Today we ask that you know you are lucky to be you.

Humans are always wishing that they were someone else, or had some other person’s life or experiences.  They think, “Life would be easy, if I were so-and-so.”

Usually, they want to trade places with someone who is rich, or successful, or famous, or beautiful according to their culture’s values.  It does not matter if they hear celebrity gossip describing such people as troubled or unhappy.  

Or else they envy someone they know.  Some person in their sphere who appears to “have all the luck.”  Someone whose life appears to be better and easier and more rewarding than yours, by comparison.

This is all very crazy.

When you imagine that your life would be better if you traded places with someone, this is all based on false assumptions and projections.  You cannot know what it is like to inhabit someone else’s skin.

Here is what would happen if your wish were granted, and you were given someone else’s life today:

At first, you might enjoy the change.

But you would still be you.  And all the ways you are neurotic, all your fears and judgments, your story about yourself, your beliefs about life and other people — they would all follow you.

And so, in a surprisingly short time, whatever your current baseline level of joy or misery is — that pattern would reestablish itself in the new identity.  

Is this clear?  However you typically feel on a day-to-day basis right now — that is how you would feel if a genie came and gave you the life you’ve been wishing for.

That is why if you crave a more enjoyable life, the place to put your energy is into your own consciousness.

What if you were someone who believed: 

“I am lucky to be me.”

Imagine feeling this way.  Perhaps you do feel this way, some of the time.

How is this true?  How is it true that you are lucky to be you?  Singularly You, and no other person.

“I am lucky to be me.”

Can you write down ten reasons why it might be true, that you are lucky to be you?

If you followed this practice every day, pretty soon you would start to believe it.

And then you would be living the life of someone who believes “I am lucky to be me.”

If you are someone who believes this, you will stop envying other people.

Try to find ten reasons, even silly reasons, why you are lucky to be you.

No matter how you are feeling at this moment, if you can write down ten reasons why you are lucky to be you…

… you will feel better.

And just from creating that little space, that little room to love yourself as you are, so much energy can and will flow to you.

You are lucky to be you.

Today we ask that you celebrate all that is good in your life at this moment.

Humans tend to look critically at their lives, from the perspective of “what is wrong.”  This begins at a certain point in childhood, once children are exposed to concepts like the grading system, and the class system.  They begin to judge themselves, and the people they know, as successes and failures according to their culture.  They compare themselves to others.  They strive to be both simultaneously “normal,” and “special.”  They want to both fit in with their peer group, and meet cultural expectations; but also distinguish themselves as being more special than others.

This is a recipe for a life of misery, and craziness.

And so, beginning at a certain point in childhood, the human is an unhappy creature.  He is taught that his chronic unhappiness is meant as a motivator toward achieving his goals of “normalness” and “specialness.”  When the human achieves a goal, he experiences a momentary, fleeting high.  This high quickly dissipates, driving the human toward further activity that will in turn create another high.

Humans are taught that constant busy-ness and striving are a sign of virtue, and the only way to ensure superiority.

So the human is taught and encouraged to constantly be critical of himself, and others.  How else may he achieve his goals?  How else will he make sure that he is both “normal” and “special”?

From a spiritual perspective, this is total insanity.

From a spiritual perspective, most humans live in a kind of “Alice in Wonderland” reality, where everything is topsy turvy and backwards.

There is another way to live.

Young children play.  They play, and create.  They explore things that fascinate them with boundless curiosity and energy.  They are always asking questions, yearning to know how something works.  When they see an adult do something that looks interesting, they want to learn to do it themselves.

Their action arises not from miserable self-criticism, but playful curiosity and enthusiasm.  They wake up in the morning excited, and often go to bed reluctantly — for the world holds so many wonders.

Some adults never lose this spark.  They instinctively reject their culture’s efforts to teach them to be dutiful, miserable, self-critical citizens who believe they must be both “normal” and “special.”  Instead, they keep playing.  They follow what excites them with boundless curiosity and energy, just like a child.  They could care less about being normal or special.  They’re just playing.  

Perhaps you know such a person.  Perhaps you are such a person.

This is really the way to live.

How can you get there?

Instead of focusing your consciousness on criticizing all that is wrong with you, other people, and reality, you celebrate all that is good about yourself, other people, and reality.

What do you love about your life?

It can be a small thing.  Maybe you have a beloved pet.  Maybe there is something you really like to eat, or a TV show you really enjoy.  It doesn’t matter what it is.  Just connect with a feeling of appreciation.

Can you look at your life from the perspective of all the good things that have happened to you?  All the good things that you have done?

Can you reframe your life story from the perspective of someone who is lucky?

You may feel a huge amount of resistance around this.  But try it, nonetheless.

Today, write down your life story, beginning with the sentence:

“I am a very lucky person.”

And then recount, to yourself, all the ways you have been lucky in your life.

Write down your “lucky” life story.

Can you think of things that happened to you that at the time seemed unlucky, that in retrospect you can see actually were lucky?  Focus on such events.

Notice if there are any patterns.  Any areas in your life where you have felt especially “lucky”.

There are places to expand your energy.  To explore, with the playful curiosity of a child.

Notice all the resistance that may come up, or attempts your critical mind may make to tear down any narrative in which you cast yourself as “lucky.”  Notice if there is a counter-voice that insists that you are not lucky at all; that really, you are a victim.

Nevertheless, you really are a very lucky person.

Write down the story of yourself, as a lucky person.

You may be surprised by all the good luck you have experienced, and continue to experience, in your life.  Celebrate it.

Today we ask that you put dead things to rest.

Humans have always had a great fascination with ghosts and spirits, haunted houses, and demons.

But most people do not understand what these things are.

A “haunted house,” for example, is really just a place, often an older place, that has a accumulated a lot of negative psychic residue over the years.

When a human inhabits a space, he sheds skin cells.  His presence creates dust, and dirt, in addition to the natural entropy of any location.   A healthy human therefore will regularly clean his space, just as he regularly cleans his body.

A human also sheds psychic energy into the space where he lives — including distorted energies of fear, anger, hatred, paranoia, etc.  

These energies can accumulate over time and take on a life of their own.  In extreme cases, they manifest as a “haunting.”

The intelligent action to take when you are in a “haunted” environment is to clean the energy.  The house needs to be aired out.

One way to do this is to imagine in your mind that all the distorted energies in this place are being laid to rest, and released into the light of pure spirit.  Meditate on this.  That is the intelligent thing to do in a haunted house.

Sometimes people are haunted.  They are weighted down by the ghosts of the past.  This distorted psychic energy drains their life force, and creates physical and mental sickness.

When you encounter such a person, you pray that the distorted energy within that person be laid to rest, and released into the light of pure spirit.  That is the intelligent thing to do when you encounter a haunted person.

What is not intelligent is to “feed the ghosts.”

Sometimes people are obsessed with the paranormal, and so unwittingly feed distorted energies — as in a haunted house, for example.  They give those energies their attention, and so the energy intensifies.  

The same thing happens with “haunted people.”  When you encourage a haunted person in his obsession with ghosts and grievances from the past, you are actually feeding the distorted energy and perpetuating it.

Let what is dead rest.  Clean your house.  Clean out the dust and cobwebs.  Clean out the dust and cobwebs from your mind.

Do not give too much thought to ghosts and demons.  If you encounter such energy, the intelligent thing to do is to ask that it be laid to rest, and released into the light of pure spirit.  Don’t try to capture such energy with a camera and put it on the internet.  That will only feed it and perpetuate it.  

It is the same with all your personal ghosts and demons.  If you want peace, release them into the light.  Don’t put them on the internet.  Don’t keep feeding them your attention.  

Today we ask that you be true to yourself.

To thine own self be true.

Most people do not know how to be true to themselves, because they do not know who they really are.

They look to others to tell them what to do, what to think, how to feel.  They place their trust in authority figures.  They are more apt to trust a total stranger on TV or in a magazine than their own heart.

Often, people do things because they believe it is “realistic,” or “pragmatic.”  It is all about the “bottom line.”

So: they take jobs they do not really feel passionate about, or marry people they do not really love.  They buy houses they do not really want, they invest in things they do not believe in.   Sometimes they even have children not from a place of true desire, but pragmatism.  “Well, I should have a child, because if I don’t I might regret it.  And who will take care of me in my old age?”

Generally speaking, these actions lead to a lot of suffering.

How many times have you “talked yourself into something” that did not feel good to you?

What is the outcome, when you do this?

It is good to be open to new people, new experiences, and new possibilities.  It is good to step outside your comfort zone.

But there is a big difference between being open to new experiences, and forcing yourself to do something when your heart isn’t in it.

So really be honest with yourself, about why you do things.

There is nothing wrong with making pragmatic choices.  However, when your head is pushing something that your heart is balking at, beware.

Beware also when authority figures like parents and friends urge you to do something you feel deep misgivings about.

Every parent wants his child to lead a secure, stable life.  It is only natural.  A parent wants his child to be safe.

But it may be that your soul desires something that is not particularly safe or stable.

You must follow the urging of your soul.  

Your parents and friends mean well, but they cannot know what is best for you.

Sometimes, when you are conflicted, it is good to see out counsel from trusted advisors.

But in the end, you must do what your heart urges.

Today we ask that you learn to disrupt your patterns.

When it comes to efforts at “manifestation,” the general reason this practice does not work for people is because whatever it is they are attempting to “manifest” is outside their pattern.

A pattern is like a sewing pattern, or a blueprint.  It lays out the shape of something to be created.

Let’s say you have a sewing pattern for a t-shirt.  If you follow this pattern, you will create a t-shirt.  However, you will not create a dress.

If you are attempting to “manifest” a dress, but you have a sewing pattern for a t-shirt, you are not going to get a dress.

People tend to be very pattern-oriented.  In fact, what you think of as a personality, or ego identity, is just a complex pattern.

Genetic engineers understand that biology arises out of the complex patterns of DNA.

Your experience of reality arises out of the complex pattern of your total consciousness, including the unconscious bulk of your psyche.  This is shaped by your encoded belief systems, which are the “genes” of your psyche.

Just as biology follows the genetic pattern, your reality experience follows your belief system pattern.

Let’s say that your persona is one of the “Conscientious Martyr” pattern.  You believe that being virtuous, responsible, and caring means that you should always be doing things for other people, often at the cost of your own well-being.

That’s your sewing pattern.  And it’s going to continually reproduce experiences that reinforce your “Martyr” identity.

The same goes if you’re a “Tortured Artist,” a “Control Freak,” an “Emotion Suppressor,” a “Drama Queen,” an “Unrequited Romantic,” a “Persecuted Victim,” and so on.  

The Tortured Artist will have experiences that reinforce that identity.  So will the Control Freak, the Emotion Suppressor, the Drama Queen, the Unrequited Romantic, and the Persecuted Victim.

T-shirt patterns make t-shirts.  If you’re a Drama Queen, you’re going to make a lot of drama.

The only way to change this is by disrupting the pattern.

Sometimes a major illness, accident, or natural disaster can serve as a big pattern disruptor for people.

However, it is possible to achieve pattern disruption in less turbulent ways.  This requires stepping outside the box of your persona, which most people are not aware is even possible.

Look at your personality, as if you were a character in a story.  Look at your patterns, your habits, the masks you most often wear.  Look at your reactive impulses.  Look at the areas in your life that are sources of suffering and blockage.

Stepping outside of your story and justifications for doing what you do, can you draw a line between the pattern of your persona — your “type” — and your life experiences?  It may be easier for you to do this when you look at earlier versions of yourself: perhaps when you were an adolescent, for example.

If you desire different life experiences, you must disrupt your patterns, your habits — what you think of as “You.”

There was once an episode of the show “Seinfeld” about this, in which the neurotic “George Costanza” character decided to do the opposite of everything he’d ordinarily do.  Where he would usually say “Yes,” he’d say “No,” and vice versa.  As a result, his life changed dramatically, and he enjoyed his life experience much more.  This is an example of “pattern disruption.”

If you are struggling in your life, look to ways that you can “pattern disrupt.”  Do things differently, even if it makes you uncomfortable.  This will free up an enormous amount of energy, and change your life experience in new and exciting ways.

Today we ask that you put what is dead to rest.

Most people fear death.  But that is because they do not understand it.  They see it as annihilation, a snuffing out of existence.  Nothing could be further from the truth.

Death is a great release.  Especially if there is sickness and suffering, death is truly a miraculous event.  You who dwell in a physical body cannot really fathom the feeling of this liberation.  You glimpse it in your peak experiences.  And part of you remembers this state of freedom, which is why many humans feel homesick for a place they’ve never been.

It is good to experience death in a healthy way, even while you are in a body.  It is good to experience healthy transitions, as you move through life.  You embrace change.  You embrace new experience.  You gracefully let your old identities drop away.

The ancient mystery cults always gave their initiates a death and rebirth experience.  In the ancient world, initiates “died” to their old selves, often by going through an elaborate funerary rite.  They were sealed up in a lightless cave for a period of time, left alone in the primal darkness to face and transcend their fear of death.  When they emerged, they had left an old self behind, finding rebirth as a new person.

The modern world lacks such mystery rites, and this is unfortunate.  Death is seen as an enemy of science.  It is something that must be staved off at all costs.  Life is prolonged by medical science long past the point of any joy or meaning.  Death is seen as a disease that human ingenuity has thus far failed to cure.

But what do your myths and stories tell you about the human urge to flee death and prolong life?  What of your vampires?

The vampire avoids death by parasitically feeding upon the living.  He causes harm and misery, and he does not live in joy for all his efforts — usually he is a miserable, gloomy creature, or at best manic depressive.  The death of the vampire is always a cause for relief, not only for the vampire’s victims, but most of all for the vampire himself.  The dead vampire finds a peace in death that he never experienced in his parasitically prolonged life.

There is a deep truth to your vampire mythology.

Clinging to life and avoiding change goes against the flow of nature.  The person who clings to earlier states of existence inflicts harm upon himself and others, often the people he loves the most.  Someone who is very rigid and clinging often has a parasitic quality.  People feel drained around such a person.  Such people tend to impede or block the flow of energy among the living.  When such a person dies, often there is a sense of enormous relief.  Just as with the vampire, a miserable being has found peace.  He will no longer cause harm to himself, or others.

Do not be a “vampiric” person.

Put what is dead in your life to rest.

Let go of your past.  Let go of your grievances.  Let go of your stories about how you have been victimized.  Let go of people in your life who have changed and moved on, even if you did not want them to or do not like the people they have become.

Imagine you are experiencing your own funeral.  Really let yourself experience what is like to be “dead” to the world.  Allow your identity, your ego self, to drop away.  You no longer have to be that person anymore.  That person is dead.  All that person’s stories are dead.  You may feel a great relief as this sinks in.

Bring this with you as you return to life.  Let your old selves die, and be at peace.  Be reborn into a new life.  You can do this every day, every hour.

Imagine that the people in your life with whom you experience deep conflict are now dead.  They are dead and gone.  You are at their funerals.  You will never have to deal with them again.  The drama is all over and done with.  How do you feel?  It is okay if you feel relief.  Do not feel guilty about this.  Let yourself fully, deeply experience the relief.

If you really give yourself over to this meditation, you will discover that even though the people do not die, something else dies.  Your fear of the person dies.  Your drama dies.  Your projection of them dies.  Next time you see this person, you will not have the same story about them.  You might even be happy to see them.  

Put the past to rest.  Put what is dead to rest.  It is the only way to fully live.

Today we ask that you learn the constructive use of the imagination.

Every human has an imagination.  Even the most “boring” individuals have imaginations.  Most humans are very good at using their imaginations destructively.  Few understand its constructive use.

Your imagination is extremely powerful.  With your imagination, you create.  You dream up something, and create it.  First you create it in your mind.  Then, if you keep holding the vision, you create it in external reality.

A potter imagines a pot, and makes a pot.  The pot may turn out differently than the potter initially imagined, because creation is a fluid process.  But if the potter imagines the pot, and makes an effort to create a pot, a pot will be created.  

What happens if someone spends his time mainly imagining terrible things?  Say he imagines terrible things happening to himself, his loved ones, and the world.

This does not mean he creates the terrible things — not right away, in any case.

But what happens right away is, he is living in hell.  He imagines terrible things, and these things are very real to him, like hallucinations.  He suffers terribly, as a result of his imagination — not anything that is happening in reality.

Next, his imagination affects his behavior.  If someone is hallucinating, he begins to behave very strangely.  He reacts to things that are not real.  So he may be very angry or volatile around his loved ones — not because he is reacting to what is real, but because he is reacting to his imagination.  His fears may make him turn into an overprotective, overbearing parent, which causes his children to suffer and feel alienated from him.  Relationships are destroyed in this way.

His hallucinations may cause him to behave aggressively, even violently, toward people he imagines to be threatening — even if those people are not actually causing harm to him.  He may engage in acts of violence.  In some cases, people are imprisoned for such acts.  

So in such cases, imprisonment would be a “manifestation” of the destructive use of the imagination.  But people do not need to be in jail cells to be imprisoned.  All you have to do to be imprisoned is to imagine that you are imprisoned.

Many people do imagine that they are imprisoned by their life circumstances.  And so, over time, this takes on a reality.  The office is a prison.  The commute is a prison.  Supporting the family is a prison.  And people really feel the chains of this imprisonment.

So humans are very good at the destructive use of the imagination.  That is why there is a lot of ugliness in the world.

When people are young, they use their imaginations playfully.  They paint pictures, and build things with blocks, and create new games.  If children are raised in healthy environments, they will continue to use their imaginations positively.

Using the imagination destructively is a learned behavior.  Unfortunately, most humans learn this.

All religions, all myths, all stories are birthed out of the human imagination, the great human dream.  To the extent that stories reinforce the shared dream of loving the self, others, and reality, then this is a constructive use of the imagination.  To the extent that these stories reinforce messages of hatred and separation, they are destructive uses of the imagination.

How are you using your imagination?  How were you taught to use your imagination?

Are you consumed by fearful projections?  Are you feeling victimized by things that happened to you years ago?  Do you obsess over bad things that might happen to you or your loved ones in the future?

These projections make it so the you cannot enjoy the present moment.  You might be in a lovely place, you might be on vacation on a tropical beach, but your imagination can even turn this to hell with its projections — so powerful is the imagination.

So just be aware that you are indeed imagining things all the time.  Even very “boring” people have wild imaginations.  Pay attention to the quality of your imagination.  Are you using it destructively, or constructively?  Are you hallucinating terrors, or dreaming a beautiful dream?

Today we ask that you do not resist change.

Things change.  This is at the heart of your reality.  Everything changes.  Sometimes very quickly, like water boiling into steam.  Sometimes very slowly, like a mountain eroding into dust.  

Change is necessary.  A baby must become a toddler.  A child must become a teenager.  An elderly person must leave the physical body at death.  There is no stopping this progression.  Time marches on.

Animals and humans often react to change with fear, and resistance.  This causes a lot of suffering, since there is no stopping the force of change.

One thing you cannot do is return to an earlier state of development.  It is very tempting to want to regress into a nostalgic image of an earlier time period.  That is because earlier times feel safe, and known.  But this is an illusion.  You will not find safety in a “simpler time.”  When was this “simpler time,” really?  Were humans particularly safe in that time?

What people are truly nostalgic for is not a simpler time, but a simpler consciousness.  People yearn to recover lost innocence, and lead lives of less complexity.

But complexity is a state of mind.  If you have a complex consciousness, you cannot escape it no matter where you go.  You could live in a cabin in the remote wilderness and still bring all your complexity with you.  That is why people go mad in remote cabins.

So life cannot be “fixed” by regressing to an earlier stage of development, no matter what you may believe.

Change always comes.

It is good to learn to embrace change.  That requires humans to learn to accept a certain level of discomfort — for change is not a comfortable process.

A caterpillar forms a chrysalis, liquefies, and is reconstituted into a butterfly.  This is not comfortable.

A snake sheds its old skin.  When the skin is freshly shed, the snake is very soft and vulnerable in its new skin.  This is not comfortable.

With humans, there is a lot of fear around the discomfort of change, and this tends to increase with age.  That is why older people are often highly resistant to change.

Animals do not really have the ability to resist change.

Humans, however, often try to use their minds to help them resist change.  A great deal of conflict, suffering and drama arises out of this.

Acting out of change-resistant fear, humans often make foolish, destructive decisions.

Many relationships are destroyed because people cannot accept that other people change.

Many wars have been started because the leaders of men resist change.

Imagine if a caterpillar refused to change into a butterfly, or if a snake refused to shed its skin.  

What would happen?  Pressure would build.  The creature would actually suffer much more because of its resistance to change, than it would have if it had just gone with the flow to begin with.  And the change would eventually come no matter how much the creature resisted.  

Perhaps you can see that humans cause and experience a lot of suffering in precisely this way.

Change, with humans, always involves moving from a constricted state, into a more expansive state.  Being a baby is, at a certain point, a constricted state.  The baby must expand into the toddler.  Being a sick elderly person is a constricted state.  The being must expand out of this, through physical death.

Embrace change, even with all its discomfort.  Let the life force move through you, and transform you.  Grow.  Expand.  Do not listen to the Voice of Fear, which tries to keep you in a constricted state.

Change is coming.  You can go with it, or you can kick and scream and make a big drama out of it.  It is your choice.

Today we ask that you look at ways to improve the flow of energy in your life.

One simple way to look at reality is to perceive patterns of constriction, and patterns of flow, in energy fields.

A healthy body has a healthy energy flow.  Energy goes in; energy circulates; energy goes out.

All disease in the human body is really an indication of energy constriction.  The channels of energy are constricted, and blocked.  This can cause areas of stagnant energy, which is rather like a stagnant pool of water — prone to the formation of bacteria, and disease.  Blocked energy can also lead to ruptures, as pressure increases.  Strokes and heart attacks are extreme rupture situations.  

This is why it is very good to move the physical body on a daily basis, to engage in healthy exercise.  It keeps energy flowing, and thus prevents blockage and constriction.

Of course, most physical states are reflections of subtler states — the state of the emotional body and the state of the mental body.  

The emotional body is very susceptible to blockage.  Blockage in the emotional body leads to rupture, in the form of explosive anger, rage, and aggression.  A constricted emotional body can move into depression — a heavy feeling of numb disconnection from the joyful flow of life.  

To increase the healthy flow of the emotional body, you must give yourself space to feel your feelings.  It is healthy to cry.  The inability to cry is a sign of severe blockage in the emotional body.  It is good to allow yourself to feel sad feelings, or hurt feelings.  This does not mean that you should be reactive or “hysterical” — hysteria, in fact, is a rupture of a blocked emotional body.  

It just means that you are someone who can feel your emotions, both pleasurable and painful.   Most people have enormous difficulty feeling their emotions, as they are taught in childhood to repress them.  This creates constriction in the emotional body, which can in turn negatively affect the physical body.

The mental body is the seat of ideas, concepts and beliefs.  Healthy flow in the mental body means an openness to new ideas and stimuli.  It is an openness to learning, an openness to change.  A healthy mental body is endlessly curious, the way a healthy child is.

A constricted mental body rigidly locks into ideologies and beliefs, with no openness to different points of view, or to adapting and changing.  There is a lack of curiosity, a lack of interest in learning new things.  The constricted mental body fixates on following routines, on only doing what has already been done.  There is a terrible fear of change.  The constricted mental body is neurotic, indecisive.   It is dominated by fear.  

Fear, in fact, is a major indicator of a constricted mental body.  Chronic, gnawing anxiety.  Anxiety that shuts down playful curiosity, in favor of clinging rigidly to set ways of thinking and doing things.  Blockage in the mental body leads to dullness and slowness in the thought processes.  Rupture occurs in the form of panic attacks, paranoia, delusions, obsessive compulsive behaviors, ideological fanaticism, and in extreme cases, schizophrenia.  

If you are experiencing blockage anywhere in your life experience, the first thing to do is to ask how you can increase energetic flow.

One way is to do something new.  Take a class in something that interests you.  Join a lively group of people.  Make an effort to break up your routine.

Make sure that your physical, emotional and mental bodies are each getting their due when it comes to healthy flow.  Try to move your body every day, even if it’s just going for a short walk or stretching.  Notice if you are feeling your feelings, or if you are “numbing out.”  Notice if your mind feels dull as you go through your set routines.  Make an effort to challenge your mind by learning and exposing yourself to different ways of being.

Other ways to get energy moving include:

Cleaning up clutter in your home; making amends with someone you may have intentionally or unintentionally harmed in your past; engaging in altruism, using your energy to help others; dancing; singing; playing music; playing with young children; playing with animals; absorbing an emotional story that will provoke crying and emotional release; mindfully cooking a nourishing meal; getting a massage; going to a bathing pool or sauna; spending time in nature; mindful, loving sexuality; creating art, especially in tactile ways that involve working with the hands; gardening; traveling to new environments.

All of these actions involve some kind of movement.  If you wish to unblock yourself, you must take some sort of action that involves a movement out of a stagnant state into a more energetic state.  

It doesn’t matter what you do, only that you do something.  Meditation, which can seem like “doing nothing”, is a big “something” in this regard.

Also, it is important to take baby steps.  If you are a severely blocked individual, opening channels of energy too rapidly can lead to a rupture.  It is important to go slow, to start small and gradually expand.  It is a daily, long-term practice.  

Blockage, anywhere in life, is a sign of constriction.  Find ways to get things flowing.  It may be as simple as mindfully doing the dishes.  

Today we ask that you own your power.

Humans often live life from a place of powerlessness.  That is because they have been taught to believe that real power always lies outside of them.

“I don’t have power.  My parents do.”

“I don’t have power.  My spouse does.”

“I don’t have power.  My children do.”

“I don’t have power.  My boss does.”

“I don’t have power.  The government does.”

“I don’t have power.  My illness does.”

“I don’t have power.  The doctors do.”

“I don’t have power.  The corporations do.”

“I don’t have power.  The rich people do.”

“I don’t have power.  The secret conspiracies do.”

“I don’t have power.  God does.”

On and on it goes.  It would seem that everyone has power — except you.  Your spouse, your children — even your dog may have more power than you think you do.

So many people believe.

And so they shuffle through life like weary slaves, doing things they don’t want to do.  They can’t do what they want, because they are powerless.  That’s just how it is.

Do you know the difference between a powerful human and a powerless human?

Powerful humans are not powerful because they are born that way, or because they are a particular gender or race, or because they were born into a family with lots of money — no matter what you believe.

Powerful people are powerful simply because they believe they are powerful.  

That is all that makes a powerful person powerful.  

A powerful person does not live in constant fear of everyone and everything else that is more powerful than he is.

A powerful person knows that he has as much power as anyone else.  And that has nothing to do with what he looks like or how much money he has.

One thing a powerful person knows how to do is to quietly, firmly say “No.”

Powerful people can say “No.”

They do not have to scream “NOOOOOOOO!!!!!”  That is what you do when you believe you are powerless, and you have to scream and throw a tantrum to be heard.

Powerful people can strongly, firmly say “No.”  “No, I won’t do that.”  “Yes, I will do this.”

People who believe they are powerless are always mixing up Yes and No.  They say “Yes” when they mean “No,” and “No” when they mean “Yes.”

You have power.

You have power.

You have the power to say “No.”

And you have the power to say “Yes.”

Your parents, or people who hurt you in the past, are not more powerful than you, nor have they ever been.  

Teachers, lawyers, doctors, bankers, politicians, clergymen, your boss, your ex, your spouse, your children…

None of these people are more powerful than you.

The government, corporations, secret corrupt conspiracies…

None of this is more powerful than you.

God is not more powerful than you.  There is no angry deity with a beard in the sky who is going to smite you for your sins.  That deity is a made-up story, no different from Zeus or Thor.

God is within you.  If God is within you, God cannot be more powerful than you.  For you are God, and God is you.  It is simple mathematics.  If God is within you, then you are no more and no less powerful than God.

It is really just a matter of believing.