We’ve been talking about forgiveness for several days now. And the conversation just keep getting richer and richer. Truth is we could probably talk about forgiveness with our inner divine Voice for a month, and still find more to say and more to forgive.

That’s why most people don’t begin. We sense instinctively that if we start to poke beneath the taut surface of our “everything is fine” mask, we’ll find dozens of wounds that need healing and there’ll never be an end to it. So why start?

Here’s why: forgiveness is the most delicious, most healing, most soul-lifting, joy-inducing thing you can do.

Want freedom? Forgive.
Want a vibrant healthy body? Forgive.
Want to find your purpose? Live your purpose? Forgive.
Want love? Forgive.
Want that magical new year? Gotta forgive first.

Forgiveness is the magic. It opens the door to a life you cannot even imagine at the moment. A life that’s yours, all yours, if you will just let go of the anger and resenting holding you prisoner.

St Theresa of Avila knew this way back in the sixteenth century. She explained it in her treatise, Inner Castle. In Entering the Castle, Caroline Myss gives us a modern insight into St Theresa’s vision. For Theresa, the soul has seven floors in the inner castle. Well, guess what’s on the first floor? Your castle’s dungeon.

Listen to St Theresa speaking to you about the dungeon through Caroline Myss:

“Everyone has a dungeon. It’s where you hold your prisoners…. Haul open the heavy lead door and walk down the damp, stone stairs. The atmosphere gts darker and colder as you descent. As you walk through, notice that there are cells for prisoners lining the walls. Everyone you cannot forgive or whom you resent or wish harm to is held by you in these cells. The parents you cannot forgive are in a cell; the business partner who cheated you and whom you still resent is in a cell; the ex-spouse is in a cell…. No doubt some of the people you hold prisoners are holding you prisoner as well.

Why do you keep prisoners? …you keep someone prisoner because you feel he has not been punished enough for the harm he did to you.”

It’s time to take a little tour of your own dungeon. Close your eyes for a few seconds and walk down the stairs in your own inner gut. Look around at the cells. Surprising how many are in there, huh? Glance around inside the cells. Who’s there? Any surprises?

Now, comes the fun part. And it’s easy. Instead of dissecting all the stories, reopening the wounds, explaining what happened, justifying your behavior or your motivation for locking them up, just release them. That’s it. Just release them. Here’s how you do it.

Stand up to stretch out your dungeon. Close your eyes. Put your hands in front of your dungeon like two doors. Visualize yourself walking down into your dungeon. See the cells. Walk up to each one and open it. Gesture for the prisoner to leave. No talking. No apologizing. No explaining. No nothing. Just open the cells and watch them walk out. When all your prisoners are gone, walk to the very back and release the pathetic prisoner in the darkest dankest cell. You know who that is. You.

When your dungeon is empty, call on Spirit to flood the dungeon with white and gold light. See the space being filled with this loving gentle healing light. Watch the cells dissolve. When the space is completely transformed from prison to light, say thank you and open your eyes.

How does that feel?

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Ordinarily I write one post a day in the December Plan. But today’s post on who really needs forgiveness has caused many a tear. These are good tears. These tears are little messages bobbing up from your soul saying, “Yes, oh yes. Please forgive yourself. There is so much ahead of us, so much beauty, so much potential, so much joy, but as long as you have this gaping hole in your heart, you can’t see all that good. And because you can’t see it, you probably can’t have it. So, yes, darling one, please forgive yourself. Because the truth is you are so much more beautiful than you can ever know.”

I’ve struggled mightily with this idea of not being enough. And for a very long time. I wrote this prayer, “Enough,” back in the early nineties, well before my divorce. The words still resonate today. To me, they sound like long slow deep vibrations from a bell that has been ringing for a very very long time. I am ready to stop clanging the bell of “not enough.” I’m going to say this prayer one more time today. Out loud. With vigor. I’m going to feel it in my bones and know that it is true. From this day forward, I am enough. I am more than enough.

Here. I think this prayer is for you, too.

Enough
A Prayer of Abundance (copyright Janet Conner 2009)

Dear God of the universe,
creator of all life, hear me.
This one prays.

In the mirror.
In the reflection that bounces from me to the world and back again,
there is a circle, a circle of sadness.

I am not enough.
They see “not enough.”
Therefore, I am not enough,

not good enough
not enough of something
not strong enough, perhaps

not smart enough, for sure
not handsome enough
not pretty enough

not wealthy enough, never wealthy enough
not fast enough
not clever enough

not tough enough,
but too tough sometimes and that makes me
not kind enough

something not enough
many things not enough.

Perhaps it doesn’t matter what.
The specific fault is irrelevant.
I don’t have to name it.
It’s enough just to know that I’m not enough
of whatever it is I’m not enough of.

Do You understand this, God?
Seems a bit convoluted, I know.
But circles are circles.
And everywhere I turn,
there are more of them.

If I look at my work – I’m not good enough
and, of course, they see I’m not good enough.
Therefore, I’m not.
Good enough.
And doesn’t my “success” just prove it.

If I look at my family – I’m not loving enough.
They know I could love them more.
Just look at our tensions
and You’ll see that I’m right:
I’m not loving enough.

If I look in the mirror – I’m not pretty enough.
There it is for the world to see:
blemishes, imperfections, crooked teeth, blotchy skin, ridiculous hair, flaccid muscles.
I think I’ll stop now.
But You see. Well, I see.
I’m not pretty enough.

If I look in my checkbook – I’m not rich enough.
Doesn’t take a banker to see I don’t earn enough.
Perhaps if I worked harder, smarter, faster, better…something,
I’d be better off.
But there it is: I’m not rich enough.

I could continue, but I need to move on.
There are things to do, people to see, problems to solve.
And I’m not organized enough to get it all done.

So I have to get going.
But first, I need to ask You this question. It’s important.
Why did You put me here if I’m not enough?

Why didn’t You make me pretty enough, smart enough, rich enough?
You could have, You know.
Even now, You could do it in a single breath:

Ask and poof, I am beautiful
Ask and poof, I am wealthy
Ask and I’m smart

Ask and I’m wanted
Ask and I’m wise
Ask and I’m…

What?
What do I want?
What do I really want?

Want beyond wanting?
Need beyond needing?
What is the hole that must be filled?

Love…I guess. Yes, Love. That’s it, isn’t it?
If I had Love – enough Love – I would be blessed.
If I had Love – the right Love – I would be joyous.
If I had perfect Love, pure Love – Your Love – I would be healed.

That’s what I ask for, dear God.
That’s what I want.
Love is what I need.
Starting here. With me. Just me.

Fill me with the Love of the angels.
Build a bridge of Love across my doubts and fears.
Pour Love all around me
in my eyes, my mouth, my heart and my mind.

It feels good, this Love,
warm and calm and easy.
It has no ambition, but it won’t stay still.
It needs nothing, yet it sets my heart in motion.

This Love is peaceful, yet yearns to spread.
It oozes out of me and fills the room.
It swims out of the room and fills the house.
It radiates out of the house and seeks the world.

I guess it is enough, isn’t it!
Enough for me.
Enough for now.
Enough for always and ever.

Enough.

Amen.

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Have you noticed that when you set the intention to connect with your divine Voice on the page every day, those ten or fifteen minutes morph until it seems every moment becomes a vehicle for guidance, wisdom, and grace — even the most mundane?

Like running errands. After mailing three orders for Solarzar’s Theta Music CD at the post office yesterday afternoon, I drove to the library to return a book. The library is on the same street as my son’s high school. I’ve driven it hundreds, probably thousands, of times. Nebraska is an unremarkable street of typical Florida cement block homes. But yesterday something remarkable happened there.

Nebraska is a fun street in December. Many of the neighbors decorate for the holidays. As I passed one candy-cane filled yard, my eye fell on the plain brown house next door. The yard was overgrown, the roof layered with leaves. I know that house. It belonged to my first post-divorce boyfriend. He sold it before we went out, so I’ve never been inside, but he pointed it out once when we were driving somewhere. In the moment it took to drive past that house at thirty-five miles an hour, I felt a little twinge of neglect. He should have loved me more.

Huh? Where did that come from? I had no idea I was carrying any regret for that relationship. He wasn’t even the one who ended the relationship. I did. And I ended it ten years ago, for heavens sake! So why on earth was I feeling even the slightest speck of sorrow?

I know why. It’s because of this December Plan. This particular week of the December Plan. My old boyfriend’s old house had a message about forgiveness for me. And its not the message you might expect. The message is not about forgiving old lovers.

I realized as I drove past his house that any time anyone pulls away, even a little bit, and even for all the right reasons, and even because we ask them to, we feel at a subterranean level that somehow it was our fault. Somehow we were not enough. Not attractive enough, not smart enough, not clever enough, not rich enough, not organized enough, not focused enough…. Somehow we were not enough.

It’s a demented logic loop, I know. Here’s how it basically sounds:

If I were good enough, everyone would love me. They couldn’t help it.
So, if someone does not love me totally, madly, and completely…
I must not be good enough.

It sounds pretty comical laid out like that. But please don’t laugh. Look instead for the truth inside the loop. Go ahead, test it for yourself. Pick a relationship that didn’t work out. Even, or especially, one you chose to end. If you peek behind the door, I think you’ll find that at a deep emotional level, a deep irrational emotional level, you feel that somehow you didn’t hold the other person’s attention. If you had been just a wee bit more __________ — something – then he or she would never have turned to someone else, or fallen out of love with you, or simply stopped being interested.

Why is this such a big message? And why is it so important for this week? Because it proves that there is really only one person who needs forgiving.

You.

Not the other guy. You. It’s always you. The wound is inside of you. It’s not about what the other guy did. That can and will be forgiven, but the first wound, the greatest wound, and the hardest one to heal, is inside of you.

Have you noticed that?

I thought I understood what I was going to say about forgiveness this week. After all, I’ve been there. Done that. Had about the most profound experience of forgiveness you can have. Even got the miracle to show for it. (Details in “How I discovered the Voice or how the Voice discovered me,” in Writing Down Your Soul.

I know forgiveness is key. The key, even. The key to moving on, breaking through, and experiencing miracles. So when the December Plan began to form, I knew forgiveness would be important. So important, it would have its own week. What I didn’t know is that it would have a life all its own. A life I was not in charge of.

This morning, I was sitting outside in the December Florida sun having my soul writing chat with “DG” about forgiveness when a shadow flitted across my journal. I looked up. A vulture was soaring directly over me. So close I could see her lighter brown underfeathers. I smiled and said hello. Then her friends started to show up. Within seconds, there were thirteen majestic turkey vultures circling over my teeny townhouse yard.

I’m used to birds blessing me with their presence, but usually my messengers are ospreys. I could hear my osprey buddies calling in the distance, but for the moment I was drenched in vulture grace.

Hmm, vultures, I wondered. Turning back to the page I asked, “DG, what do vultures have to do with forgiveness?” I knew it was no accident that I’m planning a week of forgiveness and 13 vultures show up. But I wasn’t sure what they were trying to say. So I went inside to get Ted Andrew’s Animal Speak.

Like most people, I have a simple and not particularly pretty image of vultures: they eat dead things. Well, yes. They do. But put in the context of forgiveness, maybe eating “dead things” is a beautiful thing.

The vulture, according to Ted Andrews, is symbolic of purification. “Its medicine would restore harmony that had been broken.” From a biological standpoint, the vulture purifies the area by eating what’s dead, and with it all the decay and bacteria that could potentially harm other animals or people. Well now, let’s think like a vulture for a moment. How does forgiveness purify us and our immediate area?

The opposite — non-forgiveness — is toxic. You know this. You see it every day in people who can not let go of their anger toward someone. Perhaps they’re endlessly obsessing about a scurrilous boss, an abusive ex-spouse, a faithless lover, or a soul-crushing parent. Everyone has someone in their history who has caused them harm. You do, don’t you? Quick. Fill in the sentence:

“I have not forgiven __________ for ___________.”

So what are you going to do? You’ve got a rather simple choice. Hold on to that anger till it makes you sick or call in the vultures to help you. And make no mistake, obsessive anger will make you sick. We know this instinctively, but there’s plenty of research connecting the dots between long-standing anger and illness. Just this morning there was an article in the St Petersburg Times about a study demonstrating that men who didn’t express their anger were “twice as likely to have had a heart attack or died of heart disease as men who openly expressed their anger. Risk was highest for those who walked away.” The article doesn’t say exactly what happens inside your body when you swallow your feelings and walk away, but we all know from personal experience that the fury, hurt, and shame don’t dissolve on their own. They stay alive inside our guts, our hearts, and our minds. And the more we dwell on them, the bigger and stronger they get until we can’t “walk away” because they show up unbidden in our thoughts and our dreams — sometimes every day.

Here’s what I learned on the page with the guidance of the vultures swirling above me.

Step One: If you want to “kill” your anger stop feeding it. Stop talking about it. Stop obsessing about it. Picture your thoughts as “blood” that feeds your anger. Stop feeding it. If you’re not ready to do that it may be because you’ve never really told your story. Not fully. Not consciously. If that’s the case, sit down with your divine Voice and tell your story one last time, pouring out all the gory details and your deepest thoughts and feelings about what happened. In the loving, gentle presence of the Voice, dig underneath the story to find the story beneath the story, the emotions behind the emotions, the deeper meaning of this story in your life. When you’ve done that — and it may take some time — state unequivocably:

“Thank you for listening. I am finished now. I have no need to tell that story again.”

Step Two: Name the gift in the unforgiveable. And yes, there’s a gift in there somewhere. If nothing else, it has brought you to the edge of Forgiveness Gap and freedom lies on the other side. If Nelson Mandela can forgive after 27 years of imprisonment, you can forgive. If the gift still isn’t clear to you, keep writing down your soul until you find it.

“Help me find the gift in this experience. I still have hurt feelings, anger, frustration. I still feel a need for revenge. But I want to let go. So help me find the truth, the big T truth, in this experience. What did I learn? How did my soul evolve through it? What good is there in this?”

Step Three: Make a conscious decision to forgive. State twice — out loud and in writing on the page — that you want to forgive, are ready to forgive, and are calling on Spirit, your guides, your saints and your angels to come to your aid to help you do it.

“Dear Spirit, I am ready to forgive ________. I want to forgive __________. I want to be free.”

Step Four: Open your fist and let your anger go. You can visualize that or, if you want to do it physically, write “I forgive ________ now and for all time” on a small piece of paper. Hold the paper tight in your fist feeling the tension and anger of your history with that person move through your arm and hand and out of your body onto the paper. Then open your hand and let the paper float to the ground.

Step Five: Call in the vultures. Visualize them consuming the paper and with it all the “bad” bacteria of non-forgiveness, vengeance, anger, pain.

Step Six: Thank the vultures for purifying your body, your spirit, your soul and your space. And step into your true home, Freedom.

How does the freedom of forgiveness feel? Perhaps you have become so light, you can soar with the vultures.

This is the beginning of Week 3 of the December Plan to call in a magical 2010.

Thanks for joining me in this December Plan to prepare our hearts, minds, and souls to call in a magical new year. It’s been quite an adventure so far, hasn’t it? The first week we set our intention and created our rituals and process. That was fun. (I continue to light my candle and say my December Prayer every evening and write one wish on a teeny card. Always renews my spirit.) Last week we unearthed the gifts of 2009 — all of them. I had quite a few surprises; bet you did, too.

This week we plunge into the richest spiritual work we can do.
It’s the most freeing, the most important, the most essential.
But, truth be told, we don’t want to do it. Guessed it yet? Yup. Forgiveness.

Hafiz, the great Sufi poet, described the magical power of forgiveness perfectly:

Forgiveness is the cash you need.
All the other kinds of silver really buy just strange things.
Everything has its music.
Everything has genes of God inside.
But learn from those courageous addicted lovers
of glands and opium and gold –
Look, they cannot jump high or laugh long
when they are whirling.
And the moon and the stars become sad
when their tender light is used for night wars.
Forgiveness is part of the treasure you need
to craft your falcon wings
And return to your true realm
of Divine freedom. 

The Subject Tonight is Love, Daniel Ladinsky

Forgiveness is the cash you need. The cash I need. The cash we all need to return to our true realm of divine freedom. Freedom. That’s what we really want in 2010. That’s the whole purpose of calling in a magical year. Did you think it was the house, the car, the lover, the job, the contract, the money? Or as Hafiz says, “the glands, the opium, the gold?”

What’s the real reason you want the things you want for next year? Because you want to be free. To feel free. You want to “craft your falcon wings” and fly. Fly to the place where you are who you want to be — who you came here to be. To the place where you are the fullest, richest expression of your whole, authentic, holy self.

Next week, we’ll get real clarity about our wish lists. Hey, I’ve got an idea. From now on, let’s call them our “Freedom Lists.” But first, we need some cash to spend. The universe, you see, is a store. Like any store, it’s run on currency. You want something, you exchange currency for it. In this divine store, the currency is love, forgiveness, and gratitude.

Think about it. Is there really anything else?

• If you love and are loved…
• If you forgive and are totally and completely forgiven…
• If you are filled with gratitude and the people around you are filled with gratitude for all you are and all you do…

You’d be incredibly rich, wouldn’t you? The truth is you’d have quite a stash of universe-currency. And you could “buy” anything you wanted. Well, we are going to be doing some serious “shopping” on New Year’s Day, but first we’re going to gather some universe-cash, quite a bit of it, in fact.

So, join me this week as we dive into the miracle of forgiveness. We begin tomorrow forgiving the the person it is hardest to forgive. Do you know who that is?

(This post was originally published in the Writing Down Your Soul newsletter. To receive it click on the Subscribe tab above.)

It’s the last day of Week 2 of our December Plan to call in a magical year. Today we finish sifting through the events of 2009 to uncover all the gifts buried there. It’s been an interesting week, hasn’t it? Some days, I have to agree, it hasn’t been so much fun. The “gifts” of our lives don’t always come in foil-wrapped packages with golden bows. I wish they did, but the truth is sometimes the most important gifts come in the guise of defeat, rejection, loss, pain, suffering. At the time, we sure don’t consider the experience a “gift.” But that doesn’t mean it isn’t. In fact, it may be more than a single gift; it may be a window your soul peeks through, or even a highway that leads to your soul’s fullest, richest expression.

Listen to Alexander Sozhenitsyn on his long imprisonment in a Siberian gulag. He’s describing one of those really big gifts: “It was only when I lay there on rotting prison straw that I sensed within myself the first stirring of good. Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not though parties, states, nor between classes, nor between political parties, either, but right through all human hearts. So, bless you prison for having been in my life.”

Bless you prison? Bless you prison? That’s not a man speaking. That’s a soul. That’s a soul pushing a dark door open, feeling the Light, and taking the first steps down a path that will inspire millions. His words give us a flash of Solzhenitsyn’s wise soul-self waking up. In those unbelievable words, we can see his small spirit blinking in the light as it senses its potential to express big Spirit here on earth.

I like to call that appearance of the soul-self your “Grandself.” Just as the honorific “Grandmother” is meant to capture a higher, wiser expression of the wonderful motherly qualities of love and grace, and “Grandfather” resonates with a higher expression of the fatherly qualities of wisdom and protection, your “Grandself” resonates with the higher expression of your soul. It is your God-self showing up.

So, looking at 2009, when did your Grandself show up? When did your spirit burst forth with wisdom and grace you didn’t know was inside you? When did the ideas in your head stun you? The words in your mouth bless you? The ideas on the page take your breath away? When was your heart so radiant that you thought you might float? When were people magnetically attracted to you? When were you at peace, not just still, but resting in real deep peace.

Next year, of course, as we call in all the magic, love, and joy we can, we will be creating a veritable playground for our Grandselves to show up. But this year, even in hard times, your Grandself showed up too. When did your Grandself tap you on the shoulder and say, “Hello darling, I’m here.”

How many times did your mother tell you to say thank you when someone gave you something? Your wild child’s eyes were pasted to the thing–the bright shiny thing–or the food, the gooey yummy food, the ball, the chocolate, the book…whatever was hovering a few inches before you. But before you could grab it, your mother’s voice would slice into the air between you and the thing, and she’d say, “Say, thank you.” You’d mumble it, fast perhaps, but the words would come out, and once they did, you could have what you wanted.

Of course, there were those other times, when your bizarre great aunt, the one with the bright red lipstick and the strange smell and the very odd gifts, gave you something you really didn’t want, but still the insistent voice said, “Say, thank you.” And you did. And the strange thing was suddenly yours, too.

By the time you were four you knew the world runs on thank you. Please and thank you. If you want something, say please. Before you take it, say thank you.

So, let’s be four again. Let’s look at all the gifts you received in 2009. All of them. Even the “but I don’t want this” gifts. As you stare at your calendar or pour your story onto the page, see the gifts, name them, jot them down until you have a nice long list: The Gifts of 2009.

Then, sit with your list and say, “Thank you.” Thank you for the luscious things–the raises, the invitations, the payments, all the lovely people who said yes. And, thank you for the sorrows, the frustrations, the dead ends, the rejections, the people who said no.

Thank you for all of it. The whole thing. The whole story. The whole adventure. Why? Because it is your story. It is the expression of your soul on earth. It is why you’re here. Why you came. What your soul wants to experience, learn, know, become. As the Tao says: Everything is a movement toward your wholeness. Everything. Not just the good stuff. Everything. So say thank you. You are one year further along in your journey to wholeness. And that’s a very good thing.

Soon, you’ll be saying Please to call in the magical gifts of 2010, but for today, your job is just to say thank you for how your story unfolded in 2009.

Have you noticed the paradox of this week of the December Plan? Even though we’re taking tough backward views of all the issues of the last 11 1/2 months, we’re actually doing the richest and most productive work? How can that be? How can the richest week be the ickiest week? All this looking back seems to do is dredge up those old blocks, those old fears that constantly get in the way. Are you sick of it? Are you ready to shout once and for all: That’s it, I’m DONE with you! Get out of here!

I sure am. And I think I know how to do it.

Everyone has these sore spots, blind spots, relentless fears. Whatever you want to call them. Mine is worrying about money. In a therapy session years ago, I tracked the source of this insidious fear back to my sophomore year in high school when my mother said I couldn’t have new shoes. I remember I stared at her across the kitchen table dumbfounded. Whaddya mean I can’t have new shoes? Look at these shoes, Mom. They’re falling apart. I know, she said, I’m sorry, but we can’t afford them.

This was a new blip on my radar screen. I used to get a new coat every spring and every winter whether I wanted one or not. Now, I couldn’t get something I actually needed, a lousy pair of shoes. Until last weekend I assumed that that shoe scene in the kitchen was the moment I became overly conscious of and worried about money, always thinking there is never enough.

But guess what, that wasn’t the moment. Last weekend, Lauralyn Bunn came to my home to teach a small intimate group how to work with the Akashic Records — our soul’s records. In the course of the weekend, she mentioned that we carry “thought forms” that we no longer need, and gave us a prayer to release them. “It’s that easy?” I said, “you just say the prayer and send them on their way?”

What a powerful — and incredibly simple idea. I decided to pounce on my money fears and get that destructive thought form out of my consciousness as fast as I could.

For several days after Lauralyn left I did some deep soul writing about my money fears. Whatever I couldn’t work out on the page, my dreams handled for me. Last night, in what I think was the culmination of my money fear dreams, my mother appeared and told me that something had come off the roof of the tall building we were living in. Today, writing about that dream and my long history of fretting about earning enough, I had a big “aha.”

I realized that the shoe scene is not the moment the money fears got inside me. It happened 16 years earlier. In 1948, my mother was pregnant with her 3rd child in 5 years just 3 years after the war. They were living in a tiny apartment on the south side of Chicago, and Daddy was still not making any real money. I realized that the entire time she carried me she was worried, no more like “scared to death,” about how her family was going to survive. Her thoughts felt like: There isn’t enough money, my husband doesn’t make enough money, we don’t have enough money, we’re not OK, what am I going to do? Those thoughts gelled into a parasite, a thought-worm so to speak, and passed through the placenta wall and into my spirit. And now at 61, I am ready to send that thought-worm out the top of my head and off into the universe.

Here’s the prayer: “Father/Mother God, I ask that this thought form be sent on in its spiritual evolution for the highest good and mutual benefit of everyone concerned.”

Simple, isn’t it. I’ve said this prayer three times a day for a week. I think it’s working. I feel lighter. Happier. More hopeful and peaceful. More protected. More safe. Dare I say it, richer.

As I say the prayer, I imagine my mother’s worries as a parasitic worm crawling up my chakras and out the top of my head to be taken by Spirit to be transformed.

Want to try? Do some deep soul writing to identify the parasitic thought-worm that’s been living in your consciousness for years, decades even. Once you can name it, pray it out.

Just think how ready we’ll be to call in a magical 2010 with NO parasitic thought forms blocking the way. This is exciting, isn’t it.

Rumi said it perfectly:

“The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
where the two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep.”
(From Love Poems from God by Daniel Ladinksy and quoted in Writing Down Your Soul on p 221.)

The door is round and open. How’s that for a simple truth. But what do we do? Why, we fall crashing into the sleep of the unconscious life and then whine and complain about how hard life is, how unfulfilled we feel, how disconnected, how lonely, how sad. We complain that we don’t get what we want–what we so clearly deserve.

But is that the door’s fault? No. The door to the inner world is open. The door to your soul is round. The door to the inside journey, the door to real human and spiritual connection, the door to peace, the door to fulfillment, the door to deep inner joy is open. So who’s got a problem here? Why, we do.

So, in your December Plan, as you are reviewing your year to date, uncovering all its gifts, ask yourself: When was I wide awake this past year? When was I aware of what was happening? When was I in touch with my soul’s purpose? When was I connected with my best self, my God-self, my fullest expression. When did I walk through that door and touch what’s real, what’s true, what’s holy?

And when did I look the other way? When did I stay so busy busy busy that I stayed oblivious of what I was feeling deep inside? When did I avoid real conversations–with myself, with my soul, with my source? When did I pretend I didn’t feel the pain? Didn’t see the dishonesty–mine or others’? When did I pretend to myself that everything was OK, when everything wasn’t OK?

In Rumi’s words, when did I go back to sleep? Back to the old habits, the old fears, the old assumptions?

Look at your year for a pattern of waking and sleeping. When you get your arms around what keeps you alive and what sends you reeling backward into sleep-walking through life, you’ll know something big about yourself. You’ll know something that could make a profound difference in 2010. Want a magical new year? You can have one, but magic comes to those awake enough to see it happening.

So here are a few questions for your deep soul writing on Day 11 of your December Plan. Plunge into these and your eyes will be knocked wide open:

How often was I asleep in 2009?
What are my sleep triggers?
What kind of situations or people make me want to go back to sleep?
What happened to awaken me?
What were my most awake moments? What kinds of situations or people make my soul sing?
How did it feel to be awake, really really awake?
How awake do I want to be in 2010?
How am I going to stay awake in 2010?
What do I think could happen, if I lived a more soul-ful, living, vibrant, awake life?

It’s an exciting vision, isn’t it?

This week in our December Plan we’re looking BACKward. Back all the way to January 1, 2009. Look at your calendar. The clues to your year are right there in front of you. Who knew that such a simple office supply could carry so much information, including several messages from heaven.

Before the year began, I pinned a four foot tall dry-erase 2009 calendar on the wall above my desk. For the first few months, it looked rather pathetic. As in: blank, empty, WHITE. But slowly, as people discovered Writing Down Your Soul, the squares filled with classes, speaking invitations, workshops, book signings, and radio interviews.

I didn’t consciously plan a color scheme. I just reached into my drawer the day I booked my first event –and grabbed a black marker. Joyfully, I posted my first book signing in the square for January 11. Once I posted that one in black, I wrote all speaking events and workshops in black. Newsletter due dates are green. Social events are red. Florida sales tax due dates are red, too. But blue is reserved for something special. Blue is the color of surprises. Heavenly surprises. Miracles in other words.

Some of my miracles are big. What happened at the book signing on January 11th is big — very very big. If you’ve heard me tell the story of the mystery man and his message, you know what I’m talking about.

But most of my heavenly surprises are small. So small that you might not consider them miracles. But I do. On August 23, for example, I picked up a penny from the immaculate driveway of the brand new home where I had stayed in Vero Beach while teaching. You are not impressed? Not even if I tell you the penny wasn’t there fifteen minutes before? How about the penny in the bottom of the gas station in the middle of the state as I drove home? Still not impressed? How about the penny at my feet in the hotel shuttle at the airport in Raleigh? Maybe you’ll be more impressed if I tell you that as I waited for the shuttle I had a vehement conversation with Spirit saying, “OK, I’m here. I did what you asked. Now you have to show me that I’m OK, that this is all OK. That you are with me and all is well.”

A penny for me is more than a penny. It is the way my first (and thus far, only) husband says hello from heaven. It is the way Spirit winks and pats me on the pack. I see pennies all the time. One morning, after a fitful night worrying about money, I went to the gas station. As I stood there pumping gas, I demanded to know that heaven was with me. The receipt wouldn’t come out, so I stomped into the station to pay. There on the post outside the door was a dime and 2 pennies. I took it, said thank you, and, “You know 2 more cents would make 14. Fourteen cents would be really nice.” As I got in my car, I noticed 2 pennies on the ground. “Thank you,” I cried.

When I got home I put those coins with all the others in a little bowl under my creative altar. I think there’s a couple dollars in it. I’ll count the whole amount on December 31. After I put the coins in the bowl, I mark my wall calendar with a blue dot.

Today, December 10, I sit under my 2009 calendar and smile at all the black squares. I see in my mind all the people I taught. All the book stores I entered. All the books I signed. It’s all there on my 2009 calendar in bold black marker.

But the real wonders of 2009 are the blue marks. Those are the moments heaven winked and said, “We’re right here, with you, darling one. All is well.” Those are the moments that carried me then — and carry me still.

When and how did heaven show up for you this past year? Do you have a private little language between you and your divine guides? Does Spirit send you pep talks through birds? Answered prayers? Unexpected phone calls? Music? Smells?

If you didn’t pay attention this past year, that’s OK. Just resolve to pay attention from now on. Ask your divine guides to show up and make it clear they’re with you. Then, mark your calendar. In color. A year from now, you too will sit and smile and laugh and cry looking at all the beautiful blue (or gold or red…) days when heaven said, “Hello, beloved. we’re right here. We’ve got your back.”

How do you keep track of your heavenly “winks?”