The guises of guidance

Once we start connecting to the wonderful web of spirit and listening for guidance, the messages we receive come in many forms. Our higher selves, guides and angels are infinitely creative in finding ways to grab our attention. They’ll use dreams, songs on the radio, even other people’s conversations to deliver their loving suggestions.

Here’s an example of their creativity and sense of humor. Recently, my wife has been urging me repeatedly to become more active on Twitter. While she diligently tweets to her audience every day, my participation in our joint Twitter stream has been, shall we say, a little less consistent.

The other day while we were driving about town, Mamiko gently reminded me (again) that getting into the habit of tweeting daily would be a good thing. While we were discussing the merits of regular tweeting, the number plate on a yellow Mini parked on the roadside caught my eye: 2wee-t.

I continued to drive, telling my wife what I had just seen. We laughed. She hadn’t seen the Mini because the message wasn’t meant for her. A few moments later as we pulled up to a stop light, still discussing how guidance was attempting to get my attention, another number plate spoke to me: Do More.

As a mentor of mine once explained, higher selves and spirit guides do not have vocal cords. They must find subtle, creative ways to gain your attention and deliver inspiration and suggestions.

So while they can’t call you on your mobile phone to have a chat, they can cause someone to call you “accidentally.” And while they can’t write you an email, they can arrange for a special spam email to make its way into your inbox.

From my experience, the realms of guidance are as loving and wise as they are playful and clever. Pay attention. Listen closely to the thoughts that filter into your consciousness. Keep your radar tuned to the playfully unexpected. And don’t worry about missing the messages; they never stop experimenting with ways to make you notice.

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The truth is in there…

the truth within usI think about truth often. Truth. To most of us it feels like such a weighty, serious word because we’ve placed it on the positive side of the good-bad duality, the cornerstone of this third-dimensional playground.

Duality is what defines—and limits—this world. And because we assign everything either on one side of the fence or the other, Truth has been placed by most of us in the verdant field along with absolute good, righteousness, and justice.

Yet, this is the terminology of yin and yang, of opposing opposites, of good vs. evil—and a limiting vocabulary it is.

In truth (irony intended) Truth is everything, not only what might be considered “just and right.” Truth is as unique as our fingerprints. If 6.8 billion humans currently reside on this planet, then 6.8 billion versions of the truth exist.

The popular TV series “The X Files” used to promise us “the truth is out there.” Out there, indeed! It’s everywhere, in all its colors and flavors and guises.

Truth is not absolute. Truth is not always what one group believes is good or right or just. Truth is what resonates in your heart. Truth is what is true for you.

Our truth is like our DNA. There are many facets we may share with others, but our individual DNA is 100% unique.

So whatever you say is true, remember that it is true for you. It need not be true for anyone else on this planet to be valid or meaningful. What’s true for you is all that is important.

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Today feels different

I woke up today feeling much more rested, connected and ready to be productive than I had on any previous day during the last two weeks. After my morning meditation I checked the date on my laptop. Today is Friday, October 1.

Have you felt a shift in energy from yesterday, September 30?

Many people feel differently on the first day of the month, but they don’t often make the connection between the shift in how they feel and the fact the month has reset.

Everything in this world is energy—vibration in motion—and the energy of each month is unique. You can get an indication of what’s going on by the numerology of the month. October is the tenth month, its numerological value is a “1,” which is all about creation, genesis and new beginnings.

September on the other hand is a “9″ month. Nine indicates completion, the end of cycles and the completion of processes. For me the last two weeks of September have felt like a heavy burden. A friend described her experience as swimming through sand. I’ve been waking up in the morning feeling heavy and tired, as if I haven’t slept much at all. My work life has been demanding—long days filled with big projects.

During September my wife and I had been commenting about how exhausted we’d felt at the end of each day. But today is different. Today feels light and full of possibility. Hello, October. Come on in!

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Focusing Attention

tuning your dialIsn’t it amazing the way we can filter out all the noise in a crowded restaurant and eavesdrop on a single conversation at a nearby table? We do the same thing with our eyes all the time. In a wide field of vision, we can easily focus on a single, small detail.

In my healing workshops I often speak about focusing awareness. Focusing our conscious awareness is much like listening to the radio. If our radio is tuned to 101.7 FM, we won’t be able to hear what’s being broadcast at 93.5 FM. If we really want to hear what’s going on at 93.5, we need to tune our radio to 93.5.

The same concept applies to our sixth sense and tuning our awareness to the non-physical realms. If we want to communicate with our higher self or spirit guides, we need to focus our awareness accordingly.

I learned this first hand when I started training as a healer. The instructor in my very first class paired up the participants and told us to use our hands to sense each other’s aura, that non-physical energy field that surrounds the human body. With no special intuitive gifts or training, everyone in the class could sense another’s aura—everyone—regardless of age, ethnic origin, or religious upbringing.

A similar thing happened a couple of years later in another healing workshop. The instructor paired everyone up and, with no advance explanation, led us through a series of quick exercises. The gist of the activity? Be psychic about the stranger seated across from you. Tell them about things going on in their lives right now, about their emotional state of affairs, even about their past lives.

I was thrilled and surprised. Someone had simply told me to be psychic, and I was psychic. The same was true for four dozen other people in that workshop session. Without much ado, someone had told us to focus our conscious awareness and be intuitive, become psychic, and it worked.

Since then I have taught many others about the power of focusing awareness. All that’s required is tuning our consciousness to whatever frequency we desire and then listening with all six senses. No special gifts. No special training. Everyone can do it.

The truth is simple: you are psychic. You are intuitive and you have six amazing senses that allow you to interpret energy and vibration. You can communicate with non-physical beings. You can tap into the past, the future, even other dimensions.

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The Matrix and Alice

Once reason I love flying Japan Airlines is that every seat is equipped with a personal entertainment system with on-demand movies. Sweet. The adjustable screen is built right into the seat back facing you. And my noise-cancelling headphones create a superb audio experience.

On the flight to Tokyo today, I enjoyed watching The Matrix again. It had been a couple of years since I had watched the movie in its entirety, and I was glad to find it programmed into the entertainment for this flight.

Morpheus is speaking to Neo about Alice in Wonderland and venturing down the rabbit hole to find the truth about the matrix. I glance slightly to the right. I see Alice—in Wonderland—having a conversation with the Rabbit. The woman in the seat next to me is watching the recent remake of Alice in Wonderland on her personal screen.

The timing is exquisite. I smile and feel a ripple of joy move though my body.

This elegant synchronicity is a message—a simple, gentle message from my higher self, my guides, and my angels. It’s their clever way of reminding me I am not alone. I am never alone. It’s their reassurance that I am, indeed, walking upon the path of my highest good and everything is unfolding as it needs to.

So, no matter how uncomfortable I am in my physical body at that moment—over-tired and trapped in an economy-class seat—I know everything is OK.

Our higher selves and spirit guides send us messages like this all the time. Their challenge—and ours—is that we’re not always listening. We’re not always paying attention to the subtle yet clever messages they transmit to us every day.

Still, our higher selves and guides love us unconditionally, no matter how distracted and ignorant we choose to be. And so they devise ever-creative new ways to speak to us.

I love life’s synchronicities. In truth everything we experience is coincident and synchronistic. We just don’t see it most of the time.

Life on earth is a giant tapestry, an infinite orchestration of plans and experiences and reactions. And you are the sole creator of your experience. Pretty cool, huh?

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The Star of Your Own Movie

Movie set and film crewI’m on a movie kick this week.

In high school I had a friend who used to remind me, “It’s your movie, Bower.” I knew what he meant, but the true depth of his message didn’t really sink into my consciousness for another 25 years.

But now I understand. This life is an illusion. All of it. It’s a movie of my own making. I create it each day through my thoughts and my choices and my reactions to what I experience. I am the star of my own film.

My sister is an actor. She’s in San Francisco this month filming a drama about a woman who confronts her traumatic past after reconnecting with a niece she hasn’t seen in 20 years. My sister plays the niece.

What’s interesting about this film is that there’s basically no script. The characters and their back-stories are well-defined, and the storyline is blocked out, but the dialogue and interactions are being left largely to the actors.

Each day the director and his crew set up a scene, roll the cameras, and then everyone, including the actors, gets to experience the spontaneous drama that unfolds under the large lights and boom microphones. Practically the entire movie is ad lib. It’s improv drama.

For me this is a wonderful analogy for the way we plan our human lives before incarnating into physical form. As our non-physical soul selves, we establish a general intent for a lifetime, complete with major themes, significant peak events, and exit strategies. We define the general plot for the story, but we don’t script the details. We don’t write precise dialogue or pre-plan our decisions.

And in concert with other soul selves, we agree upon the roles we will play in each others lives. In our last lifetime together, I might have been your greatest nemesis and teacher. This time around, I may simply be an acquaintance who helps you out of a difficult situation.

As our soul selves our ultimate goal is simple: to experience and evolve and expand.

As long as our human personalities are headed roughly in the right direction in this lifetime, our higher selves are thrilled to see how it all unfolds in all its messy detail. The true fun is in the details. And along the way, it’s not uncommon for us to lose the plot, or fall off the path. But this is all part of the experience of being human.

These are the reasons I believe most of us love to watch television shows and films. (I would love to spend 2-3 hours every day in a movie theatre.) We’re fascinated to see how fictional characters on screen react to the consequences of the choices they make.

Our higher selves are no different. They love to experience our thoughts and choices and the consequences of the choices we make.

Remember: this is your movie.

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Pirate Ships and Movies

Pirate ship in the bayOne a recent Saturday morning as I sipped my tea, I looked out over the ocean and noticed that the view had changed.

“Sweetheart,” I called to my wife in the living room. “There’s a giant… pirate ship in the bay.”

Overnight, a large, dark misshapen pirate vessel had sailed quietly into our neighborhood. I learned later that it had made its way to Hawaii from California along with a huge movie production crew and actors such as Johnny Depp. Yes, they were all here to film the fourth movie in the Pirates of the Caribbean series.

I started thinking (once again) how similar our lives are to movies. We choose the location and the sets. We choose the story and main characters and the supporting cast. And then we direct the action.

The trouble is most of us never remember that this life is our movie—our movie. Every manifestation and every experience and every reaction in this lifetime has been a choice—our choice. We’re the screenwriter, the director, and the central star of our own production.

Each night for nearly two weeks, the Pirates of the Caribbean crew bathed their film set in blue-white light from giant flood lights mounted on boats and sometimes sent streams of smoke across the water to create a special effect. The entire production was an exercise in creating an illusion that, one day soon, will entertain millions of movie-goers.

It’s all an illusion, created on purpose, with great focus and intent. This same statement can be used to describe our life journey and the choices we’ve made even before incarnating into this human form. Yes, even before.

It’s all a movie, my friends. Are you enjoying yours? Are you happy with the way the story is unfolding? Knowing it’s your movie, what would you change?

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Connecting with Your Spirit Guides and Angels

As you awaken spiritually, as you become aware of the non-physical aspects of “life, the universe and everything,” it’s easy to get sidetracked and discouraged.

Can I connect with my guides and angels directly? Do I need some special power or gift? Do I need special training? Do I need to study and gather more knowledge?

Here’s my truth: you do not require any special knowledge or training to connect with your guides and angels and spirit councils.

In my experience, the only elements that anyone requires to connect with the non-physical realms of spirit are:

  1. The intent to connect. This is the most important factor by far.
  2. An open heart, which I find is much more important than having an open mind.
  3. Trust. This is the one that usually takes practice. We usually think we’re not connecting or we’re just making it up. Yet the truth is we are connecting.

While some folks can carry on mental conversations with spirit in their normal, active, waking state, most of us need to quiet our minds and focus. That’s why I recommend developing your meditation skills, which simply means doing it.

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