Beyond Fear may never have been written had it not been for my obscure self-published book, A Structure for Spirit. Its first incarnation was known as, A Success Journal: Daily Practices to Manifest Your Intentions,  self-published in 2005 along with an audio of guided meditations.

To create a book out of thin air, with nothing more than the ideas in your head, takes quite a bit of fire. And that fire kept me going for a good year after the book was written, promoting it through family (oh what I have put them through in my life!), friends and clients. I ran out of steam as the energy invested seemed to show less and less payoff. I abandoned the book to a closet shelf where it began collecting dust for a number of years.
In 2010, one of the mentors on my travels to Peru asked me, “How do you intend to bring your wisdom to the world?” It felt like the most profound question anyone had ever asked me. I had never given it much thought but my book in the closet came to mind. After a series of synchronistic events it seemed time to pull the book about daily practices down from the shelf.

I have had a daily practice for a very long time so what need did I have for a book to help create a daily practice? In the words of my mentor, “You’re blowing past your own medicine.”
I finally became a student of my own book. My father had recently died. My beloved had left me leaving my heart shattered to pieces. A period of isolating loneliness engulfed me.
The book landed in perfect and divine timing. It transformed and so did I. Everything changed, including the name. (Well my name stayed the same.) A Structure for Spirit was born.
Balboa Press became the new self publishing agency. By this time Facebook was invented. I started a page. Nearly 9000 likes. The fire returned.

Keeping up with writing blogs and posting on Facebook was a full-time job, especially since I have never considered myself to be a writer. My entire life has been in healthcare and healing. My full-time job demands much of my time so for the second time I felt myself abandon the book as the dividends diminished.

I stand in awe of the voice that is rising from the Women’s March the world over, a voice that can no longer be silenced.  A collective voice is organizing and mobilizing to shift an old and outdated paradigm that is no longer serving the evolution of our times. This excerpt from the forthcoming, A Feminine Path to Enlightenment, speaks to finding the inner authority within each of us to guide our collective destiny to love.

There is an inner authority. It is not the voice of your mother. It is not the voice of your father. It is not the voice of your teacher or anyone who you believed at one time in your life held more power than you.

These authority figures have been given power over our soul. They have dominated the truth of who we are until we are too blind to see. We have been made deaf, dumb and blind by the authorities in our families, our cultures, our churches, our governments, for it keeps us from finding an inner authority.
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There is fear that if each individual listened to the voice of their inner authority there would be chaos and a loss of control. It is this fear that has kept us dominated and suppressed by authority voices that at one time may have been outside of us but now live within our mind; directing and controlling our heart and soul. Yet our soul longs to be free from domination.

In 2005 I traveled with my daughters to Thailand. Elephants are a big part of the tourist industry. You can ride them, feed them and in certain places, watch them paint. It is not the true nature of an elephant to paint a picture or be a performer. A trainer, an outer authority, imposes this idea on the elephant for their own gain, not to benefit the elephant.

To train an elephant it must first be held captive. The baby elephant will run. Of course it will, that is its nature. So it must be chained for the elephant is strong. For a time the elephant will try and run but as it pulls on the heavy chain it cannot go anywhere.

Eventually the elephant resigns. It gives up the struggle. At that point it no longer needs a heavy chain to hold it back. All it takes is a small rope; a small rope around the foot of the elephant keeps it in place. It has been broken. Something inside the elephant has died. It has forgotten how powerful it is because others have imposed their ideas on the elephant about what it should do and who it should be.

And we are like that.

Broken.

Held back.

In order to be held back and broken a part of us has to die. We die every time we listen to the outside voices of authority and accept them as our own. Our truth dies. Our gifts die. Our talents die. Our Soul voice dies.

When your voice is not heard, when your soul is not shared, we all suffer. It is not enough to heal our unresolved pain to prevent the harmful imprint on our planet and our loved ones. We must then find our voice, step into our gifts and share what we are meant to share in the world.

It is beauty.

It is love.

This is our destiny.

When the bedrock is dismantled, the foundation we have built our life on crumbles. On our journey to the enlightenment of truth the crumbling is necessary. It is necessary to have these breakdowns of our belief systems, the fixed and rigid states of mind that we operate from.

It is only then that we can create the possibility for what is actually true and authentic for us rather than building our life on false precepts that have been imposed on us.

It is terrifying to feel our life fall apart. Everything we have ever been led to believe becomes a lie. And the biggest lie is the painful betrayal against our own soul, the belief that we are separate from the source of love that we are.

The deepest pain is the illusion of separation. The deepest pain is also where recovery lies for it is the recovery of our truth that makes us whole. What makes us whole makes us holy. The recovery is the path to our divinity.

Our spiritual practices provide the ground when our life falls apart. The time that we spend on a mat, the time that we spend on a cushion, the time that we spend in prayer is what holds and sustains us through these times of falling apart and coming together, breaking down and rising up.

I have never considered myself a “writer”. I have no formal training, no diploma that anoints me to this sanctioned post.

As I prepare for my first ever writing retreat I discover to my surprise I am a writer. Writing has been a longtime companion often under lock and key in a private world of diaries and journals.

Writing is an expression of my soul. What certificate is needed for our soul to speak?

One writing assignment to prepare for my“write a bestseller in a weekend” workshop (it usually takes a weekend to write a blog!) asks us to begin writing on…

What I am meant to do with my writing.

These are some of the words that come through.

Does your voice really matter? Does it really count? Do you have the strength and confidence to make a difference in the world?

You identify with doubt but it is simply something you cling to in order to keep from experiencing the majesty of your truth. It is a security blanket, warm and comfortable. But doubt is not the truth of who you are.

Doubt hides your truth, even from you. For there is fear in being seen.

Every time you allowed your truth to shine you were hurt. Your light had to dampen. It was not safe to shine.
Doubt is the dimming.

Doubt began as a warm, grey coat you put on for protection. But it wove itself into the fabric of your being, undermining your instincts, clouding your perceptions.

If the light of your truth was too bright for others, the natural response was to go dim to survive.

Doubt was a way to handle your light. That is all it is. A way to cope. A brilliant strategy but not your truth.
It is time to remove the cloak of doubt.

Is that even possible? Where would it go? How will I feel safe?

To be safe is a fundamental need. We continually look for security outside of ourself. We look in our bank accounts, we look to our partners.

We do not want our beliefs threatened for they are the bedrock of our safety net. Like with doubt. It limits you but the thought of living without it is unsettling.

Where will you hide? How will you live if you are exposed, naked and seen? That can feel more frightening than doubt.

Yet true safety, true security, will not be found until we are stripped naked of hiding places.

It is the paradox of spiritual law. To be safe we must leave what we have relied on for security for it has held captive our soul.

Our minds have dominated our consciousness for centuries. Laws have risen rooted in science and reason. Prove it says the mind. Show me and it succumbs.

The paradox of spiritual law makes no sense to the logic of mind for Spirit is not of the mind. It cannot be governed by its laws.

As our spiritual consciousness evolves our laws and beliefs must shift.
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The laws that govern our soul need to be understood to offer guidance and direction.
It is time to take off the cloak.

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