NOW HEAR THIS! EVERYTHING GETS BETTER WITH AGE, INCLUDING HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT HOW YOU LOOK!!

You get that?

I've written often (check HERE) about the illusions and conditioned negative beliefs we've carried around about aging, particularly in what has been loosely called "Western Culture," and definitely in what was once 3D, the dense level of consciousness where a belief in strict linear time meant time was always running out. In that mindset, aging was seen as a process to bemoan, thwart or deny as much as possible.

Well, folks, this is 5D, and the illusions are falling by the wayside. The veil is lifting on the game of limitation, dualism and linear time. 

THIS was in the news this week:

"A poll of 80,000 American adults of all ages by polling giant, Gallup, reveals that we feel most satisfied with our bodies after 65. Yes, you read that correctly. Not at 18, or 25, or even 40."

Yo! I'm turning 60 next month, and I have to be honest - I can't wait! All of my life, I have looked forward to being "old." Really. Even in my teens and twenties, I somehow knew that life was going to continue to get better and better the older I got. And it has.

This is from one of my posts on the subject:

"Our soul energy, the source of which comes from our Oversoul and Higher Self in any particular lifetime, infuses us gradually and continually throughout our journey as physical beings. In other words, when we don't interfere, we naturally live at a higher and higher vibratory rate as we mature, more and more filled up with the energy of spirit until, once again, we go back to being pure spirit, as we were before physical incarnation.

Many of us were conditioned to fear this process, and so look upon what is meant to be a glorious evolution as a deterioration instead. And as we know, what you believe is what creates your reality. So, for many, what can be an experience of greater vibrancy, potency, wisdom and creativity over time instead becomes a depressing time of loss (and loss of time).

Julia Moulden, in a piece entitled,  "Over 50? You're at the Height Of Your Powers," used Jack Palance as an example of someone who remained vital well into his elder years, and showed it off at the 1992 Oscars when he did his famous one-handed push-ups on stage, at the age of 73. (Palance won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in "City Slickers" that year.)

Life is meant to get better and better as you grow and progress through it, folks. And the more light that shines through you as you move forward on this journey, the more truly beautiful you become - at every level. If you don't like what you see when you look in the mirror, you're vision is tainted by negative beliefs. 

Hey - Don't fear the reaper. Rather, just start reaping!

Thanks, Jack!

REPOST: WHY RELATIONSHIPS FAIL - IN PURSUIT OF EROS!

I can't count the number of people I've seen for couples counseling over the years. Struggles in relationships are among of the most frequent of reasons people seek out therapy. How one measures "success" in a course of therapy with a couple is a matter for debate in my profession, I suppose, but if the yardstick is whether or not the couple holds their relationship together instead of splitting up, then I am an abject failure. I would have to guess that somewhere around 75 to 80 percent of the couples I see for therapy end up separating. One of my colleagues calls me "The Separator."

Indeed, when I first see a new couple in treatment, one of my first ground rules is that it must be understood that we are not engaging in a process to "save the relationship." I explain that we are going to use the arena of the relationship to increase the self awareness and understanding of each individual, and then, see where that leads. Interestingly enough, very few people are really thrown by that at first, because by the time a couple arrives to therapy, the relationship has gotten so congested with anger, pain and resentment that "saving it" is not really what they're desiring (even though they will need help admitting that).

But, what causes relationships to end? Well, first let's eliminate the word "fail" here as meaning ending, and redefine it this way: a relationship is "failing" when either the Eros has died and the couple is refusing to admit it, or the flame of Eros is still alive and the partners in question are not doing what it takes to fan the flame so it can grow higher. These are two very different situations and a necessary part of self-work within a relationship is to clarify the problem.

In my favorite Pathwork Guide lecture - "The Forces of Love, Eros and Sex" - the Guide, channeled through Eva Broch, says this:

"Eros lifts the soul out of sluggishness, out of mere contentment and vegetation. It causes the soul to surge, to go out of itself. When this force comes upon even the most undeveloped people they become able to surpass themselves. Eros gives the soul a foretaste of unity and teaches the fearful psyche the longing for it. The more strongly one has experienced Eros, the less contentment will the soul find in the pseudo-security of separateness. How then is Eros different from love? Love is a permanent state in the soul. Love does not come and go at random; Eros does. Eros hits with sudden force, often taking a person unaware and even making them unwilling to go through the experience."

Yes. Many of us have had a taste of that, some of us more than a few times. The Guide calls it "Eros," most of us refer to it as being "in love." I often refer to it as the "Free Pass" from the Universe that gives us a taste of how great existence can be in physical form. But if as the Guide says, Eros can "come and go," then how can we get to "keep it" in the context of one relationship?

Well, the first part of the answer to that is kind of Zen, like Sting's lyric: "If you love somebody, set them free."

Mark Epstein, my favorite Buddhist psychotherapist, in his fantastic book, "GOING TO PIECES WITHOUT FALLING APART," says it this way:

"Clinging is as much of a problem in lovemaking as in the rest of life. In order for sexual relations to be deeply satisfying, there must be a yielding of this clinging in a manner that actually affirms the unknowability and separateness of the loved partner. It is the peculiar convergence of awe and appreciation with pleasure and release that characterizes the best sexual experiences. Separate and together cease to be mutually exclusive and instead become reciprocally enhancing and mutually informative. There is wisdom in this state, not just raw instinct."

So, Part One of how to keep Eros, like anything else you want to "keep," is to let it go. (I know. I know. Keep trying to wrap your head around it. It will come to you.)

Part Two is to try and penetrate that "unknowability" that Epstein refers to, and simultaneously allow your own hidden self to be penetrated, even though you will never be completely successful.

Here's the Guide again:

"Eros strengthens the curiosity to know the other being. As long as there is something new to find in the other soul and as long as you reveal yourself, Eros will live. The moment you believe you have found all there is to find, and have revealed all there is to reveal, Eros will leave. It is as simple as that with Eros. But where your great error comes in is that you believe there is a limit to the revealing of any soul, yours or another's. When a certain point of usually quite superficial revelation is reached, you are under the impression that this is all there is, and you settle down to a placid life without further searching."

Okay, to summarize - the way to keep Eros alive is to first, not cling or grip onto it, or onto the person who is the object of your desire, and second, to simultaneously seek to know that person at greater and greater depths while revealing yourself in the same way. Now, let's be honest - this is rarely done in most relationsihps, mainly because it requires very intensive and persistent self-examination and staying connected to the full range of feelings, including pain and sadness. Many more couples would rather either settle into a "comfortable" relationship without any passion, or have serial experiences with a lot of partners to get that initial rush when Eros provides its universal "Free Pass."

However, on those rare occasions when the "whatever-it-takes" effort is made, the result is a soaring, sublime experience of the depths of love and pleasure and soulfulness that is nothing less than the first and main reason we all became human. And know this, if you achieve such a state at any point in your lifetime, you won't care when it is or how old you are. You won't look back and regret that you didn't find such joy when you were younger. You'll be way too busy being happy and satisfied for regrets.

Now, can it all still end, even if you make all of the above efforts? Well, again the answer is a Zen "yes" and "no." Sometimes people come together for a particular soul purpose, to accomplish something together - like bringing a child into the world, or to work on a developmental task - like overcoming one's repetition compulsions from childhood up to a point. In such a case, the Eros that may have brought said couple together will come to the natural end of its lifespan between those two people. They will fall out of love. Not coincidentally, in such a situation, the couple will lose their motivation to continue the intensive, in-depth revelation process with their mate. So, couples counseling also comes to an end.

Which brings us to another subject for another day - how to end things. So much is damaged and lost during endings because we're so "bad" at them, and fear them so much, when in fact, a healthy ending can be the very crowning glory of a relationship when all of the love that was there and all that was accomplished can be integrated and made permanent in the psyche.

But again, that's a talk for another day.

MORE SEX EQUALS MORE MONEY, TOO!

I've written extensively on this blog about how a vibrant sex life significantly benefits your physical and emotional well-being, and I've posted several pieces about the connection between your spiritual nature and your sexuality.

Well, here's a piece from the Huffington Post last year about the financial benefits that come with an active sex life. The article, entitled, "People Who Have Sex At Least 4 Times A Week Make More Money," finds a statistically significant correlation between sexual activity and financial prosperity.

Here's an excerpt from the piece:

"It pays to have more sex. Literally, new research finds. People who have sex four times or more a week earn higher wages than their less-sexually active colleagues at a statistically significant level, according to a discussion paper from Nick Drydakis, a fellow at the Institute for the Study of Labor, a private, independent organization focused on labor market research."

Now, to be clear, detached sex, sex in isolation, or compulsive sex, isn't necessarily a money maker, but rather sex that brings genuine pleasure to you and your partner, and especially sex that is combined with love and Eros, is what can be a path to prosperity.

Here's more from the piece by Nick D:

"See, people who have frequent sex tend to be happier, have higher self-esteem, better reasoning ability and are less likely to be depressed. More sex makes you healthier and happier. And happy, healthy people tend make more money."

I would add, Nick, that happy, healthy people  are inclined to have more sex, too.

This is from an amazing chapter in an amazing book, "PATH OF EMPOWERMENT," by Barbara Marciniak:

"The orgasmic experience connects you with your spirit, reorganizing and revitalizing your cells. Sex is like a rocket booster, and coupled with conscious intent, it can propel you into aspects of reality that can enrich your life. When you are having sex, you are stirring the life-force kundalini energy nestled at the bottom of the spine. Activating kundalini energy by means of sexual pleasure can create direct openings into simultaneous dimensional experiences that have a complete interface with the life you are presently leading."

Nicely said. In other words, folks, through the power of sexual expression and enjoyment, especially via the orgasm experience, especially with someone you love, you can access your creative abilities across the spectrum of dimensions. 

I know it may not seem romantic to meditate on financial abundance while making love, but then again, being broke and worrying about money can definitely be a buzz-kill in bed.

YOU ARE NOT VULNERABLE WHEN YOU'RE OPEN. YOU'RE VULNERABLE WHEN YOU'RE LITTLE!

I read an blog post a while ago entitled, "The One Quality We Often Mistake For Weakness Can Actually Make You Stronger," which extolls the virtues of being "vulnerable." Citing examples from President Obama to the Dalai Lama, the piece gives examples of the strength that comes from being vulnerable. The post refers to a book, "Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead," by Brene Brown.

While I essentially support what the post and book are trying to say, the language of the authors demonstrates a very common error which I would like to address here.

"I feel too vulnerable when..."

How often I hear individuals begin a sentence like that. Usually, the person in question who is perceiving themselves as "vulnerable" is talking about being "open" in some situation that is revealing of their inner life to another. But this common connection in one's mind between openness and vulnerability is erroneous. 

You are not vulnerable when you're open.

The definition of "vulnerable" in most dictionaries is: "susceptible to physical or emotional harm." Okay. That's pretty straightforward. So, when are we the most susceptible to harm in those ways? Well, in two situations, mainly: 1. when we are without an option for avoiding danger; and 2. when we are truly dependent on another person or persons who may choose to do us harm. And when are we most likely to be in such situations? Well, unless you are literally a hostage in a terrorist takeover, or a prisoner of war or in jail, the most prevalent time human beings are actually vulnerable to harm is - you guessed it - in childhood!

That's right. In childhood, especially early childhood, we are essentially hostages to our parents and caretakers, without options to avoid the slings and arrows of our environment. And we are utterly and completely dependent on those others for our well-being, even for our very existence. Whatever the vicissitudes of our parents' mental and emotional health, or lack thereof, we, as children, cannot protect ourselves or remove ourselves from harm's way. We can't stop adults from hurting us, nor can we trade in one set of adults for another. In other words... we are vulnerable. Truly.

Now, here's where the confusion comes in and how the erroneous connection gets made.

As children, as newly minted human beings, we are naturally open, physically, mentally and emotionally. We feel everything fully when we're first born, and to some degree, we stay that way throughout the very early years of life. However, because of the undeveloped, un-self-actualized aspects of humanity, we are injured by our environment. Our parents and caretakers hurt us. Yet, we cannot stop them, nor can we leave them.

So what do we do? We begin to shut down, distort, and/or disconnect parts of ourselves physically, mentally and emotionally in order not to feel the pain so acutely. We form a character structure, and initially, it actually does seem to mitigate the pain, which seems to validate the conclusion that open is vulnerable, and closed is safe.

See, we can't understand truly when we're little that we're little. We can't really picture that one day, we'll be adults ourselves, and have the choices adults have. In other words, we can't understand that it's being little that makes us vulnerable, not being open that makes us vulnerable. And so, stuck in the confines of our character structures as time passes, we miss the fact that nature provides the solution to the problem of vulnerability in childhood - we grow up!

In adulthood, we can realize that protecting ourselves emotionally with the armor of character defenses is very inefficient and inhibiting, and most importantly, no longer necessary. Wearing that suit of armor doesn't make for the easy enjoyment of a sunny day, let alone for making love. On the other hand, being fully open to our inner lives, which frees up the mind and body, gives us the energy and flexibility to creatively express ourselves, enjoy life and, if need be, avoid situations that would do us harm, which mainly means not engaging with negativity. Thus, in this realization, we can engage in a healing process, in an holistic self-work process, that can dismantle the armor and allow us to be ourselves fully.

So, let go of the false belief that when you love and reveal yourself to another, you are vulnerable. And Brene, forgive me for suggesting a slight change to the title of your book, but "Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be OPEN Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead" would work better for me.

IS YOUR LIFE BECOMING "TOO EASY?!"

More and more people, that I've had the joy and privilege of serving as guide and facilitator for over recent years, have reached the 4th and 5th "Stages of Healing" (Follow this link, or read Chapter 3, Part 2 in the FPL book for more info).

Because of the realignment taking place in their inner lives, their outer lives are becoming more overtly synchronistic and balanced, and their manifestation capacities are becoming more conscious and immediate. They are organically using the Law of Attraction to enhance their human experience. They are lifting the veil to 4th, and eventually, 5th dimensions consciousness.

It is a wonder to behold!

This is from "The Book of Freedom," channeled by Paul Selig:

"You have designed a life in accordance with a blueprint of the True Self, which simply means that the True Self is creating for you. You are no longer the magician trying to bring something into being. You are no longer the one who must make decisions from a list of possibilities that you have created or inherited.
"Each one of you comes to this expression with a design. The bodies you are in, the energetic fields you hold, are in fact the design that is now being re-created in accordance with the Divine Self.
The vibration of the Divine Self, who has come to be known by the name I Am, assumes your body and the vehicle of expression, which is, in fact, the will. The will, you must understand, must be assumed in totality and in agreement with the Divine for alchemy to truly occur. This does not mean you don’t make choices, but how the choices are made are so much simpler because the knowing that you now possess aligns you to what you require.
"So the battles over ideas, the shoulds and the woulds, will be gone as this is done because you have no need for them."

MORE ON: EVERYTHING GETS BETTER AS WE GET OLDER!

            Everything gets better as we get older. That’s right. The natural trajectory of a human lifetime for a self-actualizing individual is like an upward spiral, from density to light. And while the depths of density, which is the unique experience of being physical on Planet Earth in 3^rd dimensional consciousness, while that journey into limitation can be an exciting game, the crowning glory of the trip is the arrival back home to the lightness of our true being.

Like all of it, the experience of sex moves through the same passages from the highly focused intensity and dense physicality of adolescence and young adulthood to the glorious and soul-quenching adventures of mature sexual expression. Infused with uninhibited Eros and deep love and heart connection, sex in the later years of a human lifetime can literally bring you to tears from the sheer joy and pleasure as your crown chakra blows open with orgasms that are akin to giving birth. That sex later in life requires more time and care and attention to nuance and ambiance isn’t a sign of deterioration any more than the time and care that goes into producing a fine wine or writing a sonata is. As we grow, quality naturally replaces quantity as the prime directive.

It is only due to a lifetime of conditioning by social idealization of youth and fear of the illusion of death that we are led to believe that the golden years represent loss rather than the natural reaping of rewards for becoming conscious once again of who we truly are. These are the years to decant that wine, and play that completed masterpiece called a life.

For even more, check out these posts HERE!

TERMINAL LUCIDITY!

"Terminal Lucidity" - A common phenomenon known to medical professionals tending to the terminally ill in which, just before death, there is a surprising surge of energy. Doctors caution family members that this surge is not a sign of strength or remission, but rather a sign that death is near. It is the proverbial "last gasp."
Consciousness-wise, this is what we are witnessing collectively right now - the death throes of 3D and its low vibrations of separation and limitation, fear and hate, and even duality itself. Just like with the end of any illness, the final clearing is often the most messy, but it is nonetheless a precursor to better days. Take heart!

THE POWER OF DOING NOTHING... POWERFULLY!

Are you discovering the power of doing nothing? Many people are.

Remember the frequently referred to FPL post from January of 2013 - "IT'S 2013! WHICH EARTH ARE YOU ON?!" - in which the new rules of 5th Dimensional Consciousness (5D) were outlined? Right up top was Rule #1: "Murphy's Law Is Officially Reversed." (In other words, in 5D, "everything that can go right, will go right... if you let it.")

Well, 3 years later, many FPL readers, and people I know and work with, have been experiencing this new rule at work in the practical experiences of their everyday lives. So much so, in fact, that complaints are coming up in sessions that more or less boil down to: "It's too easy!" "I didn't actually do anything!" "Things just fell into place!" "Things just worked out!" Etc.

Sounds funny, right? But the truth is, synchronicity ("the simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection," according to the dictionary) is the way of the Universe. There are no true coincidences, and this has always been the way things worked, only now, in 5D, we're becoming aware of it, and so becoming able to call upon it for manifestation purposes in our lives.

Many people call these synchronistic events "miracles," but here's my favorite quote on miracles:

"Miracles are the result of nature unimpeded."

Get that? Reread it:

"Miracles are the result of nature unimpeded."

In other words, things "working out" for your greatest good, for your highest excitement, for your fulfillment and self-actualization, even in ways you couldn't predict or imagine specifically, is just... natural! You don't have to do anything in the sense of forcing, willing, demanding, pleading or insisting, all approaches rooted in the ego, of course. You see, it's the ego complaining that things are "too easy," because it knows it is out of a job in 5D. It knows no other way than struggling, battling, overcoming, winning or losing, etc. Then, onto the next contest. So 3D!

But there are actually things to do in 5D. There are actions to take. It's not a passive creative process. But it looks different than the old way. The "doing" required to make things happen in 5D looks more like this:

Clear - Intend - Let go - Follow-up.

Clear your consciousness of the remnants of 3D, egoic thinking and beliefs and suppressed feelings in the body;
Intend for yourself in your meditations whatever it is you truly desire, and imagine it happening;
Let go by employing the energy of allowing and receiving, without expectations or fear;
Follow-up with action when your Higher Self and the Universe give you signs and create opportunities for you.

One of my favorite books and movies, as many FPL readers know, is "The Legend of Baggar Vance," by Steven Pressfield.

Here's Baggar:

“There's a perfect shot out there tryin' to find each and every one of us... Now it's somewhere... in the harmony... of All That Is... All That Was... All That Will Be... All we got to do is get ourselves out of its way, to let it choose us.”

                      

Thanks, BV!

IS THIS YOU? A DEEPLY SPIRITUAL, NON-JUDGEMENTAL, WISE TEACHER WITH NO MONEY?! MAYBE YOU'RE AN OLD SOUL!

This is from Joya Pope's book, "UPCOMING CHANGES," a book that I discovered, not coincidentally, exactly when I was trying to understand what makes people different from one another, even when many of their circumstances and backgrounds seem the same. Discovering the "soul age" concept was part of a significant shift in my life. If you are reading this, perhaps it will be for you, too.

Meanwhile, below is a lengthy excerpt from the description of the "Old Soul." Is this you?

Check it out:

"While Old Souls do not tend to grow into their full soul perceptivity until about age thirty-five or so, they will, even before then, be accused of stepping to the beat of a different drummer. They are unusual - two steps away from the norm - in this Young Soul culture. Because they are inclined to individualistically follow their inner perceptions and desires, they may be seen as eccentric, though usually harmlessly so.

"While there is great motivation for spiritual growth, motivation tends to be lacking when it comes to developing political or material punch. Seldom doing anything they don't want to and preferring their own unconventional pursuits, they often seek the path of least resistance as far as work, so that all energy can be poured into spiritual development. The Old Soul's essence may be willing to let him or her be dirt poor for the duration of many lifetimes as long as one is gaining the desired spiritual and philosophic lessons. Sometimes an essence actually interferes with a person gaining money when it's clear that riches would distract attention from the real inner work. Remember, you are your essence while you are astral; it is you who decides not to give yourself the wealthy Young Soul parents or the drive and ambition to go out and get powerfully rich.

"Because of the essence's richness gathered over many lifetimes, Old Souls tend to be extremely competent in a wide range of things - which often aren't pursued! They will try to find work that supports their personal growth: counseling, teaching, bodywork, gardening and carpentry being some favorites.

"Many are magnetized by philosophy and art. If higher education proves necessary in order to teach, less orthodox schools allowing more opportunities for inner exploration will be favored.

"A fancy house or car, or impressive clothes and jewelry aren't often too high on an Old Soul's real priority list. Neither is a nine-to-five job. Plain laziness on the physical plane sometimes creates difficulty paying the bills, but the material game just isn't what it used to be. However, Old Souls do have one advantage with the material world: as they begin to seek, understand and use the laws of the physical universe, goals can be attained with less effort. Thus, there is an outer, as well as an inner draw to understand the universal laws distilled in astrology, metaphysics, tarot and other ancient teachings.

"Old Souls may explore many religions and teachings, being most drawn to those emphasizing love and to those they've resonated with closely in past lives."

For MLK!

This is an excerpt from a post of mine from 12 years ago, posted during the presidential campaign that led to the election of Barack Obama. I am reposting it today to honor Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. on his birthday this year:

Lately, I am struck by how much hatred has begun to infuse our public discourse around the presidential campaign, and in particular, how much hatred is being directed at the least hateful candidate, Barack Obama. Spewing so much less vitriol than either Hillary Clinton or John McCain, Obama is spreading a message of unity and hope, and yet to watch the two other candidates and the far right pundits and talking heads, you'd think he was the devil incarnate.

Why do they fear him, and therefore hate him, so much? Is there something so insidious about Mr. Obama that I am somehow missing, even after thirty years of studying the nature of human beings as a psychotherapist and sociologist? Is Barack Obama really the Antichrist? Or could it be that perhaps those individuals who hate him have become so fearful of facing how separated they've become from their own best potential, so unable to inspire anything but negativity, anger and despair in others, and so removed from their genuine capacity to love, except abstractly of course, like loving the flag or the cross or the "troops," that they must seek to denigrate and destroy anyone who puts forth a message that is positive and loving?

We've been here before haven't we? Martin Luther King, the Kennedy's, Ghandi, and of course, Jesus himself, all messengers of hope and unity, all brutally murdered for delivering that message.

King himself once said this: "Like an unchecked cancer, hate corrodes the personality and eats away its vital unity. Hate destroys a man's sense of values and his objectivity. It causes him to describe the beautiful as ugly and the ugly as beautiful, and to confuse the true with the false and the false with the true."

I can't predict what will happen in the public square as this election year progresses. As a species, the human race seems to barely be in its adolescence developmentally, and we know how that goes so often.

Maybe these more optimistic words by MLK can offer us some solace:

"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality."

"SAY IT: RACISM IS A PSYCHIATRIC DISORDER! COME ON, SAY IT!"

THIS is a post from 11 years ago - 

Okay, now get this: The American Psychiatric Association has never officially recognized extreme racism as a mental health problem, although the issue was raised more than 30 years ago. After several racist killings in the civil rights era, a group of black psychiatrists sought to have extreme bigotry classified as a mental disorder. The association's officials rejected the recommendation, arguing that because so many Americans are racist, even extreme racism in this country is "normative" — a "cultural problem" rather than an indication of psychopathology. 

The psychiatric profession's primary index for diagnosing psychiatric symptoms, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), does not include racism, prejudice, or bigotry in its text or index. Therefore, there is currently no support for including extreme racism under any diagnostic category. This leads psychiatrists to think that it cannot and should not be treated in their patients in therapy. How do I say this? 

WHAT?! 

Could anyone who scapegoats a whole group of people and seeks to eliminate them to resolve his or her internal conflicts NOT meet the criteria for a major paranoid delusional disorder? Are you kidding me?! Am I ever going to be able to stop asking... 

"HOW STUPID ARE WE?!" If we don't start treating extreme racism, greed, homophobia, xenophobia and religious fanaticism as psychiatric disorders, we will never be rid of them. A "cultural problem" is figuring out and debating whether or not we want to watch sex and violence on public TV or celebrate Christmas as a national holiday or if Jon Stewart's "Daily Show" is more relevant than CNN for getting the real news. But hating someone you don't know because of their skin color or sexual orientation or nationality, or stealing a person's pension so you could have a $50,000 ice sculpture at your daughter's sweet sixteen party, or believing that an all-knowing creator God could truly love only your particular sect of believers is... right - 

DELUSIONAL! 

Say it!

DON'T LET YOUR HEART BREAK ON CHRISTMAS!

Last Christmas, I wrote a post spinning off an article in the Health section of the Huffington Post entitled: "Why Christmas Is So Deadly." The piece attempted to explain why thousands more people die of sudden cardiac arrest on Christmas, a fact that I became aware of many Christmases ago when a friend's father died suddenly on Christmas Eve and a cop on the scene mentioned that there is a big spike of such deaths on Christmas every year, mostly from heart attacks.

The Huffpost article sites and rules out excessive eating and stress, but then makes a somewhat convoluted case about health care in the U.S. 

So, what's really happening? What's going on in such a big way at Christmastime that people are keeling over and leaving the planet in such large numbers, and will that be so here in 5D? 

Well, beginning with Thanksgiving and continuing relentlessly until Christmas, we are bombarded with messages about love and closeness with loved ones, peace on Earth, giving, sharing, redemption, compassion and "Joy to the World." And at a spiritual level, we are calling in the main heart-centered spiritual energy on Planet Earth - the Christ. According to some channeled information, that energy is particularly intense now. It is said that the Christ energy "literally expunges from your being frequencies that no longer serve you." (By the way, Jesus' last name wasn't "Christ;" he was "Jesus The Christ," meaning that he embodied that heart chakra energy of unconditional love in a unique way in his time.) 

So, picture all that powerful heart-centered energy rising up in our emotional and physical bodies leading up to Christmas.  What would happen if that energy hits a closed heart? 

CRACK! Literally, a broken heart. 

It's Christmas, folks. And it's 5D, but if you want to stick around for this "Golden Age," as it's being called, you have to start operating by 5D rules. 

Check on your heart. How open is it? And if an opportunity presents itself to you today to laugh or cry heartily, take it.

Ho! Ho! Ho!

MORE ON: YOU SAY IT'S WORLD PEACE YOU WANT? LOOK INSIDE!

I just keep building on this post, I suppose because so many people are concerned right now about what they see in the world. Humbly put - here's how you change the world!

This is a quote from Paul Selig's "The Book of Mastery" - 

"When you think something must be there, it is brought into form. And when you believe it must be there, whether it’s a high creation or a very low creation, you are aligned to it, in acceptance of it, and in that choice, 'I see this thing before me, it must be so,' you give it merit and you add to its structure. If you can understand that: When you think of something in a certain way you bring to bear the vibration of that thought on the thing you see. Your perceptions, you see, are informing the vibration not only of your relationship to your own thought but upon the thing itself. When you believe something must be there, you give it credence, and there are things you give credence to that do not need to be there. Here is a list of things that do not need to be there: Fear, in all its forms and in all its creations. And here is what is fear: war, poverty, greed, anger, abuse, and violence. These are all things you see out-pictured that you think must be there. 'Well, they must be there, they’ve always been there, how will they leave? I don’t buy this for a moment.' Here is how they leave: The light that you are in its full expression has the ability to move a mountain. The alignment you have individually is much more powerful than you can imagine."

Previous post on this subject:

These are some amazing lyrics, surely channeled by Mick Jagger, a few decades ago now, that recently came into my consciousness and beautifully connect to what I wrote in the recent FPL piece: "YOU SAY IT'S WORLD PEACE YOU WANT? LOOK INSIDE!" (see below) It is also relevant to the moral outrage many people are feeling in response to recent events.

Here's Jagger:

"I shouted out Who killed the Kennedys?
When after all it was you and me."

Now, how many times have you heard that passage and just continued on bopping and singing along without considering what he was saying. We killed the Kennedy's. Me and you. Not just a crazed lone gunman, nor a nefarious group of secret conspirators. Me and you.

You and me.

Jagger brilliantly goes on: "Just as every cop is a criminal and all the sinners saints."
Woah! Not one or the other. Not a cop or a criminal, not a sinner or a saint.

You see, folks, the time that we are in, the dimensional shift of consciousness that is taking place, heralded by many songwriters and musicians that came out of the Sixties, is towards the full awareness of oneness, towards the realization that everyone is connected, all are part of the greater whole of collective consciousness. The more aware of this we become, the more we can truly change our world by changing ourselves, by waking up. (See the Hundredth Monkey below)

So, the next time you're listening to the Stones' "Sympathy for the Devil," and Mick Jagger proclaims that "What's puzzling you is the nature of my game," consider that the nature of the game is seeing everyone as a reflection of an aspect of yourself. And read or reread the post below.


YOU SAY IT'S WORLD PEACE YOU WANT? LOOK INSIDE!

This is yet another quote from the extremely quotable book, "ONENESS":

"You may ask then, what are you to do when confronted with the opposing viewpoints of another being or an expression of collective will. You begin not with the scrutiny of the other party’s motives, but with your own. You begin by digging honestly beneath the surface of the stance you’ve taken and exploring the real basis for your own position. Chances are, if you approach this exercise in full honesty with yourself, you will recognize a fortress built on a foundation of ego—an expression of will rooted in the fear of suppression by the will and ego of another. This is hardly the recipe for Oneness—much less for the world peace to which you all pay much lip service. Stop looking for the self-serving motives of the other side and begin looking at the self-serving motives that underlie your own actions. That is the basis for the true harmony you all yearn for at the deepest level."

Now, take a deep breath, and the next time you get fired up about the police, racism, misogyny, terrorism, greed, corruption, or Donald Trump...reread the above. The greatest, most worthwhile, transformational gift you can give yourself, and the world, is to see your reflection in everyone, everything, and every event in your field of vision.

What, PL?! I'm not a racist or misogynist. I'm not violent, and I certainly have never killed anybody or stolen anyone's pension or 401K. Perhaps not. But... do you still adhere to a consciousness of separation or lack, believing in your own abandonment or "bad luck" or the superstition of pessimism? Do you still believe that your worth as a being has to be earned, and then measured by other people's outward opinions of you? Do you still indulge in anger, resentment, grudges, self-righteousness or perhaps self-pity and victimhood as a way of stimulating yourself and filling the void of what you perceive to be the unknown?

If your honest answer is yes, and you can sincerely, with compassion, without judgment, admit that inner state of being, then forgive yourself, erasing the karma left over from 3D, your life and interactions with others will come into a state of harmony. And then, as the Hundredth Monkey, you will change the world.

No joke .             .

FOOT FETISH? SPANKING? THE SHRINKS NOW SAY YOU'RE GOOD TO GO!

This is from a report on Slate.com this morning:

"The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the bible of psychiatry published by the American Psychiatric Association, currently defines "unusual" sexual turn-ons as paraphilias. Paraphilias include everything from foot fetishes, S&M and erotic eating to exhibitionism and pedophilia. These paraphilias are now to be considered harmless unless the person experiencing them feels distressed about their preferences or if their unusual sexual practices are harmful to others."

"Simply put, the latest edition of the manual, DSM V, will say that happy kinksters don’t have a mental disorder. But unhappy kinksters do," wrote Slate's Jillian Keenan.

Well, we're getting there. Here in 5D, the "Pleasure Principle" is in full force. Like the survival instinct, our instinct to follow pleasure is hard-wired into the human organism. Simply stated, the Pleasure Principle comes down to this: if it feels good, it is good, with the one not-so-small caveat - that in order to know what truly feels good, you have to actually be in touch with your body and your feelings which, because of the wounds we all endure in childhood, requires a fair amount of self-work first in order to dismantle the defenses created to survive those early slings and arrows. Once in touch with yourself in that way, you can then live well by following the dictates of your pleasure principle and Full Permission Living.


Here's an excerpt from the Pathwork Guide Lecture entitled, "MOVEMENT, CONSCIOUSNESS, EXPERIENCE: PLEASURE, THE ESSENCE OF LIFE":

"Experience contains the pleasure principle. The possibility for utter bliss is contained in the life force. It is your inborn longing to partake of this experience, which becomes possible when your entire organism is in harmony with reality, when you no longer fight against it because of misunderstandings."

The "in harmony with reality" part is key in this way - to have sadistic or masochistic fantasies, and to consciously and mutually indulge them in sex play, is fun. But to actually be sadistic or masochistic in your intent, and to act out those aspects in your relationship life is not. In his book, "Dark Eros," Thomas Moore, a former monk and Jungian analyst and writer, writes that it is precisely this topic [sadomasochism] that needs to be explored mentally, even spiritually, through fantasy and play, in order to prevent it from erupting into anti-social, or even criminal acts in the flesh.

So, back to your fetishes... the bottom line is this: if your sexual fantasy life, and the concomitant games you play in bed (or in the kitchen or the dungeon), don't stress you out or hurt anyone else, well...

Repost: I NEED MY PAIN!

In one of the STAR TREK movies, the fifth one I think, "THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY," there was a rogue Vulcan who could use his mental powers to relieve a person of all their psychic pain. He could take away your long-held grief or chronic fears or self-doubt with one simple Vulcan mind meld. Quite desirable, yes? Not to Captain Kirk. Nope. He refused the treatment, defiantly saying: "I need my pain!"

Kirk goes onto to explain to his weaker comrades that our pain is part of who we are.

Kirk: "Pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves. I don't want my pain taken away!"

Well, Kirk does border on the masochistic there, and from my perspective, he still needs to work on his psychopathy, but his point is well-taken, nonetheless. Avoiding feeling pain (or having it "magically" - i.e. falsely - taken away by drugs or distractions) does not serve our life purpose, which is to become fully ourselves.

This morning, I found an excellent piece on the Huffington Post on this subject entitled:
"Pema Chodron: Reality Hurts? Relax. Use Your Discomfort." by Jesse Kornbluth

Here's a great quote from it:

"Life is hard. Don't wait until you 'get it together' to work at being your best self."

I have said this to many people many, many times. Our issues, our "problems," our pain and fears, do not have to stop us from having an evolving and expansive life and doing what we love to do. In fact, our problems are not our problem. Our judgments of our problems are our problem.

Including our judgments about our pain and fear.

Many of us react reflexively to pain, sadness or fear, as if their presence in our body or psyche automatically means something "bad" is happening. But no. Nature built in the capacity to feel those feelings, just as our ability to feel joy and pleasure are innate and instinctual. We have tear ducts, remember? There are times when we need to cry to release a build-up of sadness from a loss, for example. It's totally natural to do so, as natural as needing to urinate from a build-up of fluid in our kidneys.

Likewise, pain forces us to focus on a part of our body or a part of our emotional life that requires attention. Again, nothing bad is happening.

And as far as "getting it all together" before proceeding to seek out the love, abundance and creative expression you desire? Forget it! You'll never be perfect... because you're alive! Perfection is an illusory, static state, not real and not attainable, except to the degree that you can realize that you are already perfect in your imperfection!

Remember, I'm not talking about passive masochism here, folks, or oral laziness. Accepting your pain is not the same as creating and attracting pain from a character structure, and relaxing is not the same as collapsing. Take action regardless of your current struggles is what I'm saying. You never have to be paralyzed.

As I laid out in my piece from my classes on character structures, at the core of our distortions are the gifts of our Higher Self that we came in with, that we're meant to actualize. (See ALL OUR HIGHER SELVES by PL)

I'll give the final word on that to Jesse K:

"What you hate about yourself is just the flip side of your specialness. Yeah, your life is an interesting, smelly, rich, fertile mess - and that's what makes you human."

YOUR IDEAS OF WHO PEOPLE ARE, ARE ALWAYS FALSE!

Wrap your head around that! Well, of course, you can't, but you may be able to wrap your heart around it.

This is from the mind-and-heart opening book, "The Book of Truth," channeled by Paul Selig:

"We will ask you each to make a decision now. Decide one human being in your life stands before you, anyone in your life, a friend or a parent, a coworker, perhaps, and you see them as you see them. You decide who they are based on your prior experience. 'Oh, she is wearing the sweater I bought for her. Oh, he is looking angry again. When he looks angry, he will do such and such.' You are prescribing behavior or an outcome or assigning history based on what you’ve known about them. Now would you look at this person again and make a new decision? 'Everything I know about this person is wrong, is my idea of who he or she is, and I have been projecting an identity upon them based on my prescriptions—perhaps through my experience, yes, but I am knowing them through the intellectual self who has history or ideas about who someone is.' This is the second step. To realize that you may not know is a precursor to knowing."

"Now we will ask you each, you who attend to these words, to imagine that one before you as if she was never born, had never come in the form she is in, had never been invested in a physical self, but is just vibration. What you are doing here is disassembling form or the requirement of the form to be the rendering of the construct of frequency that they express as. If they have no body, are they still themselves, or have you mistaken them through the flesh to resemble what you think they are based on prior intention? If they don’t have the body, are they still in love, in the frequency of love that I have placed them in? Are they still beautiful or ugly or old or young? In fact they are not. They just are as they are in the vibration of truth."

"Your ideas of who people are, are always false. Do you understand this? They are just your ideas and they are prescriptions you hold based on your history."