"Curiosity is one of the forms of feminine bravery." -Victor Hugo

I've Been Thinking...

Not too long ago, a friend suggested I write down the definition, values, and characteristics of the “divine feminine.” He said it would be a “good exercise” for me moving forward. 

“Mhmm, OK,” I thought.

I sat down to give it a try and ended up staring at the paper for a long time. I wrote something and erased it, and I tried again and again. Nothing really felt right to me.

Then last Sunday in this newsletter, I wrote my essay about courage and tenderness. The response I got was overwhelming, from both men and women.

“That is what we need!” people wrote to me. “That’s who I want to be!” My friend Elizabeth suggested I even curate a new conference called “Courage and Tenderness: The New Hero’s Journey.” Others wrote that they had never contemplated tenderness in the public space, but that they were open to it, even hungry for it. (An old video of Joe Biden resurfaced this week that visualized what I’m talking about.)

"There is no charm equal to tenderness of heart." -Jane Austen

I've Been Thinking...

Earlier this week, I thought I was going to write this Sunday about the long lines people have been standing in to vote. Then I thought I was going to write about Amy Coney Barrett’s testimony in front of the Senate. Then I watched the dueling town halls on Thursday night and thought, “OK, I’ll write about that.” (As usual, a lot happened this week, and there was a lot to think about.) But then Pope Francis got me. He always gets me.

This week, the Pope wrote: “Tenderness is the path of choice for the strongest, most courageous men and women.”

Tenderness and courage in the same sentence. I love that! I know you can get the news of the week anywhere, so instead, I want to focus on these words. Embodying them could really benefit us in the coming weeks.

If ever there was a time for courageous men and women to step forward, it is now. But how we step forward is the key. We are inundated with examples of people stepping forward with rage, anger, and the intention to rile us up, confuse us, gaslight us, and scare us. It’s a lot, but when the Pope suggested stepping out with tenderness, I took a deep breath. It was a breath of relief. It made me feel like, “OK, we’ve got this. We can do this. Here is the path. Here are my directions.”

Now, I didn’t grow up with tenderness. I didn’t hear the courageous people around me even speak the word. But I have felt tenderness in my life and I know that it can be life-changing. Bestowing tenderness on an individual allows a person to feel seen. It allows them to soften and feel their worth. 

The body acts as a conduit for information

Did you know that you’re already equipped with one of the most fundamental pieces of equipment to provide you with an endless supply of psychic information and guidance? Yes, it’s your body! You need look no further than your own physical body for answers.

I got my first real lesson in listening to my body when I was involved in a near-fatal automobile accident many years ago. You probably remember me talking about this in my first book Born Knowing. The shock to my system from the accident resulted in my energy centers or chakras being forced open. I soon realized that my abilities, which I’d so often pushed away, were back with a strength and intensity that I’d never experienced before.

Most people don’t realize that their body often acts as a conduit for information from our psychic senses through our energy centers. I like to say that our body is one big psychic antenna and the messages are flowing on a daily basis.

The real magic of your life…

It was my last day in New York City. I was leaving Central Park to catch a Southwest plane back to Denver. Of course, on the last day of my trip, it wasn’t biting, make-you-want-to- scream-out-loud cold. It was spring, suddenly spring, suddenly this warmth that could make you forgive anything. I was in Central Park with horses with purple plume feathers clip clopping by, pulling carriages of lovers and tourists.

And I longed to hold on to the feeling, the feeling of such goodness, like your first great kiss or getting a call back from an audition. And then I saw the Bubble Maker. He was a scruffy man with a knapsack and red pants and he was dipping this huge dipper into liquid rainbow gloppy bubble goo and spreading it, making a long, big, iridescent glob of magic. 

When your mind and heart are truly open abundance will flow to you effortlessly and easily.

There’s a spiritual concept that seems to create a good deal of confusion. It goes by the name of freedom or liberation, both terms referring not to political freedom but inner freedom. The reason that “freedom” has a spiritual meaning is that a state of total freedom is possible. The confusion arises because at first glance we already feel free inside, most of the time, at least. Our thoughts and feelings are our own. We can be persuaded or coerced to change our minds, but in the end we decide for ourselves.

In reality most people experience only a taste of inner freedom. They exist in a state of limitation that is far removed from total freedom. I discuss the desirability of total freedom in my new book, Total Meditation, and I’d like to offer a preview here.

We cannot be free inside if some experiences frighten or distress us. We shut out and deny them, and as a result many if not most experiences get edited, censored, forgotten, and pushed aside in favor of a narrow band of experience that feels safe. Limited freedom is based on what you can reasonably expect from life. Total freedom begins by looking on life as a field of infinite possibilities. It takes some persuasion to make total freedom seem like more than a pipe dream, however. Is it even desirable to feel totally open, unbounded, and free of boundaries to keep us safe?

A key issue here is spontaneity. Spontaneity is without rules, which seems like a recipe for anarchy. Rule enforcement is the surest way to keep people in line, or so the rule enforcers believe. Consider the extreme example of applying to the bank for a personal loan in China. If you want a loan there, you can use your smartphone, and online lending agencies check you out electronically, using data stored in the cloud. An applicant gets accepted or rejected for a loan in one-tenth of a second, after the lending agency has checked out 5,000 (!) personal factors, including how firmly your hand moved when you filled out your application and how low you let your phone battery get before recharging it.

Are You Going to Have a Breakdown or Breakthrough?

Times of change and craziness really bring a lot of clarity sometimes, and one of the things I wanted to share with you guys that I’m becoming super, super clear on, especially with everything that’s going on, is this: unless we deliberately make a change, we are going to start repeating all of our old patterns, or at least try to repeat a lot of the patterns from before COVID, even if that means repeating the worst of our suffering cycles.
Here’s what I mean…

The Effects of Repeating Patterns

The other day, I went out to a restaurant to eat with my kids. It’s been a long time of social distancing and we wanted to enjoy some time out for a bit. However, as I was eating at the restaurant, I noticed something as I was eating food I hadn’t been eating for the last few months. I kept having to blow my nose because there was something in the food that I have a sensitivity to. I’d been far more careful and was choosing better foods before, but as life started going back to “normal,” I made some exceptions for myself. And it didn’t feel good.

I've Been Thinking...

I woke up Wednesday morning feeling down. I mean, really down.

The presidential debate, which was anything but presidential, knocked me back. It was hard to watch. It was maddening, frustrating, irritating, depressing, and downright unbelievable. I’ve never seen anything like it (and I’ve seen a lot).

Friday morning, I found myself simply staring at the tree in my backyard. I always look to my tree for strength and inspiration. I look to it to reassure me that despite whatever is going on in my world or the world at large, it’s going to be OK.

The news that the president has Covid-19 knocked me back too, but unfortunately it didn’t surprise me. I wish I could say that I didn’t see this coming, but it’s one of the few things this year I actually did see coming. I mean, if people can get Covid from being in large, unmasked crowds, from not wearing masks, and from going about their business as usual, well, then why wouldn’t the president and his entourage get it? Why would they be the exception?

The two minds make a dynamic duo.

The evolution of higher mammals, including chimps, cetaceans and humans, brought forth a new level of awareness called “self-consciousness,” or, simply, the conscious mind. The newer conscious mind is an important evolutionary advance. The earlier, subconscious mind is our “autopilot”; the conscious mind is our manual control. For example, if a ball comes near your eye, the slower conscious mind may not have time to be aware of the threatening projectile. Yet the subconscious mind, which processes ~20,000,000 environmental stimuli per second vs. 40 environmental stimuli interpreted by the conscious mind in the same second, will cause the eye to blink. [Norretranders 1998] The subconscious mind, one of the most powerful information processors known, specifically observes both the surrounding world and the body’s internal awareness, reads the environmental cues and immediately engages previously acquired (learned) behaviors—all without the help, supervision or even awareness of the conscious mind.

The two minds make a dynamic duo. Operating together, the conscious mind can use its resources to focus on some specific point, such as the party you are going to tomorrow night. Simultaneously, your subconscious mind can be safely pushing the lawn mower around and successfully not cutting off your foot or running over the cat— even though you are not consciously paying attention to mowing the lawn.

It is really simple to incorporate intuition-boosting habits into your life

I received a late-night text from one of my clients. Yolanda has worked with me off and on for several years. I have watched her navigate a divorce, step into a new career, and tackle some other major life circumstances. She did all this while being in a spiritual upheaval. Yolanda was not interested in exploring her spiritual beliefs and intuitive powers until now.

For years, she had been seeing certain number sequences on her clock – 1:11, 4:56, or 2:22. It became so distracting that she covered up her digital clock. Her formal education is in science; this held her back from exploring beliefs like life after death, angels, and other metaphysical thoughts.

Yolanda’s late-night text contained an article written about number sequences and angel messages. She wanted to know what I thought about the article. My client was finally ready to expand her beliefs and receive direct messages from the universe. I quickly pulled together a list of 10 daily practices to improve her intuitive thinking and decision-making:

always be as awake and receptive to the present moment as you can be

Near the end of a busy afternoon, a senior caddie at an exclusive golf club was making his appointed rounds—double-checking that everything was in its proper place—when he entered the clubhouse locker room. Much to his shock, he saw an obviously completely exhausted man spread-eagled on the floor.

A moment later, he recognized the man as a fairly new member of the club. At first he feared the man may have fallen and hit his head, but after touching him gently, the man leaped to his feet, a terrified look in his eye.

“Are you all right?” asked the caddie. “You gave me a start, finding you lying there like that.”

“Yes … sorry, really … yes … I’m okay,” answered the man.

“Are you sure? You look completely drained. If you don’t mind me asking, how many rounds of golf did you play today? Never saw a man so tired as to pass out on the floor!”

Hesitating a bit, the member replied, “Well, truthfully, I haven’t been out to play yet.”

Squinting his eyes, trying to fathom what the man had said, the caddie asked, “I’m not sure I understand, then. You look as if you’d played seventy-two holes.”

The man’s face turned slightly red, obviously embarrassed over something, and then he answered, barely above a whisper, “I guess I was so worried about making a good impression—what with being new here and all—that while I was getting dressed to play, I had so many fearful thoughts about my swing, I must have worn myself out!”