Let me share some perspectives that should make it easier to understand the process of waking up.

The Cellular Perspective

From the cellular perspective, you can see yourself as an individual person interacting with other individuals. You’re like a single cell in the larger body of humanity, which is comprised of billions of other people-cells.

For example, I could say that I’m a guy (a cell) who’s dedicated to helping people (other cells) live more consciously. I may communicate with many people during my lifetime, but each person is a unique individual, so the impact is different for everyone. We may all be part of some larger body of humanity, but our interactions mainly occur at the individual cellular level.

This is similar to one of the cells in your body noticing the other cells around it and deciding to do what it can to be of service to those cells. It may help a lot of cells, but it still regards itself as an individual cell helping other individual cells. And it won’t help all cells equally, nor could it do so even if it tried.

The Holistic Perspective

From the holistic perspective, you see yourself as an integral part of the universe as a whole. The overall intent is to help universal consciousness grow and evolve, particularly the human consciousness of which you’re a part.

This would be like one of the cells in your body recognizing that it’s part of a larger physical body, whereby it stops thinking of itself primarily as an individual cell and begins to see itself as being of potential service to the greater whole. Its fate isn’t as important as the fate of the larger body.

So with this perspective, instead of thinking of myself as a guy who helps people live more consciously, I can see myself as a servant of humanity helping to create a more conscious humanity, or as a servant of universal consciousness itself. My primary role here is to serve conscious evolution, which isn’t necessarily what’s best for any particular individual human in the short term.

Other Perspectives

Of course there are other perspective too. We could discuss identification with community, nation, all life, the cosmos, etc. These perspectives are equally valid, but exploring them would add complexity without adding much substance to the core ideas. So for now I want to keep this simple.

On the atomic side, you’re an individual, and other people are individuals too. On the holistic side, we’re all part of a greater whole.

I’m not suggesting that any one perspective is best. All of these perspectives are valid. But I will suggest that it’s important to integrate the holistic perspective more fully into your life if you wish to experience a healthier flow of abundance.

“Waking up” basically means that you consider and integrate the holistic perspective as part of your daily life. Of course there are degrees of waking up, depending on how aware you are of the holistic perspective and how fully you’ve integrated it into your life. In the same manner, the cells in your body may have varying degrees of awareness that they are in fact part of a larger human body.

Alternatively, to be “asleep” is to be unaware of the larger holistic perspective. We could also define this behaviorally by saying that someone is asleep if they’re aware of the holistic perspective, but they don’t attempt to act congruently with it. In terms of semantics, I’d say that the first group is asleep, while the second group is trying to sleep.

Fairness

At the individual level, fairness seems to be about equality. But of course we don’t see that much genuine equality in the world. It’s quite obvious that some individuals have more resources than others. Some people seem to be luckier too.

Does your own human body care about fairness when it doles out resources like oxygen and sugar to its individual cells? To an extent, sure. When resources are abundant, there’s plenty for all, but even then the distribution isn’t perfectly equal. And when resources become scarce, the body will starve cells that are less important to its survival to divert more resources to the most crucial cells.

So the question is, are you an essential cell in the larger body of consciousness? Or are you superfluous? Well… look at the resources that life sends your way. Do you feel all your needs are well met — your physical needs, emotional needs, social needs, self esteem needs, etc? Are you a highly self-actualized individual? Or do you have strong unfulfilled cravings for things that are important to you? Have you possibly given up on meeting some of your needs? Are you flourishing or are you stuck?

If you’re struggling to get your needs met, that’s a hint and a half that life itself isn’t particularly concerned with your well-being. Don’t fret though if this describes your situation. It’s a problem that can be fixed. Just don’t try to fix it by clamoring and complaining — that doesn’t work and will often backfire.

This may not seem fair, but in a way it is reasonable. You may be a very nice, kind, and generous person, but if your focus is at the cellular level, you’re probably missing so much of the big picture that in the grand scheme of things, your contribution just doesn’t matter that much, at least not from the perspective of universal consciousness.

You may be doing what could just as easily be done by someone else, which means you’re highly expendable. You may be playing follow the follower. You may be genuinely helping, but only at the cellular level. You may be doing nothing much, which makes it easy to ignore you.

If you live in such a way that doesn’t really contribute much, don’t be too surprised if it seems like life is starving you for resources. After all, life doesn’t need you as much if you aren’t actively helping with its expansion and growth.

Consider the cells in your own body. You may scratch an itch on your arm and kill lots of cells in the process without even thinking about it. Individual skin cells just aren’t that important to your overall survival. But you’re less likely to scratch off a patch of critical brain cells. A cut on your finger is no cause for alarm, but a cut on your eyeball is something you’d do more to avoid. Your body is even designed to protect some parts more than others. If something flies at your face, you’ll automatically throw up your arms to protect your head. But you won’t normally use your head to protect your arms.

Do you think you’re among the critical humans that the larger body of humanity would move to defend and protect? Or are you among the sacrificial parts?

What Does Consciousness Want?

What do you want as a human being? Think about your goals, dreams, and aspirations for a moment.

Now consider what an individual cell in your body would want. It wants oxygen and sugar. It wants to eliminate waste. Is this on the same level as your goals? Do you aspire to breathe, eat, and take dumps as your primary goals for the year?

Hopefully not.

Now look at this from the other side. From the perspective of the consciousness itself, your human-level dreams and goals seem petty. It’s important to keep people happy to an extent, but the fate of any one human is largely insignificant. Universal consciousness really doesn’t care if you have a job or an income, if you get the house you want, if you have a good relationship or not. It doesn’t care if you get laid or remain a virgin.

Well, it cares a little, but it’s not a major concern, just as you aren’t overly concerned about the fate of any individual cells in your body. It’s the body’s overall status that matters. And you probably identify more with your mind (your collective cellular intelligence) as opposed to your physical body anyway.

Similarly, universal consciousness is more concerned with the evolution of consciousness itself (our collective consciousness) as opposed to the fate of any individual human or even of humanity itself. Now the loss of humanity would probably be a setback, but consciousness may eventually recover in other forms.

What does consciousness really want? Like you and like your individual cells, it wants to get its needs met, and it wants to grow and evolve. But the level on which it’s capable of doing this goes way beyond what you’re capable of as an individual.

Look around at all the amazing — and accelerating — achievements of consciousness. It’s expanding in many directions simultaneously. Consider what’s evolving on earth. Humanity itself is becoming smarter and faster and more connected. And it’s having some health issues to deal with as well. And consciousness wants to keep going.

Living Small or Living Large

You can spend your life fussing over your own piddly cellular needs, but in the grand scheme of things, it won’t be anything to write home about. No matter what you do or don’t do as an individual, it’s just not going to matter that much.

The same can be said of any cell in your body. At the individual level, a single cell isn’t particularly important.

Imagine asking a cell in your body what he’s doing with his life, and he talks about the Bloodstream Marketing course he’s taking and how excited he is about all the extra sugar he’ll earn from his efforts. Oh boy!

But will his efforts pay off? Probably not. If he isn’t getting his needs met, there’s probably a good reason for it. The larger body will see that his needs are well met if there’s a good reason to do so. Otherwise it will divert resources where they’re needed.

This is how silly we humans appear to universal consciousness. It still cares about us and wants to see us happy for the most part, but it finds our cellular perspective to be rather limiting. If you push to get your individual needs met, but you do so in ways that the larger body doesn’t care about or which may interfere with its bigger plans, it will either ignore you, or it will swat you down like a mosquito.

Imagine if a cell in your body said, I just want to eat food and reproduce like crazy. That might seem fun from his perspective, but then the larger body has a tumor to deal with. Send in the white blood cells.

If you feel like some greater force keeps knocking you back down every time you try to get ahead, you’re not imagining it. It really is knocking you back down, and it will continue to do so until you stop trying to get ahead like a cancer cell would. Have you ever noticed, for instance, that as soon as you try to make progress on cancer-like projects, you keep getting distracted, so your attention has to turn somewhere else?

Quite often we cry “Life is so unfair” when from a larger perspective, it’s a no brainer that life is either going to ignore us or attack us. Humanity’s white blood cells will come after us and make life unpleasant for us when we forget that we’re part of a larger whole and that its well-being is more important than our individual well-being.

Now imagine if an individual cell in your body said to you, “Wait a minute. I get it. I may be just a tiny cell, but I’m a part of this whole body. That’s cool. Is there anything I can do to help?”

What would you say to it? You might wonder what one conscious cell could do for your whole body. Not much most likely. But then you might think, What if this cell could wake up many others, and what if those cells could awaken still more? Eventually you could have a body filled with cells that were aware of the whole body and seeking to serve it. This would fix a lot of your problems. You’d have much better health for starters. Cancer wouldn’t be able to take root. Most diseases would be eradicated easily. You’d always be able to maintain your ideal weight.

So you might tell that one conscious cell, “Go around and wake up more cells. Gather them together. Then we’ll talk.”

Being a Conscious Human

A conscious cell is aware of the whole body and realizes that the body matters more than any individual cell. The cells are there to serve the evolution of the body and mind, not merely themselves. There’s obviously a connection between the good of the cells and the good of the body, but it’s easier to have a healthy body if on some level, the cells are aware that the body’s health is more important than their own. A cell that works against the health of the body is a disease cell.

A conscious human being is aware of the larger body of humanity and has a sense of a greater consciousness that’s unfolding and evolving at a much higher level than any individual human can.

There is value in the lower level perspective. It’s not a perspective to ignore but rather to integrate with the holistic perspective. For example, through relaxed meditative breathing, we can connect with the lower level perspective of our own cells. Breathe in. Breathe out. We’re getting plenty of oxygen. Life is good. This cellular level perspective can help to ground us. Many meditations are essentially about tuning back in to this cellular perspective, while other meditations involve expanding to a more holistic perspective. The ideal is to be able to consider all of these perspectives as valid.

If our cells aren’t healthy, our bodies can’t be healthy, and so humanity itself can’t be healthy. And of course the opposite holds true as well. But there are ways of meeting our needs on different levels that are in alignment with all of these perspectives, and there are other ways that are out of alignment. To live consciously, we need to shift towards the ways that are in alignment, so we can meet our needs as we also meet the needs of the cells in our bodies and of the greater body of humanity.

I’m certainly not the first human being to have the experience of “waking up” and becoming aware of this. Other conscious humans helped wake me up and continue to help me stay awake… or to reawaken me when I lose that perspective. I also endeavor to do my part and help other people wake up to the realization that jobs and money and marriage and retirement just aren’t that important. There are more important things to attend to here. Meeting our cellular needs is still important, but we don’t want to fuss at that level too much. We have more significant work to do here, and we could be experiencing life at a much higher level of existence.

Living your life as a part of humanity will take your experience to a level that’s far beyond life as an individual human being. Even if your intention is to help people, try expanding it to a vision of helping humanity, as if humanity itself is a conscious entity. It’s a whole different level of being.

Now what I’m seeing is that the gathering phase is well underway. Many years ago, it seemed like conscious people were very isolated. Now they’re coming together in bigger and bigger groups. I’m involved in multiple groups of this nature, and it seems like every few months I’m hearing about new groups forming. The conscious humans are clustering, and these clusters are growing larger and more organized. It’s as if new organs are incubating with the larger body of humanity. Something is definitely happening, and it’s a wondrous thing to behold.

Consequently, while I know some people are worried about where humanity is headed, I’m not worried at all. In fact, I’m excited about it. I have the privilege of being able to see what many of these conscious people are up to, and they’re starting to create transformational ripples. If you’re reading this article, then these ripples have already reached you, and you’re being impacted by them.

Some conscious cells are still isolated, however. Others are in very small groups only. And of course there are lots of people who still primarily think at the cellular level (go Bloodstream Marketing). But this is changing.

Perhaps the simplest way I can explain what’s happening is that humanity’s Power has been increasing by leaps and bounds, and now its alignment with Truth and Love desperately need to catch up. Otherwise humanity will eventually crash and burn. For instance, the first atomic bombs were dropped only 66 years ago, yet now we must somehow ensure that they’re never used on a global scale, not even 1000 years from now. One serious mistake or lapse during any minute that we have nukes, and it’s a major setback for us all. That’s a tall order that cannot be satisfied at the cellular level of consciousness. We’ve had too many close calls already (see the documentary Countdown to Zero for details on that). The larger body of humanity is aware of this challenge, and it recognizes that we need more people who are Truthful, Loving, and Powerful to deal with this existential threat.

You’re going to start picking up on this at the individual level, if you haven’t already. For instance, you’re going to feel far less tolerant of political leaders who lie to you. We’re going to see different kinds of leaders emerge, the kinds of leaders we truly need in this day and age. There are plenty of people like that, but in order for them to become popular enough, we just have to continue waking up more individual people. Once enough people are awake (or stop trying to sleep), we’ll see some major shifts. These shifts are already happening in the world of business, where popularity with the masses isn’t as necessary.

The Flow of Abundance

What we’re seeing is that on some level, this higher consciousness is taking note of what’s happening, and it seems to be assisting and accelerating the process. It wants human beings to wake up because a body of conscious cells can do much more than a body of unconscious ones. So if you’re concerned that there are too many crises in the world, recognize that there’s an upside. These major challenges are helping more and more people to finally wake up. We can’t even begin to address these challenges with cellular-level thinking, so we have to wake up in order to solve them.

There’s a lot of rebalancing that’s occurring as universal consciousness and individual human consciousness communicate with each other about how to best meet each others’ needs. How can humanity continue to evolve and expand while keeping individual humans happy and healthy? For humanity to be at its best, enough individual humans need to be at their best as well. You’re going to see this reflected in your own life too, as you grapple with the challenge of how to serve some greater life purpose while also making sure your individual needs are satisfied. In a way, you’re helping humanity experiment in order to find good solutions, which it can then spread to other cells. This is why cells like me feel an undeniable urge to pass on what we’ve figured out thus far.

As I’ve seen in my own life, this higher level consciousness is clearly listening. Somehow it can perceive the level at which we’re thinking, and it responds in kind. If you keep thinking at the cellular level, this higher consciousness will keep trying to wake you up. You may lose your job and other possessions, for instance, until you finally realize that those things don’t matter. We have more important things to deal with right now.

I’m far from perfect in this area, but I’m gradually getting the hang of it. I’m noticing that whenever I slip back down to cellular level thinking, I get a good smackdown. I feel like everything slows to a crawl. And when I shift back up to a higher level perspective, it’s like I’m back in the flow again. The phone rings with fresh opportunities, money just shows up, loving relationships flow into my life, and more. Fortunately perfection isn’t necessary. We just have to shift the balance far enough to achieve critical mass.

For those who are stuck at the cellular level of thinking, I suspect that life is going to become increasingly difficult for you. You’re going to see your worries, fears, and frustrations magnified. Life will seem to be getting worse. It may seem like important aspects of society are falling apart around you. This is happening for a reason though. These old systems are going to be dismantled. That’s actually a good thing. They’ll be replaced with better things.

For instance, you may be worried about debt, either your own or your country’s or someone else’s. But from the larger perspective of humanity, debt is meaningless. Humanity really doesn’t care if our financial system collapses or not. In fact, it may be better for it to collapse and be replaced by something else. So if you’re really attached to the current system and the money in your bank, you may get scared. But if you’re looking at the big picture, you’ll probably feel excited instead.

Be willing to lose what doesn’t matter, so we can all gain what does matter. Jobs don’t matter, but creativity does. Paying our bills doesn’t matter, but keeping our bodies healthy does. Getting good grades in school doesn’t matter, but preserving and passing on our collective knowledge does. Start reorganizing your life around what matters, and be willing to shed what doesn’t.

Try not to be too attached to remnants of the old cellular consciousness, like the money you have, the job you do, and the home you live in. The more you cling to those things, the more stressed out you’ll be. Just notice that these are all artificial cellular level concerns. What’s important is that humanity is evolving in a very positive way. You can resist that change and see your old goals fall apart, or you can flow with it and actively participate in the process of change.

For those who are waking up, life is going to become much easier in a way. Your life will explode with opportunities to learn, love, share, and grow. The good stuff will come from your alignment with the expansion of universal consciousness. But it’s important to keep the perspective of what really matters. Money doesn’t matter. Bloodstream/Internet Marketing is pointless and shallow. Waking people up and consciously co-creating something amazing is what matters.

When you align yourself with this higher level consciousness, abundance will flow through your life with relative ease. However, this type of abundance will be universal level abundance, not human level abundance. It doesn’t mean you’ll necessarily have more money, a more luxurious home, or more possessions. That kind of stuff just doesn’t matter and represents artificial needs, not real needs. This level of abundance means that you’ll be experiencing the benefits of being in a healthier body. You’ll get more of what really matters — more growth opportunities, more love, more joy, more inner peace.

Focus on your true needs. What do you need to feel abundant? You need to keep your body healthy with healthy food, sunshine, and clean air and water. You need a reasonable degree of safety. You need love and belongingness. You need self esteem. You need an outlet for your creativity. Your true needs are quite simple in fact, and they’re easier to satisfy than your artificial needs. You don’t need the latest tech gadget. You don’t need a job or an income. You don’t need to get married. You don’t need to master Bloodstream Marketing.

Your artificial needs may not align well with humanity’s larger concerns. But your true needs certainly do align. It’s in humanity’s best interests to keep its best servants healthy, happy, and prosperous. In that sense, it you dedicate yourself to serving this greater body, it will surely watch your back.

Aligning With Higher Level Desires

In order to tap into this greater flow of abundance, you have to tap into higher level desires.

First, recognize that your human level goals are beginning to bore you. No matter how important you try to make them, you can’t get motivated to work on them. You just can’t get that worked up about making money beyond a certain point. People may tell you it’s important to have specific financial goals, but when you try to do this for yourself, it makes you feel yucky inside. You can’t get motivated to work on those kinds of goals. They don’t inspire you. And so you procrastinate and then beat yourself up. It’s time to end this cycle. It’s time to re-align your desires with something that actually matters to you. You can set better goals than the human equivalent of stockpiling oxygen and sugar.

Stop thinking about what you want for yourself as an individual. Start thinking about what you want for humanity as a whole.

In the past, you may have been hesitant to even think at that level. Start thinking at that level now.

What do you want for humanity itself? Where would you like to see this larger body go during your lifetime and beyond?

Do you want us to clean up the planet? Explore outer space? Improve our educational systems? Stop fighting wars?

Let yourself dream about what’s possible for humanity. Notice that these dreams are much more impressive than anything you could possibly do as an individual.

Become a billionaire? Who cares? Start a charity? Big deal. Discover a new planet? Nice try. When will you be ready to work on a real goal, a goal for humanity itself?

Receiving Guidance

The best part is that you don’t even need to figure this out yourself. All you need to do is wake up to this higher level perspective, and then simply ping this universal consciousness to tell it you’re awake and ready to serve. Ask it for guidance, and guidance will come.

Just be aware that universal consciousness is frakkin powerful. It’s way more powerful than human level consciousness. When you tap into this resource and align yourself with it, your life is going to speed up. At first it may seem like drinking from a firehouse. It will take some time to get used to it.

If you feel that the flow is too much for you, you can ask it to slow down. I do this all the time. When I’m feeling overwhelmed, I say to the universe aloud, “Okay… this is too fast. Let’s slow this down for a week or two and give me a chance to catch my breath.” Then when I’m ready, I ask it to speed up again.

With practice you’ll get used to this faster pacing. You’ll get used to things showing up when you need them. You’ll get used to experiencing synchronicities almost every day.

A synchronicity is no accident. Universal consciousness knows what you need, perhaps even better than you do. You really don’t even have to ask for your specific needs to be met once you ask to be a better servant of humanity. As Jesus said, just say, “Not my will, but thy will be done.”

Lately I’ve been holding off on setting specific goals for myself. Instead I’ve been saying to the universe, “Bring me what you want me to work on, and also please bring me whatever you know I need for optimal health, happiness, and flow.” And then I do my best to remain open-minded and detached from outcomes. I let the universal consciousness guide me instead of having to set specific goals and intentions. I still have an intention, but it’s simply to do what’s best for humanity as a whole.

Partly I’m doing this because I’ve reached the point where any individual-level goal would bore me, and I wouldn’t be able to motivate myself to work on it. I just don’t care that much about oxygen and sugar to make it the central focus of my life. So I’m willing to risk things like losing my money, losing my home, having my relationships disrupted, etc. just for the opportunity to see where this flow leads. And yet somehow when I move past this fear of losing stuff, I seem to gain much more than I lose. As far as meeting my human needs goes, they’re all nicely satisfied and then some. Bloodstream Marketing just can’t compare.

Effect on Relationships

When you begin to align yourself with the perspective of higher level consciousness, your relationships with other people will shift. Try not to be too attached to what happens here. Your pairings with any one or more individuals aren’t necessarily going to be stable. It’s how your relationships affect the whole of humanity that matters. What ripples are you and your relationships co-creating?

People who aren’t compatible with this new perspective will fade from your life. At first you may fear that you’re going to end up alone, but there’s no cause for alarm. New relationships will come into your life, relationships with people who have a similar perspective. And these relationships will be much better for you than the old ones. They’ll help you hold the new perspective.

These new relationships will be different than what you’re used to, however. There will be less rigidity and more flexibility in this part of your life. Such relationships may defy traditional labels. You may feel a bit ungrounded in this new space. It takes time to get used to it.

Eventually you’ll realize that happiness and love can come from anywhere. You may have your emotional needs met equally well by a long-time partner or with someone you just met. Universal consciousness will guide you to whatever it is that you need to sustain your emotional health, as long as you don’t get too attached to how it shows up. If you remain open and flexible, your emotional needs can be satisfied with relative ease. Trust that universal consciousness knows just what you need, and it will deliver it right to you if you’re ready to accept it. Again, you don’t even have to ask once you’re on this path. It will satisfy your emotional needs because doing so makes you a better servant. You can’t serve humanity so well if you’re feeling lonely and disconnected. You’ll be more motivated if you have love in your life, so love will be delivered unto you.

Compared to where I was a few years ago, my relationship life might seem a bit strange these days. I have many relationships that would be difficult to label, but they seem to be healthy and flourishing in ways that are hard to get my head around. I can’t really define what they are, and I can’t predict where they’re going. But it seems like these connections are good and healthy for all involved. My biggest relationship challenge is unloading the traditional-minded baggage that nudges me to lock down and label each relationship, so I can feel like I understand it. But whenever I fall into that pattern, things get worse, not better. Conscious relationships don’t seem to like being locked down and labeled. They require more freedom and flow.

At first this sort of situation could make a person feel insecure. You may be accustomed to having a sense of security based on the stability of predictable interactions with people close to you.

However, when you align yourself with universal consciousness, you’re likely to move around a lot more relationship-wise. You’re going to meet and interact with a lot more people than you’re used to. Your social life will be rich and varied. Your stability has to come from trusting that no matter where you are, your emotional needs will still be satisfied. You’ll have the opportunity to share love, intimacy, affection, etc., and it can be more abundant than what you experienced at the individual level of being. I assure you that you won’t have to go it alone. This isn’t a lonely path — it’s actually an incredibly social path.

Effect on Work

Your work life will be transformed as well. You’ll probably need to stop thinking of your career in terms of having a stable job and earning a set income. Serving humanity requires a lot more flexibility and flow than a traditional job can provide. Thinking of starting or running a business is equally limiting. This is human level thinking. What does humanity need?

Humanity is more concerned with things like creativity, purpose, and expansion. It would love to see you contribute to the ongoing expansion and evolution of consciousness. That’s what matters. The other stuff is too trivial to fuss over.

I don’t really have a job title. Sometimes I make one up like President or CEO when it’s required for social convention, but the title is meaningless to me. When people ask me what I do for a living, I don’t really know what to say. I don’t do anything for a living. I just live. In certain situations I might say that I’m a blogger, author, or speaker, but that’s mainly what I say to people who are asleep and I don’t have time to wake them up in that particular moment. If I’m talking to someone who’s awake, then either they won’t ask such a silly question, or they’ll understand my honest answer… and they’ll probably share a similar feeling about job titles.

My business cards have the wrong address because I haven’t updated them in 5 years. My website obviously isn’t the prettiest one out there. I’ve never spent money to market or promote my website, book, or workshops. I don’t think it would be a bad thing to do so; it just hasn’t ever been necessary. Humanity takes care of all my marketing and does a better job than I could.

Last year I uncopyrighted all my blog posts and podcasts, so you have just as much ownership of this article as I do. From a cellular level, that might seem like a foolish decision. But that isn’t the level at which I made the decision. What does a copyright mean to humanity? Of course it’s meaningless. What would you think if one of your cells tried to patent the Krebs Cycle? Silly cells…

Some people are repackaging and selling my work for money. Does that bother me? Of course not. Even though they may be operating at an individual level of consciousness, they’re actually helping. They’re spreading ideas that humanity wants to spread; after all, humanity gave me those ideas to share in the first place. They’re doing exactly what they’re supposed to be doing. I think some of them have been donating back to me as well, since I’ve seen a modest increase in donations lately. But I didn’t do this to get more donations. I did it because it should help the ideas spread and get more people thinking about living consciously. It really doesn’t matter which humans get credit or make money from it.

I think my business actually works better because I don’t manage it with a cellular mindset. Millions of people have been drawn to my work, and it’s been translated into more languages than I can track. People keep sharing it, with or without my permission. New opportunities keep showing up. Money keeps flowing. Everything works. Well, aside from my web server, which I may have to upgrade yet again due to traffic growth. But that’s a good problem to have, isn’t it?

Why does my business work? Because it’s not really a business. It’s a service, not primarily for individual humans, but for humanity itself. The purpose is to help enough people wake up and live more consciously, so that humanity itself may continue to survive and thrive. And by performing this service for humanity, it takes care of all my needs. It’s really good at it too. I barely have to lift a finger to attend to such things. I rather appreciate that.

Individually speaking, there are some humans out there who don’t particularly like my work. But that’s largely irrelevant because humanity as a whole has made it abundantly clear that it appreciates what I’m doing and wants to speed things along with further expansion. These days I largely ignore cellular level feedback because it comes from people at varying levels of wakefulness, so of course they won’t all agree. But I pay close attention to feedback from universal consciousness, such as whether my life is flowing well or not. These days it’s flowing amazingly well, so I figure I’m on the right track.

Is humanity making it abundantly clear that it appreciates what you’re doing? If not, any guesses as to why? Could it be that you’ve been ignoring humanity’s needs, and thus it’s been ignoring your needs? Try doing the opposite and see what happens. I think you’ll like it.

Conscious Business

Recently I’ve been listening to an audiobook about the history of Google. Google began as a fairly idealistic company with the grand mission of organizing and providing access to all the world’s information. Does that sound like an individual level goal or a goal for humanity itself? Of course Google has since become a giant, besting all other search companies. Interestingly, one of the reasons it succeeded is because it attracted some of the brightest minds in the world, people who were inspired by its mission and who would not have worked for the company if it was just about the money. You could say that humanity diverted the best resources to Google because Google’s mission served the best interests of humanity. In fact, Google has helped to create a smarter, more self-aware humanity.

Microsoft used to be a similar purpose-driven company, with the mission of putting “a computer on every desk and in every home.” That was an expansive goal that served humanity. But a lot of people now believe Microsoft has lost its way, and sometimes it acts more like a cancerous tumor than a servant to humanity. Do you believe that Microsoft is here to serve humanity, or mainly itself? Is it working with the expansion and evolution of humanity, or is it working against it? Probably a bit of both. Hence its mixed results and recent stagnation. Microsoft needs a new mission that aligns with humanity’s expansion. So far its current attempts at a new mission have been fluffy and noncommittal. It wastes too much energy on trying to defend its turf, failing to recognize that there’s only one turf, and it belongs to universal consciousness. If you happen to work for Microsoft, do what you can to wake more people up within your company, and eventually the culture will shift, as will the company’s results.

The irony is that companies that care less about quarterly returns and more about service to humanity can often achieve amazing growth. Why? Because humanity wants those companies to succeed. It sends them whatever resources they need to succeed.

Notice which companies appear to be serving the expansion and evolution of humanity and which are only here to serve themselves and their stockholders. If you were a genius, which kind of company would you want to work for? If you were humanity itself, which companies would you support? Which would you ignore? Which would you wish to tear down or transform? Now what kind of company do you currently work for?

* * *

Martin Luther King, Jr. said that we have guided missiles and misguided men. Let’s change that. Guidance is available to you whenever you want. You just have to be reasonably awake to receive it. Then you’ll have all the inspiration you could possibly want.

Both of us were equally eager to catch up on lost times .Upon reaching his city, Ahmedabad; he came to pick me up. I could feel the spring in his footsteps.

We were family friends, and our parents were equally close with each other’s kids. He, Rustom Modi, was the only child, brought up in quite a disciplined manner. We had a lot to learn, about ‘English’ kind of upbringing from them. It had left lasting effects on our minds.

We, that is, I and my brother, were only 14 months apart, age wise. Rustom belonged to my class. We three were inseparable throughout our school days.

After about the time I got married, and Rustom, leaving for USA for his Doctorate, we sort of drifted apart. Though we were always eager to learn about each other, and we did keep on getting news about each others’ professional as well as a bit of personal life, we somehow, lost direct touch throughout 14 long years!

I was aware of the fact that after loosing his doting mother, his father had chosen to live the life of a recluse. As a loving son, he, along with his wife and two well nurtured children was looking after him now, all staying under one roof.

My first question, after exchanging the pleasantries and feeling the same warmth we felt years back, was about his dad’s health and routine, in general.

He took a moment to reflect.

His answer was the ‘life changing moment’ for me:

“Look, Gaurangi, what can one expect from a lone widower, at the age of 79?

I see him to be as good as my young son. What do you suppose we do, when our kid breaks a prized cutlery, or, does not pay heed to our constant instructions…etc.? Do we send them away to some ‘home’, so that we can live our lives peacefully? Do we severe our ties with them…? Don’t we tend to them in sickness? Do we not clean up if they throw up…or soil their nappies? If we take it in stride, there is nothing to get tired of. It would never seem to be a burden. The thumb rule is, you have to start viewing them as your ‘kids’, at this age. You have to start nurturing them as a parent would. It is as simple as that. Life becomes easy after that… for both of them. You’ll never feel tired or, you’d never grumble about having to take time out for them. Do you feel that way, if it was related to your own children? No …Our aged parents are no different!”

To be truthful, it was my turn to reflect honestly and put certain relations and issues in ‘perspective’.

There is a small history and a reason while I admit that this statement opened my eyes, for ever. Not only that, I took his thinking to heart, and put across the same to my brother.

Briefly stated; we had issues in our family even though we were a close-knit and small unit. This led to formation of two camps: I sided with my brother and his wife. My parents chose to pick the opposite camp! Well, everyone contributed to the rift. So much so, that these two camps were no more on talking terms, leading to absolute severance of ties. Relatives took sides according to their judgments and observations. We were satisfied, knowing our parents were keeping fine health and that there were no more upheavals in their lives, and that they too were at peace, at contented, having, ‘let them be’.

The initial period of awkwardness left our sides gradually, and we too were settling down in our respective lives; getting quite busy, having a sense of content in our minds too. Our children grew up, remaining out of touch with their respective grand parents, after a certain point of time. Of course, we had our moments of lamenting and ‘crying’ our hearts out; nurturing our ‘hurtful’ feelings in the process.

Rustom’s little ‘sermon’ from the bottom of his philosophical heart, jolted me out of my ‘cocoon’ of ‘contented life’. Of course something was drastically amiss.

It left me perched on; ’how could we…oh how could we…?”

His beliefs, sort of held my hands, took me back to the days, when, we were so young and were used to admire his ‘higher’, his ‘sophisticated’, his ‘generous’, his ‘always smiling and forgiving’ attitude… which generated respect for him in our small minds.

It was these little things that bonded us as he being my soul-brother.

My eyes were swelling up with tears! He knew all about our personal and not so happy history. He offered me a tissue and a ‘sorry’ for being mindless!

After composing myself, I held his hands, looked into his eyes, and promised him to meet him next, only after I had some good and positive news to share with him. I told him, “…These are the tears of ‘realization’. My parents are aging. They have already missed a lot. Why not put an end to all these sufferings? How long would they live with such mindless carrying on with respective egos, and those ‘…See, I was always right…?’ and so on… Why not begin “NOW”, before it gets too late.”

It was his turn to be surprised. Jokingly, he teased me of him being wiser of two of us, in an attempt to make me laugh! Oh, such a gem of a person!

Well, that was certainly the truth!

When I walked out of his house, my steps got springier than they were when I had laid my eyes upon him! My heart, one hundred thousand tons lighter. My smile, much-much ‘natural’!

This ‘wake-up’ call was heard by me, some 9 years ago.

Both, my brother and his family, and mine, are now seeing happier days together, after I set feet in my parent’s house, with a box of sweets. This was followed by ‘no questions asked’ and’ no explanations offered’ moments!

If working in Hospice and the past several years of my personal life have taught me one thing, it is that life is short and we are never guaranteed tomorrow (even though we like to think we are). So I wanted to spend Mother’s Day with my Mom. Since I have moved away about 11 years ago, I have never gotten to spend Mother’s Day with her. So my sister, my Mom and I met in the mountains of Virginia this past weekend for a girls get-away. We had so much fun. Just hanging out on the porch with a glass of wine, catching up on gossip, shopping, eating out, relaxing and enjoying each other’s company. I have a feeling it will become one of my most treasured memories-our first girls weekend together. Most of the time was laughing but sometimes the conversations turned to serious subjects. My sister shared with me a speech she wrote this semester for her first year in college.
Before I share this let me just tell you a little side story. It may not make alot of sense right now, but after you read my sister’s speech it will make perfect sense.Coming home from a doctor’s appointment with my Dad he was extremely anxious(and that can not come close to describing these experiences of going from Dr. to Dr.) he told me, “I wish Bill was here” (This was when Uncle Bill had moved to Florida). I said, “Why?” He said he gave me the best advise ever…”Don’t let em get ya down Man, if they think you’re crazy, let them think that…Shit, tell em your batman”. We laughed together, something that rarely happened anymore, since his head injury which occurred at work. Then he said, “Man, I Miss him.” Little did we know how those words would echo in our minds through the coming days, months and years. So here’s my sister’s story. I’m not going to correct the grammer and such, as I said it was a speech and it is the message that is most important. Life’s too short to worry about proper punctuation and capitalization.
“I am only eighteen years old, and only have a couple meaningful life lessons under my belt. I know I have a million more to learn and grow from in my lifetime. But up unto this point, one sticks out in my mind- Just relax, and tell ‘em you’re batman. You’re probably thinking I’m crazy, but its this small bit of advice that has gotten my family through the past 3 or 4 years.
Up until February of 2005, me and my family had no major problems, we were happy, and got along, and life was good. But then, my dad got hurt in an accident at the coal mine and suffered serious brain injury. He is able to function- walk and talk, which the doctors said he is extremely lucky for because he is lucky to even be alive. However, he cannot handle any sort of stress, he cannot control his emotions, and he has memory loss. Since the accident, the doctors are to this day trying to regulate his medicines to control his moods without making him a total zombie.
The first year after the accident was horrible. My mom and I were trying to adjust to dads out of control mood swings, and my mom and dad were trying to adjust to only one income coming into the household. I didn’t do so well with the whole adjusting to the mood swings thing. I couldn’t understand that it wasn’t my dad’s fault, so when he would yell, I’d yell back, and we only fed each other’s fire. Mom would try to referee but, it would only bring her into the fight, too. Before long, we didn’t speak to each other. Because I didn’t speak with my parents, I rebelled against them. The fighting eventually led to me being arrested, spending a night in Lincoln, and serving 6 months of supervised probation, all at the age of 15. I had started considering moving to New Jersey to live with my sister when my Uncle bill had fallen on some hard times and had no place to go, and he came to live with me and my parents.
Now, for me to completely explain my Uncle Bill would be impossible, because, well, he was a character. He loved life, and no one was going to make him feel any different about it. No matter what was thrown at him, he shrugged it off, and if it bothered him, I never noticed. He was always up for a good time. It didn’t even take a week of Uncle Bill living in our basement to notice a change in the atmosphere around the house. That feeling that everyone needed to walk on egg shells was gone. Dad wasn’t someone I had to avoid to escape a fight. You could usually just find him and Uncle Bill out in the yard, drinking a beer or two. I remember one day me and my mom came home to find Uncle Bill stomping through Mom’s flower garden and dad out in the yard with a shotgun. They were determined that a rat was in there, and they were going to get it out. It was the little moments like these that would just make us all laugh again.
The first time I heard that important piece of advice, it was after one of dad’s doctor’s appointments. I was out in the yard sitting with uncle bill when dad came home. I knew it hadn’t gone so great, because in the year or two after the accident, I don’t think the doctors even knew what to make of it. This is when I normally would have ran for cover to avoid a fight, but uncle bill was there, so I stuck around. Dad sat down and said, “I don’t know, I think they just think I’m crazy” and uncle bill said “just relax, and tell ‘em your batman” Me and my dad were both confused. Uncle Bill explained, ”just relax, have a good time, and if they think you’re crazy, let them.” This little piece of advice stuck with me and my dad. Me and my dad even started to spend time together again. He would take me out in his truck and just let me drive, so that when I turned 16, I would be able to get my license. He also would take me down to our property on stalls run to ride four wheelers with my friends, I think mostly so him and uncle bill could sit at the camp for a change of scenery.
Uncle Bill lived with us for about a year, and then he moved to Florida. Even with him gone, the atmosphere stayed pretty pleasant around our house, and plus, he would always stop in for a week or two for a visit. On one visit, he wasn’t feeling well, and we made him go to the hospital to get himself checked out. They found that his heart wasn’t functioning as well as it should, and they told him if he didn’t stop drinking and smoking, he would die. Even with the doctors warning, Uncle Bill kept his happy-go-lucky attitude with life. There was absolutely no regret in his voice when he told us “hell with that, if I die, I’m going to die having a good time”. Not long after he had moved to Florida, though, Uncle Bill was killed in a motorcycle accident.
After Uncle Bill’s death is when I looked back and realized how much he had taught me without ever trying. You are not guaranteed tomorrow. You have to go out and have fun and live you’re life on your terms while you have the chance. You only have one life, so you better live it, and even if people think you’re crazy for living the way you want- just relax, and tell ‘em you’re batman.” -Emily Nicole Coffield 2008

Dawn

I wasn’t even really sure what the phrase meant but thought it had something to do with “living fully” and was probably borrowed from one of the self-help books she liked to read. She was a single Mom who loved my two brothers and me fiercely and devoted herself to building community through volunteering and creating enormous fundraisers and events in addition to parties at our home. She showed her passion for life by teaching first grade, making our home beautiful, serving on dozens of committees, and helping anyone who needed it. When it was time to go we hugged a long time and both shed a few tears. I watched the minivan’s lights disappear across the campus and felt sad and a bit lonely. I was on my own for the first time.

As the semester started I got caught up in the whirlwind of challenging courses, writing papers, taking exams, making new friends, joining the Outdoor club, going downtown, and falling in love with my first boyfriend. It seemed like each day brought a new experience and I happily threw myself into college life. Mom and I talked almost every day. I had fun telling her about my classes, clubs and friends, but kept a few things to myself such as being drunk for the first time (which I kind of enjoyed) and experimenting with smoking (which I didn’t like at all). I was a bit of a “late bloomer” and I was completely lost in the heady freedom of being on my own for the first time.

That fall passed in a blur and when I came home for Thanksgiving I felt older somehow and different. Home felt like somewhere I had come to visit rather than the other way around. I had my own life now different and separate from where I grew up. I could feel the weight of adulthood but also the freedom that comes with it. As I started having more adult experiences and sharing them with my Mom, our relationship began to shift into less something that resembled a mother and daughter and more of a friendship.

At the end of the semester ended I came home for Christmas. I reveled in sleeping late, reconnecting with high school friends, preparing the house for the holidays and visiting with my brothers. Plus, I couldn’t wait to get back to my college life after break was over. But just a few days after Christmas, everything changed. Mom was diagnosed with cancer.

What followed was 9 months of hospitals, surgeries, and “treatments” that were far worse than the disease itself. I came home a lot and split my life between being a carefree college student and the daughter of a woman who was dying. It was one of the hardest years of my life. At the end, we sat together at the kitchen table as a family, my Mom bald and on oxygen, my brothers and I looking exhausted and sad, and planned her memorial service.

She insisted that after it was all over I go back to college as soon as possible; to get back to life without her. I followed her wishes but wasn’t sure what to do when I got there. I knew I couldn’t go back to being the person I was before. The questions of college such as which bar to go drinking on Saturday night or how much to study for an important exam both seemed equally unimportant. None of it mattered anymore to me. All I knew was that the person I loved the most was gone. My mother. My confidant. My biggest fan. My best friend.

The sadness felt overwhelming and the first year after losing her was even harder than the year she was sick. I just didn’t care anymore and didn’t know what to do with my life. In the face of such grief none of it seemed to matter. I went through the motions of passing my classes and even went out with friends but my smiles were all fake and my heart just wasn’t in it.

The year dragged on. I cried a lot. I got therapy. My friends and family help me out. Eventually, I was able to thaw and it felt just like process of melting and becoming unfrozen from my sadness. The bond with my two brothers grew strong. We needed each other in a way we never needed each other before. A number of amazing adults stepped in to serve as mentors and role models. I was, and still am, blessed to have them in my life. As time passed I found that exams and rooming assignments and spring break didn’t matter so much anymore, but they did matter a little. What mattered a lot were my relationships with my family, my friends who supported me, and the question of how I was going to live the rest of my life and be the kind of person she raised me to be without her continued guidance.

The following autumn was especially beautiful in upstate New York. On one of the crisp fall days I was looking across campus at the orange and red trees against the blue sky and breathed in the fall air. I was alive. I was gifted with life. And I knew on the visceral level that it was a temporary gift. I used to think that death was the worst thing that can happen to a person. But there are much worse things out there like wasted life, stagnant dreams, and squandered gifts. Because what I’ve found is that in every loss there is profound gratitude for how loved ones touch and shape your life and joy for the pieces they leave with you. Yes, there is immeasurable sadness to. That is definitely part of it. When you love deeply, it comes with the territory. And it’s okay.

Looking back, I still can’t believe how young I was when I got that lesson. I learned what matters, and what doesn’t. Losing my Mom brought into focus what was most important to me and what made my soul sing with joy. Death taught me to pay attention to those things and use them as a guide to make decisions. Knowing about mortality is an everyday reminder that inspires me to live well and love well like she showed me, using her own life as an example. Because we only get one shot at this life. It’s not a dress rehearsal.

Admittedly, there was a slight lack of stability in my upbringing. I spent most of my childhood at my grandmother’s home, wherever that was at the time. It was where I happened to be one of the many times that my mother decided to test the patience of my volatile cousin, who’s upbringing was that of what might be stereotyped as “white trash.” He spent his years as an infant in cigarette smoke filled Wisconsin bars, with inattentive parents high on cocaine. I remember my mother passive aggressively blurting out, “You belong in jail, like your father.” Mikey jumped out of his chair so fast I knew something chaotic was just about to hit. He flew out of the kitchen with a massive butcher’s knife and raised his voice enough to shake my seventy pound self right out of my seat, “You fucking bitch! You think I should be in jail?! Fine! Fucking put me in jail!” As Mikey chased my mother out the door and around the block with the knife, I escaped to the car and locked the doors just after screaming to him attempting to become a distraction, “Leave her alone!” He must’ve been just in ear shot because he raced back to the car to bang on the window with knife in hand and tell me he’d stab me too. These occurrences were not uncommon for the years to come.

My father was absent for most of my childhood; incarcerated, for petty crimes. My mother just wasn’t sure. She wasn’t sure if she wanted a relationship. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to commit to that job-or that one. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to live here, or there. Needless to say, both of my parents lacked guidance in their early years and hence, floated along a bit, well, directionless. In terms of making a long story short, they’ve both made drastic and successful progression in their lives, God bless. Yet in the midst of the insanity, I, myself was too a bit “directionless.” Sure, seeds of a great future were planted along the way, yet I wasn’t handed all of the tool s for success.

At 13, I was utterly confused. Aren’t we all? My mother was trying out another relationship. My younger sister was taken by her father after a rough custody battle. My grandmother, who had mothered me for the past thirteen years, was nearing the end of her life. My father had just returned to the Midwest from the West Coast, after being released from prison and was ready to take on his role. I was just beginning to feel like I “fit in” at school. To my adolescent self, everything seemed perfect- despite smoking copious amounts of marijuana, and numerous occasions of discipline at school. My grandmother protested, yet was confuted as I was abruptly uprooted and taken to live in a small town with my father, called Stoughton in Southern Wisconsin.

I made friends with all the “wrong people” rather quickly and found myself, smoking even more marijuana, and binge drinking by the following year, midway through eighth grade. Consistent disapproval from my father, who confused me on a much greater level-having shown up in my life at that time-didn’t keep me from rebelling. His disapproval only urged me to hide everything more carefully. When I delve into the “rave” party scene and every narcotic I could get my hands on, I’d make sure to stay far from home for days on end. After a few annihilated summers of partying, I had developed a habit. The habit took me to an extreme: Before school, after school and during my forty-five minute lunch break, I met up with a close friend to snort “meth” or d-methamphetamine. I had friends who sold it, made it, transported it-meth was my drug of choice.

By day, I still appeared to be stable and studious. I was on the honor role in high school, taking AP courses and on the high school newspaper. By night, a meth addict. Danielle (a “friend” and supplier), who-at one point, I spent every waking moment with was never quite right. The drug-induced anorexia, days of shopping and hoarding insignificant useless items, obsessive compulsive organization… She never quite made sense to me. The oddities of this girl’s character I endured, as I was unthreatened by her company while we abused the same drug. However, the oddities rapidly became nuances as time progressed. The nuances became odder and I was beginning to question myself, and the traits I was taking on through all of the countless hours Danielle and I spent together.

One night that I managed to separate myself from her, and spend the night with my boyfriend, I received an alarming phone call. It was Danielle. “There’s a retired C.I.A. agent living in my attic. He says he knows about you. He knows that you’re pregnant. Why didn’t you tell me?” My heart began to race as the delusional idle chatter advanced. “Danielle, stop. It’s not funny-I,” she cut me off to convey her disturbed observations. My jaw dropped in disbelief. Was she serious? Had she completely lost it? Nothing was making any sense and the call became a nightmare-each time I hung up she called back and her words became louder and faster. Releasing my phone like a grenade I rushed to the bathroom and locked the door and found myself in tears, as my heart raced faster knowing it was time to face myself.
I stopped taking Danielle’s calls after that night. I knew she had finally driven herself into an eternal state of disconnection. Her body and mind were severely damaged and I was following closely behind in her footsteps. The following six months, I secluded myself from friends and kept to myself. Even today, this period of time is somewhat of a blur. I can recall that the significant factor was my spiritual intrigue. Danielle and I had practiced Hatha Yoga together a few times in our moments of clarity.

A vivid memory of a woman in her mid-seventies standing on her head, while instructing the class-intrigued and inspired me to seek refuge in this mysterious spiritual world. This desire to find a conscious outlet, propelled me, with rapid force-to what seemed to be what I was blindly seeking all along. I picked up a “Why Vegan” booklet and the second I put it down, decided I would spend my senior year of high school as a vegan and animal rights activist. This didn’t last long, but it brought me to a place of consciousness. I began working at an infamous natural foods coop in Madison, Wisconsin (Williamson Street Grocery Cooperative). I began frequenting a local Yoga studio and Buddhist meditation center and before I knew it, was pursing training to become a Yoga Instructor and holistic health counselor. My path hasn’t changed much, but it has expanded. I teach a healing dance modality, JourneyDance, Yoga to “at-risk” youth in high schools, and co-teach workshops with Tantric focus for couples with my partner-which are only a few highlights of this abundant life!

I’ve came a long way since my days with Danielle and I rarely look back. This beautiful world of infinite possibility and wholeness; eternal life and conscious community has taken me further than I could’ve ever imagined as that confused 16 year old. My awareness continues to expand, as I embrace the oneness and interconnectedness of life. I am ever grateful for that wake up call.

As a Christian minister raised in a very strict and conservative upbringing, I had a very narrow view of life in general. I was very judgmental and unforgiving (which in reality is TOTALLY UN-Christ-like). I worked as a Corrections Officer after serving in the USAF and I was very typical as a Law Enforcement type; Macho and tough, wearing the tight shirt to prove I had muscles. One night the shift Sergeant asked me to go to the infirmary to see a patient that was dying of AIDS, and he was a Trans-sexual. I asked the Sgt…why? He said he is dying and wants to talk to a minister and YOU are the only minister in the jail at 3AM. I gulped hard and went, again I am NOT comfortable with this, I was VERY homophobic and judgmental. I got to the cell and this guy looked horrible, he was about 120 lbs of skin and bones and he was breathing hard. I introduced myself and he smiled. So I just said a brief prayer and asked him how he was feeling, well he started sharing his story. He shared how he was abused as a child, being moved from foster homes, and his life as a prostitute…the more he talked the more he cried. Before I knew it I was crying too. Something happened that moment, I could hear the voice of Jesus say to me “I didn’t come to judge him I cam to save him just like I saved YOU”. I hugged this guy and we prayed, when I left we were both smiling. This was a wake up call for me because I needed healing from the abuse I suffered as a child and I needed to see this man as Christ saw him, through eyes of love and compassion….this was my wake up call. Today I am a Chaplain at two different hospitals and I mainly minister to the mentally ill, drug addicts, and child molesters. Thank God for my wake up call!

Chaplain Mark H. Stevens, M.Min

When Dad died, I had been living in New York for four years, trying to make a career for myself as a young professional. My dad had worked full time at our local Social Security branch to support our family, and he wrote poetry in his free time, so I just assumed I should follow his lead and find a “real job” and pursue writing on the side. The idea of being a writer was pushed to the back of my mind. I was too distracted by all the fun I was having in New York; going to bars, meeting wonderful people, dating guys, and shopping more than I could afford.
But my professional life was not nearly as much fun. My first job was as a project manager in a translation company, but I quickly became discouraged at being required to exploit the linguists I worked with. They were creative souls and citizens of the world, and I felt a special kinship with them. I left that job and crossed over into the world of nonprofits, working for a large organization that managed study abroad scholarships. I had an important role as the President’s Executive Assistant, and I even got to spend part of my time indulging my love of writing by working in an editorial capacity on their annual report. I thought I had it made. I had my nonprofit, “good-cause” job that didn’t expect me to work a million hours a week, and I could finally pursue my writing on the side.

But something was wrong. The job was fairly easy, administrative work, but I dropped the ball on many occasions. I had a hard time controlling my temper with my superiors, and I was repeatedly reminded how young and inexperienced I was. All of my young exuberance, ideas and initiative were repeatedly discouraged and dismissed. I applied for several different positions in the company that I thought would give me more autonomy and a chance to be more creative, but I never landed any of them. I suppose they thought I was too inexperienced handle real responsibility; they just saw me as someone who wanted to go against the grain and reinvent the wheel whenever possible.

I was also getting sick of the city lifestyle. I grew up in rural Massachusetts, and I missed the fresh air and small-town intimacy. I suddenly found myself buried in credit card debt and feeling the sense of emptiness that comes with being surrounded by expensive, pretty things that have no inherent value. About a year before my Dad died, I decided that if I was going to live in the city, I was going to make the most of the artistic underbelly and intelligent mishmash of its citizens. I signed up for several writing workshops, and started to take myself, and my dreams, a little more seriously. It was at that time, when I suddenly realized how anonymous and separated I was in a huge city full of millions of people that I came up with the idea for my first novel. The main character is a young man living in a closed community within a fictional future society. He longs for a sense of connection, but in his society, physical touch is taboo and love is considered a primitive concept. The reader watches as he struggles and finds a way to cope with his desire to reach out to others.

Finally, just before my father died, I took a leap of faith at work. Positions were shifting, and I asked to tailor my position so I could focus full-time on editorial work and begin operating as a photo manager for our publications. They said yes, and I was thrilled. I thought I had finally carved a niche for myself.

But then my Dad died, and everything crumbled to pieces. The first to go was my health. I went home to be with my father as he passed, and the experience was unexpectedly traumatic. I went into a short state of shock, during which I lost the ability to taste food for twenty-four hours. When I returned to New York after the funeral, I started having vivid nightmares and a vicious insomnia. The lack of sleep caught up with me. I started rolling into work late, and I was so tired and on edge that nothing would help me relax. All of a sudden, I could not stand to listen to music with lyrics. They all seemed repetitive and redundant, and the singing was more like a screeching in my ears.

Strangely enough, music was the first thread of my salvation. I followed it out of my current hell like a lifeline into a more authentic place. I started listening to classical music, which I had never liked before, but which my father adored. I would listen all day long as I worked, trying to stay relaxed and focus enough to drudge through the monotonous tasks and not pay attention to how sad or tired I was. When I finally realized that I couldn’t keep this up, I told my supervisors I was depressed and not sleeping and requested a reduction in my hours until I could recover. They were initially concerned, and told me to take a medical leave. As I was waiting for my doctor to fill out the paperwork, I was called into a meeting with Human Resources. They informed me that they had decided to cut my position, and they refused to let me apply for another position within the company.

I felt devastated, betrayed, and initially, I panicked. But after the panic wore off, I began to feel unexpectedly lighter. Suddenly, all of my problems shifted. I no longer had to drag myself out of bed every day to go to a thankless job. Instead of worrying how I would get through another day, my energy shifted towards what I was going to do next. I began to live the artistic bohemian life that I so craved. I went to coffee shops, wrote at length, and then went out and danced all night. I was sleeping well and I was happy, and all of a sudden my future opened up in front of me. I was no longer clinging to a job that was a bad fit for me just because it paid well, even though I knew I couldn’t live unemployed in New York forever. I began to dream again…what will I be when I grow up? The only logical answer was: a writer.

By then I had already decided that everything needed to drastically shift. The idea of living my life moment to moment, pulling on one overpriced outfit after the next, drowning my unhappiness in weekends of mindless dancing and hooking up with random boys, all seemed hollow and meaningless. The death of my father forced me to come face to face with my own mortality. What was I waiting for? I wondered. That book I wanted to write, the one thing I knew I had to do so I would lie on my deathbed at a ripe old age with no regrets, wasn’t going to write itself. Who knew how long I had before my own mind started to fade and I succumbed to Alzheimer’s like my father? I had all the time in the world right now, why not go after that dream?

I wrote a short story based on my experience as a mixed-race girl dating and dancing at night in New York, and submitted it to the Mixed Roots Festival, co-founded by Heidi Durrow, a new star on the literary scene. To my delight, I was accepted and invited to read from my story in Los Angeles! It was like a debutante ball for me, a coming-out party, and a formal entrance into the literary world. I knew then that making myself into a writer was my next step. I had to write full-time; there was nothing else I wanted to do, and there was no going back now. In order to make that dream a reality, I decided to do the one thing I thought was a sign of failure: move back in with my mother.

There is a sense of accomplishment that comes with living on your own, in an apartment you pay for by yourself, with no help from your parents. It’s a particularly harrowing feat in New York, where $40k a year barely buys you a roof over your head and a crappy dinner from the corner deli that you take home and microwave. I had to give up that sense of autonomy in order to live my dream. But moving home came with perks. Losing my father made me realize how few people I had left in my life that loved me unconditionally. When I moved back home with Mom, I got access to that kind of love full-time. She also had been taking care of my dog and cat since I went off to college, so they were there, ready and waiting to love me full-time when I returned. I spent a long summer writing through my grief, lounging on the back deck with a book in my lap and my dog at my feet, just being still while all the dust around me settled.

It paid off. In October, my short-short fiction story “Waning of the Sanguine Humor,” which I wrote about the mourning process and my futile attempts to find love another man to love, was selected for publication in the online magazine, “Write From Wrong” (Scroll to the last entry: http://writefromwrong.com/2010/10/14/fiction-october/). I spent the next few months working on my novel, which is now over 75,000 words. I don’t know if it will ever get published, or if I will ever get the kind of acclaim I dream about, but I know I have to try.
The other day, I had a dream about my father. It was not like one of the nightmares that I used to have where I relived his death. In it, he simply came to me and we had a conversation. He was lucid and alert, and talking to me the way he used to when he was healthy, and I was still a wayward teenager with a lot of promise but no clue how to apply myself. He turned to me and raised his finger the way he used to when he really wanted me to hear what he was trying to say
“Don’t…” he began, but his words trailed off.
“I know Dad. Don’t listen to the critics,” I responded. He had always encouraged me to do whatever I thought was right, no matter what anyone said.
But Dad shook his head. He raised his finger again, and said carefully, more slowly:
“Don’t do what I would have done.”
I woke up confused. I had no idea what the dream meant, and it was so unlike him to say something like that. I didn’t realize what the significance was until I opened Mirabai’s email, calling for stories about personal wake-up calls. It finally made sense. What Dad was cautioning me against was doing what he did; putting his writing and his dreams on the back burner, convincing himself that he had to work a thankless full-time job. It pains me that he was never recognized for the brilliant poet he was.
Even as I pursued a career as a writer, I wondered when I would have a “real job” again. I knew I had to surrender my professional ambition, in the traditional sense. I decided that I won’t just work for a paycheck again, or at least until I had to. I knew my next job had to be working for something that truly inspires me. I’m now working for Amber Chand, helping her start a new initiative called “Tea with Amber,” an online platform that will bring the stories of resilient women across the globe into the homes and hearts of every woman. We’re a start-up, and a paid position hasn’t been guaranteed, but I just have to trust that if I follow my heart, the money will come. And in the meantime, I’m getting more out of my life’s work, my writing, than I could ever get from a steady paycheck.

School was a dismal experience – I was bullied and kept back a year. I just scraped my O’levels and one A’ level, and left education bitterly disappointed that I hadn’t managed to get expelled. With poor exam grades, university was out of the question. That didn’t bother me. I wanted to get at life and LIVE. But the only options open to me in those days seemed to be training as a secretary or become a nurse. I chose the latter. Not because I felt called to heal the sick, but because the London hospital I wanted to go to was right next door to Carnaby Street. And, my goodness me, I took advantage of those swinging 70s.

I left nursing the day I qualified faced by the choice of either getting on the Magic Bus to India or marrying someone I had met through a friend. I chose marriage – mainly because my mother had instilled into me that if I wasn’t wed by the age of 24 I would be on the self. My parents were thrilled, but I remember walking up the aisle thinking, ‘Don’t worry you can always get divorced.’

Of course the marriage failed, but by that time the Magic Bus to India had ceased to be. And, anyway just before my marriage collapsed, for the first time in my life I had fallen (cliché or not) truly, madly and deeply in love. Until three years later, when one morning I woke up knowing he wasn’t so great after all.

There followed six crazed years. By this time I was in my early 30, and working as a film and video producer. It involved a lot of champagne and cocaine, and vacuous sex with men who had no intention of taking it any further than a one-stand. Things came to a head when my business partner walked out leaving me with debts of £30,000.

Afterwards she left, I started waking up terrified of what the day would bring. This is when I began to consider suicide, but I never told a soul. I just pinned on a smile, and got on with working out how to pay back the debt. A new business partner stepped in, and for while things calmed down. But he and I didn’t get on, and I admit I was dreadful to him. To this day, I still carry shame about that.

Then a close friend was killed by bomb in Namibia. I was deeply affected by this, but had no idea where to go for help, or who to talk to. So I carried on surviving in my emotional war zone, desperately pretending everything was okay.

Everything changed on a gorgeously warm August evening, when a friend invited me to join him in a trip in his light airplane. We were flying at around 3,000 feet, when out of the blue, the engine coughed a couple of times and died. I recall thinking, ‘Thank God it’s all over.’

A second later we hit the trees. I remember being thrown around in my seat as the plane spun round and crashed onto the ground, and then shards of glass from the windscreen showering onto my lap. The instant I realised I was still alive, my friend shouted at me to get out of the plane as it was going to blow up. Somehow I scrambled out of the wreckage, and found myself sitting on the grass, unscathed but in deep shock. It felt as if my skin had been metaphorically ripped off, leaving me raw and extremely vulnerable.

During the weeks that followed I experienced another suicidal depression – I could barely get out of bed. I was forced to face the horrible truth that I had wasted years trying be someone I wasn’t, and my life was a sham. It was shortly after this that I had a profound mystical experience. I was lying on the sofa yearning to die when a sentence literally dropped into my head, saying ‘You will become a bereavement counsellor’. My depression instantly lifted, and I sat up realising I had been given a second chance. Facing my mortality had enabled me to reconnected with who I really was. It was now down to me if I wanted to take advantage of it or not.

I immediately embarked on an intensely powerful 15 year healing journey, which meant giving up everything. I even (to the horror of my parents) sold family jewellery given to me on my wedding day to fund my all-consuming need to know who I was. My adventures led me to train with the Elizabeth Kubler Ross Foundation as a Life, Death and Transition Facilitator, and eventually I completed a Masters degree in the Rhetoric and Rituals of Death.

My MA introduced me to the work of Dr Peter Fenwick, a neuroscientist and Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatry. Led by Peter, I and another nurse set up a research study into end of life experiences. We produced six papers, published in leading academic journals, and two educational booklets to help relatives, friends and carers understand the dying process. I also wrote my own book, The D-Word: Talking about Dying. This sparked off a passion for the written word, and in 2010 I found myself doing a second masters in Creative Writing. (You see, it’s never too late to begin to learn.)

It hasn’t all been about work. I wrote my first dissertation on the spiritual impact of reporting on trauma. This introduced me to my second husband, an ex-BBC correspondent, who at the time was working as an editor for the BBC World Service. We were married within 18 months, and soon after, I began training as a psychotherapist. In my private practice I now specialise in trauma and posttraumatic stress disorder, death and dying, and, as I, myself, am fast heading towards 60, issues to do with menopause and ageing.

Looking back, I see myself as two separate identities. One that existed before the plane crash, and one who came to life after it. These days, I find it very hard to believe I was that unbalanced, terrified, misinformed young woman. But I know I mustn’t deny her. She gave me insights into the darker side of life that I would never have known otherwise. This feeds and supports my work with clients facing their own despair. But am I glad she died on the day that propeller stopped going round? You bet!

Because of what I have experienced, I believe that life is 24/7 workshop, which is constantly testing us, and prodding and pushing us towards whatever heights we are able to reach. Can we learn who we really are without personal disasters shaping our journey? I am not sure.

It was a neighbour who said: “There is smoke coming out of your building; you might want to check it out!” With that call, life changed drastically.

My husband jumped up and ran downstairs to the boiler room- first place to look. Nothing! On his way back upstairs through the back he was confronted by a wall of smoke. A few seconds later, he saw the flames. They were coming out of an apartment. He pulled the alarm, opened doors to see that the tenants got out and ran upstairs to tell me.

He said: “Shit, the building is on fire. GET READY NOW! I’ll come get the cats. Knock on doors and get people out! ” He ran out to do the same. I jumped into action. Put the cats in the box, put my shoes on and ran out.

For a split second I just stood there and thought: “Don’t exaggerate. It can’t be that bad! (These types of things happen to other people. Stuff you see on the news) I realized soon enough, it was very real!

As I opened the door, I saw a wall of smoke. I ran back into the apartment, pulled a tea towel from the shelf, wet it and ran back to the door. I realized if I went to the front, it wasn’t as thick. Along the way, I knocked on doors and walls, yelling for people to “GET OUT NOW!”

I stayed behind on the second floor to help a few tenants get out. Then, I knew I had to get out! The last few steps I took before I got to the front door were pure agony. I knew I wasn’t breathing oxygen anymore and tried to hold my breath. It felt as if my lungs were being torn apart.

Once outside, I called 911. (Later we found out that there were so many calls we nearly crashed the dispatch system.)

At one point, a Medic person came up to me and started talking. Thinking he knew I was the manager of the building, I went along with him.

He kept saying, “Let’s get you some oxygen, you are coughing quite a bit” and I kept saying, “Not right now, I’m busy! I need to know where my tenants are!”

Thankfully he did not listen to me and had herded me to the ambulance where he gave me oxygen and something else to keep my respiratory system working. I had smoke inhalation and was in shock.

I was taken to the hospital and kept for observation, while my husband needed to stay on sight to handle things with the tenants, fire fighters and police.

I had no clue as to how severe my situation was until I saw my face in a mirror. My face was purple! My hands and feet were purple as well! This was the result of lack of oxygen, smoke inhalation and carbon monoxide. The Medic person had seen me come out and knew I needed help.

Later I found out that I had 8% carbon monoxide and that they were concerned about my blood vessels hardening. If that would happen, it would mean my organs would not get oxygen and shut down, a very dangerous situation.

Once I got out of the hospital, I met my husband and we got to a hotel. We spent a month in the hotel, and after that a year in a very small bachelor apartment, waiting for our building to be re build and opened up.

During the night of the fire, my husband had gone back to get the cats, but when he picked up the cat carrier, the bottom fell out and the cats ran. He had to make the very hard decision. He had to go. He could not take the time to try to find them. Both my cats perished.

We lost almost everything in the fire. We have two pieces of furniture left: an antique desk- my computer desk- and a small antique cabinet left. Luckily some of the photos were packed away and salvaged. Of all the things we had accumulated in 11 years of marriage was gone!

The day after, was surreal. We walked around in a daze. We needed to buy things like a toothbrush, a hair brush, shavers and toothpaste. Day to day things you take for granted.

Where ever I was, I saw and smelled smoke. I’m not sure if it was in my eyes and nose or if it was physiological, but it passed after a few days.

It took months for me to be able to stay in a shopping mall, bank or store for more than a few minutes. I would start to panic and need to get out. When I got to our temporary home, I’d walk to the front door, ran up the stairs and into the apartment. There I felt safe. I refused to walk through other parts of the building, like the laundry room or get the mail. They were too far from the door. I needed to be close to an escape route. If we went to a restaurant or movie theatre, I always needed to sit near the door- not too far inside.

Through it all, I learned how other people in your own community are there for you. We had people help with a fundraiser for the people who didn’t have insurance. The night of the fire, people came with coffee, food, blankets to help keep my tenants warm. Someone even gave one of my tenants a pair of shoes.

Since that horrific day, we have rebuilt. It seems you always do! You recover and life goes on. We are happy to be alive – both of us. We mourn our cats and have beautiful memories of them. I now have another cat now that needed my love. I now also have a puppy that needs my love as well.

My life has changed quite a bit since then. An experience like this certainly puts things into perspective. We are more aware of our surroundings. I don’t have such an attachment to things anymore even though I enjoy having them. We both feel very lucky to be alive. We don’t take life so serious anymore and there is a quiet gratitude that we feel deep inside that gives us the strength to continue.