If you want it to be real for you, you've got to find your validation from within yourself.

Validation is a spiritual vibration that affects you on every level, but especially in your emotions. You can feel validation from within.

Validation is not an intellectual energy. You can be validated for your intellect, but unless you are allowed to have the validation for yourself, you may try to prove your worth to others. This often turns into a never ending cycle of needing to 'prove' you have worth in order to have it.

Who had permission to get angry in your house when you were growing up?

Was it you, your mother or father, or someone else? Was anger accepted as a normal, natural human emotion? Or was it judged as being a negative and unsafe emotion?

It may be that only the women in your family were allowed to get angry, or only the men. There simply wasn’t room for anyone else ‘to express their feelings of annoyance, displeasure, or hostility’ – (Webster’s definition of anger).

What if you decide to forgive and let go? What if others do the same?

Simply by forgiving each other and especially our own selves, we go a long way to creating more trust in the world. Forgiveness is a big part of learning to trust.

If you forgive yourself, another person, or a group that hurt you, you free up your own energy and reclaim your power. This helps you regain trust for yourself, your choices, and life in general.

Perhaps you lost trust in yourself because you made a choice that wasn’t the best for you.

There is a big rescue effort underway in the United States to bring back the American Dream and save the endangered species known as the middle class.

According to sources, this species has been under attack since approximately 1980, and is in danger of becoming extinct.

The middle class has apparently had its version of the American Dream stomped on and severely damaged by strong opponents. The attacks continue to this day, and the Middle Class is fighting for its life.

What shakes up when you wake up?

If it’s been feeling like an earthquake is happening even when the ground isn’t rocking, you are noticing the effects of huge change. This change is happening not just Out There but inside of you. You are in the process of waking up.

It’s time for a new way of doing business. The old structures are crumbling, mostly because we humans are done with them. We’ve learned what we created them to learn, and now we get to create new structures, and live in a new way, based on the information we have gleaned from the old.

When awareness dawns on you, is it like watching the sun rise?

Upon becoming aware, what had been hidden under cover of darkness is now fully exposed in the light. Once you see it, it’s hard to pretend that it doesn’t exist.

This awareness can be a welcoming thing, and it can be a sudden shock to your system. You may realize truths about yourself or other people that allow you to see things in a new way, and so you grow.

You might need to go through a period of mourning for what was, for your illusions about what existed. Being ‘disillusioned’ simply means you no longer have those illusions. Now you can work from a place of truth, of clarity and consciousness.

Many years ago, when I was in my 20's, my friends and I would talk about the revolution that was to come.

We believed that things weren't right, there was so much pain on earth, and that the coming revolution would make everything fair and peaceful.

Our picture was that things were going to change for the better on planet earth, someday.

We had a vague notion that life as we knew it would have to go away, so that a new way of being could come into existence, and that it might get messy first. But it would be totally worth it because life would become easier and more fair for the people who'd been suffering. Plus all the mean people would somehow go away too.

Each of us has experienced having our feelings hurt, whether it was unintentionally through another’s careless words and actions, or from someone who hurt us on purpose in order to see us suffer.

It’s hard to not take it personally when you feel mistreated and overlooked. It’s not fun to feel left out, ostracized, or insulted, no matter how old you are.

Not only does it hurt, it can cause you to doubt yourself, and to feel insecure about who you are.

If you’ve ever been excluded by your peers, family, schoolmates, workmates, or the society you come from, it can feel very personal.

The energy of love has great power to transform each human being on this planet.

So does the energy of hate.

In order to work its magic, love needs human beings to agree to have it, be it, become it.

In order to work its pain and terror, hate also needs human beings to agree to it, and to become it.

Love is a happy energy. The power of love is that it validates, soothes, heals, gives. Love is inclusive, community building, joyful.

Hate is miserable, closed minded, invalidating, divisive, sickening.

Consciousness is awareness. Deciding to be conscious is a choice.

Sometimes it seems like there is no reason to be optimistic, and that choosing optimism is a delusional act.

When you become aware of what's really going on around you, and allow yourself to finally see clearly, it can often seem bleak, at first. What's worse is that you might have to let go of some of your cherished illusions, the ones in which you really immersed yourself.

You may have to destroy old ways of seeing and being, if you want to become fully aware of what’s happening inside of you and around you. Destruction and disillusion are part of becoming conscious.

I am an optimist, happily so. I’ve been one my whole life, and expect to continue.

I feel fortunate and grateful that I tend to look on the sunny side, even when there’s nothing but clouds. If the glass looks empty, I have no doubt it’ll fill up again. This attitude has brought me many blessings and happy things, as well as more reasons to be optimistic.

Just because I choose optimism as my default setting, doesn’t mean I’m there all the time, not by a long shot. And it doesn’t mean I’m not afraid. 

Some days I wake up and find it necessary to sweep and sculpt myself back into a happier shape, bit by bit.

The freedom to be healthy in body, mind, spirit, to have health on all levels of being, is all about spiritual freedom.

It begins in your spirit. There are certain freedoms we each take for granted in our lives each day.

While you would certainly defend your right to make your own choices, because they are a given for you, there may be other places where you haven't yet freed yourself. Spiritual freedom is the first step.