Khalil Gibran, author of the famous book The Prophet is quoted for saying, “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.” So, what is this great challenge that I speak of? In a nutshell, it’s this:

Seeking Energy From Another Person or Thing Rather Than Godsource

Because we have spent so much time being disconnected to our God source, life on earth has become a place where we struggle (consciously or unconsciously) to gain our energy from another person or thing. Most of us were never even taught that we actually CAN, tap into our inner power as our main source of energy.

Here’s a good analogy:
Did you know that in 1896, Henry Ford built his first automobile to run on pure ethanol, stating it was a cleaner, cheaper, better fuel for automobiles than gasoline? Yet, it was John D. Rockefeller, owner of Standard Oil, who successfully funded lobbyist to push Congress to pass the Prohibition laws that made alcohol illegal and thus began his monopoly of fueling gasoline run cars. If this seems hard to believe, do your own research and you’ll see.

Yet, I only share this to bring home the point that there are and always has been, other positive options for getting our energy, rather than how we were raised to get it from another person or thing. And what do I actually mean by getting energy from another person or thing? Let me break it down.

In the old paradigm, we tell ourselves, “If I can just get someone to love me and that I can truly love, I’ll be alright.” Or, “If I can just get the approval of my peers or impress my boss enough, then I’ll have emotional and financial security.” In the old paradigm, every action is taken with the need for approval or the need to impress. And why do we do this? For one simple reason and that is to gain the energy of another. Because think of it, if we didn’t need the energy of others, would we even bother with the song and dance? No!

In the new paradigm, the goal is to realize that energy comes from connecting to Godsource via the act of loving ourselves. When we embrace our inner family- the inner child, the inner warrior, the inner nurturer, the inner sage and so forth, THEN we are in a position to tap into our Godsource and truly be intimate with another.

Don’t get me wrong. Intimacy with another is a great thing, but we truly can’t be intimate without vulnerability, and vulnerability is the gift we give to another only when we truly love ourselves. The main reason we are afraid to be vulnerable is because if we are and the person doesn’t reciprocate, then our persons feel completely and utterly demolished- that is if we don’t love ourselves enough. Because if we did love ourselves, although it might hurt when love isn’t reciprocated, we still would have a steady stream of love and energy coming from within.

So, how does this all relate to Step 5? In order to explain this fully, I’d like to share another story with you from my personal life:

Back in 2002, my friend Kevin Jackson put on a major conference in Atlanta called The Gathering of Masters of which I helped to coordinate. There were over 15 powerful speakers lined up from, Dick Gregory, Sobonfu Some, Dr. Charles Finch, Dr. Delbert Blair, Hakim Bey, Dr. Phil Valentine, and Dr. Jewel Poolkrum, just to name a few. With all the big names also came some big egos and needless to say, as the coordinator, with only one volunteer, I was stressed out between meeting the needs of the speakers, the vendors, the attendants, and keeping my sanity.

The first day, there wasn’t even time enough for me to even have a lunch break. By the end of the day, I had reached a breaking point and I decided to go completely within as a coping mechanism. I found myself standing in a trance during the last lecture, in a meditation that lasted nearly four hours, long after everybody had left the hall and stopped trying to get me to respond to anything. I lost complete track of time. I ended up going deep into my heart space where it was told to me, “Be present with presence. Release the need for approval and the need to impress.” A deep sense of presence fell over me in that moment and I entered the space of my heart. I began to use the whole conference as my homeopathic pill. I was able to see, through being present, all the ways my actions were done with the need to get the approval of others and my need to impress, AND I began to see how it was all connected to the areas of my life where my inner family wasn’t nurtured.

I began to see just how deep a gap there was within me that wasn’t being fulfilled. I also began to really see the motivations behind some of my actions. Even my actions to serve, while altruistic, also had an edge of wanting to be important and associated with these “masters,” but at the same time being afraid to shine my light. This type of honesty was a hard pill to take, yet in a way it was liberating to see how much the need for approval and the need to impress were ruling my life.

So, when we stay present in the moment, in our bodies, with presence and the intention of seeing how many of our actions are based on us getting energy from another rather than relying on Source- it’s a liberating experience.

As a matter of fact, if you really want to know my truth, I believe if we were to just do this and no other practices, eventually it would free us to become the immortals we were destined to be at this time! Okay, so with that said, here is your activity for this step.

Activity for Step 5:

Task #1
For 5 minutes when you wake up and for 5 minutes before going to bed, when you are eating, when you go to the bathroom, when you are waiting, when you are traveling and whenever else it is possible, just center into your body and feel yourself there in the present moment. Focus on feeling different parts of your body at random from your feet, all the way to your head with complete presence. This exercise helps you to build muscles so you’ll have a better chance of remembering to stay in your own energy field when you are talking to others, especially someone you consider “difficult” or “desirable.” Also, before opening your mouth to speak to anyone take a deep breath and inwardly thank the person for being there.

Task #2
Throughout the day, whenever you find yourself slipping out of the present moment and losing your presence, just say, “Out of all the things I have to do, all the things I love to do and all the things I was destined to do, nothing is more important than what I am doing right now.” Take a deep breath and focus inwardly in your body.

Task #3
I learned this practice from a technique called Access Consciousness, founded by Gary Douglas and I find it to be very useful. It’s based on the premise that most of the thoughts that come into our minds are not even ours. They are part of the collective consciousness and they only become “ours” when we decide to react or identify with them. So as the first line of defense AND healing for the collective, anytime a limiting or fearful thought comes up, ask yourself, “Whose thought is this?” If you get a sense that it isn’t originating from your person, then you say, “Return to sender with loving consciousness attached.” By returning it to the sender, with loving consciousness, you are not only strengthening yourself, but you are also helping to do your part in clearing the collective consciousness as well.

So that was Step #5. Next, we’ll be covering the four (4) pitfalls to Becoming a Conscious Co-Creator and the last pitfall is a biggie!

Today’s inspiration comes from Chapter 4 of my e-book, Afraid Of Our Own Shadow: A Manifesto and Guide to Conscious Co-Creation. Enjoy!

Chapter 4: Conscious Co-Creation: Step 4

In this chapter, I’ll be sharing the fourth step to Becoming a Conscious Co-Creator and as always, I’ll have an activity for you at the end.

Step # 4
Allow Old Charge to Come Up Without Resistance

Before I get started on Step 4, let’s do a quick review:

Step 1: Know Who and What GOD Is
Step 2: Know Your Intrinsic Worth as an Aspect of Divinity
Step 3: Align Your Person, Your Power, and Your Purpose With the Creator of All That Is

Imagine if someone has been feeling a strong emotion or doing a certain action, and creating a certain self-image, for over 60 years and then one day, they decide to change. It is a that very moment that this person will have the greatest challenge. All that time and momentum they have invested in feeling, doing and seeing themselves a certain way that they now choose not to, is what is called charge. The most profound charge effecting our lives today is gathered from our prenatal and childhood experiences and continues to build momentum year by year. However, charge also comes from past lives, past generations and our collective consciousness on this planet.

As we claim to the world our new self-image, “This is Who I Am,” then everything unlike it will come up to be purified and to consolidate us in this new self-image. This is not to be seen as negative, OR something that requires changing things and especially people on the outside. The reason for this is because things and people are simply mirroring what is going on INSIDE of us, and in this case is based on your past self- image- which we’ll call charge.

The good news is the process can be fail proof and quite easy when we have the courage to allow ourselves to feel it all, without blaming, judgment or trying to fix the outside mirror. All of this hinders the process necessary to release old charge. One of my teachers once told me, trying to change or fix the thing on the outside is like looking into a mirror to comb your hair, but instead of combing your own hair, you try to comb the hair reflected in the mirror. Now, we all know this is impossible, yet in our lives it becomes challenging to resist the urge to do this, especially if we’ve been doing this for a long time.

I’d like to share with you another analogy that I came up with explaining this whole process so you can gain even more clarity. Image if you will the scorching hot sun of say the Sahara dessert. We’ll call this sun the Sun of Observation for the purposes of this analogy. Now, image if you will a large truck filled with frozen ice, you know the big, big chunks used for transporting perishable foods. We’ll call this frozen ice the ice of Frozen Past Emotions and experiences. If we were to unload that truck with all of that ice into the dessert, do you think we would need to do anything physically for it to melt into the water of fresh fluid Experiences? No! All we would need to do is let the scorching hot Sun of Observation do its magic and within no time there would be no more ice, no more Frozen Emotions and Experiences. So, just by observing your feelings and your reactions to people without judgment, eventually all the old charge melts away leaving you more refreshed and renewed into your new self-image.

Now, I just want to say here that there are some great techniques available that can aid in the process of releasing old emotions. Techniques like Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) which involves tapping on certain meridian points on the body used in acupuncture when negative past emotions come up, as well as ThetaHealing, which involves tapping into the theta brainwave, where true healing can take place and asking GodSource for the healing or release. These techniques and others are great and can be quite useful. Yet, I also want to stress here that for those of you who are able (and are not suffering from severely traumatic experiences), allowing your person to feel (NOT dwell on- and I’ll explain the difference in a minute) the emotion, no matter how uncomfortable it may be seem, allows for great insight to be gained. You see, when we just want to hurry up and get out of the pain or to fall for the temptation of changing the thing or person in the mirror, we lose a great opportunity for self-knowledge that comes with the awareness of understanding our patterns of the past. The more aware we are of these patterns, the more we are able to notice them when they come up. And they come up every where! In the things that we say, the thoughts that we entertain, the people we attract and the responses we have to these people. Awareness of these patterns is the greatest step toward liberation. I want to stress here that it’s only by being willing to feel the feelings that come up in the moment, that we are able to gain this awareness of patterns. Now we are not dwelling on the feelings, we are simply acknowledging they are there and saying “thank you, that’s nice to know” without judgment.

On another note, I want to share two reasons why this process of releasing old charge is important BEFORE we take an active role in working towards conscious co-creations. If we switch straight into co-creation mode (full force ahead) without addressing the old charge, I’m going to share two analogies of the problems that may arise:

Analogy #1

The Healing Crisis
For those of you familiar with health and nutrition, you know that a lot of would be converts loose hope when they start to eat more healthy without first addressing all the existing toxins in their body. Eventually all the toxins that were in the body before begin to push their way into the cleansing organs and blood stream and if not handled in a systematic way, it can cause what is coined in the healing profession as a “healing crisis.”

Analogy #2

Be Careful of What You Ask for Because You Just Might Get It.
In other words, if we begin the process of co-creating and we don’t truly know why we want what we want, then chances are we might not be happy when we get it.

I’ll give you an example from my own life. For years, one of my person’s goals has been to have a cellulite free, muscularly defined body. Now part of the reason for this goal I know is that as a former college basketball player, my person remembers the freedom I felt around being in shape. But, when I began to dig deeper and become more aware of my patterns and subconscious desired, I realized this need to be muscularly toned was centered around my person’s need to either impress others as a means of gaining approval or to defend my person from being hurt by others. So, now I’ve really eased up on this goal that used to run my life and be the source of much guilt and self-judgment based on my level of self awareness.

This leads me into the topic of what spirituality truly is. Spirituality is simply awareness without judgment. When we are aware of what we are up to, eventually and with time we act in a more spiritual way. Essentially, it’s not what we want (altruistic or self serving), but why we want it and not what we do, but why we do it that makes the biggest difference in our lives.

Some of us mistake spiritual practice with spirituality; however, meditating everyday and doing rituals, yoga and even praising G.O.D doesn’t make us spiritual. We are spiritual when through awareness we are able to recognize when we are at that a crossroads situation and we have to make the choice to act based on our old self-image or based on our new self-image of what we want to experience.

So, I’ll share my last analogy to bring this point home before switching gears into the activity for this step. This last analogy is based on my years as a former college basketball player. Everyday, Monday through Sunday, we had practice in the gym. Pre season we even had the initiation or rites-of-passage of conditioning to prepare us for the new season. Now all of this practice and preparation was executed by our coach with the hopes that when game time came (which can be likened to the game of life), we would perform to our greatest abilities and thus make ourselves and our coach proud. The key here is to perform, because even though our coach wanted us to win, she was more concerned that we played a game honorable to our skill set. And so it is with spiritual practice. It is done with the hope that in the game of life, our current level of awareness will allow us to make choices based on our current self image. Okay, so with that said, here is your activity for this step.

Activity for Step 4
1. With your new self-image in mind, write down all the ways that your person has sabotaged you in the past or that you can imagine it will try to sabotage you in the future.

2. Now, for the entire week, commit to feeling and allowing the old charge to just come up without judgment. If you are use to reacting to others-stop. Or at least acknowledge without judgment that this is what you are doing.

3. At the end of the day, write in a journal all the things that came up for the day and how you chose to handle them.

So that was Step # 4. Next, we’ll be covering Step #5.