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What Will We Teach Them?

As millennial parents, we know that our kids will face unique challenges. Our kids, born 2010-2025, have been termed Generation Alpha, and they will be the first generation born entirely in the 21st century.

This gets me thinking: What kind of world will they live in? What challenges will they face? How can we best prepare them?

The world is the most global and interconnected that it’s ever been. The United States, founded as a nation of settlers and immigrants, is the most diverse ethnically and culturally that it’s ever been.

However, as millennials we have inherited a society that in many ways has forgotten its identity and lost its way. Many of us are disillusioned with the religious and political establishments.

If you pinned us down on it, we’d have to admit that deep down we have big questions about the fundamentals of life. Why are we here? Is there a higher power on our side or are we all alone? How do we make decisions, what beliefs make up our compass?

Sometimes we pull ourselves together and we think we’ve got some answers, other times not so much. But what do we believe strongly enough to teach it to our kids?

What do we want them to know about life? What are the values that we want to pass on? What are the things that we know that we know? How do we pass on the humility that is honest about our struggles with some of these questions, while still preserving the message of hope?

I want my kids to value love over fear, peace over division, hope over despair, and freedom over security.

I want them to be creative and curious, hopeful and free. I want them to go into the world with open eyes and open hearts, knowing they will encounter darkness at times, but also certain of their ability to carry the light.

Let’s explore how to raise our kids to be joyful, courageous and resilient, to live lives of creativity and freedom, of love, joy and compassion.

Let’s talk about science, history, and technology, but also politics, economics, religion and philosophy.

Because our kids can take it. They are ready to go there. Our kids are brave and kind, they are earnest and smart, and they were born for this. We must not white wash our history, dumb down our curriculum, or insulate them from the important issues and events of our day.

Instead we must gently inform, educate and equip them for the tasks set before their generation. Just like their parents, I believe our kids crave authenticity, honesty and challenge. They want to know what’s real, and they want to know how to engage their lives with intelligence and passion.

This path is not for the faint of heart, for it will require that we go into our own hearts and face our own demons. To teach our kids the real stuff of life, we’ve got to stop hiding from it ourselves. But it’s not quite as daunting as it sounds once we get into it, because this is also our path. We were also born for this.

We are brave, we are strong, we are resilient. We are here to do all sorts of awesome things, and one of those is to equip our children and set them on their own paths.

This is What I Believe

Spirituality

I believe there is one beautiful, loving, divine essence, which you could call God, or spirit, or source. This spirit is energy, it is the energetic field that is around and in everything and sustains the entire universe because it is the universe.

I believe in love, and hope, and truth, and faith.

I believe God, spirit, has been revealing itself to us in our humanity through time and space, throughout history. Within every religion is divine truth; within every religion we can find precious nuggets of wisdom, and in bringing them together we can integrate a new spirituality.

My focus is on connecting the dots, integrating separate faith traditions, and finding new common ground together.

We will explore all of the religions and the space outside of religion.

My emphasis is on psychology and changes in our theology, because my big questions are about our relationship with ourselves. My themes are balance and wholeness. We will integrate all of these ideas and apply them.

I believe in the power of a right theology, and in the importance of community.

I believe in our mission as lightworkers, and I know we are pioneering a new path for humanity.

As pioneers we are in partially uncharted waters, but many great spiritual teachers have done trailblazing for us over the past 70 years.

I believe in studying those who have gone before, both to learn and to test and to integrate their teachings into a new whole.

I believe in testing, applying and filtering new ideas.

I believe in the importance of understanding ourselves, both our reality and our potential.

I believe we can find a new common ground based on universal spiritual principles.

I believe we are made of love and that fear is something we have learned and can unlearn.

I believe we are energetic, spiritual beings having a physical experience.

I believe Jesus was a great teacher.

I believe Bhudda was a great teacher.

I believe there is great wisdom in the chakras from the Hindu tradition, for helping us understand the energetic part of ourselves, the energy body that overlays our physical body.

I believe in interfaith dialogue and interdisciplinary studies.

I believe in wholeness and balance and allowing paradoxes to illuminate spiritual mysteries.

I believe in the efficacy of yoga and meditation and prayer.

I believe in an energetic evolution carving a path through history led by spirit.

I see an evolution in our understanding of ourselves as a species.

We have evolved in our experience and are continuing to evolve.

We must continue this journey toward consciousness in order to become people who will not militarily destroy each other.

I believe it is time for an energetic shift on the planet.

I believe that religions served a sacred purpose but are now holding us back from following spirit into what the divine is doing in us now, and the future we are being invited into as a race.

I believe this can be a lonely journey for us lightworkers, but I also know it is vitally crucial and necessary for us to walk this path. I know that we are contributing to the uplifting of collective humanity and the positive evolution of the entire race.

I know the importance of right theology, I can feel it in my bones and in my spirit.

As I study the spiritual teachers of our past century, I can see the path forward, and as I look around I see so many beautiful souls who are in this space, on this rainbow bridge of love, light and energy, and I see the obstacles posed by a world that is asleep, that does not understand this mission to awaken, to recover the heart.

As lightworkers we are kind, but we must surround ourselves with the resources and the community we require to take this mystical path that we know was always meant to be the journey of our soul.

We are the awakened ones. We have awakened not only to a new sight of the world, but to a new vision of ourselves.

We have been awakened by our hearts, with our hearts, for our hearts. Our world has forgotten the power and the wisdom of the human heart. Our mission involves reminding the world, showing the world that we must recover our heart’s wisdom, intelligence, and experience, it has a voice we must listen to.

The head divorced from its heart will laugh at our journey toward wholeness but as we press into a new and sacred psychology, and an intuitive, holistic theology that frees our hearts to awaken and integrate in wholeness with our mind and spirit, we will be the Awakened Ones, the Awakened Hearts, and we will press forward, offering only love and peace to a sleeping world.

It is valuable for us to cultivate a new spiritual perspective of the world, and to nurture a new understanding of ourselves. This is our mission.

This new spirituality that spirit has awakened us to is meant to transform our outer world, but the journey starts with a transformation of our inner world.

Our relationship with ourselves is changing.

We are discovering our heart, our love, our inner peace, freedom and power.

I believe with everything in me that this new theology of ourselves and our world is the foundation that will support our newly emerging experiences of spirit and heart.

But it’s not our job to convert the world. We can preach to the choir and contribute to the energy accumulating in the light, and it is the work we do on our own inner world that is the foundation for a later work of healing the world.

But first we must heal ourselves, we must become whole, we must allow ourselves to be fully worthy of that which we are so eager to give others.

It is out of loving ourselves wholeheartedly and opening our own hearts to receive love, that we will become the vessels that can truly channel light and love and truth to those we are here to serve.

Dear Lightworker

Letters, Spirituality

Dear Lightworker,

The world needs you, it needs you to rise up and wake up and realize how wonderful and marvelous you are.

You are love. You are light. You are what the world needs. Once you awaken and you are it, you don’t need to do anything.

Your presence comforts the world.

They can feel your love, your compassion; its unconditionality is soothing in a world full of rules and strings and formulas.

You love them because of who they are, because you know that their essence is your essence, that we are all parts of a whole.

You are free because you know who you are. You are love because you are who you are.

You offer love to the world, you hold it in your unique container. There will be those who judge your container, because they are projecting their own fears and anxieties in reaction to your container. They may or may not be able to receive what you have to offer, but if your Presence exudes peace and love they will feel the divine touch, it will reach them and warm the edge of their souls.

You are here for this. You were born for this. Everything in your life has brought you up to this beautiful moment of now, of being here, right now, in this beautiful, beautiful moment.

Breathe. Allow your soul to be at peace. Practice the holy instant of realigning with Love with a thought. With a quick feeling, a simple wordless thought, you align and connect with the boundless, abundant loving power of the universe, of the spirit and energy that is around us and surrounding us.

Many do not see it, but that is not your worry, when you find yourself judging the state of the world, slowly zoom out your perspective and relax your mind a bit to let go of time, picture yourself sitting cross legged surrounded by the stars of the universe and imagine that a much bigger loving intelligence sees from a much bigger perspective and that at some vantage point, love is the ultimate truth. Imagine that your soul and every other soul on earth knew the primary difficulties it would have on earth. Imagine that your soul and all of the others, that they all knew and agreed, that they came down to an imperfect world to have a beautiful experience of healing and growth, accepting the nature of the physical world, the current state of humanity, and the complex nature of challenge, pain, growth, and joy.

Imagine that part of this process is forgetting what was known and agreed upon, and arriving as a helpless baby, with years of development ahead of developing a personality before even beginning to rediscover their soul that had been with them the entire time.

Dear beautiful, sweet lightworker, this is what it means to trust the universe. You have a path but you also have free will. The free will of your soul helped set you on your path, and it is your path to walk.

You can ask for assistance and guidance. You are surrounded by all kinds of divine assistance reading and waiting to guide and aid. But you can also choose at times to simply follow your heart, follow your joy, listen to your intuition, feel into the call of your soul. What gives you joy, when you allow yourself to admit it? What are your true feelings when you allow yourself to have them? These clues point to your true self, to your divine soul, to the path that you co-created for yourself with spirit outside the bounds of time.

Listen to spirit, and listen also to yourself. Trust spirit and choose also to trust yourself.

You are beautiful. Life is beautiful. The world in all of its imperfections is perfectly perfect from the timeless perspective of spirit. Allow yourself to abide in love, to rest in the knowing of a bigger picture. Expand your awareness to feel the universe caring for the universe. And then bring your perspective back in tight, allow everything that is to be, and then listen to your own call inside your core that is whispering who you are, what you are about, why you are here, and what you are doing next.

Breathe in tapping into love, breathe out tapping into trust, and then allow yourself with joy, in flow, to fully embrace your Next step, to live in the Moment, to feel the Joy of being alive. Then do the work, take your next step.

This is being a Lightworker.

For more like this, read My Letter to You, and This is What I Believe.

It’s Time to Change Our Story

Spirituality

The world’s religions have brought us to where we are, and they have emerged into a beautiful mosaic that is mixing in our globally integrated and interconnected world.

Our mission, our task, requires one incredible challenge that will open the door to everything we must do, and that challenge is openness. We must be open, and flexible and ready to learn something new, to see things in a different way.

We need a new theology, we need a new story, we need new myths and beliefs and stories to tell ourselves about how to go forward, that are different than the ones that have brought us to where we are now.

An abundance of tools have been given to us in the past century that will contribute to our next spiritual journey, including quantum physics, a new awakening to consciousness, and the blending of religious traditions from the East and the West.

Within these areas are beautiful concepts and frameworks that will serve us greatly as we move into the 21st century, and stand on the shoulders of those who have gone before. As we inherit the traditions, the problems, and the world that previous generations have given us, we also inherit the blessings, the gifts, the fruit of our collective evolution and awakening up to this point.

In my book, Becoming Spiritual, I wrote about 10 fundamental shifts we can make spiritually, mentally and emotionally, that will bring us closer to peace and empowerment.

After we make these mental shifts, there is a next level. This is where we take it deeper, and allow ourselves to explore all the ideas that are the logical result of these fundamental shifts.

As we get into the more tangible results of these new beliefs, we will experience resistance on a new level, and this is ok, it’s part of the process.

The spiritual journey is a gentle tug of war between your resistance and acceptance as you stretch yourself and adapt to new ideas. This is the process of growth. This is why you are here.

Energy and Chakras

If everything is energy, and the world is more multi-faceted and complex and marvelous than we knew, then it is time to discover a whole new spiritual and energetic world of ideas, concepts and beings.

We have energy, and there is a framework for understanding the interface of spirit and matter, within our body, and this framework has been mapped a long time ago, it is the system of chakras from the Indian tradition. Anodea Judith and others are helping us integrate western psychology with the wisdom of the chakra system. Judith’s book Eastern Body, Western Mind introduced me to the chakras and in this book she provides an incredible framework for understanding the spirit and energetic side of our bodies.

Myths

Our religions are made up of spiritual stories. Our myths have real life in how they affect our thoughts and emotions, which are made of energy. Our stories matter.

As we build on top of the foundation we’ve created with the 10 shifts in my book, we are able to adopt new myths and stories that serve where we are headed with our beliefs. I’m starting on Myths to Live By, by Joseph Campbell, as I’m seeking to understand better how we can relate to myth in a useful way, especially as we live in modern times and come from a variety of religious traditions.

One myth that will serve us is Plato’s about the soul. James Hillman unpacks this in The Soul’s Code and helps us form a new story about where we were before we came here, and about assistance in the form of a daimon that remembers the intentionality of why we are here, and can assist us in growing into that energetic blueprint that we came here with.

Any negative thoughts or emotions are illusions that are propped up by fear and the ego. But a new the story has the power to free us from that reality and deliver us to a new, empowering perspective on our lives.

Soul and Personality

Gary Zukav explains in The Seat of the Soul how our soul and our personality interact in this life, but one is immortal and the other mortal. Our personality will die with our body, but our soul will live on. Our personality exists to serve the purpose of our soul in living this lifetime. When we align with our soul instead of our ego, we shift with our identity, and then when we accept the integration and purpose of our soul and personality, we find wholeness. Our purpose is to align our personality with our soul. This is the journey of our awakening and it will lead us to authentic power. For more on this listen to my latest podcast episode.

Sacred Soul Contracts

When we carry this further, we find ourselves understanding what Caroline Myss says when she talks about sacred contracts. Our soul makes agreements with itself and other souls before it comes into physical being in this life. There is a whole network of intention and purpose underlying our lives, that we are unaware of to varying degrees, that pull us toward different circumstances or people, depending on what in our soul’s mission remains unhealed.

All of our gripes and complaints about any supposed bad-hand that life has dealt us, is based on an illusion. The truth is the underlying energetic framework of purpose that is made up of sacred contracts between souls that are living out an energetic mission of love and healing.

When you begin to truly awaken spiritually, you see that if everything is spirit and all that truly exists is love, then you see that this physical world is a playground, a classroom for spirit, and all of the challenges and suffering in your life was positioned purposefully for the growth of your soul.

This viewpoint is so challenging to our ego, but as we learn to let go of that finite, materially-focused viewpoint, we release ourselves to see a much larger picture, the spiritual ecosystem of souls and sacred contracts, of divine mission and purpose, and of a new way of being, and of seeing.

Archetypes

Since we are all One, since we are connected, and share the same essence, there is a profound truth embedded in the universality of our experience – we repeat patterns, and those patterns have energy. Caroline Myss and others have explained the role and use of archetypes in understanding our lives. These are patterns that exist in the collective human psyche, and each of us draw from a selection of them, and with these we then live out the stories that shape our lives. You can think of your archetypes as a set of story lines and characters that you feel connected to and that you stay aligned with as you live out your life.

Where Do We Go From Here

The concepts above are all beautiful and useful tools for the journey ahead of us. They may seem foreign and uncomfortable to many of us at first, as they were to me. But as I’ve begun to find the answers I was seeking to the age-old question of how to do life, one truth is abundantly apparent to me: it’s time to be open.

We need to be more open and flexible and teachable and curious than ever before.

We need to be less settled, exclusive, rigid and unyielding; we’ve got to be less stubborn, and willing to lose our sense of superiority.

It’s time for us to acknowledge the goodness and grace offered to us from other traditions. It’s time to come together and find balance in revealing each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

There is a world of spiritual wealth outside of the Bible and it has now become imperative that we open ourselves up to it.

God is still moving. Spirit is still speaking. The word of God is not a finite, limited occurence that stopped being given 2,000 years ago. The spirit of God has continued to move and speak and breathe, in us and through us throughout time.

As we come together in this new global economy, our stubborness, our rigidness, our doctrinal formulas, our exclusivity and our sense of superiority is leading us to mistreat and ultimately destroy each other.

We have become married to politics and economics rather than the values of love and compassion. This unholy union must be broken. The current pattern of religious culture in America must be broken and rebuilt.

In light of all of this, what is a new story that we could tell ourselves about covid19, social distancing and this phenomenon being brought about by the coronavirus epidemic?

What if some greater horror has been averted and prevented by this epidemic? What if this is meant to be the catalyst for a breaking down and rebuilding that reminds us of our common ground, and that exposes both our hypocrisy and our innate goodness?

What if our souls have chosen this? What if this is exactly what we needed?

For a personalized discussion on this, talk to me about my coaching services.

Practicing Living in the Present Moment

Motherhood, Parenting, Spirituality

I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of the present moment, and living fully present, especially since recently reading The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle. (I use affiliate links for books. I appreciate your support.)

And then that was immediately put to the test this week as I began the process of potty training our youngest son. In the past, whenever I was potty training, I inevitably spent my days wishing I was somewhere else. This time around I set my intention to embrace the experience and live in the present moment, asking what lesson it held for me.

What I found this week while focused on being present in the moment with my precious son, as I sought to see the lesson to be learned, I realized that the experience itself was helping to teach me how to be present.

Ever since I began to awaken to a new level of spiritual reality a few years ago, and began the process of renewing my mind, and aligning with my soul, and such, I realized early on that being present and patient was quite difficult for me. I have always been a planner, a forward-thinking, detail-oriented, responsible, future-focused individual.

Now I’m learning to change my perspective, to rewrite the rules, to enjoy the journey in an entirely new way.

On the one hand, watching myself potty train our youngest is showing me how far I’ve come, that I have changed so much, and for the better, in my pursuit of my better self and a better way of life and service.

On the other hand, it’s still incredibly hard for me to just sit for hours and play duplos and watch Team Umizoomi and Story Bots. But as I practice witnessing myself from the vantage point outside myself (in alignment with the pov of my soul), and I set my intention to find the lessons and learn them, and gently insist to myself that I relax into the present moment, I shift into a wonderful new state of mind.

I allow myself to rejoice in my son’s life, to enjoy his joyful, innocent and enthusiastic presence. I relax, and sit, and soak into the moment. I play duplos and snuggle and do the potty routine 2-3x an hour. And I realize at some point that my son is teaching me to be present.

When I release my judgment (of him, of myself, of our routine, of the situation – there are many options in both parenthood and potty training) and focus on being present in the moment, I see him as he is, I see myself as I am, and I am able to focus on loving him and being present.

And my soul itself is soothed by this process. I find a state not unlike that I find in meditation at times, where the outer world and the inner chatter fall away, and you are able to simply focus on something simple that fills you with joy and gratitude, just for the simplicity and complexity of this gift called life.

My challenge to you today and this week is to consider what mundane or tedious life circumstances might have a lesson for you, and to practice being fully present in the moment in those parts of your life. Look for where you have resistance to your life and ask yourself what it would look like to accept those parts. Relax into the experience and invite spirit to speak to you as you allow the moment to be what it is, without trying to make it something different.

It’s important to remember that we can apply spiritual principles to anything. This journey is all about finding your true self, about finding a new and better way to be you. This means what you are learning can be applied to what might seem to be the most boring or ‘non-special’ parts of our lives. Practice inviting spirit into every part of your daily life; expect miraculous shifts and you will find them.

Resisting Fear During the Coronavirus

Books, Spirituality

Let’s talk about the coronavirus for a minute. As for everything in this life, there are two sides to the coin of this new threat.

We’ve been talking about how our first directive as spiritual seekers is to seek to transform our fear into love, ceasing fearful thinking and seeking to view our world through the eyes of love.

This virus poses the danger of pulling us back into fear. This is currently the most immediate danger for many of us, that we will allow fear to sneak back in and color our sight.

However it also has the potential to unite us, to bring out the best in us as so many tragedies do. The best in us is that part of us that knows our true essence is love and that we are all connected on a deep spiritual level by our shared humanity

Something about a threat like a virus brings out our oneness. We are one human race. We have the same hopes, fears and dreams. We all are mortal and potentially vulnerable to the effects of the virus in the same way as everyone else on this planet. It does not discriminate.

My encouragement for you today is to resist the pull of fear. Be smart, be aware. But allow these events to foster in you your love of all our fellow men and women, your sense of connection to all the people alive right now across the world, regardless of race and nationality.

Feel that connection. Feel our Oneness. Send love and light from your heart to those who have been directly affected. Speak courage from your heart, across the miles, into the hearts of those who are on the front lines of this threat to our collective health.

Your thoughts on this do matter, your prayers will be felt and heard. Your steadfast commitment to love and unity will touch us all. Let us not falter but rise to whatever the challenge is that God and our own soul conspire to place in front of each of us in this season.

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