A woman sits peacefully in the meadow watching storms start to form in the North.  She knows that what Earth is showing her is a reflection of her own storms forming deep within.  She has felt them coming for some time now.  And she is ready.

Her heart picks up a rhythm which begins asking her to move, to breathe, to remember.  And she does.  She knows it is her time.  She has seen this day many times before in her visions when she is alone and still and silent.  She recognizes the tightness in her belly which helps her summon the courage she knows will be required of her now.

She closes her eyes and lets her mind take her back to the time of First Knowing.  She was so young, then.  And she was free.  Her days were spent laughing, playing, and creating from deep inside herself, worlds that were magical and loving and so beautiful.  The Earth knew her well and Loved her deeply.  They played together endlessly in the wind and the rain and the sun and the snow.  Often this young being would lie flat on her Earth Mother, feeling the breath she shared with her beloved planet.  And they would breathe together for hours.

When the Changing Times came, she was unsure at first what was happening.  What she knew to be true in her beautiful world, all the wonder she carried within her, slowly began to shift.  It shifted into something unrecognizable to her small being.  She was forgetting.  She was becoming anxious and more reserved.  She began to be afraid - to speak, to laugh, to spin wildly around and around as she so loved to do.  The looks and stares of the Others suddenly felt threatening.  And she began to hide.  She hid so well that she could no longer remember the feeling of being free.  And the forgetting lasted until today, the day of the storms forming in the North, and on the inside of the now-grown woman.

Her life up to this point had revealed a series of periodic glimpses of that other world, her world, which she loved so much.  These glimpses alternately thrilled and terrified her.  She let them pass as swiftly as they came and worked hard at whatever tasks were at hand.  She married, had children, and tried to be happy.  But the questions never ceased in her mind.  The anxious feeling that she was missing something would linger on and on.  She studied and asked questions of others and found that they too knew that something was amiss, and yet they also had found no answers.  And then something happened, something wonderful…

Going about her routine one cloudy, fall day, she overheard part of a conversation.  It went something like this:  ”You are a spark of Divine Consciousness.  You are not separate from anyone or anything here on Earth.  It is all You.  Your connection to the Divine is assured; it can never ever be broken.  And you are so deeply Loved.  You came here to experience, to play, to feel.  You no longer need to control any aspect of your Life.  Simply allow it to unfold before you.  Feel your way now.  Let your mind rest as you will need very little thinking where you are going.  Be present to What Is - and you will find freedom.”  And there it was.  The thing she had forgotten.  Freedom.  As she listened to the words, her body was flooded with Knowing.  She was remembering that which she had put away so very long ago.  She remembered her deep Love - of herself, of Life, of Earth.  She remembered what mattered most to her - the open, expanded sense of her own Heart.  And she remembered who and what she was - a beautiful, limitless Being playing in a beautiful world of form.

In a flash, the conversation was over and she felt herself hurtling back to her current reality.  She held herself very still, and let herself feel her feet on the Earth.  Her Earth.  She could find only wisps of that feeling, that feeling of her True self, that feeling which to her meant freedom.  She knew now more than ever what it was that was missing.  And she knew that she would find it again, and this time, for good. 

And now here today, as she watched the storms gathering in the sky, she knew that it was time for her to reclaim her Life. It was time to take back that which she had given away, and reunite with all the parts of herself she had denied and hidden all these years.  The storms inside were insistent now and urging her onward, onward toward Wholeness, toward peace, toward joy, and most of all, toward freedom.  As the wind began to blow with more and more strength, she could feel the Earth supporting her in what she must do.  She stood up and turned toward the place she had mistakenly called home for so long.  It was time to truly come Home.  It was time for her own Awakening.  And she was ready…

“Wake up, Neo…”  From the movie, The Matrix

But…why?  Why wake up?  All this talk about enlightenment, about awakening, about expanding your reality.  Why go there at all?  Is it really necessary? 

Well…

Waking Up Means You Just Might:

Finally discover what matters most to your heart

Free your mind from its endlessly self-deprecating, demeaning, diminishing, derogatory thoughts

Open to and radically accept every bit of who and what you truly are…right now

Stop feeling that constant, low-level anxiety that starts the minute you wake up

Find yourself actually falling in love with yourself

Leave behind most, if not all, of your daily prescription medications

Know yourself as the powerful creator you really are

Engage freely and skillfully within all levels of your feelings and emotions

Live actual experiences instead of stories which only happen in your head

Experience real intimacy, not to mention real love

Take back your power, your wisdom, your knowing, your authority, and your truth

Live the life of your dreams…and beyond

Laugh more

Cry more

Hear more deeply

Learn to play in mystery and not-knowing

See with new eyes

Take charge of your thoughts

Heal your addictions

Remember your wildness

Let go of control and the need to survive

Be the change, and thus change the world

Find relief in the present as you let go of the illusion of the past and the future

Rediscover and live your passions

Learn to joyfully take responsibility for every nuance of every experience

Create everything you need exactly when you need it

 

However, Waking Up Doesn’t Necessarily Mean You Will:

Become someone completely different

Develop super-powers  (though the ability to think and feel and choose freely could, at this point on the planet, be considered a super power!)

Become lighter than air and float off the planet, while knowingly gazing down upon the rest of us

Never again be angry or frightened or sad or confused

Be bigger, faster, better, or jump higher than everyone else

Never be triggered, bothered or impacted by anything or anyone ever again

Become your mind’s personal version of perfect

Live life in one constant, never-ending, blissed-out state

Be nice all the time - while thinking only nice thoughts

Decide you’re going to give away all your stuff and hightail it to Nepal

Become vegetarian, wear only organic cotton, ride your bike to work, and start hugging trees

Volunteer twenty hours per week crocheting leashes for guide dogs

Join the Peace Corps

Become a spiritual guru with hundreds of followers who worship and adore you

Stop eating Cheetos

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What it’s all about…

Engaging your own awakening process is about becoming more and more YOU - the real you who is free from what your mother, your teacher, your fashion magazine, and your boss say you should be.  The you who knows yourself best - better than anyone else actually - and who, if given free reign, would create the most kick-ass, joyful, abundant life ever!  And that’s what this whole awakening thing is about - giving yourself free reign to be, do, and live exactly as you wish most deeply to be, do, and live!

It is not about becoming a different you, a new and improved you or a you who is more acceptable to anyone else.  That’s the old stuff which waking up helps you drop like a hot potato. 

Waking up is about recognizing and freeing yourself from whom and what has been influencing your thoughts, your feelings, your choices, and your actions - without you even knowing it’s happening. 

From the moment you were pushed out of the womb, you’ve been told who you are, what you are, how you should act, what you should and shouldn’t do, what to think, and how to feel, dress, talk and walk.  You’ve been told what’s good about you and what’s bad.  And you’ve been told what you should be when you grow up, how you should smell, what you should drive, and how many hot dogs it’s polite to eat in one sitting. 

I mean, really…how many of those “free choices” you’re making, are actually about pleasing, avoiding, or placating someone or something else?

And then there’s this one…  How many of those “free choices” you’re making these days are actually about staying away from yourself?  You know, the parts of you that are wild, or scary, or messy, or angry, or afraid, or not politically correct?  The parts that your father always frowned upon and that you’ve been told were a problem since kindergarten?  How many of your choices are designed to keep you away from yourself and your feelings because going there would just be too hard and painful and frightening?  If you’re like most human beings, the answer is: PLENTY!

OK.  With all of this said, the good news is you now get to make a choice.  Wake up…or not.  And here’s the kicker.  No matter what you choose, it’s perfect.  Because Divine Consciousness (or God Mind, or Universal Mind, or The Goddess, or Essence or anything else you want to call It) loves all choices.  You are not a better person if you choose to awaken.  And you are not a worse person if you choose to stay right where you are for the next one hundred lifetimes.  It’s all optional, and the options are all good ones as far as Consciousness is concerned.  The only thing that matters is that whatever you choose, it’s what works best for you - and you alone. 

You see, you are already an aspect of Divine Consciousness.  Thus, your Divinity is done.  You cannot become more Divine!  You can become more conscious, more aware, and more awake - which in turn will influence your choices, which in turn will influence the quality of the experiences you give yourself.  And that’s it.  That’s all it is.  A choice made and then experiences which go along with that choice.

It is also helpful to be aware that whenever you make a choice, you have set an intention.  And when you set an intention, everything in the Universe (and beyond!) lines up to support the direction in which you have chosen to travel.  No questions asked, the whole Cosmos turns with you to cheer you on through the next leg of your journey.  Now, how cool is that? 

So, now that you understand that you cannot lose no matter what you choose, perhaps it’s time to take Step One in your awakening process.  It goes something like this:  Take a breath, let go, choose freely, and set that intention.  Then away you go, into the wild, blue yonder where the Great Mystery, the Limitless Cloud of the Unknown, ceaselessly and joyfully awaits your arrival…