Gary Zukav and Linda Francis: Spiritual Partnership and Authentic Power

In Spiritual Partnership, bestselling author Gary Zukav reveals a profound new relationship dynamic that enables us to reach our full potential and create authentic power and a joyful life. Spiritual partnerships are not only for couples in marriage; they can be created anywhere two or more individuals decide to engage as equals for the purpose of spiritual development.

In this extraordinary book, Gary Zukav shares a revolutionary new approach to life, relationship, and evolution. Filled with poignant examples and including specific guidelines, Spiritual Partnership empowers and enables you to explore your emotions, your intentions, your choices, and your intuition and to use them to create profound spiritual growth. Deepen your joy. Begin the journey to authentic power today. Deepen your joy. Begin the journey to authentic power today. The world is changing around you and within you, and Spiritual Partnership is the road map to that change.

A Personal Note from Gary Zukav

I wrote Spiritual Partnership: The Journey to Authentic Power, to try to get out of my own cage. I wanted, and needed, to connect with people, not just reach them, but really connect for my own well being and hopefully for theirs as well.

I have learned that the difficult times in my life are not because of other people, they are because of me. They occur because of parts of my personality that are painful to experience. When I am with someone who brings them up in me, that is a painful time, but I know that it is not about the other person when I feel angry or impatient or irritable. It is about me, and so I am intent to use my experiences with others to learn about me so that I can change me because I am really tired of trying to change other people. And not only am I tired of it, I don’t want to. It doesn’t feel good. I know deep in me that it is a wrong path for me to take, and I feel that it is a painful path for anyone to take.

Spiritual partnership is a partnership with another person or other people who feel the same way. It is a partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth. So when my spiritual partners and I have difficult interactions, we do not point fingers at each other, we try our best to respond instead of react, and to support one another in doing that also. Spiritual partnership is a new kind of relationship, a different kind of relationship. We do more than talk about hair styles, life styles, car styles, children, and work. We do all those things too but those conversations take on a different meaning. While I am having them, I am noticing what I am feeling. I’m noticing if anything gets triggered in me and if it does, I pay attention to it, especially if I am becoming upset because those are the experiences that keep me from loving. They keep me apart from people.

“You cannot heal the fear of another and no one can heal yours, but you can inspire others with your emotional awareness, responsible choices, intuition and trust in the Universe.
—Gary Zukav

For a long time I thought that if I could change people enough, and get some that were just right around me, it would be easy to be loving, but it doesn’t work like that because everybody has parts of her or his personality that are loving and also parts that are not loving. I would say the not-loving parts are the frightened parts of the personality, the parts that are angry, jealous, vengeful, feel superior, feel inferior, etc. And when these parts become active, and this always happens sooner or later, that’s when the learning potential begins. Of course, it also begins when the loving parts come out, the parts that are grateful, patient, appreciative, content, etc. Being a spiritual partner means really wanting to support people because you see when they are in pain how they might learn from their pain, too, if they’re open. If they’re open.

My focus is on changing myself because I know that other people can’t change me, but I also know that each of my spiritual partners wants to change himself or herself, too. He wants to find and challenge the painful, destructive parts of his personality and cultivate the constructive, blissful parts of his personality, and so I assist him whenever I think I see that they might be active. I don’t just say, “This is what is happening in you, and this is what you ought to do.” I ask her if she is open to looking at something that I think I might be seeing. For example, some parts of my personality that I have become very familiar with over years feel superior, entitled, impatient, and don’t really care about the needs of others, but not everybody is like that. One of my spiritual partners feels a need to please other people when a frightened part of her personality is active; to see them smile or value her because of what she can do or give. So when I see that part come out in her behaviors and thoughts and attitudes, if she is open I will help her see them. And there are specific ways, very helpful ways that we can assist one another. This book gives them to you.

Once I started this book I kept writing because it felt so good. I love it when creativity begins to flow and I can think of a better way to express something—a story, or a metaphor, or a process. I love that experience of sharing. The more I stretched myself to think, “How can I say this in a way that is not by rote? How can I not take refuge in what I know how to say but really communicate in an even more meaningful way?” the deeper my understanding of spiritual partnership became and the stronger my ability to share it. One idea lead to another, one chapter lead to another, and after a few chapters I began to see an outline for the book, and that outline became WHY, WHAT, HOW, and WHO. That’s how this book unfolded.

There is a saying that people teach what they really need to learn. Doing this in a heart-felt way has worked well for me. I can tell that I am becoming more able to connect with people because to my surprise I have become interested in them. Let me put it this way, I am aware now, much more aware of how important people are to me than I have been in the past. I like hearing their stories. I like hearing what is happening in their lives. For example, Linda Francis, the spiritual partner I live with, and I met a couple on a plane and found them to be wonderful. He told me that he has pancreatic cancer and that he and his wife were going on a cruise to Mexico. When he learned that his illness was terminal, he realized that he could spend his last days in a hospital, but that didn’t sound inviting to him. Or he could spend them really living his life, and that invited him. That is what he is doing. What I really like about him is his aliveness, his interest, his interest in me and his excitement for what I am doing. He is as grounded as he is delightful and vibrant. He said, “I am a little afraid of what it will be like to die. I am not sure about that. I know I am going to get sick. I have done my homework on pancreatic cancer. It is an ugly way to die, but I feel so alive and so grateful for every moment.” In the little time we were together, I learned about myself as well as about him, but mostly I enjoyed myself and I enjoyed him, and I feel that he enjoyed himself and he enjoyed me.

Open Your Heart

So those are the kind of experiences that are coming into my life now. And I also know that when it comes to spirituality, I am not special. If I can create authentic power and spiritual partnerships, you can. If I can make the journey from an angry, drug-using, sex-addicted, motorcycle-riding, angry—did I mention angry?—young man to someone who is now enjoying becoming an elder, anyone can. As I began to open my heart up many wonderful role models came into my life over the years, men and women who have opened their hearts or are opening them, and they are still coming. Perhaps I can be one of those role models for you, and you can be one for someone else. We are all opening our hearts, but it is not a matter of opening your heart and, there, that’s a done deal. It is a matter of continuing to open your heart moment by moment. This book is about that, and how to do it.

Love,
Gary Zukav

Spiritual partners Gary Zukav and Linda Francis invite you to create spiritual partnerships and authentic power. Learn about meaningful relationships, emotional awareness, and responsible choice.

Gary Zukav is a spiritual teacher and author of four consecutive New York Times bestsellers. Beginning in 1998, Zukav appeared more than 30 times on The Oprah Winfrey Show to discuss transformation in human consciousness concepts presented in The Seat of the Soul.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Zukav

Linda Francis has been practicing the creation of authentic power since she read The Seat of the Soul in 1989. In 1993 she met Gary Zukav and they created a spiritual partnership which is in its eighteenth year.

During this time, she co-authored with Gary two New York Times bestsellers, The Heart of the Soul: Emotional Awareness and The Mind of the Soul: Responsible Choice. They also co-created Thoughts from the Heart of the Soul and Self-Empowerment Journal: A Companion to the Mind of the Soul.

Linda is a co-founder of the Seat of the Soul Institute, the premier organization dedicated to assisting individuals in the alignment of the personality with the soul—the creation of authentic power.

Linda has been in the healing profession for three decades, first as a registered nurse and then as a chiropractor. At the present time, she is involved fully in co-creating curricula and events with Gary. Linda also guides the Authentic Power Program, which is designed to give people the tools to create authentic power and spiritual partnership in their everyday lives. http://seatofthesoul.com/about/linda-francis/

Spiritual Bypassing – When Spirituality Disconnects Us from What Really Matters Written by Robert Augustus Masters, Ph.D.Author

Synopsis

Spiritual bypassing—the use of spiritual beliefs to avoid dealing with painful feelings, unresolved wounds, and developmental needs—is so pervasive that it goes largely unnoticed. The spiritual ideals of any tradition, whether Christian commandments or Buddhist precepts, can provide easy justification for practitioners to duck uncomfortable feelings in favor of more seemingly enlightened activity. When split off from fundamental psychological needs, such actions often do much more harm than good.

While other authors have touched on the subject, this is the first book fully devoted to spiritual bypassing. In the lineage of Chögyam Trungpa’s landmark Cutting Through Spiritual Materialism, Spiritual Bypassing provides an in-depth look at the unresolved or ignored psychological issues often masked as spirituality, including self-judgment, excessive niceness, and emotional dissociation.

A longtime psychotherapist with an engaging writing style, Masters furthers the body of psychological insight into how we use (and abuse) religion in often unconscious ways. This book will hold particular appeal for those who grew up with an unstructured new-age spirituality now looking for a more mature spiritual practice, and for anyone seeking increased self-awareness and a more robust relationship with themselves and others.

Questions about Spiritual Bypassing

In this video interview Robert address questions relating to his new book “Spiritual Bypassing”.

The questions answered in this video are:

1) What compelled you to write the book Spiritual Bypassing?

2) Do you think that Spiritual Bypassing will transform everyone who reads it?

Robert Augustus Masters – Buddha at the Gas Pump Interview

Robert Augustus Masters, Ph.D., is the author of 11 books (including Transformation Through Intimacy and Spiritual Bypassing), a relationship expert, a spiritual teacher, and a highly experienced psychotherapist (and trainer of psychotherapists) with a doctorate in Psychology. His uniquely integral, intuitive work (developed over the past 33 years) dynamically blends the psychological and physical with the spiritual, emphasizing full-blooded embodiment, authenticity, emotional openness and literacy, deep shadow work, and the development of relational maturity.

At essence his work is about becoming more intimate with all that we are, in the service of deep healing, awakening, and integration. In all this he works side-by-side and in very close conjunction with Diane, his wife and partner in all things. His websites are www.robertmasters.com and www.masterscenter.net.

The Power of Connection – Hedy Schleifer at TEDxTelAviv

Clinical psychologist and a couple and relationship therapy expert, Hedy Schleifer.

My life’s work has crystalized into one single overarching idea. It is the idea of the three invisible connectors: the space, the bridge and the encounter. When people make these three invisible connectors visible in their lives, and embrace them fully, the “miracle” of connection happens. The space is the relational space “between” people. In order to honor that space, one must cross the bridge, and bring one’s full and authentic presence to the world of the “other”. And in doing so, the perfect conditions are established to create a true “meeting”, an encounter of the souls. Once the space has been honored, and the bridge has been crossed, a genuine, nourishing and fulfilling relationship is established.

Solitude: Seeking Wisdom In Extremes ~ Robert Kull

Years after losing his lower right leg in a motorcycle crash, Robert Kull traveled to a remote island in Patagonia’s coastal wilderness with equipment and supplies to live alone for a year. He sought to explore the effects of deep solitude on the body and mind and to find the spiritual answers he’d been seeking all his life. With only a cat and his thoughts as companions, he wrestled with inner storms while the wild forces of nature raged around him. The physical challenges were immense, but the struggles of mind and spirit pushed him even further.

Solitude: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes is the diary of Kull’s tumultuous year. Chronicling a life distilled to its essence — the fundamental mechanics of daily survival — Solitude is also a philosophical meditation on the tensions between nature and technology, isolation and society. With humor and brutal honesty, Kull explores the pain and longing we typically avoid in our frantically busy lives as well as the peace and wonder that arise once we strip away our distractions. He describes the enormous Patagonia wilderness with poetic attention, transporting the reader directly into both his inner and outer experiences.

Kull went into solitude fishing for enlightenment, seeking The Answer, but came back empty-handed. Wilderness, he found, is a place to clearly see the insanity of denying that the world is as it is. He discovered that life itself teaches us all we need to know — once we pause to really listen.

Born in Ventura, California, Robert Kull has spent years wandering North and South America working as a scuba instructor, travel guide, construction worker, logger, community organic gardening teacher, truck driver, bartender, dishwasher, firefighter, photographer, and professor. In 1985 he lost his lower right leg after a motorcycle crash in the Dominican Republic. He began undergraduate studies at age forty and now holds a PhD from the University of British Columbia. He lives in Vancouver, B.C.

Robert Kull author of SOLITUDE on The Hour

Bob Kull author of SOLITUDE: Seeking Wisdom in Extremes talks about the year he spent total solitude in the Patagonia Wilderness on CBC-TV’s THE HOUR with George Stroumboulopoulus.

Noetic Sciences – Marilyn Schlitz, PhD – A Video Interview

Biography

Marilyn Schlitz, PhD is President and CEO of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, where she has worked for 15 years.

Her work focuses in psychophysiology, cross cultural healing, and consciousness studies. She has given lectures, conducted workshops, and taught all around the country.

She completed her training in psychology, behavioral and social science, and philosophy at Stanford University, University of Texas, San Antonio and Wayne State University, Detroit. She received her PhD in anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin.

She has been featured in various writings, interviews, and videos. As well, she has authored and co-authored numerous books, such as Living Deeply: The Art of Science of Transformation and Consciousness and Healing: Integral Approaches to Mind-Body Medicine.
Education

1993-1994
Post Doc, Psychology
Stanford University

1986-1992
PhD, Anthropology
University of Texas, Austin

1983-1986
MA, Behavioral/Social Science
University of Texas, San Antonio

1975-1979

Relationships – True Love and the Transcendence of Duality (by Kim Eng)

KE: During my travels, one of the most frequently asked question is “What is it like to be in relationship with an enlightened being?” Why this question? Perhaps they have the idea or image of an ideal relationship,and want to know more about it. Perhaps their mind wants to project itself to a future time when they, too,will be in an ideal relationship and find themselves through it. What is it like to be in relationship with an enlightened being?

As long as I have the idea in my head “I have a relationship” or “I am in a relationship,” no matter with whom, I suffer. This I have learnt.With the concept of “relationship” come expectations, memories of past relationships, and further personally and culturally conditioned mental concepts of what a “relationship” should be like. Then I would try to make reality conform to these concepts. And it never does. And again I suffer. The fact of the matter is: there are no relationships. There is only the present moment, and in the moment there is only relating.How we relate, or rather how well we love, depends on how empty we are of ideas, concepts,expectations.

Recently, I asked Eckhart to say a few words on the ego’s search for “love relationships.” our conversation quickly went deeper to touch upon some of the most profound aspects of human existence.Here’s what he said:

ET: What is conventionally called “love” is an ego strategy to avoid surrender. You are looking to someone to give you that which can only come to you in the state of surrender. The ego uses that persona s a substitute to avoid having to surrender. The Spanish language is the most honest in this respect. It uses the same verb, te quiero, for “I love you” and “I want you.” To the ego, loving and wanting are the same, whereas true love has no wanting in it, no desire to possess or for your partner to change.

The ego singles someone out and makes them special. It uses that person to cover up the constant underlying feeling of discontent, of “not enough,” of anger and hate, which are closely related. These are facets of an underlying deep seated feeling in human beings that is inseparable from the egoic state.When the ego singles something out and says “I love” this or that, it’s an unconscious attempt to cover up or remove the deep-seated feelings that always accompany the ego: the discontent, the unhappiness, the sense of insufficiency that is so familiar.

For a little while, the illusion actually works. Then inevitably, at some point, the person you singled out, or made special in your eyes, fails to function as a cover up for your pain, hate, discontent or unhappiness which all have their origin in that sense of insufficiency and incompleteness. Then, out comes the feeling that was covered up, and it gets projected onto the person that had been singled out and made special – who you thought would ultimately “save you.” Suddenly love turns to hate.

The ego doesn’t realize that the hatred is a projection of the universal pain that you feel inside. The ego believes that this person is causing the pain. It doesn’t realize that the pain is the universal feeling of not being connected with the deeper level of your being – not being at one with yourself.The object of love is interchangeable, as interchangeable as the object of egoic wanting. Some people go through many relationships. They fall in love and out of love many times. They love a person for a while until it doesn’t work anymore, because no person can permanently cover up that pain.Only surrender can give you what you were looking for in the object of your love.

The ego says surrender is not necessary because I love this person. It’s an unconscious process of course. The moment you accept completely what is, something inside you emerges that had been covered up by egoic wanting. It is an innate, indwelling peace, stillness, aliveness. It is the unconditioned, who you are in your essence. It is what you had been looking for in the love object. It is yourself. When that happens, a completely different kind of love is present which is not subject to love / hate. It doesn’t single out one thing or personas special. It’s absurd to even use the same word for it. Now it can happen that even in a normal love / hate relationship, occasionally, you enter the state of surrender.

Temporarily, briefly, it happens: you experience a deeper universal love and a complete acceptance that can sometimes shine through, even in an otherwise egoic relationship. If surrender is not sustained, however, it gets covered up again with the old egoic patterns. So, I’m not saying that the deeper, true love cannot be present occasionally, even in a normal love / hate relationship. But it is rare and usually short-lived.

Whenever you accept what is, something deeper emerges then what is. So, you can be trapped in the most painful dilemma, external or internal, the most painful feelings or situation, and the moment you accept what is, you go beyond it, you transcend it. Even if you feel hatred, the moment you accept that this is what you feel, you transcend it. It may still be there, but suddenly you are at a deeper place where it doesn’t matter that much anymore.The entire phenomenal universe exists because of the tension between the opposites. Hot and cold,growth and decay, gain and loss, success and failure, the polarities that are part of existence, and of course part of every relationship.

KE: Then it’s correct to say, we can never get rid of the polarities?

ET: We cannot get rid of polarities on the level of form. However, you can transcend the polarities through surrender. You are then in touch with a deeper place within yourself where, as it were, the polarities no longer exist. They continue to exist on the outer level. However, even there, something changes in the way in which the polarities manifest in your life when you are in a state of acceptance or surrender. The polarities manifest in a more benign and gentle way.The more unconscious you are, the more you are identified with form. The essence of unconsciousness is this:

identification with form, whether it is an external form (a situation, place, event or experience), a thought form or an emotion. The more attached to form, the more unsurrendered you are, and the more extreme, violent or harsh your experience of the polarities becomes.

There are people on this planet who live virtually in hell and on the same planet there are others who live a relatively peaceful life. The ones who are at peace inside will still experience the polarities, but in a much more benign way, not the extreme way in which many humans still experience them. So, the way in which the polarities are experienced does change. The polarities themselves cannot be removed, but one could say, the whole universe becomes somewhat more benevolent. It’s no longer so threatening. The world is no longer perceived as hostile, which is how the ego perceives it.

KE: If awakening or living a life in an awakened state does not change the natural order of things, duality,the tension between the opposites, what does living a life in the awakened state do? Does it affect the world, or only one’s subjective experience of the world?

ET: When you live in surrender, something comes through you into the world of duality that is not of this world.

KE: Does that actually change the outer world?

ET: Internal and external are ultimately one. When you no longer perceive the world as hostile, there is no more fear, and when there is no more fear, you think, speak and act differently. Love and compassion arise, and they affect the world. Even if you find yourself in a conflict situation, there is an outflow of peace into the polarities. So then, something does change. There are some teachers or teachings that say, nothing changes. That is not the case. Something very important does change. That which is beyond form shines through the form, the eternal shines through the form into this world of form.

KE: Is it right to say that it is your lack of “reaction against,” your acceptance of the opposites of this world, that brings about changes in the way the opposites manifest?

ET: Yes. The opposites continue to happen, but they are not fueled by you anymore. What you said is a very important point: the “lack of reaction” means that the polarities are not fueled. This means, you often experience a collapse of the polarities, such as in conflict situations. No person, no situation is made into an “enemy.”

KE: So, the opposites, instead of becoming strengthened, become weakened. And perhaps this is how they begin to dissolve.

ET: That’s right. Living in that way is the beginning of the end of the world

Cesar Millan with Eckhart Tolle 1 – 3 [updated March 01, 2012]

Navigating an Uncertain Future: Guidance for the Unpredictable Road Ahead ~ Alan Seale

It seems that with each passing year, the pace of change is quickening, and there are no signs that it is going to slow down any time soon. Along with rapid change comes unpredictability, and often volatility at every level of society—family, community, business, and government.

2012 is not likely to be any different. Numerologically, 2012 is a “5” year. In a 9-year cycle, it is the “middle” year. Archetypally, the number 5 represents unexpected change, uncertainty, and re-balancing of energies. So in case things haven’t been uncertain enough for you in our world, just hang on—chances are, it’s about to get more intense! So my inquiry is, since it could be a year of unexpected change anyway, what unexpected shift in the mass consciousness and collective action might be possible if we focused our energy and attention?

We can choose to struggle against the uncertainty or to take it as an invitation to discovery, new learning, and growth. We have no guidebook for today and tomorrow because the world has never been where we are now. So how do we navigate our unpredictable future? How do we prepare when we don’t know what we are preparing for? How do we ensure that we will be ok? In this article, I outline nine skills, approaches, and perspectives that could serve us well in navigating our uncertain future.

First, we can look at life as energy and learn more about how life works from an energy point of view. Everything is energy and that energy is always in motion. Life is energy in motion. Relationships are energy in motion. Family, society, business, and government are all about relationships and how the energy is flowing in those relationships. And in order for relationships to be healthy and productive, there cannot be winners and losers. Everyone, on at least some level, has got to win. The energy must be flowing in such a way that serves everyone. Therefore, we must be aware of how our choices, decisions, and actions are impacting others and look for the choices that move everyone forward.

Secondly, we can be willing to let things get messy for awhile. Although some might fear that things have to get worse before they can get better, a bigger-picture view usually helps us understand that the “getting worse” is just a necessary breakdown or unraveling that must happen before a new pattern or creation can form. Therefore, the messiness is actually serving a purpose. There is huge momentum in the evolutionary flow. We are on our way from where we have been to where we are going. If we fight against that flow and try to maintain control and keep things orderly, the ride is going to be even rougher than if we just trust that the messy period is a natural part of the evolutionary process.

Which takes us to number three. In uncertain times it is important to be able to perceive potential before it fully emerges, and then to follow that potential and let it show us the way forward. Focusing on solving problems slows us down and puts us out of sync with the rapid pace of evolution and change. A problem is not something to be solved; it is a message to be listened to and a potential partner with which to co-create. Problems are just symptoms that something is not working. And when something is not working, that is because something else now wants to happen. What may have worked at one time is no longer working because the situation or circumstance has evolved.

Culture and society are evolving at ever increasing rates. If we try to “keep up,” we are doomed to failure because we’re working too hard at trying to figure out how to keep up. However, if we choose to ride the wave and let the powerful flow of rapid evolution carry us and show us the way forward, we discover an enormous energy that can sweep us to the next place. Synergy and synchronicity kick in when we follow “what wants to happen.” Miracles start to become the norm. The problems then seem to disappear, become irrelevant, or solve themselves.

When things are moving fast, our focus must be on what wants to happen and where the wave of evolution is taking us next, not on fixing problems that belong to an old paradigm that no longer serves. Focusing on fixing problems keeps us stuck.

Let me make a point of clarification here. I fully acknowledge that we have crises in our world. And when a crisis occurs, we must, of course, respond in the short term to take care of immediate needs. When people need food and shelter, we must take care of that immediate need. However, as quickly as possible, our bigger focus must be on “what wants to happen here? What is this situation trying to show us? What must be our next big step forward?” One part of our awareness may need to be on taking care of the short-term needs, but some part of us must also be focusing on the bigger picture and what wants to happen.

A fifth skill for navigating uncertain terrain is the ability to step beyond judgments of right or wrong, good or bad. Again, everything that happens has a message—it is trying to tell us something. When we get caught up in labeling something good or bad, right or wrong, we can miss the message that the circumstance is trying to convey. If we step beyond the judgment into a place of listening, observing, and intuiting, there is always a message. The sooner we can hear and respond to the message, the more things will start to flow.

All of this is not to say that just following the energy and paying attention to the message will make everything easy and fine. Sometimes the message feels like it actually just makes things more complicated. Or doing what the message is asking may seem impossible. Our challenge here is to accept not having the answers. All we can do is listen, observe, intuit, and take one step at a time while following the potential as best we can.

The sixth skill that can serve us in uncertain times is knowing how to be both visionary and strategist. The unpredictable road ahead challenges us to live in the intersection between being and doing, between intuition and intellect. In Transformational Presence work, we talk about the vertical and horizontal orientations of awareness (see my latest book, Create A World That Works, chapter 4). Most of us default to one orientation or another. In these volatile times, we need to be equally at home in both.

A seventh helpful skill is knowing when to act and when to press pause. The Hermetic Principle of Gender says that the creative process must always have both masculine and feminine energies. This means that inspiration and creativity must be met with strategy and action. Yet it also tells us that there are times for moving full-speed ahead and other times for pausing, reflecting, and intuiting the next steps. A related principle, the Principle of Gestation, tells us that all things come in their own time. The cake will not be baked until all of the chemical reactions have occurred in the oven. In an evolutionary flow, things take as long as they take, and some things are out of our hands. (For more on the Hermetic Principles, see Create A World That Works, chapter 11.)

Which leads us to the eighth skill: the ability to access greater wisdom. It is one thing to have a lot of knowledge; it is quite another thing to have the wisdom of how to use that knowledge. Or even to know when to admit that our knowledge is based on an old paradigm and therefore we really don’t know anything about where we are now! The invitation in those moments is to trust that there is a new paradigm emerging that requires new knowledge and skill sets, and that our job now is to learn fast.

Wisdom also brings clarity about what is yours to do and what is not yours to do. This is a really important awareness skill in times of uncertainty. You may be tempted to try to take care of everything. You can’t. Use clear discernment to know where you should actually be focusing your energy, and then give it all you’ve got.

Wisdom is not something we learn; it’s something we grow in to. However, we can certainly invite it in! Just the recognition that knowledge isn’t enough and that there is a bigger awareness to tap is already a start. On the unpredictable road ahead, there will not always be time to learn all there is to learn or to carefully craft a plan. When things are moving fast, intuition and inner wisdom, along with the wisdom and support of those we trust, may be all we have. It is important to cultivate that wisdom when things are calm so that it is there to serve us when we are paddling hard in the #10 rapids.

Finally, the ninth skill is presence. If your aim is not just to survive the road ahead, but to truly make a difference in your world, then it is important to develop a personal presence that is inherently transformational. Transformational Presence is a result of living in the partnership between intuition and intellect, soul and ego, being and doing. Transformational Presence is an embodiment of all that I’ve written about here and more. It is about showing up to life in such a way that creates the optimal conditions for transformation to occur. Transformational Presence means closing the gap between what you know and how you live. It means being in touch with a deep and profound inner wisdom and letting that wisdom guide you.

Navigating life is an art. What kind of artist you are becomes evident in uncertain times when all you have to fall back on is your craft and skill in artful living. Know and respect your weaknesses as well as your strengths. Take good care of yourself, because, when things are moving fast, you are the only one who can. And take advantage of the quiet times to continue growing yourself.

2012 will likely bring more uncertainty and challenges on all levels. However, we also can influence how the year unfolds by our thoughts, attitudes, intentions, and actions. As 2011 draws to a close and you prepare for the dawning of a new year, I invite you to spend some time listening to what the evolutionary flow is asking of you in the coming year. What is the vision you feel called to give energy to? What unexpected change could actually serve a greater good? How can you support that unexpected change? Just because something doesn’t appear to be possible today does not mean that it will not be possible tomorrow. Everything is changing quickly. And these unexpected times call us each to step into great wisdom and to learn how life works in a new era.

Listening to that evolutionary flow and partnering with it can take courage. It might mean challenging the conventional wisdom of the day and standing for new perspectives and approaches. Heading into 2012, I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes from poet and activist Audre Lord:

When I dare to be powerful—to use my strength in the service of my vision—then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

Who might you be in these uncertain times if you forgot to be afraid? What might you accomplish if you used all of your strength and skills on manifesting a vision that serves a greater good?

Much has been written about the Mayan calendar ending in 2012. It doesn’t mean that the world ends in 2012. It means that up until now, in a sense, our story had been written. From 2012 on it’s up to us to write our story. The page is blank. What story will we as a collective write? What is the story that you choose to give energy to? And what is yours to do in order to manifest that story?

Whatever that is, live it now. The world can’t afford for you to wait any longer

The Internal Observer

“The universe as we know it is a joint product of the observer and the observed”
~ Teilhard de Chardin

The Internal Observer is a powerful tool for self-improvement and personal development. The Internal Observer is an aspect of the Self, the part of the psyche capable of self-observation, evaluation and reasoning. During our journey through life, we face different situations that are both challenges and learning experiences. Many times our paths seem to reach a crossroads. At these moments, the only resource to be accessed comes straight from the Light and the knowledge of ones own soul.

Through developing and installing an Internal Observer we widen our personal ability to be self-reflective and therefore enabling ourselves to be more aware of our environment, interactions and relationships.

“The physical world, including our bodies, is a response of the observer. We create our bodies as we create the experience of our world.”
~ Deepak Chopra

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Spiritual Advice / Mystical power of intimate relationships – Marianne Williamson

Marianne Williamson-mystical power of intimate relationships

Marianne Williamson has become a leader of the new age spirituality movement. Her books and lectures have attracted star such as Oprah and Elizabeth Taylor. Her latest book is called “Enchanted Love: The Mystical Power of Intimate Relationships.”