by Steven Lane Taylor

How would you like every moment of every day to feel like one miracle happening after another? How would you like to accomplish your goals and realize your dreams without undue struggle or strain?

It’s possible. It’s called living life in the divine flow.

Whether you are consciously aware of it or not, there is a divine flow in your life that is continually guiding you toward the effortless fulfillment of your heart’s desires. The trick is learning how to recognize and cooperate with that flow, instead of blocking or restricting your experience of it.

Fortunately, that’s not a very difficult thing to learn to do. In fact, there are two fundamental steps that you can take right now to begin living life in the divine flow.

Step one is to simply pay attention. The divine flow is continually guiding you toward this fulfillment of your heart’s desires...continually! But to take advantage of that guidance, you must be aware of the subtle ways the flow is attempting to guide you.
Following are three ways that you receive guidance from the divine flow.

First, you are continually receiving direction from your own intuition. Your intuition is the most valuable and reliable source of guidance you have. It is the spirit of the divine within you. It is the spirit of the divine that is you! Your divine spirit always knows the next right step to take. And it is continually trying to tell you what that step is. So take the time to slow down, get quiet, and listen to that still, small voice. Honor it. Respect it. Follow it.

A second form of guidance comes to you through the wisdom of others. The divine flow often speaks to you through the people who cross your path. It is through their wisdom—their intuitive guidance—that you are often led to your next right step. That doesn’t mean that you have to accept and act on everything that everybody says to you. But you should at least be open and receptive to others, and willing to consider what they have to say.

A third way that the divine flow communicates with you is through signs, coincidences, and synchronicities. These occurrences are not mere chance or happenstance. They are meaningful. They are divinely designed to open doors and create opportunities for you in direct response to your desire. But you have to pay attention to those signs and synchronicities. And you have to act on them. You have to go through those doors and take advantage of those opportunities.

Which brings us to the second step for living life in the divine flow. You must let go of what you think you know. The divine flow often guides you to your good in a way that is far different—and far better—than anything you would ever come up with on your own. But to take advantage of that guidance, you must be careful not to hastily dismiss or overrule it because “you know better.”
That doesn’t mean that you have to forget everything you have been taught, or ignore the conclusions you have drawn based on your experience. It simply means that you must keep an open mind—and realize that there is always more to know than you currently know. As certain as you are about something, if you are willing to admit that there could still be something that you just haven’t considered, you will leave an opening in your mind that is wide enough for divine direction to get through.

So there you have it. Let go of what you think you know. And pay attention to the flow. Stop trying to force things to go the way you think they should go, and be willing to move in a direction that is different from what you planned or expected.

Do those two things, and you will begin to live a life that is dramatically more fulfilling, immensely more joyful, and on top of it all, remarkably effortless!

Steven Lane Taylor is a spiritual author and speaker now living in Sedona, Arizona. Since the publication of his book, Row, Row, Row Your Boat: A Guide for Living Life in the Divine Flow, Steven has been sharing his message with congregations and organizations all across the country. For more information about Steven and his work, please visit www.rowrowrow.com.

by Margrit Spear Ph.D/MFT

The answer to this question is YES and NO.

YES, we know today that basic units of inheritance are called genes which are part of our DNA structure. Genetics do play an important role in the appearance and behavior of organisms, but any genetic component is never separate from environmental and cultural conditioning.

Humans in general are not yet aware that conditioned beliefs and habits are man-made, reflecting a limited level of awareness. This limitation is produced by a dualistic worldview, based on the belief that causes originate from external sources or circumstances. It is a belief that she, he, or they are responsible for our current state of affairs. (It is their fault; they are our enemies, we are their victims, etc.) It is a form of belief and conditioning that has been passed down from generation to generation, without conscious reflection of the role each individual plays in creating particular outcomes. Therefore, our biological human genes are influenced by our psychological conditioning.

NO, because when humanity begins to understand the psychological role it plays in proliferating war or any other acts of violence, this centuries-old plague will cease to exist. With conscious effort and an increased level of awareness, I believe that we can change future gene inheritance, eliminating war-encoded characteristics with the help of positive psychological repatterning.

The Power of Fear
Humanity is currently kept in constant fear of another attack. Fear of an enemy produces negative energy not just for this country, but the world. When such mass hypnosis takes center stage, people are easily influenced and fear energy is activated by the millions, severely affecting the universal consciousness governing the whole planet.

Consequences of War
Today, we can fill hundreds of volumes describing the atrocities of war, but focusing on war will never create peace.
War’s characteristics include hatred and revenge. The culture of war is built on violence. Military dictators produce negative, destructive, and often brutal forces primarily void of humanitarian accountability. War keeps creating enormous suffering, and war-minded government officials don’t serve as peace carriers to the world. It is calculated that we currently have 40 active wars in this world. Nuclear weapons of today are capable of destroying life on this world in a very short time.

What Is the Real Cost of War?
The greatest enemy emerges from human ignorance. Until humanity begins to understand that fighting is part of a psychological conditioning that may have had its inception with the first humans having to fight to stay alive, this type of conditioning will continue. Fighting to hunt for food (or territory) produced a psychological conditioning that was passed from generation to generation. When millions of people are conditioned to fight for survival, the act of fighting produces energy, a form of conditioning lingering like an archetype. When this war or fighting template keeps being reinforced, it creates a “permanent” pattern in our brains. Every time we encounter the same or similar situations, our brain automatically reacts to its conditioning. Until we become aware how we get conditioned and how we can change this conditioning, we will proceed, primarily unconsciously, reflecting our accepted habits and beliefs.

Humanity has to become cognizant that every thought and every feeling creates a blueprint for this universal energy. Dominant thoughts and feelings create a force field activating universal energy, producing either negative or positive outcomes.

Why Do We Have Increased Violence in This World?
It is reasonable to assume that the increase in violence is because we have many more people. This aspect plays a significant role, because more poverty and increased lack of education go hand in hand, generally activating more crime. A real culprit is not realizing how human thinking and feeling affect world outcomes.

Unconscious proliferation of violence has increased in proportion to the number of violent acts exposed and viewed in the form of news, movies, TV shows, music lyrics, and video games. Those movie or game producers proudly state that the more violent the production, the greater the human thrill (and their profits). What we entertain and project, we produce, mostly without conscious awareness of the subconscious programming that is happening. This type of entertainment comes with a hefty price tag for humanity and the world. When millions of people play with violence, violence will take center stage in the country and the world.

Why would it affect the world? Because there is only ONE energy in this universe and whatever is activated as its dominant focus will continue to prevail. Humans in general are not aware that the subconscious cannot differentiate fiction from real action. Thus, believing that playing a violent game involving killing people (or animals) on a screen will not affect rational thinking (human psyche), would be a mistake that could indeed have fatal consequences. Killing people “on screen” for fun without being remorseful can lead to killing people in society without experiencing any negative feelings. The boundaries between play and reality (on a subconscious level) can become blurred where the individual is no longer capable of distinguishing what is real and what is play. This dangerous trend has not yet been fully realized, because there is little awareness that everything we do, think, or feel has consequences, leaving permanent imprints in universal consciousness.

Fighting or proliferating wars via mental concepts might be laughable to authority figures or mainstream humans not yet aware of the psychological role they play, not only in their own life, but also the world. Most people still don’t recognize this negative or dangerous interconnection.

Most people still believe that their existence is based on their five senses. Not so! Until humans recognize that their ultimate base of existence is spiritual (immanent and transcendent), we will continue living in a world of limited understanding. The essence of human spiritual existence has no boundaries and connects us all in this invisible realm. What we do in this country affects the rest of the world, whether we are aware of this interaction or not. We are not a single island; we share the invisible matrix with everyone and everything. Our spiritual connection provides access to infinite wisdom, where all solutions already pre-exist. Accessing answers requires that the individual takes time to be quiet, connecting to this universal wisdom, a prerequisite to gaining increased awareness, leading to a healthier, happier, and more peaceful life.

A greater source of intelligence is available to every human being, but before we can consciously partake of it, we have to be able to realize such an inner connection. All humans have the potential to connect consciously to this greater wisdom as they increase their level of awareness. This means questioning reality and beliefs that were handed down from generation to generation and realizing that the currently accepted interpretation could have harmful consequences. Humans in general have lived with a limited understanding, believing that external happenings shaped their reality and determined the quality of their lives. Today, we realize that our inner interpretation mirrors our current level of comprehension, exposing our reality which is expressed in the so-called external world. Consciously realizing this difference will create one of the most profound positive changes in this world.

We live in challenging times because so much of what has been accepted for centuries as being factual is no longer working to our benefit or the benefit of the world. Yes, wars unfortunately continue to kill people, but fortunately we also have a portion of our population that is waking up to greater levels of awareness. When humans begin to understand that there is universal law acting, it will dawn on us that fighting enemies has to produce more enemies to fight.

We know today that there is only ONE energy in this universe. Thus, it bears repeating this important point: the more warlike energy we produce, the more we have to fight.

What Is the Key to World Peace?
Lasting peace is an internal state of being that has to be cultivated by each individual human being. When each person practices a peaceful existence, we will create and enjoy peace on earth. A peaceful existence entails that humans begin to recognize the role they play innocently or ignorantly in the well-being or destruction of human existence.

Humans have to become aware that anger, frustration, jealousy, hate, etc., produce not only negative circumstances, attracting more negative people in their own lives, but also affect the world at large. Much illness and negative circumstances could be averted if people could progress towards more advanced levels of awareness in which the individual is capable of choosing deliberate conscious actions that are in harmony with universal law.

Humans have not yet realized that we have been given enormous gifts, including the blueprint to create a healthy, happy, and peaceful world. The outcome will depend on the level of awareness that will dominate in this world. Today we realize that there are three different levels of human awareness, based on behavioristic (level one), humanistic (level two), and transpersonal (level three) psychology (presented by Holographic Psychology®), corresponding to three different levels of behavior. The principles expose an evolutionary human process recognizing body (level one), mind (level two), and spirit (level three). The greater the individual’s level of awareness, the more the individual lives in harmony with creation. Unfortunately, most of humanity, even today, still operates on a very limited level (one) of awareness that is not realizing the psychological interconnection. Moving into a “higher” level of awareness requires that the person begins to question his or her reality and is motivated to evaluate his or her beliefs that are keeping them stuck in life. A more advanced level of awareness requires personal commitment involving self-reflection, including examining personal habits and beliefs, followed by implementing deliberate actions that are in harmony with universal law. It is an inner awakening to pre-existing potential inherent in all of us.

How Can an Invisible Energy Have Such Tremendous Influence?
It always has and continues to do so, because it is strictly governed by a universal law. Ask the mystics—they have been aware of this interaction for centuries, but were often punished, even executed, because their view differed from the authorities ruling the particular culture. Mystics were furthermore unable to communicate with mainstream people what they experienced, because the needed level of comprehension or awareness was (is) still absent for most people.

The greater the level of awareness, the less violence we will have in this world, because when we begin to realize the role we play, why would we deliberately create negativity in our lives? We will consciously monitor our thoughts and feelings, because the consequences of negative or positive states of mind will then be realized. Until a person is motivated to awaken to a greater level of awareness, that person will remain stuck in a world that is based on external circumstances producing innocent victims. An increased level of awareness requires personally taking responsibility for our thoughts and feelings, and eliminating negative self-talk.
War does not have to be continued, but in order to end war, humanity has to take responsibility for what it produces. The role psychology will play in the near future will help humanity awaken to the part it plays in enhancing or destroying lives, including this world. Thinking peace and acting in a peaceful manner has to be practiced daily. Learning about the role our brain plays will change history.

To Sum It Up
We are more fortunate than our ancestors, because we now have information available to us enabling us to change the course of our history, including the welfare of our planet.

I encourage each one of you to partake in this evolutionary change, learning how to become a beneficial example, enriching your life and the world. As humans increase their level of awareness, the world will change. Learning to question our current reality will have to be the first step. Willingness to change habitual patterns will be the next. Self-reflection will bring beneficial changes. There is no better time to start than NOW.

No matter how much we believe we are separate entities, we are all connected in universal consciousness. What we think and feel not only affects our lives, but the world.

Let us begin the journey of positive change, eliminating war for good. Let us use the current war battalions to build healthy and peaceful civilizations, enriching rather than destroying this earth. With determination, increased understanding, and self-motivation, we can do it.

Although the human genetic component is part of the universal matrix, fighting wars is primarily a human conditioning that needs to be changed individually. Realizing the interconnection between what we think, feel, and how we react will pave the way to a brighter future. Increasing awareness means increasing personal responsibility and learning to become empowered over that which we give shelf space to. With conscious effort, we will stop living in outdated beliefs and begin creating a peaceful, healthy, and prosperous world that will sustain us all. Diplomacy, global participation, and fair negotiations creating win-win situations for all will also lead to more beneficial solutions.

War or warlike efforts can never create peace and the sooner we realize our psychological interconnection, the sooner we will enjoy lasting peace.

Greater levels of education can provide increased understanding and more beneficial levels of tolerance. Such education needs to start in, or preferably before, kindergarten.

Permanent peace has to start within each individual and as we consciously practice a peaceful state of being, we will enjoy peace in our life and the world.

“Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”

Margrit Spear, Ph.D./MFT is a California licensed Marriage and Family Counselor, vice president of an independent research group, and the author of two books: Life-Changing Explosion of Consciousness, Introduction to Holographic Psychology and, What I Wish I Had Known Before Becoming a Parent. For more information, check out the website at: www.simplyjoy.com.

by Jeffrey Douglass

“Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are.”
Chinese Proverb

Whenever we experience stress, struggle, and/or strain, we are living from our ego and not our Soul. Our Soul’s way is to work with ease and grace. Tension results when the ego unskillfully uses will that is driven by mental streams of anxious thinking. We become set on making something happen according to our notions of how and when it should. Our sense of who we are is tied to the outcome. We put ourselves on the line. If things are happening as we thought, everything is okay. If not, we are a failure, or someone or something is to blame. This is ego-based behavior which shows up as stress. In contrast, Soul-based behavior can be outcome oriented, but gets there using a much wider frame of resources and has no ego as the center. The hallmark of acting from the Soul is a sense of flow. Work becomes an activity carried forward in a river’s current of creative life force. We are aware of a larger field of energy with which we align to support us in reaching our goal. Our Soul seamlessly operates in more dimensions to fulfill a goal than how we typically think of getting something done. We still need to work at what we want to accomplish, but we work with the tools inherent to the Soul. These “tools” include synchronicity, intuition, balance of effort and rest, enjoyment, being in the moment, spaciousness, a sense of connection, innovation, and serendipity.

Typically, ideas spontaneously arise about how to do it better—just the person we need to help us is found, a “breakthrough” occurs, and the energy we need to finish is supplied. We seem to be in the right place at the right time, along with others who may be involved. These trademarks of working from the Soul reflect being involved with something bigger than the personal will. Our Soul is inextricably connected to all that is. So one might say that when we go about a task in which we are living from our Soul, we also have the support and teamwork from places we are yet to discover. This manner of working complements our more typical modes, so that the whole of us shows up to get something done: Soul, body, and mind.

If we ask ourselves something like, “If I were living from my Soul right now, what would I experience?” or “If I came from my Soul, how would I go about this task?,” often what first appears is a sense of connecting to a larger field of consciousness and an embracing Presence. The immediate effect can be one of breathing easier, and feeling a greater sense of peace and equanimity. Asking questions like these is often the most important action we can take when we are feeling overwhelmed or stressed. Stress can only occur when we have separated from our Soul. While we may not be able to control what is coming at us, we can choose how to engage with it. When attuned to our Soul, we are always bigger than the stressful situation. Fed from our Soul, we automatically put things in perspective and see ways of dealing with the stress that was previously obscured by contraction and tension.

We were never meant to work in the world apart from our Soul’s involvement. It is not our design, and when we don’t work from our Soul, the effects of this show up on all levels: physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Tiredness, disease, irritability, anxiousness, lack of connection, and despair are some of the more typical signs. There is a limit to how much stress a human can endure without consequences. When this happens, it is a call to look more deeply into our nature, and what we most fundamentally need is to live a life that is in balance.

Stress points precisely to what makes it hard for us to live from our Soul. Examining the inner causes of stress reveals underlying core issues that have tended to separate us from our true essence. Therefore, stress is a very important area of our lives to infuse with greater awareness, consciousness, and ultimately, love. We can easily overlook the need for this because of how normal stress has become in our culture. Tiredness (even exhaustion), tension, and anxiety are all tolerated. They are seen as a part of life and the way things are in our fast-paced culture. Stress is actually a serious condition indicating a significant imbalance at the center of our life. We now know that stress is a precursor to most illnesses.

So how we do we get back to our Soul? Often, fear is the single biggest internal cause of stress, and therefore the first place to look in terms of understanding the separation from our Soul. Common fears that we have all experienced include fear that we are not enough, fear that we will fail, fear of the pain of shame, fear of loss, and/or fear of having nothing and ending up all alone. Rather than actually lacking in any way or being insufficient, fear results from having places in our consciousness in which there is a vacuum or hole. We are not aware of a “hole,” but it shows up as a numbness or over-reaction to stress. The places inside us where we have not allowed Love leave a vacuum in our psyche. Fear then fills this vacuum. These places represent unfinished healing from life events that we had no other way of handling other than to make ourselves wrong or inadequate. We lost parts of ourselves to judgment, and removed love. Under trying circumstances, this returns as stress. If we were abused as a child, repeatedly received harsh criticism from one or both parents, felt abandoned through divorce, were not seen for who we are, often did not get the support we needed when we were very hurt, or had any other experience growing up that significantly impacted our sense of lovableness, then very likely, we told ourselves that these things happened to us because we were bad and/or lacking in some important way. Without the resources to handle our pain in any other way, we blamed ourselves for what happened.

If we blamed others instead, this is a “defensive” reaction to shame. A vacuum in our psyche is created because the Love that is our being has been shut off by the impact of our internalized judgment. Fear takes over. When we feel stress, it is most deeply a call for Love.

When you feel stress, inquire what your root fear is. What is the worst that could happen if you don’t meet the expectations of your boss, if you don’t pass the test, if you say the wrong thing in an important meeting, or if you don’t know the answer to a question? We are looking for fear’s bottom line. When we find it, we know it. Saying what we most fear produces an automatic release that shows up as a whole body response. Often, there is a huge sigh of relief, like a weight has been lifted. There may be a sudden outpouring of tears if they have been hidden for years. It is a distinct and obvious shift.

This is the place and moment for Love to fill the vacuum. More than an affirmation and/or correction of perception that our ego would supply, our Soul is a field of Light and energy that heals us from the inside out. It is an upwelling of Love displacing anything that is not Love. We are literally filled with Love so that we may know our perfection perhaps for the first time.

If we ask how our Soul sees this fear? The question tends to bring forth the field of consciousness that belongs to our Soul, like a magnificent angel appearing with all the love and wisdom one could ask for to meet the fear. This angel is most deeply who we are. Depending on what we most need, we then would perhaps feel ourselves breaking out of a cave or hole of fear into an image of sunlight. Or a warmth may suddenly arise that moves through our whole body and dissolves all fear. A great sense of Peace may overcome us. From the deepest place, we know that everything is okay. We step back with our Soul to look at the stress with all the Love of the world. Our perceptions start to shift, and we find our center again. We see fear for what it is, with compassion and understanding. Like a mother extending a tender gaze to a frightened and lost child, our fear vanishes in the embrace of Love. We trust and deeply appreciate who we are. We are safe. Often greater understanding of our past naturally occurs in this process. We may realize how much fear and shame we have carried all our life in reaction to unloving behaviors on the part of those we depended on. Whatever the wounding, our Soul goes there with Love until what has been carried for so long returns to abiding wholeness and perfection.

Asking what our Soul is experiencing can lead us toward the action that is most right for the situation. It can also show us new and better ways of doing things so that we don’t feel so much stress, or we may realize that our current situation is truly not in anyone’s best interest and we may decide to make a change. An underlying sense of knowing is a sign of our Soul’s involvement.

When we do lose awareness of our Soul, make note of what triggered the loss. What made something in our circumstances more important than being our aliveness, being our Soul, being Grace? Or it may be that these questions become unnecessary. It was enough to launch us back into our Soul just realizing we made something more important than remaining in the consciousness of Love, Peace and Joy. In this way, we learn “to be in the world but not of it” in more and more places.

Jeffrey Douglass, MSW, has been a licensed psychotherapist for 32 years integrating psychology and spirituality into his private practice. He is author of Living from Your Soul and also a Senior Executive Coach for the Reina Trust Building Institute. For further information and services offered, visit www.livingfromyoursoul.com and/or e-mail to jeffrey@livingfromyoursoul.com.

by Maria Nemeth

Would it be all right with you if life got easier? I’ve asked tens of thousands of people that question over the past twenty years. After a pause, most of them say something like: “That’s obvious. Yes. Of course!”

Take a moment to think about that question. Though you may find yourself giving an immediate “yes,” you may notice another question on your mind: “What’s the catch?”

There isn’t any catch. But this question about having life get easier flies in the face of what we normally consider a successful life to be. Many of us have learned that success is won by hard work and sometimes even struggle. We’ve raised the bar on our goals and achievements, while comparing ourselves to what we think others have accomplished. We get frustrated because we think we’re not doing enough to get ahead.

The result is that we accomplish lots, but are too exhausted to enjoy or appreciate what we’ve done. We’ve powered our way through obstacles, and the result is less and less enjoyment. We tell ourselves we can savor the journey later. Under these conditions, a life filled with ease seems, paradoxically, difficult to even think about.

You deserve to live the life you were meant to live, and you have everything it takes to do this. One key is to learn to bring ease with you into whatever you’re doing, and especially when going for an important life goal, whether at work or play.

First, have you ever considered lowering the bar instead of raising it? You read that right. For the past twenty-five years, the typical view of success has been that you stretch...and stretch...and stretch yourself to do things better than before. While it’s intuitively obvious that if we’re not growing, we’re stagnating; nevertheless, we sometimes stretch ourselves so tight that we get “success stretch marks.” How does that look? We’re irritable, driven, checking our to-do lists, and just trying to make it through another day.

There’s a good reason for learning to lower the bar. It’s called “trouble at the border,” a phenomenon that happens whenever we take steps to implement an idea or project. When you see why it occurs, you learn to take your foot off the high-performance pedal long enough to ease your way into success.

Successful action means taking an idea and doing something about it. For example, just thinking about planting a garden won’t bring beautiful blossoms in spring. There are two domains of reality in which we are here to operate: metaphysical and physical. Metaphysical reality is the home of ideas, dreams, and vision. It’s where we get our “juice”—where we find what’s important to us. For example, you may have the desire to be financially successful, physically fit and healthy, developing spiritually, a creator of beauty, or a successful entrepreneur. Those are examples of what I would call life’s intentions—the purposes that give our lives meaning.

However, if we stay in metaphysical reality too long without taking action, we end up “metafizzling.” Boredom seeps in, as well as frustration. We want to do something with the life’s intention—make it happen in physical reality.

Physical reality is where we take action on what’s important. It’s the home of people, places, and things. Whereas the energy of metaphysical reality is high and full of inspiration, the energy of physical reality is dense. It takes work to do in physical reality what you dream of in metaphysical reality. Getting back to the garden, there’s visualizing that garden of marigolds and chrysanthemums, and then there’s drawing plans, consulting guides, buying seeds, planting, and watering.

“Trouble at the border” is at the interface between metaphysical and physical reality. This is where the inspiration of our ideas meets with a solid pushback from the physical world. We begin to discover that it’s going to take more energy than we thought to do what we wanted. A friend of mine once said it’s like standing at the seashore and having a wave of cold water hit you in the face.

At that point, an insidious inner conversation often begins. It croons to us in a familiar tone.

• Where am I going to find the right plan for my garden?
• How do I know the best seeds to buy?
• Do I really have time right now to learn all about this?
• Do I have the talent?
• Whose idea was this anyway?

The name I give this self-limiting internal dialogue is “Monkey Mind.” It originated as a Buddhist term, standing for that aspect of the mind that always chatters at us as it swings from doubt, to worry, and back to doubt again. It is always there at the border between our dreams and physical reality. There may be survival reasons for this, because we didn’t have fangs or fur and couldn’t run very far when we lived in caves and on the savannah. But we did have a mind that could warn us about what could go wrong. And that mind persists until this day, warning us away from our dreams.

When we begin to go for a goal, those of us who are high-achievers often make big promises for huge results. We try to power our way through trouble at the border, dragging our Monkey Mind with us clinging to our legs. This is a formula for exhaustion.

If you’ve had enough of the above scenario, you can learn to bring ease to the “border crossing.” Here are some pointers:

• Recognize that you will often hit trouble at the border whenever you initiate a project, no matter how much you were inspired by it in the past. It’s normal. This is especially true if you are required to learn new skills or go beyond what’s familiar. Whether it’s writing a book, composing a song, or starting a business, there will usually be a time when you experience difficulty getting things going.
  
• Consider this possibility: the worries and discomfort you experience as you go for an inspiring goal are the signs that you’re actually on the right track. You’re doing something right, not wrong! You are venturing past the ordinary and that’s when Monkey Mind invariably shows up. I have interviewed hundreds of highly successful people and have yet to find someone who hasn’t at some point doubted whether or not they’ve got what it takes to achieve their dreams. These concerns come with the territory. If you truly let yourself take this in, you won’t be tempted to analyze why you’re having these doubts. In fact, the more you examine and try to make sense of your discomfort, the longer it stays around.
  
• To keep your discomfort at a minimum, take the smallest steps possible to achieve simple results. Big steps at the border arouse Monkey Mind. Small steps allow it to rest. For example, if you were to write three pages a day on a book, you’d be finished with your first manuscript in about four months. If three pages sounds like too much, cut it down to two. That would equal two manuscripts a year!
  
• Be aware that small steps when you’re at the border actually take more energy than at any other time. Think of a rocket ship at liftoff, which burns 90% of its fuel in the first three minutes. Anyone who’s ever learned a new skill knows this. Take skiing, for example. At the beginning, just learning to stay vertical can take all the energy you’ve got.
  
• Find something to enjoy about each small, sweet successful result that you generate. Too much of the time our gaze is directed toward the future and we miss out on what’s happening in the present.
  
• Along the way, cultivate the genuine skill of finding something for which to be grateful, even when it’s not going the way you originally planned. You probably know the story about Thomas Edison who went through over 1000 variations while he was developing the light bulb. At one point he remarked that after finding so many ways that didn’t work, they were just that much closer to finding one that would. And he was right.
  
• Allow other people to support you. We all know how much easier it is to exercise or train for a sports event when you’ve partnered with other people. You keep each other going. It’s really the same with any goal or dream.

Try out some of the above. Give yourself the gift of success in a way that frees you to dance with your fondest dreams. Remember—you deserve to live the life you were meant to live.

Based on the book Mastering Life’s Energies by Maria Nemeth © 2007. Reprinted with permission from New World Library, Novato, CA; phone: 800-972-6657 ext. 52; website: www.newworldlibrary.com.

Maria Nemeth, Ph.D., MCC, a Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Master Certified Coach, is an international inspirational speaker, author, seminar leader, and coach. She is the Founder of the Academy for Coaching Excellence. For more than 20 years, Dr. Nemeth has trained professional coaches, ministers, clinicians, executives, teachers, and private individuals using the coaching methods and skills that she has designed. Her websites are: www.academyforcoachingexcellence.com and www.marianemeth.com.