REALITY: who's in charge? Exploring the Pitfalls and Solutions for Conscious Creating

"We can not solve a problem at the same level of consciousness we created it." ~Albert Einstein

With the season of holidays upon us of Thanksgiving, Christmas and the New Year, I am struck with the metaphor they each represent in these challenging times we are facing on Planet Earth. There is Gratitude, Giving and Receiving and Goal Setting and Manifesting, perhaps not an accident that they are aligned as such in just a six week span. I remember how many times my New Year's resolutions repeated themselves, proclaiming that THIS was the year i'd have my perfect body, dream man, big income breakthrough and finally learn Spanish- and applied all the New Thought, ancient and metaphysical formulas to the task. Even after "The Secret" craze many of us found ourselves left in the dust of wishful thinking and pining hearts, and eventually having to confront the question, "If the Universe is supporting my needs and desires and i'm doing all the right stuff to bring it in, what's missing?!" Who's really in charge of this whole creation business? I'll get back to the metaphor bit in a while.

From someone who's explored most of the major spiritual directions from growing up Catholic and becoming a born again Christian, converting to Mormonism, tripping and blissing with Ram Dass, dancing with the Sufis, playing with Osho, meditating with the Buddhists, praying with Religious Science, reading all the books, taking the seminars from EST to A Course In Miracles, i can say with some expertise that there isn't exactly agreement on Creating Your Reality. Christians preach that you're a sinner and God is pissed at his creation, New Thought assures us there is only one God who lives IN you and its qualities are all good, Hindus say it's noble to accept your lot in life from the deeds of past incarnations, Buddhists are not into wanting but one better not have an "aversion" to wanting either, Non-Dualism teachings comfort us with the notion that you already are and have everything so stop striving, Abraham's channeled message is that the purpose of life is to experience joy and to master deliberate creation, and the ET/Ancient Civilization theorists claim we've been hopelessly hindered through DNA tampering from alien agendas! Oh, and by the way- they're here as reptiles and discarnate spirits conspiring against us at every level of functioning on this Planet.

So how do we reconcile and integrate these divergent points of view and adopt a belief system which we are FULLY congruent with that will ENABLE us to manifest our fondest dreams, consistently? Trying the cookie cutter approach and quick fix formula works for some, but if these principles are the truth, they should work for all, including those suffering in third world countries with a lot bigger concerns than materializing that hot new sports car, or hot new babe. The fundamental clash in many of these paths and philosophies can be broken down into East/West cultural and religious orientations. The Abraham/Hicks approach of asking for and getting everything you want is a distinctively American packaging of what might be some ancient wisdom tools, while Buddhism rests more in the reality that "Life is suffering because of your attachments", and one should work with the karmic conditions they find themselves in as lessons and gifts to evolve the soul. Hinduism certainly takes an even more fatalistic outlook on karma, with it being a negative reaction to past deeds that one has to make amends by. In general the Eastern philosophies embrace surrender versus striving, while Tony Robbins is screaming from the mountain tops that we have the power to be, do and have it all. I don't know about you, but I have found all this contradiction rather counterproductive to my mastering the Universe! And sometimes just to pay the bills every month!

The problem I have with a lot of the self-help gurus and get rich channelers, is that it's not being explored enough whether our intentions are coming from a place of Ego/Will/Personality (the gimme, gimme more self) or from an exalted, refined place of higher knowing and higher visioning. What I find missing from the conversation about this is just about everything else other than your CONSCIOUS mind and will, whereas my experience and training as a counselor, hypnotherapist and intuitive reader informs me that the SUB-conscious mind and soul really are the level of operation where most of this play of life is being written, directed and produced on- and they're open for business 24/7.  To complicate matters more are those pesky "sub-personalities", or inner aspects of our being, such as "Inner Child, the Victim, the Critic or the Rebel". If these long residing inner parts don't agree on your primary objectives, there will have to be a board meeting of sorts. They are so persistent in their split off myopic perspective that they'll eventually express through chronic body pain and ailments, accidents and crises besides the usual dysfunctional patterns of all kinds. You know- those things you always end up saying or doing and regretting later and wonder how you let that happen or ended up in this place again. And we've all known (or been) that "drama queen" who seems to be addicted to a roller coaster of conflicts and calamities. So knocking ourselves out with just journaling, list writing, repeating affirmations, and visualizations ONLY is effective if the rest of the gang are already fairly on board with your program proposal. And if they were already you probably wouldn't have to knock yourself out to get what you wanted. There are some wonderful techniques I use from NLP and interactive hypnosis where you expose and integrate these parts to support you in your highest good, rather than fight against you.

Wouldn't that be nice for a change, after all this exhausting effort and expense to fix and improve yourself enough to get your outer reality to reflect back the existence you want? But instead, we often are left feeling frustrated, confused, doubting ourselves and God, recycling that insidious unworthiness, which leads to more blocking of our good, leading to more discouragement that we can't have what we want, leading to.... you get the point. And we can always find some well intended New-Agers who will shame us into this low self-esteem by their well meaning cosmic analysis of our life challenges, who offer their simplistic, unsolicited solutions of "just trust more, surrender, you're learning your lessons, don't grieve and dwell on it, meditate more, pray more, tithe more!", while our inner talk sinks into "I'm not enough, I didn't do it right, what's wrong with me that I can't get it like everyone else, this stuff doesn't work, and where the heck are my great Spirit Guides anyway?!"

I think this is more the classic case of not asking the right questions and not using the right techniques rather than the ineffectiveness of the practitioner or the tools. Deeper work is called for here. And getting serious enough to start bringing karma and past lives into the equation, asking ourselves honestly, "What is it our Soul is wanting from us in this situation- this illness, relationship loss, financial difficulty? How is it evolving our Souls on the Journey of returning Home rather than just to the shopping mall after watching "The Secret" video? Of the hundreds of readings and past life regressions I've done on people from all walks of life, the most common and prevalent theme is guilt from this lifetime, shame from previous ones, and a deep seated unworthiness, sometimes to the extent that we couldn't accept and receive what we asked for if it came delivered in a dump truck! WE are are own worst enemies and self-saboteurs. But how were we to know? Well, one wise teacher has said, if you want to know what your subconscious is up to, or what karma you are processing, just look at your life! What would someone have to believe to have created or attracted these circumstances? What unresolved wounds would cause particular patterns to keep showing up? What kind of self-talk do you catch yourself saying? What are the themes that keep repeating themselves in different clothes? So if you ever have doubted that you can create your reality, well now here's the evidence. The goal then is to CONSCIOUSLY create it, which requires that we identify and remove the blocks and negative old programming that are usually below the surface. And forgive, forgive, forgive..... everyone, everything, every incarnation, and most of all- ourselves.

Another tricky deal with manifestation is that if we feel in lack or struggle in any area, especially money, FEAR is the greatest attractor of all, because that thought form is frequent, often going continually in the background, and it has the potency of strong emotion and memory behind it. And we can sure project into visualization all the ways our lives might find their demise when money is less than our financial demands, or if our bodies are failing us, or if we're left alone with no one to love us, or if the world is coming to an end in 2012. Have you noticed how you get on a roll, when things are good and you're in the flow, more good comes, and when it's bad, it can get very bad, because we're in that vibration and like attracts like? A cruel paradox for the controlling mind who struggles to direct this unwieldy thing called the Self and our complex lives. So after unworthiness, fear is the next major hindrance to the creation game. It contracts our energy rather than expands us to be open to receive more, it signals the Universe that we aren't trusting and believing that our manifestation work will get through to the boss, and it keeps us focused on what ISN'T working and what won't work in the future... the lack again. So when you need money the MOST is often when it's the hardest to call it in. How then do we get around this dilemma? It starts with Gratitude. Yes, i told you i'd get back to the beginning.

Gratitude has the same energetic quality as Abundance, which is the feeling and mental state we're trying to achieve when we do these practices, and it's hard to fake! But simply listing gratitudes every day shifts us into another space more conducive for this work, and allows us to surrender a bit more into what we have before requesting more and better. What you focus on expands. Even when the car breaks down, being thankful for the aid that was offered by strangers or the good sale found on the needed parts is a way to stay in the "zone". God works in mysterious ways, and examining our days for things to be grateful for shows us this in a new light.  It's like how it's hard to stay tense and constricted when you're doing continual deep breathing. And when fears and anger arise from our ongoing struggles or longings, turn them over to Spirit to be healed rather than suppressing them further into the psyche, or fighting them as the enemy, which is just focusing on more of what we don't want. Surrender it, turn it over to our Higher Power as the 12 Steps advises, and trust that the perfect solution is coming in the perfect time (and remind the Universe that you don't necessarily need to be tested until the 11 o'clock hour!).

Giving and receiving is the fundamental essence of the life flow, the inhale and exhale. According to karmic law, as we give we are given to, but that does not necessarily mean we'll be ready or willing to receive our blessings. That's where the deeper investigation is required, and often is easier with someone who can guide you to identify the hidden blocks and contradictions, and assist with support and tools for clearing them and reprogramming the subconscious mind with more positive intentions and expectations. As Einstein so aptly put it, "You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it", so even if you’re very skilled at working on yourself, we can sometimes have blind spots and really get in our own way. Many of the modalities I employ get very quickly to the root cause of issues, through my intuitive readings, energy assessments, past life analysis, muscle testing, pendulum dowsing, NLP and hypnosis. Then I combine the best of clearing techniques and energy medicine that I teach you to do for yourself with detailed written instructions. This empowers you to continue the healing and transforming on your own because it’s a lifelong process of peeling the onion of the past away, while being vigilant about not accumulating new stress and negative messages.

And lastly, yes we do have to take action. It's not all just airy-fairy. Writing goals, reading them daily, journaling, repeating affirmations, listening to positive lectures and meditations, following an action plan are all great and necessary, but, and it's a HUGE but... if you have conscious, subconscious, or soul level wounds or beliefs about yourself, others, the world and life that are contrary, and that hidden soul shame I have found continually in clients (and myself), then you can do it all 8 hours a day without results!  More useful would be to repeat over and over, "I ALLOW myself to be healed and ALLOW the Universe to unconditionally love and support me." These shadow issues must be faced and resolved, for truly when we are in alignment and agreement with our innate innocence, goodness, beauty, harmony and value, and have profound unconditional love, acceptance and appreciation for ourselves, I doubt a thing I've spoken of is needed. You will already have arrived.