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    Truth Out: Not everything is a Conspiracy.

    Why embracing both sides of polarity is the key to opening portals of unity.

    “There is currently an emphasis on revealing “truths” about “lies” perpetuated by a power elite attempting to maintain surrogate control of the masses. At the collective level, consider that any us-versus-them mentality serves to further segregate people.

    Many of these “truth-out” organizations (and members) are committed to revealing a deceptive fog that has hovered heavily in our atmosphere, permeating reality with fields of fear, lack, and limitation.

    Although these people are focused on sharing the so-called truth about these deceptions, they may not realize that any recognition of conspiracy theories revealed from a space of division serves to further segregate consensus reality into dualistic states.

    Therefore, these truth-out ambassadors actually become conduits of the very powers they are seeking to take down (all the while binging on the dopamine surge fueled by the antagonism). Anything that divides us disempowers all.

    This is a very difficult concept for many to understand. So in simplified terms, if we are attempting to bring awareness to a truth from a divisive perspective, that creates a bigger wall between us and them, further perpetuating dualism. The divided focus wins. “We” are still “they” in a house divided.

    The gap between sides is perpetuated by the divided focus on the morphic fields of delusion, contortion, and distortion, which will actually gain more power through morphic resonance. The shadows of the illusions become focal points for expression.

    When we get our own house in order, uniting the polarities within ourselves, the need to reveal dualistic sides outside ourselves will be replaced with an embodiment of integrated unity within. Embracing the shadows and delusions of confusion from the space of unity and heart-centered awareness will allow for resonant recognition of that which is not truth, but more importantly will attract more truth-seekers unto itself.

    Even the new age movement that is purportedly committed to waking up the planet may be approaching the awakening from a state of superiority and division between “we who are awake” and “those who slumber.” Any time we approach reality with a consciousness of dualism, it will actually create a mitotic environment that continues to further subdivide. Therefore, embracing both sides of the polarity, as expressions of one, is the key to opening portals of unity. How many perspectives can we hold in any given moment? The answer is infinite; the one as many.”

    Excerpted from ‘The Art of Limitless Living’ by Melissa Joy Jonsson, now available as Audiobook, Print and E-book.

    Trust In Self

    Sometimes we learn self-trust through the sting of betrayal. We may trust people who do not trust themselves -so of course they are not trustworthy.

    Trust in the universe we may be told. Yet, it is not enough to only trust in the universe. We must be able to trust in one another, as a reflection of trust in ourselves. For without trust of self or others, there is no connection, community, or collaboration. Without trust, there is no WE experience, the culmination of that which is completion.

    Trust begins from within. Trust self. In trust of self, we form a coherent and congruent relationship to our personal universe in which we ourselves become trustworthy; the value of that connection to self ripples into all that we create, relate to, and encounter in our shared hologram.

    When we trust self we are also able to easily discern trustworthiness in others. Choice with discernment is a natural reflection of trusting self. Trust IS connection. Trust IS self-love. Trust in the You-niverse.

    Addiction to Drama


    Addiction to drama is false power created as a polarized reaction to feeling powerless. Drama drains our power no matter what role we may be playing back and forth, victim or perpetrator alike.

    All actors in the drama are directing life force away from the vortex of the heart into the push/pull linear dynamic of surrogate control. Drama is a tug of war with self and that rope will eventually choke any sense of peace, joy and semblance of unity with all parties involved. Nobody wins the drama game. Let go of the struggle. Choose to let go and play from the unified field of the heart…a drama-free zone.

    – Melissa Joy

    Little Book of Big Potentials available in Print, Kindle, and Audiobook.

    The 24 M-Joy Fields of Limitless Potential

    The 24 M-Joy Fields offer gifts of connection to Fields of limitless love.

    Connection to the 24 M-Joy Fields of information creates resonance, and resonance creates experience. Contained within these Fields are a heart-centered process and language to create and signal resonant field flow, based on principles of holographic fractals, torsion, light, and information. I refer to these M-Joy Fields, and the language to convey them, as Spiralglyphics.

    Simply stated, all twenty-four Fields create clear signals for love as resonant information to express as energy. As a result, we may create, manifest, and experience more coherence, flow, joy, and well-being..

    The twenty-four M-Joy Fields support us in establishing resonance with love, unity, and the expression of our inherent boundless potential. These Fields deliver waves of coherent information to clear the distortion and confusion in our personal and shared holograms. Most distortion and confusion have formed as a result of prior conditioning and experiences, which have led us to believe that we are anything other than . . . limitless love. The twenty-four Spiralglyphic Fields offer us new platforms in reality structuring based on the truth of our essence, so we may experience flow, fulfillment, abundance, and empowered joy-filled living.

    Fields as Creation Platforms

    The twenty-four Fields are holographic fractal fields each containing many torsion fields of information creating harmonic resonances of love. This means there is exponential energetic potential available in each Field, providing us with a freedom and flexibility to play within each Field any way we choose.

    Connection to the information will affect resonance or vibrational frequency. We are free to access the various harmonics of love synchronized within each and every Field.

    The holographic universe is both informational and vibrational. Everything in the love hologram is light-sound/information/resonance. The twenty-four Fields are holographically encoded through torsion fields that will respond to our signaled intent. There are numerous ways to signal a field flow based on individual intent. It is not important to consciously attempt to match the specific frequency or vibration that corresponds to a particular Field, as intent to connect is what establishes resonance.

    Again, every Field responds to a signal of intent. Our intention to connect is what activates the flow of the Field. The intention will always be met by a corresponding matching reflection. This means that your intention will be matched by a reciprocal standing wave. Fields are signal based and transfer information in response to a signal sent. Signals of intent are returned through a signal field flow.

    Heart-Filled Simple Intent

    The field of the heart has the ability to access all Fields of love in the hologram. The field of the heart coupled with the intent of the laserlike focus of the holographic mind is what activates the signal for a corresponding Field. The Field in turn reflects back the information that corresponds to the intent.

    Yes, these Fields will change vibration. Yes, these Fields will create new frequencies for awareness. And these Fields are much more than vibration and frequency combined, for the information inclusive to each Field is exponential in potential. Big potentials can actualize into real experiences. Love Big!

    As the Fields themselves are not energies but rather are information based torsion fields, we may not necessarily feel them through traditional sensory awareness. In fact, the Fields are invisible to the five human senses. Though we cannot notice the actual Fields, we can notice and experience the effects of the Fields in myriad ways.

    Invitation to Play

    Each unique Fractal Hologram provides an entry-point or personal portal to connect to the corresponding Field for direct experience. Each Fractal Hologram is an invitation to PLAY. How we choose to notice and experience each Field will be unique for everyone, and there is freedom to play in any way you desire!

    Fields Of Completion

    The twenty-four Fields have something special to teach us all. These Fields are special for women, men, and children of all ages, in different, albeit unifying, expressive manners.

    The Fields comprise both right-handed spin and left-handed spin. The right-handed spin is an inward movement of centripetal forces that are negentropic (becoming more in order, the opposite of chaos) in nature and are characterized by the sacred feminine essence. This is seen as an inward movement of the torsion fields, while they simultaneously expand outward in an inclusive and reconciling manner. Right-handed spin is associated with receptivity, cohesion, inclusion, integration, and manifestation.

    The left-handed spinning torsion fields are an outward movement of centrifugal or entropic forces and are characterized by sacred masculine essence. The left-handed spin is associated with deliberate expression, action, ideation, and manifestation. All Fields contain both right-handed and left-handed spin, and none is exclusively of one or the other. All Fields include both, in the same way we are all both.

    Signals of Fractificence

    The Fields have been established to respond to individual preference and comfort in connecting to them. Intention to connect to the informational fields of potential is sufficient to activate field flow, enabling us to easily and consistently reconfigure our experiences of interactive reality creation.

    Experience the 24 M-Joy Fields represented as Fractal Holograms. Open yourself and others to Fractificence, the magnificence of our infinitely fractal nature reflected in the universal hologram. Come join me for a WE experience as together we embody and experience more of who we truly are!

    Excerpted and Adapted from: Little Book of Big Potentials by Melissa Joy

    True Authentic Self (TAS) – You In Relation to…You!

    What is True Authentic Self (TAS) and how does our True Authentic Self (TAS) differ from our authentic self? Our TAS says, in effect, “I know I am consciousness potential and a limitless being, and yet I coexist peacefully with my self-imposed limitations. I am unfolding daily in each moment, letting go of who I was a moment ago, so I can embrace more of who I am becoming now.”

    While authentic self embodies limitations, our True Authentic Self (TAS) embodies both, limitlessness with limitations. Our TAS has limiting self-concepts that have been conditioned into personal awareness as well as presence and awareness of divine beingness, that which is unconditional love as coherent light. Within the TAS is a peaceful co-existence and synthesis without judgment. Our TAS is willing to explore parts of self that may not match the picture of limitless being, and it opens into these parts with equal love and light. Our TAS embraces the full totality of beingness and does not hide the yucky stuff from awareness.

    Our True Authentic Self is Perfectly Imperfect.

    The True Authentic Self (TAS) expands beyond the authentic self in that every moment is an opportunity to grow into more of what you are becoming, rather than remaining who you have been. It is not something that happens suddenly one day. It is a process that is always unfolding, refining, and expanding. The TAS stumbles, learns from the stumble, and gets right back up.

    Our True Authentic Self is an evolving expression of coherency, congruency, and integrity in action. I define the coherency of True Authentic Self (TAS) as awareness of an unbroken connection to universal consciousness and limitless potential expressed as flow. Congruency is alignment of awareness of this coherent connection with everything in relation to, or relating to self. Integrity is the expression of coherency and congruency in all intentions and actions.

    Integrity is a presence of heart and mind that responds honestly in the moment to what is, with full and abiding transparency. Our True Authentic Self (TAS) honors and values our own wants, needs, and desires as much as it does everyone else’s, and it is not cloaked in programming, beliefs, opinions, and expectations. Our TAS knows that impositions of limitations are impostors.

    As individuals, we can make a powerful choice to embrace integrity. When integrity is embodied, coherency invariably follows, as they are not mutually exclusive. Integrity creates a coherent field of connection established with all that is, allowing for all that we already are to unfold, with all that we are meant to become.

    Validated

    Integrity Is Authenticity

    The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are. – C. G. Jung

    Integrity is authenticity. There is nothing to fear. Integrity is not some external standard that is incessantly beyond reach. Integrity is within us, and is not something to earn. Like grace, it is freely available if we choose. Integrity is simply being wholly (who we truly are) without identifying ourselves exclusively through the masks and personas that we may hide behind.

    Authenticity is not so scary. Many spend their whole lives running from themselves and hiding inherent greatness behind projections. Waking up to being exactly who we are, with total acceptance, can stop the exhausting marathon of avoidance. In the pause, if only for a moment, there is a meeting of the soul as our unique sole signature begins to express in an entirely new and liberated way. It becomes like breathing. Easy. Integrity, as authenticity, brings forth joy from within. Nothing to do other than to be, integrate (in-to-great), and express from that natural whole state.

    TAS and Self-Is

    Loving self is self-is. Our True Authentic Self (TAS) knows that loving and honoring self is not selfish. Rather, self-love is self-is. TAS recognizes self as a direct extension of universal consciousness, and that caring for oneself is a potent carrier wave for joy. When we appreciate our self in the myriad ways that honor our own needs and desires, love is amplified and more love becomes available for others. There is nothing selfish in loving self.

    Heart-ily (Hardly) Selfish

    Research conducted by HeartMath Institute has shown that brain waves can entrain in the presence of another person’s coherent heart field. This means that thoughts can be sensed and perceived by another when coherency is present. Furthermore, positive emotions such as love and appreciation, expressed in conjunction with a coherent heart field, are more likely to be picked up by another.

    When we drop into our hearts while engaging in loving thoughts, our thoughts are amplified and conveyed to another through our coherent field. In other words, the synchrony and connection are extended beyond self to another. When we embody heart-centered awareness, our thoughts and emotions can favorably affect us as well as those around us. A ripple effect occurs when we live from our hearts first and allow our positive thoughts to follow.

    When we love ourselves as we are, perfectly imperfect, and honor ourselves with loving thoughts and emotions, as well as with deeds of appreciation, our self-love radiates to others.

    Love has many forms of expression, including the attributes of kindness, appreciation, caring, attention, and forgiveness. It is awesome to access love through the field of the heart as a deeply impersonal, unconditional, cohesive force of universal consciousness.

    Being, Not Un-doing

    Our True Authentic Self does not require the total dismantling of everything that is familiar. It allows us to show compassion toward our own vulnerabilities in the same way we are willing to show compassion to others. Our TAS embraces love of self in its entirety—perfectly imperfect— even the parts we do not like. As an absolutely unique expression of consciousness potential whose core essence never changes, our True Authentic Self is continually transforming, evolving, and letting go of what is no longer useful. Our TAS embraces the moment and says, “Here I am. Totally present. Right now. I am different than I was a moment ago, and I look forward to who I may be a moment from now.”

    Heart-centered awareness leads us to meet our True Authentic Self. In that place of no space, we hear our inner voice, the inner voice of the one who is genuinely who we are.

    TAS Commitment Vows

    Our most important intimate relationship is the one we have with ourselves. It is you in relation to you, an eternal marriage between your true authentic self and your heart. The vows are simple, profound, and meaningful. Commit to love, honor, and listen to yourself through your heart, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer, in death you won’t part. Vow to appreciate, encourage, and support yourself when you need it most, and even when you do not need it. Promise to always be honest with yourself and to express your truth as it occurs to you. When you forget any of these promises, remember the premise of forgiveness, as forgiveness is an ever-evolving gift of grace. Find your joy in this marriage with yourself. Be joy. Live joy. In-Joy! Love self first and foremost, and from there, love exponentially. Love is the ripple effect.

    When Unconditional Love Means Saying No

    Being able to say ‘no’ to those we love can be a tricky task, but unconditional love includes the power of choice too.

    Many people think unconditional love means sitting back and letting people walk all over us while they meet their agendas. All may be love, but not all actions are indeed loving actions. Unconditional love does not mean tolerating intolerable circumstances.

    We can be unconditional love while still placing conditions on what we are willing to participate in. Conditions are not placed on the love. Conditions are placed on the circumstances. Love includes the power of choice too.

    Unconditional love is not being a doormat

    Learning to say, “I love you and…  no.” is an empowering form of what I call true authentic relating. True authentic relating is a compassionate form of relating that enables us to stay centered in the heart and maintain integrity, despite antagonistic or bullying attempts to thwart our true authentic power.

    Truly and authentically relating to those we love and/or care about, sounds like this:

    “I love you, and if you want to be a part of my life, please stop treating me like I do not matter.”

    “I love you and this is not okay.”

    “I love you and I do not agree with the choices that you are making.”

    If it is not appropriate to show love (i.e. at work or another social activity) or you do not feel loving, then use the phrase “I acknowledge you and…  (for example) speaking badly about me at lunch in front of my supervisor is not acceptable behavior.”

    Heart-centered awareness

    Heart-centered awareness and living as our true authentic selves permits us to stand our ground, commanding love of self while also commanding loving conditions. When we command our conditions from the center of the field of the heart, with integrity and authenticity, our circumstances and conditions will realign to mirror back accordingly.

    Sometimes this means choosing to step away from situations, circumstances, people, and structures and choosing to love them from afar.  We have the power to choose. Love never goes anywhere. Only circumstances change.

    Allowing for integrity, accountability, and responsibility

    When we make a commitment to integrity and to living from the heart, then we may also recognize that not opting to step away is a choice. Not choosing to step away when a pattern is abusive, demeaning or unsupportive is a choice.

    Heart-centered awareness provides a vehicle for integrity, accountability, and responsibility within family structures, at work, and in relation to community. This follows and expands on the principles of coherency, congruency, and integrity in action – a formula for extraordinary living.

    Drop down into the ‘field of your heart’. Consider a social situation or circumstance in which roles are limiting the expression of your true authentic self. Think about the role as a pattern. Ask yourself what this relationship can reveal to you that you have not yet recognized.

    Questions to ask yourself

    •     What thoughts, feelings, or experiences occur for you as you relate to this pattern from your heart?
    •     How might you deal with this pattern to enable you to move beyond the limitations of the role to relate from a space of loving self-completion?
    •     What actions, ideas, expressions, or conversations might you engage in from your heart?

    For example, my mother expects that adult children be the ones to initiate contact with parents on holidays if not together in person. As a result, it is always up to me to make the phone call. This has been frustrating. If I didn’t call early enough or at a time that was convenient, or if she didn’t get the message, she would be upset with me. This would often lead to nasty emails, disappointing conversations, and missed opportunities to lovingly connect.

    Drop into your heart

    The last time this happened, I dropped down into the field of my heart. I could see that this pattern was a form of surrogate control: “Do it this way because I said so,”  and even had a little bit of bullying built in. I could see from my heart that my mom just wanted to talk to me. By getting hurt if I didn’t call on her terms. She had her own ready-made source of feeling empowered as a victim in a distorted way. I could see it wasn’t personal, although it felt personal.

    Thus, rather than engage in the old reactive patterns of defensiveness, I chose to tell my mother lovingly from the field of my heart that if she wants to connect with me on a holiday, and I haven’t called yet, then please pick up the phone and call me. I would love to hear from her. This was true authentic relating. It enabled me to move beyond the role of obedient child reacting to controlling expectation into a loving space where the pattern could change. The pattern did change.

    Integrity Is More Than Skin Deep

    Words, deeds, and actions are all energetic containers for the essence of integrity to flow. Integrity is the skin of the soul, our largest organ and interface (inner-face), which breathes life into all endeavors.

    When integrity is congested by confusion, deception, or manipulation, the flow of integrity is obstructed in all systems of inner actions and interactions.

    Integrity is not a barrier. Rather, integrity is a carrier to bare that which is raw and authentic in the heart-soul of our being. Integrity opens us to truth, a song for the soul’s transmission of love—love which transmutes and transforms everything.

    Integrity cannot be compartmentalized, no matter how many mental lies are told. When integrity is compromised, the broken promise to self reverberates into the eternal soul.

    Broken integrity creates wounds that lie before us. Initially the wounds may be only scratches or scuffs we may overlook, mask, or cover by a bandage. Left unattended without authentic awareness, the wounds will fester, bleed, and infect all organizations of the interconnected systems of reality.

    What once was hidden by a bandage of protection may bondage the soul’s True Authentic Expression. Life circumstances will present like salt thrown in the wound to beckon our attention.

    Air the wounds with the breath of honesty, inspired by integrity. This loving action will flow directly to the hemorrhage and heal the soul, restoring cohesiveness by providing wounds with the necessary ingredients to mend what once was severed.

    Let the organ of integrity orchestrate harmonic symphonies in all aspects of life with ease as grace. Love is integrity and can end all self-betrayal. Love as integrity is loyalty to the soul.

    The Ricochet Effect

    It has been my experience that when entangling personal fields with others, if we do not establish boundaries of what we are willing to show up for, we experience what I call “the ricochet effect”.

    The ricochet effect is defined as a reflection of our willingness to show up to help others, which results in negative circumstances for ourselves. The support we offer will ricochet back at us in myriad harmful ways.

    I have asked myself what is the deciding factor as to whether giving others a hand up (not a hand-out) will result in a detrimental impact rippling into our personal perspective reality. In asking this question, an empowering observation has been made, witnessed, and ratified through trial and error.

    Primarily, the difference in whether the ricochet effect occurs (or not) is the level of integrity of the person or pattern we are seeking to support. When a person or pattern is in integrity AND genuinely wants to help himself or herself, then your support will have a ripple effect that benefits everyone. Click To Tweet

    Conversely, when others are out of integrity are looking for others to do the work for them, or using the scenario as a form of manipulation or to obtain power, then the circumstances ricochet detrimentally into our own lives and the lives of everyone connected. We become collateral damage.

    No More Collateral Damage

    After countless inquiries surrounding I love you AND . . . scenarios, this is a very useful distinction that enables us to maintain the sanctity of our boundaries without the ricochet effects of others’ incongruent choices.

    This has been a very liberating delineation in awareness.

    The Art of Limitless Living in Real Time

    Today marks one month into a six-month journey around the world. I remember the exact day I began planning this tour. It was a dare to myself create the path and then follow it.

    Honestly, I have moments where I freak out and wish I was home (or that some of home were here). Then there are the times when I would not want to be anywhere but here, when the path presents itself in the moment to walk where I have never gone before.

    When I drop into my heart, I find myself always home. Here is an excerpt from The Art of Limitless Living when I was planning this trip. I suppose putting the desire into publication was my way of calling my own bluff. Live the principles of the work and work to principally play. The Art of Limitless Living, one heart-print at a time.

    “I love to teach physics to explain transformation. But change isn’t rocket science. If we want to experience change, we must make different choices. If we want complete change, we choose from the heart and allow the mind to follow.

    Heart–mind synthesis is a tango with the universe, establishing a rhythmic flow with the unified heart of completion and then making deliberate choices that align with new heart-prints.

    Practical Play: Heart–Mind Synthesis

    Grab a pen and paper if you choose. Consider a situation, challenge, or opportunity in your life in which you currently face fear, confusion, uncertainty, and a sense of limitation. From the mind’s perspective, write down what occurs for you.

    Here is my heart–mind synthesis process in real time:

    Fact: I have a dream I would like to manifest as my reality. I would like to do a six-month around-the-world Art of Limitless Living seminar tour to expand the M-Joy teachings into new countries, combined with my love for travel.

    Mind: This will require a lot of planning. Perhaps it is too much work.

    Placeholder: A fear of actualizing the true authentic desire is cloaked in the so-called logical notion that this vision is too much effort.

    Mind: I will need to rent out my home while away to help offset my expenses. This will be a major ordeal, so maybe I should not go.

    Placeholder: Fear of lack of abundance is cloaked in justified inconvenience.

    Mind: World events are making international travel more challenging. What if the border closes? Travel is a hassle. It is safer to stay home.

    Placeholder: Fear of following through on this dream, cloaked in flawed logic of “travel is risky,” even though staying home really is no safer.

    Mind: What if someone I love dies while I am away and I am halfway across the world? Better to wait until a later date.

    Placeholder: Fear of living cloaked in fear of death.

    Heart: Seriously, mind, please quiet this noise. Thank you for trying to protect me, but you may as well bring out my own coffin now and bury me in it with all these fear-based limiting thoughts. Trust this true authentic desire that is welling up from the field of the heart. Allow for heart–mind
    synthesis to support the manifestation of this creative endeavor.

    Mind: Don’t be so sure. Anything can go wrong.

    Heart: I am certain that all may go well too. If you do not mind, we will leverage your laser-like focus to calibrate where to go, what to do, and how to play in all matters, not from a space of fear but from a space of grace and intuitive discernment.

    Heart–Mind Synthesis: Synergy. Yes we can work together to make congruent choices aligned with the coherence of the heart. We can do our research to choose our countries wisely, secure our venues, hire a realtor in advance to rent out our home, purchase discounted airfare, and figure out how to pack for several seasons of travel. With proper lead time and active promotion, the events will fill with students who resonate with the heart of our teachings. This will be a wholehearted travel adventure; the art of limitless living.

    Have Joy, will travel.

     

    Relationships: Co-Creation, Unification, and Ripples In The Pond

    All relationships carry with them an inherent desire to remain in a state of love. As love itself is boundless, free, and is always moving and flowing, containing a state of love within the fixed boundaries of a relationship can lead to feelings of restriction and dissatisfaction, rather than growth and satiation. More important, when we look to others as the source for the love we desire, we are forever seeking an elusive state. Seeking love from others to fulfill us, or to fully fill us, will likely leave us feeling empty.

    When we stop looking outside ourselves for the level of love we desire and instead realize that we are a source of love, than we can shift how we show up, and then, inevitably, everything shifts around us. When we look to ourselves for the fulfillment of love, we quite naturally attract circumstances that reflect similar states of being. In turn, our relationships become more fulfilling, as they become an extension of that which is already full and whole in us. There is a freedom and an expansion found in loving self that allows for more love to flow to us and through us from all directions. This love is within us and is realized all around us. When we let love out and we let love in, the ripple effect expands exponentially through reciprocal waves of grace. When we let love in and let love out, we flow with grace, in an eternal, rhythmic dance of joy.”

    ~ Melissa Joy

    A Heart Field is a Love Sphere that is Connected to Everything.

    The field of the heart carries key codes for accessing the eternal now and also unlocks our individual and shared life purposes. The heart field is a gateway into all that IS, was, and may ever be. When we are living and loving from the field of the heart, we are true Heartists capable of creating and manifesting True Authentic Desires into actual experiences. Click To Tweet

    The field of the heart is an opening into truth as unity. Although the field of the heart is transpersonal in nature, it is very personal to each one of us, for within the field of the heart is everything we need to know to live extraordinary, empowered, meaningful lives. The field of the heart contains an inner navigation system, a GPS pointing the way to our own True North in all experiences. The unlimited field of the heart always knows what the limited mind may have forgotten.

    Living and experiencing from the field of the heart is easy, once we stop living and experiencing any other way. Consistently living from the field of the heart enables us to be our True Authentic Selves and supports True Authentic Relating. As the field of the heart does not take things apart, the experience of being in the field of the heart can be very unifying. We may experience ourselves as completion. We may experience ourselves as our true essence of love, void of programming. We may experience self-acceptance and authenticity.

    ~ Melissa Joy, adapted from “Practical Play The Heart-Centered Way”

    Emotions, or Feelings?

    So, what is the difference between an emotion and a feeling?

    Although the two terms are often used interchangeably, some scientists propose they are not the same. Antonio R. Damasio, renowned neuroscientist and current director of the USC Brain and Creativity Institute, has spent the past thirty-plus years striving to show that feelings are what arise as the brain interprets emotions. Emotions themselves, he posits, are the complex reactions the body has to external stimuli.

    Damasio shares that when we are afraid, our bodies respond first. For example, we may experience sweaty palms, an upset stomach, and heart palpitations. According to Damasio, this emotional reaction occurs automatically and unconsciously. Feelings occur after we become aware in our brain of such physical changes; only then do we experience the feeling of fear.

    So first we emote.
    Then we think.
    Then we identify, interpret, and label.
    Then we feel.

    Consider a feeling of “having butterflies in your stomach,” the sense of excitement you may feel when you anticipate something great is about to happen. The “excitement” is a description of the emotion flowing through your nervous system, followed by a thought of excitement that you have labeled as a feeling in response to your physiology by virtue of associating that response to an anticipated event.

    However, the emotion and the physiology of excitement are virtually identical to the emotion and physiology of nervousness, which, if consistent, can be labeled as anxiety. Our bodies do not know the difference between excitement and nervousness. Rather, it is our mind that interprets the emotion through thought that is then labeled as a feeling of nervousness/anxiety.

    Next time you are feeling nervous or anxious, ask yourself if you are really nervous or anxious, or perhaps you are excited about the unknown possibilities that await you beyond the label.

    When we identify with the emotions through habitual thought, feeling, and labels, we may miss the opportunity the visiting emotions may be there to present. Our emotions are gifts of awareness that can unwrap our True Authentic Self.

    This article is excerpted and adapted from “The Art of Limitless Living”, available in Print, E-book and AudioBook.

    Healing Humanity through Concrescence

    “Love is the affinity which links and draws together the elements of the world. … Love, in fact, is the agent of universal synthesis.” — Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Activation of Energy

    Fluid Boundaries and Concrescence

    Concrescence for humanity is possible through the art of letting go. By letting go of preconceived ideas, limiting reality constructs, and rigid notions of reality, we open into the realm of curiosity and creativity where anything can happen. We transform our placeholders to graceholders. By living in our hearts and applying Fluid Boundaries to what appears to be happening, we can move into the gap of the unknown to make new collective heart-prints. There is not just one way to move forward.

    Concrescence is defined as “the coalescence or growing together of parts originally separate.” The concept of concrescence originated in biology and was later adopted by philosopher Alfred North Whitehead in his book Process and Reality as part of a philosophical ontology.

    Every event in Whitehead’s ontology is thus a unique combination of possibility and actuality. The process of combining the two is imagined by Whitehead to be organic and is consequently called “concrescence.” The term concrescence stands for the process that is fundamental for existence. It can be thought of as the growing together of the multiple entities in the world to one single actual entity, which then becomes the material for new entities. Because of being organic, a concrescence is different from a mere combination where the whole is the sum of its parts. [1]

    According to Whitehead, concrescence can occur through creative synthesis where the act of decision merges the already decided past with the not yet decided future. [2]

    Human nature is to look to past experiences to create future expectations. We think things will be a certain way because they were that way before. The presence of the past creates the future. But concrescence integrates past experiences not as predictions of the future but as references only to catalyze new potentials, new probabilities, new creative expressions. Many existing perspectives and models working together will build concrescence.

    Consider that concrescence is already occurring in many paradigms when viewed from a heart-centered, vertical perspective. None of the models are absolutely true, but all of the models are relatively true for the scale they are describing.

    The scale we use to look at reality matters.

    Scale is defined as a range of numbers used as a system to measure or compare things. According to world-renowned Harvard professor of theoretical physics Lisa Randall:

    “Effective theories are keeping track of measurable details without getting caught in unmeasurable components. … The speed of light is finite and the universe we know has existed a finite amount of time. This doesn’t mean the universe isn’t bigger. It is just that we can’t make observations beyond that scale.” [3]

    A Theory of Everything

    Wouldn’t it be great if we had a theory to explain everything? In physics, string theory is currently under development. This model aims to reconcile quantum mechanics with general relativity and seems to have all the necessary characteristics for becoming a Theory of Everything. It is founded on the principle that matter, energy, and, under certain hypotheses, space and time are manifestations of physical entities below which, according to the number of dimensions they develop in, they are called “strings.” For the theory to be valid, physicists propose that there are ten dimensions.” [4]

    A true Theory of Everything would possibly include all theories, as there is not one ultimate reality. All realities are a matter of scale or, more simply, a matter of perspective. Each model often describes the respective dimension it is observing.

    Consider that the evolution of physics and science may simply be an evolution of our perspectives based on scales. Current research builds on and is a logical extension of what is previously known. Current research comes from the past and is based on measurable observations. Aspects of string theory known as super-symmetry and Brane models seem to hold the most promise of being able to build on what is already known and linking to the unknown. However, none of these models can get there alone. They rely on a delicate balance between what has been discovered in the past (predictability) and the unexplained mysteries of the universe (probability).

    Predictability and Probabilities

    The science of our three-dimensional life is Newtonian physics. Newtonian physics explains how objects obey the laws of gravity. This is the world of physicality and matter. This is a science of predictability.

    The science of 4-D is a realm of probabilities. Traditional models consider 4-D to be space-time, which includes four-dimensional combinations of width, height, depth, and time. Because space consists of three dimensions, and time is assumed to be one-dimensional, spacetime must, therefore, be a four-dimensional object. Oxford physicist and mathematician Roger Penrose proposed that space and time themselves are secondary constructs that emerge out of a deeper level of reality. Mathematics professor Andrew Hodges of Oxford University says that “This idea of points of space-time as being primary objects is artificial.” [5]

    Quantum physics explores an unknown future of probability states. Quantum entanglement experiments reveal that particles can instantaneously communicate over infinite distances. This is a model of a world in which everything is connected. At the subatomic level, the reason electrons are able to communicate with each other from thousands of miles away is because they are not separate. Quantum physics challenges our basic ideas about space-time. Relativity from a quantum physics perspective reveals a realm of possibilities. This is also a realm of the mind in which probabilities can be explored before they fully actualize as experience. We can traverse the past via memories and explore the future through imagination.

    However, moving beyond 4-D is problematic for science due to the measurement problem. But nonetheless, there is compelling evidence that there is more than meets the eye, and portals into infinite dimensions may soon be discovered.

    Harvard cosmologist and theoretical physicist Lisa Randall, author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door, posits that there is a hidden fifth dimension that we can’t see. According to her widely recognized model, which dovetails with string theory, “The fifth dimension could be so warped that the number of dimensions you see would depend on where you were. … The fifth dimension could actually be infinite and we would not have noticed it.” [6]

    Infinite extra dimensions, depending on our perspective.

    Randall has made some astounding discoveries in theoretical physics linking tiny quantum particles to a model of the cosmos. While she utilizes a very pragmatic approach, starting from what science already has proven, her colleagues cite her “amazing nose” in terms of knowing where to look for hidden variables. She has a knowing without knowing how she knows, and her intuitive hunches consistently enable her to follow her nose (knows).

    Dimensions are simply the different facets of what we perceive to be reality. We are aware of the three dimensions that surround us—length, width, and depth—because we can see them in everyday life. String theory proposes that beyond these three dimensions are additional dimensions that are not immediately apparent to us but that can be still be perceived as having a direct effect on the universe and reality as we know it.

    Consider that that hidden fifth dimension, too small to measure and too vast to quantify, can possibly be found without measuring devices and mathematical computations. This hidden dimension is found in the field of the heart.

    The field of the heart is the gateway to infinite potential and infinite expression, as well as infinite dimensions, [7] beyond the realities we can see and measure into the realm of the unknown. The heart-field is where predictability meets boundless possibility.

    The heart-field is the timeless transformative treasure that moves us beyond past experiential patterns of linear time into the holofractal realm of new patterned potentials; we are able to move up, down, right, and left, any which way in all dimensions, esoterically and practically, for they are one and the same from the field of the heart. Vertical and horizontal awareness meets perpendicular planes of possibilities simultaneously.

    The field of the heart is a counter-rotating torsion field or tube torus. Torsion fields are instantaneous signal transmitters and receivers linking local linear effects with nonlocal, nonlinear reality. Our heart-field enables us to traverse all axes of reality from zero-point to all points of perspectives inclusively.

    The heart-field is where infinite potentials meet infinite expressions. Infinite perspectives. Infinite choices. Infinite dimensions.

    Curiously enough, the physics of heart-centered awareness, a physics of torsion fields, would conceivably enable scientists to reconcile electromagnetism and gravity and would enable mainstream science to prove the existence of unknown dimensions. More than 4,000 papers have been published by more than 150 teams of scientists in the past 120 years describing what a torsion field is, what function it performs, how it works, and where it may be located. Despite this fact, widespread scientific knowledge of this critical, fundamental aspect of physics and biology has been almost completely excluded from the world of academic scientists and mainstream research institutions. [8]

    Torsion fields or scalar waves are still considered “fringe science.” Part of the reason for this is that torsion fields are characteristically supraluminal; they travel faster than the speed of light. Because our measuring devices are based on the electromagnetic spectrum and these tools (based on light) cannot go faster than the speed of light itself, we can’t measure torsion fields. However, we can measure the effects of torsion fields. [9] Nonetheless, mainstream science dismisses torsion fields as junk science. In other words, traditional mainstream science has dismissed the existence of scalar wave energy (torsion fields) simply because current measurement tools are based on electromagnetic frequencies, action, and motion, and these measurement tools cannot seem to measure scalar or torsion waves. As we learned from renowned theoretical physicist Lisa Randall, effective theories are keeping track of measurable details without getting caught in unmeasurable components.

    The prevailing scientific paradigm is that which is not measurable must not be included.

    According to MIT- and Princeton-educated physicist Dr. Claude Swanson, in his Synchronized Universe model, the new sciences of biophotons and torsion fields provide a bridge between two views of life: the old 20th-century view of an organism as a chemical machine and the emerging view of life as communication and energetic flows. [10]

    The physics of torsion fields also reveals how language can reprogram our DNA. Russian biophysicist Peter Gariaev and his team have proven the existence of torsion fields. Gariaev’s work, wave genetics, utilizes the principles of laser light and sound and scientifically demonstrates that torsion fields carry information to the biophotons of the body, informing the body to heal and grow. Despite the fact that he is healing so-called genetic diseases, the dead-end dogma of prevailing paradigms has yet to accept his progressive research into mainstream avenues. [11]

    Age of Synthesis

    Moving toward concrescence entails our ability to see truth in all models. Moving toward concrescence will entail our ability to occupy multiple perspectives simultaneously. Concrescence at the collective level begins with concrescence at the individual level.

    So are things really falling apart, or are they coming together in a new way?

    Everything at the collective level is moving toward integration. The historic split between mind and body has melded. Wave particle duality has been resolved. Science and spirituality are merging, and even separate masculine and feminine constructs are evolving in an integrated, holistic manner. There is an emergence of synthesis.

    Today, many disparate systems are synthesizing. Nothing seems as separate as it did in the past. The boundaries between so-called opposites are beginning to dissolve, and dualities are transforming into an integrated expression of wholeness.

    Scientist Dr. Carl W. Hall considered the 21st century the The Age of Synthesis:

    “Synthesis is a way of thinking and doing, of providing a vision, in which an idea or a thing, imagined or real, is seen as a coherent whole; often consisting of parts, from which thought can be developed, action can be rejected or taken, and the thing made, assembled, or constructed; either as a new creation or activity or as a duplicate or substitute of known substances.” [12]

    Fluid Boundaries

    To bridge the gaps between all paradigms, fostering synthesis and a movement toward concrescence, we are invited to leverage Fluid Boundaries in relation to our models and maps to describe reality and the way we relate to others.

    The art of limitless living includes releasing the fixed boundaries we may have previously established relative to our models and maps, parameters that create a false sense of control over our lives and reality, but that also create a real form of limitation and segregation for collective humanity.

    Fluid Boundaries are boundaries that aren’t predefined in anticipation of situations or experiences. In truth, we never know how a circumstance will present itself before it actually happens. At the quantum level, reality is a series of probabilities that only seem to actualize when we observe them. Fluid Boundaries allow us to move freely among the patterns we encounter in the moment so as to allow for maximal flexibility and flow.

    Fluid Boundaries at the interpersonal level are a game-changer. We never know what is going to happen in the very next moment. For example, we never really know how another person is going to show up or respond to us. If boundaries are established in advance, those very boundaries may serve to inform and restrict a situation of circumstance, with the preset limitation triggering a reaction. Thus, boundaries can bind us rather than liberate us. Predefined boundaries create separation rather than connection.

    For example, we may create boundaries in advance to withstand an expectation of our spouse becoming angry with us, and subsequently guilt-tripping us when we say we would rather stay home next weekend than go to the firing range. The very expectation of the future behavior may indeed be based on prior reactions. Establishing boundaries based on past experiences may actually serve as the trigger for the pattern we were attempting to avoid. This is because an associative reference for the behavior is encoded in the boundary. So instead of avoiding the anger and guilt, the boundary triggers the very pattern we are trying to circumnavigate or avoid.

    Conversely, approaching this same anticipated circumstance centered in an open heart, without preconceived notions, with a commitment to notice when circumstances come up as placeholders that may take us out of our hearts, allows for Fluid Boundaries to be created.

    When the tendency to move out of the heart occurs, this can serve as a cue to bring in Fluid Boundaries, moving parameters that honor our needs while still allowing others to have their experiences. Fluid Boundaries without expectations can lead to a softening of the interactions, with others wielding very powerful and often surprising results. Whatever the outcome, the possibilities become limitless when navigating with Fluid Boundaries.

    This article is excerpted and adapted from “The Art of Limitless Living”, available in Print, E-book and AudioBook.

    REFERENCES:

    1. Daniel J. Ott, “Process Communitarianism,” Concrescence 10 (2009): 67–75.
    2. Alfred North Whitehead, Process and Reality, Corrected ed. (New York: Free Press, 1978).
    3. Lisa Randall, “Knocking on Heaven’s Door,” lecture at Harvard University, November 2011, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FiCNLZMhScI.
    4. “Looking for Extra Dimensions,” www.superstringtheory.com/experm/exper51.html.
    5. “SpaceTime, Relativity, and Quantum Physics,” www.ws5.com/spacetime/.
    6. Dennis Overbye, “On Gravity, Oreos, and a Theory of Everything,” New York Times, November 1, 2005, http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/01/science/on-gravity-oreos-and-a-theoryof-everything.html; Lisa Randall, Knocking on Heaven’s Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World (New York: HarperCollins, 2011).
    7. Barbara Hand Clow and Gerry Clow, The Alchemy of Nine Dimensions (Charlottesville, Va.: Hampton Roads, 2010)
    8. David Yurth, Seeing Past the Edge (Mesa, Ariz.: Dandelion Books, 1997); Richard C. Hoagland and David Wilcock, “The Bees’ Needs: It’s the Physics, Stupid!,” http://www.enterprisemission.com/Bees/thebeesneeds.htm.
    9. P. Gariaev and M. Pitkanen, “Model for the Findings about Halogram Generating Properties,” unpublished manuscript, http://tgd.wippiespace.com/public.html.
    10. Swanson, Claude. Life Force: The Scientific Basis. (Tucson, AZ: Poseidia Press, 2011).
    11. “The Torsion Field and the Aura.” Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine 19, no. 3 (2008): 43–89.
    12. Carl W. Hall, The Age of Synthesis (New York: Peter Lang, 1995).

    Universal Consciousness & Unlimited Potentials

    “Consciousness is a word worn smooth by a million tongues. Depending upon the figure of speech chosen it is a state of being, a substance, a process, a place, an epiphenomenon, an emergent aspect of matter, or the only true reality.” — George Miller

    What is universal consciousness? Well, before we attempt to define it, we must acknowledge that any description of universal consciousness is merely a description of it, and is not actually it. As it is with defining a banana, we understand that the description is not an actual banana. The description is only a signpost pointing to the banana. Defining universal consciousness, like describing a banana, provides only an interpretation of how we perceive, feel, or know it through our personal experience. Similarly, an attempt to describe the science of banana or of universal consciousness, or the structural elements that give them both form and substance, still would not be banana or universal consciousness. Universal consciousness is the wisdom above and beyond the banana, the banana itself, and everything that is experienced in relation to the banana. Universal consciousness is also everything else that exists, has ever existed, and may ever exist.

    Universal consciousness is the mechanism for everything and is—everything.

    The essence of universal consciousness has been described as spirit, light, love, nature, torsion, and ether. It has also been described as us. In other words, we are universal consciousness. We don’t experience universal consciousness, rather, universal consciousness is, and it experiences itself through us.

    Our individual perception of that which is universal consciousness can be a prism or a prison, depending upon our flexibility or resistance to flow.

    So, what is universal consciousness, really? Perhaps it isn’t what we think it is. In fact, it may even exist apart from our thinking. Merriam-Webster defines consciousness as “the quality or state of being aware, especially of something within oneself. The state or fact of being conscious of an external object, state, or fact.” Therefore, that which is conscious has perspective when observing what it perceives.

    However, the consciousness I am referring to, universal consciousness, is impersonal in nature and spans far beyond individual awareness, space-time, and beyond anything we may think we know definitively. I am referring to universal consciousness as the all. In its entirety, it is void of perspective and identity because it includes all vantage points as part of itself. Anything we say consciousness is will merely be a description or a signpost for what it actually is. Defining an individual’s perspective of consciousness does not define consciousness, either. It only describes a perspective of consciousness. In this article I am utilizing particular language and definitions for consciousness in an attempt to invite everyone to the same page. Nonetheless, this does not mean that everyone must have the same perspective about something with an inherent nature that is undifferentiated and limitless. Any and all definitions serve as a single point of reference called perspective, even if that perspective proclaims that there are infinite points of pointlessness to what is being defined.

    It is not important that we are all on the same page with respect to consciousness, or to any perspective offered here. Truth is ultimately a deeply personal experience, and this article is not about consensual truth. This article is about understanding your own truth for yourself regarding the nature of your own reality as a limitless being.

    If something within these writings provokes a charge or sparks your interest, then by all means, pay attention! That is a clue or signpost to your awareness, telling you that you may have accessed resistance, rigidity, potentiality, possibility, opportunity, or awesomeness.

    We want to continuously challenge our notions about reality, particularly those that are limiting in nature, so that we can consciously and interactively re-create the experience of ourselves as limitless beings.

    As defined in “M-Joy Practically Speaking”, universal consciousness includes everything and excludes nothing. It is my experience that everything comes from universal consciousness.

    Whether we are esoteric, scientific, united, or divided about what universal consciousness actually is, our approach to defining it appears to make little difference to universal consciousness itself. That which is everything and is impersonal in nature does not seem to care what we call it or how we describe it. Consciousness itself does not come across as judgmental or discriminatory about beliefs, perspectives, opinions, or concepts—even if we sometimes are. As discussed in this article, universal consciousness includes everything. Everything is universal consciousness experiencing itself. Therefore, universal consciousness is. . . . We are . . . I am . . . and you are All That Is. Om Tat Sat.

    Consciousness Illuminates

    Healing is to be in the light of our own consciousness. Healing is an inner light, which exists as a natural radiance around a person. This inner light is in itself a healing force beyond words. This inner light disperses darkness, like when you light a candle in a dark room and the darkness disappears by itself. This inner light exudes a subtle influence through its mere presence. The more the light in our own consciousness is lit, the more it creates a subtle effect in the world.—Swami Dhyan Giten, Presence—Working from Within

    Many references throughout many spiritual traditions draw parallels between consciousness and light. Even our bodies appear to be composed of light. Physicists have noted that our bodies are made of biophotons, and biophotons are light. It has been scientifically proven that every cell in the body emits more than 100,000 light impulses, or photons, per second. These light emissions, found in all living things, are called biophotons and have been found to be the driving mechanism behind all biochemical reactions.[1]

    The Russian embryologist Alexander Gurwitsch did initial research establishing the role of light in living processes. In 1923, Gurwitsch established a strong hypothesis that every living cell emits light. In the 1970s, the work of German scientist Fritz Popp expanded further upon biophoton theory, providing ample experimental evidence. Fritz Popp discovered that DNA both emits and absorbs biophotons and that the health of living creatures could be determined by the subtle energy of the biophotons they emit.

    Light, Information, and Torsion in the Synchronized Universe

    According to MIT- and Princeton-educated physicist Dr. Claude Swanson in his Synchronized Universe model:
    the new sciences of biophotons and torsion fields provide a bridge between two views of life: the old twentieth century view of an organism as a chemical machine and the emerging view of life as communication and energetic flows.[2]

    Dr. Swanson goes on to state: Bio-photons (light) create the three-dimensional hologram, which controls growth and healing. It creates and interacts with torsion fields which extend beyond the body, and create the aura. . . . The ability of intention and visualization to alter DNA transcription, changing cell biology, is one of the modern breakthroughs which help us understand the close connection between consciousness and biophotons.[3]

    Dr. Swanson further maintains that with the creation of each biophoton, there is also a torsion wave. Torsion is a widespread and important form of radiation, which couples particle spins together, and propagates through space as a twisting wave in the metric. It results in a variety of new phenomena. These effects have been studied extensively for the past forty years, at multiple research centers in Russia. Their most important conclusion is that this torsion force is exactly the same as subtle energy.[4]

    Simply stated, the body is made of light, also known as biophotons. Biophotons create a hologram informing the body to grow and heal. This hologram of light creates torsion fields (spin) and also transmits and receives information from resonant torsion fields (spin) around the body.

    Furthermore, extensive Russian research has shown that torsion fields, presumed to be everywhere in the fabric of the universe, are able to transmit and receive information. What is more, the communication between torsion fields is not limited by time and space.

    In other words, torsion fields can transmit and receive information, including thoughts, instantly from anywhere to anywhere. Biophotons are considered the “intermediating link between local/linear and non-local/non-linear field effects.”[5]

    Light as a Source of Life

    Light as a source of life may be that which is the essence of universal consciousness. Remarkably, according to Terrence McKenna, photons of light apparently have no antiparticles.[6]

    Does this imply that there is no dualism in the world of light? If there is no opposite to light, which is our essence, then darkness may not be darkness at all, but merely light distanced from itself. If we are made of light, and light has no opposite, then our fundamental essence of light might be all there is. Thus, our perceived experience of duality may not be a split or polarization of light and dark at all, but instead a degree of how far our awareness can distance itself from the light that we are.

    Consciousness Creates

    If universal consciousness were to have a desire or a purpose, then perhaps it would be to create. Universal consciousness appears to create as a way of becoming more aware of itself. In the same way that we each have personal perspective, universal consciousness appears to create to experience itself through various perspectives, expressions, reflections, and distinctions. It occurs to me that consciousness sees itself in all its creations and is not separate from them.

    If this is true, then all distinctions extend from, and are still connected to, universal consciousness, which includes all of us. The individual expressions that universal consciousness makes through us become our sole (soul) signature. It is what makes us unique. Individual (in-divide-u-all) and individuality (in-divine-duality) refer to our unique experience of ourselves, not as separate and apart from universal consciousness but as direct extensions of it.

    What Is Consciousness Potential?

    As referenced in this article, universal consciousness creates from unlimited potential. Consciousness potential is no-thing. It can be described as nothing because it has not yet expressed itself as something. Consciousness potential is universal consciousness before consciousness creates, actualizes, and/or experiences. Consciousness potential is void of distinctions or boundaries, and therefore, it also has no limitations. Undifferentiated consciousness potential is limitless, formless, weightless, timeless, spaceless, thoughtless, and totally free.

    Referring to the all as no-thing, as consciousness potential, actually facilitates access to it. All we need to do is become aware of consciousness potential. But how do we become aware of something that has nothing to be aware of? We begin by letting go of our sense of being separate. Awareness from an expanded perspective, that is inclusive of everything as consciousness, and no-thing as consciousness potential, allows for that potential to express itself more readily through us.

    Consciousness potential is also that which is unconditional love. Unconditional love is the cohesive force that unifies all, a thread that weaves through the fabric of the universe. It is not “I love you.” It is Love IS. Unconditional love is not love as we humans have become accustomed to it, with all its parameters, expectations, and limitations. Consciousness potential as unconditional love is impersonal in nature. It is love void of all conditions.

    Consciousness potential is love is as a preconditioned essence; it is love that exists regardless of human relations, emotions, perceptions, or forms.

    As a concept, love is often misunderstood, and therein lies the potential difficulty in accepting that unconditional love is everything and no-thing. Our limited concepts of love have been personified and deeply distorted into conditioned states. The love that creates all, heals all, and transforms all is actually deeply impersonal and without conditions.

    Certainly some expressions of love are carrier waves for transformation and healing, but those expressions are not what truly heal. Those expressions reconnect us to the stateless potential of condition-less love. They reflect back to us our natural essence as consciousness potential. It is not that human love heals, per se, but that love itself reflects back to us the wholeness that is inherently within each and every one of us.

    Expressions of unconditional love, no longer unconditioned by virtue of being conditioned into an expression, are powerful, coherent placeholders for our potential return to wholeness and connection with source as universal consciousness. Compassion, empathy, laughter, and friendship, expressed as supportive gestures, a kind word, or a gentle caress are just a few of many mirrored reflections that serve to nurture our consciousness potential back into flow, as well-being. Unconditional love as consciousness potential is what we are in our true essence. Therefore, an expression of love from another or from oneself is like receiving a homeopathic remedy for awareness. We remember, we resonate with, we receive, we allow, and we return to our natural state of wholeness, which is then inherently reflected as wellness.

    Wellness, or well-being, is a natural flow that is expressed through a body of information (in-form-in-action) that serves as a vehicle for universal consciousness. Thus, wellness is a conditioned expression of consciousness, of love, flowing through form from its original condition-less state. Ultimately, well-being is consciousness potential expressing itself as love and light through us.

    Although we may be experiencing conditions that seem far removed from our true essence of love expressed as light, we are much more than our conditions. We are much more than our problems. We are much more than anything we are choosing or not choosing to experience in any moment or over time. We are universal consciousness and unlimited potential. Though we may have moved our awareness away from noticing this as part of our experiences, we always have the inherent ability to return to this knowingness. With this recognition, we can recondition our experiences and limitlessly create new experiences. We can tap into our consciousness potential and open up to knowing and recognizing ourselves as more than what we have previously experienced.

    NOTES:

    1. Institute for Applied Biophoton Sciences, http://www.biontology.com.
    2. Swanson, “Life Force: The Scientific Basis,” 43.
    3. Ibid.
    4. Ibid.
    5. Hammond, “Torsion Power.”
    6. McKenna, “New Maps of Hyperspace.”

    Empathy and the WE Experience

    “But feelings can’t be ignored, no matter how unjust or ungrateful they seem.” — Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl

    Living from the field of the heart gives us direct access to our innate potential and also provides direct access to our emotional intelligence. Heart-centered awareness does not override emotions. Heart-centered awareness includes emotions and enables us to live fully in integrity as our True Authentic Self.

    Consider that some of what you may be feeling at times isn’t even you but comprises the feelings of other people you know. In addition, some of what you may often feel are the emotional/thought fields of the collective WE. None of these emotions are who we are, or who you are. Rather, these emotions are transient experiences we may be having or that may be having us. Indeed, these emotions can send confusing signals, obscuring us from the truth of our core essence as love, often clouding our perceptions and experiences of self, others, and all that we relate to in our lives.

    Living as our True Authentic Self in a personal undivided house of consciousness opens us to living cohesively with others in the WE experience. Being able to discern our True Authentic Self, our thoughts and feelings from the thoughts and feelings of others, including the collective, is what empowers us to embody the Integrity Effect in the WE experience.

    What Is the WE Experience?

    I define the WE experience as balanced living with an equal emphasis on service to self and service to others. The WE experience is more than uniting with others in the name of community. The role of the individual in the true WE experience is not diminished for the overall whole. Rather, the role of the whole individual is pivotal and is directly proportional to the role and value of community cohesion. There is an ebb and flow in this symbiotic dynamic; at times the individual is more self-driven than community oriented, and at other times the individual is more service driven and focused on supporting others. Service to self is what enables service to others to sustainably occur. Compassion for self is what allows for true compassion for others. Love for oneself, as an individual, is what allows for love of others to ripple sustainably into community.

    The WE experience honors the role of the individual as the catalyst for creative action, imagination, and collective evolution. The “I” matters. Individuals foster Imagination, Ingenuity, Invention, and Infinite potential. While there is no I in WE, there is no true WE without I. Individual I is not separate from WE. Rather, individual I is an extension and expression of WE, and WE is an extension and expression of I. The two are symbiotic and synergistic. Equanimity is a necessary facet of the WE experience and is key to the physics embedded in the Integrity Effect.

    Consider that humanity cannot truly thrive together without the unique contributions of the individuals. We must be whole unto ourselves first and foremost and not look to the WE experience for validation or completion. Validation and completion are our individual birthrights. Completion is innate to True Authentic Self, and the truly authentic WE experience reflects this inherent truth.

    Emotional Intelligence

    So how do we recognize our True Authentic Self amid a sea of emotions that are often Wemotions (other people’s emotions)? We can leverage heart-centered awareness to attune to emotional intelligence.

    What are emotions? The Oxford English Dictionary defines an emotion as “a strong feeling deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, or relationships with others: Instinctive or intuitive feeling as distinguished from reasoning or knowledge.” So an emotion is defined as a feeling, but what does that really mean?

    According to Joseph LeDoux, professor of neuroscience and director of the Emotional Brain Institute and the Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research at New York University, “it’s been said that there are as many theories of emotions as there are emotion theorists.” (1)

    Emotions or Feelings?

    So, what is the difference between an emotion and a feeling? While the two terms are often used interchangeably, some scientists propose they are not the same. Antonio R. Damasio, renowned neuroscientist and current director of the USC Brain and Creativity Institute, has spent the past thirty-plus years striving to show that feelings are what arise as the brain interprets emotions. Emotions themselves, he posits, are purely physical signals of the body reacting to external stimuli.

    Damasio states:

    “Emotions are more or less the complex reactions the body has to certain stimuli. When we are afraid of something, our hearts begin to race, our mouths become dry, our skin turns pale and our muscles contract. This emotional reaction occurs automatically and unconsciously. Feelings occur after we become aware in our brain of such physical changes; only then do we experience the feeling of fear.” [2]

    So first we emote.Then we think.

    Then we identify, interpret, and label.

    Then we feel.

    Consider a feeling of “having butterflies in your stomach,” the sense of excitement you may feel when you anticipate something great is about to happen. The “excitement” is a description of the emotion flowing through your nervous system, followed by a thought of “excitement” that you have labeled as a feeling in response to your physiology by virtue of associating that response to an anticipated event.

    However, the emotion and the physiology of excitement are virtually identical to the emotion and physiology of nervousness, which, if consistent, can be labeled as anxiety. Our bodies do not know the difference between excitement and nervousness. Rather, it is our mind that interprets the emotion through thought that is then labeled as a feeling of nervousness/anxiety. Next time you are feeling nervous or anxious, ask yourself if you are really nervous or anxious, or perhaps you are excited about the unknown possibilities that await you beyond the label.

    We are wise to flow with our emotions and closely discern our thoughts and assigned feelings. We are wise to limit our labels, for labels limit us. Emotions can serve as powerful placeholders in our awareness. When we identify with the emotions through habitual thought, feeling, and labels, we may miss the opportunity the visiting emotions may be there to present. Our emotions are gifts of awareness that can unwrap our True Authentic Self.

    Empathy: New Paths to Empowerment

    Empathy is defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another.”

    We are all empathic. Some people are more aware of this aspect of the human experience than others.

    Often, when growing up, children feel the emotions of parents and family members without knowing they are not their own. If a parent is often angry, then the child may take on that emotion and assume it is his or her feeling. The child will feel angry without knowing why. If a parent is very fearful, then the child will receive the fear signals and run these emotions through his or her own physiology.

    Children are naturally and noticeably empathic, as they have not placed filters on this innate nature. Over time, children may develop strategies to cope with untoward and unidentifiable emotions. They may revert inside themselves, taking on a shy filter or persona, or they may act out the angry or fearful behaviors at unpredictable times. They become victim to their physiology rather than developing a strong sense of their own individuality, with the ability to discern which are their emotions and which are the emotions of others.

    For many years, I was unaware of my empathic nature. I did not know where my emotions ended and others’ emotions began. This created a lot of confusion for me growing up, as I would often feel moody and required a lot of alone time. My parents thought there was something wrong with me. I actually remember making a choice to hide this empathic part of myself, so that I didn’t have to see a doctor. I can only wonder how many children are inappropriately medicated with neuroleptic and mood-stabilizing drugs simply because they do not have a language and structure for understanding their emotions and the emotions of others.

    Highly Sensitive Persons

    There is an emerging awareness of a new class of people being labeled/diagnosed with HSP (highly sensitive person). It is estimated that 20 percent of the human population would test positive for what Carl Jung called innate sensitiveness. This innate sensitivity has been well researched, and the term highly sensitive person was coined in 1996 by Elaine N. Aron, PhD, and explored in her book “The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You”.

    According to Aron and colleagues, as well as other researchers, highly sensitive people process sensory data more deeply due to a “biological” difference in their nervous systems. This is a specific trait that was previously mistaken for innate shyness, inhibition, innate fearfulness, introversion, and so on. The existence of the trait of innate sensitivity was demonstrated using a test that was shown to have both internal and external validity.

    Are these people innately shy, or is shy a patterned response, a schema to cope with the overwhelming emotional signals affecting the nervous system? Are only some people highly sensitive, or are we all empathic, with differing coping mechanisms for dealing with the bombardment of emotions? While I am very compassionate to the perceived pain and suffering of HSPs, as one myself, I offer the following: empaths are not victims. Empathy is a gift of human connection. We can learn to mind our state. We can learn to distinguish our emotions, thoughts, and feelings from the emotions, thoughts, and feelings of others. Furthermore, we can also function at a very high level, without the need to protect ourselves from life. Minding our state is a facet of living as True Authentic Self, and is a tremendous benefit of the Integrity Effect.

    Empathy/Sympathy Entrainment

    When I first started teaching large seminars with several hundred people, I would experience emotional overwhelm. As I was rather adept at “feeling” what other people were feeling, I would track and experience the emotions of the entire group each day and assist people in moving longstanding patterns that were hindering their perceived life experiences. Then, at the end of each day, I would feel pummeled. I wouldn’t know if I was depressed, elated, excited, scared, suicidal, or on the brink of stroking out. I had so fully immersed myself empathically in the emotional pat- terns of group members that I neglected to mind my own state.

    For this reason, I developed a very useful distinction between empathy and sympathy. Furthermore, I developed a strategy that enabled me to track other people’s emotions without negatively affecting my own inner state.

    Many people confuse empathy with sympathy. They are not the same. Thus making a distinction between sympathy and compassionate empathy is relevant and helpful.

    As I often share in my teachings, sympathy is entraining in the resonant charge of whatever experience another person may seem to be having or how he or she is behaving. When we are immersed in the experience of what the person seems to be experiencing, there are no other possibility states available. When we are resonating in the person’s misery, drama, pain, rigidity — whatever the placeholder is — when we are in the placeholder, that’s the only place we can hold. Thus we experience exactly what that person is experiencing too.

    Spaceholder for Placeholder

    Compassionate empathy is a Spaceholder. In compassionate empathy, we coherently connect to another through the field of the heart. We then align our awareness, noticing whatever it is that someone may be experiencing as a pattern of information as a placeholder in awareness. This placeholder experience exists simultaneously alongside other possibility states.

    As a placeholder for another (connection from the heart), we are able to reflect back to the person an expanded awareness that includes the experience he or she is having in the moment. Furthermore, through compassionate empathy, we do not fully immerse ourselves in the person’s feeling states. We only sample the patterns of experience.

    I have learned that one of the most useful ways to mind my state while still honoring empathy is to run the patterns in front of me rather than through my own nervous system.

    How is this accomplished? I create holographic replicas of my self in front of me, where I can sample the emotions of the other persons. In these holograms, I have access to the exact same information in my own nervous system without the challenging impact to my physiology. In any given moment, I am able to calibrate the patterns others may be in resonance with without taking on those patterns as my own. I have shared this strategy with many highly sensitive people, creating new paths for empaths everywhere. If you suffer from the gift of empathy, try this. It can change your life.

    Empathy is not a weakness. Empathy is a strength that does not require protection. When we know how to mind our state, leveraging compassionate empathy, we become a vehicle for emotional intelligence and a catalyst for humanity. Heart-centered awareness enables us to access compassionate empathy, while maintaining our center, power, joy, and personal perspective, no matter what emotions surround us.

    Excerpted and adapted from the recently released book The Art of Limitless Living, available in Print, E-Book and Audiobook, narrated by the author.

    References:

    1. Julie Beck, “Hard Feelings: Science’s Struggle to Define Emotions,” The Atlantic, February 24, 2015, http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/02/hard-feelings-sciences-struggle-to- define-emotions/385711
    2. “Feeling Our Emotions,” Scientific American, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/feeling-our-emotions

    The Chemistry of Addiction and The Gateway to Freedom

    Addictions as Distractions

    “Whoa, you like to think that you’re immune to the stuff, oh yeah / It’s closer to the truth to say you can’t get enough / You know you’re gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to love.” — Robert Palmer

    Love. We are all addicted to love indeed. Not just the idea, not just the feeling, but the neurochemistry of love. The experience of love favorably changes our neurophysiology in both mind and body. When we experience love, our body produces its own natural opiates, endorphins, the feel-good neurotransmitters. Among these chemicals is oxytocin, often called our “love hormone” because of its crucial role in mother–child relationships, social bonding, and intimacy (oxytocin levels soar during sex).

    Interestingly, oxytocin has also been shown to mitigate fear. When oxytocin is administered to people with certain anxiety disorders, activity declines in the amygdala—the primary fear center in the brain. As a result, people feel less fearful. Thus exogenous oxytocin, along with other fear-reducing compounds in clinical development, may eventually be used to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other fear-related conditions.

    Addicted to Love

    We are hard-wired for love. Our bodies crave love as much as oxygen and water. Many people do not realize that the neurochemistry produced through love is the same neurochemistry produced by the brain while engaging in addictive behaviors. Thus addiction may breed easily in a person starving for love. Love and addiction have the same initial chemical impact on the body–mind connection.

    According to studies of the brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the sensation of love is processed in three areas of the brain.

    Area One: Ventral Tegmental Area (Dopamine). The first area is the ventral tegmental area (VTA), a clump of tissue in the brain’s lower regions that is the body’s central refinery for dopamine. Dopamine performs many functions but primarily regulates reward. Winning the lottery can produce a thrilling rush of dopamine. Remarkably, the VTA also becomes active when one feels the rush of cocaine.

    Area Two: Nucleus Accumbens (Oxytocin). Thrill signals that start in the lower brain are then processed in the nucleus accumbens via dopamine, serotonin, and oxytocin. New mothers are flooded with oxytocin during labor and nursing, supporting a strong connection to their babies.

    According to neuroscientists,

    “this association between rewarding experiences and dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens initially caused many neuroscientists to believe the main role of the nucleus accumbens was in mediating reward. Thus, it is often implicated in addiction and the processes that lead to addiction.

    However, since the initial links were made between the nucleus accumbens and reward, it has been discovered that dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens rise in response to both rewarding and aversive stimuli [emphasis added]. This finding led to a re-evaluation of the functions of the nucleus accumbens, and indeed of the functions of dopamine as a neurotransmitter. The most widely accepted perspective now is that dopamine levels don’t rise only during rewarding experiences but instead rise anytime we experience something that can be deemed either positive or negative.”[1]

    Area 3: The Caudate Nuclei (Dopamine). The last major area for love signals in the brain are the caudate nuclei, a pair of structures on either side of the head, each about the size of a shrimp. It’s here that patterns and mundane habits, such as knowing how to drive a car or cook spaghetti, are stored.[2]

    CAU: Cause to Pause

    The caudate nucleus integrates complex emotions and thoughts about love. The caudate nuclei (CAU) are all about making choices, but they are also connected to addictions because of their role in feeling pleasure, relief, and comfort. In many cases, the reason why a person may choose addiction can be buried in the unconscious, but the caudate nuclei of the brain may hold keys to the pattern. Interestingly, studies have shown that people who have damage to the CAU show repetitive and compulsive behavior. They will keep doing a thing over and over again, even though it’s unnecessary and doesn’t do them any good.[3]

    According to neuroscientists,

    “the Caudate is also part of the Reward System. It lies in the middle of your head and looks a bit like a medium-sized shrimp—two shrimp, actually, as each hemisphere of the brain has its own Caudate. The caudate and other regions of the striatum have connections to the cerebral cortex, the top, multi-folded layer of the brain with which we do our thinking. It has connections, too, with memory areas and with the ventral-tegmental area VTA. Indeed, the Caudate integrates data from many brain regions. No part of the brain ever works alone, and love is no exception [emphasis added].[4]”

    Researchers speculate that as all of our thoughts, feelings, and motivations associated with love assemble in the caudate, we experience states of bliss.

    We Are All Addicts

    To some extent, we are all addicts! We are all addicted to love, and when love is seemingly not available, we will reach for anything as a cheap substitute to produce the feel-good chemistry.

    An addiction is something that causes psychological dependence, so it is a mental and cognitive problem in addition to a physical ailment.[5] According to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, an addiction is classified as a dependence. Dependence is “characterized by compulsive, sometimes uncontrollable, behaviors that occur at the expense of other activities and intensify with repeated access.”[6]

    I define addiction as follows: all addictions are placeholders in awareness that represent an attempt to find True Authentic Self and simultaneously avoid it. The placeholder that the addiction pattern represents serves as a habituated strategy to avoid recognizing self as an infinitely whole, perfect, and limitless being that is having an experience of limitation.

    The pattern as placeholder serves as a habituated strategy to look for fulfillment and acceptance of True Authentic Self in something outside of self that is inherently and incessantly empty. In this recognition, there is freedom to recondition awareness and embrace integrity. There is freedom to move from dis-ease to flow in total acceptance— and to choose anew.

    Addicts are not the addictions; rather, these people are individuals in resonance with habituated, constricted containers of consciousness that perpetuate a behavioral loop.

    Break the connection with the habit, establish resonance with a different, more useful placeholder that is a reflection of love, and the addictive pattern will transform, dissipate, subside, and cease naturally.

    The addiction is a bit like looking in the mirror while simultaneously trying to look away. When mired in the addiction, we cannot see ourselves clearly.

    To me, addictions are more like a two-way mirror aligned between our True Authentic Self and the addictive pattern. A two-way mirror is a mirror that is partially reflective and partially transparent. When one side of the mirror is brightly lit and the other is dark, it allows viewing from the darkened side, but not vice versa.

    The addict sees the reflection of self as the mirror image of the addictive behaviors and cannot see anything else. What is reflected is based on the filters of what is being projected—addiction as confusion.

    Conversely, the True Authentic Self can shine light on the addictive pattern and see clearly through the two-way mirror. True Authentic Self can see through the addiction to the truth of the essential self as love.

    Love is the only placeholder worth keeping, and self-love is the gateway to freedom from all addictions. Love as the placeholder returns the power of choice and provides liberation from the shackles and confines of addictive patterns that subtract from our well-being.

    To engage by compulsion is to cage without compassion. To engage by choice means the experience of the sum total self as a whole being is occurring without the addiction as placeholder. Addiction is not an addition to self. Addiction subtracts us from recognizing our own inherent completion as one love.

    According to the preceding definition, we all may be addicted to something. Whether it is drugs, alcohol, food, sex, sugar, shopping, exercise, work, social media, chocolate, drama, or our own story, we are all looking for love, connection, and feelings of completion We are addicted to distractions as placeholders.

    Certainly some addictions are more detrimental to our lives than others. Some addictions are even deemed healthy, such as exercise and work. Nonetheless, consider that there is no difference between addictions, as all are attempts to connect to self-love from a space of completion. The consequences and Ricochet Effects may be more pronounced with some addictions than with others, but the core impetus driving the placeholder of addiction is always the same: seeking love.

    Sugar High

    In many ways, we are conditioned for addictions from a young age.

    Perhaps we would receive a Twinkie or Ding-Dong when we finished all our chores? Perhaps when mom was trying to get work done and we were hungry for attention, mom may have innocuously given us a sugar treat to buy herself some much-needed time. This reward system can prime our bodies for addiction as the mind gets double the love pleasure—a treat from mom and a treat for the body. However, treat or trick? Recent research has shown that sugar is eight times more addictive than cocaine.[7]

    Both cocaine and sugar elevate dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens. Prolonged exposure to either causes down-regulation of the dopamine receptors, which means less dopamine becomes available. Over time, more sugar (or drugs) is required to attain normal dopamine levels. This means that, over time, we need processed sugar just to feel normal. We may even be allergic to sugar, which will make us crave it more. We crave what is not good for us too. Recall that dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens rise in response to both rewarding and aversive stimuli.

    As we grow older, we may switch our addiction from sugar to drugs and alcohol, which might be more “socially acceptable” under the guise of peer pressure. Or perhaps we may continue to eat sugar and then diet to lose the weight, which could lead those more vulnerable to develop eating disorders. Or maybe carbs are what we crave. Perhaps we give up the sugar but add caffeine, as it helps us study and work. Or maybe we don’t think about the soda pop we consume as we spend a few hours playing video games online with friends we have never met.

    Social Media Mania

    Maybe we think we are clean and free of substance addictions, but we compulsively spend hours a day on Facebook, trolling our newsfeed and other people’s sites. We crave the attention we get from our posts and calibrate our self-worth and popularity based on how many likes we receive. Dopamine levels surge every time someone comments on our posts. We may even argue with people who have varying views and find it thrilling when we can get a rise out of a stranger whom we have the power to block.

    Perhaps we are plugged in to social media all the time. But not without paying a price. How many real-life friends do we still socialize with in person? Do we substitute real intimacy for the virtual reality of addictive online connections?

    A recent University of Copenhagen study suggests excessive use of social media can create feelings of envy. It particularly warns about the negative impact of “lurking” on social media without connecting with anyone. The study of more than one thousand participants says that “regular use of social networking such as Facebook can negatively affect your emotional well-being and satisfaction with life.”[8]

    Addicted to Drama, Misery, and Negative Attention

    Negative attention is still attention, and as we learned earlier, the mind does not distinguish between rewarding stimuli and aversive stimuli before producing endorphins. The dopamine cascade will trigger either way.

    Hence many are addicted to patterns that may not initially feel good but persist because of the chemistry that is produced as a result. For some, this can look like ongoing drama, perpetual misery, victimhood, or antagonism. We become addicted to the negative attention that feeds our physiology in the same way a drug rush might occur.

    We can often set this up such that other people are the source of our problems. It’s their fault we have this drama, disappointment, misery, or discontent. As long as other people remain the perpetual source of our drama, disappointment, discontent, and dissatisfaction with our lives, other people will also remain the source of our peace, joy, happiness, personal power, and fulfillment.

    Addiction to drama is false power created as a polarized reaction to feeling powerless. Drama drains our power no matter what role we may be playing back and forth, victim or perpetrator alike. All actors in the drama are directing life force away from the vortex of the heart into the push– pull linear dynamic of surrogate control. Drama is a tug-of-war with self, and that rope will eventually choke any sense of peace, joy, and semblance of unity with all parties involved. Nobody wins the drama game. Let go of the struggle. Choose to let go and play from the unified field of the heart . . . a drama-free zone.

    Addicted to Company

    Many of us are addicted to company. We are not OK being alone. It is important to be comfortable being alone.

    I used to not be comfortable being alone and consequently chose compromising company. I would hang with people who were neglectful, selfish, narcissistic, and sometimes abusive rather than face my own fear of being alone. Often, as a means of distracting me from myself, I would choose friends who had various forms of addictions. If only I could help them, then I would somehow be OK, I reasoned. Invariably this codependency resulted in my feeling hurt, betrayed, abandoned, and used.

    I learned to stop expecting reciprocal friendship (and love) from people immersed in their addictions. This is akin to expecting the addictions to love us back. Sometimes we need to know when to hold our friends accountable and when to walk away and love them from afar. Love people, not their addictions. Love yourself enough to say No More.

    Once I was comfortable with being alone (after uncomfortably trying it), then I was able to connect honestly with myself and find the love that I was seeking, from within. Rather than loneliness, I met my new best friend—me.

    We are naturally communal beings. However, to some extent, many have bought in to the WE experience at the expense of the individual I—as you and me completion unto I-self. We have by and large become addicted to company such that even the idea of being alone can put us in a tailspin, in a frenzy, or send us spiraling toward our chosen addictions.

    Being alone is not the reason for addiction. Recent research with rats indicates otherwise. Rat Park was a study that demonstrated that rats in isolation were far more likely to become addicts than rats who lived in community. These interesting findings highlight the importance of connection in combating addiction . . . but we are not rats.

    We are human beings capable of self-reflection. And we are not at war with addiction. We are at war with our deepest sense of self. It is our sense of self that needs liberating to embrace our own company.

    Addiction is not what we are fighting. Rather, we are running from ourselves, often seeking refuge through the eyes of companions or community. It is perhaps only when we can authentically witness our selves, free from judgment and projections, that we find the freedom we are seeking.

    Herein rests a key to transcending addictions: being alone and connecting to self. Then we can genuinely connect to others. For me, being alone was Be-in-gal-one. At first I thought gal was referring to my gender. But in fact gal was in reference to an old French word, gale, meaning “merriment.” Being alone meant being all one with merriment— Joy—undivided with the essence of ourselves as love in joy.

    Traveling Solo

    One the greatest ways to move beyond the distractions of our addictions is to take a trip anywhere with yourself. This trip can be a vacation away from your daily responsibilities for a weekend or a week at a time—or it can be for an hour a day. This trip can be lunch or dinner in a restaurant solo or a walk in the woods. Whatever you would normally do with another, just do it with yourself.

    At first you may meet resistance, either your own excuses or excuses offered by those around you. As long as you are avoiding yourself through addictions to distractions, there will always be reasons why you can’t spend time with yourself. Here is an opportunity to move beyond the placeholder of the excuses into the graceholder of navigating solo.

    The first time I traveled by myself, my family and friends were opposed to the idea. They threw out many reasons why they thought I should not go. It would have been easy to acquiesce to their excuses, but the reasons why were all a lie. Traveling with myself was an opportunity to get really clear on who I was, to get comfortable in my own skin and to recognize and appreciate my own company.

    If I had known how wonderful solo time (and solo travel) would be in terms of connection to my heart, mind, and body, I would have done it years ago. Alone time is devoid of compromise, comparison, and competition. Completion is easy to recognize when we embrace being alone.

    Being alone is hard for many people. Often we will reason this is because of our personality type. We “like” to be around people, as we are extroverts, we reason. Or “being with others is community.” Perhaps this is true, and perhaps our personality types and beliefs around community are simply schemas we have developed to justify avoiding being alone.

    While connection to others may support freedom from addiction, it is connection to our True Authentic Self that supports the recognition of our inherent completion. Commit to a vacation from company. Travel solo in whatever way you can. It can be a few minutes each day, an hour, or a week. However you travel, know that you have the perfect companion—you. Journey into self-love and take a holiday as a whole day for the joy of being truly you . . . no matter how long that takes.

    Addictions to Distractions

    We are not broken, and neither are our choices. In many instances, we may make choices out of integrity with our inherent wholeness to find a return to wholeness. We may use addictions as distractions. We may choose addictions as a playground for making distinctions, to gain awareness about what we do not want, who we are not, and how we do not really want to behave. We can then leverage the playground as a springboard into clarity, to choose a different option, always available through heart–mind synthesis.

    Shame Primes Addiction

    Regardless of what your fix may be, almost all addictive behaviors carry components of shame. In fact, shame primes addiction.

    A key to moving beyond any addictive pattern is to release all shame associated with the pattern. Addiction and shame often accompany each other, and it can be hard to decipher which comes first. We may feel shame and then reach for the addictive placeholder to feel better. Or we may feel ashamed of our addictive placeholder and therefore we reach for the placeholder again to mitigate the shame.

    Shame is defined as a feeling of guilt, regret, or sadness that you have because you know you have done something wrong. Unfortunately, shame will trigger all emotions related to lack of self-worth and will leave us feeling not good enough, not worthy, and, most of all, not lovable.

    Shame will actually trigger addictive behaviors as a strategy to avoid feeling self-recrimination. In some sense, we may be addicted to shame itself.

    Please know there is nothing that anyone can ever do, nothing that you can do, that can stop you from being love. We can’t be anything else. Love is what we are. Heart-centered awareness and playing with placeholders can release the shame that binds us. Heart-centered awareness can open us to the self-love that eternally bonds us and offer freedom from addictions.

    Ask for Help

    Ask for help. Addictions create a sense of isolation and loneliness, which is different than connecting to self when alone as all-one. Seek support from others until you are comfortable solo. Connection with others who are supportive and nonjudgmental is an important component in the movement toward freedom.

    The information provided in this article can help transform addictive patterns. However, what is being shared also complements specialized formal programs dedicated to addiction recovery. This article is not intended to replace professional consultation or treatment, when warranted. You are free to choose and are encouraged to ask for local help to support you in gaining freedom from the shackles of addiction.

    This article is excerpted and adapted from the recently published best-selling book “The Integrity Effect” by Melissa Joy Jonsson.

    Article References:

    1. “Know Your Brain: Nucleus Accumbens,” June 13, 2014, http:// www.neuroscientificallychallenged.com/blog/2014/6/11/know- your-brain-nucleus-accumbens.
    2. Jeffrey Kluger, “The Science of Romance: Why We Love,” Time, January 17, 2008, http://content.time.com/time/magazine/ article/0,9171,1704672,00.html; Therese J. Borchard, “The Science of Romance: The Love Drug,” World of Psychology (blog), https:// psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2011/02/11/the-science-of- romance-the-love-drug/.
    3. S. Thobois, E. Jouanneau, M. Bouvard, and M. Sindou, “Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder after Unilateral Caudate Nucleus Bleeding,” Acta Neurochirurgica 146, no. 9 (2004): 1027–31.
    4. https://theanatomyoflove.com/the-results/ventral-tegmental- area/.
    5. Nicole M. Avena, “Food ‘Addiction’: Translational Studies of the Fine Line between Food Reward and Addiction,” talk presented at the ILSI annual meeting, 2016.
    6. Ibid.
    7. “Study: Sugar Hidden in Junk Food Eight Times More Addictive Than Cocaine,” ABC News, February 25, 2015, http://abc13.com/ health/study-sugar-is-as-addictive-as-cocaine/533979/.
    8. Sean Coughlan, “Facebook Lurking Makes You Miserable, Study Says,” BBC News, December 22, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/ education-38392802.
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