I grew up surrounded by esoteric, metaphysical concepts where often the spiritual journey was referred to as a path of “verification.”  I have since come to see the truth that, indeed, whether we know it or not, we are all of us living a life where we demonstrate and verify our beliefs. And, I've decided that this may, in fact, be exactly why we are here; i.e., we are here on Planet Earth to play out in three dimensional form that which we believe. According to the universal principle I refer to as the Reality Formula® we manifest reality like this: when we believe what we think, we automatically feel and act as if what we believe is true … and doing so means that we are highly likely to transmit an emotional vibe that attracts to us the evidence that proves us (often miserably) right.

Whether we are blindly proving our unhappy beliefs (only to then point the finger of blame at the world as if IT is the cause, and we but hapless victims)  or we learn to consciously apply universal principles like the Reality Formula® to c0-create the life of our dreams and desire. Usually we do some of both…

I have come to the conclusion that we are here on planet Earth, not to succeed in terms of wealth, fame, or even good deeds; we come, each and every one of us, to walk the path our beliefs take us down, the path that will prove to us and the world that we are indeed who we believe ourselves to be – no matter how painful. And guess what? We are very good at it! As a matter of fact, I think we can safely say that we are 100% successful at proving ourselves right because we are experts at gathering evidence that verifies our belief system on the ground, no matter what those beliefs are.

My life, probably like yours, is full of contrast, polarity, and opposites. It seems to me that life must be so, because we would never be able to see the light of who we really are, without the contrasting darkness that serves as a background against which our inner light shines forth.

For me personally, the true and essential nature of who we are might be described thusly: we are extensions of a generative Source of Cosmic, Divine Flow that is made of Consciousness, Vitality, Desire, Curiosity, and Pure Aliveness – Our inner strength is indomitable, if we but knew it. We are both the Lover and the Beloved, made of cosmic stuff, a divine spark projected out into the world from the One Living Integlligence of THAT I AM for the purpose of experiencing and expressing Love.

AND … then there is the other part of us – the one we most identify with and often refer to as “me”; the part of us that we feel is less than, unworthy, inadequate, and often at the mercy of an unfair world. It is the unloved child story of a self that was born out of the lineage of our family belief system that we grew up in. We become the bad girl/boy, the failure, the inept who is undeserving, blundering, selfish, uncaring blah blah … or we become the one who is fated to save the family by sacrificing our own needs, or we take on a story of ourselves as being some sort of hero or failed hero, etc. etc. Whatever limited unhappy story we take on as our own, determines the unhappy feelings, the rage,  angst, inferiority, lack and fear that we project into the world and live out as if it is fact.

But the truth is that we are not one or the other of these two polar opposite selves; in actuality we live both out at different times, maybe moments apart, and how we feel in this moment depends on which of these selves we focus on and fuel.

Will the real me stand up? The real me is not the unhappy self of lack and worthlessness … ever! That one is totally mind-made illusion, but when we focus on it, believe it, and feel it, we will play the part so well that we will convince ourselves and the world around us that it is a true version. When we believe in something wholeheartedly, we breathe life into it. By investing belief and emotional energy into a thought, be it positive or negative, it becomes a thing, and therefore “verifiable.”

So we have two selves. This is simply the way it is. These two selves are polar opposites, but having two selves does not mean that we are “dysfunctional.” We have to have two selves if we are going to be here on Earth. It simply cannot be otherwise because we cannot see the Light that we truly and essentially are unless some part of us separates from the Light of our True Being, and, through separation and fear, must become dark in contrast, We cannot see light in the light of itself; to see light requires darkness. In other words, we are designed to have two opposite voices within.

I am talking about the sort of dark that feeling “less than” produces,  or like the fearful dark … or the sort of dense darkness that goes with feeling unacceptable, unlovable, undeserving, or bad. And once we identify with darkness as being who we are, we fall for the story that we have built about being this mind-made dark self, and believe it to be who we are in totality. We all fall for the lie of separation; it is a requirement for taking this powerful journey of remembering, reframing, and returning home …

Falling for the inferior story of who we believe ourselves to be does not make us wrong, inferior, or damaged. It is imperative that we believe these stories of separation (even if they are painful) that are handed down to us from past generations and lived out right in front of us from birth  up.  How else are we going to see what it is we believe and realize the power of believing? there is another choice… how else are we going to discover that we can choose to believe something different? After all, it is not what happens in our families and in our family-of-origin that damage us, but the shame and secrecy we harbor around those things that turn it into dysfunction!

What if instead of judging ourselves for where we come from we were to look for the part we play in attracting these happenings into our life?  What if, instead of making it a problem, we ask ourselves, what part of us is being reflected through this event, encounter, or circumstance? What if we used every single moment as an opportunity to either celebrate and appreciate, or investigate and refine?

And what if we were to meet our life happenings in a way that invites curiosity and exploration, instead of using them as evidence of the terrible stories we carry from the past? What if we all understood that we came to take this wild ride of creating a life of contrast as a way to learn how to use the consciousness making tools we were born with to awaken and remember who we are as co-creators, instead of victims of circumstance.

We live in a world of duality and we either make peace with that, understanding it to be the essential way of things, or we choose a side to be on, making it right, and the way it, (me, you, life)  “should” be, which immediately means the opposite must now be made “wrong,” or “bad.”  The reality is that there cannot be a manifest world without the blessing of polarity. (think north and south pole, for instance.)

We too, consist of these polarized selves. Interestingly most of us unconsciously adopt the self of contrast to be the one we identify with and call “me.”

But like all opposites, these two polarized selves within us create a push-pull sort of energy between them that drives us around a cycle, or Wheel, that takes us up and down, even as we progress forward … the good news is that we ARE going somewhere. And the more awake we are, the more we consciously participate in the process of realizing and integrating these two voices within us into two sides of one Self, like the yin/yang of being.

But sometimes, it feels more like the “see-saw of polar extremity” where we bounce from a mountain top high to the bottom of the swamp, making it important to remember that accelerated consciousness can lead to more rapid, and increased laps around the wheel, with the downs on the wheel being equal and opposite to the ups and vice-versa.

I have struggled with a story of lack and being undeserving for a long time. I brought these  limiting, painful stories into consciousness many years ago … and have peeled away layers upon layers as I rode the ups and downs on the wheel, going from remembering who I truly am (every morning during my daily practice) and falling for the story I was scripted for through my family lineage. Over the years, I stopped protesting and resisting the limited version so much, and came to use it more consciously to find and reframe the stories that stood in the way of my remembering my true and essential being.

It has been most interesting for me to notice that my awakening process has not gotten rid of the unhappy stories that take me down under the wheel, as much as it has worked to speed up my revolutions around the wheel. It seems that the more I grow in consciousness around a certain pattern, the sooner I find myself descending into an experience that brings me face to face with some newly realized aspect of that very uncomfortable pattern.

I go down under the wheel, triggered by a limited belief, see it, feel it, and then turn it around which sends me back to the top of the mountain, where I barely get time to rejoice and celebrate before I've been triggered again and plunge to the bottom again. The faster I evolve, the quicker I churn through …  and the faster the wheel turns ….  sometimes I revolve up to the highs of mountain top realization only to plummet the next day even deeper into the lows of fear and angst. It seems to me that perhaps the limited, debilitating belief systems that have ruled us since our earth arrival don't go down without a fight!

Perhaps like most things on their way out, our belief systems too, may blaze up and be the biggest just before they disappear.

For instance, my daughter and I have been struggling to keep the Work afloat financially, we have always had limited assets and minimal help in getting it all done  …  and it has become increasingly difficult to generate enough return to match our required outgo. And on the opposite extreme, we also get so much wonderful feedback on the Work we put out there from those whose lives are changing dramatically for the better from the Work we put out there – much of it free of charge. The Work is growing, as we keep being reminded by those who have been part of our essential support. We agree that our work is needed and appreciated and destined to grow and expand …

I notice how I ride up and down, going from using the lack of what is to prove my old beliefs that I did it wrong, that I am a failure, etc… and to fall into the feelings that go with believing these lies to remembering all of the ways we are so beautifully taken care of.

It took years for me to realize that I am not a failure because I am not wealthy. I believed it and felt ashamed and less than. In my eyes it meant I was not successful. It's only been in recent times, that I have come to understand that my life interest has never been about demonstrating wealth and abundance in things … mine has been about realizing how abundantly I am taken care of by the Universal Forces that have and my back. Living in demonstration of trusting the Divine to provide for me has taken me to scary places … and my faith has wavered so many times, and I have used these close calls to verify both my unworthiness (when at the bottom of the wheel) and to verify the principles when I am miraculously rescued over and again by some last minute miracle!

I have learned so much about how essential it is for me to be open to receive the abundance that the Universe promises and that I have experienced so often. I have come to see that I am always immediately taken care of as soon as my attitude of allowing returns. Knowing that to be the secret to living in abundance keeps me strongly motivated to cultivate a practice that encourages me to surrender whatever resistance I hold that is keeping abundance at bay.

Recently I have been spending prolonged periods of time in meditation focused on aligning with the heart through appreciating nature and the night heavens.

When I first got to the park where I like to do yoga and meditate in nature, there was a homeless man sound asleep on the ground… his face looked so childlike and innocent that I imagined running my hands through his hair and soothing his brow like one would do for a small child. I felt warm and open … What part of me do you think I was aligned with in that moment?

I did my walk around the park lake  and then when I got ready to lay down my yoga mat to meditate I picked a spot but then suddenly remembered the homeless man sleeping close by … suddenly my fear mind took over … and I found myself thinking it might not be safe to lie down, and close my eyes while someone who might be desperate was near by … What part of me thought those thoughts, do you think?

I realized what had happened … how I had gone from the essential being part of me who sees the world throught the eyes of love in contrast to the ego part of me that constantly thinks like a victim from a fear based state of mind. And seeing that, I chose to focus on love …  and so I laid my yoga mat down and did my practice and by the time I closed my eyes to meditate all signs of fear had dissipated and I dropped into an amazing space of connection …

In lying there, experiencing my love for the Mother Earth from the tiny space in my heart from whence comes my connection to the Universe I was able to notice that I could actually call the breezes to stir over me, and bid the sun to radiate its warmth upon my face at will … I lay there doing exactly that again and again. as I moved back and forth between feeling the nurturing breezes of the earths caress, and the penetrating warmth of the Sun's love. Again, it is so amazing to experience the Universe respond when we call on it from a place of surrender and belief.

I came back up aware that in the same way that I called upon and received kisses from the sun and breeze that played on my skin, in that same way, I can call upon the Universe to bring me abundence and supply… and all I need to do is to believe it so. And I do.

And so, from a space of appreciation, we share a request to those of you who have been helped or touched by the Work we have put out there over the years to make a contribution to the Work so that we might continue to share with you freely all that we do.

Here is a list of what we make available free of charge:

Weekly messages for identifying and moving beyond victim consciousness

The Lemonade Series: a free youtube channel where we post examples of how to turn life challenges into  blessings. …

My blog with over 600 plus informational posts on victim consciousness and the spiritual life beyond.  Lynneforrest.com/blog