Archive for October, 2008

A Short Thought to Ponder:

We live in a very material world. Literally and figuratively. Literally, everything is made up of matter…physical matter. That’s the literal part. Figuratively, we care a great deal about how many “things” we can acquire in an effort to rate our successes as well as to subdue or distract us from the fear of mortality we all run up against…sooner or later.

Therefore, with so much emphasis on the material… things matter.

Or do they?

In reality, lasting joy, satisfaction and peace of mind are never the result of any “thing” we acquire but rather the bounty derived from those intangible experiences we have and emotional connections we establish.

It turns out what really matters is not a thing at all. What matters is no-thing.

See. Nothing matters.

REMEMBER to click here to download a copy of my FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.“

Catchy title, don’t you think? Bet you’re wondering what they could possibly have in common.

Well, before I go there, let me first say that I’m a life-long registered Democrat who has never voted for a Republican Presidential candidate. I have no ax to grind and no agenda here, other than to face life with eyes wide open as opposed to eyes wide shut.  To that end, Campbell Brown, CNN anchor and columnist, posted an interesting article today on CNN.com.

Ms. Brown notes that a year ago, Barack Obama publicly vowed that he would accept public financing and “work with the Republican nominee to ensure they both operated within those [spending] limits.” Problem is… Obama didn’t keep his word. Now why he didn’t keep his word is almost as important as the fact that he simply didn’t. The reason is that he quickly realized how much more money he could raise outside the constraints of the Federal Election Law rules. And since money not only talks in America, it also buys elective office, that observation wasn’t going to slip past a Harvard Law School graduate.  Hence, he reneged on his word.

So why Nixon?  Well, 19 years before Richard Nixon was elected President of the United States he had earned himself the nickname “Tricky Dick” based upon his campagin tactic against Helen Douglas for a United States Senate seat…which he won.

Now I never understood how people were shocked and surprised by Watergate and all that it encompassed, or Nixon’s erasing of the tapes, or his patent lying, when they had knowingly elected a man nicknamed “Tricky Dick.”  The only rationale I ever came up with was that despite the discernible facts, voters just didn’t want to know. And I think it’s happening again.

I’m not saying Obama is Nixon, or has his character..or lack thereof. I’m not even saying much about Obama… mainly because I don’t think this is about him.

I think it’s about Us. 

I think we need to wake up, rub the sleep from our eyes, get past the campaign slogans, and hold ourselves accountable for what is knowable vs. what we only want to know. 

And I think we’d better hurry.

There is too much at stake here to cry “poor me” after the fact if what we wind up with is exactly what is known before hand, but also exactly what we chose not to ponder too long or too hard.  As Michael Douglas said in the movie, An American President…. “Citizenship isn’t easy. You’ve got to want it bad.” 

Well, we’re still blessed with it…Citizenship, that is…admittedly within a system that’s less than perfect and which, lately, is more out of balance than is healthy. But while we still have a voice and a vote it’s our responsibility to call them as we see them…not as they tell us it is.  If you’re running on “Change” but fueling it through age-old-slight-of-hand and deceit…well, shame on me if I let you get away with it.

And shame on me if I help you get there.

Our choices aren’t great this time around. I’ll grant you that. I like Joe Biden but I’ve got to elect Obama to get to him. And I like John McCain but he is up in years and Sarah Palin worries me greatly. So does no check and balance with the prospect of a Democrat Congress and Executive Branch.

So, what to do?

I have no easy answer. Each of us has to privately come to that moment of truth on November 4th. That’s the beauty of it. My sole purpose here is to make enough noise to startle you into opening your eyes to all that’s knowable.

Once you do that, at least you can make an informed decision. Then you can take pride in knowing you  made a conscious choice… and let the chips fall where they will.

REMEMBER to click here to download a FREE copy of my e-book, “Too  Many Secrets.”

I doubt there is one of you out there reading this who is not currently struggling with one or more aspects of your life.  It seems to be a sign of the times that we are all being asked to deal with extraordinary difficulties and challenges. From the economy to relationships to health issues, there seems to be no end to the onslaught of problems needing not only our attention but also our strength and our resolve.

Why is it suddenly so difficult and why are all those tried and true ways of handling things not working?

In a word: Authenticity

We are, collectively, waking up from a long sleep, of sorts, where partial fixes and inauthentic behavior were good enough to get us by….until the next time.  Just what is inauthentic behavior?  It’s living in greater or lesser degrees of denial. It’s settling for less than what you instinctively know to be the highest good. It’s putting forth less than your best effort. It’s saying one thing and living another.

When you’re asleep… unconscious…you are somehow less than responsible. You don’t have to feel everything that you’re experiencing. You can go numb, so to speak, through denial or distraction or drama or all of the above.  It’s a way to behave with varying degrees of integrity and temporarily bypass the consequences of your decisions and your actions.

The operative word being “temporarily.”
 
All you’re really doing when you’re un-conscious and acting inauthentically, is delaying the consequences of your actions, not eliminating them. The inevitability of cause and effect is a fact both scientifically and spiritually. The old saying “no pain, no gain” is true. So what we really accomplish by participating in inauthentic behavior in order to circumvent the pain associated with growth is simply delaying growth. Period. Of course, behind all the effort to delay is fear.  We’re afraid to feel, literally, the pain associated with growing so we trade progress for paralysis and call it life.

Which is why all suffering is joyful. I love the Buddhist saying that the purpose of pain is not to make you suffer…the purpose of pain is to bring you present. Or, you could say, to wake you up. Wake you up from a state of un-conscious behavior to a conscious state of authentic behavior wherein you feel everything and take responsibility for everything you create by thought, word and deed. This is the definition of an authentic life.

So, now that we’re smarter and more awake around all of this, let’s revisit all these difficulties and challenges you’re facing in your life right now.  Surrender to them. Feel the pain associated with them. By your surrender and the accompanying pain, you are becoming fully alive, awakened and conscious. You are embarking upon an authentic life wherein there is no room for half-hearted attempts or untruthfulness and where the pain of growth is eclipsed by the joy of being your authentic Self.

So, suffer these challenges joyfully and use the pain to awaken in you the aliveness for which you’ve hungered. The alternative, to stay unconscious, is of an old reality that can no longer provide you the nourishment you need.

Just when you’re thinking there’s nothing you can do to help the world economy, save the environment and promote peace… up pops a simple way to do all three at once! 

Think I’m kidding or just delusional? Read on.

Lots of people have theories about why the former Soviet Union collapsed when it did and most Republicans, not to mention Americans, like to say it was President Ronald Reagan’s in-your-face-cowboy-stand that did it. But Thomas L. Friedman, author of “Hot, Flat and Crowded” has put forth an intriguing and, I dare say, logical alternative that is based less on hubris and more on economics and the environment.

In his latest book, Friedman shares a conversation he had in 2007 with Vladimir Mau, director of Russia’s Academy of National Economy wherein Friedman posited whether it was “$10-a-barrel oil, not Ronald Reagan, that brought down the Soviet Regime?” Mau’s unhesitating reply was that it was actually “$70-a-barrel oil followed by $10-a-barrel oil that killed the Soviet Union.”  The high oil prices of the 1970’s that resulted from both the Arab oil embargo and the Iranian revolution seduced the then Soviet Union into living off of the rich oil revenues it was the beneficiary of while at the same time promoting and subsidizing all kinds of inefficient industries rather embark upon real economic reform. When the price of oil then collapsed in the 1980’s and 1990’s, an ill-prepared and antiquated Soviet Union collapsed along with them as it had neglected to make the real changes that would have allowed it to bring it’s economy and it’s industries forward into a global marketplace.

So, what’s that got to do with you? 

Well, current seemingly dark times can have a “silver lining” too. Check out today’s CNN story about falling oil prices http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/10/26/gas.prices/index.html . It seems that the shaky world economy is having it’s impact on oil. For several reasons. But your contribution is that you’re using less gasoline and watching you oil consumption because dollars are in short supply and you’re not sure what the future holds.  The resulting decline in the price of oil is hurting guess who? That’s right. The producers and sellers of oil…all those countries that would like to see the United States, and the rest of the free world, brought to their knees. So to the extent that countries such as Iran and Venezuela have neglected addressing real economic reform and other necessary changes because they have been resting on the laurels of their oil revenues….well, you get the picture.

Now, if you use less oil and oil related products, thereby causing a continued drop in the price of oil, you may just make a difference in the economic stability of oil-producing nations similar to what occurred in the former Soviet Union.  And if you destabilize those regimes you may make way for new and alternative means of governance. Perhaps more humanitarian and more peaceful governance. And, if you use and consume less oil and oil-related products you positively impact the environment and reduce CO2 emissions.

So, there you have it.  You’ve just helped the economy, the environment and promoted world peace just by the choices you will make today around oil consumption.  It’s not a guarantee, of course. It could just be my fantasy or a mixed metaphor. But just thinking it might work gives you something to mull over and perhaps, even something to do (or not do) today.

In a world so seemingly out of balance with so many challenges, I like having something I can actually do that may make a positive difference. It’s empowering. 

When was the last time you felt empowered?

REMEMBER to click here to download a FREE copy of my e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”

Note: This is actually something from the Inspirational Thoughts page of my website carolegold.com. It was written over a year ago but, when I re-read it today, I thought how helpful it could be right now… so here it is. Enjoy!

Personal and professional relationships are vehicles we use to learn about ourselves in ways we are unable to explore on our own. Unless we experience our behavior and its consequences through the responses of other people, we lack the gift of reflection that allows us to see ourselves more honestly and more completely. Others are, in essence, our “mirrors” and provide us with a unique and multi-faceted view of ourselves. I’m certain that’s why we are born into a world populated with other human beings.    
   
However, this gift of reflection, like so many of life’s gifts, is often taken for granted. Too frequently, we ignore the potential benefit of difference and instead pursue the comfort of similarity. Whether it’s an individual or a group of individuals with whom we disagree, our failure to embrace these differences or worse, to fear them, deprives us of the opportunity to learn and grow in new and meaningful ways. Sadly, the early part of the 21st century finds this tendency permeating not only our personal lives, but our national political life and our spiritual lives as well.
 
Personally, we tend to align ourselves with like-minded people and groups. It’s the rare individual or group enlightened enough to give differing opinions the respect they deserve. Politically, we have become a nation of two camps, Democrat and Republican, each of which has perfected the art of divide and conquer through misuse of both the influence of the media as well as the financial power of large corporations. And finally, spiritually, the world looks increasingly like three locomotives – Jew, Christian and Muslim – all speeding toward a disastrous, head-on collision.

The irony in all of this division and opposition is that every important historical document and every major religious tenet supports and encourages unity. Each one praises and extols the concept of Oneness, not in the sense of a loss of individual identity, but rather in the sense of comprehending the value of our relationships to and with one another. This sense of Oneness has been the aspiration and realization of all great thinkers and leaders throughout the history of humankind.

So why is it so hard for us to hold on to this vital concept of Oneness and how do we change direction and leave the lonely path of separation? The answer is a two-step process that is relatively simple to comprehend and only slightly more difficult to apply.  
 
First we lessen our dependency upon a media empire that feeds and prospers off of our fears and our need to belong. Television can be not only mind-numbing but also dangerous. It bombards us with at best half-truths and, at worst, lies about who we are, who others are, and what it takes to live prosperous and satisfying lives. It is illusion we reinforce each time we invite it in by tuning in. And, as a culture, we tune it in too often. Print, radio and the internet are not far behind. Each of these mediums is ready and willing to help us define ourselves in ways that allow others to stay prosperous and in control of our lives. So, the first step is to turn inside ourselves and begin to define your life by what your inner voice is saying rather than by the collective voice of countless others.

The second step is to learn how to hear your inner voice. This is the easy part since there’s a “channel” you can access to tune in and receive your own personalized messages. The way to access the channel is prayer. Not prayer as we generally think of it. Not a plea for help during difficult times or a request for fulfillment of your material wants. Rather, prayer as quiet time to go within yourself and listen to what you really want so that you can know what it is you really need to do. Becoming quiet and still is simultaneously the doorway to the path of oneness and best way off the path of separation.

When all the externally imposed, meaningless messages of need are removed, you become able to focus on the true yearning that originates from within. That yearning is the same for every human being. It’s the yearning for Oneness and peace. Personally, I find this quiet place every Sabbath for I am a Jew and the Sabbath is an opening in time for me to go within and listen.
 
But such a space is available to every human being with or without religious affiliation. To become quiet and go within is to replace the outward illusion with the inner reality. The method is prayer; oneness and peace the vision. Both attainable goals. Simply begin by first turning down (and later turning off) those voices that say they know better than you what it is you truly desire.

Then when it gets quiet, just listen.                     

REMEMBER to click here to download a FREE copy of my e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”

Remember that last scene from the original “Raiders of the Ark”?  Indy and Marion are tied back to back against a pole and the Nazi’s are opening The Ark of the Covenant. Indy turns his head, as best he can, in her direction and shouts “Don’t look Marion….don’t look!” Good advice given that the energy escaping from the Ark, having been violated by evil intentions, is melting everything and everyone in sight. 

Good advice right now about the Dow. If you’re within ear-shot of me pay attention: Don’t Look!

Don’t look at the indexes, don’t look at the headlines…in fact, don’t even listen to news about it. Fear, like the energy escaping from the Ark, is attempting to run amok, and unchecked, it will take down everything and everyone in its way. 

Indy’s advice is not so off the mark. 

If you pay attention to the bad news your attention feeds the fear. You’re literally adding your thoughts to the illusion that the sky is falling. If you want to give the power of your thoughts to anything try giving it to Alan Greenspan’s comments yesterday to Congress. He said it’s an economic tsunami but we’re going to be in better and healthier economic shape after it’s over. Or pay attention to Warren Buffet who seems to know his financial stuff…he’s buying American stock. Or pay attention to what the portfolio managers of the really large funds are doing…they’re buying while everyone else is freaking out about selling.

What Indy was telling her was that your reality is as you create it with your thoughts, your intention and your attention. So be smart. Don’t place your thought, your intention or your attention upon that which you do not want. Instead, place them upon that which you do want.

I see those antiquated, corrupted systems…both private and governmental…withering away. I see systems based upon integrity and justice taking their place. I see a world where women and children are not beaten and raped and sold as pawns in political wars. I see a United States that remembers its highest ideals and lives them. I see a world that understands the interconnectedness of all people to one another and to all living things and acts accordingly and responsibly.

I don’t see the “futures” this morning. This morning I see a bright Future.

What do you see?

REMEMBER to click here to download a FREE copy of my e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”

Bet you’re wondering how these two could possibly be related? Well, read on.  First of all a quick refresher. There are only two emotions. Love and Fear… so that ought to immediately go a long way toward closing the credulity gap! 

Clearly we are now being challenged by an onslaught of Fear based upon the economy and, particularly, the Wall Street related “losses” (it’s in quotes for a reason I’ll get to shortly).  However, there’s always choice (a.k.a. Free Will) around how we handle and respond to what we are experiencing. So, based upon the two emotion premise, what if you reject Fear and instead choose Love.

What happens then?

Well, I like to think of the letters in the word Love as standing for “Living Oneness Valuing Everything.” With that in mind, the first realization is that money is not all there is to value. Or, at least, not all we should value. For example, there’s health, friendship, family, laughter, the capacity to be joyful, the beauty of Nature, a good book… just to name a few. So, when you shift from worrying about all the money the stock market has “lost”…you open the portal to gratitude. 

Yes, gratitude.

Just put the money aside for one minute and jot down all that you have to be grateful for in your life right now. This instant. Can you get a glass of fresh, clean water to drink if you’re thirsty? Swallow if you’re hungry? Call a friend if you’re lonely? Take a walk without pain? Laugh? Because if you get back all the money you’ve “lost” or expect to “lose” in the present economy all of it combined will not be able to buy you any of those.

This is Valuing Everything.

As for Living Oneness, well, the world is out of balance. Seriously out of balance.  There are some people with astronomical wealth and opportunity while others are, quite literally, starving to death or being perversely tortured to death with no hope for relief… let alone change.  This condition is unnatural in the purest sense of the word.  Nature, left to It’s own devices, strikes a balance…seeks harmony…perpetually returns to a state of equilibrium. Nature does not tolerate perversion…at least not for very long.

This state of equilibrium… that’s where we’re now headed. That’s what the “losses” on Wall Street represent: a rejection of perversion and a return to balance and harmony.

Now, to the quotation marks.  We’re not “losing” anything.

We’re re-aligning with what matters. We’re ending one direction and heading in another. We’re re-prioritizing. We’re gaining clarity. We’re grasping the significance of what we are to One Another. We’re embarking on Living Oneness.

So, there it is. Love and Wall Street.  As always, you choose.

This is an update on my divorce, although I know you didn’t ask for it.  It just happens that I’ve gained so many valuable lessons through the process and recently, perhaps the most profound. So, I want to share it with you. After all, that’s why we’re all here together. To share the wisdom.

Last Friday I was in Court on what’s called an Enforcement Motion. What that means is that there was a prior Court Order that my husband was not abiding by. No matter how many attempts my lawyer or I made to try and avoid it, the filing of the Motion was ultimately necessary as my husband simply would not begin to see it our way.

As a former practicing divorce lawyer, I have no illusions about what can happen once you’re in a courtroom. It’s all subject to the particular judge who’s hearing the case and what his or her intelligence level is as well as their particular personality quirks. Justice is often a futile quest. And, we had been in Court once before on an Enforcement Motion and the white male judge had sort or “played fast and loose” with the facts. This time we were in front of a relatively new, female African-American judge and she was good. She “got it” and understood right from the beginning that my husband simply thinks he can ignore Court Orders.

The Judge allowed him to speak and to ask or state whatever he wanted in his defense, but when all was said and done she was unimpressed with his delivery and obviously disgusted with his disrespect for the legal system. She told him, in so many words, what he was going to do from that moment on and, more than once, “cut him down to size” for lack of a more sophisticated description.

But here’s the thing.

I don’t think of myself as a human being but rather as a spiritual being having a human experience. I struggle always to see the highest good in myself and others and to challenge myself to be better than I was yesterday. So what happened to me in that courtroom was not so much a surprise as deep gratitude for the grace to be able to experience victory and compassion simultaneously.

While I was experiencing the satisfaction of knowing that the “system” was finally doing the job it was intended to do by granting my Motion (while he was also assessed my legal fees for having to bring it) I was also pained that the man I love, but with whom I cannot seem to live, was being publicly shamed in this way. I actually hurt for him. I was the victor yet I was more taken with his suffering than my victory.  As we left the Courtroom, I left the Courthouse immediately, directing my lawyer to tidy-up the loose ends with my husband.  When I got into my car I sat there wondering why I had walked out so quickly instead of savoring the moment. The answer was that didn’t want to subject him to having to look into my eyes after what he had just been through. It was compassion that caused me to leave.

I learned two important lessons this past Friday.

The first is how Tibetans, imprisoned and tortured by the Chinese, can actually pray for their captors enlightenment while they are being beaten by those captors.

The second is that, as I have often heard stated in Buddhism, Compassion is the highest form of Love.

I wrote a short note to my husband since the hearing on Friday to share this with him but he has been  non-responsive. I understand. He too, is a spiritual being having a human experience…doing the best he can with what he’s learned thus far.

Friday proves that every day is a new opportunity for enlightenment.

REMEMBER to click here to download a FREE copy my e-book, “Too Many Secrets”

Well, I’ve done it again and it’s worked…again.

For the past two weeks I have pretty much disengaged myself from any media sources that promote bad news or fear.  Now, practically speaking, this means almost all media sources… since bad news and fear are still being hotly marketed, although I think the powers that be are dragging their feet somewhat in perceiving the shift in consciousness that’s taking place.

Most of us have moved, or are moving, beyond the need or the desire to be manipulated by fear. Awakening from that long sleep, we are becoming more discriminating in what we allow ourselves to be exposed to and where we place our own thoughts.  As I’ve always said, “Thoughts are things.”  Once you have one, you’ve can pretty much rest assured that you’ve now manifested it in some way at some future point in time. That’s what all the “hoopla” was over the DVD “The Secret.”  It set forth the underlying principal that what you think about you draw to you…for better or worse. It’s true. And when you begin to take that principal to heart and live it…well, you can actually experience the difference between what I call “default thinking” and “deliberate creating.” 

In both methods you get back what it is you have placed your thoughts upon. But in default thinking you get back a whole lot more of what you don’t want than what you do. That’s because of two reasons.

    1. Most people spend their thought energy in either the past or the future…regretting or worrying respectively. With most of your thoughts in regret or worry…you create, by default, more regret and worry.

    2. When you abandon your present moment to thoughts of past or future, you absorb, like a sponge, what it is that’s occurring in the present moment.  Given the world we live in that’s more often than not fear-based conversations and news.  Taking in fear-based thinking in the present moment crates more fear in your future.  

On the other hand, in deliberate creating, you pay attention to what you are thinking and when your thoughts don’t align with your intention..what it is you want to create in your life…you change those thoughts while also being vigilant about eliminating externally generated messages that don’t support what it is you want.

Which is why for the past two weeks I have eliminated the news. I saw it coming. All the fear and panic around the economy. I simply wasn’t going to consciously set myself up for being part of the problem by further feeding the fear. I deliberately created two weeks where there was no bad economic news.

And you know what?  I didn’t miss a thing.

In fact, I stayed off the emotional roller coaster ride of the market’s ups and downs. I missed all the Doomsdayers and analysts and poll takers who offer nothing in the way of constructive thinking but loads in the way of fear. Instead I spent the time I would have been creating by default watercolor painting, reading positively affirming books, practicing piano, writing bogs, helping friends and building a future more consistent with how I choose to live my life.

When I write blogs such as this one I always include the disclaimer that I am not a Pollyanna nor do I have my head in the sand. I’m not denying the reality that “times they are a changing”…I simply use my Free Will to decide what that change looks like to me…and in so doing use my thoughts to support the highest good rather than the lowest common denominator. When the time comes to deal with the change, when it’s actually in front of me, I will. In the meantime, there’s just no point in worring about it.

So, today, take control of your life by way of your thinking and avoid the avoidable. No one says you have to watch or listen or read about what’s being sold to you. Tune it out, turn it off, and place your thoughts where you want them to be.

I promise you that in your “absence”…you will not have missed a thing that matters.

 

Well, right from the start let me warn you this is not about what you think it’s about. And, its a difficult entry to write because I have to walk a fine line between what I believe to be true for all and what will surely offend some. This is about relationships, primarily relationships between women and men, although in the end it pertains to all relationships.

It’s my contention that “trade unions”, as that phrase applies to relationships, is an oxymoron.  When “trade” is the basis for any relationship what you have is an exchange. You each have something the other wants, needs or lacks and so you trade or exchange that which you have for that which you desire. What you cannot have when you trade or exchange is Union. And so we come to the fundamental flaw that can be found in most male-female relationships…and what I think is the cause for divorce.

Women trade wisdom for protection.  Men trade autonomy for power.

This is where I begin to offend.

Women are inherently more wise than men. Now don’t get all huffy…yet. I didn’t say they were more intelligent or smarter. I said they were wiser. By that I mean that women, being inherently more comfortable and connected to their intuitive selves and the rhythms of the natural world, have a heightened ability to know… by way of their innate sensitivity… some of the essential truths of Life.  But we have been conditioned and frightened for thousands of years (and perhaps longer) into believing the illusion that success in the material world is governed by physical prowess rather than knowing. Men are, generally speaking, physically stronger. So, we trade our sensitivity,our inherent knowing, for protection.  This started as physical protection from the elements and enemies but over time has evolved (or de-volved) to become, sadly, the way women routinely abdicate our true power in every area of our lives to men who have all too willingly taken it up and misused it.

Men are beings who inherently crave autonomy. They want to “be their own person”…make their own decisions…succeed at and acquire whatever they desire. But their ability to do this is, generally speaking, somewhat limited to the more basic aspects of physical reality. They build, they compete, they battle…they are consummately “physical” beings.  What they ultimately aspire to, however, is prevailing…winning…being the “top dog”…having power over others so as to answer to no one but themselves. In a word, autonomy. Long ago men looked at women and saw the true power that men desired. So, they set out to acquire it by making the physical world a scary and dangerous place to reside…a place where protection is required.

So, women traded their wisdom (true power) in the hope of obtaining protection while men traded their autonomy in the hope of obtaining power.  Hence, an exchange but not a union. And when you trade something in the belief that you are getting what it is you want by that trade, and over time it turns out that you don’t get it…well, you feel cheated and oftentimes very hostile towards the other trader.

The irony is that women wind up feeling imprisoned, not safe at all. They become emotionally enslaved to a system that devalues and denies the existence of their greatest gift…the gift of knowing. And men wind up giving up their autonomy to become enslaved to women who promised to exchange their power for protection, when what was really exchanged was the cessation of using their knowing for the promise of protection. Men only think that by such a deal can they obtain true power. What they actually end up with is trying to replicate true power through force which has gotten us where we are today…socially and globally speaking.

Both men and women eventually end up disappointed and betrayed in such a bargain.

The answer to this age-old problem is rather simple…although it will take great courage to move beyond where we are at this moment. 

Women must reclaim their Creator-given gift of wisdom by valuing and exercising  the intuitive aspect of themselves rather than entering into an artificial bargain whereby they relinquish it.  Connecting to natural wisdom is the greatest protection known.

Men must be willing to take on all of the responsibilities of autonomy,  including compassion, respect and equality in relation to all forms of life…so that they can experience and know true power by so doing.

Only when women own their power and men own their autonomy can the two consciously and willingly give up trading “need for need” and instead enter into Union, the desire that beats endlessly in the hearts of each of them.

REMEMBER to click here to download a copy of my FREE e-book, “Too Many Secrets.”