If we didn’t get caught up with our own expectations, life would get easier. “I wanted to get the lead role in the play!” or “I was hoping for…” or “You should have…” or “I wish you would have…” are all examples of expectations that tend to cause us suffering. When you can live without attachment to the outcome, you’ll find your stress level goes way down and your level of peace goes way up!

I found that expectation can also come in the form of spiritual readings and channeling that have a date associated with it. As humans living a spiritual path, we can experience a flood of “channeling” and readings from others promising us great things, and having a date attached to it can tend to be problematic. When the promised date arrives with no promised results, there’s another story of why the transformative event had to be delayed. It can feel like the proverbial carrot in front of our noses. There was always something to grab onto. The truth is, it’s not truth. It’s not meant to be truth. It’s meant to be validation of your beliefs. The first and second Universal Truths explain this. We create our reality and our life is a mirror. We bring this in to either validate or prefer. This is what propels creation. There are two ways of creating that you may be aware of. You are probably familiar with the idea of people perpetuating fear among the human race, through media, news of supposed terrorist attacks and advertisements of drugs that we need? Well, the other way is to perpetuate love among the human race. But, do not think that someone else is perpetuating. We, as One being, are perpetuating to create our own creation.

If you find yourself on a spiritual path, you will invariably come across psychics, readers, channels and Joe-the-plumber who have amazing abilities of working with non-physical beings and seeing energy. Many times, I have asked myself “Why am I not experiencing direct connection or experience as others seem to do? Am I not worthy of guidance on my spiritual path as others are?” Writing this book has been quite a journey. As I wrote these words, I found myself smack in the middle of a crushing, heart-breaking experience. I felt continually lead on…that never-ending carrot in front of me. Of course, I’ve had thoughts like “What the heck am I doing? Should I just drop all this path and get a frickin’ job? Maybe this whole thing about creating your reality is also an illusion.” When I started to realize the attachment to the spiritual path was falling away, I felt a twinge of fear. “But, what about this divine calling, the whole ‘being of service’ plan. If I don’t feel like I belong anywhere? What if no one else sees what I see?” I tried to remember “A master stays out of the drama of the dream and observes” and to not focus on the clothes the teacher is wearing. Do not get lost in the scene or details. It took me to be fully immersed in the drama, until I began to question my reactions and my disappointment. What is truly important to me? What do I honestly require?

I realized that I had put a condition or effect on the way I truthfully and honestly chose to live my life. Living this way is the way that I’m going to live anyway, whether there’s a pay-off or not. I choose to live my life from my heart and to love everything and everyone and to let go of everything that isn’t love. And, there was something deep in there that was saying “If you live this way, there is great benefit to it” or “keep at it, because you will ascend to a higher dimension”. This carrot always seemed to have some physical element to it. Prosperity. Abundance. Physically living in a higher dimension. Meeting our extraterrestrial family. But, that’s what keeps us going. In every part of our life, there seems to always be something to look forward to; sometimes “good” things and sometimes “bad”. For some, it’s a holiday, a war, a hug or touch, a meditation or the feeling of being here in this moment. These events keep our soul alive in the bodies that we exist within. Anticipation. Expectation. It’s not the object, the goodies or the payoff that we desire in the end. it’s the place that we are at and the way we feel at that moment that is the payoff.

EXERCISE: Try this for a day: live spontaneously. Live in the moment. Don’t plan to shower or eat or meditate. Shower when you feel the need to shower. Eat when you are hungry. If you find yourself expecting, anticipating or thinking in the future, sit down or pull your car over (safely) and close your eyes for ten seconds. Get in touch with your breath and the feeling of it as it enters and exits your nostrils.

Since I haven’t had a life of receiving divine messages, then “How do I devote myself to God, if I don’t receive any messages of ‘go here’ or ‘do this’?” I realized that I had forgotten one of the critical pieces of wisdom and that is to “be happy”. If what you are doing isn’t creating happiness, then stop doing it. This includes elements of a spiritual path. If this searching, finding “truth”, discovering and awakening isn’t causing happiness, question it. This is all a part of Self-Mastery. This has been huge for me. What? Let go of finding the truth? Stop waking up? If we only knew that we are already what we think we are trying to become, we could relax and enjoy the ride. We cannot strive to become something that we are not already. I have found that by letting go, I return to the truth of who I really am. Like peeling the skin from a ripe, juicy fruit. I uncover what was hidden and now is ready to be given as a delicious gift to whomever enjoys this type of fruit.

I am on the path that’s best for me. I can see the default system that’s currently available and I choose to create my own way. If your path includes becoming a master of your life, then you’re telling yourself right now that you can complain about these hardships and disappointments, but eventually, you’ll want to get back on the horse. We cannot not do it. It pulls at us with such determination and won’t let go. We can try to delay it, but never stop it. We are all worthy of everything that we desire.

We are not given worthiness. There is no one granting worthiness to you, except yourself. We are inherently worthy of all of the joy, prosperity and love of the entire Universe, and more. For me, I still wanted to know “How do I deal with all of these stories and prophecies?” The answer that I received was this: What would you do if you were the “invisible coach” feeding you from the sidelines? Here you are, in a very challenging reality with promises and glimpses of another reality of almost inconceivable bliss and beauty. Humanity desires to get from this reality to another reality, to a higher consciousness. Everyone is assisting you towards this new reality, in every way. What would you feed You to keep You on track, motivated and creating? As another higher-consciousness version of yourself, if you knew the ultimate truth, where and how would you lead You? If one of the truths you wanted to experience and really understand was the truth that you are the Universe and there is nothing outside of you, how would you best get that across to you? If you really honestly thought about it, you would not cause yourself to become too dependent on outside sources (divine or otherwise) and guide yourself in a way that would still allow your own free will. But, what about others who do have experiences and communication with beings from other dimensions? Once again, I received an answer: Not everyone has the same path as you do. Again, there is no deciding that you don’t get what others get. Everyone is being graced in the way that serves them for their highest good and their own soul’s guidance. Our soul knows better than our ego knows. You may have wanted to really understand the awesome power that is inside of you…the truth of who and what you are. I realized that this was advanced stuff. If I could get this in this lifetime, I would have had physical experience of something that is a higher-dimensional concept. Now, to really give you a headache, contemplate the following theory, that every possible scenario is all happening at once, has happened and will probably happen again. No physical laws exist which would prohibit the existence of parallel worlds. So, in some other reality or dimension (which there are unlimited numbers), we are living the scenario that we’re desiring.

It is never a lesson given to us for us to know suffering. We are the only ones that have treated ourselves unfairly and we have been forgiven. All is well. Everything is in divine order. It is never that we must experience suffering in order to experience grace. Suffering is just expectation and not following your joy.

With suffering comes the feeling of being a victim or victimized. We are in victim consciousness if we think anyone can be a victim and does anything because of crimes perpetrated against them (i.e. a rapist has been sexually abused, someone is experiencing police brutality, an addict) or due to something “out of their control”. When in victim consciousness, we give our power away. Everyone creates their own reality and our job is not to figure out or fix it. There are no victims.

Many people don’t realize that when they choose to “fix” others that they may be interfering with their perfect path to their evolution and enlightenment. Their path of drugs and alcohol abuse may lead to them becoming a very inspirational and effective addictions counselor for thousands of other people suffering from addiction. Who are we to switch their train to our own “approved” track? Who are we to remove one of their stepping stones?

Am I saying to not address suffering in the world? No, I’m not. Here’s the thing. Fix your own suffering within before trying to fix the suffering of others. We are not helpful if we do not do this first. If we receive joy by assisting to end the suffering of this world and our work is not being done because of guilt, then Yes, do what brings us joy. Still, in doing this, we are hoping to have more suffering in the world in order to bring us joy. Why not receive joy by ending our own suffering? Sometimes, we go way outside of ourselves to get away from our own self-inflicted suffering and this can be in the form of trying to save a third-world country or it may look like becoming a therapist.

There are no mistakes, only experiences. We are always giving the very best that we can with what we know, where we are and the level of consciousness that we exist within. All is love. Look at what was done “to you” and begin to challenge yourself to see it as Love. Do not look so closely at the physicality of it as much the divine purpose of it. Someone tries to oppress you. They demand things of you and cause great suffering in your life. Is this not a gift from someone who is also, like you, an aspect of All That Is? Could it be that this person’s highest Self and You have agreed, on some level, to this episode of life experience. Can you see the pure love that it must have taken to provide for you an opportunity for forgiveness and the ability for you to take back your power and assert yourself?

Let go of outer stimulation and expectations. As you receive input from what seems like outer sources, allow and let them flow through or around you, whatever you choose. Don’t be attached to them. Don’t wait for the source to start flowing again, in anticipation. Go inside. Seek your own truth from your own source. Then, follow your bliss.