suffered in this lifetime are reflections of the Karma we need to heal. The situations we find our self in are perfect for us to learn the lessons we need to learn. And important part of learning is to see reality clearly - and then take appropriate action to heal what we become conscious of.

One of the limiting factors that we need to learn to accept and make the best of, is the physical body vehicle we have chosen for this lifetime. Some of us have chosen - in alignment with Karmic settlement - to experience bodies which include a genetic predisposition to alcoholism and addiction. Any alcoholic who thinks that they can heal their alcoholism through spiritual power without quitting drinking is delusional and empowering denial rather than Truth. Their disease is twisting their thinking to suit the purpose of allowing them to rationalize continued drinking. An alcoholic who is in denial about their alcoholism will always have as their first priority justifying their drinking - that is a survival level priority for an alcoholic in denial. Anything and anyone in their lives who tries to get between them and their drinking will suffer for it - unless or until the alcoholic gets conscious enough to recognize that they have a problem.

In order to protect yourself, it is necessary for you to recognize the reality of the situation. Talking to an alcoholic that is drinking is about as effective as talking to the bottle itself - in other words, a waste of time and energy. As long as the alcoholic is in denial, he will blame others and rationalize his behavior.

Alcoholism is a physiological condition. All of us have certain limitations caused by the physical body vehicles we are inhabiting in this lifetime. That there are no limits to the power we have access to, does not include the ability to create anything we want to in this physical world we inhabit. Someone who is 5 feet tall with no athletic ability does not have the power to manifest a career as a professional basketball player. If we are focusing on a specific goal that is based upon external circumstances then there are many limitations to what we can manifest. That there are no limitations to the healing possible through Reiki or other spiritual practices is very true - in terms of we should not put any limitations on the possibilities, but there are still other forces at work that do limit possibilities.

As I say on my page that includes questions and answers about alcoholism:

"One of the major indicators that a person is an alcoholic in my opinion, is that when they decide they are not alcoholic they have a drink to celebrate. Some one who is not an alcoholic has no compelling reason to drink - and most non alcoholics do not ever have to wonder if they are alcoholic." - Questions about Alcoholism

Someone who has accessed so much Spiritual power that they could heal their own alcoholism, would then also have no reason to drink. There is no limitation to the abundance of Joy, the exquisite feeling of Love that we can access in some moments of our journey through doing our healing. Accessing those transcendent emotional vibrational frequencies results from clearing our inner channel and being open to whatever we are feeling in the moment. Using temporary artificial means to help us raise our vibrational frequency and access higher vibrational energies was sometimes the only way they could be accessed prior to the dawning of this New Age. In this Age of Healing and Joy, our mission is to raise our consciousness naturally through clearing our inner channel and owning our Divine connection. The purpose of the healing is to own our True Spiritual essence and remember that we are connected to the Source. Temporary, artificial means of doing that are detrimental to our path in this New Age.

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 whom we all owe a debt of gratitude for blazing the trail, are human also. One does not have to be perfect to be a channel. One of the most important best selling books - a book that introduced millions of people to seeing life from a spiritual perspective - was written by a practicing alcoholic. Some of the greatest spiritual teachers have a marvelous gift for communicating Truth - but have a problem with applying that Truth in relationship to themselves. (And also have the potential to be the most gifted in turning any perceived criticism back on the person trying to communicate with them. Anyone who is in denial about what they perceive as a life threatening priority - like an alcoholic who feels compelled to drink or an "expert" whose ego strength is based on feeling "better than" - can be masterful in defending themselves. They will use spiritual/recovery language and knowledge of interaction dynamics to manipulate.)

We all need help in remembering Truth. We all need help at times to see ourselves more clearly. 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.

No one has the right to tell you what your path is, to judge you in your process. Anyone who teaches that there is a right and wrong way to heal, is trapped in the black and white, polarized thinking of the disease of codependence. Anyone who gives the message that there is a destination to be reached is empowering the concept of conditional love. Anyone who gives shaming messages is projecting their own unhealed wounds outward.

At the core of the condition of codependence - which I believe is the human condition - is shame about being human. Feeling that being human is a punishment of some kind - or something to evolve beyond. As I say in my book, many aboriginal societies were far advanced over "civilized" societies in this regard. They actually believed that there were Loving reasons for this human experience, and that it was just a temporary condition to celebrate rather than something to escape.

At the core of recovery from the dis-ease of codependence, is the need to take the shame and judgment out of the process on a personal level. The only way, in my opinion, that we can Truly manifest Love into the world is to start with learning to Love ourselves. As long as we are judging and shaming ourselves for being human, we will judge others for being human. As long as we are fighting our own emotional process, we will not be able to clearly discern rather what we are feeling is a reaction that is coming from the old wounds and old tapes, or an emotional energy communication from our soul.

Recovery is a process of learning how to take power over how we feel about ourselves away from the critical, fear based internal programming so that we can more clearly tune into the intuitive messages from our soul, from our Higher Self. The test of rather a message is coming from our wounds and false beliefs or from our Spirit is a fairly simple one: does it support Love? Is it a Loving message?

Any message that supports polarity - right and wrong, black and white - is not coming from a large enough paradigm. Yin and Yang are not separate - they are ONE dynamic, one whole. It is our polarized perspective that makes them seem to be competing opposites. When we look at the human dynamic from a large enough perspective we can see the ONENESS of it all.

It is very difficult to communicate in polarized, three dimensional language about a process that is multi-leveled and multi-dimensional. The quote from Marianne Williamson that I use above may be taken out of context - my interpretation of it may not be what she meant at all. There may be quotes in this very article that someone could use in a shaming manner. I certainly am not perfect - nor is it possible for me to communicate clearly all of the time.

The point that I am trying to make is that any message that empowers judgment and shame, that supports the illusion of separation, is not coming from our Spirit - those messages are coming from the disease. The Highest Truth, the only Truth, is LOVE. By accessing the Transcendent emotional energy of Love, Joy, Light, and Truth through paying attention to, clearing our channel to, that which we resonate with - we can reconnect with the Source and remember our True identity.

Life is not a test that we can fail. Life events are not punishment for being defective, or for doing it wrong. As long as we are in human body we will sometimes experience fear. When we judge and shame ourselves for being human we are feeding the disease, we are allied with the shame instead of with Love.

By learning to have compassion for our self we can take power away from the shame and judgment - which will in turn take power away from our fears. By remembering the Truth of Unconditional Love, we can access the faith and courage to walk through our fears.

This is an incredibly complex and convoluted process. It is also very simple. Love is the answer. Love is the guide. LOVE is Home. And Love has to start at home by learning to Love and accept our self by tuning into the Truth within us. That Truth is that we are part of the ONENESS; we are Unconditionally Loved; and we are going to get to go Home. On a Higher Level we are Home already - we always have been.

 

Go to Abundant Spirituality in a New Age of Healing and Joy

"As a recovering codependent, I know how long and hard I have had to work to learn to honor my own Truth and my own feelings, instead of giving power to "experts." I have also learned on my path, how many of the so called experts were giving out shaming, judgmental messages because of their own wounds. I have empathy and compassion for them, but I also hold them responsible for the messages they convey."

"To give out shame bearing black and white messages in the name of teaching love, is to me, just as destructive as a parent shaming a child to try to control them. Our society teaches us to be shaming, manipulative, and controlling in the name of love and I find it just as screwed up and dysfunctional as fighting war in the name of God."

"It is very attractive for people to believe that they can evolve spiritually without doing their grief work. Emotions are messy, especially the old repressed ones that can feel so overwhelming. It is natural and normal for human beings to want to do things the easier, softer way. So, many people want to hear someone tell them that it is possible to become enlightened without healing emotionally. Many of those so called experts will even teach that if one is feeling the emotions then one is doing something wrong."

"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."

"One does not have to be perfect to be a channel. One of the most important best selling books - a book that introduced millions of people to seeing life from a spiritual perspective - was written by a practicing alcoholic. Some of the greatest spiritual teachers have a marvelous gift for communicating Truth - but have a problem with applying that Truth in relationship to themselves."

"Anyone who teaches that there is a right and wrong way to heal, is trapped in the black and white, polarized thinking of the disease of codependence. Anyone who gives the message that there is a destination to be reached is empowering the concept of conditional love. Anyone who gives shaming messages is projecting their own unhealed wounds outward."

---

I got an email the other day that reminded me once again of how the black and white thinking of codependence can cause some very Spiritual people to empower some very twisted views about Metaphysical Truth. It brought to my attention an idea that has been presenting itself to me occasionally for some months. I decided it was an idea whose time had come, and as a result have created this page.

The main content of this page is some ranting and raving in regard to this issue that I did in the news addendum to my Update Newsletter of July of 2000. My Update Newsletters include information about what I am going through in my personal recovery process - and as such, I have chosen to block the search engines from indexing them. I have done that because any page that a search engine indexes is potentially the first page someone will read of my site. I prefer that people who discover my site start with a content page - rather than a processing page - so that they get a perspective of what my work is about. It is not really a big deal, and I may change that one of these days (I actually did unblock many of those pages in February 2009), but right now the Updates are buried pretty deeply in the site and don't get nearly as many readers as the content pages.  (Links to those Updates can be found on the bottom of the site index page of Joy2MeU.com)

The information on that news page was the second part of a page that started off with some personal sharing about my ongoing process - so it was buried deeper than most. I have been considering bringing that information up to a more accessible part of my site for some time. This page will include the portion of that news page that relates to this topic, as well an expanded version of the answer I gave to the person who sent me the email that sparked this page. I am also going to include several other quotes from my writing that relates to this issue.

This is an important issue to me, because black and white misinterpretations of Metaphysical law cause codependents to judge and shame themselves - which is not aligned with the ultimate Metaphysical Truth of Love. ~ Robert 2-7-01

---

 

This is an emotional trigger for me. It really makes me angry. And it was, of course, perfect since right at that time I was writing my article about finding emotional balance through inner child healing - the article that was focused on "through the fear." The message that there is only love and fear, is one that I have seen in quite a few places - from various authors, belief systems, Spiritual teachers. It is a message that in my opinion is not only inaccurate, but is also abusive and shaming.

I will talk first about why it is an emotional trigger for me, and then why I think it is inaccurate.

It is an emotional trigger for me because I interpret statements like this one to be saying that fear - and anger - are negative things that one should not experience if one is evolved enough. That one who is enlightened should be in love all the time and not experience these negative emotions. It feels to me like what is being said is that if I am experiencing fear I am doing something wrong - that I haven't gotten "there" yet.

The reason that I have an emotional trigger around this kind of statement, that I give it power, is because I am judging myself on some level. My disease is still in there giving me the message that something is wrong with me, that I am defective, that I am not doing it "right." Other people's judgments have no power over me unless there is a level within me where I am judging myself. And I believe that as long as I am in this body, on this plane, in this lifetime, that old programming will not go away completely. It does not have anywhere near the power it used to possess. Where is used to be a big monster screaming at me, now it is like a cricket in the corner chirping at me. But even a little cricket chirping can get real annoying at times.

Because I teach best what I need most to learn, and I am trying to learn how to Love myself - I am sensitive about messages like this, because I know how much power they can carry. As a recovering codependent, I know how long and hard I have had to work to learn to honor my own Truth and my own feelings, instead of giving power to "experts." I have also learned on my path, how many of the so called experts were giving out shaming, judgmental messages because of their own wounds. I have empathy and compassion for them, but I also hold them responsible for the messages they convey. (Which are of course perfect for wherever they are on their own path.)

In working with codependents trying to overcome the power of the shame, I have often said, "You can't tell a shame based codependent enough that it was not their fault - that they were powerless to change until it was time to change." When people who are healers reinforce the judgment and shame of the disease through making black and white statements like the one above, I get angry because I have used such statements in the past to beat myself up. Until I learned how to have internal boundaries, and trust my own Truth, I took in statements from experts (whether they were authors or people with more recovery than I had or anyone that I saw as knowing more than defective me) and allowed it to fuel and feed my disease in shaming and judging and beating myself up. I am constantly needing to tell clients that such messages are not necessarily the Truth.

And of course, I have been going through a time of great fear, so I took the quote as a personal assault on me. At a time when I have been recently struggling to be Loving to myself, this type of message is not one that reinforces the belief that I am Lovable and worthy. To give out shame bearing black and white messages in the name of teaching love, is to me, just as destructive as a parent shaming a child to try to control them. Our society teaches us to be shaming, manipulative, and controlling in the name of love and I find it just as screwed up and dysfunctional as fighting war in the name of God.

Now, to get into why I believe such statements are inaccurate. I am going to be responding out of my personal Spiritual Belief System, out of my own understanding of Metaphysical Truth.

On the Highest level, the Absolute Truth - the only True Reality of the God-Force, Goddess Energy, Great Spirit, what I call in my Trilogy, The Holy Mother Source Energy - is the ONENESS of the energy of ALL THAT IS vibrating at the frequency of Absolute Harmony, which is LOVE. At that level, there is only LOVE. We are all part of that ONENESS, of that LOVE.

The reality in which we are experiencing being separate, individual entities called human beings in a linear three-dimensional time/space reality is an illusion, a dream, a figment of the Great Spirit's imagination. It is a holographic illusion caused by the illusion that energy can exist separate from The Universal Source. Within this Illusion, there exist many other illusions - death, suffering, fear, anger, polarity, scarcity and lack, etc. There are many levels to that Illusion.

It is very difficult to communicate about multiple levels of reality in polarized, three-dimensional language. In my writing I try to differentiate by using LOVE to refer to the vibrational frequency of The Goddess, Love to refer to the Transcendent (transcendent through multiple levels within the Illusion) vibrational frequency which we humans can tune into, and love to identify the manifestation that occurs on the human level of experience.

In my understanding, we cannot experience LOVE as long as we are experiencing being separate individual entities - because in LOVE we are part of ALL, of the ONENESS. We can experience Love when our internal channel is clear enough - or in some cases, we can experience something very close to that Transcendent emotion through temporary artificial means. The goal in healing and recovery is to align ourselves with Truth to a degree that allows us to tune into Love as much of the time as is possible in a natural way. It is not possible to be tuned into that Love all of the time. In the times we are not tuned into Love, there will be times when we feel fear.

The Absolute Truth of God is Love, Joy, and Abundance. It can be said that Love is all there is. It could be said that fear and anger are a result of not being in tune with Love. But to say that, is to deny that while in human body, it is not possible to be tuned into Love in every moment of the day. The most enlightened person on the planet will experience a moment of visceral, instinctive fear when a plane they are riding in takes a sudden plunge or a car swerves in front of them or some such thing. That fear of the unknown, that survival supporting programming, is something that is inherent in being human. The more enlightened someone is, the sooner they let go of that fear and move back into an enlightened state of being - but they still feel it.

That kind of fear is not bad or wrong or the result of not being evolved enough. What is dysfunctional are layers of fear that are a result of the trauma and programming of the disease. As I said in the article about fear, most of the levels of fear we experience are dysfunctional and silly. I believe that people who say that there is only fear and love, are talking about those dysfunctional levels of fear. But to make a statement in black and white terms that convey the message that fear is negative - is in my opinion, not only inaccurate but also shaming.

It is also directly related to the reality that not only does traditional science, medicine, and psychology discount emotions - treat them as a chemical reaction or an extension of thought, but many of the so called New Age teachers do the same. Emotions are, on one level, chemical reactions - just as on another level, our emotional reactions are very much influenced by our mental attitudes. But emotions are also energy that exists in a very real way on the etheric plane in the emotional body. To discount the level in which emotions are energy is very dysfunctional in my belief. To discount the emotional energy that was generated in our childhood, and still exists in our being, is to discount our own experiences and being - to say nothing of being very dangerous to our physical and mental health.

It is very attractive for people to believe that they can evolve spiritually without doing their grief work. Emotions are messy, especially the old repressed ones that can feel so overwhelming. It is natural and normal for human beings to want to do things the easier, softer way. So, many people want to hear someone tell them that it is possible to become enlightened without healing emotionally. Many of those so called experts will even teach that if one is feeling the emotions then one is doing something wrong.

I believe that such teachings are inaccurate. I believe that our emotions are an important and vital part of our being that needs to be owned and honored. I believe that fear is a teacher that helps us move toward Love, that helps us to learn how to love ourselves. I do not believe that, in and of itself, it is wrong or bad or the opposite of love. Our relationship with it can cause it to be very dysfunctional - which is why we need to own it so we can change our relationship with it. The reality of being human is that this experience is really scary sometime. I am saying that is OK - that it is not shameful or unevolved to feel fear.

This is getting way too long here, so I am just going to mention quickly some of the other messages that I find disturbing - especially coming from people who are supposed to be teachers.

Free Will - free will is an illusion that exists within certain levels of the illusion. On the highest level, we are all part of the ONENESS and nothing any of us do can change that - because ONENESS is the highest Truth. On Lower levels we have free will to a certain extent. All of our actions on the physical plane however are governed by the Law of Karma - so that free will exists within the context of Karmic settlement.

Choosing your parents - this is another one that is governed by Karma. We did not have the choice of any parents in the world to be born to - we had limited choices that were aligned with settling the Karma we needed to settle.

Abundance - as long as we are in the Karmic realm, let me address abundance. Some of us came into this lifetime with issues to heal around money and financial abundance. Other people had already done their healing around abundance issues - or will do it in some future life. People that have a very easy time manifesting financial abundance are not better than, or more evolved than, people who have struggled financially in this lifetime. It is just about having different types of paths - it is not something that rich people are justified in judging other people for (or vice versa), or that anyone needs to feel ashamed of because it means you are doing something wrong.

Now, all of us have childhood experiences that are reflections of the Karmic debts we need to settle. That means, that things in childhood wounded us around the issues we are here to work on and heal. So, like any other issues, abundance is an area that many people need to work on - to remove the dysfunctional, self sabotaging programming that comes from our childhood. As long as we are working on uncovering our wounds and healing them, we are doing our part in the process. It is important to learn to accept and Love ourselves no matter where we are in regard to any issue, and not give any issue (such as not having money) the power to affect our sense of self worth - or set us up to think that we are doing something wrong if we have not reached "there" yet. We may never get "there" in this lifetime - it is important not to buy into being the victim of ourselves in relationship to any issue.

Being Creators of our life - this is one that I run into in Metaphysical New Thought Churches sometimes, as well as in other New Age type associations. The law of mind action which states that what we focus on is what we create - is True. The problem is that isn't the whole Truth. There are other factors involved - including Karma. We are co-creators in our life - not the sole creator.

It is also, one of the black and white statements that are sometimes made that can convey shaming messages if not qualified. Telling someone they are creating their own reality without also telling them that they were programmed to come from fear and negativity - and that they were powerless over that programming until they learned they can change it - can cause codependents to feel ashamed. It is a Truth but not the whole Truth.

Polarity - polarization of the energy field of Collective Human Intellectual Consciousness - the Lower Mind - is what set up the dysfunction in human existence. It is what empowered the illusion of separation. Polarity is not only part of the problem, it was causal in creating the problem - the human dilemma. To empower polarity, by making black and white statements is to me, a sign that someone is not looking at the human experience from a large enough paradigm. As wonderful a person as I am sure Marianne Williamson is - and she is a wonderful teacher who has brought enlightenment and a new perspective on Love to many, many people - I deduce from statements like the one above, that she still has some black and white judgments going on in her relationship with herself. That is not bad or wrong - just human.

Statements such as hers above, give the message that fear and anger are negative and shameful. I very much disagree. The dysfunction in our relationships with ourselves have resulted in fear and anger being manifested in some really awful ways - but that does not impart negative value to the emotions themselves. Our planet was stuck in a negative paradigm, one that was reversed to the Truth of Love, for thousands of years. The whole human race was the victim of planetary conditions that caused humans to react to this human experience from a place of fear and survival, from a paradigm that empowered belief in lack, scarcity, and negativity. It was the human condition - not something that any individual human being should judge them self for.

This is a New Age, as I explain in my book. The energy field of Collective Human Emotional Consciousness has reversed to a place in alignment with Love instead of opposing it. That is why there is a Transformational Healing Movement happening on this planet. We are learning to Love - and that needs to start with Loving our self enough to stop shaming and judging our self for being wounded humans. It is really helpful if the people who are at the forefront of the movement are not giving out shaming, judgmental messages.

But, of course, everything is unfolding perfectly. And the reason I react to such things is because of my own emotional wounds that I am working on healing. Marianne is perfectly where she is supposed to be, just as I am - just as we all are. There are just a lot of times when it doesn't feel like it. In my belief, we are Spiritual Beings who are extensions of the God-Force, Great Spirit, Goddess Energy - having a human experience that is a form of boarding school. We are all going to get to go Home. We are all in Truth Home already on some level of our being. We are waking up and remembering that. It is a Joyous and exciting time to be alive.