Yet, we know that as humans we learn by doing.  Hearing about how things are is never as interesting to children as the experience of finding out for themselves.  And we know as parents that a child is eager to learn by having new experiences.  A child’s mind is like a sponge, taking on new ideas and information that it finds useful or interesting almost continually.  Although children need to do this in order to be able to grow into mature, well-rounded adults, that’s also the problem when it comes to taking on ideas that limit them by diminishing self-esteem and instilling excessive fear. 

Adults, on the other hand, have taken on so much information over the years through experience that the process of taking in new ideas becomes extremely selective.  The mind is simply overloaded with preconceived notions.  These notions shape how we express our personality and live our experience of life.  They are usually based on our own past experiences.  The ones that seem to hold our personalities most firmly in place are the ones we learned at a very early age.  They have emotional importance because they were passed down to us from those we considered important to our well-being, most often parents, for better or worse.  

These events or ideas that have emotional importance are stored indefinitely in the subconscious mind, and become part of our general outlook.  This results in the common malady often referred to as “the sins of the father (or mother) being passed down to the son (or daughter)”.  

Addressing these feelings at their source is the theme behind my book titled, High Way From Hell: Using Emotion to Fan the Fire of Enlightenment.  Using examples from my own life, I demonstrate ways to use feeling as a tool for conscious evolution.    By opening to a more expanded awareness of the consequences of our thoughts and intentions, reading High Way From Hell enhances a more intuitive relationship with the authentic self.

To raise a child who is more self-confident, who has high self-esteem and who has the courage to pursue their heart’s calling requires the guidance of parents who have resolved their own emotional conflicts and limitations.  

It is our judgments about our experiences and our feelings that cause us misery.  When we are unable to surrender to what is real for us at the moment, we lose our connection to soul.  

The more emotions are stored and not experienced, the more loudly the voices in the mind clamor with discontent.  It is this clamoring that disturbs the quietness of mind an enlightened being can experience.  Feeling experience without the judgment that results in the misery of duality allows the experience to move through as an energy or wave form, rather than becoming a fixed entity in a person’s life. 

By being attentive to this in all facets of experience, life itself becomes an active meditation. 

I go into this a great deal in my spiritual transformation book, “High Way From Hell: Using Emotion to Fan the Fire of Enlightenment”.   You can get a signed copy at www.HighWayFromHell.com.

The power of “going with the flow” is that resisted experience can finally be integrated, opening up new possibilities.  I know it sounds ironic.  It’s the paradox of spiritual discovery great teachers have spoken about through the ages. 

To increase your ability to create your life as you want it, you must first surrender to the life you already have.  This is where feeling and emotion emerge as tools for transformation.  Discovering the judgments that create emotional imbalance and surrendering to the flow of resisted feelings allows movement toward an ocean of greater awareness and greater creative ability.  Surrendering to this flow invites the experience of grace. 

Intuition then opens up.  By becoming all of what you are, by becoming everything you are feeling, as well as everything you are resisting feeling, your connection to your authentic spiritual nature is re-established.  This is the path that leads home to a quieter mind, a mind that is now capable of hearing the voice of spirit within the feelings of the heart.

Feelings based on past experience are stored in the subconscious mind and tend to limit our experience of what is possible.  Feelings based on possibilities – intuition – arrive to us from the realm of superconscious awareness.  In order to get past what we are feeling that we don’t like, we must drop the judgments about it long enough to feel whatever it is we are feeling without blame or regret.  This allows the voice of intuition to be heard.  Our feelings are the conduit to intuition.  Intuition emanates from a more expanded aspect of consciousness that includes the experiential nature of pure feeling.  

Judgments are emotionally charged beliefs.  Judgments originally emanate from our conscious minds, the part of our mind that makes decisions and choices.  Because of the emotional importance usually attached to them, they are stored in the subconscious, which is primarily motivated to protect us from harm.  And because the subconscious creates habits to carry out its duties (remember it is not logical or rational), these emotionally charged judgments automatically filter new information through the viewpoint of the judgment.  

This is why we have trouble changing emotional habit patterns that we don’t like.  The subconscious automatically stores anything that has emotional importance, including the judgment (belief) surrounding the emotion.  Once the subconscious has taken it on board, we can and do forget about it – we don’t have to think about it in order for the attracting power of the judgment and emotion to play out in our lives. 

These judgments are what limit our ability to feel our true heart path and attract to us things we would prefer not to experience.  The mind likes security and control and it does this mostly through making judgments based on past experiences.  The heart wants permission to be authentic, to be open to new experience and to be allowed to be amazed by its experiences.  When the mind quiets down, the voice of intuition speaks clearly to the heart. 

To go much more deeply into this idea, you can go to http://www.SpiritWindPublishing.com and order a copy of my book, High Way From Hell: Using Emotion to Fan the Fire of Enlightenment.  I’ll sign it for you at no extra charge.  Or you can order a copy without a signature at a discount from Amazon or Barnes and Noble by clicking on these links.

As an avid reader of personal growth and holistic health books for over 30 years, I thought it was time to finally read one of Wayne Dyer’s books.  Somehow his titles had not attracted my attention enough in the past to persuade me to buy one.  I loved the title of this book and knowing what a force he has become in the field of personal development, I was ready for something great. 

I agree in theory with many of the concepts presented in this book.  Yet I found contradictions that didn’t make sense.  For example, in his 12-step program to simplicity in Chapter 8, step 9 says “Do everything you can to eschew debt” and step 10 says to “Forget about the Cash Value”.  Not only do these seem contradictory, but they really don’t work for most people unless they are largely financially independent.

At the end of each chapter he has a section called “Some Suggestions for Putting the Ideas in this Chapter to Work for You”.  I found his suggestions to be rather bland and theoretical, without much more practical application than the chapters he applied them to.

I really wanted to love this book but to be honest, I would have to say it is rather generic.  He quotes so many others throughout the book, and some of the quotes are great, but he lacks inspiring quotes of his own (no pun intended).

I try to finish any book I start but found myself eager to get through with this one.  It just didn’t have that special something that would make it unique and great.  It seemed mostly to be a recital of the author’s lifestyle, preferences, good deeds and celebrity connections.  In addition, I found the tone of writing to be a bit condescending.

This book is good but not special.  The parts I enjoyed most were the numerous quotes from other authors or thinkers, not the words of the author himself. 

Much more inspiring, I believe, are Conversations With God: An Uncommon Dialog (Book 2), Happier Than God: Turn Ordinary Moments into an Extraordinary Experience or The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment.

In fact exactly the opposite is true. When we surrender our judgments about “what is” we are able to experience it unconditionally in a way that allows the growth of understanding and compassion. It is the manner in which the spirit evolves while in human form. While we may not enjoy all of our individual experiences, when viewed from the standpoint of an observer of consciousness, they are tools in the evolution of our collective consciousness.

We are all connected on some level. Painful experiences that are not resisted teach us humility, which allows us to empathize with others. As long as we are judging ourselves, each other, our experiences and the world as it is, we cannot move beyond the consciousness that is creating that.