Well… this 30-day trial of inspiration is absolutely amazing. I’m so far down the rabbit hole of subjective reality that I can perceive little else but rabbits now. And there sure are a LOT of rabbits down here!

Today is technically Day 12 of this experiment. That seems ridiculous to me. How could so much have changed in only 12 days? The pacing of life has become almost unfathomable compared to what it was like before. I feel like I’ve lived through the mental and emotional equivalent of about 3 months in less than 2 weeks. Each day is like a week in terms of the density of its intensity.

I know this is a long update (over 7400 words), but it still barely scratches the surface of what’s been happening. Fortunately you don’t actually have to read it. I’ll simply dream that I get to read and digest your reactions to this as if you’d read it. But they won’t even be your reactions because there’s no you. I’ll be hearing the echoing projections of my own inner reactions to what I’m sharing with myself. I can accept that. I still need to write all of this down for my own processing reasons. My mind needs some time to digest the events of the past week.

Fragile Tension

For some reason I now own an iPad. Why do I have an iPad? I’m not really sure. I wouldn’t have gotten one for objective reasons, but I had to get one in order to stick to the rules of this experiment.

l feel like Riker in the ST:TNG episode “Frame of Mind” saying, “I still have a phaser… why do I have a phaser?” (If you don’t get that reference, go download the Star Trek files to your character’s database.)

I went out Friday night to run some usual errands. At least I thought they were usual. It was the first time I went out since I dreamt that I flew back from Santa Fe last Monday. By Friday I was more immersed in my experiment than ever. I even felt inspired to do these errands at the time. I was also nearly out of dream food, so I was going to hit Costco and Whole Foods to do a typical food shop.

The errands may have been typical, but I wasn’t my usual self. I’d been holding the subjective reality perspective for days on end. As I went to my garage to get in my car, I reminded myself that this was a dream world. It’s funny that my dream car is a 2010 Hyundai Sonata. Perhaps I need to upgrade my imagination. Then again, I like the car, and it runs great, so as far as dream cars go, it’s not bad.

Something was very different. Driving my car wasn’t the same, nor was shopping. I’d normally find such experiences rather boring, but now I was filled with child-like wonder. Everything was fresh and new and exciting. In a dream world, anything can happen, so I was keeping myself energetically open and receptive, not knowing what to expect.

I bought mostly fresh produce, but then on impulse I randomly grabbed a few bottles of wine — three of them. That’s very odd behavior for me. In the past I’d typically drink wine once or twice a year. But now it was just dream wine, and it seemed like a fun thing to buy at the time, especially since I’d be paying with dream money. I didn’t even look at what I was buying. I just randomly grabbed some bottles and placed them into my cart. I barely noticed what kind or color. I just pulled whatever I felt drawn to.

The wine ranged in price from $7 to $13 per bottle. One was a 2005 Spanish red wine. I don’t think I’ve ever had Spanish wine before, and the type wasn’t something I’d ever heard of. When I had some later, it turned out it was really good, just the right blend of mild sweetness and tartness and not too acidic. Dream wine apparently tastes better than the real stuff. But given that my dream alcohol tolerance is so low, I felt tipsy even after one glass. Why? Because I believed it would affect me like that, and so it did. If you dream that a substance affects you, your mind creates the effect you expect.

When I checked out at Costco, the female dream clerk and her helper were extra friendly and flirtatious — and hot — so I flirted back. It got a bit silly. That’s unusual for Costco, but I shrugged it off and left the store. Hot people working at Costco? Hmmm… unusual but not unheard of. Even so, it got my attention.

After Costco, I had a strong urge to pop over to the dream Best Buy, which was nearby in the same shopping center. I felt I was supposed to go buy an iPad. Why? No idea. It seemed like a cool device, but logically I didn’t perceive a strong need for one, although I do feel it would be cool to travel with one, so I can leave my heavier Macbook Pro at home. I went to the Apple section of the store. It was around 9:00pm dream time, and no one was there. I said, “Ok, inspiration, which model should I get?” It said to get the best, so I presumed that meant the 64GB model with WiFi and 3G. There were no boxes sitting out, so I went to hunt for a dream character employee. The store was mostly deserted, so I went to the front of the store and found the guy by the exit. I asked if they had any iPads in stock. He grimaced and said, “Not sure… let me check.”

He uses a small microphone to ask someone else if they have any iPads in stock. Then he looks at me disappointed and says, “He says we only have the 64GB/3G model in stock,” as if no one would ever want that one. I said, “Great! That’s the one I want. Tell him to bring me one, and I’ll meet him at the register.”

I buy it, and I’m extra chatty with the male clerk. I know I’m looking at him strangely because I don’t think he’s a real person separate from me. He’s a character in this dream world. The interaction is so easy and smooth that afterwards I feel like I could have hit on him and gotten his phone number if I wanted to, and that he’d happily give it to me. I’m totally straight, but I think it would have been fun to try. Instead I settle for a $10 discount on the iPad keyboard and another discount on the total order. I didn’t ask for either discount — he just gave them to me. Apparently dream shopping is a little cheaper than regular shopping.

Next I go to Whole Foods. I buy almost all raw food there aside from two cans of organic veggie soup. Overall I buy the foods I believe are healthiest and that I’ll enjoy, knowing that my dream body will simulate the best reactions to those foods.

While I’m in the produce section bagging up some organic apples, an older guy comes up to me and asks me if I work there. When I tell him no, he apologizes and gives me a very strange look. I felt like he was asking me something other than the surface question though, more like, “Are you the guy in charge of this dream?” It did not feel like a normal human interaction the way it played out. I continue my shop with the suspicious feeling that he’s on to me.

As I’m about to leave Whole Foods, I get the impulse to see if they have any vegan pizza slices left in the food service section. I haven’t had dinner yet, and I figure a couple slices would go down nicely. But then I have the inspired thought that I’d love to get a whole pizza to take home with me, so I can have leftovers the next day as well, but I don’t want to wait 20-25 minutes for them to make one since I’m ready to check out and go home. I walk over to that area to take a look, and the guy had just put out a whole fresh vegan pizza with red onion, green and yellow peppers, mushrooms, and black olives. Too perfect — and very strange since the store seemed deserted, and it was only 30 minutes till closing. Did they expect to sell that many slices of vegan pizza in the final 30 minutes on a Friday night? I don’t see how they’d even come close.

I ask the guy if I can have the whole pizza, and he happily consents and boxes it up for me. Nice timing, I think to myself.

I go to the only register that’s still open. The female clerk is gorgeous, friendly, and flirty, and our interaction is fun and playful. Those kinds of interactions aren’t unusual for me, but this one was smoother and more flowing than usual. I felt like I was interacting with a dream character, a projection of my own subconscious, and that changed the nature of the interaction. It’s very hard to describe how it was different, but it just wasn’t the same as before. The interaction was completely frictionless. There was no sense of any expectation, judgment, or concern with what the other person was thinking. Communicating from a place of such emptiness is very simple and easy. It’s just like talking to a character in a lucid dream.

I went home with a feeling that something had shifted. But that was only the beginning.

The pizza was really good too. I made Rachelle envious by eating it while I video-Skyped with her later that night, occasionally offering her a virtual bite. She got me back big time though… by teasingly offering me virtual bites of her. And I know just how delicious she is.

Perfect

All across my reality, people seem different now. It’s as if the world has been injected with happiness. I notice more people laughing, smiling, having fun, and being flirtatious.

If you’re active in the forums, you may have perceived an energetic shift there within the past week or two. I’ve certainly noticed it. The place seems more fun and playful and optimistic than usual. And it’s overflowing with synchronicities too, at least for me.

In terms of online feedback, during this trial I’ve been getting significantly more than usual, but virtually none of it is negative. Where did all the harsh critics go? It’s like they suddenly vanished. The feedback I’m getting now is overwhelmingly loving and supportive and compassionate. Some of it also slides towards the seductive and sexy. Apparently something I’m doing is making certain women find me more attractive and reach out to me with a desire to connect. Can’t say I mind that.

I don’t recall getting any personal insults via email in more than a week. The closest thing to negative feedback was some emails urging caution with this experiment, but I can’t call any of them critical. The messages are more like, “Be careful. I’ve tried what you’re trying, and there are some risks to watch out for. So here are some suggestions…”

Easy Tiger

These social shifts were very rapid, practically overnight. It’s been taking me a while to mentally and emotionally catch up to them.

At first I was really excited about it. I was enthralled by all these positive changes. I was in a place of amazement and wonder. So I began to step on the accelerator, so to speak, trying to push things ahead faster and faster. But as I did that, I lost the flow of inspiration. I was trying to go too fast, being too impatient. I soon felt overwhelmed by the rapidly accumulating consequences of my actions. These consequences were overwhelmingly positive, but they were coming in too hard and fast for me to keep up. I ended up with a backlog of communication that I’m still trying to catch up with.

Then I began to almost panic. For a couple days earlier this week, I felt nervous, anxious, and insecure. Things were shifting so quickly that I was constantly out of my comfort zone. I needed to slow down, be patient, and get back in the flow of inspiration. This isn’t something I should be trying to force.

I slowed down and gradually synched back up again with the flow of inspiration. I took a break from blogging for a few days. I tried to write a new post now and then, but it felt forced and uninspired, so I stopped within minutes. I was getting the signal to slow down and relax and let my mind and emotions catch up.

For much of this week, I’ve been taking it easy. I played with the kids, learned to use my iPad and installed some apps, and tended to some errands like getting an oil change and a car wash. My dream car is nice and clean now.

I also did some tax forms for my business that were due on Monday. It was very easy to do this. I would even say it was inspired, but in a low intensity sort of way.

I found it interesting that the inspiration to get my tax forms done on time still arrived. Even though it’s a dream world, it makes sense to tend to the basics of living within the constraints of the dream storyline so as to avoid creating unwanted dream world consequences. I may be running a dream business, but it still matters to me. It’s part of the story.

Think of it like watching a movie or reading a novel — or better yet, playing an interactive video game. You may know in the back of your mind that it isn’t real, but you can still get sucked in by the plot and feel like you’re right there with the characters. That’s how my life feels. I can pull back and know that I’m dreaming, but I can also allow myself to get sucked into the story.

I took some time to meditate for an hour. That helped me release much of the stress associated with these shifts and to be more accepting of this new reality.

I’m feeling much better today, more peaceful and calm. But I’m still very excited about what’s happening. This is an absolutely amazing adventure. Pacing myself has been a challenge, but I’m getting better at surfing the waves of inspiration without overdoing it. I suspect it may take me a few more weeks to feel good about my calibration though. I’m gradually learning how to surf.

The Sweetest Condition

The biggest shifts by far have been in the area of personal relationships. Things have improved so rapidly in this area that my mind and emotions are still playing catch up. It’s like the kind of reaction you might have if your whole family suddenly died in an accident, a complete derailment of your previous expectations. The intensity of the experience is roughly at that level, but in this case, the changes are extremely positive.

For starters, my relationship with Rachelle has shifted enormously. We’ve gone a lot deeper into our connection with each other, and it’s safe to say that we’re more in love than ever. I’m overflowing with gratitude for her. Even though she’s in Saskatoon right now and still has 3 more weeks on her Canadian tour for her play, we keep in touch by video Skype nearly every day. We connect so deliciously in all four quadrants — body, mind, heart, and spirit. I swear she’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.

I can attribute this shift directly to this experiment. It may seem counterintuitive as to why it works, so let me explain that.

I stopped seeing Rachelle as a separate individual, and I began to interact with her as a dream character, a projection of the dreamer’s subconscious. This had the effect of allowing me to release all judgments and expectations of her. I began to see her through different eyes, with a sense of child-like wonder, amazement, and curiosity.

When I communicate with her, I do my best to interpret what she says much like it’s a part of my own subconscious talking to me. It’s impossible for me to disagree with her about anything in that state, so I have to “yes, and” everything she says. After all, it’s coming from me.

When Rachelle raises a concern, I treat it as my own. I look within myself to see why I’m now expressing that concern through the character of Rachelle. By dialoging with her about it, I listen carefully to understand that aspect of myself. Then if I perceive a problem to be solved, I solve it within. And almost magically, Rachelle herself releases that concern and expresses a positive shift. I don’t even have to tell her how I worked it out. She just starts behaving differently.

I’ve done the same with many of my other relationships, and it’s been incredibly healing. I can’t possibly share all of it, as the details would require literally days of typing. But I can say it’s been absolutely magical.

In Sympathy

It starts when I feel the urge to contact someone with whom I feel there’s some unresolved or blocked energy. I notice I keep thinking about certain people, sometimes people with whom I haven’t directly communicated in months. I sense there’s still some kind of karmic connection between us that requires resolution.

I turn within and do my best to identify what that person means to me. This is basic dream interpretation 101. What does the dream character represent? What part of my subconscious is being expressed through him/her? Then I seek to heal my relationship with that part of myself. The primary vehicles for that are acceptance and forgiveness and unconditional love.

So this isn’t about transcending parts of myself. It’s about re-integrating parts of myself that I previously tried to deny, judge, or reject.

When I heal that part of myself, the relationship with the other person automatically improves.

Usually there is some direct contact with the other person as this plays out. As part of this healing process, I typically contact them. Sometimes things are resolved with a few emails; other times it’s a phone call. I could also do it face to face.

This weekend I had a phone call with a friend that lasted for 3 hours. We had previously disconnected on a bad note that turned out to be a misunderstanding. By the end of the call, I felt we had healed the rift, and I think she felt the same. Or to be more accurate, I projected those feelings onto her because I had healed this disconnect with a part of myself. I had to reintegrate what she meant to me.

Sometimes the other person senses me working on our relationship and contacts me, or so it seems. Synchronicities are off the scale right now, let’s just say.

I guess this is almost like going through a 12-step program, but I didn’t make a list of past transgressions to remedy. Instead I’m just noticing what’s arising in the present moment. If my thoughts keep going towards a certain person, I know there’s a karmic connection that needs to be looked at and healed. Then it feels like there’s a powerful release of trapped energy.

I know I’m not done with this process. I can feel more of this work flowing towards me. But it has been incredible and amazing and beautiful thus far. My relationship life has been magically transformed so quickly that it makes my head spin. I am still trying to catch up both mentally and emotionally. It’s hard to keep my own memory in sync with all the shifts.

I think the best way to describe it is that all the friction that got in the way of unconditional love is finally evaporating.

Even if I were to stop now, I’d be stunned at how wonderful this part of my life has become. But I know there’s more to come. It’s hard for me to even fathom where I’ll be in this area of my life at the end of this 30-day trial. I have no doubt that Day 30 will be radically different from Day 1, so much so that it’s going to seem like I’ve gone through some kind of dimensional portal into an alternate universe.

Comatose

But wait, there’s more — a lot more.

Rachelle and I have been, by default, monogamous with each other for the 6+ months we’ve been involved. Well, there was a fun threesome along the way, but other than that, we focused our energy primarily on each other. This actually required some blocking on our part. We both had other opportunities along the way, but we chose not to pursue them. It just seemed inappropriate. We were falling so much in love with each other that it wouldn’t have felt right to introduce other energies. Neither of us wanted to risk derailing what we were creating together. We recognized that something beautiful and magical was unfolding between us, and we wanted to go with the flow of it and soak up that experience as fully as possible.

This has been an amazing journey for us. When we talked last night, we acknowledged that this has been the best year of our lives — filled with adventure, excitement, passion, and wonderful growth experiences.

In the beginning, we were subjected to some judgment about our D/s explorations together, but if that judgment is still there, I no longer perceive it, perhaps because I made peace with that part of myself along the way. D/s play has been an amazing and wonderful part of our connection… and incredibly healing for us both. For me it has been a journey of learning how to receive love and letting go of all the guilt and shame I previously associated with it. I’ve had to work on myself a lot in this area, and I still do.

Imagine being able to command a woman to do whatever you want, whenever you want, and you know that she’ll lovingly obey you and that she’ll also enjoy it immensely. But then notice that you hesitate to do so because you feel guilty and ashamed about it. You can’t bring yourself to ask her for what you want. You don’t feel worthy of that kind of love. It’s too much — too intense — too selfish. So instead, you stay in your comfort zone and ask for less than what you really want. You compromise. What you ask for is lovingly given. But how can you bring yourself to ask for what you really want and feel good about receiving it?

That’s my situation, and healing this part of me is what I personally gain from exploring D/s. Maybe it sounds like a stupid problem to have, and I can understand why people would initially see it as a very shallow pursuit, but for me it has been a very deep and emotional part of my self-development.

I grew up in a home where the words “I love you” were never spoken (or at least I don’t recall hearing them). Hugs didn’t happen except on special occasions, and only with visiting relatives. My physical needs were abundantly satisfied, but as a child, I didn’t feel loved or cared for. The closest thing to love that I felt was when I was praised by my teachers for doing well on school assignments. That’s probably why I became such a good student and had such positive relationships with my teachers.

If I expressed any emotional neediness as a child, such needs were seldom fulfilled. I didn’t know how to get those needs met, so essentially I gave up. I have vague memories of being sensitive, loving, and compassionate as a young child, but by the time I was six years old, I had picked up too many emotional scars… and a physical scar as well from when I was stabbed. That scar on my right arm is still visible today, nearly 35 years later, a perpetual reminder of what remains to be healed within.

After that time, my heart was filled with mostly darkness – anger, hatred, despair, and a deep-seated distrust of others. I wondered why God had made me such a bad person. Why was I always screwing up? Why couldn’t I be good and follow the rules? I’d pray every night that I might somehow summon the strength to always be good, so that I might one day become worthy of love.

I would feel such intense hatred at times, mostly directed towards myself, that I began to grind my teeth, a habit that continued even while I slept. The unconscious nighttime habit stuck well into adulthood, and as a result my molars are nearly flat, with much of their enamel gone.

Years passed, and I eventually forgot that I had a heart at all. I retreated almost completely into my mind.

I learned computer programming at age 10, and the computer became my best friend and loyal companion. I had human friends along the way, but there was little emotional intimacy in those connections. For the most part, I was emotionally alone well into adulthood. I wouldn’t say that anyone really knew me. I didn’t feel I could trust anyone, least of all myself.

I met Erin when I was 22, and she somehow got inside. Perhaps it was her nature to do so. I tried to break up with her shortly after we connected, confessing that I didn’t know how to love. Yet that was the seed that became my own undoing since the reason I wanted to break up with her was that I began to care about her, and I didn’t want to see her hurt. My heart was beginning to break out of its crusty shell.

Through our 15-year relationship, a lot of healing took place. I learned how to express love. Or perhaps I remembered how. Along the way, my life path shifted towards giving and service. I came to genuinely care about people. I liked expressing that part of myself. And my life improved tremendously as a result.

I began to adopt the mindset of a lightworker. I focused on giving, giving, and more giving. I noticed that when I did that, good stuff would always flow back to me. But ultimately, that was only half of the healing process.

I Feel Loved

I didn’t understand what was happening at the time, but I knew that it was time for Erin and me to separate. She had guided me far enough down the path of giving love that it was clear I’d never slip back. I could keep advancing down that path on my own. I understood how important it was.

Erin, however, wasn’t the right person to help me heal the other half of myself, the part that was unable to receive love. It wasn’t her role to perform. I needed a different teacher to help me with that.

As I learned to give more, a lot of good stuff would flow back to me. But it was very difficult for me to receive it. People would thank me and praise me for my help, but I felt uncomfortable with such expressions of appreciation. So I put up blocks and barriers to receiving, mostly unconsciously. I discouraged people from emailing me. I declined invites from people who wanted to meet with me in person. I hid behind a computer much of the time. I implemented a variety of strategies that made it possible for me to give a lot without allowing myself to receive much.

I couldn’t completely stop the flow of receiving though, so I redirected it in other ways, such as growing my business. I reached the point of allowing financial abundance to flow through me, but I couldn’t accept expressions of love and appreciation that were too emotional in nature, nor could I ask for such love. It would have disgusted me to act like I cared about such things — I couldn’t possibly be so emotionally needy.

But little by little, the emotional side began to get through. Sometimes I’d cry after receiving certain pieces of feedback, such as learning that I’d prevented a suicide.

Eventually some part of me triggered a major shift in this area, like a spiritual subroutine that suddenly became active. At first it hit me intuitively, then later on, logically. I began to realize that if I could become happier and more fulfilled, I could do a better job of serving others.

After Erin and I separated last year, I felt a strong intuitive urging to explore D/s with a female partner. Shortly thereafter, Rachelle came into my life. She has been a true gift in that regard, and I am intensely grateful for her.

When I think I’m pushing myself to ask for what I want, she gives of herself lovingly and then encourages me to ask for more. After months of this, I came to realize just how much I’m still holding back. I’ve made a lot of progress, but I know there are still some blocks to work through. I find it very difficult to ask for things that I would love… without feeling any shame or guilt for asking. And so I manifested a dream world in which selfishness is shunned and pleasure is regarded as sin. It’s okay to give to others, but we can’t give too much to ourselves; if we do that, we’re bad people.

Of course Rachelle and I have talked through all of this, but I still find it a challenge.

Rachelle has been the ideal partner for me in this regard. The ways I most want/need to receive love are symmetrically the ways in which she most enjoys expressing love. The more I’m able to open up and ask for what I want, the more she enjoys it too. When I hold back too much, I see my own hesitation reflected through her reactions.

If there are boundaries in our connection, they’re my own. To my best recollection, she has never found it necessary to decline anything I’ve asked her for, and she’s never used our safe word. Whatever I ask for, she lovingly grants.

I feel a bit foolish to have such a problem. After all, what kind of guy would hold back in a situation such as mine? And yet, it’s a huge challenge for me nonetheless. It’s hard enough for me to come to terms with all the love she’s poured onto me already, let alone to seek further expansion of it.

Freelove

But wait… there’s more. It gets better.

As I applied the subjective perspective to my relationship with Rachelle, and to myself as well, I finally began seeing the big picture. Up to this point, I didn’t identify my challenges with D/s as a problem with receiving love. I knew there were some internal shifts happening, but I didn’t quite understand them.

Now I can see what’s really been happening, so I can work with the process more consciously.

I can’t share all the details without typing for many more hours (and my wrists are beginning to get sore as it is), but the short version is that after much discussion, Rachelle and I decided to open our relationship and explore polyamory together.

We both knew we’d eventually turn this corner, and the time just seemed right. Energetically we’re still processing what this means to us, but we’ve already taken steps to move forward, and at this point, there’s sufficient momentum to carry us through to getting involved with other partners. That is already unfolding.

Yes, I’m being intentionally vague about it. It feels premature to share more details, especially since exploring polyamory by definition involves other people… or other dream projections, depending on your perspective.

I can say that something very interesting began to happen when we made this shift. A number of women began opening themselves to one or both of us, either suggestively hinting or outright stating they’d like to explore D/s with us… or try a threesome… or explore some kind of similar sharing of love and connection with us… or potentially get involved long-term. There was such a surge in a short period of time that we couldn’t help but notice.

But yet, we hadn’t gone public about it yet. Somehow those people must have picked up on the shift we were going through, and they felt safe enough to let us know of their interest. Of course that makes perfect sense in a dream world.

We’re entering into this part of our journey together very consciously and with a lot of communication. We check in with each other each day, often multiple times per day, and go deeper into our thoughts and feelings about it. At first we each had to work through some blocks and strong emotions, even though we knew it was what we wanted to experience. Now we seem to have reached a point of acceptance and also excitement about the idea. There’s such a strong bond of love and trust between us that we feel we can make this work. We want to be able to open up more and share the tremendous love we have between us with others.

This isn’t primarily about sex, although we each want that to be a part of our exploration together. The primary intentions are to increase our alignment with Oneness, to open our hearts even more, and to shed all negative associations to sharing love openly, including shame, guilt, fear, jealousy, envy, and attachment. Sex is a yummy icing on the cake, but in truth it’s one of many healing modalities, albeit a potent one.

I Am You

Previously my favorite analogy for explaining the principle of Oneness was the cells-in-the-body model. We’re all cells in the larger body of humanity. We have both an individual identity and a collective one. The health of the body and the health of the cells are one.

This was a powerful analogy, and it helped me make great strides forward in this part of my life. I was able to open up and connect socially with much greater ease and comfort when I recognized that other people were cells in the same body as me.

I’ve been sharing this analogy for years — in my blog, in my book, and at CGW.

But now I’m letting that analogy go because I’ve found a much more powerful replacement to help me align with Oneness.

That new analogy is that we’re all projections of the same dreamer in a dream world.

With this analogy there’s no longer a cell wall between us. There’s no separation at all. We aren’t just individual parts of the same whole — we’re different windows into the same being.

Now when I see another person, I don’t think that we’re two cells in the same body. I see us as different viewports into the same being. In fact, we are the same being. You are me, and I am you.

At one point instead of saying “I love you,” Rachelle and I said to each other, “I am you.” That had a whole different feel to it energetically. It felt like our connection suddenly went much deeper.

I realized that Rachelle and I aren’t two separate individual beings. We’re in fact the same singular being, the same consciousness. Separation is a complete illusion. We are two different images of the same thing.

And the same goes for everyone else.

I’ve been walking around for days in a daze, seeing myself in everyone and everything. It’s so obvious that I can scarcely believe I didn’t notice it before.

All love is self-love. All conflict is inner conflict.

The experience of Oneness within and harmonious relationships without are the same pursuit.

Dream On

I can no longer accept the premise of objective reality. I’ve gone too far down this rabbit hole and encountered too many amazing rabbits to expect that I’ll ever surface topside again. I’m now virtually certain that reality is in fact a dream world. If there’s a better analogy for the true nature of this existence, I haven’t come across one yet.

I say “virtually certain” because I still have some doubts and fears to work through. But one by one, they appear to be collapsing in a cascading fashion. I think their days are numbered and that it’s only a matter of time before I shed them all.

So many things that confused me before have now become clear.

Take quantum mechanics for instance. This is a real brain-pretzelizer from an objective standpoint. Why would consciousness affect physical matter? But if this is a dream world, then the existence of quantum mechanics is a rather obvious projection of the underlying nature of the dream. Quantum physical events don’t get resolved until they’re observed because the dreamer has to perceive them in order to resolve them, in order to give them form and substance. If the dreamer doesn’t perceive something, then the dream mind doesn’t bother to resolve it. This is precisely the behavior you’d expect from a dream.

This simulated reality only manifests what we can perceive. Until the dreamer perceives something, that something is stuck in non-created limbo. It would make no sense for the simulation to generate something that would never be perceived. Hence this dream reality, should you attempt to study it through an objective lens, must reflect something back to you that is for all intents and purposes what we’ve identified as quantum mechanics.

Quantum mechanics is nothing but a fancy label for dream world physics. In fact, all of science is the study of the inner workings of the dream world.

What about the Law of Attraction? This too is a side effect of being in a dream world. When you hook yourself into dreamer-level consciousness, you gain some ability to alter the dream by planting suggestions within the subconscious of the dreamer. The dream world then shifts accordingly. And of course the dream world must be consistent with your beliefs. So thoughts and beliefs of financial scarcity will manifest scarcity, and thoughts of abundance will manifest abundance, just as you’d expect in accordance with the Law of Attraction.

Perhaps a more accurate name for the LoA would be the Law of Subconscious Suggestion. The dream world manifests the most powerful suggestions that you plant within the subconscious of the dreamer. By accessing the dream program, you can reprogram the dream. The more self-aware you are — i.e. the more lucid you become — the greater your ability to apply this ability. But the more asleep you are — i.e. the more you succumb to the false belief that you’re in an objective world — the more you must live out your days as an NPC, unable to reprogram the dream.

What about psychic abilities? That makes sense from a dream perspective too. It suggests, however, that there may be some inherent limits to psychic abilities. In a dream world, your psychic abilities are limited by your beliefs. If you don’t subconsciously believe you can do it, you probably can’t manifest it.

All psychic readings are actually self readings. Top psychics can pick up seemingly astounding info about people they’ve never met because the underlying truth is that they are in fact the same being they’re reading for, so the psychic is simply reading his/her own subconscious, and the client is nothing but a projection and doesn’t exist as a separate individual anyway. Consequently, a psychic should be able to create a powerful boost in their abilities by recognizing the fact that they’re always reading themselves and that there really is no client “out there.”

A psychic’s ability to predict the future of some aspect of the dream is limited to the psychic’s degree of lucidity. You aren’t really predicting anything because dreams are largely unpredictable. But you can implant suggestions into the dreamer’s subconscious. So psychic prediction is really subconscious creation, i.e. self-fulfilling prophecy.

In a dream world, everything is a projection of the subconscious of the dreamer. Consequently, the dream world is absolutely overflowing with clues that you’re dreaming right now. You just can’t see them until you look for them. Such is the nature of being asleep.

Try this. Look up the lyrics to any of your favorite songs, or go play a song or two, and listen to the words.

As you hear the words, imagine that you’re dreaming right now and that the song is a message from your own subconscious. You will see that the song’s lyrics are trying to reveal to you that you’re dreaming right now. Notice the real meaning behind the song’s metaphors.

Many songs are about reintegration. Love the different parts of yourself. Stop all violence and conflict. You’re only fighting with yourself.

Some songs point out that you’re asleep and in denial about it. Even a song with seemingly crazy lyrics will begin to make sense if you regard it as communication from your own dream world. What are the last echoing words of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” for instance? “A Denial!” And what’s the meaning of the line, “With the lights out, it’s less dangerous”? It’s telling you that you’re afraid to wake up. What would it mean to turn on the lights?

Don’t believe me? Go see for yourself. Try it with any song that inspires you. The reason a song moves you emotionally is that it’s causing the dreamer within to resonate with a deeper level truth.

You can do the same thing with any TV show or movie that you find inspiring to watch. Did you like The Matrix just a little too much? Any idea why? Because you’re in one right now.

Shine

Being in a dream world has some powerful implications. I’ve found that my ability to create my reality has increased massively these past 12 days. My focus has largely been on healing and expanding the relationship part of my life, and that makes perfect sense to me. The most exciting element of such an immersive and persistent dream, at least for me, is the experience of interacting with the other dream characters. The more love and harmony I can create with those characters, the better the dream becomes.

I’m currently excited but also trepidatious about what this might mean. As I have some skill with nighttime lucid dreaming, I’m beginning to wonder if I can bring those abilities to bear in this dream world too. Part of me wants to dive into that, but another part of me knows I should learn to walk in this dream world before trying to fly.

Nevertheless, I did a small test this afternoon, trying to move a pen across the counter with my mind. I tried for about a minute. The pen didn’t budge. However, during those 60 seconds, I noticed all sorts of thoughts and feelings arising within me. There was fear and paranoia over what might happen if the pen actually moved. I felt a ripping sensation as a terrified part of myself began to surface. I sensed that if that pen actually moved, I wouldn’t be able to handle it. It would mean the end of my life as I know it.

It was obvious that I’m not ready to see that pen move. Part of me won’t allow us to go there yet. It would be too terrifying if it actually happened.

But another part of me knows that the pen is eventually going to move. However, I have a lot more growth ahead of me before I’m ready to see that.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to deal with the challenges and growth experiences that are right in front of me as I follow the flow of inspiration moment by moment. Those lessons have to do with relationships, giving and receiving unconditional love, and releasing some shame and guilt.

You can call me crazy for going this far down the rabbit hole, but it won’t stop me from moving forward. I’d simply interpret you as a projection of my own fear and doubt, which I acknowledge are still present within me. As you raise your voice in protest, I’ll accept your objections as if they’re my own, and I’ll forgive myself for those delusions and re-integrate those skeptical parts of myself, honoring them for their commitment to keeping me safe and protected.

You are beautiful and amazing, my favorite figment.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

Erin and I recently did a 35-minute video interview for the Alison and Jaye Show (see below). Most of the Q&A focuses on psychic development and communicating with spirit guides, including the benefits and pitfalls of receiving guidance from non-physical entities. We also discuss overcoming blocks to financial abundance near the end of the interview.

If you’re convinced there’s no such thing as psychic abilities, you can safely skip this interview because it won’t likely do much for you. This video is geared more toward people who already have some experiences with psychic phenomena as well as skeptics who are curious about this topic and want to learn more. By skeptics I’m referring to open-minded doubters but not close-minded disbelievers. If you aren’t open to this sort of thing, don’t press play.

If you liked this video, you may also enjoy listening to Erin’s recent 60-minute radio interview with Janice Marie Wilson, which covers similar topics and includes some Q&A with live callers.

Additionally, Erin is now offering an instant download of her PDF “10 Ways to Raise Your Vibration” when you sign up for her free newsletter. Raising your vibration essentially means feeling stronger, lighter, and happier and releasing feelings of depression, anxiety, fear, anger, guilt, shame, grief, etc. These techniques can also be used to boost your passion and motivation for action. The lower your vibration, the more you’ll be stuck in negative emotions, apathy, and helplessness. The higher your vibration, the stronger, happier, and more vibrant you’ll feel.

In case you’re wondering whether or not we’re going to cover psychic development during our Las Vegas workshop in October, the answer is no, not by design. If someone brings it up during Q&A, we’ll answer their questions, but this topic is too expansive to adequately cover in this particular workshop. We didn’t want our first workshop to require attendees to be receptive to psychic development. We’d have to plan a separate workshop to do this topic justice.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

1. Admit There’s a Higher Truth

The first step is to consciously acknowledge what you’ve been feeling. Don’t be afraid to face up to your inner truths. If you want to live consciously, you must learn to accept truth in whatever form it comes to you. Sometimes you’ll discover inner truths that challenge you tremendously.

Within the belief system of Christianity, many controls are set up to discourage you from leaving. Rewards and threats are employed liberally. Stick with it and you’ll gain eternal life. Abandon it and you’re doomed to hell. Once enough people are integrated into such a system, the social conditioning becomes self-reinforcing. Members help to keep each other in line.

Recognize that you’re dealing with a control structure. When you see enforcement based on the promise of rewards and punishments, you’re not witnessing real truth. You’re witnessing marketing masquerading as truth.

Like many Americans I was raised as a Christian. All of my family and friends were Christian, so that was the only belief system I was exposed to. I knew nothing else. But as I took time to consider my core beliefs, I realized that the various elements of Christianity simply didn’t add up. It was filled with internal contradictions, and it was incongruent with my sensory experience of reality. I began to feel more and more disconnected from it. I often felt guilty because my Christian beliefs told me it was wrong to harbor such thoughts and feelings.

It helped me to realize that if God is almighty, then surely He can see into my heart. I cannot hide my true feelings from Him. He would know if I’m just going through the motions and that my heart isn’t in it. He can surely tell if I am a true Christian or just faking it. This realization helped me to accept the folly of subscribing to a belief system that no longer resonated with me.

Accepting the truth of your feelings is a powerful yet difficult step to take. It is a step you must take, however, if you are continue to grow as a conscious being. Never deny that you feel what you feel. If you have doubts about your beliefs, admit and accept those doubts as they arise. Realize that there exist deeper truths you have yet to discover.

2. Stop Going to Church

If you actively attend church services like Sunday mass, it’s a good idea to discontinue that habit. Disconnect from the continued reinforcement of your old beliefs, and give yourself some space to pull back and reflect on your life more consciously.

I used to attend church services religiously (pun intended). I attended mass every Sunday and on every religious holiday. I found these services to be incredibly boring and repetitive. The same scriptures were read every year. The same stories were retold again and again. The sermons were usually droning and uninspiring. Mass is basically a form of hypnosis. The next time you attend mass, sit in the front row, and turn around to observe the glazed-over eyes of the congregation in trance. It’s a scary sight, especially if you’re used to associating with people who are highly conscious and aware.

I stopped going to church when I was 17. Aside from occasional weddings and funerals, I’ve never been back. I’m glad I went through that experience, however, as it helps me relate to people who are in the process of making similar transitions.

I also used to go to confession regularly. I would tell a priest my sins, be forgiven, and be assigned a penance. When I finally abandoned this practice, I was empowered to make real improvements to my life instead of relying on a priest to perform magical acts.

In lieu of attending mass, I encourage you to transform Sunday mornings into a time of personal reflection at home. Take up the habit of journaling to explore your thoughts and feelings in private. Explore your spiritual side without the rules and constraints of a mass market belief system. Think of this time as your own personal retreat.

Transform the habit of church attendance into personal reflection. Don’t allow others to dictate what you should or shouldn’t believe since that will only turn you away from conscious growth.

If you miss the social element of going to church, consider forming your own spiritual meet-up group, or join an existing group of people who are more open-minded. I recommend that you focus on the experiential side of spiritual development. Erin and I used to host a weekly spiritual discussion group in our house. With such an interesting mix of people, it was never boring. I remember one fun session we had trying to practice telepathy. In another session we did an interesting group meditation. It costs nothing to do this, and if you form your own group, you can handpick the members.

You’re free to return to church later if you so desire. I certainly don’t miss it. My spiritual life is much richer without all the constraints and limits of Christianity.

Unplug yourself from group think, and discover what spirituality means to you as a unique individual.

3. Read the Bible Cover to Cover

Most people don’t even know that the various forms of the Bible floating around today are inaccurate translations of earlier texts, which themselves were passed down from copies manually produced by scribes. Even if you believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God, we don’t actually have any version of God’s original words. All we have are a bunch of flawed, inaccurate copies, and those copies aren’t consistent with each other. In fact, in many sections they massively contradict each other. If the original words were inspired, they’ve long since been lost.

Did you know that there are actually more versions of the New Testament than there are words in it? Some experts say there are more than 200,000 versions now. Some say 400,000. Many of those versions have radically different meanings, and again, none of them can be said to contain the original “inspired words of God.” What we have are error-filled copies of copies of copies of copies that have been passed down inaccurately for centuries.

So if you say you believe in the Bible, you’d better specify exactly which version you claim to believe in. And you must also face the fact that what you claim to believe is not what God actually inspired people to write. You’re actually putting your faith in some scribe’s interpretation.

If the original words truly were inspired, why didn’t God take steps to preserve the original texts? Why allow so many flaws to be injected and so many misunderstandings to spread? Of course the most logical conclusion there is that there never were any original divinely inspired words that God cared to preserve. There were only human writers and human copiers all along, and each human scribe altered the texts to add their own slant on what they thought the Bible was supposed to say. So what we have now is a large body of work collectively created by man, not inspired by God.

Read the book Misquoting Jesus if you want to dive into this hairy subject more deeply and get your facts straight about what the Bible actually is and where it came from. It’s a bit dense, but it will surely engage your brain and help you shed some false yet popular beliefs that even senior clergy members would know to avoid.

Most Christians I know have never read any version of the entire Bible. In fact, I’d say the vast majority haven’t even read 20% of the book’s content. I’m erring on the generous side here.

If you attend mass regularly for decades, you’ll be exposed to only a tiny fraction of the Bible’s contents… less than 5% I’d imagine. Partly this is because the same stories are read year after year, so every year of mass is essentially a repeat of the previous year. How long would you subscribe to my blog if I kept posting the exact same content every year?

If you’re going to call yourself a Christian, then at the very least, you should read the entire Bible cover to cover. Wouldn’t you agree? After all, it’s touted as the most important work of your entire faith. If you’d rather watch TV than finish reading the Bible, perhaps you aren’t cut out to be a Christian. Don’t worry — my blog will still be here in a few years when you’re done.

Now if you actually attempt this, it’s a safe bet that you’ll be bored to tears. The vast majority of the Bible’s content is very, very dull. It’s filled with long-winded genealogies and badly written stories. There’s a lot of aimless wandering in the desert. Very little of the Bible’s content is likely to be relevant or interesting to you. The good parts are few and far between. It’s an ideal cure for insomnia.

If you somehow manage to read the whole thing (an act that requires significant persistence), you’ll be left wondering what the big deal is. You’ll probably wish you’d spent that time reading something more interesting or educational.

The Bible is simply not a very interesting or useful book. Aside from the general dullness, it’s also filled with internal contradictions. This is intentional. You aren’t supposed to be able to make sense of it or discover profound truths on every page. The book is designed and marketed as a mystical work, such that you’re beholden to the Church as your interpreter. First they sell you a book you really wouldn’t want to read. Then they sell you a subscription service to the summary version, one that quotes the same passages year after year.

Try to read the whole book yourself, notice that there just isn’t much substance to it, and realize that an all-powerful God could surely have channeled a work of much higher quality. This realization will help you remove this book from a pedestal of mysticism. When you take the time to see that the Bible is little more than a mediocre work created by human beings, you’ll realize that it holds no special claim to your immortal soul.

4. Assess What You’ve Gained

Take a moment to consider some of the good you’ve gotten out of Christianity. Surely it wasn’t all bad. Feel grateful for the positive role it served in your life, and do your best to let the rest go.

In the end I retained many of the values I was taught as a Christian. One thing I appreciate about my Christian upbringing is that it taught me the value of service to others. After leaving the Church, I strayed from that concept for a while, but I successfully reintegrated it later in life. As an adult I’ve spent thousands of hours helping people in a variety of different ways, mostly for free, and I feel very good about that.

If you’ve had a rough time with Christianity as many people have, step back and look at the big picture. Notice the part it played in awakening your consciousness. In my case, the experience jolted me into accepting total responsibility for my own spiritual path, which was a powerful step for me. What role did Christianity play in your conscious development?

Be thankful for what you gained from your experiences as a Christian. Forgive and release everything else.

5. Connect With Jesus Directly

Since Jesus Christ is the central figure of Christianity, you may worry that if you turn away from the Church, you’ll lose your connection to Jesus. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In fact, it’s easier to connect with Jesus without the Church. The main problem is that the Church tends to demonize the very skill set you need to connect with Jesus directly, so you’re stuck with priests as your interpreters. Unfortunately most priests are not very good interpreters because they lack these skills as well.

Jesus is a construct of consciousness. He remains unattached to any particular belief system. With practice you can tune in to him directly whenever you desire. Because of all the energy associated with Jesus as a thought form, he’s one of the easiest entities to connect to.

Sit quietly with your eyes closed. Take several deep breaths. Allow your body to physically relax, and visualize a meeting place in your mind. Mentally invite Jesus to come and talk to you. Wait patiently, and at some point you should be able to feel his energetic presence. Jesus has an extremely powerful energy. If you’ve taken the time to develop your psychic skills, you may feel a huge surge of emotion when he shows up. Usually I can’t help but cry when I do this because the energy of his presence is super strong. I’m actually getting a strong emotional hit just writing about this because I’m effectively pinging him by thinking about him.

I find Jesus’ energy to be so strong that I usually have to ask him to tone it down in order to communicate with him. ”Dude, can you rein in that aura a bit?”

Once you have a manageable connection, feel free to ask Jesus anything you want, and allow his answers to flow into your consciousness. Some people have used this connection to channel messages from him. It’s really not that hard to do if you develop the sensitivity to tune in and listen. If you haven’t developed this skill yet (which does take practice), you may find this exercise difficult to apply and the results, if any, hard to trust. If you really want to develop this skill though, read Erin’s blog because she’s written a lot about this.

I regard Jesus as a guide of unconditional love. He’s the go-to guy for questions related to love, oneness, and service. I often find his answers challenging to implement because he’s in such a perfect state of oneness. Whenever I think I’ve come really far in this area, he shows me how much more work I have to do and how many attachments I have yet to shed. Normally I prefer to consult with my own spirit guides because Jesus’ answers can be a bit too strong. Talking with him is like drinking a spiritual espresso.

You can also connect directly with other figures from Christianity such as Mary, various archangels, and saints. I find that Mary has a similar energetic signature to Jesus, but she comes through as more motherly. Sometimes Jesus, Mary, or various angels will make their presence known during my meditations if they have a message for me. Recently I’ve been connecting with a certain angel to help me solve a problem where I felt my guides were offering ineffective guidance. The angel was able to provide a higher level perspective that made the problem easy to solve.

How do you know if you’re connecting with real celestial beings? In truth you never really know. You can always argue that it’s just your imagination. But personally I’ve found it very effective to explore my spiritual growth in this manner. I consistently get good results from tuning in and asking for guidance from positive sources.

When you broaden your horizons beyond Christianity, you can connect with other religious icons as well. You aren’t limited to Christian figures. When you get good at meditating, you can summon anyone you wish. For example, in 2006 I did a meditation to connect with Quan Yin, and I posted the information I received from her as a blog entry called Desire in 2007.

I do not recommend you push forward with this skill set until you’re in a good place energetically, happy and at peace with yourself. You will most often attract beings that are close to your vibration. So if you attempt this when you’re feeling depressed, frustrated, greedy, or some other low-energy state, you’ll likely attract negative entities that offer counterproductive advice. And definitely never do this while drinking alcohol; you won’t be able to trust the results.

6. Diversify Your Relationships

It’s common for Christians to get stuck with inbred social circles. The religion does a good job of discouraging you from connecting deeply with non-Christians. But if you succumb to such limitations, you’ll severely limit your opportunities for growth.

Reach out and make friends with lots of non-Christians. Stop seeing people as either Christian or evil. Recognize that we’re all human beings together. We’re all part of the same whole. There is no us vs. them, saved vs. unsaved.

Put yourself in social situations you avoided as a Christian, if only for the experience. Go outside.

When I finally had the chance to associate with non-Christians, it was an eye-opening experience for me. I realized these people were not corrupt, evil, or misguided. Most of them were good and moral, and they didn’t require an order of priests to tell them how to think and behave.

These days I enjoy a lot of diversity in my friendships. I have friends who self-identify as Christian, Buddhist, Mormon, Jewish, Muslim, New Age, atheist, agnostic, etc.

Do your best not to dismiss potential friends or relationship partners based on their spiritual beliefs. Get to know people as individuals. You’ll realize that you’re not so different after all. This will bring you more into alignment with the principle of oneness. Learn to regard everyone on this planet as a member of your family. There are no outcasts. We are all one.

7. Explore Other Belief Systems

As you expand your social circle, delve into other belief systems as well. Read a variety of books on spiritual development. Learn to meditate. Branch out and explore whatever interests you. I especially recommend that you study Eastern philosophies at some point, as a contrast to Western religions.

Many years ago I joined the Church of Scientology for a few months just to see what it was like. I went to one of their centers a couple times a week and spent hours talking to other Scientologists. I even had an official membership card. I found the experience fascinating. I had no interest in becoming a Scientologist long-term (and paying them hundreds of thousands of dollars like some people do), but I’m glad I did it. You always learn more about a belief system from the inside than you do from the outside.

If you study a lot of different belief systems as I have, you’ll learn that no one has a monopoly on your soul. All of these belief systems are man-made and flawed. Some are driven by powerful marketing machines. Whether you subscribe to any of them or not is of little concern to the rest of the universe.

Follow the path of conscious growth. If you feel that the best way to maximize your growth is to adhere to a particular belief system for a time, go for it. But remain alert for when your inner voice tells you that it’s time to move on. If you’re no longer excited by your spiritual path, that’s a powerful indicator that you’re ready to graduate to something else. Don’t buy in to religious marketing messages that urge you to stick around longer than you should.

8. Develop Your Own Moral Code

Christianity teaches you a basic system of morality. It’s a good start, but it has many flaws. Some elements are outdated. Others are impractical. Priests are frequently caught violating the moral code they’re preaching.

You probably disagree with various elements of Christianity. Which parts do you think are lame? Do you think pre-marital sex is bad? Is divorce a sin? What about using contraception? Telling white lies? Looking at porn? Using “Jesus Christ” as a swear word? (Seriously, Jesus doesn’t mind if you do that.)

Are you seriously going to hell for bending the rules? Or do you feel the rules are messed up to begin with? Would most Christians agree or disagree with your exceptions?

My guess is that on a practical level, you’re not a big fan of rigid rules, but you do see the value in living your life by a certain moral code. You probably think of yourself as a good person, and you want to live a good and moral life. You don’t want to go around hurting people, and you’d like to make a reasonable contribution to help this planet. Sometimes you screw up and violate your own values, but you feel best when you can forgive yourself, learn from those experiences, and move on.

This is all well and good. But I’d encourage you to take it a step further. Put in the time to codify your personal moral philosophy in writing. Where do you draw the line between right and wrong? How do you make moral decisions?

This is where you must do some serious soul searching.

If you’d like a shortcut to help you get started, I’ve written a whole book about it. That book is the result of my own act of soul searching to codify the principles of conscious growth. If you haven’t read it yet, no worries. I’ll give you the short version right now.

The three most fundamental principles of conscious growth are Truth, Love, and Power. You will find that these principles align with what you already intuitively know to be true. If you wish to develop any sort of moral code, then in some way it must incorporate these principles. Whenever you turn away from these principles, you turn your back on conscious growth.

To its credit Christianity does a decent job of stressing the importance of Love. Jesus’ teachings are all about unconditional love. “Love your neighbor as yourself.” “Turn the other cheek.” Those are worthy messages. Unfortunately the Church doesn’t do a good job of modeling this ideal in practice. It encourages separation between Christians and non-Christians. It creates division instead of promoting unity. You’re either saved or you’re not. Many Christians are raised to be rather unloving toward non-Christians, including the priests themselves. That is unfortunate because this is not at all what Jesus taught.

Christianity does a poor job of embracing Truth. It claims to value honesty and it does promote some degree of self-awareness, but that’s about it. Beyond that it markets a variety of fictional stories as indisputable truth. It doesn’t teach people to accurately interpret and accept what their senses tell them. And it largely ignores the importance of prediction. The lack of Truth-alignment is why many Christians find this belief system largely unhelpful in their day-to-day practical lives. So they’re Christians on Sundays but not on weekdays. Because Christianity is disconnected from Truth, it’s out of touch with reality. If you want to grow in your career, finances, or health while maintaining a strong spiritual focus, you’re basically on your own.

Christianity falls flat in the area of Power too. It teaches people to become dependent on the Church for spiritual guidance instead of cultivating real power as independent conscious beings. It promotes fear and timidity instead of courage. It teaches you to give your power away to an external authority instead of developing your own authority and creativity as a conscious being.

If you want to create an effective moral code for yourself, it must be solidly grounded in reality (aligned with Truth), it must help you cultivate a sense of unconditional love and connection (aligned with Love), and it must empower you to grow (aligned with Power). If it fails to satisfy any of these conditions, then your moral code is ultimately turning you away from conscious growth.

As explained in my book, my moral code is based on aligning my life with the 7 principles of conscious growth. The first three are Truth, Love, and Power. The other four are Oneness (Truth + Love), Authority (Truth + Power), Courage (Love + Power), and Intelligence (Truth + Love + Power). I am doing right when I am living in accordance with these principles. I am doing wrong (or sinning, so to speak) when I turn my back on any of these principles. This is a demanding code, but it ensures that I keep growing year after year without stagnating or getting sidetracked.

Your success at following your own moral code is for no one to judge but you. Only you know your true intentions. What might seem like an act of cowardice from an outsider’s perspective might have required extreme courage on your part. What might be viewed as an unloving act could have been driven by a deep sense of compassion for others. You must evaluate yourself.

Are you living in accordance with your highest ideals? When you commit those ideals to writing, it’s much easier to see how well you’re doing.

9. Deal Compassionately With Christian Friends and Family

I know this is a big issue for many graduating Christians. Once you feel ready to progress beyond Christianity, how do you handle your old Christian family and friends? How will they react to your decision?

When I decided to move on at age 17, my family took it very badly, as if I’d personally assaulted them. It was not a pretty sight. My friends mostly gave me strange looks and didn’t worry about it, so I didn’t have any difficulties at school, but my family was a different story.

It’s a shame that so many Christians react negatively when someone decides to unsubscribe. But you must understand that this is the nature of the beast. The Christian belief system encourages this kind of reaction. Your family and friends have been taught that if you leave the Church, you’ll be doomed to hell. Naturally they don’t want to see that happen. So their negative reaction is actually a sign that they care about you very much. Burning you at the stake may seem like a funny way of expressing love, but it is what it is. Some Christians simply have a lot to learn about expressing love toward non-Christians.

Another problem is that when you leave the Church, you stir up other Christians’ fears and doubts. You push them to face parts of themselves they aren’t ready to face. This can generate quite a backlash against you.

I know it’s hard to maintain this level of understanding when you’re currently being stoned, verbally or otherwise. I certainly wasn’t in a place where I could say, “Thank you for caring about my immortal soul” when people were treating me like I’d turned to the dark side. I’m glad I can hold this perspective today though.

I don’t think it’s helpful to get into arguments and long-winded debates with other Christians when you’re on your way out. All that does is create additional stress. This is a time where you should quietly slip out the back door, at least to the degree that’s possible. This is a time to reconnect with your spiritual side and focus on your inner development. You have a lot of healing to do and a lot more growth to prepare for.

Being treated like a demon for dropping Christianity certainly didn’t help me much. The negative reaction from Christians simply turned my doubts into certainty. In retrospect that was unfortunate because it wasn’t until seven years later that I was able to start consciously re-exploring my spiritual side. That was eventually triggered when all the 11:11 stuff started popping up in my life.

When I told my family I didn’t believe in Christianity anymore, the reaction was so negative that I felt the most reasonable course of action was to back off. I felt that forcing the issue wasn’t worth the loss of things like car privileges. I was going away to college in a year anyway, so I knew the conflict period would eventually fade. Consequently, I went through the motions and continued going to mass for many months. But I insisted on sitting in another part of the church, quietly slipping out the back and going for walks outside instead. Eventually I was caught because I got back late one time, and interestingly that ended the surface conflict with my family. They must have realized that they weren’t going to regain my soul with demands and threats. Turning 18 and going away to college was a major stress reliever for me, but my experiences led me to pre-judge Christians as people I could never really trust. I felt much safer in the company of atheists and agnostics.

It’s unfortunate that Christianity should create such rifts between people. I’ve seen countless others deal with similar problems. Almost invariably it’s the Christians that force these disconnections, while the non-Christians would like nothing more than to continue sharing a loving (or at least civil) relationship. Jesus did not come here to teach conditional love!

On the bright side, I learned a lot from this experience. In the long run, it taught me to be much more accepting of others, including Christians. I do my best not to push people away because of their beliefs. I may challenge people’s beliefs a lot, and there are some belief systems I hold in fairly low regard, but I still accept those who choose to hold such beliefs. I think the world would be much better off if each of us would develop the capacity to love and accept everyone as they are, regardless of whether or not we agree with them.

This mindset of unconditional acceptance can be a challenge to practice, but it serves me well. For example, as a vegan, I don’t condone acts of animal cruelty, including the consumption of animal products. I will not even harm insects. But I still accept those who think it’s okay to hurt animals, even though their actions violate my own moral code. Non-acceptance does not encourage people to live more compassionately.

If you’re facing a tough situation with your Christian friends and family, possibly debating whether or not to tell them of your decision, I feel for you. I know it isn’t easy. But in the long run, my best recommendation is to tell them the truth. That will put the ball in their court. Then it’s up to them to decide if they can love and accept you as you are. Unfortunately you can’t control the outcome. But you’ll soon find out whether they practice Jesus’ teachings about unconditional love or if they’ve been brainsquashed by the Church to reject you as an outcast.

Even if you become the family pariah at first, some of those people may eventually come around. Be patient. Go out and live the best life you can. When they’re ready they may choose to reconnect with you. You’ll have the best effect on them by being an example of conscious living, not by trying to convince them to accept your decision.

As long as your family and friends subscribe to a belief system that defines you as an outcast — as a person doomed to burn in hell — the doorway to a truly conscious connection remains closed. All you can do is hold the intention that they’ll eventually progress beyond that stage and learn to accept others fully and completely. In the meantime you can still accept and love them as they are, even if they find it difficult to do the same.

Rest assured that if you’re dealing with a situation like this, you’re not alone. You are not doing anything wrong or evil. The Christian religion itself is the problem. It is set up to create these artificial conflicts. It really is time for humanity to progress beyond this level of separation and bigotry. We need to accept that we’re all in this together.

10. Release the Guilt and Enjoy Your Freedom

My final piece of advice to you is to let go of all the guilt you absorbed during your time as a Christian. Forgive yourself and others completely. Let go and move on with your life.

Rest assured you’re not going to hell. You won’t be punished in the afterlife for declining to follow a man-made belief system. You are an explorer and a creator, not the servant of a multi-billion dollar organization that claims divine sponsorship. You are here to participate in the expansion of consciousness.

Know that you are a good person. Learn to love and accept yourself unconditionally. It doesn’t matter if you’re a saint or sinner by Christian standards. You are worthy of love no matter what. It’s time to step into your true power. Your light has been dimmed for far too long.

If all else fails and you find yourself feeling unloved, rest assured that I love you and care about you. It doesn’t matter if we’ve never met. It doesn’t matter if you don’t agree with half the stuff I write about. I love and care about you anyway.

Being a Christian was an important stage in your conscious development, but now you’re ready to progress beyond it. You no longer need others to define and control your spiritual identity. You’re ready to blaze your own spiritual trail. You have graduated. Congratulations!

Now go out and do some serious good with your life. Make it a masterpiece. Show this world your beautiful divinity.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

11:11 tends to be discussed mainly in private, among people who are already familiar with it or those who are just awakening to it. I haven’t seen much written about it online, at least not with the level of depth and clarity that really rings true for me. A few people, including Uri Geller, have spoken about it, but most of the material on 11:11 tends to be fairly obscure.

I’ve had a small 11:11 in the lower right corner of my website for years. It’s there mainly as a nod to people who already know what it means. I suspect most people never notice it. When people email me to ask me what it means, I usually tell them that if they don’t already know, they can safely ignore it. To those who do know what it means, it serves as a type of identifier and can spawn some interesting interactions.

What Is 11:11?

There are many levels on which to explain 11:11. I’ll start with the most basic physically observable level and move up from there. This will take a bit of explaining.

11 is a number of course, and 11:11 is a time on a clock. Some very small percentage of people will begin to encounter 11:11 as well as the number 11 more often than chance would indicate — so much more often that you may think you’re in the midst of some crazy conspiracy once you begin to notice it.

If you’ve seen the Jim Carey movie The Number 23, there’s a similar concept behind it, although that movie is far removed from the actual experience. You may indeed think you’re going a bit nuts at first, but that will eventually pass, and soon you’ll be lead to some fascinating new insights about reality.

Numerologically speaking, you can take any number that appears in your life and sum up the digits. If you end up with a number greater than 11, keep re-summing the digits until you’re at 11 or less.

For example, my ZIP code is 89138.

8 + 9 + 1 + 3 + 8 = 29, and 2 + 9 = 11.

My previous ZIP code was 89129

8 + 9 + 1 + 2 + 9 = 29, and 2 + 9 = 11.

My current phone number is 991-1252

9 + 9 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 5 + 2 = 29, and 2 + 9 = 11.

If we include the area code, my phone number is (702) 991-1252.

Those digits sum to 38, and 3 + 8 = 11.

The fascinating thing about 11:11 is that it runs backwards and forwards through one’s life. So when you first start noticing the 11s in your life, you’ll find they run through your past as well as your present and future.

When I was first exposed to this idea, I thought I was going nuts because it seemed that my whole life was infested with these hidden 11s.

My awareness of this phenomenon began in early 1994, shortly before I met Erin. I started noticing hidden 11s everywhere. I lived in apartment 119. My first retail computer games was published at this time, and the digits of the game’s bar code game summed to 29. I owned 92 CDs, and my favorite music group had 11 albums. My previous four phone numbers summed to 11. The model # of my wrist watch was 5600, and my TV’s model # was 2720. My computer’s hard drive was 245 megs in size, but I got 380 with compression software.

In addition to the numbers, you’ll see the time 11:11 on the clock disturbingly often. Sometimes I will suddenly look up at a clock and notice this time twice a day for several days in a row. It’s rare that more than a few days go by without my noticing an 11:11 on a clock somewhere.

In fact, I just went to the kitchen to grab a snack while writing this article, and there was 11:11am winking at me from the clock on the microwave.

My daughter Emily was actually born at 11:11pm. That’s a hard one to ignore.

A Backdoor Virus

Now any good skeptic will stop at this point and say that this is simply the result of self-suggestion. You get the belief stuck in your head that you’ll see more 11s, so your reticular activating system begins finding them in your environment and bringing them to your conscious attention. There will seem to be more 11s simply because you’re noticing the existing 11s more often. You may be creating some of those 11s unknowingly, and you may also be subconsciously pre-selecting the right numbers to check.

These logical explanations are perfectly fine. They’re nice and neat and tidy. You can certainly claim that I was subconsciously noticing more 11s because that’s what I expected to see. I’m not going to argue that point because it turns out that it doesn’t matter. In fact, I’ll go so far as to concede that point; as it turns out, this is precisely how reality must work if you’re a skeptic.

You see… it’s part of the nature of reality that anything you experience is automatically projected within the framework of your belief system. So if you’re a hard-nosed skeptic, the 11:11 phenomenon must still be validly explainable according to your current beliefs. It cannot violate your beliefs, for that would violate the cosmic principle of free will. The universe cannot show you anything which you’ve intentionally chosen to block from your reality.

Skeptics have plenty of ways to explain my 11:11 experiences, and from the skeptic’s perspective, all of those explanations will seem valid. And indeed, they are valid from within the skeptic’s reference frame. They cannot be otherwise.

That’s one reason why 11:11 is such an interesting phenomenon. Because it works in the realm of improbable but not impossible events (as viewed through an objective lens), it’s able to sneak past the filters that would ordinarily prevent it from reaching your reality at all.

There are many phenomena which an objective belief system will block completely, meaning that there are events in space-time that people with objective beliefs systems will never, ever perceive because their beliefs will block such events 100%. It’s like trying to perceive the color blue while peering through red lenses. However, due to its probabilistic nature, 11:11 is able to get around these filters. Why? Because it always leaves you the out of claiming it was luck, chance, coincidence, or the result of auto-suggestion or hypnosis.

This is why 11:11 is such an insidious doorway. It’s reality’s way of inserting a thought virus through a backdoor into an objective belief system. Once this virus takes root, it begins to dismantle limiting objective beliefs, gradually supplanting them with a more accurate model of reality.

11:11′s purpose is positive, although it may not seem that way when it first takes hold. It’s purpose is ultimately to destroy your belief in a physically grounded objectified reality. This makes it possible for you to discover and perceive more accurate ways of viewing reality.

You can do your best to explain away the surging 11s any way you like. You can cage those experiences in a vault of hard logic. But once you’ve been infected, it’s only a matter of time before your old beliefs begin to crack.

Week after week and month after month, the 11s keep coming. You keep noticing 11:11 on the clock. It’s like you’re being stalked by the number 11 and just can’t shake it. Your logical explanations don’t stop the phenomenon from arising.

Permit yourself a few months, maybe a few years of this, and eventually you’ll reach the point where you’ve had enough. What will you do when five years have passed, and these 11s as well as 11:11 keep popping up all over your environment like a broken record? Will you keep reminding yourself of all the logical reasons such events continue to arise within your otherwise neat and tidy objective universe?

The more you try to disregard and ignore the 11s, the stronger they become. They practically demand your attention.

The 11s are like a pesky ghost that keeps making its presence known. Turning your back on the ghost only makes it more persistent in trying to get your attention. You can deny the ghost’s existence. You can try to explain it away. You can convince yourself that it’s just your imagination and that you’re creating it. Yet no matter how you try to frame it, the ghost persists.

Eventually you’ll break. At some point you’ll turn and face the ghost and ask it what it wants and why it keeps bugging you so incessantly. The sooner you do this, the better.

The Blue Pill vs. the Red Pill

11:11 basically acts like a glitch in the matrix of reality. Explaining it via the reticular activating system may give you some solace at first, but given enough time, that answer will eventually prove unsatisfying.

This leaves you a couple of options.

Option 1 is to conclude that you’re perpetually broken and that you’ve been infected with this stupid mental virus that keeps filtering your reality in a very peculiar way.

Option 2 is to consider that perhaps reality itself doesn’t work the way you previously expected, and maybe — just maybe — these 11s are coming up for a reason that you simply don’t comprehend yet.

Option 1 is the blue pill. Option 2 is the red one.

Most people do their best to stick with the blue pill. They may cling to that pill their entire lives. But many will eventually swallow the red pill and see where it leads.

I took the red pill. And I’d like to give you a glimpse into where it leads.

A Glitch in the Matrix

My initial response to all those 11s was to exclaim, Reality just can’t work this way. It’s simply not possible. But then I asked myself, What if it is possible? And what if there’s some kind of intelligence behind it? What if something else is creating all these 11s in my reality, as a way of trying to get my attention?

The continued recurrence of these 11s serves as a constant wake-up call. The 11s make it difficult to keep doing business as usual. Every time you think you have life figured out, the 11s surge again to remind you that you’re missing something.

Eventually you conclude that your current understanding of reality must in fact be broken. It becomes clear that many of your assumptions about the nature of the universe were wrong. Reality just doesn’t work the way you thought it did. You’re stuck clinging to a broken model, but you don’t yet have anything solid to replace it with.

Losing your grip on reality can be a frustrating experience to say the least. In truth you aren’t losing your grip on reality though. You’re simply letting go of false assumptions. This will have the positive effect of opening your mind to new possibilities.

This will likely be a tumultuous time. You may start to feel disconnected and confused. The best thing you can do is to try to relax and flow with it. I wish I could tell you this process will resolve quickly, but the truth is that it can take years. Part of the problem is that other forces, such as your old social conditioning, will keep pulling you back down, trying to convince you that the old model is still salvageable.

11:11 is a specific frequency of awakening, but there are many others. Some are other recurring number patterns like 111, 1234, or 444. Others are non-numerical events. But the underlying pattern is the same. You experience these events as a repeating glitch in the matrix of reality. When such events occur, they jolt you to a higher level of awareness. You may react with surprise, laughter, or silent recognition as they continue to occur. Eventually you’ll learn to observe such events with gratitude.

Intending to See

When you feel ready, the next step is to ask to see the truth about reality. You have to intend this consciously, or it won’t happen. Say to yourself, I can see that my old model of reality is broken. I now ask to be shown what I’ve been missing. Let me begin to see reality as it truly is. Let my beliefs accurately reflect the true nature of reality.

Form this intention with your thoughts, but feel it as well. You must really want it. You must desire to see the truth about reality as strongly as a drowning man desires his next breath. If you don’t really want to see the truth, nothing will change.

This isn’t a decision to be taken lightly. The truth about reality is very different from what’s taught in mainstream society. It can be very unsettling to see your old notions of reality destroyed, even when you know they’re inaccurate. Most people would rather cling to the familiar than see their lives turned inside-out by such an immense shift in their beliefs.

Unfortunately, this is a journey that must be taken alone. It’s a decision you must make of your own free will. No one can force you into it. 11:11 may crack open the door, but you must willingly choose to walk through it.

There is no point in asking for proof of what lies through this doorway because proof-seeking is an artifact of an objective belief system. This is a choice you must make freely, and proof cannot be provided because that would influence your choice. If you request proof, you will be shown something inconclusive every time. As long as you linger in the doorway, you can never see proof of what lies beyond it. If you were provided such proof, it would violate your freedom to choose your beliefs, and that’s a huge cosmic no-no.

There is a cosmic law which states that your reality must remain congruent with your beliefs. If you choose to maintain your old beliefs, you cannot be shown anything that would violate them. However, once you shed the old beliefs and embrace new ones, the proof you originally sought will be readily forthcoming.

When you consciously ask to see reality accurately, some amazing things will begin to occur, gently at first, then with increasing strength and presence.

Synchronicities

The first change is that you’ll begin to see a surge in synchronicities in your life, more than you’ve even seen before. Highly unlikely coincidences will begin to occur with increasing frequency. This is a gentle way of helping you shed your old beliefs. Instead of immediately destroying your old reality, it begins to crack gradually. This happens by introducing increasingly improbable, but not objectively impossible, events and circumstances into your life.

If you entered through the 11:11 doorway, many of these synchronicities will be connected with the number 11 or the time 11:11, especially in the beginning. At this point you can regard the 11s as sign posts to follow.

For example, whenever you look up and see 11:11 on the clock, take note of the thought you were holding at the moment you noticed the 11:11. The 11:11 is indicating that your thought is aligned with truth. For example, if you were considering an idea, that would be a good and productive idea to act on.

If you look up and see 11:10, it means you’re getting ahead of yourself. The thought you were holding may be good, but the timing isn’t right yet. It would be premature to implement your idea at this time.

If you look up and see 11:12, it means you’re falling behind. The thought you had was good, but the timing is a little late. Other energies related to your idea are already in motion, so you’ll need to move quickly in order to avoid missing the boat.

These synchronicities will begin to serve as a powerful guidance system for you. They act as a two-way communication channel between yourself and the universe.

You aren’t limited to merely using these three times. You can request whatever structures you desire, as long as they’re consistent with your current belief system. If your beliefs are still very objective, then looking up and noticing a particular time is a good signal. It’s one that can fit your belief structure. And you can use it again and again.

However, if you request a signal to see a human being flying through the air as confirmation, that wouldn’t work because your beliefs will usually block that kind of signal.

When you want to open a two-way communication channel with universal intelligence, it’s good to start with simple synchronicities like times on a clock. Think of this as a reasonable baby step. Eventually you’ll be able to enjoy higher bandwidth communication, but simple synchronicities are a good place to start. You may be at this level for several years before you feel comfortable moving beyond it.

At first the synchronicities you experience may seem random and unpredictable, but eventually you’ll be able to create them intentionally. When you hold a strong intention and then release it, the initial reflection will usually occur in the form of synchronicities. Follow that trail wherever it leads.

For example, if you put out the intention to explore a new hobby, like getting into public speaking, and later that same day, a friend invites you to attend a Toastmasters meeting as a guest, and then you notice the time on the clock is 11:11, by all means attend that meeting. This is confirmation that your intention is in the process of manifesting.

11:11 is a doorway (one of many) to a new level of existence. It is the introductory chapter to a greater understanding of reality. Instead of going through life as a hapless victim, 11:11 shows you how to begin creating your reality. There are countless lessons to be learned along the way, far more than I could summarize in a single article (or even a book), but walking through the 11:11 doorway is an amazing step to take.

Final Thoughts

One of the reasons I hesitated to write this article is that it’s likely to be read by a lot of people. Just by reading this article, many of those people will begin to experience the 11:11 phenomenon. Since that is a pretty huge deal, I didn’t want to publicly share anything on this topic until I got a clear indication that the timing was right.

Earlier this year I began to sense that the time to write about 11:11 was drawing near, so I asked for confirmation. While pondering how to write such an article, I looked up at the clock and saw 11:11. Later that day someone emailed me to ask about the 11:11 in the corner of my website (an event that usually happens less than once a month). Then I noticed someone in the forums had started a discussion thread about 11:11. Still on the same day, I got an out-of-the-blue email from someone with 11:11 magazine, a publication I didn’t even know existed. They were interested in having me write an article for them. Nice touch.

I put the article on my active to-do list yesterday, followed by a question mark. The question mark was there as my way of asking, “Are you sure? Is this really the right time to post such an article?” Shortly thereafter the mail arrives, and I receive a sample issue of 11:11 magazine. The cover of the magazine says in bold yellow letters, “Say YES!” Okay! Okay! I’ll write the article already.

If you do start seeing 11:11 all over the place, you’re in for quite a wild ride. For me this journey began 15 years ago, and there’s no end in sight.

I apologize in advance if this ends up breaking your reality. If that happens, you’ll probably want to kill me in a month, question me in a year, and hug me in a decade. I’ll hold out for the hug.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

I only slept about 5-1/2 hours last night and didn’t feel sleepy during the day, so perhaps my need for sleep is dropping a bit. It’s after midnight as I type this, so I’m up late as well.

Freaky Experience

My nighttime dreams are still incredible, but last night something really weird happened (weird even for me).

I’d only been asleep for about 15 minutes when Erin jolted me awake. Immediately after I woke up, I saw some kind of wispy humanoid apparition floating next to our bed, facing toward us. It was mostly white, semi-transparent, glowing, and it was moving its arms (at least I think they were arms).

This didn’t happen while I was asleep and dreaming. It happened while I was awake and my eyes were wide open.

The apparition seemed to focus its attention on Erin and me for a few seconds. Then it floated upward several feet toward the ceiling and faded out. Erin didn’t see anything, even though she was looking in the right direction. But she seemed to sense that something was up.

I’ve seen this sort of thing happen when I’m astral, but it’s very rare for anything like this to happen while I’m awake. It’s happened before, but I could count the number of times on one hand. Usually there’s a pretty thick wall between the physical and non-physical realms, but occasionally there are leaks.

When I noticed the apparition, I was startled at first but not panicked. My first thought was, “Why the heck is there a woman standing next to our bed?” I tried to mentally scan it like I would if I were astral, but I couldn’t clearly read its intent. It didn’t seem hostile though, so I think it was probably just curious. The only thing I was able to pick up was that it was a feminine energy.

This happened at about 11:30pm on Halloween, so maybe the barrier between the physical and non-physical realms was thinner at that time.

I realize that most people aren’t willing to share this kind of stuff publicly because we’re socially conditioned to keep such things private (or to deny them or to explain them away). But if you can get past the fear that everyone will turn against you, you’ll find that lots of other people have had similar experiences too. Real life is a lot stranger than what’s depicted on TV.

Worst case, if you openly share experiences like this, and someone goes kittywompus over your reports, to whom does the kitty belong?

Today’s Juices

1. honeydew melon
2. carrot, apple, beet, beet greens, dandelion greens, kale, mixed greens, ginger, lime
3. carrot, romaine, parsley, clover sprouts, radish, burdock, ginger, lime
4. orange, spinach, raspberry, spearmint
5. apple, celery, cucumber, red pepper, garlic, ginger, spearmint

I drank about 1.4 gallons total. I think that’s my highest one-day juice volume so far.

These were some pretty good juices, despite how strange certain combos might seem. I’ll probably reek of garlic tomorrow from Juice #5 though.

I made all my juices in advance this morning instead of making new juices throughout the day. That took a long time — about 2 hours total including prep and clean-up. I was watching videos at the time, so I probably could get it down to 90 minutes. It was actually nice not having to eat or prepare food during the day.

Coffee Enema

I did my first-ever coffee enema today. As I walked into the bathroom with a full pot of organic coffee, my 8-year old daughter questioned how I was going to drink all that. All I said was, “Oh, this isn’t for drinking,” and I closed the door. I figured her imagination would come up with a better explanation than I could offer at the time.

The coffee enema initially felt no different than a regular water enema. However, I had a lot of bowel movements throughout the day afterwards — like 10 of them! And many of them smelled mildly of coffee, so apparently this had quite a purging effect.

I think caffeine is mainly absorbed through the stomach, but I did feel a mild level of stimulation, although it was nothing like what I’d have experienced if I actually drank the whole pot.

I’m not sure how I feel about doing coffee enemas, but I figured I’d try it at least once since I’ve never done one before. I certainly don’t want to go overboard on the coffee enemas and get re-addicted to caffeine (see How to Give Up Coffee).

As a side note if you’re curious about caffeine and how it works, it’s actually a pesticide produced by certain plants. It has a bitter taste to discourage animals and insects from eating the plant, and it causes nervous system dysfunction in those who ingest it. The stimulating effect created by caffeine is actually due to your body treating it like poison and going into overdrive to eliminate it. This is an appropriate but stressful reaction that does a good bit of long-term damage, especially to your kidneys. Just because millions of people consume it daily doesn’t make it any less toxic. It just means we have a lot of drug addicts among us.

In case you’re wondering about the pro-coffee argument, such fragmented health claims are merely marketing efforts to encourage profits from perpetual drug addiction. Generally speaking, the strategy is similar to suggesting that breathing more carbon dioxide is good for you because the excess CO2 breaks down to produce oxygen, and your cells benefit from more oxygen. That may be true at first glance, but the other byproduct is carbon monoxide, which is of course poisonous to your cells. A fragmented report can be made to serve any agenda, so you have to look at the big picture.

I don’t mind doing a cleanse with coffee as part of this temporary juice feasting program, but I wouldn’t want to make a regular habit of it without further study.

Weight Loss

I weighed 177.0 pounds this morning for a net loss of 2.0 pounds in 7 days. I guess losing 2 pounds in a week isn’t too bad for a diet that doesn’t restrict calories.

I’m curious to see what happens during the second week now that I’m through the initial detox.

Disc Golf

I played 18 holes of disc golf this morning with a friend, drinking a quart of honeydew juice while we played. The weather was ideal, but overall I sucked, scoring a 72 on a course where my recent best is a 66 and my worst is a 73. Suffice it to say that I’m an amateur player with plenty of room to improve. I had great energy while we played, but my game was definitely off today.

Interestingly, my friend played his worst game ever (including suffering a penalty for getting a disc stuck in a tree), so maybe we were both distracted. There was a disc golf tournament following right behind us, so perhaps that had something to do with it.

I also kept hitting trees. On my first 3 throws, I hit 3 trees. Ouch!

My drives were excellent for the most part. On at least 3 holes, I felt I made my best drives ever. However, my approach shots and putting were poor. I missed some putts I should have made easily. Physically I felt a little stronger than usual (and my drives seemed to reflect that), but my mental game was down a notch or two.

Incidentally, I played disc golf before I did the coffee enema, so the coffee didn’t affect my performance.

Exercise

Aside from walking, stretching, errands, and disc golf, I haven’t done any serious exercise since I started the juice feast. I’ll aim to hit the gym this coming week and see how that goes. I’m not sure what to expect, but we’ll find out soon enough.

I’m getting pretty sleepy now, so I’m off to bed…

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

The first step to change your reality — your experience of reality, that is — is to intend precisely what you want to experience. You do this by imagining it as already real and by getting excited about it. The excitement will draw it into your world. Your excitement can be rooted in fear or love. It will work either way. It’s best to favor one polarity or the other — whichever you feel is more powerful for you — but in truth you can use either frequency.

Aligning your physical self with your new non-physical reality

Once you put out your intention, you must then become a vibrational match for it. First, realize that when you’re excited, your intention has already been received and acknowledged. You don’t even need an alpha reflection because this part is instantaneous. Just know that it works. But the part that seems to take time — and time is part of the illusion you call physical reality — is your becoming a match for your intention. This requires adjusting your frequency (of your lower self or your manifested self) to fit the new reflections you’re creating.

In practice the way you do this varies. My recommendation is for you to sit in quiet meditation for about 20 minutes each day, and imagine yourself already where you want to be. But imagine yourself changing into the kind of person who already has your desires manifested. Feel what he feels. Think what he thinks. Vibrate as he does. Alter the vibrational energy of your lower self to match.

This practice allows your lower self — your physical, manifested being — to enter into the new reality you’ve created with your thoughts. If you don’t align your lower self with your new reality, then you can only access your new reality in your imagination, but you can’t bring your physical body with you. If you want to bring your physical body, you must change its frequency/vibration, so your body becomes compatible with your new reality.

Note that you are not your lower self. Your physical being is just one of your many manifested creations. But it has its own frequency, and that frequency limits its range of experience. Your true self is unlimited, and you’re free to imagine anything you desire. When you imagine something, it becomes real instantaneously. But initially you can only access it non-physically through your non-physical senses. You can feel its presence in your thoughts, but you won’t yet “see” it in your physically perceived reality with your physical senses. The reason is that you haven’t yet taken your body with you, and your body includes your physical senses. Your physical senses remain at their old frequency (the last frequency you adjusted them to), so they can only continue feeding you sensory information that falls within their frequency range.

In practice this means you may detect some change in your physical reality, which you might refer to as an alpha reflection. A more accurate term would be an alpha projection. What you are experiencing is the projection of the new, non-physical reality you just created onto the frequency range of your physically perceived reality. Depending on the current sensory range of your physical being (based on its vibrational frequency), you may perceive virtually no physical change at all, or you may perceive a great deal of change very quickly.

The role of time

Time is one of the perceptual factors of your physical self. You may cast out a new intention, and it immediately manifests in the non-physical frequency range. However, your physical self perceives the manifestation as occurring hours, days, or weeks later — or perhaps never. This is because time itself is part of the projection of input that your physical self perceives. What makes time appear real is trying to filter reality through your physical being’s sense perceptions. You aren’t perceiving reality itself; you’re perceiving a projection of reality into a time-bound perceptual matrix.

Imagine a human baby. The baby has no sense of time. It is fully in the present moment. It has no patience. When it’s hungry it cries for food. It has no sense that food is coming later. It only perceives the now. But as that baby adjusts the frequency range of its senses to match the physical reality of the earth plane, its senses align themselves with being able to perceive reality through the lens — the projection — of linear time. Time, therefore, is an artifact of your physical senses. Disconnect yourself from your physical senses, and time no longer has meaning. There is no way to measure time without access to your physical senses. Even if you count numbers in your mind, all you have is the current count, your present-moment memories of the “past,” and your present-moment projection of the “future.” Both past and future are present-moment projections, but they are not real in the sense of having a position in space-time.

The notion of using numbers (i.e. time units) as a measure of temporal distance is strictly rooted to your physical sense perceptions — outside of those physical senses, time is strictly an imaginary concept. Time is irrelevant in a universe of pure consciousness devoid of physicality.

Tuning in to your non-physical senses

How limited is the sensory range of your physical being? Can you train your eyes and ears to perceive a broader range of frequencies? To some degree the answer is yes, but those frequencies must be in some way compatible with physicality. There must be a way to project the non-physical frequencies you wish to perceive onto the physical plane. That isn’t always possible. You can use devices like radios to turn non-physical frequencies into physically perceivable projections. Electromagnetic frequencies can be translated into sound waves. But you cannot use a radio to listen to the frequency of love, which is also a non-physical frequency. If you try to project love into a sound, it’s like trying to squeeze a whale through the eye of a needle. What comes out the other side won’t remotely resemble a whale, although it will still consist of whale parts. The projection matrix of physicality is simply inadequate to the task of representing the full range of non-physical frequencies as physical sense perceptions. Only some non-physical frequencies can be projected onto physicality without excessive loss of information.

Fortunately you are much more than a physical being. Your physical self and your physical sense projections are merely equipment that you have access to. Don’t make the mistake of thinking they are you. That would be like listening to the radio and thinking that the device is equal to your ear. Your physical senses are merely frequency translators with a limited operating range. There is a great deal they cannot accurately detect. If the only input you consider is that which can be projected through your physical senses, you are practically senseless.

In order to detect a broader range of frequencies, you must tune out from your physical senses and tune into your non-physical senses. The best way to do this is to physically relax your body and eliminate as much physical sensory input as you can. Close your eyes, quiet the environment, go to a place where the smell is neutral and the temperature comfortable. Breathe deeply for a while until your sense of touch becomes numb. This will happen automatically if you remain still and allow the repetitive, non-changing input to saturate your physical nerves. With practice you should be able to enter this state very quickly, within minutes. Again, the sense of time passing is merely part of the physical sensory projection matrix. Once you disconnect from your physical senses completely, you will no longer perceive the passage of time (except to the degree that you continue to associate with your physical senses and translate your non-physical experience into a physical sensory equivalent).

Once you’ve turned your attention away from your physical senses, you can begin listening to your non-physical senses. Try not to sense anything at all in your physical body. Remember that you’re a conscious being and that your body is merely a tool, much like a radio. If you want to perceive frequencies the radio cannot detect, you must turn the radio off and put it down for a while. If you try to watch TV and listen to the radio at the same time, it will be very difficult to hear the TV. Similarly, if you want to perceive reality through your non-physical senses clearly, it’s easiest if you tune out from your physical senses.

How do you “listen” to your non-physical senses? First, realize that this form of listening is an activity. If you tune out from your physical senses but don’t subsequently open your non-physical senses, you may remain tuned out from all sensory input and perceive nothing at all. You may perceive this to be a pleasant state for a while, but you’ll eventually want to move past it and start listening to other frequencies that are available to you.

Let’s explore some of your non-physical senses.

Intuition

One of your most basic, primitive non-physical senses is your intuition. This is the easiest to access even while you’re still associating with your physical senses because it’s essentially the “loudest” non-physical frequency. Even so, it is far more subtle than the grosser physical frequencies. To access your intuition, simply intend to perceive your intuition channel once you’ve turned off your physical senses. Since you’re already so accustomed to physical sensory forms, it’s a virtual certainty that you’ll project your intuitive channel into mental imagery, sounds, and emotions. With practice, however, you can overcome this limitation and learn to perceive a broader range of intuitive information. You will eventually learn to distinguish your intuition channel from your imagination and your emotions, just as an infant learns to distinguish the separate input channels of sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell.

Think of your intuition as a broad-range antenna that you’re holding out into the non-physical universe. It picks up the strongest signals that broadcast loudly. Through your intuition you can perceive the strongest non-physical energy patterns. Many of these will already be in physical form and will be familiar to you. For example, you can perceive strong energies from other people in your life, strong energies in the world at large such as war and violence and love and joy, and strong energies within your own non-physical self like a sense of compassion or a feeling of power.

Your intuition can sense and interpret a broad range of frequencies. It is very flexible. You can mentally request information on any subject, and if there are strong frequencies present, your intuitive antenna will pick them up and translate them into some kind of inner sensory experience. Usually this will be projected into dream-like imagery, sounds, and feelings, but again, with practice your inner perceptions needn’t be limited to their physical equivalents.

The best way to develop your intuition is practice, practice, practice. Keep tuning in and listening to this channel. The more you do this, the more your intuition will self-calibrate for greater clarity and accuracy. Of course the less you use your intuition, the more its calibration will drift. Don’t expect your intuition to be accurate and reliable if you hardly ever pay attention to it.

Telepathy

Another non-physical sense you can tune into is telepathy. By listening and broadcasting thoughts on the right frequency (controlled by your intentions), you can communicate with non-physical beings. This includes communicating with the non-physical parts of any human beings you perceive with your physical senses.

One caution is that telepathic information is most accurate when it remains in non-physical form. Once you start mixing non-physical telepathic communication with physical sensory communication, don’t expect the two to convey the same information. That would be like expecting your radio and your television to broadcast the same information. Sometimes different devices will pick up information that sounds similar, but it’s never exactly the same.

More often than not, your non-physical telepathic perceptions will be very different from your physical sensory communication (with your eyes, ears, and mouth). Physical communication is limited to a very narrow band of frequencies and loses tremendous accuracy when you try to communicate non-physical ideas. Non-physical communication, however, has much more bandwidth.

For example, suppose you telepathically channel information from a non-physical entity, and then you put it in written form to share with other people. The information may have seemed crystal clear to you when you perceived it non-physically. But when you share that text in physical form, and other people read it through their physical senses, much of the meaning will be “lost in translation.” However, if the text serves as a “station identifier” that allows other people to telepathically connect with the same non-physical communication channel that you used, they’ll be able to pick up the information much more accurately through their non-physical senses than they will by trying to analyze the text itself.

Imagine that you see Niagara Falls, and you want to share it with a friend. If you simply show her a photograph you took, the ineffable quality of your experience will not be shared. To get close to your experience, you would have to physically take her to Niagara Falls, so she could experience the same frequencies you did. When you compress those frequencies to a photograph, you lose too many channels of sensory input.

Desire

The third and final non-physical communication frequency we’ll cover here is desire. Intuition is similar to looking around with your eyes. Telepathy is like using your mouth and ears to communicate. Desire is the non-physical equivalent to physical movement and action. Desire is a creative channel.

When you create something non-physically by desiring it, it manifests immediately in non-physical form. If you wish to imagine an apple, you need only hold the desire, and the non-physical apple is immediately created. You can non-physically perceive its presence by sensing its energy through your intuitive channel. You may even visualize it, but visualization isn’t necessary. All it takes to create a non-physical apple is to desire to create it, and it is done.

If you are in the presence of other non-physical beings, they can share in your creations instantly. If you create an apple in your imagination right now, I can perceive it with you. If I create something non-physical and you are listening with your intuition and/or telepathy to the frequency output of my desire, you will perceive what I create as well. In this manner I can share ideas or experiences with you instantly and immediately.

However, it is much more difficult for the desire channel to be perceived through your physical senses in the physical universe. Your desires manifest instantly in non-physical form, but your physical senses will rarely be able to perceive those changes immediately. For starters your physical senses are limited by the projection of time, so even though your non-physical desire manifests immediately, your physical senses will at best only pick up a slight energetic shift in the direction of your desire as your senses adjust themselves to perceive the new frequencies you’ve created. It’s as if your desires have immediately manifested behind you, but in order for you to see them in physical form, you must turn your head.

In truth whenever you physically perceive a manifestation of your desires, you’re perceiving the projection of the non-physical desire.

Focus on creating non-physical manifestations. Don’t try to manifest physical projections. This is a key distinction. What you truly want is never physical in nature. Your truest, deepest desires are always in the non-physical frequency range. For example, wanting money, sex, or a stronger physical body are false desires because they’re merely projections of the non-physical. You never actually desire a projection, so when you try to manifest physical forms directly, your intention will always be weak. It’s like trying to satisfy your appetite with a photo of a banana instead of a real banana. You may be able to do it, but the banana photo cannot satisfy you in any meaningful sense, no matter how delicious it may look. The whole attempt will probably frustrate you, and in the end you’ll only be hungrier.

Instead of money what you really want to experience is abundance, gratitude, and variety. Instead of sex you want to experience love, connection, pleasure, and communion with other conscious beings. Instead of a strong body, you want to experience radiance, confidence, and power. You can manifest all of those desires in non-physical form right now.

Whatever you think you desire in physical form, look to the real non-physical desire behind it. Then put all your energy into creating and manifesting your non-physical desires since that’s what you truly want. Eventually your physical senses will catch up, and you’ll soon see those desires projected into physical form. But it won’t be the physical form that satisfies you. The deeper meaning is always carried by the non-physical frequencies.

Never intend anything physical. Always intend the non-physical, and allow the physical projection to take care of itself.

There are other non-physical perceptual channels such as dreams, but intuition, telepathy, and desire are the easiest to access consciously.

Why does reality work this way? What’s the point?

The reason you chose to experience life as a physical being is so you can have the experience of growth. You wanted to experience reality as a progressive continuum, so you could explore the gaps between your thoughts. These gaps cannot be visited in non-physical reality, so you have to come into the physical frequency range to delve into them. You need the concept of linear time to help you explore these gaps.

In strictly non-physical frequencies, there is no growth, no sense of change occurring over time. Every thought projects itself instantly. Reality doesn’t glide smoothly from one moment to the next; it frequently jumps around. Simply hold a thought and it becomes real. There is no sense of progression from one reality to the next. Since your thoughts can jump around randomly, your reality jumps as well.

Enforcing a sense of continuity in purely non-physical frequencies is effectively impossible. Can you hold your thoughts in a continuous stream of logical progression, where there are no discontinuities, no jumps out of sequence? You probably can’t even do this for five minutes.

In truth there are multiple frequency ranges where continuity can be enforced. The physical universe is just one of them.

The reason you find yourself projected into the physical frequency range is specifically to experience time. Time allows you to witness a progressive unfolding from one physical reality to the next. Physical reality is always playing catch-up with your strongest thoughts. If you hold strong, consistent thoughts, your physical reality will soon reflect those thoughts. If, however, your thoughts jump around wildly and inconsistently, your physical reality will keep changing directions too.

Leading your reality

Imagine that physical reality is your pet dog. Suppose that the dog has a position on some kind of virtual map, where every spot on the map represents a present-moment physical reality you could be experiencing. So the dog’s position corresponds to your present-moment experience of physical reality. When the dog moves, your physical reality changes. For example, if your dog moves from a position labeled scarcity to a position labeled abundance, in your physical reality you’ll see yourself becoming wealthier as the dog moves.

Whenever you hold a strong thought, you call your dog to you: “Here, boy!” Your dog then starts running toward you. But if you jump to a different thought before your dog reaches you, it’s like teleporting to a new location and calling, “Here, boy!” again. Now your dog switches directions and starts running toward you once again. If you keep jumping around wildly, calling your dog from different spots, your dog’s trajectory will appear chaotic and random. However, if you stand in one spot and keep calling your dog from the same location, he’ll run straight to you.

In the non-physical frequency ranges, when you call your dog, he appears at your side instantly. Your desires manifest instantly. This may seem like a nice experience to have, and it surely is, but the downside is that you can never explore the gaps between your desires. If you want to experience a particular reality, you must intend it precisely. You cannot explore the potential realities that lie within the gaps between your thoughts. So your own imagination actually limits what experiences you can have. If you can’t imagine it, you can’t experience it.

The wonderful benefit of physical reality is that you can get your dog to run through areas you’ve never visited, places you couldn’t even imagine. This means you can experience realities you cannot even imagine. This is an enormously powerful, consciousness-raising, imagination-expanding experience for any non-physical being to have. Consequently, the physical universe is an immensely popular frequency range to visit.

What you may have forgotten is that your dog is always responding to your calls. If you forget this, you may start chasing your dog instead of calling your dog to you. You may even blame your dog for leading you to an undesirable location (such as poverty, loneliness, an unfulfilling job, poor health, etc). But you can’t blame your dog for this. Even so, this is actually a perfectly valid way to live. Some beings who come here will decide, “I’m fine letting the dog run wild for a while.” You can still learn a lot this way because the dog will visit places you’ve never been to.

Your physical senses may tell you, “This is an unpleasant reality to experience.” But at the same time, your non-physical self is sensing, “This is a reality I’ve never experienced before. I am learning so much from it. I couldn’t even imagine something like this if I tried.”

If you want to change your experience of physical reality, you must lead your dog. It will faithfully follow you. But you must consistently intend a new position and allow your dog to come to you. Hold your intentions clearly, and allow your physical reality to gradually catch up. If you keep revisiting your dog’s location to check on it (i.e. by reacting to reality instead of consciously creating it), you are meeting your dog and tell him, “Stop!” Whenever you do this, your reality will stagnate. This is fine if you want to soak up a certain experience for a while, but if you wish to continue growing, you must take charge and lead your dog where you want to go.

* * *

There is no “wrong” way to experience physical reality. You will learn a lot whether you actively take charge of the experience or passively allow it to unfold. But if you find your current physical reality unpleasant or if you’ve been stuck in a certain location longer than you’d like, realize that this is happening because you’re holding your physical body and physical senses there with your own thoughts. You are calling your dog to this spot again and again. Your dog is very obedient, so he will not leave you. If you want to experience something new, then you must first create it in your imagination and hold those thoughts long enough for your dog to catch up.

As you do this, allow yourself to fully experience the unfolding pathway from one physical reality to the next. After all, this is why you’re here.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

Several people have asked if I’m still able to connect with my recently departed friend Ron who died in a car accident on August 14th. The answer is yes. He’s been hanging around often. The connection is so strong that I don’t have to meditate or anything. I just think of him and can instantly converse with him. I’ve never experienced such a strong connection before.

I’ve also been in contact with two other friends who’ve been sensing Ron’s presence around them. I’m not going to share their stories publicly, so I’ll just say that this whole thing has been rather fascinating.

While I’ve often connected with non-physical entities over the past several years (I was deep into it in 2002 and 2003), this is the first time I’ve had such a strong connection with someone I already knew as a human being, let alone someone I can trust and who has a communication style I’m already familiar with. That’s a rare opportunity, so I wanted to use it to learn more about the other side. Ron was a very logical, left-brained guy, so I figured if anyone could tell me what was going on over there and try some interesting experiments, he’d be the one to do it.

In his living life, I’d have never pegged Ron as the type of guy who’d be able to communicate so clearly and crisply from the other side. After all he was a Republican… hehehe. He was a very generous, giving guy, so maybe his giving nature somehow bestowed him more power on the other side. His energy comes through very strong and upbeat now, so he’s well past the initial shock of being dead.

Blackjack revisited

Due to what was basically an “accident,” I did a re-test of the blackjack experience with Ron last Thursday morning. Same casino as before. If you can’t handle weird, don’t read this.

As I wrote in a previous article, in our first field test, we won $580 in 90 minutes. All of that money was donated to the Ralph C. Smedley Memorial Fund to help support Toastmasters International, a non-profit organization.

On Thursday morning I was driving to the gym as usual, but I got distracted and made a wrong turn by mistake. There’s a lot of road construction near our house right now (building a new freeway overpass), so I have to take a detour for certain trips (like picking up the kids from summer school) but not for others (like going to the gym). I went the detour route by mistake, which was okay because it still sent me in the general direction of the gym, but it also meant I’d be driving right past the casino.

While driving I began to notice how sore I was feeling. I’m sore because I changed up my exercise routine recently. So I decided it would be better to take a walk and allow a little more recovery time instead of doing another gym workout. The casino is an okay place to walk indoors– even early in the morning it’s pretty hot outside in Vegas — so I parked and went inside. This early in the morning (just after dawn), the place is pretty much deserted.

As soon as I walk in the door of the billion-dollar structure, Ron shows up and suggests we try the blackjack thing again. I didn’t really want to play, so I just put him off with a noncommittal maybe. I said I wanted to walk a bit first, and then after that we’ll see.

I walked about two minutes, and Ron comes back again and insists, “Let’s play now. There’s a good table available.” My curiosity gets the better of me, so I acquiesce and head towards the tables.

I notice two blackjack tables open. There are lots of tables but most are closed this early in the day. The first table is under a cloud of smoke from the smokers that are playing, so I cash in for $200 at the second table and push out my $10 bet.

The table is only half full, and I sense that the energy of the other players seems a bit down. A little chit chat reveals they’ve been losing.

Then one of the other players lights up a cigarette. Since I normally avoid playing with smokers, I’m about to get up and leave, but Ron insists, “Stay put.” Ron was a non-smoker too by the way. Fortunately the smoke drifts away in the opposite direction and doesn’t bother me.

My fate is no different than the other players. The hands I’m dealt are total garbage… virtually nothing but 13s, 14s, 15s, and 16s. I bust most of them, and even when I don’t bust, the dealer is hitting 20s and 21s.

After losing 5 hands in a row, I’m about to give it up and leave, but Ron keeps repeating, “Don’t worry.” He says it will turn around. Then he adds half-jokingly, “Well, maybe not this shoe!”

My $200 dwindles to $80 within the first 15 minutes at the table.

I notice that every time I started to worry that things are going downhill, Ron pops in and says, “Don’t worry.” I felt he was hinting that my own energy was making it harder for him to help… that my attachment was practically generating a field of bad luck. I worked on raising my energy and becoming more detached. That wasn’t too difficult because at this level of betting, the money doesn’t mean anything to me, but I still prefer winning to losing. I began to feel better about losing, but the cards were still bad.

We finally reach the end of the shoe, so it’s time for a shuffle. The girl next to me cuts the deck. She gets dealt an instant blackjack while I get a 20 and win too. Then I get a blackjack on the following hand and win again. After that my hands are coming up all roses, and I’m scoring some nice splits and double downs. I start to win for a while, clawing my way back to the $200 I started with.

Now this is where it gets weird.

I’m sitting at the table with a plastic water bottle that I was going to take to the gym. At some point I realize that the water bottle is labeled with the name of the mortuary where I attended Ron’s service — that’s where I happened to pick up this bottle a few days earlier. I start becoming very self-conscious. I really don’t want to get into a conversation about why I have a mortuary-branded water bottle in a casino. I surreptitiously slide the bottle off the table and into my pocket. (I’m wearing athletic shorts with deep pockets.)

At this point everything seems to stagnate. Now I’m just trading hands. Every time I start to pull ahead a little, I lose a double down or split and drop below $200 again. I’m mostly bobbling around between $170 and $230… getting nowhere.

Then Ron says to me, “Put the water bottle back on the table. It makes it easier for me to see.”

Huh? What kind of insanity is that?

But I give him the benefit of the doubt and return the bottle to the table. I figure that since everything is energy, maybe he has some kind of energetic connection to the bottle because it was pretty much bathed in his energy at the memorial service where I got it.

And wouldn’t you know it? As soon as I return the bottle to the table, I start winning again — fast. The other players at the table all start winning too because the dealer is busting most of her hands. I can feel the energy of the whole table rising.

The woman next to me is landing so many splits, double downs, and blackjacks that she turns $100 into $500+. We both ham it up and start high-fiving each other with every big win. She starts calling the cards that come up with amazing accuracy. It was pretty insane. I probably could have kept going, but I needed to get home, so I cashed out at the end of the shoe with $415, for a net win of $215. I only played about 40 minutes total.

That brings the total win to $795 from about 130 minutes of play with Ron’s assistance.

As I returned to my car, Ron expressed how much he enjoyed this. He acted as if I’d done him some kind of favor, like I was pitching balls to him for batting practice.

Feeling drained

By the end of last week, I began feeling really strange. Physically I felt okay, but I felt like I lost all interest in life. I became totally lazy and unmotivated. I could barely motivate myself to eat — everything seemed way too effortful. I just wanted to sit on the couch and read. That was about all I did on Saturday.

I thought maybe I needed some extra rest, so I tried to take a nap. I lay down for an hour but couldn’t sleep at all. I wasn’t sleepy. I felt like I’d lost all interest in life. I can’t say I felt depressed. I just felt totally empty.

Partly I wanted to go out on Saturday night, figuring that being around other people would help restore my energy and enthusiasm. But I let those plans slide. I thought, “Eh… why bother?” I was totally apathetic. The only thing I felt like doing was absolutely nothing.

Erin noticed that something seemed off with me, so we sat down and talked about it. She suggested that maybe Ron was feeding off my energy to stay grounded to the physical plane. Eventually it drained me dry. That made sense to me because I felt like my spirit had been sucked dry, even though my body felt okay.

I realized this draining didn’t happen suddenly. It came on gradually ever since I started connecting with Ron after he died. As the week progressed, I began feeling more and more disconnected and apathetic about my life.

We did some energy work to help me disconnect from Ron and to encourage him to find another energy source. The details would be too much to insert into this article, but perhaps Erin or I can explore that at another time.

I gradually started feeling better within 24 hours, but I also lost the ability to connect with Ron as clearly as I could before. He seemed more distant, and the messages were coming through very fuzzy. I couldn’t lock in on his signal. It got harder to tell if I was getting a real communication from him or if I was stuck in my imagination or just picking up background interference. Before this energy work, he was always coming through strong and clear. If the signal strength was a 10 before, now it was down to about a 4.

Yet another blackjack trial

Last night I decided to pop down to the Strip to give the blackjack test another run. I brought the mortuary water bottle with me just in case it helped. My connection with Ron wasn’t feeling that strong, but I asked if he wanted to have another go at gaming together, and it seemed like he said okay. However, I wasn’t feeling it the same way I was before. I couldn’t hear him as well, and I was getting fuzzy and conflicting messages running through my mind. There was a lot of interference. I played blackjack at the Sahara and lost $135 in 20 minutes. I was able to remain upbeat and detached, but I could feel the connection just wasn’t there like it was before.

While walking down the Strip afterwards, I pondered that maybe Ron needed to connect with my energy to make this work. So I took a risk and told him that he could feed off my energy just for tonight in order to make his work, but after that we’d have to disconnect and let me recharge. I can’t say this was a wise idea, but I was too curious not to try it.

At that point he actually started coming through more clearly, but the signal still seemed weaker than before. It was maybe a 6 on a 1-10 scale. But at least I was feeling better about life and my motivation and enthusiasm had returned.

I popped into the Riviera, found a good blackjack table, and started playing. Ron complained that the continuous automatic shuffling machines were harder for him to work with. He said it was easier for him if the dealer hand-shuffled the decks. He said he would still try, but he couldn’t guarantee anything. I played 20 minutes and won $50. Better… but still down $85 for the night.

My final stop was Treasure Island. More automatic shuffling machines. The conditions were nice though — a friendly dealer and happy-go-lucky 20-something players who were in town for a conference. I coached them on how to play their hands while they downed as many free drinks as they could manage. They still made numerous errors and didn’t win, but at least I helped them make their money last longer, and we all had a little too much fun high-fiving on the big wins. My best hand was when I split 8s four times and won the quad bet when the dealer busted. I played for an hour and 40 minutes and won $125.

I always find it fascinating that people who are new to blackjack almost always play too conservatively. They give an edge to the house largely because they fail to take advantage of all the opportunities for doubling down and splitting. They feel good about winning a single bet, not realizing they could have won double, triple, or more if they played more aggressively. I previously wrote about this in the article Life Lessons from Blackjack. It’s such a great metaphor for how people live their lives. People cling to their small gains, not realizing the bigger opportunities they missed because they settled for less than they could have gotten. When the odds are 60% that you’ll win the hand, you want to push more chips out when you can. Missing such opportunities should be seen as a loss, not a lesser win.

My evening trial ended with a small net win of $40, bringing our total winning streak to $835. I thanked Ron for his help and disconnected from his energy. I didn’t feel energetically drained, but I was tired from being up later than usual. Even after midnight it was still hot outside as I walked back to my car.

Today I feel really good and super happy. My energy and enthusiasm are back up again. I’m going to have to be careful when doing so much connecting with the other side though. I was lucky that Erin was able to help me diagnose this problem.

No card counting

There’s one important fact I forgot to mention earlier. In all of these blackjack experiments with Ron, I was NOT counting cards, even though I know how. I was varying my bets a little, but those variations had nothing to do with the count because I wasn’t tracking the count. I played every hand according to the same basic strategy you’ll find in any off-the-shelf blackjack book.

Why didn’t I count cards? The honest answer is that it wasn’t worth the effort for the low limits I was betting and the very low frequency with which I play. I used to do a lot of card counting when I was in my early 20s, but I didn’t want to make a career out of blackjack. If I play today, it’s more for socialization and fun than because I’m trying to win money. I’d rather relax and chat openly with the dealer and the other players instead of doing mental gymnastics in my head. Card counting can be very mentally draining. After a few hours of it, my brain is mush.

So skill-wise I wasn’t bringing any special edge with me. The edge should have belonged to the house. But that didn’t seem to bother Ron.

Is this spiritually legal?

These experiences were rather surprising to me. First, I don’t know why the heck Ron seems to like blackjack, since I don’t recall him ever expressing interest in casino gambling. I asked him about that last week (while we were still strongly connected), and he basically said he’s trying to practice affecting the physical universe from the other side. Fair enough. I can imagine that if I were a spirit trying to influence the physical world, I might also start with games of chance, since it allows for a lot of repetitive practice, and the outcome is measurable. You can also publicly affect reality without overriding anyone’s free will, since skeptics still retain the freedom to dismiss such events as luck or chance; they can also assume you’re lying if they weren’t an eye witness.

As it turns out, maintaining consistency with the skeptics’ version of reality is pretty important. According to Ron, it is NOT spiritually permitted to override a skeptic’s freedom to choose their beliefs; in practice this means that skeptics always have to have an out. Either they can’t be there to see what would shock them, or they have to be able to dismiss such reports as false, exaggerated, pure luck, etc. A skeptic cannot be shown proof of what they doubt.

During our first blackjack test, Ron and I were playing for charity, but for these last two trials, it was understood that I was just playing for myself. Partly I wanted to know if this would still work if I was playing for individual gain. I was very curious about that. The limits I was betting weren’t going to make a serious dent in my finances or the casinos’, but still — if Ron is doing something from the other side to help me win, doesn’t that break some kind of spiritual rule?

So I asked him, “Ron, shouldn’t this be spiritually illegal or something? Doesn’t it violate some kind of ethereal law to do this sort of thing? Playing for charity is one thing, but should you really be helping me win extra cash for myself? Is this going to come back to bite us later?”

His answer actually made me laugh. He said, “Don’t worry. I can see that you have karma points to spare.” Then he showed me what looked like an energy meter that revealed a full positive karma supply. He suggested that I’d earned a lot of positive karma because of the work I’ve done with my blog. He seemed to be half-joking as he said this, as if he found my original question amusing.

To my recollection that was the first time he communicated visually with me since he crossed over. Apparently he’s gaining new skills.

In some follow-up exchange (also last week while we had a strong connection going), Ron shared the opinion that what we did was mostly okay because my intention was to help him and to satisfy my curiosity, not because I really wanted/needed the money. Ron suggested that if my intention had been the latter, this wouldn’t have worked… or if we found a way to make it work, it would have incurred some kind of karmic debt for both of us. Hmmm…

As I looked back, I realized he was right about my intentions. I really wasn’t focused on winning money. Even when I was losing, I was more concerned that Ron might be failing in his efforts. Ron implied that my lack of attachment to the money was very important.

Imagine if you ran a similar test by playing one-penny blackjack, limiting your buy-in to 20 cents total. Hopefully this amount of money won’t make or break you, so you can detach from worrying about the financial impact and just play for fun and curiosity. That’s how I felt about the amount I was risking. Win or lose, it’s not going to impact me either way.

Ron’s answer makes sense to me. If we could all get rich by enlisting non-physical entities to help us win at gambling, there wouldn’t be any gambling because the casinos would go broke. It seems like that would also defeat the purpose of living in a reality where money is used as a medium of exchange. So however this works from a spiritual perspective, it has to be consistent with what we’re already experiencing. Even so, it sounds like those rules have some flexibility, although there may be unforeseen negative consequences to pushing the boundaries. It felt okay to do this as a short-run experiment, but it wouldn’t feel right to me to do this with a long-term profit motivation.

The role of polarity

I asked Ron what role polarity plays in this (still last week while we were strongly connected). He said that since we’re both on the same side intention-wise, we can work together on cross-bridging experiments like we just did, but it’s still not easy because we now exist primarily in different frequency ranges, so we must both stretch in order to communicate. This can drain us both if we don’t disconnect and recharge now and then.

Ron said that he doesn’t really know what the darkworker side can do because he hasn’t looked into it. He did tell me, however, that he can’t do anything that would interfere with human free will, mainly because the nature of reality prevents it. He was able to connect with me because I invited him to and because I’m already open to such experiences. If I didn’t believe we could connect, he wouldn’t have been able to come through at all because that would have violated my freedom to choose my beliefs. We talked extensively about free will, so I may have to write a follow-up article on that topic. It’s quite fascinating.

Please take note that I’m just sharing my experiences as they come. I’m not trying to convince you of anything here. You’ll surely filter my reports through your own belief lenses, and that’s fine. I totally understand if these kinds of stories are too much for some people to handle. I’d never have believed this myself 20 years ago, so if you don’t believe me or if you think I’m making this up, I can’t fault you for that. I respect your ability to choose your beliefs, regardless of how that impacts our ongoing relationship.

Please also be aware that I’m committed to sharing my growth experiences as they occur, so if you ask me to stop writing on such topics simply because these ideas conflict with your current understanding of reality, I have to decline because otherwise I’d be holding back way too much. As I see it, if you and I agree on absolutely everything, we can’t help each other grow. It’s only by exploring our differences that we can learn from each other.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

On Sunday Erin and I attended Ron’s memorial service followed by a reception attended by his family, friends, and many other Las Vegas Toastmasters. I probably knew about half the people there.

Since Ron had such a deep and lasting impact on me, much more than he probably realized, I wanted to share some of what I learned from him, partly as a way of expressing my gratitude for the man that he was, and partly because I think it may inspire you to rethink a few things about your own life.

Mentor, coach, and friend

Ron was an incredible mentor and coach to many people. He was a DTM in Toastmasters International (the highest rank one can achieve) and was Toastmasters’ District 33 Mentor of the Year. He has attended and judged more speech contests than anyone I know. Just last weekend he shared his advice at a free workshop to help local speakers improve their performance in speech contests. Because he was so generous in giving of himself, he touched a lot of people’s lives, including mine.

I first met Ron in October 2004, just a few weeks after I started blogging. Ron came up to me after my first Division-level humorous speech contest (where I finished in 2nd place) and told me that he thought I showed great potential as a speaker and that I should consider joining an advanced Toastmasters club, a club that would challenge me more than my current club. I’d only been in Toastmasters for 4 months at that point, so I didn’t feel ready to join an advanced club.

I didn’t even meet all the prerequisites to join the club he recommended — I had to complete 10 Toastmasters speeches first, and I was only up to 6 so far. But Ron was pretty convincing, so I took his advice and attended a few meetings as a guest. I admit it was a bit intimidating at first because the other speakers were so much better than me — so smooth and flowing even when speaking off the cuff. I clearly remember what Ron said to me though: “It’s always good to join groups where you just barely qualify for membership. You’ll improve a lot faster that way because the other people will help lift you up to a new level.”

I realized he was right, so I joined that club as soon as I was qualified to do so, which happened in April 2005. What an amazing journey that has been! I learned much more from this advanced club than I would have learned if I stuck with the easier, safer path. I’m still a member of that club today, which has since become one of the most successful clubs in Vegas with about 35 members. In fact, Erin is being inducted as our newest member tonight.

In March 2005 I actually wrote a blog entry mentioning Ron’s advice. At the time I used to tease him that because of that blog post, I ranked #1 on his name on Google, so according to Google, I owned him. He seemed to find that amusing.

Having worked many years as a stock analyst on Wall Street, Ron was a great strategic thinker. He was able to look at a speech and make many suggestions for improvement, even though he wasn’t a top contest competitor himself. I can’t even count all the people who owe him a debt of gratitude for his help over the years.

In 2005, about a year after we first met, Ron and I and some local friends attended a seminar on the Vegas Strip. Erin was out of town with the kids (and our only car), so Ron offered to give me a ride. When I got in the car, he said he wanted to pick my brain about blogging, which was a nice exchange because I wanted to pick his brain about speaking and speech contests. There was a lot of traffic that day, so we were a little late arriving, but I didn’t mind because he was such a great person to talk to. He was immensely curious and was always thinking about how certain things could be improved — especially people.

Ron was always reading books, listening to CDs, and watching DVDs about communication and presentation skills. Whenever I went to a local speaking or presentation skills workshop, he was there. But instead of applying what he learned for his own use, Ron quickly turned around and passed on the best ideas he encountered to help coach others to improve. He had a great memory and often shared ideas and anecdotes from the vast amounts of information he absorbed. Most of the information products I have on speaking and communication skills were originally recommended by Ron. A glance at my bookshelf triggers memories of many conversations with him.

Ron encouraged me to continue competing in speech contests, saying that it was the fastest way to improve, equivalent to years of regular Toastmasters’ club attendance. Since then I’ve competed in three different contest seasons and learned a great deal from them. Following his advice required more courage, but it was a lot more effective. He helped me shave years off my learning curve. Ron did this for a lot of people.

There are many people who will help coach you up to their level, but what was so special about Ron is that he coached people beyond his level. How many of us can say that we’d willingly coach someone to surpass us? It was noted at yesterday’s service that Ron was a rare man with “the biggest intellect paired with the smallest ego.” I completely agree.

Ron was very encouraging of others, but he truthfully told people what they needed to hear. He didn’t let you squeak by when it was obvious you were performing below your potential. At the same time, he knew when it was best to be gentle with new speakers.

I think Ron approached coaching and mentoring with the mindset of an investor. Just as he once analyzed companies on Wall Street, he learned to recognize mediocre speakers who could eventually become great speakers if he invested some of his time and energy to help them. Ron was good at recognizing speakers who had heart (something he really couldn’t teach), and then he helped teach them the head-oriented stuff they needed to succeed. I imagine it’s a similar skill to recognizing a startup company with lots of raw passion and talent, a company that could do really well with the right mentoring and management.

As Ron witnessed my unfolding success as a blogger, he developed an interest in blogging as well. He attended my local blogging workshops and asked me a lot of follow-up questions. I think he was attracted to the idea of sharing his strategic business knowledge with more people. It took him a while, but he finally got his WordPress blog online at RonLewison.com and posted some of his articles shortly before he died. He had some trouble with the fonts because he pasted his articles from MS-Word — a common issue for new bloggers — but at least he got it up and running.

I’m not sure if Ron fully realized what a tremendous positive rippling effect he had on others. He was a very mental/analytical guy to be sure, but his actions affected people a lot more deeply than that. When Ron offered detailed advice and coaching, he came at it from the analysis side, probably because that was his background. However, I know that the people he coached, myself included, actually perceived Ron’s help as if he was saying, “I believe in you.” I have no doubt that he really cared about people.

Connecting after death

Now if you happen to maintain a belief system in which you’ve concluded that communication with the other side is impossible, you may want to skip this next section. On the other hand, if you’re of a more open-minded nature, I hope you’ll keep reading. I won’t be offended if you choose to skip it though since I know that death can be a sensitive subject for many people.

Partly because of my sensitivity to such things as well as the path Erin and I have shared for many years, after I learned of Ron’s death, I wondered if I would sense his presence or be able to connect with him in some way. Well, that happened in a most powerful way. I wasn’t too surprised that it happened since I always felt good about Ron while he was alive. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.

On Friday (the day after Ron died), I took a 20-minute nap. I usually don’t take daytime naps, but I was out late meeting with someone the previous night, so I started getting drowsy and decided to take a short nap to refresh myself.

During this nap I had a vivid dream (I still dream even during short naps ever since my polyphasic sleep experimentation), and suddenly in the middle of the dream, Ron appeared to me. I wasn’t lucid at the time, so I didn’t know I was dreaming. In the dream I ran up to him, gave him a big hug, and exclaimed, “Ron! What are you doing here? I thought you were dead! What happened?”

Ron, however, just stood there and didn’t say a word. He didn’t even reciprocate the hug, which made me feel a bit stupid for initiating it. At that point I started becoming lucid and realized I was actually dreaming. I understood this wasn’t Ron in physical form, but it definitely felt like his energy. However, I still couldn’t get him to say anything. He didn’t even make eye contact with me. He just stared straight ahead looking stunned.

I woke up from the dream shortly thereafter, feeling very emotional about the experience. I told Erin what happened, and she encouraged me to see if I could tune back in and receive a message from him. I agreed it was worth a try, but I wanted to stay conscious, so instead of going back to sleep, I attempted to reconnect via meditation. I should mention that while Erin also knew Ron, she didn’t know him nearly as well as I did, partly because I was in a Toastmasters club and a National Speakers Association chapter with Ron, but Erin wasn’t.

As I began to meditate, I still felt a strong connection to Ron’s energy, and I could clearly see him in my mind’s eye, but he was just standing there and not saying a word. Nor did he seem to be attempting any sort of symbolic communication. I figured that since he’d just crossed over, maybe I was simply unable to get a clear enough connection. I spent the next 10 minutes attempting to go into a deeper state of meditation, but there seemed to be no improvement. If he had a message for me, I couldn’t tell what it was because nothing aside from his image was coming through.

I didn’t want to give up though. I thought that maybe Ron wasn’t here to give me a message at all. Maybe he wanted something else. Instead of trying to pull down a message from him, I decided just to try reading his energy instead. I picked up very clearly that he was shocked. I thought maybe he was too stunned to communicate with me, so instead of waiting for him to say something, I just starting talking to him. I wondered if maybe he didn’t know he was actually dead, so I figured that was a good place to start. I confirmed for him what had happened and that he had just crossed over. Based on my limited knowledge of what people experience when they cross over, I gave him some advice. I sent him lots of love energy to try to help raise his vibration. While many entities on the other side have a higher vibration than human beings (such as spirit guides and angels) and have to lower their vibration to communicate with us, I could see that Ron was having the opposite problem. Somehow there was a perfect irony in me coaching him for a change.

This energy work helped. I could see that he was rising up from total shock to the point where he was finally able to start processing what had happened. A few minutes later I was able to communicate with him perfectly. For me this came through clairaudiently, so I was actually hearing his voice in my mind. In fact, it was an unusually clear connection. I was surprised at just how perfectly the voice matched his physical voice. It felt like he was right there in the room with me.

We talked for a good 20 minutes, and basically what he told me was this:

He said he had absolutely “no idea” this was coming. Those were his exact words — “no idea” — which he repeated over and over. He was very sad about that. He said he thought he had a lot more time. This whole thing came as a tremendous shock to him, not because he was alive on the other side, but because his human life had ended so abruptly and unexpectedly. All the goals and plans he had in the works were instantly discontinued by his passing, and I got the sense he felt he’d left a lot undone. I could see that it was very hard for him to accept his death and that he was absolutely stunned by it. There were a lot of things in his physical life he really liked, and it was very hard for him to accept that they were gone.

I felt very compassionately towards him, so I did my best to comfort and console him. He communicated that he should have accomplished more as an individual, that he should have been more aggressive about getting things done. You see, Ron was the kind of person who would often talk to me (and others I presume) about his long-term goals and plans, such as getting his own blog off the ground. However, when it came to taking action, he seemed to have a hard time working on his own goals because he poured so much time into helping others achieve their goals. I know this is what his heart led him to do, but I think he had a hard time getting his head around it.

I reminded Ron of all the good he did and all the people he helped. I tried to help him see that in the long run, individual accomplishment doesn’t mean much, especially once we cross over, and that his best accomplishment here was all the positive ripples he created. I encouraged him to give himself credit for all the people he coached, mentored, and inspired. I think this helped to shift his mindset a little, but I could see it was going to take him a while to process all of this. Dying isn’t something that happens to us every day.

I thanked Ron for all the encouragement he gave me over the years. I ran through a few memories with him, showing him some of the good times we shared. I could tell this helped to raise his energy, not to a super-high level but at least beyond the level of shock and disbelief and on the way towards acceptance.

I told him I was surprised and honored that of all the people he could visit, he chose to come see me. I always felt a fatherly connection to him, but I wasn’t sure if he felt the same. I thought he’d be spending this time around his family. His answer was that he connected with me mainly because he could. Maybe I had the right antennae for receiving him because I’ve practiced developing my skills in this area for many years. He indicated that my (100% raw foods) diet made it easier for him to connect with me. This didn’t surprise me because I’ve felt a significant boost in my psychic/intuitive abilities after dropping all cooked foods from my diet. I think another reason is that I intended to connect with him and believed that I could — that tends to work as sort of a beacon. After we learned of his death, Erin also put out the intent for Ron to come to us if he needed help. It still surprised me that he showed up only a day after he died though. I was thinking it would take at least a few weeks before he was ready for that.

The sense of connection with him was so strong I felt like I could have talked to him for hours — if I could have maintained the right state that long. But once I saw that his energy had risen to a reasonable level, I told him he should take some time to process what had happened to him. I didn’t want to overload him. I also suggested that he should attend his funeral because I thought he’d really enjoy it. I knew the place would be filled with others who loved him. That certainly turned out to be true. There was more humor than sorrow as people shared their happy memories of Ron. I cracked up when a friend compared Ron to Yoda… such an apt analogy.

Two days later, I learned that at least two other friends felt they had visitations from Ron. They processed their experiences differently than I did, but I found it fascinating to learn that Ron was already getting around. Perhaps his Toastmasters skills proved helpful to him over there. After all, working on your human communication skills shares a lot of overlap with learning how to share your energy openly and authentically. I also think Ron felt that Toastmasters was an extension of his family, so he already had a very strong connection to members of this group.

I’ve connected with Ron several more times since his passing. He seems to be hanging around a lot, and I continue to help him adapt to life on the other side, giving him suggestions for things to try over there. With each passing day, I can see that he’s doing better and better. He’s learning to accept his death, and I sense that he’s already looking into mentoring and coaching people from the other side. I know he’ll be a real asset over there. I told him that if he needed any help that he could always come to me, and I’d do what I can. I also invited him to keep mentoring me on my own path as a speaker. I told him he should feel free to decline, but he seemed to really like that idea. Even though he never got the opportunity to get going as a blogger, I think he likes having indirect access to a bigger audience than he was ever likely to build for his own blog. Ron was the kind of man who celebrated the successes of those he coached as if they were his own personal victories.

The past few days have been a pretty emotional time for me, but I don’t feel my relationship with Ron has ended. It’s only been transformed. I keep thinking about the ideas I wrote about in The Joy of Sadness — how sadness and joy are really two sides of the same whole. While I’ve cried a lot during the past few days, it’s been coming from a place of deep gratitude, joy, and a sense of the beautiful perfection of life. I feel very much in a place of love, not a place of loss. I know that Ron’s energy will always be a part of me. Yoda has simply merged back into the force.

Paying it forward

Since he was such a treasure-trove of advice, I learned many lessons from Ron over the years. Perhaps one of the best lessons came from observing what he did. Ron used his knowledge and experience to help other people grow. The new ideas he absorbed were constantly flowing back out again through his continuous sharing.

When I first joined Toastmasters in 2004, I was looking to improve my speaking skills. I knew I eventually wanted to get into pro speaking. From Ron’s example I learned the importance of contributing to others, not just soaking up info for my own use. Even when he wasn’t personally presenting a workshop or training program, he was encouraging other people to do so, and he was actively promoting them too.

In the following years, I delivered a free Toastmasters workshop to help local speakers learn about blogging. I also did two similar workshops for the National Speakers Association, including an all-day workshop on the Vegas Strip. In May of this year, I presented another free Toastmasters workshop on creating compelling content. Creating and presenting these workshops required many hours of extra work. These experiences helped me step into the place of being able to give from my heart without needing anything in return.

A mutual friend told me that Ron’s family would be accepting donations for the Ralph C. Smedley Memorial Fund, to be given in Ron’s name. Ralph Smedley was the founder of Toastmasters. Erin and I agreed it would be nice to make a donation to this fund on Ron’s behalf.

On Saturday evening I was feeling very ungrounded, partly because I was spending so much time in a higher than usual state of being, so I thought it would be wise to go out and do something to ground me back on the side of the physical world. I hadn’t played poker in months, so I thought that would be fun to do, not so much for the game but just to go out and be around people who were at a more “normal” energy level. Erin was happy to spend a quiet evening alone, but she suggested that I donate any winnings to the memorial fund. I thought that was a good idea. I’m a decent player and usually win, but at the low limits I play, I could expect to return with maybe $50 on average.

I popped over to the Red Rock Casino, which is only a few minutes from my house. I’ve never played poker there before, but I didn’t feel like making the 20-minute drive to the Strip, so I figured I’d check it out. On Saturday nights the city’s poker tables can be pretty crowded though, especially during the summer, so I wasn’t sure how long it would take to get a seat. Upon arriving at the poker room, it was packed full, and based on the length of the waiting list, I estimated it could take as much two hours to get a seat. Oh well. I didn’t want to wait that long.

I figured I might as well stretch my legs, so I walked around for a while. The Red Rock is considered by many to be the best local’s casino in town. In addition to the hotel and casino, it has a huge movie theater complex, a conference center, a bowling alley, a spa, a food court, a night club, and lots of restaurants. Portions of the recent movie 21 were filmed there. As I walked around, I sensed Ron’s presence again. I was surprised that he’d come to me in a casino of all places. He didn’t seem to have any message for me. He was just letting me know that he was around.

An idea struck me, so I asked him if he wanted to have a little fun. I never knew Ron to take any interest in casino gambling — I know a few locals who work in the casinos but none who like to gamble — but I figured that due to his Wall Street background, he might be up for something interesting. I told him that poker was out, so I asked him if he was up for some blackjack. He agreed. I told him we’d be playing for a donation to Toastmasters. If I lost the money, we’d still donate maybe $100 (almost two years of annual dues), but if we won more than $100, we’d donate all the winnings. I wasn’t sure if he’d be able to influence anything from the other side, especially since he was a newbie there, but I told him I’d appreciate any help he could provide. Otherwise I could certainly handle myself well enough. I learned to beat blackjack when I was 21, and the skill is so burned into my neurons that I can go a year or more without playing a single hand and still automatically know what to do in every situation without having to think. The play is totally subconscious, much like driving a car or riding a bike.

I picked out a good $10 table, opting to vary my bets from $10 to $50, and bought $200 in chips. If I doubled my money, that would be a really good win. At these limits nobody at the casino is going to care whether I win or lose. On a Saturday night, a $10 table is typically the lowest you’ll find. I can afford to play higher limits, but that doesn’t interest me. For me this was just a game, not a career.

I played for an hour and left the table with $505 in chips, a win of $305. I thought that would be a nice donation. I walked around a bit to stretch my legs. Then I asked Ron if he wanted to keep playing or if we should quit. He said we should go one more round. He seemed like he was actually enjoying this experiment. I picked out another $10 table and sat down. At first I wasn’t getting anywhere, but then when I had my $50 bet out there, I split a pair of sixes and won both hands for a gain of $100. The next hand I got an 11, doubled down, and won another $100. And the hand after that I got a blackjack for a $75 win. After that I got a 20 and pushed. That’s when I heard the signal from Ron, “Time to go.” I left with $780 in chips for a net win of $580 (that’s net of both sessions). For only 90 minutes of play at fairly low limits, this kind of win is just amazing, especially at full tables (which means fewer hands per hour). I probably played about 50 hands total. That means we averaged more than $10 per hand, but my average bet per hand was probably $20-25. That’s a pretty serious win rate.

I could sense Ron’s presence the whole time I played. I don’t know if he was actually able to do anything from his end, but I definitely got far more than my fair share of splits, double downs, and blackjacks. The other players, the dealers, and the pit boss couldn’t help but notice how quickly the chips were flowing to me. Believe me — this win wasn’t due to skill. On average I’d be lucky to win an extra $20 under these conditions, since the edge on blackjack (assuming you really know how to play) is very slight, especially when playing in a multi-deck game. Doubling my money would have been outstanding.

When I got home, I told Erin what happened, and she was amazed. You see, the last time we invited a “spirit” to play with us for a certain cause, we won $445 in 45 minutes, which totally stunned us then. To have it happen again makes it harder to dismiss as a fluke.

Given the rarity of a win like this, I have to credit it to Ron. I don’t know what he did, but it worked. There’s such a sweet perfection in the notion that he could still be contributing to Toastmasters from the other side. Since I felt the $580 was his contribution, I bumped our donation to $1000 to include something from me and Erin as well. Although we already pay dues, conference registration fees, and various other sums to support Toastmasters International, I like that we can give back a little extra to support such a wonderful organization.

Initially I hesitated to share this part of the story, partly because it’s so strange and partly because I don’t want to deal with the headache of people misinterpreting my motivation for sharing it. But ultimately I figured it was best to share this part of the story for three reasons: (1) It’s the truth; (2) I know from experience that when I share a story I’m hesitant to post publicly, it’s going to resonate with someone out there in ways I can’t predict, often in very synchronistic ways; and (3) I’m sure the skeptics could use the exercise.

Seize the day

Now the point isn’t to pray to your ancestors to help you win the lottery. The point is to live — REALLY LIVE — while you’re here.

What will the people attending your memorial service say about you? How will you be remembered?

Hold your own memorial service at the end of each day. Did you live this day to the fullest? Did you give your very best? Did you express the real you? Did you make the effort to connect with people? Did you seize this day, or did you let it slip through your fingers?

Are you playing it safe just to survive, or are you stretching to give your very best? In the end, do you really think anyone will care whether or not you paid your bills on time?

Life is way too short to waste your precious time doing work you don’t love, enduring relationships you merely tolerate, and settling for limiting thoughts that hold you back. If you decide to waste this day, that’s the same as deciding to waste your life because your life is happening right now.

The mindset that says it’s okay to lose today is the mindset of death. If you’re squandering this day — and I mean today — then you’re already dead. You just haven’t accepted it yet. The rest of your days will be spent the same way. You’re reading this article in the Grim Reaper’s waiting room, waiting for your name to be called.

Too often we treat survival as our first priority, and only after we secure that can we move onto something more interesting than survival, like discovering a life purpose. But you aren’t here to survive. Do you realize you’re not going to survive? You’re going to die. Your physical life here is temporary. If you set survival as your goal, you lose automatically. Everyone who tries to survive fails. That’s how the game is set up. It’s supposed to happen that way.

Even a monkey gets more enjoyment out of life than a human being who works just to pay the bills. Monkeys find it silly to center their lives around paying their bills. They find it much more interesting to hang out with other monkeys — even if it means being homeless.

Would you say that your computer’s primary purpose is to survive? Or is it to provide you with information and entertainment and to empower you? You know your computer is eventually going to die (yes, even your precious Mac), so enjoy it while you can.

Are you enjoying your life while you can?

If you need a little hint to help you find your life purpose, it has to do with going out and connecting with people. If you’re trying to work on your purpose while spending most of your days isolated and alone, you’re missing the point. Go outside! Sure, it’s scary. But do it anyway. If the monkeys can manage it, why not you. Surely you’re smarter and more capable than a monkey.

It’s sad that we often fail to give ourselves permission to just dive headfirst into what we love doing. Realize you don’t need anyone’s permission to do what you love — or to connect with people that attract you. If some people object, let them object; then go do it anyway. The monkeys will welcome you as their new friend.

You know you’ll be happier outside the cage. The cage may be safe and cozy, but it’s no substitute for the freedom of the jungle.

Don’t wait to pursue your dreams. Life is far too precious for that.

Your life is today, not tomorrow or yesterday. Regardless of what happened in the past or what you think might happen in the future, today you have the freedom to make a conscious choice. Will it be the same choice you’ve always made, or will it be something different? Will that choice come from your heart?

Ron Lewison took the time to reach out and connect with people while he was here. He touched a lot of lives in a positive way. He may not have had the opportunity to complete all the projects he wanted to, but he gave more than his fair share. And because of that, I think he’ll find peace on the other side, and perhaps even more opportunities to coach and mentor people. Moreover, he gave the gift of many positive memories to those who knew him, a gift that continues to endure.

Ron, your presence will be missed in the physical world, but I think you’ll make quite a splash in the spiritual world. On the physical side, I may have to say goodbye, but on the spiritual side, I can say welcome home.

You are loved.

* * *

Note: I mentioned in the previous article that I would post a how-to article on raising your financial vibration next. Rest assured that article is still pending. As Ron recently discovered, sometimes life messes with your schedule.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

Twitter

My Twitter trial is going well. There are 600+ people following me on Twitter so far (my blog obviously bestows an advantage there). I’ve shared some links as well as various minor updates.

I’m grateful for the helpful advice from fellow Twitterers (Tweeters? Twits?). For example, one person told me about Twitterfeed, so I’m using that service as well. Now whenever I make a new blog post, it will automatically be Twittered (Tweeted? Twitterized?) to my Twitter account with a link to the post. Erin’s blog posts will show up there too (in my Twitter account since she doesn’t have one).

Apparently a good way to expandify your vocabulary is to use more online services.

TimeSvr

One service I mentioned in a Twitter update was TimeSvr.com. This is basically on online concierge service where you can assign basic tasks (like 20 minutes each) to a virtual assistant. During their current beta test period, you can try this service for free (no stated limit on how much work you can assign to them). I have no connection with them, so I gain nothing if you sign up. I’m just testing the service myself. I can’t give it a thumbs up or down yet, but it looks interesting so far.

PhotoReading discount expires July 31st

The 59% PhotoReading discount for StevePavlina.com readers expires July 31st, so if you want to take advantage of it, this is your last opportunity to do so. These offers have sometimes been extended for a few more weeks, but that isn’t happening this time. It’s only for July.

Los Angeles and Carlsbad trip

Erin and I will be in Los Angeles this weekend and then Carlsbad for most of next week. As Erin announced in her blog, she’ll be doing a limited number of in-person readings on this trip. If you live in the L.A. or Carlsbad areas (Southern California) and want to book an in-person reading with her during this time, please let her know right away. I think she only has a few spots left.

On this trip I’ll be visiting the headquarters of my book publisher, Hay House, since they’re located in Carlsbad. That wasn’t the main reason for this trip, but since our hotel is just down the street from them, it’s a nice opportunity to meet the people I’ve been working with. I’m especially looking forward to meeting my editor, Jessica Kelley, who did a fantastic job massaging Personal Development for Smart People into something we’re both proud of.

Erin’s intuitive readings

Ever since Erin and I recorded Podcast #21: Being Psychic, there’s been a significant increase in bookings for her readings. That podcast was never meant as a promotional piece — we simply talked about Erin’s experiences and offered tips for developing your own intuitive abilities. But now Erin is booking new phone appointments a month in advance, so her clients are having to wait longer than usual to get a reading.

We raised Erin’s prices on May 1st because she was starting to lose clients who didn’t want to wait so long for a reading. Now we’re back to that same situation. If this pattern continues, we’ll either have to raise her prices again or continue to maintain a longer wait time. I’m not sure what the best solution is. We’ve already raised her prices several times in the past two years. When she first started doing readings professionally in 2006, a 30-minute phone reading with her was $55. Today it’s $295 ($395 for 60 minutes).

Erin’s skills have increased a great deal since she started doing readings (she’s done more than 1100 so far). With the continued growth of her client base, she’s getting more repeat clients and more referrals too.

The higher we raise Erin’s prices, the more we price people out; a lot of people who’d love to get a reading with her simply can’t afford one. However, higher prices also reduces her wait time, so her clients don’t have to wait as long for an appointment. For many people (especially her repeat clients), the wait time is more important than the price.

I know that many people would see this as a good problem to have. Obviously it’s nice that Erin’s talents are in such high demand that she’s earning five figures a month from doing readings; this makes it easy for her to keep her website ad-free while continuing to post new articles in her blog. She took the risk of following her passion, and it’s clearly working out well. We just didn’t expect that she’d end up catering mainly to clients who are more time-sensitive than price-sensitive.

Erin regrets that many people can no longer afford a reading with her. That situation is unlikely to change though. If she were to offer free or discounted readings so more people could afford them, that would simply increase her wait time even more, which would be unfair to her existing clients. Given the pattern we’ve seen during the past two years, it’s likely her rates will climb even higher.

It’s amazing how far Erin has come in her personal growth. When we first met in 1994, she was working as a secretary for $9/hour. I’m glad she was able to recognize that typing 90 words per minute wasn’t her greatest strength and that there were better ways she could help people.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina

This is the 4th ICDI conference I’ve attended. In 2004 I went as a regular attendee. In 2006 and 2007, I went as a blogger covering the conference. And this year I went as an author/speaker.

This conference has always held special meaning for me because it was a major catalyst in helping me retire from computer game publishing and begin a new career in the field of personal development. When I saw Dr. Wayne Dyer speak about the Power of Intention at the 2004 conference, I thought to myself, “Damn… that’s what I’m supposed to be doing. I’m supposed to be on that stage.”

At the time it was too much for me to deal with, so after the conference I tried to suppress those thoughts. But it was already too late. I got no more joy from working on computer games and eventually had to leave it behind. In retrospect it was one of the best decisions I ever made… but also one of the hardest.

Every time I’ve attended ICDI, the conference has been a transformational experience for me, and this year was no exception.

I’ll basically give a chronological review of the conference. However, since I had several speaker-related obligations this time, I wasn’t able to attend as many keynotes and sessions as in previous years, so I don’t have as much to review there. On the other hand, I also have to be careful about respecting the privacy of the various people I met, so I won’t post anything here that was clearly said with the expectation of privacy.

Wednesday, June 25

The conference hadn’t started yet, but on this day I met with Reid Tracy, President of Hay House, at the Palazzo Hotel. He was just finishing up a meeting with Colette Baron-Reid, so we chatted briefly as we transitioned from one meeting to another. Reid and I talked mainly about marketing and sales strategies for my book, Personal Development for Smart People. I won’t go into the details, but the main actionable item is that I’ll be doing a lot of pre-promotion for the book during the next 3-1/2 months, especially since the book is already pre-selling on Amazon.com and BN.com.

Speaking of the book, I just received the proofs yesterday for final review. I really love the layout and design. The book goes to the printer on July 15th. The official release date is October 15th.

Thursday, June 26

This day there was only an evening keynote from psychic medium Lisa Williams. Erin and I showed up early to pick up our badges. As we walked in, I started chatting with one of the volunteers, and when she learned I was a speaker, she said she’d been practicing and wanted to see if she could guess who I was. “You’re Gary Renard, right?” Eventually she grabbed a program, and with the help of some other volunteers, they were able to figure it out. I guess the volunteers weren’t screened for psychic ability.

Shortly thereafter, Erin and I met Nancy Levin, Event Director Extraordinaire. She gave us both big hugs and said that my speaker packet was on the way and that we could pick it up later that night. Nancy did an awesome job — the whole weekend seemed to run very smoothly.

I should mention that all of the people from Hay House I met during the weekend were so friendly and open that I began thinking of them as “Hug House.”

As Erin and I were walking through the Palazzo Hotel (connected to the Venetian), we noticed a couple of women gazing at us occasionally as if they recognized us. Soon they walked up to us and said, “Steve?” They turned out to be Donna and Karen from Hay House, who just happened to be bringing my author packet to the conference sign-in desk. While we were chatting, Nancy happened upon us again. I told her I didn’t want to wait, so I figured I’d just go ahead and manifest the author packet now via the Law of Attraction.

Lisa Williams was pretty good. This was the first time I’ve seen her speak. She did some opening monologue and then started doing readings for people. The first reading was rough getting started, since she had a hard time figuring out who the reading was for. But once she finally found the right person, it was pretty smooth sailing after that. I could tell the audience was enjoying this session a lot. Personally I didn’t get as much out of it because I’m already so immersed in it with Erin. I don’t need to be convinced of psychic/mediumship abilities, so watching other people get readings wasn’t that exciting to me. I’d probably have found this session a lot more interesting if I was skeptical and was looking for proof of something.

Friday, June 27

Erin and I checked into our suite at the Venetian. This is the first time we’ve stayed there. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve stayed in a Vegas hotel since we moved here in 2004. The room was pretty nice. It even had a remote control for the drapes and blinds.

This was the day of the pre-conference workshops. Erin decided to see psychic medium John Holland while I went to Dr. Bruce Lipton’s workshop on “new edge” science.

I was very impressed with Bruce’s workshop. He delivered an intelligent Power Point presentation that connected many dots between biology and spirituality, and I took copious notes. Did you know that the cells of your body are covered with tiny protein antennae that detect and respond to both chemical and electromagnetic signals, including your own brainwaves? If you want to know why it’s so important to take responsibility for your thoughts, go read his book The Biology of Belief. I think it would be pretty hard to go through all this material and still be skeptical about the mind-body connection. Even reading this article is creating thoughts in your mind that are subtly affecting your cells right now.

Erin and I decided to pop into the speakers’ lounge to grab some lunch. Okay, so she practically shoved me in there, enthusiastically flashing her Author Guest pass to any would-be bouncers. We talked briefly to John Holland, Dr. Brian Weiss, Colette Baron-Reid, and some Hay House staff members. Then we sat down for lunch with Dr. David Hamilton and his girlfriend Elizabeth, a delightful couple from Scotland. David and I are the same age, and we were both first time speakers at ICDI. He’s a biochemist who speaks about the mind-body connection and the placebo effect. We had an interesting conversation at what apparently became the newbie author’s table. Unfortunately we couldn’t attend each other’s sessions because they were both scheduled at the same time.

Lucky for me (and my raw food diet), the speakers’ lounge had a variety of fresh fruit and veggies. They also had plenty of other vegetarian/vegan food — even soy milk. Someone told me that Doreen Virtue is also a raw foodist, but I can’t confirm that because our paths never crossed at the conference. It wouldn’t surprise me if some of the other speakers have vegetarian tendencies due to the nature of their work.

Before dinner Erin and I met with the Hay House PR team: Lindsay Condict, Richelle Zizian, and Jacqui Clark. We talked about the PR aspects of my upcoming book launch.

That evening we went to Dr. Wayne Dyer’s keynote, “Excuses Begone.” I really enjoyed it. The first third of the talk seemed a little unclear to me. He told a lot of personal stories, but I wasn’t sure what he was leading to. I always prefer it when a speaker makes a point first and then tells a story to illustrate it, so I know what to listen for. But I found the remainder of his talk very lucid and insightful. I’ve seen him speak several times now, and this time he seemed the most laid back of all. He wore shorts and a t-shirt and was even barefoot for much of the talk. For a moment I thought I was back at the Game Developer’s Conference.

Near the end of his 2-1/2 hour keynote, he brought one of his daughters up on stage to talk about her experiences quitting her corporate job with Best Buy to start her own business. She seemed very nervous and needed to catch her breath a lot, but the audience was supportive of her. Personally I didn’t find her new career choice (designing and selling leather laptop bags, which were available for sale in the back of the room) to really fit the context of Wayne’s speech, but I know the whole idea of leaving corporate thinking behind is a big issue for a lot of people, and it helps to know it can be done.

Saturday, June 28

I decided to go for a walk along the Strip at 5:15am to get some fresh air. At this time of year the temperature in Las Vegas is warm/hot at all times of day and night. It’s 107 degrees outside right now as I type this. Walking down the Strip early on a Saturday or Sunday morning is akin to playing Frogger. As I approached various drunk people hobbling back to their hotel rooms, I had to predict whether they’d stagger left or right so as to avoid smashing into them. It was moderately challenging. Another sight you’ll see at this time of day is all the prostitutes heading out from a night’s work. I’ve been solicited by them about three times since I moved here.

While walking past Caesar’s Palace, I spied a very drunk couple sitting on the grass, trying in vain to stand up without falling. They seemed to be enjoying themselves though.

Erin and I grabbed an early breakfast (the Grand Lux Cafe serves a really good fruit plate), and then I went to see Robert Holden’s keynote on happiness while Erin did a couple readings in our hotel room. Robert was downright hysterical. He talked about the problem of always wanting more, more, more and how it actually makes us less happy. One statistic I recall him mentioning was that people who make $30K per year think they need $50K to be happy, but people who make $100K think they need $250K. So chasing money for happiness just doesn’t work. He then explained what actually does work to create happiness — more truth, more connection, and more creative self-expression. I couldn’t agree more.

After the keynote I ran into some local friends and talked with them for a while. Then I went upstairs to meet Erin and wolf down some fruit.

At 11:30am I met Summer McStravick at the Hay House Radio area. I met her casually last year, and this time I was participating in a live panel discussion with two other Hay House authors, Alan Cohen and Andrew Harvey. I’d never met either of these authors and wasn’t familiar with their work. The topic for our panel was “Self Development 2.0,” which sounded interesting to me. This was being taped for Hay House Radio and was also being videotaped for possible future uses. The show will be played at some future time, but I don’t know when that is. If I find out, I’ll let you know.

The first thing I had to do was hair and makeup backstage. Aside from dressing as a clown for Halloween when I was a kid, I’ve never worn makeup before. Erin of course was having a great time watching me in the makeup chair, giggling and snapping photos from the sidelines. Overall it was pretty painless, but I know I heard the word “blackmail” uttered at least once.

I briefly met Alan and Andrew and chatted with them before going on stage. Alan, Summer, Andrew, and I soon took the stage, sitting in large brown chairs around a coffee table. There was seating for a studio audience, but there weren’t many people there. There were other sessions going on at the same time, so that didn’t surprise me.

This roundtable discussion seemed like a fun thing to do, so I just relaxed and enjoyed it. Summer did a great job of getting us going, and the hour went by quickly. I’d love to do more of these interactive discussions in the future.

One funny thing is that because this was being filmed and based on how the stage was set up, I was given a list of requirements for how to dress. This included no black, no pinstripes, no brown, etc. By the time I got to the end of the list and compared it the clothes I’d packed, I realized I’d have to go on stage naked to satisfy the requirements. Fortunately I found a gray shirt I’d packed that seemed suitable, so nudity wasn’t necessary.

After the radio show, I saw Robert Holden and told him how much I enjoyed his presentation that morning. He seemed happy for the feedback. Then Erin and I headed to the speakers’ lounge for lunch.

At lunch we chatted with Andrew Harvey (from the radio interview) and intuitive Robert Ohotto. Among other things we talked about the nature of suffering.

At some point during the day, I popped into the room where I’d be speaking on Sunday to check it out. When I speak I like to go to the room in advance, walk around the stage, see how the chairs are laid out, and get a feel for the room. There were about 400 chairs in the room, 200 per side with a column down the middle. The middle column layout means the energy of the room will be split, so I’ll always have to be talking to one side or the other. It isn’t a problem… just a fact to be dealt with.

While I was walking around the stage pretending to speak to a room of empty chairs, Mollie (a Hay House employee) walks in to check the room for the next speaker. I chatted with her a bit and then left. Everything looked good with the room, so I felt very much at ease about delivering my workshop there the next day.

At some point I took Erin to the room to let her get a feel for it as well. Months prior I’d asked her to introduce me to kick off the workshop. Hay House provides introductions for the keynote speakers but not for the breakout sessions, so I decided to provide my own. I wrote the intro for her, so all she had to do was get up and read it for about one minute. When I brought her to the empty conference room and led her up on stage, she looked out over the sea of empty chairs and said, “Oh, my Goooodddddd.” She suddenly got very nervous and said, “Why did I agree to do this?” The largest audience Erin had ever addressed up to this point was about 20 people.

That afternoon Erin and I attended Robert Ohotto’s session. He’s a very fluid and dynamic speaker. His presentation was about reaching the level of awareness where instead of being a victim of fate, you become a co-creator of your destiny. I especially enjoyed his stories.

Afterwards Erin and I returned to our hotel room to rest a bit and get ready for the speakers’ dinner.

The speakers’ dinner was at Dos Caminos restaurant in the Palazzo Hotel. As we entered the private dining room, we were greeted by Louise Hay and posed for photos with her. That was the first time I got to meet her, although there wasn’t really time for a conversation.

The dining area gradually filled in as more authors and Hay House staff members arrived. I’d estimate about 60 people attended the dinner, but it was hard to tell because wait staff were constantly moving about, serving drinks and appetizers. Unfortunately with all the conversations going on, it got pretty noisy in there, so it was hard to hear anyone. You really needed to be standing right next to someone to participate in a conversation.

During dinner Erin sat next to David Hamilton and Elizabeth, and I sat next to Summer McStravick and her husband, Charles. I think the high point was when David recited Mel Gibson’s speech about freedom from Braveheart. I learned a lot about Hay House from talking to Summer. It became clear that the most important thing they look for in new authors is a powerful message that inspires people. Being a strong writer with a weak or uninspired message won’t get you very far.

Before the conference I’d requested a raw vegan meal for myself and a cooked vegan meal for Erin. We’ve been vegan since 1997, so requesting vegan meals for special events like this is no big deal. Since I wasn’t sure the chef would understand the raw diet, I suggested in advance that a fruit plate would be fine for me. But when I let the waiter know I was the raw foodist guy, he informed me that the chef was actually a vegan himself and wanted to make me something special. I said, “Go for it!” I ended up getting a delicious raw veggie dish. It’s hard to describe, but it was basically a lot of finely chopped veggies with a light sauce on a bed of romaine lettuce. It reminded me of a raw dim sum I used to make a long time ago. It was very good! For dessert I had a truly magnificent fruit plate of fresh berries and thinly sliced apples and watermelon. I should also mention that I enjoyed some wonderful fresh guacamole at the start of the meal.

Later that evening we talked with John Holland, Vincent Barra, Robert Ohotto, and a number of other speakers and Hay House staffers that I met only briefly. Dr. Wayne Dyer didn’t attend the dinner, nor did Doreen Virtue (she was doing a keynote at the same time as the dinner). I saw Gregg Braden there but never got a chance to say hi to him. Overall it was a very fun, social evening.

The only thing Erin and I felt was missing during the speakers’ dinner was some sort of call to order. This is probably because Erin and I are so used to this from dinners/parties with other speakers from Toastmasters and the National Speakers Association. It seemed strange to us to attend a speakers’ dinner without a single speech. I think it would have been worthwhile to take just five minutes for a formal “Welcome and thanks for coming” spiel, especially for a first-time author like myself. That kind of thing often helps people feel more connected. With a room full of speakers, it’s never difficult to find someone willing to grab a mike and say a few words. Due to the layout of this particular restaurant, however, that may not have been feasible. Our private dining room opened into the main dining area on one side, so it would have been somewhat noisy no matter what.

Sunday, June 29

I went to bed on Saturday night at 11pm, and for some reason I woke up at 2am and couldn’t go back to sleep. I wasn’t nervous about my presentation that day, but apparently my subconscious mind decided it would be a good idea to wake me up and spend a few more hours mentally reviewing the material. I can’t see how that was necessary though because I was speaking about the ideas from my book, which are pretty well ingrained in my brain by now.

Erin and I decided to drive to the Luxor Hotel for breakfast. I wanted to eat at a buffet for some extra variety, and (oddly) the Venetian doesn’t have a buffet. The Luxor buffet isn’t the best in town, but it’s one of the few that opens at 7am instead of 8am, so I knew we could go early. On a Sunday morning, there’s normally little or no traffic on the Strip, so it only took us a few minutes to get there.

During breakfast Erin seemed to be channeling a lot of nervous energy and kept wanting to revise my introduction. She was continuously rewriting it, even though I felt the original version was just fine. I wasn’t nervous at all about my speech, but due to our empathic connection, I was feeling nervous about her being nervous. The funny thing was that the rewrites she was attempting kept making the intro worse, not better. Eventually she decided it was best to stick with the original version aside from a very minor edit.

A big part of my relationship with Erin has involved me helping her to learn courage. She’s been in Toastmasters for two years now, so I asked her to do my intro so she could have the experience of getting up on stage in front of a sizeable group. Think of it as one small step on the treadmill of progressive training.

I went back to my room to review my presentation one last time and then headed down to the room with Erin 45 minutes before the start of my workshop. It’s always good to show up early since it puts all the staff at ease to know the speaker is in the room. When I was doing a speech in Palm Springs last year, I showed up to the room 15-20 minutes early, and the conference organizer practically had a heart attack when he saw me, breathing a huge sigh of relief. The day earlier one of their speakers was an hour late, which messed up the schedule for the whole day, so he was unusually worried that someone else would be late. Meeting planning can be a stressful line of work. No one wants to assemble an audience and then disappoint them with bad news.

There were three Hay House volunteers in the room when I got there, so I greeted them and asked if they could give a copy of my handout to every attendee. Then I basically hung around greeting the early arrivals and chatting with some friends who showed up.

When the sound guy showed up, I asked if he had a lavaliere mike. Unfortunately he only had the kind that slips over the ear. I’m not a fan of those mikes because they can pop off too easily. Lisa Williams had that exact problem during her keynote. But I’d rather use the earpiece mike than a hand mike, since I like to have both hands free. The earpiece mike worked out okay, although it did start to come loose after about an hour.

I estimate there were about 200 attendees. I think that’s the largest group I’ve addressed to date, the previous limit being about 150. I wasn’t nervous at all. I love speaking, so I was feeling happy and excited. I signaled Erin to introduce me. She was a bit nervous when she spoke, but that only seemed to endear her to the audience. People applauded as soon as she introduced herself, so it was a really friendly crowd. When she introduced me, I joined her on the stage and gave her a hug and kiss. I was very proud of her for doing something that scared her.

I had a really good time delivering the workshop, which was titled “Personal Development for Smart People: The 7 Keys to Genuine Growth.” Everything went about as well as I could have hoped, given that this was the first time I’ve ever delivered it. I opened with a little humor and explained how I came to speak at ICDI. It’s been said that you don’t need to use humor in a speech… unless you want to be paid. I had a very content rich presentation, so I didn’t want to overdo the humor, but I think I’ll add a bit more for the Tampa conference in October.

This is the first time I’ve publicly spoken about the ideas from my book, so I couldn’t predict how the audience would react. Personally I think these ideas are really solid and profound, and the reactions I saw as well as the feedback I received afterwards told me that many of the attendees had some major a-ha moments.

The basic theme of this workshop was the fundamentals of personal development. These are the central principles that can help us grow in every area of life, including health, career, finances, relationships, and spiritual development. The three primary principles are truth, love, and power. The four secondary principles are oneness, authority, courage, and intelligence; they’re secondary because they can all be derived from the first three. There are lots of books that offer advice on how to grow, but I don’t know of anyone else in this field who has attempted to uncover the deepest underlying principles from which all positive growth arises. Consequently, this was a very unique presentation.

I never felt like I lost the audience at any point, but I could see that some people were more interested in certain topics than others. That’s to be expected. Some people have a hard time aligning their lives with love, while others may find courage to be much more challenging. We all have our strengths and weaknesses.

I felt very present and centered while speaking. I don’t memorize my speeches. I plan and rehearse them, but when I’m in front of an audience, I prefer to speak from my heart and stay authentic instead of going into robot mode. I sacrifice some elegance in my language by doing this, but what I gain is that I feel much more connected to the audience.

I tried to design this presentation with a good blend of education, explanation, audience exercises, personal stories and examples, and some humor. It’s important to have a good mix to appeal to left-brained and right-brained people. This was a different audience than what I attract online. My online audience is about 65% male, but this conference is closer to 90% female, although someone told me afterwards that my session appeared to be about 70% female. Knowing your audience is a key part of speaking since demographics can make a huge difference in how well a presentation is received.

As the workshop was coming to a close, I felt good because I really did my best. There’s always room for improvement, and I certainly made a few mistakes here and there, but that’s to be expected with a brand new workshop.

To my surprise the audience gave me a standing ovation. I wasn’t expecting that — most of the sessions at this conference don’t end that way — so it really told me that the workshop had a strong impact.

Afterwards I hung around for about 45 minutes, talking to people, answering questions, and posing for photos. Normally the authors do a book signing at this time, but since my book wasn’t out yet, people asked me to sign copies of the handouts or the blank journals they received free at the conference.

I signed everything with a “Live Consciously!” message. After signing several of those, I was struck by a powerful memory. Last year during the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, I did an exercise I learned from a book on writing. The exercise was to practice doing a book signing. All you do is grab some scratch paper and pretend you’re signing your own books. The idea is to experience the state of mind of being a published author. I’d completely forgotten about the exercise until I realized I was signing everything the same way I’d practiced it seven months earlier. Fascinating. I’m sure I’ll be doing a lot more of this when the book actually comes out.

I’m used to getting some positive feedback after a good speech or workshop, but I have to admit it felt a little strange to sign people’s handouts and journals. Most people chatted with me and asked questions, and I really enjoyed the interaction. However, a couple people just asked for my autograph and then left. That’s never happened to me before.

I really like helping people, but there are certain problems that come with being the guy on the stage. It’s very easy for the audience to disconnect from you because they assume you’re too perfect. Just being able to speak in front of an audience is a huge fear for a lot of people. So I intentionally told some of my worst failure stories, including the time I was arrested for grand theft as a teenager. I wanted people to understand the difference between growth and perfection. No one can be perfect, but everyone can grow. Several people told me afterwards that they really appreciated those stories because it helped them see that they could improve their lives as well. As we finally wrapped up, I was happy but also very tired/spent.

My favorite kind of feedback to hear after a speech is something along the lines of, “You just helped me solve a big problem I’ve been having.” As a speaker you can inspire the heck out of people, but if you don’t help people solve their real-world problems, there won’t be much long-term impact beyond the entertainment value.

We popped into the speaker’s lounge for a quick lunch and talked some more with David and Elizabeth, since he’d just finished his workshop as well. (I heard later from a friend who attended that David was absolutely hysterical and that there was some kind of dance involved.)

During lunch we met British author/speaker Tim Freke (pronounced freak). He gave me a copy of his book Lucid Living. I read the book Monday night — it’s a very quick read — and recognized he was talking about the perspective of subjective reality. Lucid living and subjective reality are essentially the same thing — a certain way of looking at life that can be very empowering. Our friend Chris went to Tim’s presentation later that day and really enjoyed it.

I decided to head back to our hotel room to drop off a few items before meeting Erin for John Holland’s workshop where he was going to connect with deceased people to relay messages for the living. I stopped three times on the way to talk to people who’d attended my morning workshop. Erin and I were both recognized several more times throughout the rest of the conference. We always enjoy talking to people, so we didn’t mind this at all.

I was 10 minutes late meeting Erin, and I found her sitting in the back of John Holland’s workshop. This was the first time I’ve seen him speak, but Erin has seen him at previous conferences. His opening monologue was over-the-top funny, especially when he talked about psychic amnesia — a problem that happens when people go blank and even forget their own children while receiving a reading. Sometimes being the center of attention in a room filled with hundreds of people makes people freak out, and they can barely remember their own name.

I thought he did a great job with the readings. He’s very active and energetic when he reads, moving around the stage quite a bit. He got some strong validation hits like specific names and locations, and I don’t think there was anyone he read for that wasn’t brought to tears. At one point he read for a woman sitting in front of us, and after a few minutes she was shaking and could barely speak.

John was just outstanding at the way he managed to keep the interest of both the audience and the person he was reading for. Often when people do mediumship readings, it’s easy to lose the audience because you get tied up with the person you’re reading for. But John kept mixing in humor and explanation for the audience even while he did the individual readings. Most people probably didn’t realize how masterful that was.

At the end of John’s session, a couple of women came up to me and Erin to tell us how much they enjoyed our workshop earlier that day. They told us they really appreciated how authentic we were. We talked to them a little and then went out to meet our friend Chris from New York City. We first met Chris at last year’s ICDI and also met up with him during our New York City trip in October.

Before Chris showed up, we chatted with a number of people in the hallway, including our friend Vicki. John Holland was doing book signings at a table in that hallway, and he had a massive line of people. A volunteer was advising people to fill out sticky notes with their names in order to make the signings go more smoothly. I stood off to the side, and John’s friend Vincent (Vincent is a talented psychic himself who’s been doing readings for 30 years) saw me and waved me over. I walked up and talked briefly with Vincent and then with John as well. I hugged them both goodbye and told them I’d see them in Tampa in a few months.

We took Chris up to our hotel room to chat for a while. I was pretty tired, so I snacked on flax crackers and rested while we talked. After what was probably about 90 minutes, we headed back downstairs for my photo shoot.

I’ve never done a professional photo shoot before. I’d talked to the photographer, David Beeler, a couple weeks before the conference, who gave me some tips for improving the experience. Those tips included “show up” and “relax.” Hay House Creative Director Christy Salinas met us there, and soon I was back for another round of hair and makeup. I had a fun time joking around with the makeup artist. She even darkened my eyebrows. My eyebrows are very blond, so they tend to look almost invisible in photos.

Over the next 90 minutes, we took 395 photos. This is for a one-inch photo on the back of the book plus some publicity shots. I had a good time with it. I was impressed with the attention to detail, including the variety of lighting setups, trying different shirts, different poses, and different angles (including the use of a ladder). I realize my knowledge of photography is pretty much non-existent.

At one point they noticed that whenever Erin moved closer to me, I smiled even bigger and the photos came out better, so they actually had me look at her for a second and then turn to face the camera for many of the photos.

The photo shoot was over at 7:15pm, so Erin, Chris, and I decided to have dinner at the Wynn Hotel across the street. We ate a very leisurely meal. I had a big salad and a bowl of fresh berries for dessert. We were all pretty tired at the end, especially Chris since he was still on New York time (three hours ahead of Las Vegas). I think Erin and I sank into bed around 11pm.

Monday, June 30

Erin and I had an early breakfast downstairs and then returned to our room to pack up our suitcases. The conference ended Sunday evening, but Erin had a couple more readings to do this morning. I greeted her first client as he arrived, grabbed my laptop, and headed downstairs to do some work.

While Erin did readings, I worked a little on some PR materials in the food court at the hotel. After about an hour, I realized I was too burned out to be doing quality work, so I put the laptop in the car and went for a walk for the remaining 90 minutes. My brain felt pretty fried, but I still had plenty of physical energy.

I returned to our hotel room to meet Erin, we checked out, and we called Angela to tell her we’d meet her for lunch at the Grand Lux Cafe. Angela is one of the (awesome) moderators from our discussion forums who drove up from L.A. for the conference. We’d met her earlier but wanted to take her to lunch just to connect.

We got to the Grand Lux Cafe right on time, but after waiting 10 minutes, Angela was nowhere in sight. We called her cell phone, but there was no answer, so we left a message. Suddenly I blurted out, “Wait a minute… did you tell her which Grand Lux Cafe to meet us at?” Erin said, “Huh, there’s more than one?” I remembered that the Palazzo Hotel also has a Grand Lux Cafe. The Palazzo is a fairly recent addition to the Venetian, making the whole thing an enormous mega resort. Then I asked Erin, “Which hotel is Angela staying in?” “The Palazzo.” “Doh!”

I told Erin to wait while I made the 5-minute walk to the other Grand Lux to see if Angela was there. Sure enough… I saw her pacing in front as I walked up, probably wondering why we were so late. I explained to her what happened and escorted her back to the Venetian’s Grand Lux to meet Erin, and the three of us had a nice lunch together. Angela’s husband (aka Danger Man) also popped in briefly to say hi, but he didn’t join us for lunch because he had other plans with their son.

After lunch Erin and I drove home, I did some work, and then I went to a Toastmasters party later that evening. Erin was originally going to go with me, but she wasn’t feeling well, so she opted to cancel the babysitter and stay home.

Technically this was an officer installation party for the new slate of officers for my Toastmasters club, which is one of the largest in Las Vegas with 35 members. For me it was more of a celebration party after the conference.

During the party I was talking to Darren LaCroix about how my presentation went. He’s fairly well-known in Toastmaster circles because he’s the 2001 World Champion of Public Speaking, and he also does a lot of presentation skills coaching. I’ve learned a lot from him about the do’s and don’ts of professional speaking.

When I told Darren that my book wasn’t available for sale after my workshop because the release date was still 3-1/2 months away, he said, “Yeah… but you handed all the attendees pre-ordering forms and then collected them after the workshop, right?”

Doh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tuesday, July 1

After dropping the kids off at school, Erin and I drove back to the Wynn Hotel for breakfast at their buffet. This was the first time we’ve eaten there. It isn’t cheap ($18 per person for breakfast, $30 for weekend brunch), but none of the good buffets here are cheap anymore. It was one of the best buffets for us because there were lots of vegan and raw options, including fresh guacamole and lots of fruits including raspberries, strawberries, blackberries, and papaya. They even had herbal tea.

Next we went to the Venetian Hotel (across the street from the Wynn) to hit the spa. Hay House generously treated the speakers to two spa treatments of their choice. I used one for myself and the other one for Erin. If I used both for myself, I’d be a little too relaxed (relaxed as in dead because Erin would have killed me).

Aside from the presence of a rock-climbing wall, the inside of the Venetian Spa was typical compared to the other Vegas spas I’ve been to, including a sauna, steam room, and whirlpool bath. However, the massage was just incredible.

I haven’t been to spas very often — this was probably the sixth time in my whole life — but I usually enjoy them. I was really looking forward to it this time because I wanted to relax and unwind after the busy conference.

I sat down in the men’s lounge with a cup of raspberry tea (no caffeine or sugar), a banana, and a copy of Gregg Braden’s Secrets of the Lost Mode of Prayer. But before I could get past the first page of the book, I started getting ideas for how I could improve my workshop for the Tampa conference. After a few minutes of being hit by idea after idea, I went to the attendant and asked if he had some pen and paper I could use. He was happy to oblige, and I returned to my lounge chair and just wrote down ideas for the next hour until it was time for my massage. Sometimes inspiration doesn’t know that you’re on vacation.

For my massage I got a double abhyanga, an ayurvedic massage where two people massage you at the same time. Since their movements are synchronized, it feels like getting a massage from one person with four hands. It was probably the best massage I’ve ever had. At the end the two women left the room to make some herbal tea, and I stayed on the table for what seemed like 10 minutes. I felt a strong surge of emotion which soon became an intense psychic experience. I won’t go into the details about that, since it would probably double the size of this already enormous review. When the women returned with the tea, I hugged them both and staggered out the door.

After that Erin and I had lunch at the Venetian and then headed home. It was quite a week!

* * *

Erin and I both enjoyed this conference immensely. Seeing everything from the speaker side made this a unique experience. If you missed this one, I encourage you to consider going to the Tampa I Can Do It! conference in October.

Uncopyrighted by Steve Pavlina