Gratitude

In order to be truly happy in this world, it is essential to carry with you always a sense of gratitude.  

To recover the meaning of life, is to let go of the ego.  Letting go of the ego however, requires the conscious choice to stop playing the victim...

When in conversation with ones own mind, it is of the noblest intent to think consciously and to discern well thoughts from thoughts of your silly  ego.

When you move through your moments in time rooted in a sense of gratitude, you create your own heaven.  When you decide to step out of gratitude, and instead entertain thoughts of fear, anger, jealousy, greed or deception, you consciously choose to create your own hell.

Chaos is created in the mind, by wrong thinking.  Peace however, is created by choosing to refuse to step into thoughts of fear, anger, jealousy, greed, or deception.

Heaven is not above us.  It is in us.  Hell is not below us.  It is in us.  

The glory in life, is coming to a point in life, where our minds begin to understand we have the ability to choose.

How Do You Know You Are Alive?

'When you know who you are; when your mission is clear and you burn with the inner fire of unbreakable will; no cold heart can touch your heart; no deluge can dampen your purpose.  You know that you are alive."  Chief Seattle.

If you wake up every day and do exactly what you did yesterday, is that really living?  If you react to situations in the same manner you always have, without every policing your own mind, is that living?  If today you do not question why you do what you do, or think what you do, are you even conscious?

It is true that the passive and quiet among us rarely make history.  Glory belongs to the heros who dare to use their divine God giving ability to "THINK".  Behaving according to the programming of our past does not require us to think.  We simply have to possess a beating heart.  It is possible to be in a sleep state while awake.  When we do not use our ability to question, to discern and to do things we have never done before, we choose to exist in an unconscious state.

To know what passions fuel us, and to create the feeling of joy in our life, is to appreciate our life and all that our creator has tried to bless us with.  It is our birthright to know a healthy body, a strong mind, and a full heart.  Our passions are as individual to us, as we are to each other.  To take the time to commune in quiet with the workings of our own mind, is to invest in the outcome of our lives.  By knowing who you  are, by connecting to the holy within you, you enrich me, an extension of your own humanity.

The great thinkers of our time did just that; they thought.  Darwin, Aristotle, Buddha and Christ, were masters of their own minds.  They were the men of our time that spent time alone, in conversation with their own thoughts.  They craved aloneness, and feared it not.  Perhaps that is where we need to start, at the beginning, within the crevices of our own unique mind.

Forgiving Our Selves

Being raised a good Catholic girl, the idea that I was born ba impacted the way I viewed my self.  As a Catholic I was taught to believe in original sin.  I was conditioned to think of myself as a sinners, rather than a holy and divine expression of source.

I used to wonder how it was that I could be held accountable for the sins of Adam and Eve. Something never sat quite right with me. The programming I received while attending Catholic school made it difficult to connect to the idea that I had a right to question what I was being conditioned to believe, not only about god, but about my self, as well as my relation to all that is.

Feeling like I was flawed never left me.  I was damaged good from the moment I entered this physical space.

 I now understand that most of what I had been taught about my faith was  the result of others interpretations.  Rather than being taught to  believe in my own goodness, I was taught to identify with the notion that I was born wrong.  Goodness was not something that existed in me.  It was something instead, I needed to achieve.

The wisdom that only pain can teach has taught me to question everything.

 I now know that much of what I had learned as a child was sadly misconstrued.  The truth is, I was always good, divine, and holy. And in fact, so it is also for you.

If we ever believed we were flawed, it was because the minds that raises us did  not think correctly.

We believed what we did because of how our caretakers taught us to think.

We interpret our environment much the way we do, because we have been conditioned to believe in others perceptions.

Healing the body cannot take place without first healing the mind.

Healing requires much forgiveness, and it should start with forgiving those who taught you to believe you were born with original sin, and thus somehow infected you with the notion that you were not 'good enough'.

If you ever felt less 'than' because you believed you entered this world flawed, forgive that feeling and then let it go. You were created out of perfection.  Original sin has more to do with mans self alienation as the result of faulty childhood programming and tainted perceptions than it does with precious newborn babies.

At your core, you my friend are perfect, divine and holy.  You are connected to the divinity that is responsible for every creation, including every star, every moon, and every planet in the cosmos.

Love your 'self' regardless of who and what you think you are.  Instead consume your mind with the idea that your true inner self is divine in spite of who and what others have mislead you to believe you are.

Milk this idea until your heart space opens up and fills you with feelings of contentment, acceptance, surrender and joy.

Namaste....

Your Mirror

One of the most interesting things you can do in your life is pass a mirror.  

Sounds simple enough right?  I mean how many times have you done just that, pass a mirror?

The next time you do so I would like you try something different.  The next time you pass a mirror, look.  Look into the complete reflection staring back at you.  Look at the colors in your eyes, the shape of your face, the line of your jaw.  Look at your neck, your chest, and absorb what the world sees.  

Then I want you to listen.  Listen to what your mind says to you when you first catch that glimpse.  What does it say?  Can you hear it?  Does your mind compliment you, or does it criticize you?  Do you hear language that encourages you or minimizes you?  Are you hearing your mind be kind or are you hearing an abusive form of language?

We don't often take the time to hear our own thoughts, and that is the problem.  Most of us are listening to faulty negative programming all day long, yet we are unaware of it.  We hear ourselves tell us we are stupid, ugly, fat, disgusting, or old.  Our thoughts, gone unchecked reinforce old thought patterns perhaps we adopted in childhood.  Because we were never taught to listen to our thoughts, over and over negative thoughts get laid down like roads in our minds.

It is time to unlearn.  If you are reading this, you probably already know what I mean.  Thought processes are simply learned.  You can change your mind, and the language in your head, but first you must hear it.

Don't Blame God

So often when misfortune comes our way, we humans tend to ask that one question; "Why did God do this to me?"

The fact is, God didn't DO anything to you.  God isn't some guy standing up inside the clouds looking down on you with some huge indexed notebook jotting notes about how good a human you are or not.  God doesn't have time for that stuff.

When I was a little girl, I was raised to believe God would punish me if I lied or missed mass on Sunday.  I was terrified of God.  I was conditioned to think that God was watching every move I made.  I felt followed and uneasy most of the time.  When I got a little older I began using my mind, the mind God gave me to question what I had been programmed to believe. 

I grew up hearing people say things like, "See, you fell.  God is punishing you", or " Her baby is sick? Oh that is because she had that affair two years ago with the mailman".  These comments were common, and they truly effected me.  I was taught that God was someone to fear, who could not understand what it was to be human.  How cruel God was then, to create me to be human, then to judge me so harshly.  I did not like God.

Disconnected from the image that God had been taught to be, I rummaged through life aimlessly, although I believed I had direction.  After about 3 decades my life began unraveling at the seams.  I found myself lost and without hope.  That was until I began to discover on my own, who God really was.

As my marriage began crumbling, so did every aspect of my life.  As word of my divorce began to spread, neighbors turned their backs when they saw me and even my own family refused to understand.  In addition, my in laws began a smear campaign against me and my husband full of anger set out to destroy me mentally and financially.  My children were simply caught in the crossfire.  I however, felt as if I had a huge red cross on my forehead that screamed to be shot at.  I felt raw.

When people began walking away from me, I found myself oddly comforted by their absence.  It seemed as if when they turned from me, they also took their toxic emotions with them.  Without their negative energy in my life, I found myself hearing my own voice for the very first time.

Obsessive Compulsions My Only Friends

I was a loner. I don't believe that I was born to be a loner. I adore others today. I thrive through connections. I don't even know you, but I am so happy and literally covered in thrill bumps anticipating my words floating through your creative mind.

I know now I was created, or at least the behaviors I manifested were created by those who cared for me. My caretakers molded my ideas of the world and sadly my ideas of my own Self.

My parents were not very faithful people. They were strongly bound to ideas like small rocks are caught up in large clumps of concrete. If my father couldn't see it, it wasn't real.

My mother spoke of God often, but I wondered if her beliefs stemmed from faith or the absoluteness of the words she found in ink on the pages of the bible. In my opinion, believing only in what is written in ink, and lacking the ability to have faith in ideas alone, has nothing to do with faith at all.

I believe I was cheated as a little girl. I believe that I was supposed to be held, nurtured, babied, cooed at, kissed, and looked at fondly. I believe my eyes were supposed to meet the eyes of validation, and connectedness. I believe I was supposed to be encouraged to play, and to get dirty, and to laugh until my belly hurt, unconcerned with how others would judge me for my free spirit. I believe that my natural curiosity was supposed to be encouraged, and that when I made a mistake, I was supposed to be gently motivated to be better.

But in my world, instead I was taught to be small, to be invisible and to go away.

Human connection was as prickly as sleeping in a bed of bees.

The only aspect of my existence that felt remotely comfortable was making myself small, feeling invisible, and getting out of the way.

In those moments, when life become too painful to tolerate, I would count numbers in my mind, pull hairs from my head, and fantasize about being loved.

I shutter to think what might have happened to me, if I had not found the rocking arms of OCD.

The Unspoken Rules That Created My Beliefs

It is uncomfortable for me to write sometimes. I feel myself recoiling from wanting to write my truth. I can feel guilt wanting to make me stop, and go make another cup of coffee, because I know that much of what I write about my childhood is so negative, and sometimes hard to believe.

Much of what I experienced with my mother was in private. The dysfunction played out like a secret production. She and I were the only performers. Through my third eye, or what most would refer to the eyes of self awareness, I see now that I was simply a manifestation of all the nervous, disappointed, frustrated, angry, disillusioned, self loathing energy that was truly her own.

My mother was an abandoned, neglected, emotionally and psychologically starved child. How could she have ever been able to mirror back to me, what her 19 year old child Self did not possess? It would have defied law.

These truths of mine are not about revenge. In fact, they are about forgiveness, understanding, compassion, and empathy. But I realize that many unaware others may not be able to see the forest through the battered limbs of so many trees.

My mother and father infected me with rules that did little more than help me disown my Self.

When my father took his frustration out on my mother, and as she took it, and swallowed up her own disappointment and sadness so not to upset him any further, and when my father refused to apologize for hurting my mother, the rules that were getting ingrained in me, would be the groundwork for the belief systems that governed my very existence.

In my house I learned that the only persons feelings that mattered were the ones in charge. I learned that it was of the utmost importance to swallow feelings, especially ones that might make someone else angry. I learned that it was acceptable to be called names when no one was looking. I learned that talking about feelings was unacceptable. I learned that crying was a form of weakness. I learned that my truth was unimportant. I learned that men come first. I learned that pleasing a man was more important than a man pleasing a woman. I learned that a woman should not expect to be understood. I learned that women clean, cook, and take care of others. I learned that women do not take care of themselves. I learned that what a man thought of me, was more important than what I thought of me.

My Emotional Triggers

It is said that it is not what we hear ourselves thinking, but what we don't hear ourselves thinking is what is at the root of all of our behaviors and reactions.

When I think of a tsunami, I am reminded that a shift at the bottom of the ocean is the cause of the massive destruction that manifests at the waters surface. I can imagine quite clearly the disconnectedness somewhere at the bottom of the ocean, being what is causing all the destruction on land. Truer, the actual disturbance we see manifest through the enormous waves of water, has nothing to do with water at all. Tsunami's are the result of a disturbance in the earths plates. The rushing water is simply what shows up after the earth has cracked a bit.

When I liken a tsunami to areas of my life that have been explosive, I can see how often it was that while reacting in the moment to a certain event, the truth was that I was reacting to something much deeper inside of me that had very little to do with any moment at hand.

Triggers are those places in us that draw us back to painful times in our lives when specific psychological woundings actual took place. They are the points of negative creation within us, that unless we assimilate and somehow make peace with, will draw us back emotionally as if the initial wounding is reoccurring in our present time.

When I was a little girl, my fathers sister suffered a nervous breakdown. She was ultimately diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. It was a difficult time to navigate through as a child. I was only about 10 or 11 at the time.

My aunt had always been someone I admired. She was attractive, and quite successful for a woman back in the 70's. She lived with a man I believed was my uncle Mike. 10 years into my aunts relationship with this man she discovered he had another life. Mike was actually married and had three children. He worked for a bus company and was somehow able to explain his nights out through overtime and multiple swing shifts.

The realization left my aunt unable to cope. She could not bridge the ten years of deception emotionally through to mental acceptance. Her mind simply could not accept that the man she trusted could have been such a liar. Rather than face that reality, it is my opinion my poor aunts mind split.

There are so many tangents I could go off onto from here. I could draw analogies to the idea that my aunts mother abandoned her when she was 10 through suicide. I could write about how that wound-that sense of abandonment, and betrayal was the unstable groundwork that all of her prior relationships were built, including the relationship with her self, and that instability is what really caused her psychological split, and I would probably be right or pretty damn near close if I did. But these writings are about my souls recovery. And so I choose to connect the dots with a focus on the groundwork that was 'me' instead.

When my mother would find herself frustrated by me for whatever reason, it was not uncommon for her to say cruel things to me like, "You're just like Aunt Eleanor. You're going to end up just like her. You'll never have any friends Lisa. You're a little psycho."

We lived in a tiny little house. My bedroom was on the second floor. Back then only the rich had air conditioners, so we always fell asleep to the sound of crickets, cars passing by, and airplanes taking off and landing in the distance. On one night in particular, I remember my mom talking to one of our neighbors on our front stoop. I overheard her telling our neighbor that she was concerned for me. She told her friend that she thought I was a little crazy like her sister in law. The really fucked up thing for me was, that while my mother was talking to her friend, she made her concerns seem genuine. It confused me, because my mother never acted genuine or considerate of my feelings when ever she did speak to me. In fact my mother seemed to taunt me into frustration.

Her calling me a psycho wounded me. Her telling her friend that I was crazy, cut my emotional Self like a knife. So when my ex husband would not only deliberately frustrate me, or withhold affection, or attention from me, but in addition would refer to me as crazy, or a fruit cake, or flakey, I would react not only to the moment, but through the eyes of that still very wounded little girl I still was.

The Disconnected Self

So many of us seem to be searching for something, but what? At the end of the day, when you close your eyes can you feel peace?  Can you feel joy? Can you feel as if you are satisfied with your life?

All to often, most of us feel as if we are missing something, although we can not name it.  If we are not frantic with worry, or excited at all times, many of us become bored.  Our minds so accustomed to the search, seem to mistake boredom for something that which may be so much more.

Most of us were taught to worry.  As children we worried what the neighbors would think, or what the teachers would say.  We worried about the bullies at school, or about getting good grades.  We were conditioned to worry about what others thought rather than what we thought. The point is we were taught to worry.

Our brains are like computers.  Teach a brain to worry and it will worry even when there is nothing to worry about.  A brain will create an idea out of nothing simply to continue doing what it was taught to do, which is worry.

All of us need to wonder whether we worry because there is something to worry about, or do we worry because we were conditioned to do so.  What your mind does, it does because it has been taught to do so.  Until your awareness of self grows, you can not know why your mind does what it does.

I worried for all of the reasons I mentioned above.  

Because I was born to a mother with a fractured sense of self, she could not help me stay connected to my divine truth.  My divine truth as is your divine truth, is that at your core you are perfect and created by god.  Just as trees, and rivers are a part of this universe, so am I and so are you.  Just as a tree is born and a tree dies, so will you and I.

While in my mothers womb, my being floated in divinity.  Living within my mothers womb, blanketed by all that is good, I knew my truth.  The act of being born, and becoming disconnected from my mothers womb, severed me.  Once my being needed to rely on that of the material world, the connection to my self was lost.

Being born requires that newborns rely completely on their caretakers.  If our caretakers do not know their own truth, they can not possibly help us know our own.  Most of us discover the truth along the path of life, through painful and excruciating experiences.

We all needed to be mirrored.  We all needed to have our goodness reflected back to us by people we knew truly loved us.  When we are not seen by others, it becomes impossible for us to see ourselves.  We learn to do what others do.  We worry, we lie, we obsess, we deny, we manipulate, we hide, we drink, we eat, and we make complete messes of our lives.

Pain is good because it forces the psyche to look at what is causing the discomfort.  Without pain in our lives, why would we need to change?  Without pain, there would be no need to look further  into our own hearts or minds.  A mind that does not know pain, is a mind that may be blind to the self.  The love of self is crucial in order to live a life worth living.  To not love the self, is to not know the experience of joy.  

Many of us were taught to disconnect from our self in order not to upset the apple carts.  This was wrong.  Instead we should have been taught to shake the damn apples from the trees if we had to.  Fear of upsetting others was programmed into us.  It was not our fault. But as adults, we are called to know our minds, to connect with our self, and to give glory to our spirits.

When You Do Not Know You Are Love

It is uncomfortable to remember how unloved I felt as a little girl. It is a feeling of unease to recall the doubts, the fears and even the guilt for wanting to feel loved. By all normal standards, my family was good. Our home was modest, immaculate, and our hedges were neatly trimmed. My brother, sister and I went to private school, and attended church every Sunday morning. No one would have or could have known how detached, and dead I felt within our seemingly perfect little family.

In my heart I believe my mother was simply ill equipped to deal with a newborn at the age of 19. Not only was she entirely too young to have me, but the additional burden of being the child herself of not one but two alcoholics, as well as both siblings of hers being alcoholics, tipped the scales out of my favor for having a chance at a smooth welcoming. Empty herself, how could it have been possible for there have been anything left to give me?

As a young child of 9 or 10, I still very much wanted to feel connected to my mother. But by that time far too many power games had been played between she and I. Unfortunately when my mother was kind to me, for instance when neighbors or family was around, I did not trust in her kindness and more often than not made it obvious I did not. It was impossible for me to smile on her cue with all the sadness I felt towards her inside. As I got older that sadness turned to bitterness, which only intensified the distance and chill between us.

As a result of my growing animosity against her inability to make me feel loved or accepted by her, my attitude towards her began to become increasingly hostile as I approached the teenage years. It was a perplexing paradigm I found myself in. For so long I had craved her, and felt assaulted when it was me or our 'personality conflict' she gave blame to for her chill towards me. And then as I got older, I became the chill, which only reinforced her earlier portrayal of me and our relationship, whatever our relationship was.

When you don't know you are love, you tend to believe you are as others treat you. I had been told so often that I was a 'cold fish' or that I had a serious psychological issue, that I eventually became that which I had been labeled.

As a much wiser self I now see how critical it is to be aware of what labels we give others and especially our children. Deeper, I have also learned that my mother simply attracted to her what was in her vibrational non physical language, only my vibrational non physical self could understand. My mother's perception of me or her belief of what we were manifested in her physical reality. It was, as it always is whether we acknowledge it as so or not, the law of attraction working in our lives by our own default, and through our unconscious intents.

No Place To Hide

It was not easy for me to make friends.

When one feels their own essence is diseased, it is difficult to muster up the ability to stand independently when surrounded by others, and to not become overwhelmed by the agonizing fear of being suffocated by your intense wanting to feel like you belong. You must learn to survive the tug of war between wanting to belong, and the fear of that same wanting.

I was too young to know why my mother disliked me. The only thing I remember is hearing her say many times that she and I had a 'personality conflict'. If her thoughts about me ever surfaced around family or friends, this is the excuse I heard her say. It was as if the phrase soothed her as well as excused her uncomfortable feelings for me.

I know now that the discomfort she was feeling, was merely a mirror of the discomfort she felt within herself. She was unable to love her Self, therefore she was unable to love me. I may have been an innocent little being that needed to be nurtured, but so was she. And she had suffered greatly in her childhood due to her mothers emotional absence that was the result of her mother's severe dependency on alcohol.

When I was a child I never felt safe. I felt as if I lived in the Twilight Zone, as if nothing was really real. The mood between my mother and I was abrasive, and often when no one was around I felt picked on, as if I were her whipping boy. When my father would come home from work, my mother's demeanor would immediately change. It was as if she were playing a role. A role she knew would make my father happy.

My mother taught us to pretend as well. If my brother, sister or I were arguing in the house before my father arrived home, and once my mother heard the slam of his Volkswagon Van, she would stop in her tracks, glare at the three of us and through gritted white teeth say, "Shut the hell up you kids. Your father is home!" By the sound of her voice, the stiff movement in her body, and the intense look upon her face, we knew we'd better swallow whatever it was that was going on and smile, because daddy was home.

Through the peephole of awareness, back over my shoulder and while searching the lost files of my minds library, I can understand why my mother did what she did. When my mother gritted her teeth at us, and demanded we stop whatever it was we were doing, she was simply trying to make sure my father came home to a calm house after a long hot day of work. But what she didn't realize was, that in all those innocent moments she was conditioning us to disown our feelings, and to fear making others angry. Unbeknownst to her, she was in the process of creating enablers.

My mother was not an alcoholic, but she was codependent, and unknowingly the lack of awareness she had about her Self and how alcohol had effected her on so many levels, my mother ignorantly infected her children with the same dynamics that had effected her as a result of living with alcoholics.

Alcoholics consume families. They are self absorbed individuals that lack self awareness themselves, and find various creative ways to justify why it is they drink until they pass out, lose their jobs, get into fights, cannot keep a clean home or sustain themselves financially. Alcoholics lie, and expect others to go along with those lies. And when someone challenges the alcoholic, the alcoholic plays the victim, and twists reality to fit his/her personal view of it.

Alcoholics don't see you. They cannot. When a child is born to an alcoholic, that child is born to a person who is incapable of giving that child what he/she needs psychologically, emotionally or spiritually. An alcoholic may have a great job, a great house and a great car...but they won't have the ability to love authentically, or be able to take care of a child the way he/she deserves to be treated.

That child will have no place to hide. Interactions with others become feared.

Lost Little Girl

Growing up it it was not uncommon to hear my mother refer to me as "crazy, psycho, lil' bitch, liar" and so on. I can remember specifically a time when I was in my feetie fuzzy pajamas lying on our maroon living room carpet in front of the television. Both my parents were seated on the couch behind my sister, brother and myself. We were all watching a program on television about animals that were being slaughtered. My tiny heart was bursting open for these defenseless baby seals, but I felt too intimidated to show my emotions, so I kept them in.

"Lisa is such a cold fish. She is so hard. Look at her. She hasn't shed a tear. Oh my God, what a cold fish she really is", my mother said as I tried to survive her emotional surprise assault on my little nine year old soul. I felt completely confused by what I was feeling. I had been conditioned to believe that showing emotions in our home was not acceptable, and yet I was being mocked for not showing emotion.

I am forty six now and my body still has tears to shed over what happened so long ago. My mother could never have known how traumatizing her comments were. To feel rejected by ones own mother is like being aware you have been dying since the day you were born. Life is sort of like a ride on a long rolling razor blade. You're on it, but you don't know why. You want off the ride, but there is no other ride around. This crazy pain is all you know.

Surviving The Pain

When I was a little girl I used to fantasize about spending time alone with my mother. The pang of the emotional distance between us cut like a hot dagger. I yearned for her touch me to help make me feel real. But instead I felt pushed to the side, which made me feel wrong.

I was too young to realize that my mothers insufficient bonding with her own mother, was the root cause of her inability to mother me. Adding insult to injury, the sudden death of her beloved father while pregnant with me, only compounded the sorrow my already overburdened young teenage mother carried. It could have been no other way. How could have my mother been able to 'see' me? My mother had not yet discovered her own Self.

By the time I was seven, fantasy was pretty much a norm for me. It was how I survived feeling 'not real'. Escaping into a world my mind created, that I could manipulate and create was how I escaped reality when my reality became too painful.

I since understand that the emotions of alienation I experienced as a child were the result of feeling psychologically invisible. What I and what every new soul needs as a child is a sense of worthiness that is mirrored back to them through the eyes of caretakers. It is essential to a child's emotional development to have acceptance, validation, forgiveness, and unconditional love be reflected back into them so that they can adopt those feelings unto themselves.

When this does not occur, a child does not develop emotionally as fully as it should. When a child does not believe she/he is loved, the child grows feeling foreign to his/her own world. The child feels alien even unto his/her own self. It is a feeling of detachment that leaves the mind feeling fragile and assuming it is unworthy of love.

I did not 'feel' loved. Intellectually I assumed I was because my house was clean, we always had wonderful meals on the table, and my parents kept a nice home. But there was always a sense in my that I was not good, not good enough, and worse not real.

I see now that because a healthy sense of Self was not mirrored back to me, I could not connect to my own soul. Growing up in a home void of emotion, kept me yearning instead of becoming. Disconnected from her own Self, my mother could never have known what it was she was not giving me.

We Do What We Have Been Shown

My parents are both adult children of alcoholics. Neither of them were blessed with childhoods that they'd like to remember. My mother had two alcoholic parents, and my father had a father who was an alcoholic, and a mother who committed suicide when he was just four years old. My parents were not coddled, cooed, nurtured, or psychologically validated. They were ignored, neglected, disregarded, abused, and abandoned.

It is no accident that my parents met and married. Likes attract likes. One adult child of an alcoholic marries another adult child of an alcoholic. Back then these similarities were not spoken of. They were considered coincidental, silly, and amusing if they were considered at all.

I was born when my mother was just nineteen years old. Four months before my birth, my fathers mother suffered a massive cardiac arrest and died. Just prior to his death, he promised his daughter he would stop drinking once I was born.

I cannot remember, sadly, a time when my mother ever made me feel 'seen'. I felt awkward in her presence, as if my presence annoyed her. I felt as if I was a burden. The only thing that felt right, was removing myself from wherever she was. Feeling invisible to her, hurt more deeply than removing myself from her presence. In my removing of myself, I felt oddly good for doing something that was pleasing to my mother.

My mother was a caretaker and enabled my father throughout their marriage. It was common for me to witness my mother shrink when my father raised his voice on the phone. My father owned and operated his own refrigeration business out of our home, and my mother answered the business phones. If she routed the calls in a way that displeased him, he was not the type of man that knew how to control his anger. He made no excuses for taking his frustrations out on my mother.

Growing up I witnessed my mother disowning her own Self for the sake of her man. Their relationship was not a tender, nor a sharing one. It was distant, unemotional, and more like a business relationship than a marriage.

As my marriage began to draw its last breaths, it became clearer and clearer to me that in many ways I had become my mother, and in other ways I had married her as well.

You Attract What You Know

Have you ever thought why me?  Have you ever found yourself puzzled by the drama in your life?  Do you ever feel like someone out there is out to get you?  Does your life ever sometimes spin so far out of control that you find yourself wondering if things are ever going to get better?

The truth is we have all had those thoughts.

At the age of 32, I found myself overwhelmed, frustrated, drained, exhausted and feeling very much victimized by others in my life. Everything 'looked' so perfect from the outside. My life, so idealistic and perfect, was a facade. I wasn't happy. I wasn't fulfilled. In fact, my life was the complete opposite of joy. It was just dark.

My marriage was exhausting. Trying to communicate with my husband was like trying to get a garden hose to behave like a hedge trimmer. Speaking to him was more frustrating than trying to trim my lawn with a pair of pedicure nail clippers. Life was unnecessarily confusing and hampered. It was as if it was my husbands predominant intent not to hear me.


What I understand now I didn't know then. What I realize now is, no one ever held a gun to my head and told me I had to stay in a place of unhappiness. No one ever told me I had to stay in a place that drained the very life out of my being. No one ever told me I had to put the needs of everyone else above my own. The decisions I made in my lifetime, I made all on my own.

I see now however, I was living by default, asleep, unawakened, and disengaged from my soul.

As frustrating as my husband was, it was not his fault I married him. I see now I married him because the distant-cold love he offered was the only kind of love I recognized.

I attracted my husband into my life because chasing after peoples approval was what I was accustomed to doing. Love was something I wasn't truly worthy of. It was something I needed to earn.

Hearing Our Own Voice

We all think we hear our own voice.  The sad fact is, many of us are simply sleepwalking.  Most of us are unconscious and detached from our own souls-our Selves.  

Look around and ask yourself this questions, "How many of these people around me truly know their own mind?  How many of these people are actually choosing their thoughts? How many of these people instead are simply recreating yesterday, the day before that, and the day before that?  How many people are recreating to what they have always known, instead of creating what they wish to create?"

Hearing your own voice requires stillness.  Can you be still?  Do you know stillness?  Do you know the pleasure of doing nothing, thinking nothing, figuring nothing, judging nothing, not even  your own voice, just to be still? Can you allow your mind to become blank enough to simply be able to be in the moment?  

Most people are in jobs they think they should have.  Most people are in relationships because they think they should be.  But why do they think that?  We think what we think because of conditioning.  Only through conscious awareness can we be truly connected to what we think. Once a mind awakens to its own consciousness, then and only then can it think.  Only through consciousness can a mind begin to choose its own thoughts.  Until it has such an awakening, the mind is much like a feather in the wind, flowing in the direction it has not had the right to choose.

When we awaken to the divinity of our Self, we begin to manifest holiness.  As we awaken deeper to the truths, we are no longer as tightly bound to the diseases that plague our society.  We are hurt less often because we know our offender is unconscious to his/her own truth.  Only an unconscious mind can intentionally inflict harm onto another human being, an animal, or this planet.  As your soul begins to open up to its truth, surrender takes over, acceptance moves in and you begin to understand your truer purpose.

We are all here at different stages of consciousness.  We all live on the same planet, but exist on various planes.  To become conscious, is to move higher and to live freer.  Moving higher requires the mind to become still so that it can hear its own divine voice, the spirit.  The spirit that lives in you will never offend you.  Your mind however, can.  

When one first hears or sees its own thoughts, it begins to understand the 'observer' of those thoughts is the Self. Without being able to disconnect from your emotions, it is difficult to gain the objectivity required to understand you, your Self as an observer of your own Self.

The observer is awareness. The awareness is the Self.

The really cool thing is, as you become aware of your true Self, as an observer you begin to naturally detach from thoughts that create emotions that no longer serve you. Eventually as the observer, you can learn to become the creator and begin manifesting in your life people, things and situations that help you achieve your fuller purpose while here as a physically focused being.

The Wounds of the Past

Every now and then, we may be reminded of a painful event that happened a long time ago.  It may have been when we were two, or ten, or twenty five  or forty. Emotional wounds are the ones no one can see.

If you believed everyone thought you were perfect, then the emotional high you were receiving truly came from the thought, that then relayed the message to you that you were in fact perfect.  Your security would come from believing the outside world as you knew it, believed you were perfect.  So in fact, your high comes from believing truly you are perfect.

Take that thought and build on it.  Don't give up.  Think higher.  Think bigger.  Think universally now.  Don't stay limited.  Think outside the box.

What is reality?  Is what you perceive true?  Is what other people think real?  What do you base your self worth upon?  Do you base your relationship with your self, on what may not be real?  Do you label your self, based on what you perceive as truth when in fact it is more likely not?

Emotional wounds hurt.  They hurt us in places no one can see.  Psychic wounds are more severe than physical ones, because when we are hurt, no one knows that.  Our environment cannot support what they can't see.  So I ask you, if the people in your life cannot see your wounds, does that mean they do not exist?  Does that mean you are not wounded?

The fact is, all humans suffer emotional wounds.  Being human is to know pain.  None of us escape this physical planet without our fair share of bumps and bruises.  

What truly matters is what we think about ourselves. Even if no one in our world acknowledges our truth--the truth is at our core--we are perfect. The same intelligence that created flowers, the stars and the moon--created you.

In this life, all too many people do not know or appreciate that truth.  Instead they lash out and fail to  choose peace.  They simply believe in the lies society consistently reinforces.  Society teaches us to value money, youth, tight bodies, beauty, and even craziness.  Our eyes tell us the world is a bad place.  But it is not.  The ego of man is what creates the lies, and it is the ego in all of us that believes them.

Letting go of the ego, involves surrendering.  As a child I was severely teased and bullied by classmates.  I was by far the typical ugly duckling.  Because I did not fit my peers ideas of what beauty was, based on societal lies, I was bullied.  I was pushed, shoved, spat upon, and teased day in and day out.  When I was twelve I contemplated shooting myself with my fathers hand pistol.  Fortunately for me, a divine intervention took place.  I believe I was touched by a spirit I never knew, and was urged to put the gun down.

When my father was 4, his mother committed suicide.  I believe my grandmother came to me, and helped me surrender to my pain.  The thought came to me to let go, and to live in spite of the pain, because one day these days would be behind me.  If I had killed my self, I would never have known the day when all the teasing would be gone.  Because I did not kill my self, I am here today, living out my passions, which is helping people know their true selves.

You my friend, in spite of all the lies you have ever told, or believed in are perfect.  You are part of something much larger than your bank account, your home or your car.  You are tied to this universe whether you believe in or not.  You get to decide to live in the light of that and be enlightened, or in the dark with the lies.

I hope you choose the path less traveled.  Its not a busy place, but it is so full of joy.

The Wounded Self

To be human, is to be wounded.  Each of us was born into a world contaminated by falsehoods.  Society at large believes in lies.  Look around you.  How much of what you see is truly authentic? How much of what you touch is real? How much of what you think about, and believe in, is actually true at all?

In private moments, what do your thoughts say to you?  Do you think well of your Self? Do you think ill of your Self? Do you tell your Self you are stupid, or ugly or fat? Do you sense in you a feeling of worthlessness? Do you believe others are out to get you? Do you believe you are destined to be poor?  

When you catch a thought, when you truly hear your thoughts, that is your awareness. Awareness is what allows you to police your own mind.  The greater your awareness, the greater your ability to think and become objective.  Without awareness, one is a slave to the endless thoughts that scream across the mind daily.  Without even realizing it, we react to haphazard thoughts as if they were true.  We are caught within an unconscious loop trapped inside.

If you do not think well of your Self, then you believe in falsehoods.  If you believe you are not great, then you believe in lies.  Because our society is fueled by money, lies are everywhere.  They have to be.  Sadly our society is fueled by lies.  Everywhere we look, somewhere someone is telling us we are not enough.  Advertising companies are rooted in lies.  Advertisers tell us in various ways that without what they are selling, we simply  can not be happy.  By subliminally telling us we are not enough, advertisers create a want in our psyche that helps us believe in the lies they are marketing.

Every make up company intends to feed off the insecurities of their markets, or worse, create them.  Designers cloth dangerously thin models.  Thus the message received is that as women we need to be that thin.  Analyze any market, and you will find the lies. The good news is, they are just lies.

At your core, there are no wounds.  At your core there is only divinity.  At your core, what ties you to this universe and all its splendor is perfect.  As time unfolds humankind moves slowly towards greater universal awareness.  Although at times our world seems to be insane, the truth is, humankind is evolving.  The minds of men are growing.  History assures us this is so. There was a time when slavery was legal.  At one time women could not vote.  Not so long ago, most parents believed children should be seen and not heard. From the length of a very long arm and through the eyes of objectivity, the truth is human consciousness is expanding.

The wounded Self, is the part of us that still sadly does not recognize the truth.  Any wounded Self is one that still believes in lies.  It is the responsibility of us all to help others know their true Self.  For those of us who have gained a greater awareness of our Selves, it is up to us to help others get in touch with their true nature.  All humanity shares the same core divine true nature.  To be human is to be divine.  That is our truth.

Knowing The Self

To know ones self, one must learn to be the master of ones own mind.  One must learn to discipline ones self to the point, where he or she can hear their own thoughts.  With the tens of thousands of thoughts that run through the human brain each day, it is required to be conscious of those thoughts, if one is to master the mind.

People assume they are conscious because they can make a pot of coffee or perform a task. Repeating tasks we have done hundreds of time before does not require total consciousness.  For many of us, we can do what we normally do without thinking at all.  To be truly conscious requires enlightenment, that has been born through awareness. The awareness of which I am speaking is the awareness of Self.

It is not enough to just react to circumstances and situations.  It is not enough to do today exactly what you did yesterday.  It is not enough to allow thousands of images and thoughts to run through your mind. To live, is to think.  To think is to be enlightened.  To be enlightened is to be aware.

Knowing the self requires that each of us learn to hear our own thoughts, contemplate our own emotions, consider our reactions and to think. There is a vast difference between an emotion and a considered thought through the eyes of Self.

If you are not conscious or aware yet of your magnificent Self, then you react more by way of your emotions, rather than through your divine consciousness. Humans are either building lives through Self consciousness, or through the lack of it, by way of emotions.

Hearing The Self

When we were children, many of us were taught to disown our 'self'.  As innocent souls drawn into this world, we entered this place with only our senses as guides.  Only through our ability to feel, to see, to hear, to touch to smell and to taste, could we know whether or not we were surrounded by things that kept us peaceful and in alignment with that which allowed joy to grow within.  If mom looked into our eyes warmly, and cradled us gently, we perceived peace.  If we were placed in soothing environments, harmony was ours.

If however, we were born to hostile, agitated souls, chances are peace escaped us, and as a result joy was not nurtured within us.

Being born to souls who have yet to find peace in their own hearts and minds, makes it virtually impossible to grow in strength in regards to self esteem.  Parents who are negatively self absorbed can not 'see' their children in a psychological sense.  Parents who are more concerned with their own habits like, gambling, drinking, money, food, beauty, diets, or adultery are disconnected from their own love of self, and so too are disconnected from their children, and thus reinforce the disconnection between self and love they should be nurturing in their children.

One of the many barriers between self and love is called the ego. The ego is that part of our very young, instinctual self that clamors to us the sense that we need to somehow ensure our survival. The ego lives in fear as if it is going to be engulfed, controlled or destroyed by others. It fears rejection, abandonment, and a loss of control of things and others in its environment. Its origin is fear based and so its urging within us is to make others believe it is much bigger and more powerful than others are.

When parents are unaware of how grandiose or fragile their egos may be, they raise their children with the need to control them rather than out of a nurturing that is rooted in the ability to see ones child as separate and non threatening to ones individualized experience. A parent who has had a difficult childhood may be unaware that his/her unrealistic expectations of ones own child may come from a time in his/her own childhood that left the parent feeling powerless. Unrealistic expectations allow the parents ego to stay ahead of and above the child he/she is trying to control in order to soothe his/her own wounds of powerlessness of the past.

The more powerless an ego felt as a child, the more powerful it needs to feel over others as adults.

The ego is physically based, meaning it seeks worldly things as evidence that it is powerful. An ego maniac is one who seeks constant validation from others, who often uses things such as sexual prowess, or extravagance as a tool to gain some sense of power over another. Male ego maniacs are often fast, smooth talkers, who are well equipped at manipulating others feelings in hopes of getting others to do what it is they want them to do.

Fragile female ego's are similar in that they often use sex as a tool to get what they want. It is also not uncommon for fragile female ego's to behave as if they are helpless in order to manipulate others into doing for them what they are completely capable of doing themselves.

Ego's are not loving. They are impulsive, compulsive, controlling, whining, lying, denying and manipulative. Until one travels deep within and finds the courage to ask, "Who am I?", with sincerity and conviction, love of self is not possible. For in order to love ones own self, the ego must diminish and eventually die. The irony is, that just as one begins to ask such thought provoking, love seeking questions about ones own existence, the ego acts up sensing its essence is being threatened. As you choose to begin looking within rather than outside of your self for the acceptance you seek, the ego finds itself confused by the sudden shift from the material to the non physical, and throws temper tantrums on the playing field of the mind.

When a parents ego is not in check, they very often miss the opportunities to nurture the love of self in their children. When parents are fear based, and thus find themselves worrying far too much about what the neighbors think, or how beautiful, or how thin they are, or what kind of car Mr. Jones is driving, they not only teach their children to care more about what is going on outside of them than what is going on inside of them, they also reinforce disconnectedness within the child by continually not seeing and or appreciating the uniqueness of their little one.

Whatever a parent talks about most, or pays attention to the most, is what the child will learn to believe is important. And if what the child believes is important is NOT what the child, thinks, needs or feels, that child will grow disconnected from its own self.

In my case, I believed that a clean house was more important than my fears.  I believed that money was more significant than what I was feeling.  I was taught that what others thought of me, was more important than what I thought of my self.  Two very decent people, taught me to disown my birthright to a self.

They at the time went about their life unaware that what I needed most was to have pure unconditional love reflected back into my soul, through the eyes of theirs. What I needed most was a peaceful parent. What I needed most were soft whispers. What I needed most was to be soothed lovingly when I cried, and to be cradled after I fell. What I needed most were parents who were so in love and accepting of one another, that that peace and harmony infused my tiny being through the power of vibrations, and enveloped me with a feeling of contentment.

When parents love themselves, and then love one another, they insure their children a channel that is free and clear that is open to their child's essence. The feeling of love is the path that leads to that source, and without a clear lesson of what love truly is, children may need to search for love in all the places where it is not, until they finally happen upon it later in life after much suffering, if they find it at all.

The Disease of Invisibility

In order for a child to grow into a healthy self actualized adult, a number of emotional stages of development must have been accomplished.

Perhaps there is no greater need for a child but to feel 'seen' psychologically.

As a child growing up in the care of two adult children of alcoholics, I felt very detached from those who raised me. I felt invisible both physically as well as psychologically. When I fell, I was told my bleeding knees did not hurt, and often my cries for attention went ignored. When I danced wildly at the age of three in the hopes of feeling seen, and perhaps paid attention to, my parents ignored me, or shamed me into believing that craving attention was 'bad'.

What then does a child of 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 do, when their little hearts are starving for human affection? Where do all those feelings of wanting love go?

My mother was one who busied herself constantly with cleaning our home. Her disposition was anxious and her aura was cold. My mother was not warm or inviting and in fact, I often felt I was an intruder when in her presence. My father was a workaholic, whose obsession with money often made me fear our family was poor and near destitute. My parents relationship was one that felt more obligatory than loving. Often when my father upset my mother during a phone conversation, she would refuse to defend herself, and instead did her best to keep my father calm. In so doing, she taught me that her feelings were irrelevant in relation to his, and so it was that the enabling mindset in me was created.

Blind to her own self, my mother too smiled when she felt like crying, and silenced her self when she felt like screaming. Her tendency to enable my father, gave birth to the sense that other people's feelings were more important than my own. In the presence of my father especially, my mother consistently tended to his emotional whims as if a puppet on a string. The denying she did of her own self, rooted in me very much the same sense of invisibility.

My mother could never have known she was infecting me with the same disease she had been infected with as a child.

The Disease of Invisibility had been born in her many years before the disease had been passed along to me in my own life.

My mother, so blind to her right to own who she was, to hear her own voice, to expect to be respected by the others in her life, to love her self from the inside out, could never have known that through the disowning of her own right to know her true self, she guaranteed I remained a stranger to my own unique self. She could never have known that through the care-taking of others and the abandoning of her own needs, she inadvertently severed the lifeline that was my birthright that connected me directly to my own source.

Why The Self Hides/My Story

Rare human beings ask, "Who am I?".

Until my life began to spin wildly out of control, I thought I knew the answer to that question.

Not long after the birth of my third child, I asked my husband for a divorce. He did not take me seriously, and like many times before suggested I was crazy for ever considering such a thing. He told me he was happy, and that if I wasn't there must be something wrong with me.

Thinking perhaps maybe my husband was right, as well as wanting to still seek his approval, I entered therapy expecting to be told I was in fact crazy. Sadly a part of me wished this was so, for deep within me laid an intense desire to finally feel validated by my husband. Somewhere on some chaotic plane of my existence breathed the sick sense that whispered, "Maybe if I am told I am crazy, this will make my husband happy". This dysfunctional thought actually brought me some relief on some twisted emotional level.

During my first session my therapist Ed asked me, "So, who are you? Who is Lisa?".

I quickly responded, "I am a wife. I am a mother. I own and help operate a business with my husband. I am the head of security at my children's school, and I am a member of the PTA."

Thinking I had answered fully and intelligently, I felt satisfied with my response, until Ed came back with, "I didn't ask you what you did. I asked you 'who' you were. What makes Lisa Lisa?."

I remember feeling as if my brain short circuited for a moment or two as my mind scurried its corners for some clue as to how to answer this authority figure. But there was nothing.

In those moments that followed, I began to become slightly aware that for whatever reason I was truly messed up. Something within me began to become very much aware of how far off course my life was. I could feel a rush of wanting to know what that was that was wrong within me, for I knew not being able to answer such a simple question meant I had a lot of work to do.

"My husband thinks I am crazy for wanting a divorce, so that is why I called you", I said to Ed.

"Do you think you are crazy?", replied Ed.

"I am not sure anymore. I don't know what I feel anymore. I just know I don't have any more strength in me to deal with him. I feel like I am just done. I am dead to him. I am numb."

"Well you're not crazy, but you are codependent, and you need to learn how to stop enmeshing your self with his wanting, and his needs. You probably anticipate the needs of others quite well, and yet cannot hear the calling of your own voice. You probably care more what others think about you than what you think about you. You probably judge your self quite harshly, and yet allow others to take full advantage of you. You probably seek validation from the outside, rather than the inside. And if I had to guess, you probably have alcoholism in your family", Ed said to me, as I sat still hinging on every word that fell from his pale pink lips.

Ed would be right on all counts.

From that day on, I not only listened to every word Ed spoke, but I heard them as well. At his urging I purchased and engulfed the book "Codependent No More" by Melody Beattie. In this book, I found a home. I found a friend. I found my self, the old and the new improved self that is me.

The journey I began that day has not been an easy one. But it has been the greatest adventure of my life.

Up until those moments, if you had asked me who I thought I was, and if I believed that I had self esteem, I would have answered in confidence, believing that I knew who I was, and that yes indeed I had self esteem. Based on the level of self awareness that I had at the time, I would not have been lying. Many years later however, through the jagged peephole that is memory, I now know that at the time I knew very little of what it was that was this thing called 'my self'.

It could not have been any other way for me, for I had been taught throughout my life to deny, ignore, disown and distrust this thing called 'my self'. Born to two adult children of alcoholics, who had been taught to deny, ignore, disown and distrust their own 'selves', it could not have been possible, unless through the miracle of awakening, that my parents could have taught me to honor that which they did not know to honor within themselves.

One cannot teach a child to love that which the one has no knowing of. Alcoholism had robbed my parents of the joy of discovering and loving their true selves. Their lives were lives that were built on survival. My mother was a child who worried where she and her siblings next meal was going to come from, and how it was they were to be able to get their drunken mother off a bar stool and up to her bed. My father was one who was verbally, physically and emotionally abused by his alcoholic father and who in addition was abandoned by his mother when he was four as the result of her suicide.

My mother was only nineteen, and my father twenty when I was born. Children themselves, without an understanding of their own uniqueness, could never have known how it was they were to nourish in me an appreciation of the unique being that I was. Instead, I was taught to smile when I felt like crying, and to be quiet when I felt like screaming. In essence, I was taught that not rocking the boat was far more acceptable than telling the truth. I was taught to fear what the neighbors thought and to conform to what it was, that was impressed upon me as to what was acceptable. Although every cell in my body begged me to break out in individualism, every being in my environment did what they could to shame me into obedience and conformity.

A love for my self could not have been, for without its reflection in the eyes of those who raised me, its soul could not have been born. Self, must be mirrored back to the innocent as they grow, for if the self is denied, life for the innocent child becomes a maze of misguided internal communication, which results in a life that is very much lived in search of love and acceptance from the outside, when in reality, love must always first come from within ones own being.

What Is The Self?

You are amongst a rare breed of human beings. Something within you has drawn you to these writings. My friend, that is a good thing. For in your wanting of knowing, or in the figuring out of why you are where you are, or how it might be that you have more, or perhaps there is something within you that simply wants to know how it is you are experiencing what you are. Whatever the reason you have found yourself here, allow in you a resting sense, a peaceful sense that you are where you are supposed to be.

Life for some is more of a struggle than it is for others. Some of us have been born to more enlightened caretakers than others. But all beings struggle eventually to gain control over their lives, hoping one day to finally find themselves upon the mouth of their dreams.

Our journeys are hilly. They teach us much through the scrapes, through the bumps and through the bruises. But if our heart is focused upon wanting to understand our truth, and in the figuring out of our purpose while here on earth, eventually our dreams open wide and life becomes delicious.

I have traveled through the treachery of what has been, and I have found my way out of that turmoil of what once was. It has not always been pretty my friends. There were many lies I needed to weed through. There were many tears I needed to allow to leave me. There were many ghosts I believed in, and needed to free. But I am here. My soul has recovered, and I am now a deliberate creator of my own reality, knowing and appreciating my life as all that I desire manifests here and in the now.

I have chronicled the journey I traveled from there to here, in a way that suited my own way of learning and processing, for my mind is one that needs to understand all things at its ground level.
In order for me to allow myself the joy of 'having', I needed to first uncover 'me', 'my self'. Further I needed not only to uncover my true self, but needed to learn to love my 'self', which was the most difficult part of my journey.

My belief is that I have much to share, and much to teach those who are in search of a healing.

I know without doubt, that if you are ready to learn, if you are ready to embrace the challenge of learning to love your self, here, through my words your cleansing shall arrive.

Let us begin with what it is you are in need of loving; The Self

We have all heard of the term the self, but what is the self?  Is the self your body?  Is it your mind?  Is the self your thoughts? Is it your soul?  

We are told these days that healthy people have high self esteem.  Esteem is defined as to revere, admire and honor.  But if one does not know ones own self, or if even that they possess this thing called a self, then how is it one can ever hope to achieve health through high self esteem?

If most of us don't even know we have a self, then how are we to ever have this self esteem so many say we need to have in order to live a healthy life?

To begin, it is sometimes easier to define what we are not.  We are not our bodies.  We are not our thoughts.

Our bodies are a physical container if you will, that the rest of us gets to walk around in. We need this physical suit, because our world is made of physical matter.  Having hands helps us manipulate other physical forms.  Our brain has the ability to carry thoughts.  We have an impulse to open a jar of peanut butter, and our physical body allows us to perform that task.

What then is the self?

If your 'self' is not your brain, or your looks, or even your thoughts, then what is it?

Scientist have yet to uncover the very thing that causes creation. The life force within an apple seed that enables that seed to grow into an apple orchard cannot be looked at under a microscopic slide. It is something no one has ever seen, heard or can touch, yet it is a life force nonetheless.

This life force that makes it possible for a male sperm and a female egg to come together and trigger cellular division is the same life force that causes rose seeds to bloom into strong, beautiful and fragrant gardens. It is the same life force that exists in creatures of the sea, and of the sky. This life force is not your 'self' yet it is very closely tied to that which makes up the unique being you are.

The reason I set forth such a clear description of what life force is, is because you must first understand that, that which created you created all that is...therefore you are tied to all that is, all that has ever been and all that will ever be. You are as glorious as the sun, the moon, the stars and the oceans. You have nothing to prove. Just as the sun does not need to prove it is the center of our solar system, nor do you need to prove to anyone or anything that what you are is simply enough. You are enough.

Your self is the culmination of all that which you are including your life force. Your existence here is nothing more than an opportunity to express your innerness. You have an opportunity to embrace all that you are, and all that you feel from within. Here, on this planet is your chance to learn to listen to the guidance you feel from within so to become one with that which makes you unlike any other being.

Your self is the part of you that gives you clues as to what direction you should be going in. When your feelings are negative, that is your 'self' alerting to you that you are going against what is right for you. You are falling out of alignment with that which is right for your unique self. When you experience positive emotion, that is your 'self' sending you guidance that signals you are moving towards what is in alignment with what makes you your unique self.

Life force is in us all. It is in all that is. A self however, is that which makes each being unique unto all other beings.

Each human being has a self, but not every human being is guaranteed a knowing, and or appreciating of his/her own unique self.