No More Hiding

I suppose we all have something we’d rather not have everyone know.   Whether it’s cellulite on our thighs, a bad credit rating or a shameful past, we find ways to lay low, hoping nobody sees.  We put on an “everything’s fine” face and do whatever it takes to avoid the sting of judgement if people knew the whole story about us.   I have been lying low so long that my posture has developed a slump.  I’ve been hiding out, telling carefully worded partial truths about myself because: 1) the whole truth seemed too bizarre to believe and 2) I was barely holding it together, so adding someone else’s doubt to my self-doubt was more than I could handle.  I didn’t want to risk losing friends or family, but in the end, that’s happened anyway, so what have I got to lose by being fully honest?

Background Story

Before I get to the confession part, I want to provide a little background.  About ten years ago I heard a voice telling me loud and clear, “Stop everything you’re doing…there’s something bigger for you to do…just follow your heart and it will lead you there.”  I’d already abandoned a mainstream life to pursue writing a book about emotional self-healing, so while I had some experience with leaps of faith and exploring new things, I couldn’t imagine how much more “out there” I could go.  I had no idea what I was getting into, but I trusted my inner voice implicitly.  I figured whatever was arriving would take a few months and I had the resources to live a few months without working, so I dutifully stopped everything to listen in.  Shortly after, a clear message came forth:  Redistribute wealth in the world.  Follow your heart and it will lead you there.

I was a little nervous, but mostly excited about this new calling.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that redistributing wealth involves lots of money and what could be more fun than giving away money?  It’s good that I had a high level of excitement because the journey I was about to endure required absolute commitment to following my heart through some awful terrain.

Step One:  Lose Everything 

Naturally, I’d assumed the first step of my calling would be landing large sums of money.  I was wrong.  The first step was preparation for having large sums of money, which apparently included having no money.  When my heart told me to “do nothing” it meant it.  Do nothing to earn money.  Do nothing to save your home from foreclosure.  Do nothing to rescue yourself from humiliation, including the humiliation of telling creditors you have no money, cannot pay your bills or debts and don’t know when that will change.  I pleaded with my heart to let me DO SOMETHING, but the answer was, “Let everything fall apart.”  So I did.  I was painfully faithful to my heart.  Over time I lost my house, my cabin, my car, my reputation and my pride.  One bright spot was that I picked up a partner, Greg, along the way.   A perfect companion for the journey, he was game for this experience and willingly joined in.  Of course he lost everything too, without even trying.

Step Two:  Keep the Pressure On

No matter what we did to try to bring in support, there were times when it just wasn’t going to happen.  Once in a while we’d get an unexpected sum of money that came out of nowhere or a friend would generously offer to let us live with them.  For a time, Greg started a successful business, but we never knew when we were going to be blindsided and thrown back into survival mode or dependence on the mercy of others.  The way things came and went made it abundantly clear that there was divine design in everything.  We could go from absolute despair to grand relief in an instant, but always knew another wave of lessons or insights or deliberate experiences was on its way.  This went on for several years. 

Step Three:  Find the Perfection in It

When you’ve had a fabulous calling dangled in front of you, it’s hard to make sense of having the opposite experience.  In order to keep strong, I was constantly asking “how is this perfect?” or “how does this fit into the overall plan?”  I always got answers and always knew it was somehow preparing me to redistribute wealth in the world.  I figured that money wields such power that having lots of it could make me a different kind of prisoner, so a good deal of my journey was about finding the kind of wisdom, compassion and absolute freedom that would make me a trustworthy guardian or philanthropist.  Freedom from norms, freedom from fear, and freedom from the old consciousness that had created the mess our world is in, so that I could distribute wealth in innovative ways.  I needed to stretch completely out of the limitations of mainstream thinking and that meant living on the edge.  It meant living in ways that gained disapproval, but being strong enough to know that I was still a good person; transcending shame and judgement because those are the things that keep us prisoner to the norms that limit us; breaking free of the belief that if you break the rules, you don’t deserve goodness.  God, I hated how hard it was!  I’d made a life of fitting in and now I was sticking out – and in the most uncomfortable ways.

My way of coping was to lay low.  I’d avoid friends and family or avoid talking about my life, hoping the hard part of this spiritual journey would end before anyone noticed how wretched and embarrassing my life had become.  A few years earlier I’d had scores of people cheering me on when I’d left the corporate world to pursue my writing career.  I was gaining success in that career when this new calling called.  But this leap of faith was different.  Instead of being cheered on, I was being criticized and interrogated about the choices I was making.  I was challenged constantly by my own doubts and the doubts of others.  “Why don’t you just get a job?”  “How can you do this to your daughter?” “When is this silliness going to end?”  As I grew stronger on the inside, I shrank on the outside.   Making myself as invisible as possible, I begged my heart to end this pain before anyone found out the ugly truths of it.  But after laying low now for many years, and despite the fact that I feel this quest is coming to a close, I feel compelled to be completely open about whom I’ve been.  Otherwise shame wins.  So here is my confession:

Confession

I have been horrified by the things that I participated in or have allowed to happen in the pursuit of this cause and I’m going to stop hiding them.  I have been foreclosed.  I have been evicted. I have been homeless. I have used food pantries.  I have had every kind of service cut off or disconnected because of non-payment.  I’ve spent 10 days without electricity -- cooking and heating bath water on an outdoor grill, sleeping with a hat and winter coat on because we had no heat, dragging my children through all of this and enduring the shame of lectures, scoldings, and anger as we begged family and friends for help to pay the electric bill.  I have a credit rating in the 500’s.  I owe people a lot of money. I have borrowed money from my children when I should have been the one supporting them.  I have lived off the backs of others. I've broken promises.  I have been many versions of what our society shuns and although working in a job would have prevented all of these things from happening, I have not done so in over 10 years.  And although society says good, responsible people pay off their debts and pay their bills on time, I have not always done so.  I could have avoided this whole mess, but I didn’t…because my heart said so.  I tried not to make it anyone else’s problem, but sometimes I failed.  I have hurt, disappointed and lost the confidence of many people.  I am sorry for the hurt, but I have no regrets because I trust my heart implicitly. 

More than anything, I hated being dependent on – or at the mercy of – others.  I admit that this probably caused even more suffering than was necessary. For much of those ten years we scraped by without help, but when we needed it, I hated to ask.  (I was the kid who refused to let her mother accompany her to the first day of kindergarten because I wanted to “do it myself!”) Independence was my middle name, so I cannot imagine a more challenging or humbling experience than asking for money to live on while I pursued a nebulous quest.  How does one explain that? I was raised to be responsible, hard-working and self-sufficient.  How could I disobey those norms and keep my self-respect?  And yet, how does one find freedom from those norms or find intrinsic self-worth other than by disobeying them and rising above the shame that comes with it?  Yes, many good things came of this and much more good will come, but that is not the point of this story.  My point is that I’m not hiding in shame any more.  There are so many ways to second guess what I have or haven’t done, and many people have told me how I “should have” done it.  I did it all with my eyes wide open and I accept all the consequences.  I’m going to see this dream through.  I’m not asking for anything; I just don’t want to hide anymore. 

I have had every drop of judgement drained out of me and replaced with compassion.  It’s pretty hard to call someone else wrong when your inner self knows “I’ve been that.”  My journey hasn’t reached its conclusion, but I’ve reached this conclusion:  Every life is sacred.  Even the ones that look despicable.  Even mine. 

Carla Berg

p.s. please take advantage of this website.  There are five sets of divination cards here that were written as a result of this long journey.  They’re available to use for free and I’d love to have them shared. 

How to Realize a Dream

Why is it that when we talk about realizing dreams, we do it with a sort of detached, airy, or romantic tone – as if dream realization is a distant hope or out of reach – perhaps reserved for the fated few, the outrageously determined, or the extremely talented?   Why isn’t the fulfillment of dreams a common thing?  What happens in the fulfillment process that scares people into avoiding, diminishing, or abandoning the quest? 

In Paulo Coelho’s inspiring story, “The Alchemist”, he reveals:

“Before a dream is realized, the Soul of the World tests everything that was learned along the way. It does this not because it is evil, but so that we can, in addition to realizing our dreams, master the lessons we’ve learned as we’ve moved toward that dream. That’s the point at which most people give up. It’s the point at which, as we say in the language of the desert, one 'dies of thirst just when the palm trees have appeared on the horizon.”

What if, as this quote suggests, there is a predictable process in the fulfillment of a dream and, if understood, would make it easier to see things through to fruition?  Since uncertainty is one of the most challenging aspects of big change, maybe breaking the process into understandable steps would ease the fear of uncertainty enough to take the leap of faith needed to not only pursue a dream, but keep going when it gets hard. 

This topic is foremost in my mind because I’m in the midst of a dream realization – stretching from a life of mediocrity to one of bold, large-scale living.  As I near the birth of a new existence, pressure builds, feelings intensify, and the stakes feel higher.  This is the point where the temptation to shrink back is strongest.   But instead, I’m determined to master this process by identifying its steps, clarifying its logic, and internalizing its brilliance. I’ve been through enough transitions into new careers, different lifestyles, and in and out of relationships to identify common steps and challenges…and along with those, some techniques and perspectives that facilitate fulfillment of dreams.  So theoretically, if I can create a recipe for dream building, I can use it over and over, fine tuning it until any dream becomes attainable.

But before sharing what I’ve come up with, let me just say that I’m approaching this from the standpoint of emotions and feelings.  I believe that if anything can stop or interfere with the dream-building process, it is fear, doubt, or emotion-based limiting beliefs.  With that in mind, I’m describing how it FEELS at different points of the process, along with ways to work with or through those feelings.  This is my take on how it works:

How to Realize a Dream

(How to Move from One Reality to Another)

 Step A – You’re in a reality that is satisfying.  All is well.

Step B – You begin feeling restless.  Life feels too small so you begin dreaming.  Perhaps you long for fulfilling work or have a talent that has yet to reach its full potential; you want true love or to find self-love through self-discovery.  Through daydreaming, you begin reaching out to connect with a bigger/bolder/different reality.

Step C – You land on a dream and envision a new way of being that inspires you to begin moving out of your Old Reality.  It’s exciting to think about a change, and not too scary because you’re still enjoying the security of the Old.    Most of your energy is directed toward the Old, so it is still pretty well supported and intact - but its inadequacy becomes irritating and a motivation for change.  You take small steps in the direction of the New.  Maybe you tell a friend, do some research, set some goals and make a commitment.  Synchronicities begin and you feel supported as life responds to this New direction. 

Step D – The more you dream about the New Reality, the more real it feels.  You can see it more clearly and take steps to make it real – perhaps even a leap of faith.  As you do this, less energy is going toward your Old Reality and it starts to dissolve.  This can feel unsettling because old sources of support dry up and emotions become stirred up as you let go of the Old.  Even though you know you want out of your old world, doubts creep in as the Old falls away before the New materializes:  Is this really possible?  Am I being foolish?  Will I fail? 

Am I good enough to have the New?  Who do I think I am chasing this dream? Limits or patterns that are out of alignment with your desired New Reality will surface so they can be resolved.  This is not designed to stop you; it is not common sense kicking in; it is not the Universe telling you you’re going the wrong way.  This is simply the part where the way must be cleared for the new to arrive.  Since your inner world creates your outer reality, there must be a change within to create an outer change. This is the part we refer to as “doing the work” and there are no shortcuts.  There are, however, many tools and techniques available to help you work through fears, doubts and limiting beliefs.  Find them and use them.  Feel all your feelings, cry lots of tears, and remember that emotions are the fuel that keep this creative process moving.  Most importantly, KEEP BREATHING to allow the Old to fall away and the New to come in.

Step E – You have almost completed the important step of letting go of the Old, smaller life, and are just beginning to see signs that the New may be arriving soon.    Emotions and doubts are at their highest as you are aware there is nothing to go back to, yet nothing solid to land on in the New.  Straddling two worlds, you are not fully in the Old or New Reality and anxiety creeps in.  Your identity and even survival may feel threatened, but you’re merely sensing the departure of what no longer serves you.  It feels like everything is falling apart, because it must in order for a significant change to occur.  Know that your feelings are normal – that this is the scariest part.  It would be easy to (energetically) curl up in the fetal position or turn to favorite escapes or become paralyzed with fear, but it is important to keep your energy moving.  Nurture yourself to the extent that you can feel safe and hold compassion for yourself.   Intuition and trust carry you through this transition.  The tendency is to grip the Old Reality, while grasping for the New, but this is disempowering and will create more anxiety.  Let go of the Old, even through ritual or symbolic letting go actions.   Cry, mourn, and honor the Old as you set it free.  Surrender, BREATHE, allow. 

Step F – The more you let go of the Old, the more empowered and trusting you feel.  Clarity increases and more details about the New Reality arrive.  They inspire you to keep moving forward in spite of fears and doubts.  You’re shifting the balance of your energy and

attention from the Old Reality to the New.  Stoke your passion for your desired new state by connecting with it in your imagination or taking active steps in the physical world.  Breathe and allow; breathe and allow, imagining with every breath that you are embodying the desired New.  Watch for signs and synchronicities that indicate the New is materializing.

Step G – The gripping is over, the New Reality has not fully materialized, yet a calm takes over.  You know your world is changing and the more relaxed you are, the more easily you transition.  Take actions toward your New Reality to make it feel real and it will become real.  Acknowledge synchronicities and landings.  Take time to consciously breathe in and allow. Honor all your feelings and allow divine timing to take it from here.

Step H – Success is yours!  You’ve made it through the transition and can pamper yourself as you adjust to a new way of being.  Congratulate yourself for creating and realizing a dream with your eyes wide open!

© Carla Berg 2015

How can I make money doing what I love?

Request for Guidance and Insight

 

I've always flipped back and forth between my creative careers and my corporate careers. I have a cycle that when I'm in a corporate career all I do is think about creating.... painting, flowers etc. Then when I make a change to do something more creative I feel pulled back to corporate sales where I can make more money and have more stability.

 

I'm a single parent and need to take care of my 6 year old. I'm so tired of the tug of war.  Please help me see clearly!  Thank you!

 

Michelle

_______________________________________________________

 

Carla's Response

 

Dear Michelle,

 

It sounds like your key to happiness is to have a creative career that supports you financially.  A commonly held belief is “You can’t do what you love and make a living at it,” but that is only true if you believe it's true.  Plenty of people succeed at generating money while engaged in their passion, so we know doing so is possible.  The question is:  what keeps you from what you want?

 

To gain insights into your situation I drew a card from the Divine Demons deck.  Here is what came up:   Betrayal

 

You can read the full description by clicking on the link above, but these words caught my attention:

 

The key is to restore the sense of power and trust we have lost. By releasing the fears, emotions and beliefs our experiences have brought, we can recover a sense of love and trust and uncover our true selves. And we will come to know that with or without experiences to back it up, we are worthy of honesty, love, happiness and respect.

 

My guess is that early life experiences led you to believe your survival (physical, mental, emotional) was dependent on doing things the way others wanted versus the way you wanted.  In other words, you had to sacrifice your own wants in order to get what you needed.   A simple example of this is, “If I want to be loved, I have to do what Mom wants me to do.” 

 

The way we are treated early in life often becomes the norm for how we treat ourselves later in life.  In your case, the tug of war you feel is the either/or pattern that developed:  either I get what I want (creativity) or I get what I need (financial support).   When you do creative work, you feel like you won’t survive, and when you do money-making work, you feel like you are betraying yourself.   Overall, you probably feel like you can’t win – and you can’t – until you break the patterns causing this.

 

The way to break any pattern is to delve into your past, resurrect the memories and feelings where this particular self-betrayal began, identify the subconscious beliefs that have been running your life, and express/release the trapped emotions (frustration, anger, hurt and un-forgiveness) buried deep within you.   From there you can choose new, more empowering beliefs like, “As long as I am true to myself I will always be supported.”   Once you do this work, I think you will find two things:

 

• the courage to pursue work you truly love

• the faith to commit to it until it supports you

 

You always have the power to transform your life.  For exercises that guide you through this process, go to Transformation Exercises.

 

Best to You,

 

Carla

The Beginning of a Movement

Imagine a pebble dropping into a pond. See the ripples spreading in rings away from the center of the PLOP! We all have the ability to create that same effect each time we raise our awareness and shift our vibration. If I let go of a low-vibe energy, like powerlessness or unworthiness, I raise my vibration and the vibration of the energy around me. That creates the potential for those people near me to raise theirs, as well as those around them, and so on. Simply stated, I can change the world by changing myself.

Join me, and many, many others, in a movement to raise our collective vibration, one person, one issue, one shift at a time. About once a week or so I’ll draw a card from one of the divination decks on divinepotentials.com and whatever issue the cards guide us to, we will work through together. Trust the magic as we join hearts and move mountains.

This Week's Issue:  Fear of Success

This week’s issue comes from the Divine Demons deck. The cards in this deck go deep to clear away fears, doubts, and limiting patterns that have served as obstacles in your life. This simple, yet powerful, tool will take you on a journey of self-discovery and bring you closer to True You.

Real, lasting success is a natural outcome of living your life authentically. If you are willing to receive it, it comes with an endless stream of goodness flowing to you for remembering who you are, living in a manner in which you are true to your self, operating from your heart, building your dreams around love, not fear, and doing things that benefit the whole. As such, success can provide deep satisfaction and can exist in any profession, any relationship, and in all aspects of life.

It sounds wonderful, so why would anyone resist it? Several factors influence our ability to allow success into our lives: whether it feels safe, it aligns with our values, and it matches our sense of worthiness. It’s not a question of whether we can be successful – we know we can – it is a question of whether we can accept it.

While it is typically treated as something to admire and aspire to, at the same time success may be treated unkindly, with jealousy or scorn. Society frequently scrutinizes successful people, looking for flaws, testing their integrity, finding ways to tear them down, assessing whether they have paid their dues or earned their achievements. Even loved ones and supporters may resent the success of another. Depending on our own experiences, success may feel unsafe to us.

Mixed messages abound around success. On one hand we are told to dream – that anything is possible – and on the other hand we have clichés telling us You can’t have everything' or 'All good things must come to an end. We have expectations to live up to our full potential, but feel held back by family or societal norms telling us it is wrong to stand out or rise above the crowd. We may be encouraged to reap the rewards of hard-earned success, yet told that it is greedy or immoral to have more than we need or more than others have. Is it any wonder we are stuck or confused?

Success means achieving desired results, which may be accompanied by love, money, status, ideas, praise, recognition, meaningful work, or any form of goodness. Although receiving goodness sounds like the easiest task in the world, for those who stop short of loving themselves completely, or those whose values conflict, receiving can be very difficult. If you are not finding success in your life, look at your relationship with your self. The way you treat your self is the way the universe treats you. If you reward your self, rewards will flow to you. If you believe you must give more than you receive, you will receive less than you give. If you love yourself unconditionally and believe yourself worthy, you will easily and openly receive success and all that comes with it.

If you have drawn this card, you are ready to let go of old versions of yourself to embrace new, bolder versions of who you are. You are ready to remove obstacles to success and let the goodness that you deserve flow into your life.

Now that you have raised this issue to a conscious level, you have the opportunity to create meaningful change in your life by resolving it.

Insights about the Issue:  Fear of Success

Lasting success comes in small steps: first an inspiration, then an action, then progress at a pace that you can handle. Your heart always knows what to do next, but often something buried within you puts on the brakes just as you are on the brink of a breakthrough. It isn’t success you fear, but the changes that come with success. The fear of the unknown, of isolation or loss of identity…what will happen to “Me” if I allow this change to arrive? Will I lose friends or distance myself from loved ones? Am I opening myself to attention I don’t want, like resentment, jealousy, criticism? Look at how society or the media treats successful people -- do I want that? What if I really am so powerful that I can create whatever I want? Can I handle that power?

If you are reading this message, it is time to release fears, doubts or limiting beliefs that serve as unconscious obstacles to success.

Honor yourself by taking a moment to invite those obstacles to come forward and reveal themselves. They may emerge all at once or gradually over the next few days. You’ll know when the time is right, and when it is, first renew your commitment to yourself, to being all of who you are. Then ask unexpressed feelings to surface so that you can unlock and release fears and doubts forever. Breathe, breathe, breathe those feelings, allowing them to flow freely, up and out. Notice the grip of fear tighten, then loosen, as you gently breathe in and out whatever comes to the surface. You are setting yourself free…free to be true you…all of you. And when you do so, you make it possible for others to do the same.

If you want to dig deeper into this issue, or related issues, use the Standard Transformation Exercises from Divine Demons: Reclaiming the Power of Your Destiny. They will guide you through deeper exploration.

Bless you. Bless movement.

Carla Berg