Letting go of the old you

The transition from ego-based to heart based consciousness progresses along a number of stages:

1.	Being unsatisfied by what ego-based consciousness has to offer you, longing for ‘something else’: the beginning of the end.
2.	Becoming aware of your ties to ego-based consciousness, recognizing and releasing the emotions and thoughts that go with it: the middle of the end.
3.	Letting the old ego-based energies inside you die, throwing off the cocoon, becoming your new self: the end of the end.
4.	The awakening of a heart-based consciousness within you, motivated by love and freedom; helping others making the transition.

We will now speak of stage three. But before we do, we wish to point out that the transition does not take place along a straight and linear pathway. There are moments in which you fall back to a stage you already left behind. But such a fallback may later on lead you to a big step forward. So detours may turn out to be shortcuts. Also, every soul’s spiritual path is unique and individual. So, this scheme we are providing you with, of four different stages, should be conceived as simply a way of highlighting some of the turning points in the process. Schemes and categories are merely instruments that make visible a reality that cannot be captured by the mind (the mental part of you).

After you have accepted your inner wounds and you have healed the traumatized parts of your consciousness, as we have described in the previous chapter, your energy shifts. You are letting go of an older you. You are making room for a totally different way of being and experiencing. In this chapter, we would like to explain what happens energetically when you release ego-centered consciousness. What happens energetically when you move from ego domination to heart-based consciousness is that the heart chakra takes precedence over the will or the third chakra.

Chakras are spinning wheels of energy located along your spine. These energy centres are all related to particular life-themes, for example ‘spirituality’ (crown chakra), ‘communication’ (throat chakra), or ‘the emotions’ (navel chakra). The chakras are to some extent part of material reality, since they are related to specific places in your body. But they are not visible to the physical eye, so you might say they linger in between spirit and matter; they bridge the gap. They form the point of entrance for spirit (your soul consciousness), enabling it to take physical form and create the things that are happening in your life.

The heart chakra, located in the middle of your breast, is very much the seat of the energy of love and oneness. The heart carries energies that unify and harmonize. When you draw your attention to this centre for a while, you may feel warmth or something opening up. If you do not feel anything, simply let go and perhaps try some other time.

The chakra below the heart is called ‘the solar plexus’ and it is located near your stomach. It is the seat of the will. It is the centre that focuses your energy into physical reality. Therefore, it is the chakra that is connected to issues of creativity, vitality, ambition and personal power.

The ego and the will are closely related to each other. The faculty of the will enables you to focus on something, either without or within. Your perceptions of reality, of both yourself and others, are greatly influenced by what you want, by your desires. Your desires are often intermingled with fear. You often want something because you feel you are in need of it; there is a sense of lack or neediness beneath. Because of the fears that are present in many of your desires, the solar plexus is often driven by the energy of the ego. The ego especially expresses itself through the solar plexus.

Through the faculty of the will, the ego literally puts a pressure on reality. Reality has to be squeezed into what the ego wants you to believe. The ego works from a set of basic assumptions about how reality works, which are all fear-based. It presents you with a highly selective picture of reality, since its way of looking is prejudiced towards its own needs and fears. Also, it has to place judgment on everything it notices. There is no room for simply taking note of things. Everything has to be divided in categories, to be labelled right or wrong.

When you live from the heart, there is no firm set of beliefs by which you interpret or value facts. You do not hold strong convictions on anything anymore. You have become more of an observer. You postpone moral judgments on any issue, since you feel you may not have understood all there is to understand about the situation. Judgments always have something definitive about them; but the heart is not interested in definitions. It always tries to go beyond what seems definite and defined. The heart is open, exploring, and ready to re-examine, ready to forgive.

When you use ego-centred will power, you can sense something pulling on your solar plexus chakra. Using your will in this way is an energetic happening, which you can be consciously aware of, if you want to. Whenever you feel this pull, accompanied by a strong desire to have things your way, you are trying to mold reality to your wishes. You are trying to force your beliefs upon reality.

When you act from the heart, you go along with the flow of things as it presents itself; you are not pushing or forcing.

If you work very hard to achieve something and you fail to reach your goals time after time, please ask yourself from what chakra, from what energetic centre, you are doing it. Also, you can tune into your heart and ask why this thing is not working or why you have to put so much energy into it.

Often you try to realize certain goals, without having truly gone within and checked with your heart whether this is what really serves you on your inner path to wisdom and creativity. Also, even if your goals do represent your deepest heart-felt desires, you may have unrealistic expectations about the timeframe in which things will happen. You may be on a time-line that is not of the heart but of the personal will.

There is a natural rhythm to all things, and it does not necessarily have the pace that you think is desirable. The realization of your goals requires energy to be shifted. Energy shifts often take more time than you expect or wish for. In fact, energy shifts are nothing else but you changing.

When you will have reached your goals, you will not be you anymore. You will have become an expanded version of your current self, filled with more wisdom, more love and more inner power. The time it takes to fulfil your goals is the time it takes to change your consciousness in such a way that your desired reality may enter your actual reality. So, if you want to speed up things, focus on you, and not so much on reality.

Often, you even need to let go of your goal, in order to be open to receive. This sounds paradoxical. But in fact we are saying only that you need to fully accept your current reality, before you can step forward into a new one. If you do not accept your current reality, and you are holding onto your goals in a tense way, you are not moving forward.

Nothing will leave your reality, unless you love it. Loving it is equal to “setting it free”.

Unless you truly embrace your current reality and accept it as your creation, it cannot leave you, for you are denying part of yourself. You are saying “no” to the part of you that has created this reality for you. You would like to cut this unwanted part from you and move forward.

But you cannot create a more loving reality from self-hate. You cannot “will yourself” into a new reality by pushing unwanted parts aside. Will-power does not serve you here.

What you need is to get in touch with your heart. The energies of understanding and acceptance are the true building blocks of a new and more fulfilling reality.

When you interact with reality from the heart, you let reality be. You do not try to change it; you simply and carefully take note of what is.

When the heart becomes the steward of your being, the centre of the will (solar plexus) will go along with it. The ego (or the faculty of the will) will not be eliminated, since it naturally serves the role of translating energy from the level of consciousness to the level of physical reality. When this translation or manifestation is guided by the heart, the energy of the will creates and flows effortlessly. No pushing or forcing is involved. This is when synchronicity occurs: a remarkable coincidence of happenings, which greatly enhances the realisation of your goals. It seems miraculous to you when things work together in such a way. But in fact this is what happens all the time when you create from the heart. Effortlessness is the hallmark of creating from the heart.

Creating your reality from the heart

True creativity is not based on determination and strong will but on an open heart. Being open and receptive to the new and unknown is vital to being a true creator.

One key to true creativity, then, is the capacity to do nothing: to withhold from doing, fixing, focusing. It is the ability to place your consciousness in a purely receptive but alert mode.

Only by not knowing, by keeping things open, can you create room for something new to enter your reality.

This runs contrary to what much new age literature says about ‘creating your own reality’. It is true that you create your reality all the time. Your consciousness is creative whether you are aware of it or not. But when you want to create your reality consciously, as many books and therapy teach you to, it is essential to understand that the most powerful form of creating is not based on the will (being active) but on self-awareness (being receptive).

All change in the material world, for example in the area of work, relationship or your material surroundings, is a reflection of changes at the inner level. It is only when inner transformation processes are completed that material reality can respond by mirroring it back to you through changing circumstances in your life.

When you try to create from the will, for example by focusing on or visualising your goals all the time, you ignore the inner transformation that is the real prerequisite for change. You are creating in an artificial way, and are bound to be disappointed. You are not creating from the depth of your soul.

The soul speaks to you in moments of silence. You truly listen to its voice when you don’t know anymore. Often, the soul speaks very clearly at times when you give up and throw in the towel. What happens when you give up and despair is that you open up to the new. You release all your expectations, and you are truly receptive to what is.

The despair is caused by the strong beliefs that you had about what should happen in your life. When reality fails to answer these beliefs, you get disappointed and even desperate at some point.

However, if you give up strong expectations and dare to be open to the new, you do not have to reach that point of despair before you get in touch with your soul again. You can become still, receptive and open to what it tells you, without having to be disappointed first.

As long as you ‘know exactly what you want’, you are often limiting the possibilities that are energetically available to you. This new reality you are looking for, whether it is a job or a relationship or better health, contains many elements that are unknown to you. Often you think that what you desire is something you know (a nice job, a loving partner), projected into the future. But that is not so. What you are really doing by creating a new reality is going outside of your own - psychological - borders. And you cannot know now what lies beyond those borders.

You can sense very clearly that there is something very desirable there, but you need not narrow it down by focusing or visualizing it. You can simply look forward to it with a sense of openness and curiosity.

Really, to create the most desirable reality for yourself, self-acceptance is much more important than focusing your thoughts or your will. You cannot create something that you are not. You may recite mantras a thousand times and create a lot of positive images in your mind, but as long as they do not reflect what you truly feel (for example anger, depression, unrest), they create nothing but confusion and doubt. (“I’m working so hard but nothing happens”).

Self-acceptance is a form of love. Love is the biggest magnet for positive changes in your life. If you love and accept yourself for who you are, you will attract circumstances and people that reflect your self-love. It is as simple as that.

Feel your own energy, all of your feelings. Feel how beautiful and sincere you are right now, in all of your struggles and sorrow. You ARE beautiful, with all your ‘imperfections’ and ‘faults’. And that is the only realization that counts.

Embrace who you are, get relaxed with yourself, perhaps look at ‘your many flaws’ with a sense of humour. Perfection is not an option you know. It is just an illusion.

Creating your reality from the heart is to recognize your Light, here and now. By recognizing it, by becoming aware of it, you are sowing a seed that will grow and take shape at the physical level.

When God created you as individual souls, she did not exert her Will. She was simply being Herself and at some point sensed that there was something ‘out there’ worth exploring. She didn’t know exactly what it was, but it did make her feel a little like falling in love. And she assumed without further ado that she was worthy of experiencing this new and inviting reality. She was also a little in love with herself!

And so you took shape as individual souls and God started to experience life through you. How this all came about - the details of the creation process - God did not really bother about. She just loved herself and she was open to change. And those are really the only elements required for you to create your own perfect reality: self-love and willingness to venture into the new.

Adjusting to living from the heart

Creating from the heart is more powerful and requires less effort than creating from the ego. You do not have to bother about the details; you just need to be open to all there is, both inside and outside.

From this openness, you may now and then sense a certain pull. You may feel drawn toward certain things. This pull is actually the quiet whisper of your heart; it is your intuition. When you act from intuition, you are being pulled instead of pushing. You do not act until you sense on the inner level that it is appropriate to act.

Since you are very much used to pushing, i.e. using your will to create things, the energetic shift from ego to heart is quite challenging for you. The shift requires a tremendous ‘slow down’. To really get in touch with the flow of your intuition, you consciously have to make an effort to “not do”, to let everything be. This runs counterintuitive to much that you are taught and are used to. You are very much in the habit of basing your actions upon thought and willpower. You let your thinking determine your goals and you use your will to realize them. This is quite opposite to heart-centered creating.

When you live from the heart, you listen to your heart and then act accordingly. You do not think, you listen, with an alert and open awareness, to what your heart tells you. The heart speaks through your feelings, not through your mind. The voice of the heart can best be heard when you feel quiet, relaxed and grounded.

The heart shows you the way to the most loving and joyful reality for you right now. Its whispers and suggestions are not based on rational thinking. You can recognize the voice of the heart by its lightness and the note of joy in it. The lightness is there because the heart does not impose; there are no strings attached to its suggestions. Your “heart-self” is not attached to your decisions and it loves you whatever you do.

Living from the heart does not mean you become passive or lethargic. Letting things be, without labelling them right or wrong, without pushing them in one way rather than another, requires a lot of strength. It is the strength to be totally present, to face everything there is and just look at it. You may feel empty, or depressed, or nervous, but you do not try to drive these things away. All you do is surround them with your consciousness.

You do not understand the true power of your consciousness. Your consciousness is made of Light. When you hold something in your consciousness, it changes because of that. Your consciousness is a healing force, if you do not bind it by your thinking and your addiction to ‘doing’.

Your lives are filled with the dictatorship of the mind and the will, the primacy of thinking and doing.

Note that both the mind and the will work with general rules. There are general rules of logical thinking; they are the rules of logic. There are general strategies for putting thought into matter; they are the rules of “project management”.

But these are all general tenets. General guidelines and rules always have a mechanical component. They are applicable to all or most individual cases, otherwise they would be of little use.

Now, intuition works very differently. Intuition is always tailored to one person, at one particular moment. It is highly individualistic. Therefore it cannot be subjected to rational analysis or to general rules.

To live and act according to your intuition therefore asks for a high level of trust, for your choices are then purely based on what you feel is right, instead of what other people’s rules say that is right.

To live from the heart thus asks you not just to release the habit of overusing your mind and your will-power; it also challenges you to truly trust yourself.

It will take time to learn to listen to your heart, to trust its messages and act upon them. But the more you do, the more you understand that it is only by surrendering your worries and doubts to the wisdom of your own heart, that you will find inner peace.

When you proceed along this path, and you enter the third stage of the transformation from ego to heart, you will find inner peace for the first time. You realize that it is the urge to control reality through thinking and willing that makes you restless and anxious.

When you release control, you allow the magic of life to unfold. All you have to do is listen. Be alert to what is happening in your life, to what your feelings are towards other people, to what your dreams and desires are. When you are alert to what is happening inside of you, reality will provide you with all the information you need to act appropriately.

For example, you may be aware of a desire in your heart for a loving relationship, in which you truly communicate with another. If you just notice and accept this longing, without trying to do something about it, you will be amazed about how the universe will respond to it. By not drawing any conclusions, but just holding the longing in the Light of your consciousness, your call will be heard and answered.

It may take longer than your expect, for there are energy shifts that have to take place before certain longings can be fulfilled. But you are the master, the creator of your energetic reality.

If you create it from fear, reality will respond accordingly. If you create it from faith and surrender, you will receive everything you desire and more.

© Pamela Kribbe www.jeshua.net