CHAPTER ONE:

YOU ARE DIVINE

You were born completely whole.

There was nothing lacking, nothing not good enough, nothing you needed to strive for.

By simply existing, you were perfect.

Even better, you came into the world completely open. You entered this new realm

bursting forward with absolutely no ideas formed about who you are, no judgements about the

people present in your life, and no demands on your environment. You existed simply to explore

and understand yourself and the world around you.

In those very early days, you were focused on simple things: where your food source was

coming from and how comfortable or uncomfortable your environment was. You experienced

those comforts or discomforts as they came with no stories attached as to why they were

happening to you.

If your mom was an hour late to nurse you, you felt the hunger pangs and you cried out in

discomfort, but you didn’t draw any conclusions. There was no: “Maybe my needs don’t matter,”

or “Maybe she doesn’t care enough,” or “Maybe I’m not loveable enough.” You had no

judgment. As soon as you were fed, you moved on from your discomfort, completely content to

take in the next moment.

From the outside looking in, your parents probably saw you as small and defenseless,

your eyes searching to understand, your face scrunched up at the sensation of something new.

From their perspective, that was all there was to you: a newborn baby in need of their care.

But you knew better.On the inside, you were privy to a rich world. One where there wasn’t just you, a

newborn baby with only a connection to your parents. On the inside, there was a whole expanse

of energy that made up the essence of you. A knowing and powerful aspect that was far wiser an

entity than what your parents could see on the outside: your soul.

Here’s maybe where I should tell you what a soul is, from my perspective:

When we are born, we manifest into a physical form on this planet as a function of our

soul. Our soul is our intangible form wanting to experience life, which is a tangible experience.

Our soul is perpetually in search of tangible experiences so that it can learn and continue to

expand from those lessons and experiences. Our souls only desire expansion. The only way

for our soul to get those experiences is through a tangible form, your body.

You are not your body; your body is the home your soul inhabits so it can have the

tangible experiences it needs in order to grow. But when you land here, you forget, through a lot

of conditioning, what your soul wanted to manifest to experience in the first place.

This is where your intuition comes in.

Intuition is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as:

“the ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning.”

Throughout the ages, philosophers like Plato, Descartes, Sri Aurobindo, and Carl Jung have

contemplated intuition. While their definitions and applications vary, all tend to agree that

intuition is a “pre-existing” knowledge and connected to “greater consciousness.” Intuition is the

knowing we have that we just can’t explain.

In my view, intuition is your soul’s GPS. Always sending you directions that fulfill your

soul’s desires. Intuition whispers, guides, and pushes without being too frightening or

overbearing, by simply placing a knowing into you that you can’t explain.

Okay we took a quick detour, but now, let’s get back to little you.

You’re pretty cute and you’ve been waiting so patiently to get your story told.

Your parents look down at your sweet

baby face and believe you are simply mush, giggles, and dirty diapers.

But without them

knowing, your littlest self and an older, wiser part of you are working quite well together. Your

intuition would push you to experience without abandon – taste this, touch that, stare at the other.

You without doubt or question would comply. This harmony between the part of you living out

the experience and the part driving you toward those experiences existed effortlessly, and

without question.

During this time, taking in the world was your only job, and you used two methods to

understand your new surroundings: tactically and through energy. The tactile experience gave

you a sense of what the new world looked and felt like in a very tangible way; the prickliness of

Dad's beard as he holds you, the smell of Mom’s skin as she nurses you, the soft fur of the dog

who can’t get enough of you.

The energetic experience was a little more nuanced but just as powerful. As an infant

without the ability to communicate through language, your senses were heightened. You were

more easily able to sense the energy of the room, to pick up on the feelings of others. Studies

show that infants become attuned to the emotions of those around them within their first year of

life, a critical capability for their survival.

At this stage in your life, this unspoken, energetic connection between you and your

caregiver was important to your sense of the world. What’s most magical, though, is that you

experienced the energy of others without forming any ideas about yourself based on what they giving.

This is key. The energy you may have felt, whether that was stress, sadness, calm,

happiness, anger, or worry from your caretakers was simply information with no bearing on who

you were.

This ability to take in these encounters without experiencing them as having to do with

you is directly thanks to the much louder inner dialogue happening inside you. Your intuition

was forcefully saying Keep going, keep experiencing, you are perfect as you are. Even though

your intuition will continue to whisper this your entire life, this is the moment of greatest

connection because the signal is clean, clear of any interference from the outside world. Your

brand-new self has this quality of being openly curious, unencumbered by the feelings or ideas of

another.

Intuition comes into this world with you taking its job very seriously, pushing you

towards expansion so you can better understand who you are and why you are here. Remember

that this part of you is fully entwined with you as you begin to experience the world. As it pushes

you to experience without limit, it is not registering the perception of others. This creates a vast

openness to experience life without judgment. As you grow out of infanthood into learning to

crawl and walk, you do exactly that with an abundance of enthusiasm and joy. Toddlerhood.

Now you can really move! Your ability to experience everything just

exploded, and, man, are you ready to follow the voice of your Higher Self into more experiences

as your physical and mental capabilities expand. Great! Right? Well, for you, yes, it’s amazing,

but unfortunately, this growth of yours can be met with a different energy from those around

you. As you begin to take in the world around you, you are filled with energy, joy, and new

ideas. This makes you talkative, hyper, excitable. Chasing you around, listening to your musings,

may get a little exhausting for the adult on the other end. Even though you aren’t aware of it at

this stage, the adults around you are often conditioned to label this exuberance in negative ways.

Does the term “terrible twos” sound familiar?

Right now, you’re excited to get your little hands on everything. You’re more curious and

awed by the wonders all around you than ever. You go outside and are blown away by a tiny

blade of grass and how the little ladybug can flutter from that grass onto your fingertips. You

look up at the sky, and, in the clouds, you see an entire world that engrosses you completely.

Everything else fades away.

Your imagination is bursting into Technicolor during this time. The physical plane and

the world in your beautiful little mind merge and suddenly trees could come to life at any

second! Birds could swoop down and fly you way up into those fluffy clouds. It's all so exciting

that you have to share this experience! Your little self is wondering, “Are you people seeing

this?!”

So, you begin to share this fantastical world with those around you. As you find words,

you excitedly spew all that you’re seeing and feeling. You look up at the person you’ve just let

into your world ready and excited for them to join you, to encourage you to continue this wide-

eyed creation of your world.

When I first met my stepson, the youngest of the four in our blended family, he was

three. One weekend, we went to visit my in-laws in Lake Tahoe, and I watched as he climbed

over the rocks in the nearby creek, looked around seriously, zeroed in on a spot, and hunkered

down on a big rock in the middle of the running water.

An hour later, I came back to the window to find him still there, completely engrossed.

You could see his little lips moving excitedly, his hands outstretched at something I couldn’t see.

There was definitely something going on in that

creek, and I needed to know what it was.

I walked outside, climbed over those rocks, and sat next to him.

“What’s happening out here, Quinn?”

He looked up at me, eyes wide with some mix of excitement and terror and whispered his

secret: the people in the tiny Village of the Rock needed his help - a monster was after them. I

was there just in time. Could I help him build the fort these tiny rock people so desperately

needed? Would I help him protect them?

Who could turn down such an important mission? Not me.

I got to work immediately, and, in doing so, I completely abandoned my own reality so

that I could take him up on his offer to enter his.

We worked hard that morning. We built a rock fort so solid no monster could ever break

through, and, as we worked, I asked him every question I could think of about this tiny world.

The more I asked, the more this world expanded with more intricate details and exciting events. I

could see it then: his little self and his great big soul engaged in limitless creation. His eyes

widened with every question, his excitement spilled over, he opened up more, shared even more

of what was happening inside with me. This was his reaction to being fully witnessed as his

truest self.

Who was that person who met your wonder and curiosity with their own? Was there one

particular person you can think of – a parent, teacher, or sibling – who celebrated your joy? Or if

you didn’t have someone available in their immediate orbit, did you form a sort of parasocial relationship with a public figure

– an actor, singer, athlete, and on – whose gifts mirrored your own?

We’ll call this person the cheerleader. At first, they are here to greet your wonder with

their own, to encourage your soul’s awe-filled curiosity in whatever direction it meanders.

However, soon that curiosity will be attracted less towards a person and more towards specific

things. A skill, like putting paint on paper (or the walls). Dance. Caretaking animals. Music.

Soccer. Math. Cooking. Reading book after book. Your gifts begin to show up early. This person

who was so important to you saw you or your gifts truly and made an effort to draw those gifts

out and support you on your path.

Your cheerleader did this by just noticing your gift. Maybe they commented on it or

encouraged it. Maybe your mother saw how much you loved to read. She signed you up for the

summer program at the library and took you on special trips to Barnes and Noble. Books became

treasures, and new worlds opened to you. Maybe you were a performer, and you had an aunt or

uncle tell you that you have a beautiful voice. Maybe they even invited you to sing in the car

together. This person encouraged and celebrated your gift.

I have a client who is an artist. Their grandmother would paint with them - but not

prescribe what needed to be on the canvas. This is an important distinction. When they were

three, they distinctly remember that their grandmother would just give them a blank canvas and

paint. Everything they made, their grandmother would spend time really examining the art. She

took their work seriously, asking them about their composition and color choices. What an

empowering conversation to have with a three-year-old! By giving them credit for the genius

they were showing as a tiny child, their gift was nurtured. That curiosity and creativity bursting

forth from my client’s young self, found an outlet that allowed it to keep growing.

This is a key point of your development: at this stage, you’re always striving to be seen.

And if you’re not, you still find a way. You’re so fucking resilient that, even if you’re not seen

by the person around you, you find a way to get that flame lit, even if you’re looking to heroes in

books or TV. As you look around to find confirmation that your desires and curiosities are

worthy and shared, that feeling of being seen or reflected in others is a reminder that your

intuition is there and being celebrated.

When your intuition was in charge, it began to dream without limits. This is one of the

beauties of your toddler self. Your dreams were astronomically big – perhaps even comically to

the adults around you. Maybe you wanted to be an astronaut, or you wanted to be the next

Whitney Houston, or you wanted to cure cancer and learn how to fly. Maybe you wanted to be

President and play for the Dodgers, at the same time. Your tiny self has a bigness to it that takes

up so much space. Do you remember that giddiness? That sense of possibility? You name a

dream, and your intuition says, Why not? You are animated at every moment by possibility.

That’s what intuition is: a powerful belief and the ability to chase your dreams without fear.

Think of a flower. When you see a flower growing out of the ground, it emanates

beauty - colorful, delicate, and sweet-smelling. This is us when we are connected to source.

When you pick that flower to bring it home and make it yours, immediately that flower begins to

wilt. This is us being separated from source to join our families. If you take that flower home by

carefully digging it up to plant it in a pot, lovingly water it every day, and put it in the sunlight,

chances are that flower will continue to flourish. This is us when we come into families that take

our care seriously.

But what happens if instead, you take the flower home, leave it out on the counter and forget about it, what happens to the flower?

Slowly it begins to shrivel, its beautiful, colorful petals turning brown, mold growing around the stem. The flower begins to decay.

This is us when our care is completely ignored. But, as the flower continues to decompose, does its

material change? Does it become something different, or is it, in its essence, still a flower? This

is how love works. We are love, even when we are left to rot.

My hope is that you were surrounded by these cheerleaders that saw your truth and

helped you continue to run toward it. What I know is that, unfortunately, and through no

malicious intent, the adults around you at this critical moment are most likely trapped in a

hurricane of their own stresses, worries, and pain. At times, this most likely made them

unavailable and unable to see your soul expressing itself through you. When those adults met

your fantastical world of expansion, they may have shut it down. Hard.

Let’s say you are enamored by the way the birds are flying at the park and begin zooming

around like a bird. Smack - you run right into Dad, who’s exhausted from his soul-sucking job

or Mom, who is drained after a day of trying to do it all. You are busy being the best bird you

can be, and all they want to do is go home. What might they do or say when you run headlong

into them?More than likely? “That’s enough! It’s time to go now.”

Boom.

Instead of a sense of wonder, suddenly you begin to feel something new –

something darker, something far more limiting.

In that moment, you experience their reaction as being directly related to your actions.

You are completely unaware that their inner world isn’t filled with the same magic and wonder

that inhabits you. You don’t know yet that they have forgotten that magic, that they are

disconnected from that wise loving voice, their intuition.

You assume that their stern impatience is full of just as much connection to their truth as your boisterous

excitement and desire to express yourself freely. Therefore, you must have done something wrong to provoke their anger.

For the first time in your little life, you experience something new: shame. Reality comes crashing down.

That rejection doesn’t always have to be outright either. Those adults who are pulled into

their own world of fear or anxiety might reject your truth in more subtle ways. They may not pay

attention to you, they may respond to your excitement with dismissiveness, sending you the

message that your wonderous inner world doesn’t matter. Or, guided by cynicism they’ve built

over a lifetime of hurt, they’ll want to bring you back down to “reality” to protect you.

They might tell you that what you’re perceiving is not real and spend time explaining

their reality to make sure you value intelligence over imagination. They might begin to assign

value judgements to the way you spend time based on their handed down beliefs about success or

being good. For example, maybe instead of spending hours getting muddy and tracking in a mess

into the house, you should be sitting with a puzzle or doing something more intellectual, quieter,

and more in line with their version of “good.”

As you were transported back to those days of wonder, how did it feel to be abruptly

thrown into a reminder about shame? Did it feel sudden? Did it feel unfair? Did you feel

confused? If so, then you are reliving what little you felt when first coming into contact with this

sort of rejection. This feels intense because the introduction of shame was the first disconnect

from your Higher Self. You know those whispers from intuition? They were coming from

somewhere far bigger this whole time; your Higher Self is actually the one that’s been in

dialogue with you from the moment you were born.

Understanding Your Higher Self

Your Higher Self is the aspect of you that is connected to all of consciousness. It is your

biggest, most expansive, universal self. It is the you that directs, empowers, and enlightens your

soul’s journey through lifetimes as it grows to understand itself and its connection to all that is.

Your Higher Self is the aspect of you that represents deep wisdom and love. It is the clear,

timeless, deeply knowing aspect that is connected to your divinity, or that from which you came.

Some people define that from which you came as God, others call it Lord, Jesus,

Universe, Source, The Divine, Pure Consciousness; and that’s the beauty of it, you can call it

whatever you want, it doesn’t change its essence.

At its core this is the energy of pure, unwavering and unconditional love. From that love,

creation is possible. Creation of life, experience, and growth. We are all a part of this energy, this

consciousness. It is in us, we are it, it is us. Which makes us of course, unlimited in our potential.

Your Higher Selfis your reminder. It is your truth. It is what you are. Enough. Powerful.

Loving. Wise. Connected. This is you, at your truest essence. All that it wants, or that you want,

is for your soul to experience its desires in the time it has here.

This quality of not being weighed down by the meaning of your experiences, is another

reason this part of you is called your Higher Self. It’s not a judgment on the other pieces of you

that develop over time, it just simply means it is you when you are vibrating at your highest,

purest frequency.

Your Higher Self is like a balloon that is able to float freely; it does not allow experiences

to create stories that weigh it down. It is focused fully on your soul’s desire to experience the

things that will allow you to express the fullness of you, or, in other words, your truth.

Beyond experiencing, remember that your Higher Self has a very clear job: to guide you toward your

soul’s purpose, the reason your soul took the form of a body. It does this through a very specific

language: your intuition. That whisper you were hearing all along, that was your Higher Self

guiding you toward your expansion.

But you need love. So, as your sense of wonder and joy run up against the emotions and

reactions of your caregivers, your soul’s reason for becoming embodied begins to fade, and so

does your ability to access openness and joy as directed by your Higher Self.

Whatever it is that causes it, the shutdown has happened. Your sense of childlike wonder

begins to fade. You begin to see that your world and the world of those you rely on for safety

and love are quite different.

Now, instead of an invitation to expand, you are met with a choice: to keep the love and

protection of the people you so desperately need by accepting their version of reality, or to

remain engrossed in your inner world.

Not really a choice, is it?

You must let go of the inner push to expand into your truth through joy and without

judgment. You begin to see that you have to abandon this great world of beauty and exploration

within to slowly turn your back and walk towards the world of the adults around you so that you

can get what you need to survive.

With that, you disentangle your little fingers from that deep, wise, Higher Self, your

truest self, because suddenly it is dangerous. Suddenly, this voice is making you choose things

that the ones you need don’t agree with.

You give that limitless part of you one last look, and then you turn and begin to walk

towards a new world, a world defined almost completely without you in mind.

EXPLORATION: REVISITING YOUR CHILDHOOD

Take a moment to find a quiet space, and bring with you a favorite writing tool and

something on which you can write.

Close your eyes and take three deep breaths. As you take your third deep breath, bring

into your mind’s eye yourself as a three- or four- or five-year-old. Observe what you’re doing.

Where are you? Who’s around? What are you doing? How are you feeling in this moment? What

do you want? Are you getting it? If not, how are you reacting? If so, how are you feeling?

Now ask yourself this question : what is something that I remember feeling excited about

at this age? Or what was I excited about right here and now in this moment? Just allow your

mind’s eye to play this out for you, almost like an old home movie. Just witness and experience

what you’re seeing.

The question again is: what was I most excited about? What was bringing me joy?

After you’ve spent a few minutes there watching this inner home movie, take five

minutes (or as long as you’d like) to write what that experience was. This exercise will be helpful

as we work through the rest of this method, so hold on to this writing as we’ll revisit it later.