I don’t sing.

I rarely listen to music, I don’t have many CD’s and I thought all that was perfectly okay, until last weekend when I sang a song that changed me…

When I was young I was part of a 4H Sewing Club. At the end of each year, we put on a performance of skits and songs. During one rehearsal, a 4H leader said one of us was ruining the song. Although there were about 40 of us there, she singled out three of us in one corner and told us to sing solo. I was one of them. After I sang, she told me not to sing anymore and to only ‘mouth the words’ from then on.

I was such a vulnerable kid that her comment easily shamed me. I looked at everyone looking at me and I remember thinking that I didn’t want to ever let anyone hear me sing again. And I kept my word to myself for a long, long time. I did sing sometimes but mostly when I was alone and to very loud music.

Then, over 25 years later, when Gabrielle was three days old, Marcel bought her the movie Dumbo. I had never seen Dumbo before and I cried when I watched the love that mother elephant had for her baby. She sang a song to her baby that was so sweet and meaningful to me, that I rewound the movie a thousand times until I wrote down all the words. Then I began to sing it to my little Gabi every day.

With Gabi, I decided that I would break my rule of never singing without loud music to hide behind. I wanted her to hear my love for her and I wanted her to never be ashamed of her voice. When she was two, she loved Scooby Doo. So I sat there, every episode, writing down the words to the theme song. Then we would sing it together. I knew I couldn’t sing but I thought that it didn’t matter how I sounded because I was singing FOR HER.

Last weekend I went to a workshop called ‘The Mastery of Self Expression.’ We were asked to perform a ‘monologue’ about something meaningful to us, where we gave 100% of ourselves. I had to decide whether I wanted to just get through this experience or if I wanted to do it with all my heart.

An old song came to my mind and it instantly brought tears to my eyes. I had found my monologue. I went on stage, took a deep breath and then belted out one verse of that song that means so much to me…

Whispering pines, whispering pines,
Tell me, is it so?
Whispering pines, whispering pines,
You’re the one who knows,
My darling’s gone, oh, he’s gone,
And I need your sympathy,
Whispering pines, bring my baby back to me.

I croaked at one point and cried through much of it but I sang it from the very depths of my heart and soul.

This was my song for my brother Gene. He and I use to sing it at parties when we were younger and when death was something that was just so far away. And now I sang it FOR HIM.

It has been eight year since Gene is gone and I still miss him so much. And it was only my deep love for him that could make me go up on that stage and sing solo in front of so many people. My love for him was greater than my shame over my imperfect voice.

And you know what happened when it was over? I wasn’t ashamed of my voice anymore. I was SO pleased with myself. Something changed in me when I sang that song for him in front of all of those people. I came face to face with my insecurity and I reconciled within myself that it was more important for me to be real and express my love/feelings than it was for me to be perfect and acceptable. And it was so liberating! I felt like a huge burden had been lifted from me.

The other thing I noticed is that my voice sounded different afterwards. It seemed to be richer and have more resonance, especially when I laughed.

A day after this workshop, I went for a walk down our walking trail in Morinville. I was remembering the power of that moment when I sang Whispering Pines to Gene, and I wondered if he heard me. Then, I looked down and I saw a beautiful raven’s feather. I picked it up and cried. I’ve been walking down this trail for almost a year now and I’ve NEVER seen one feather. For me, feathers are a sign from the spirit world. It is a sign that they’ve heard what I just said/thought and that this moment is a very significant one.

Sing your own song, your own way. Be true to yourself. The Universe is listening.

Connie

Connie: I am so thrilled to be talking to Gary Zukav and Linda Francis today. Gary is the author of many books, including The Dancing Wu Li Masters, An Overview Of The New Physics (William Morrow 1979), which he won the American Book Award for Science in 1979 and The Seat of the Soul (Fireside 1989), which became the number one New York Times Best Seller 31 times and stayed on that list for three years. Incredible!

Since then he has had other best sellers including, Soul Stories (Simon & Schuster 2000) and The Heart of the Soul: Emotional Awareness (Fireside 2001) and The Mind of the Soul: Responsible Choice (Simon & Schuster 2004) both co-written with his partner, Linda Francis. His newest book is Soul To Soul (Free Press 2007). His books have sold six million copies and are published in 24 languages.

I can remember reading The Seat of the Soul years ago and seeing Gary on Oprah. He has become one of the most respected authorities on self discovery and spiritual growth and we are so fortunate to have Gary and Linda coming to host a workshop on ‘Relationships and the Spiritual Path’ on September 13th and 14th in Edmonton. (For more information about the workshop, go to www.lmspiritualevents.com or www.seatofthesoul.com.)

Welcome Gary and Linda! There are so many questions that I would love to ask you both today, but I would like to focus on the subject of relationships and spiritual partnerships. First, what is the purpose of relationships from a spiritual perspective and what is spiritual partnership?

Gary: The purpose of relationships from a spiritual perspective is to grow spiritually and that means to become someone who is more emotionally aware, more able to choose responsibly, more able to consult intuition, more able to use his or her experiences, including the most painful experiences, in order to create a life of meaning and joy and purpose and fulfillment.

A spiritual partnership specifically is a partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth.

Linda: So, Connie, for me, I would say that spiritual growth is learning about yourself, taking responsibility for who you are and giving your gifts. Whereas many people, including myself, have parts that would rather change other people and have them be different than they are and have expectations, and those are the things we help people learn when they become spiritual partners.

In other words, when Gary and I became spiritual partners, we decided to help each other when we see that there are parts of us that want to change the other person. We talk about it openly. So that’s just to give you a little idea of what spiritual partnership is.

Connie: I want ask what is the difference between our soul and our personality? Because it seems to me that it’s our personality part of us that creates our problems in relationships.

Gary: Your personality is that part of you that was born in time and will die in time. It’s the part of you that carries your name. It is not only what psychologists call a personality, which means your affect and cognition and perception, but in addition to that it’s your body and it’s your intuitional structure, which means the way that you understand or the way that you hear or register intuition.

When you say it’s the personality part of us that creates our problems in our relationships, now we get to the real core of spiritual growth through relationship. And really there isn’t any other way to grow spiritually. Of course, you have to do the inner working yourself, but it’s your relationships that bring your attention to what you need to do the inner work on.

Your personality is not your enemy. Your personality is not your obstacle. Your personality is an energy tool that your soul has adapted in order to learn in the domain of time and space and matter and duality. In other words, that is experiencing. It is the part of your soul that is experiencing physicalness in order to evolve. Your personality is not a single thing. It has a lot of different parts. It has different aspects or facets.

For example, there are parts of your personality that are angry and jealous or resentful or that feel superior or inferior or that can’t stop eating or drinking or masturbating or shopping or smoking or looking for sex or gambling.

And there’s parts of your personality that are kind and patient and considerate and caring. Generally all of these parts of your personality can be put into two baskets or generic categories: love and fear. The parts of your personality that are angry, resentful, jealous, enraged, etc., those are in the category of fear and the parts of your personality that are kind and considerate and caring and patient and grateful and content and fulfilled, those are the parts of your personality that are in the generic category of love.

Now we come back to your question. You said it seems that the personality is the problem when it comes to relationships, but it’s not. It’s our vehicle for growing spiritually. The turbulence in your relationships are caused by the frightened parts of your personality.

The parts of your personality, in other words, that feel insecure, unworthy, that they don’t belong and in order to cover the pain of those – of powerlessness, that’s what really lies at the heart of this – in order to cover the pain of powerlessness these parts of your personality become angry or jealous or resentful and that causes turbulence in your relationships. But I’m using the word turbulence instead of problems because these are not problems.

As we evolve – and we are now – into a species that is not limited to the five senses, that is multi-sensory (it has the five senses and it is not limited only to those five senses) then we begin to see that the purpose of our interactions is to grow spiritually so the turbulence in your relationships point your attention sometimes unmistakably to parts of your personality that you need to heal in order to move into your full potential, the parts that are angry or jealous or resentful or out of control or obsessive or compulsive.

So, individuals in old type relationships, five sensory individuals, think there’s a problem when anger or jealousy or resentment shows up in a relationship. But spiritual partners look at those experiences and they use them to find the parts of themselves that they need to heal in order to move into their full potential. So, from the soul’s point of view, they are not problems. They are opportunities to grow.

Linda: In other words, in a relationship that is not a spiritual partnership if I feel angry or jealous or upset about things that you do, I would think it’s your problem and your fault and our relationship has problems.

But in a spiritual partnership I look at those reactions that I’m having and I try to do my best to change those in me instead of trying to change you or someone else.

Gary: That’s the heart of the matter. That’s the difference between creating external power, which is trying to change someone else so that you’ll feel better or safe or valuable, and changing yourself so that you won’t hurt when someone else does things that activate frightened parts of your personality.

In other words, what Linda is saying and she said it very clearly, is that in old type relationships I consider other people to be the reason that I’m angry, the reason that I’m hurting and I try to change them so that I won’t hurt anymore. But when I pursue authentic power, I don’t look at what triggered or activated a frightened part of my personality or a painful experience. I look at what got activated and that’s in me. It’s not in anyone else.

And then I turn my attention to it and I strive to change it permanently. I strive to pull these painful experiences out by the root. I don’t worry about changing someone else. I focus on changing myself and that’s the creation of authentic power. That’s what spiritual partners do. Remember, it’s partnership between equals for spiritual growth. Spiritual growth means creating authentic power.

Linda: Well, there’s so much we can say about this, Connie. We’ll just do our best to say as much as we can to support people. I hope they can come to the workshops and we can really go into it in depth and really experience what we’re talking about.

Connie: Do we choose our personalities before we are born to best match what our souls need to learn?

Gary: The ‘we’ that chooses is not the ‘we’ that is having this question and answer session. It is your soul that determines your personality. In other words, your personality is perfect for the mission that your soul is on. So for those of you that think your nose is too large or your breasts are too small or your hair should be a different color or you should be taller or shorter or bigger or more muscular or more curvy, know that whatever you were when you were born is perfect - perfect for what you need to accomplish.

Now, if frightened parts of your personality are not challenged by you, you may become very thin or you may become very heavy, but the point is your soul creates your personality.

Linda: You mean the frightened part of my personality may have control over me. In other words, if I let it (the frightened part of my personality that doesn’t feel good about myself) I may eat and eat and eat and get really, really heavy because I didn’t challenge that part of me.

Gary: That’s right. And none of the frightened parts of your personality feel good about you. But to use the example that Linda gave, if you become obese because you eat rather than look at the pain that you experience in your life so that you can change it, then don’t use what I’m saying as a justification that “because I’m obese that’s the way I should be because that’s what my soul chose.”

That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that your body is perfect for what you were born to accomplish, for giving the gifts that you were born to give.

Linda: Connie, I do want to say one thing. Everything that Gary and I are saying, we’re not asking anyone to believe this. In fact, we never ask people to believe what we’re saying. We know it’s the way we see things and we ask people to experiment. We don’t ask you to follow or think that what we say is it.

Anything that we talk about, we want you to experiment with it, if it’s true for you, and if it’s not true for you let that part go. Let’s just say that.

Connie: Okay, do we choose the most significant people in our life before we are born, like our parents and siblings and partners and children?

Gary: It’s not that simple, Connie. In one way the answer is yes, but it’s quite complex. For example, before you were born you have agreements with souls to support one another if certain conditions come into being. If certain conditions come into being then a certain individual or individuals will come into your life.

If other circumstances come into being, other people will appear. These different circumstances are created in the Earth school after your incarnation by the choices that you make. And no one knows in advance what choices you will make. You have free will and it’s with your free will that you create. You create continually so it’s not accurate to say that your mother and your father were destined to be your parents from before the time you were born because they were not ‘destined’ to meet one another.

They came into one another’s lives because of decisions, because of choices they each had made and those choices brought them together and they decided to become your parents or they decided to do whatever it is they did that made them your parents. So your parents are always the best parents you could have, given the wisdom of the choices that you make.

That’s not quite right in that it sounds as though some parents could be better than others. Let me put it this way - your parents are always the most challenging people in your life in many ways. Or, put yet another way, your opportunities to grow spiritually are always most abundant in your interactions with your parents, because you’ll find if you look at your interactions with your parents that those things that you need to change to heal in yourself in order to interact lovingly with your parents, are the same things that you need to heal in your life in order to move into your full potential.

Linda: I was just thinking, Connie, when Gary was talking, that it was so clear to me when I met Gary. I didn’t meet Gary until I was about 45 and I really saw how the different choices that I made allowed me to be in a position in my life where I could actually have a healthy relationship with someone and a spiritual partnership.

I had read The Dancing Wu Li Masters and The Seat of the Soul and they were such amazing books to me, very important to me. And when I met Gary and realized I was being connected with him, I realized at some point that it was because of choices that I had made because if I had made other choices we would have never met. And the same is true for him.

I don’t know if you’ve had the experience before or not, Connie, but that’s mine.

Connie: It’s very interesting. You’re making me think. It’s true. I kind of thought it was more destined, to be honest. So, you’re kind of surprising me with your answer and yet it makes a lot of sense. So, we could have had a lot of different parents, then?

Gary: The potential that exists before you in any moment is quite large. In other words, there are many possible futures that could come into being depending upon the choices that you make. You can look at it this way - metaphorically speaking, at each moment you stand before a series of doors and you will go through one of them, but you can’t go through all of them. You can only go through one door, and whenever you go through one door, the other doors close and the door you go through opens up a new room.

And in that room are more doors. So, it’s not a matter of saying you can make a right decision or a wrong decision. You make decisions. And those decisions have consequences. You can look at it in terms of cause and effect. That’s exactly what it is. Every choice is a cause and every cause creates effects.

So, it’s not accurate to say that you were destined to have one set of parents. Your life is much more complex than that, enormously complex. You could say there are infinite possibilities before you. Some of them have a very low probability of ever coming into being and some of them have a very high probability. In other words, you keep bringing them into being again and again and again, like when you get angry and keep reacting. But you have free will and you can always choose anew. In fact, you do always choose anew. Your option is to choose differently.

Connie: I want to have your comment on mirroring. When people are annoyed or angered or triggered by someone else, how is that a reflection of themselves?

Linda: Well, any time that we have reactions to anyone about anything, if we look really deeply into ourselves we’ll find that we have that in ourselves and it’s not completely healed or we wouldn’t be having that reaction about anything - whether you’re jealous of someone or you think that person is really not a very nice person or you think they’re acting superior.

If you look really deeply inside yourself, you’ll find that in you. I found that over and over again, Connie. I’m so grateful for that because it helps me when I have a reaction to step back and say: Okay, I’m having this reaction but I know that it has to do with me and not the other person. And I want to be able to interact with them in a healthy way. So I want to heal what’s going on so that I can speak and act in a healthy way toward that person instead of making them wrong or judging them.

Gary: So, what Linda is talking about is projection. The Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, studied this quite thoroughly and it is easy to understand that whatever you will not acknowledge in yourself (because it’s too shameful or painful) you will dislike and you will react to when you see it outside of yourself.

It’s very helpful to know this because that means whenever you see someone, for example, and you instantly dislike something about that person, look for what it is you dislike about that person in yourself and you will find it. And when you find it in yourself you will become compassionate. You’ll understand what that other person is feeling and you will no longer react. That’s called projection recall. And we use it a lot.

However, there is another way of looking at mirroring too and that’s the law of attraction. Like energy attracts like energy so if you are an angry person you will live in an angry world. If you’re a vengeful person you’ll attract vengeful people. If you’re a loving person you’ll attract loving people.

So, look around you and see what kind of people fill your world? Are they violent? Are they gentle? Are they angry? Are they frightened? In other words, you can begin to see what is in yourself by looking around you and considering that your world around you is a mirror. It’s symbolic. So, that’s a way of looking at mirroring also.

Connie: I want to know what you would define as an unhealthy relationship. For example, how do we know when we’re supposed to work out our differences in a relationship or when we should let go of a relationship?

Linda: That’s kind of a complicated question because an unhealthy relationship, how I would consider that, is when I’m not learning and growing myself.

Gary: It’s an unconscious relationship.

Linda: Yes, it’s unconscious so I’m not aware of what’s going on in me and the other person. People are in unhealthy relationships, meaning unconscious relationships, where they fight all the time and other people think why are they together? Well, they’re unconscious. But it’s more comfortable to stay in a relationship like that when you’re unconscious than to actually do something that is different because the familiar patterns continue to keep you in this relationship until you say I’m not doing that anymore; that’s not healthy for me. And so a lot of people say, I’m staying in my relationship even though it’s really bad because I have things to learn.

But you really have to decide. If you’re being abused or if you’re not being treated well in some ways, you have to really look at how you can begin to have a more conscious relationship. In other words, you become more conscious yourself and as you begin to learn about yourself you can decide if this is the way you want to live your life. And that takes some time.

But it first takes an act on your part to change it, rather than wait for the other person to change or try to change the other person. It’s about you beginning to do that work on yourself so that then you can see what’s the healthiest thing for you in that relationship. Is that making sense to you, Connie?

Connie: Yes, so there again, there’s always growing and making the best choice you can in the moment.

Linda: Absolutely.

Connie: Is there ever a good reason to sacrifice yourself for someone or for a relationship. For example, staying married for the sake of your children or not moving because of your children or elderly parents?

Linda: Well, I can answer this directly. I was married when I was very young. I had two children and a very unhealthy relationship, so what I’m speaking about I know about. And for many years I thought I needed to stay in this relationship because of the children. I felt my children needed a father and a mother.

But when I realized – it took me some years – but I really realized what they were learning about love and what they were learning about relationships was so unhealthy. And I was unconscious and I could not continue to do that. Then I realized that I needed to leave the relationship and begin to do the healthiest things I could do for myself.

And if I hadn’t done that I certainly would never have met Gary. I don’t know what would have happened in my life if I had decided that I had to stay in this marriage no matter what. I don’t know what would have happened, but it wouldn’t have been good.

So I’m really grateful that I used my will. Even though I didn’t know what I was doing, I still knew I had to not create more and more pain in my life by living a lie, by being out of my integrity. And so I needed to do the best I could in that moment. I knew I needed to leave and change things, and really let my children know that there is a difference between love and living unconsciously and having to keep an agreement, a marriage that really didn’t work at all and, in fact, was very unhealthy.

But everyone has to do what they have to do. But I’m telling you I’m speaking from my own experience right now.

Connie: Okay. What is the difference between a spiritual partner and a soul mate?

Gary: I know what a spiritual partner is, but I’m not too sure what different people mean when they say soul mate. I think generally they mean that there is only one other person among the six billion people on the earth that could ever be the right person for them to co-create a life with and to find their fulfillment with. That’s not correct.

However, I have my own definition of soul mate. All of us in the Earth school are souls. As we become multi-sensory, we become aware of ourselves not only as personalities, as bodies and minds, but also as having an immortal component. That’s the soul. The soul is that part of you that existed before you were born and that will exist after you are born.

Creating authentic power is aligning your personality with your soul. Your soul wants harmony in cooperation and sharing and reverence for life. As you use your will to align your personality with your soul, you use your will to create these things in your life. And as you create these things in your life you encounter all of the frightened parts of your personality that oppose them.

This is the spiritual path, aligning your personality with your soul through the use of your will and as you become aligned with your soul your life acquires more meaning and purpose and depth and vitality. Your creativity increases, your joy expands. You are fulfilled and fulfilling. You know that you are alive for a reason and you are living that reason. This is the creation of authentic power and the experience of authentic power.

Every individual in the Earth school is a soul, is a personality awakening to himself or herself as a soul. In other words, we are all soul mates. We are all on this earth for the same reason: to grow spiritually, to create authentic power, to create life, to cooperate and share and to create harmony and to revere life.

The only question is how will you relate with your many different soul mates? Now, in the case of my soul mate, Linda, we defined our relationship as a spiritual partnership in which we live together, work together, we sleep together, we wake up together; we’re very intimate in every way. We’re monogamous, but she’s the only spiritual partner that I relate to that way.

But I have other spiritual partners - spiritual partners in The Seat of the Soul Institute, spiritual partners in our three year Authentic Power Program, spiritual partners in the community where we live. My vision is a six billion person spiritual partnership, partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth, partnership between individuals who are emotionally aware, choosing responsibly, consulting their intuition and striving to align their personalities with their souls.

How will I relate to each of these soul mates? That’s the question.

Connie: Then how can I change my relationships with people I love into spiritual partnerships?

Linda: Well, the most important thing is that you have to have your spiritual growth as your highest priority. In other words creating authentic power is essential and it’s not about changing anyone else. It’s about you modeling how you’re living and inviting them, but not expecting that they’ll interact with you in different ways. They may or they may not. They may want to and they may not want to, but I feel that the more open you are and the more that you change yourself, the more attractive people are to you that want to do the same thing.

Connie: I was thinking about people that are already in my life, not the ones I’m attracting. For example: my family, my siblings, people who may not be on the same spiritual path as me.

Gary: Well, you can’t change them. If you try to change someone else you’re pursuing external power, the ability to manipulate and to control. And that’s now counterproductive to our evolution. It produces only violence and destruction. So the question is, how can I create spiritual partnerships? Maybe that was your question, but I wanted to clarify that the way to create a spiritual partnership is not to change someone else.

In fact, you can’t create a spiritual partnership that way because you’re attempting to manipulate them. The way to create a spiritual partnership is to create authentic power yourself, is to strive to become an individual who is emotionally aware, who is no longer willing to let her anger make her shout or withdraw emotionally or produce painful consequences in her life and as you do that you begin to draw other people to you who are doing the same. That’s the law of attraction that I spoke about.

And you recognize one another and you enjoy your interactions. They are quite substantive.

Linda: But, Connie, I know what you were saying. You were saying that when you have loved ones, siblings or parents or children or whoever it is in your life, and they’re not really interested, you don’t think. What you can do is model and not change who you are when you’re around them. Do what you need to do to grow yourself.

In other words, if you are in a family where people tend to please each other or people are screaming at each other or whatever it is, you can still do what it is that you need to do. You don’t need to act in the ways you’ve always interacted with your family if it’s unhealthy. You can begin to act and speak in ways that are healthy for you and then they can choose how they want to be with you.

That’s the best way I can see because otherwise you’re not in your integrity if you’re not being who you are with your family. And so what I found - it’s really interesting… Gary and I try to do our best to be in spiritual partnership with everyone, our family, everyone. And we have these amazing relationships with our granddaughters and it’s been so much fun to teach them the tools of emotional awareness and learning how to create responsible choices and teaching them how to actually learn to use their bodies as a way to find out if there are frightened parts of their personality active or not - the things we teach everyone.

And it’s such an amazing thing because they begin to be our spiritual partners. I mean, they are our spiritual partners. If they see something in us that we don’t notice, they’ll say something to us. Like one day, our granddaughters were both whispering, saying something to each other. Then they said: “Grandma, do you think you might have a part of you active that’s based in fear right now?” because I was really hurrying to get something done and I was a little bit grumpy. They saw it and it was so beautiful.

I started laughing. I said: “Oh, that’s so great. Thank you for letting me know.” So we can all be spiritual partners with each other. It’s really so amazing.

Connie: We’re getting close to the end so I’m going to ask you two more questions. One is from a reader of the magazine and she asks: “If we are responsible for everything that happens in our lives, does praying to God make a difference? I don’t understand due to books like The Secret, etc. They state that everything we experience is because we chose it, but what if we are experiencing something and we really are having a hard time and would like assistance. Is this when we should ask for help?”

Gary: In my opinion you should ask for help all the time. And there is accuracy in saying that everything that we experience we chose, but the ‘we’ in this case may not be the personality. It may be other personalities of your soul. In other words, the origin of some of your experiences may predate your birth. If something is occurring in your life and you cannot find a cause for it or a cause does not exist for it in your life, it is because that cause existed in an earlier lifetime.

So, yes, choice is the creative dynamic. You are a creator and you created each moment with your choice. That’s why it’s so important to know what your intention is when you choose. I saw a DVD called The Secret (TS Productions 2006) and that DVD seemed to encourage people to create things such as beautiful cars, jewelry, fine homes, luxury and it didn’t draw any attention to the intention behind these creations.

If your intention is not conscious, your creation will not be conscious. If your intention is chosen consciously and wisely, your creation will be constructive and wonderful and joyful.

Linda: Can I just say one thing about that?

Gary: Of course.

Linda: So what we’re saying is the intentions of frightened parts of your personality are very different than intentions of loving parts of your personality and many times, because people don’t recognize they have frightened parts of their personality that are controlling things, they end up making choices, have desires for things that are really spiritually not the best and healthiest thing they could be asking for or doing with their life.

Gary: So, now who do you ask for help for? I don’t use the term God because it means so many things to so many different people, but I think in terms of Divine Intelligence or the Universe with a capital U or Consciousness with a capital C or Love with a capital L or Life with a capital L. Those are all the same thing to me.

And you can ask for assistance at any time and whenever you ask for assistance, you will receive assistance. It may not come just in the way that you expect or the time that you expect, but it will come. And each of us have guides and teachers that are not physical, presences that are intelligent and compassionate and real, but they are not physical.

There’s an old Jewish proverb that says: “Over every blade of grass an angel bends and whispers: grow, grow.” It’s the same with each of us - we are each blades of grass in the spring. Ask for help, ask for guidance. Be aware of what you’re asking for.

Saying: “Please, please, please give me enough money to buy the new Mercedes,” this is not asking for. I say be aware of what you’re asking for because the Universe (if it is in your interest), the interest of the Universe in you is always to assist you in growing spiritually and if it will help you to grow spiritually, you will be assisted in getting a new Mercedes.

If it is best for your spiritual development to lose the Mercedes and everything else that you have, the Universe will assist you in that. Don’t think that the Universe is a big ‘Sugar Daddy’ and if you ask it nicely enough it will provide you with what you want. It will provide you with what you need. It will always provide you with what you need. The Universe is compassionate and wise and its wisdom and compassion are beyond what we can fathom.

But never doubt that it is wise and it is compassionate and when you hold on to that thought then you come immediately to the question then why is there so much pain in the world? Why is there so much brutality? And if you continue to hold on to the thought that the Universe is compassionate and wise you will arrive at an accurate answer because we put those things here because of our choices and because of our choices we can remove them.

This is the Earth school at work. It will not become kind while you remain brutal. It will not become generous while you remain avaricious. It will not be giving while your intention is to exploit.

So, as you change yourself you change the world. What is in you is in the whole and what is in the whole is in you and therefore each of us is ultimately responsible for the whole world. Ask for assistance and you shall receive it. You shall always receive it.

Linda: Yes.

Connie: That was great. Okay, my last quick question is about your journey, Gary, because I know that you were in Vietnam. You were a Vietnam Special Forces Green Beret officer and I want to know about what happened to you that changed you from that life to your spiritual life?

Gary: It didn’t happen overnight. It didn’t even happen over a year. Now that I think about it, it didn’t happen over a decade. It happened over a much longer period of time.

I’ve had experiences that were given by grace, such as writing The Dancing Wu Li Masters, my first book on physics that won the American Book Award for Science, when I had never studied science before my research began or written a book and yet I loved that experience. And I’ve had experiences of being assisted, of understanding. For example, the book I was writing was more intelligent, more creative, more encompassing than I.

But the transformations in me were not due to these glimpses and gifts of grace. They were due to my work. They were due to my intention to grow spiritually. They were due to my efforts to become emotionally aware, even when the physical sensations under the emotions were excruciating, such as they are beneath jealousy or rage or anger or any experience of fear, any frightened part of the personality.

My transformation was due to my own desires to find my intention with each action and choose the most healthy one that I could, rather than the most destructive one that I could, which is what I had been doing when I wasn’t thinking about it. It’s to ask for guidance and help. It’s to pray to Divine Intelligence, but not just pray to get me out of this mess or pain, but to do my best and then pray to see how I created it and how I can create differently. Not to be delivered, but to help me deliver myself.

And then after I do my best, after I do everything that I can, that’s when it’s time for me to put myself in the hands of the Universe to say: “Thy will be done” but not before. This is the creation of authentic power. It’s not looking for salvation or thinking that you can give it to someone else. It is creating a life of meaning and purpose. It is creating mastery in your life through your own will. It is working intelligently and consciously with the Universe. It is becoming all that you were meant to be. It is giving the gifts that you were born to give and receiving from others the gifts that they were born to give.

Connie: Okay, thank you, Gary. Thank you both.

Linda: Connie, I just wanted to say something before we end. The interesting thing is Gary and I have been working together as spiritual partners for over 15 years and one thing that I want to let people know about, that’s on our website (that might be helpful to them if they feel that they’re drawn to creating authentic power and going more deeply into their spiritual growth and having a spiritual partnership with someone), they can go on to our website, which is www.seatofthesoul.com and they can go to the front page and find the Spiritual Partnership Guidelines, which are guidelines that assist you in creating authentic power in your own life and if you have someone who wants to work with you, you can work together with these guidelines.

And it will be very helpful to people. And also the events that we’re going to be doing in Edmonton, we will be practicing with these guidelines and they are ones that Gary and I use all the time. This is how we create authentic power. So we want to share those with you on the website and also if you can come, we’d love to see you in Edmonton at our event.

Connie: I am planning to come. Thank you for telling us about the website and actually there is lots of great stuff on your website. I’ve been reading it avidly. And thank you for talking with me today. I’m really looking forward to meeting you, being a part of the workshop and learning so much more about relationships and myself.

My Mom died last night.

She had cancer and her health had severely deteriorated in the last year. Yet, when I got the call last night to come to the hospital, I still hoped she would live longer.

I quickly packed and drove to Bonnyville (about 2½ hours away) with Gabi, fully expecting to be able to talk with her, even if it was only to say goodbye to her and tell her I loved her one last time. Yet when I got to the hospital, and saw the look on my cousin Laurie’s face, I knew Mom was already dead. She had died one hour earlier while I was driving there.

I was stunned … in shock. This was NOT how I had intended this to go. I wasn’t there when my brother Gene died and it was my clear intention to be with my Mom when she died.

When I walked in the room and saw her there, so silent and still, I was engulfed by intense emotions of both love and despair. I rested my head against the top of hers and I cried from the bottom of my soul.

Internally my mind was a bomb field with so many thoughts exploding at once. I was trying to accept that she was dead and trying to understand how I could have missed such an important moment. How could she die without me having a chance to say goodbye to her? The more I tried to make sense of it, the deeper I fell into an abyss of darkness. Then, like a light, one thought gave me peace. It had to do with something Gary Zukav said during our interview.

I’m paraphrasing but he said the Universe is wise and compassionate beyond imagination. And if you want something and the Universe thinks it is in your highest good and you will grow spiritually from it, then it will assist you in getting it. BUT it will also assist you to lose that same thing if that will help you grow spiritually too.

My moment of peace came when I had the thought that the Universe (from its wiser, all knowing perspective) allowed this to happen because, for some reason, it was in my highest good to miss the moment of my Mom’s death. And although I didn’t understand why right then, my peace came from knowing that someday I would clearly know why it happened this way and the gift inside it would be more special and powerful than the moment I had just missed.

Then, when I found out that my brother and sisters had been trying to get a hold of me all that afternoon (and left five voice mail messages, a text message and an email that I never got), it reaffirmed to me that this wasn’t a coincidence and the Universe had a greater plan for me in missing my Mother’s death. Otherwise I could have easily been there in time to still see her alive.

There would have been a time this would have made me so angry at God and I would have felt punished or forsaken. But what Gary Zukav said had a huge impact on me and as I stood there by my Mom, I actually felt blessed because I realized that my journey with my Mom is not over yet. We didn’t need to say goodbye because this is NOT the end of our relationship.

And this is why I publish Mosaic. Because, at the moment you need it the most, I hope you too will remember something you’ve read in Mosaic that will help you to find peace or hope or courage or strength or whatever it is that you need to help you on your journey.

Needless to say, my interview with Gary Zukav and Linda Francis was wonderful! We couldn’t fit it all in the magazine, but you can read it all at www.ILoveMosaicMagazine.com. We had trouble with the audio link so that won’t be available for this interview.

Our feature artist is Aaron Paquette. I LOVE everything he paints. He is absolutely amazing and gifted beyond words. AND he has generously offered an original piece of his artwork (valued at $595) as a prize for our Mosaic Reader Survey (pages 29 & 30). Other great prizes include a Reiki 1 & 2 or Quantum Healing Training Session (thanks to Bea Murray), a 3” wide green tourmaline crystal sphere (thanks to Ausha at A Sense of Serenity) and an Angel Reading (thanks to Sherry Martini).

Lucky winners from last issue include: Tammy Leblanc (Sherwood Park), Helen Eshpeter (Drayton Valley), Sophie Jennings (Edmonton), Jacqueline Fiala (Edmonton) and Wendy Munro (Fort Saskatchewan).

AND don’t forget about our next Mosaic’s Delicious Book Club dinner on August 12th at Gabbana Restaurant (11223 Jasper Avenue) at 6:00 p.m. See you then.

♥ Connie

What do you think of Mosaic Magazine? Are you a happy reader? Are you a thrilled advertiser? Do you love our website? Let us know what Mosaic Magzaine means to you!

We invite your comments below...

Connie: I’m excited to be talking with Elisabeth Fayt, who is an international speaker, Law of Attraction Coach and Reiki Master.

And here’s the part I really like, she’s from Alberta. She’s a successful businesswoman in Calgary, the owner and founder of RnR Wellness, a Calgary riverfront spa that has 20 satellite locations in Calgary and Toronto’s finest hotels. She’s also the author of a new book called Paving It Forward (Spirit Seekers Publishing, 2008) and a featured expert in the recently released movie, The Opus (Magnificient Motion Picture Works, 2008).

Elisabeth, you have a very interesting background, a wonderful blend of eastern metaphysical knowledge and western corporate philosophies. Let’s start by talking about the corporate part of your background. For many years you were the executive assistant to Ron Joyce, one of Canada’s most prominent entrepreneur-billionaires - the co-founder of Tim Hortons. How did this job prepare you for your own business and personal success?

Elisabeth: Well, Connie, I think everything in life prepares us. Right from the moment we’re born, we are prepared for that big dream that we want to accomplish in our lives. And without a doubt, my ten years with Ron Joyce, the founder of Tim Hortons, certainly played a huge role in what I’m doing today. Now before I met Mr. Joyce at age 30, I’d been an entrepreneur already, so that kind of life was not new to me but Mr. Joyce’s life was on a far bigger scale than I had ever imagined.

He taught me how to think big. He took a company that had three Tim Horton stores and he built it to over 3,000 stores. I mean, that’s big; those are big numbers. And I believe that when I got into my spa, my wellness company, RnR Wellness, I went into it with that sort of mentality - that I’m not just going to open a spa; I want to open a chain of spas. And that’s a mentality. That’s a mindset.

I’ll just tell you about a typical day with Mr. Joyce. I was on, I would say, four to five flights a week. We would be traveling all over the world. He had his own private fleet of planes. So he would say: “We’re going to France today. Did you pack a bag?” And I always had a bag. As an executive assistant to a billionaire, you always have a bag. So we would leave his office, go up the ramp and off we would go.

And a typical day would be having dinner with the President of the United States and the next day maybe we’d be flying with a helicopter into his children’s camp where he could eat ice cream with his face. We would all put our faces down into the ice cream and the kids would rip and roar and howl and we’d be making a difference with the kids, and then dining with rock stars the next night. So it opened my eyes to a life that I would have never seen - almost preparing me to swim with the sharks. I mean, after my ten years with Mr. Joyce, I felt like I could do anything.

And I watched all of the people that he surrounded himself with, who were very successful. So I learned the traits of successful people. I’ll talk about two of them - one of them is they’re not afraid of failure. Mr. Joyce lost everything three times down to nothing. You see, they’re not afraid of failure because they know that in a heartbeat, they can build it back again, because it’s a mindset. It’s what’s in your mind.

And we are programmed for success. And so all we need to do is turn on that switch and focus on that program. And that’s what Mr. Joyce does with his foundation, the Tim Horton Children’s Foundation. He brings kids in, he flies them. If you’re from Calgary he flies you to Nova Scotia. If you’re from Kentucky, he flies you to Toronto. He gets kids that have never even thought they could get on a plane and shows them another part of life. He opens their eyes and that’s what I believe he did for me. He opened my eyes to a way of being. He taught me that I could do anything and matter.

And then the second thing that I noticed from the successful people that he surrounded himself with, is that they give back. People will look and they’ll say: “Oh, this person’s successful - they’re lucky. That person’s lucky.” No, it has nothing to do with luck! They made it happen. I watched every single person. Mr. Joyce made it happen and anyone he surrounded himself with made it happen and they gave back. They gave to the world…

So I really, really did notice that: 1) they’re not afraid of failure because they know they are programmed for success and 2) they give back. And they work hard, they really do. Everybody, whatever you have in your life, you have earned it in some way, shape or form.

Connie: For many years you studied healing arts and the Law of Attraction, as taught by Masters in India. Who was your greatest teacher and can you tell us how his teachings changed your life?

Elisabeth: Well, yes, I did study with the Masters of India for 14 years. And I’m dating myself here, but I would say it was a turning point at age 30 when I found the teaching of Paramahansa Yogananda. I know it’s a mouthful, but I’m telling you this saint, this Indian saint changed my life. And you really don’t know you’re in the dark until someone turns on the light. And that’s the best way I can describe it. I didn’t realize how unhappy I was. I didn’t realize that I really had no meaning in my life until I met with the teachings of this great master.

He’s written, I would say, over 50 books and he has a worldwide organization. He teaches meditation, teaches metaphysical truth and when I read his main book, Autobiography of a Yogi, it was truth. And I don’t believe that we really know what truth is until we hear it. We could hear all sorts of things that are false but we don’t know it until we actually hear truth and say, this is right. This is the meaning of life. And I believe that’s what he taught me. He taught me the meaning of life.

The Masters of India also teach the Law of Attraction, they just don’t call it that. They teach: what you’re thinking, you are creating. And so even though in my 20’s I was an entrepreneur, on the outside successful, everything going for me, I had challenges which I’m sure we’ll touch on today, but really my life had no meaning.

And it took sort of just a deep tragedy in my own life to get me to this point, where I found this great teacher and everything came alive. I realized, why are we here? What is the meaning of this existence and how can I live by truth? Really truly, not by trying to keep up with the Jones, not by trying to attain more and more material things, which is ironic enough because that was exactly the time when I started working for Mr. Joyce, really living the life of the rich and famous. But the beauty of it, Connie, was that I lived that life, but at the same time, was studying this metaphysical truth behind it all, so I’ve never ever in all my years with Ron Joyce ever attached to anything material. To me, I would see the beauty and truth behind those material things.

Connie: Was it during this time then that you learned to become of Reiki Master?

Elisabeth: Yes, and in my travels with Mr. Joyce, I mean, it was a grueling schedule. It was seven days a week. Often there were months at a time where I really wouldn’t get that much of a break. I loved it, don’t get me wrong. I absolutely was passionate about my job, I adored it. And we create that, and we can talk about that later, how we create if we want to be passionate about our job, or if you want a job you’re passionate about, you have to be passionate now. It’s a choice.

But all along the way … as I had the opportunity to be all around the world, I studied with teachers everywhere I would be. I might have a half an hour here or a half day there or a day where he would be traveling on his boat so I got the day to myself and I would study.

And I latched onto a lady by the name of Elizabeth Gilberg and she was a Reiki Master, a psychic healer and I started studying with her. She was a phenomenal teacher and her niche was the Law of Attraction. She would teach the Law of Attraction, as well as healing energy. Now this was right up my alley, because here I was studying with the Masters of India on the Law of Attraction, even though they didn’t call it that, then … my teacher was teaching me the Law of Attraction.

And when I was learning it, Connie, I didn’t say: “Oh great, I’m changing my life.” I said: “I’m going to change the lives of thousands of people,” because I knew that I could teach it to the corporate world, because I had this dual life. I had the metaphysical life and not everybody can latch onto that. You have to be of that mind. And I understood the corporate mind. So I was learning all these metaphysical healings and teachings, but I knew the workings of a corporate mind. And I said, okay, I can take my knowledge of healing, knowledge of energy, the energy of thought, and I can teach the corporate world how to learn that side of it without having to understand the whole gamut of it.

Because it’s a commitment. If you say okay I want to learn the metaphysics of life, you can’t go half way. I went in with both feet and I studied. I would go down to California to the ashrams and I would live for a month at a time. This was before I started traveling with Mr. Joyce. In my time off I would go there and I would just absorb myself and work with the people, the monks and nuns who lived in the ashrams… Not everybody can do that so I knew that with this beautiful blend of East and West, I could bring the East to the West.

Connie: And you have. Let’s talk about your new book called Paving It Forward. It’s the title of your book, but it’s also a technique you describe over and over. Can you tell us more about that?

Elisabeth: Yes, absolutely. Paving It Forward is kind of a cliché, a play on words of paying it forward, which everybody knows and I used that because I thought it was relevant. I teach a technique call ‘pre-paving’. So when I say paving it forward, I say we are paving the way for what we want. You see, Connie, I believe that people spend more time choosing what they’re going to wear in the morning than they do choosing how they’re going to connect with people, how they’re going to feel, what they’re going to accomplish.

Pre-paving is choosing all of those things. It’s a choice. It lines up the energy. When you wake up in the morning and say: “Today’s going to be a great day,” you are lining up the energy for a great day. Every thought we think takes us either in the direction of our goal, or takes us away from our goal...

A hypnotist puts the conscious mind to sleep. They can give a command to the subconscious mind and immediately you are running around the room as though you’re a red fire engine or you’re in love with someone you’ve never met before. And really, you have no control because the hypnotist has given a command to your subconscious mind.

Now look at our own daily lives, the things we say! We are hypnotizing ourselves every moment of the day with thoughts we think and the words we choose. So I teach people to pre-pave what you want. So when you wake up in the morning, often, we are pre-paving already. Everyone is pre-paving; I’m teaching people to mindfully and consciously pre-pave what they want. So people will wake up in the morning and they say: “Oh, I don’t feel so great today.” Well, that’s a pre-pave that lines up the energy so you’re not going to feel great. If you say I have a headache, it lines up the energy to keep the pain coming.

It really, really is powerful. We are powerful creators. Whatever we say, the universe is just waiting for our next command. And the subconscious mind cannot decipher between reality and a wish. So if I say something and it really isn’t my current reality, but I say it because it’s what I want, the universe will say: “Okay, okay, bring it on boys because this is what she wants.” And it will create it and it will make it come true.

And I’ve used it in my life … over and over again. When I first got the job offer from Mr. Joyce… I was living with my sister at the time and I said to her: “I have this amazing offer. Mr. Joyce has asked me (I’d been working for him for five years at the time) to go and travel with him around the world and help him with the new direction in his life.” And my sister said to me: “Elisabeth, you pre-paved this 20 years ago when you were a teenager, don’t you remember? And I did. I recalled vividly saying when I was 17 years old: “I will be private secretary to a man who is a billionaire who has his own plane.” I remember visualizing myself with a steno pad walking up to the plane, taking notes as he was speaking, feverishly writing, and then we were boarding the plane together. And with one single pre-pave, almost 20 years later, my pre-pave came true.

Our words, Connie, are so powerful. What we say - it comes true. And that’s why the universe can’t take a joke, let me tell you this. If you say: “Oh, I do everything around here” and you’re just joking with your partner, the universe will line up the energy and orchestrate everything so that you are doing everything around here! Exactly.

Connie: Yes, I agree.

Elisabeth: Really, we are powerful creators and we need to be aware that our words and our thoughts are every moment of the day, creating our next experience.

Connie: Now how do you think that your technique of pre-paving differs from using affirmations? How is it different or is it different?

Elisabeth: Well, it’s similar, but it is different in that a pre-pave really doesn’t need repetition. An affirmation is a positive statement that you say over and over and over again and what it does, is it changes your consciousness. An affirmation, when you say over: “I am wealthy, I’m wealthy, I’m wealthy,” or “I am successful, I’m successful,” when you roll that around in your consciousness, it changes your vibration. Now when I say vibration, I mean … the energy of thought. Every thought you think enters the energy field that surrounds your body. That’s your vibrations.

So let’s take a look at a typical day. By 8:00 a.m., you’ve had so many thoughts: positive, negative, positive, negative, that you’ve got a vibration that’s just humming at a certain frequency. That frequency is attracting to you everything you have in your life. So if we’re not aware of the first thought we’ve had in the morning and if we’re not aware of what we were thinking about in the shower or eating breakfast, we become a magnet that creates by default.

Now, affirmations, they help shift your consciousness so that if I’m going to spend 20 minutes or half an hour rolling that thought through my mind, it’ll shift my consciousness and it will help me to change my vibration - raise my vibration. Now the thing is that you really have to believe. When you’re doing an affirmation, you really have to believe it or you’re believing the opposite thing or you’re affirming the opposite thing.

I’ll give you an example. A man was going to a counselor. He was having difficulty with his financial situation. He just couldn’t keep money. Everything just seemed to wash through his hands anytime he would get any money and so he went for counseling. And he learned some techniques; the counselor taught him affirmations. And a couple of weeks, he came back for another session and he was very distraught. The counselor obviously could see what was happening. He said: “What’s going on? What’s happened?” And he said: “Well, counselor. I did exactly what you said. I affirmed morning noon and night: “I am wealthy, I am wealthy, I am wealthy.” He said: “I knew it wasn’t going to work.”

So you see, if we don’t believe it, then really what happens is when we are affirming: “I am wealthy,” in the background our subconscious mind is saying: “No we’re not,” and we’re affirming the opposite. So with a pre-pave, I don’t say to do it over and over and over again, because sometimes when we say it over and over and over again, we’re almost putting resistance around it - like is this really going to happen? Like we’re almost forcing it! But a pre-pave is something that you tell universe what you want, you do it with gratitude and conviction and then you surrender. You let it go and you say thank you - I know it’s already coming.

Connie: That’s a great way to describe it, because it’s true.

Elisabeth: Yes. You’re not holding onto the result, you’re really not. And nothing against affirmations; I teach them too. I think if you really truly want, if you really believe in something and you want to shift your consciousness, saying a pre-pave over and over again isn’t going to hurt you. But I can say: “I want to pre-pave safety.” Then I want to move onto the next thing I want to pre-pave. “I want to pre-pave success.” Now I want to move on to the next thing because I don’t want just one thing all day. I want to connect deeply with people, so I’m going to pre-pave that. You know, a great pre-pave that I love is to wake up in the morning, and this works Connie … every morning I say: Something wonderful is going to happen today.” I pre-pave it once and I let the universe know that I believe it. I believe it and I can’t wait to see what’s going to happen.

I did that. I was in Las Vegas this weekend for The Opus premiere and it was a long trip… it was, I mean to go that distance just for overnight, but I really wanted to. I’m promoting this film and I feel proud to be in the film. And I want to support it and I knew I was going to meet some wonderful people. I had the opportunity of meeting Jack Canfield and spending some time with him and I met some wonderful, wonderful authors and speakers and people that just lit up my weekend. And every day I said: “Something wonderful is going to happen today. I’m going to be so glad that I came.” And I was blown away, Connie. …the universe really necessarily isn’t creating new things, but it’s opening your eyes to what you might have missed, you see.

And so when I pre-pave with conviction I know the power of my words - that it will come true and I think that I really, really want to help people, to show them: watch your words, be mindful of your words and focus on what you want, because you can make anything happen.

Connie: So, was that your goal, then in writing, Paving It Forward?

Elisabeth: Yes.

Connie: What do you hope people will get from it?

Elisabeth: Oh, gosh, I want them to know that they are powerful creators. And that’s why I teach my workshops. I’m just so passionate about this because I can see what it does. After two hours with a group of students, they walk out of my class so empowered. They just say: “Elisabeth, my life has changed. I know that the things that I want, I can have.”

You see, what we focus on, we attract. Where you put your intentions, there is your energy for creating. And this is important because often we want things, but if we don’t put our attention on them, the universe is going to give us what we’re putting our attention on. And so, it’s not rocket science, but it is science. You need to know. In my 20s, I didn’t know why lots of negative things happened to me - I was a good girl, I was working hard and doing all those things, but if you don’t know the laws of the universe, then you will be succumbed to the throws of the waves of the ups and downs.

And when you raise your vibration by pre-paving and focusing on what you want as opposed to putting your attention on what you don’t want, and people do that - what are you going to put your attention on except for the challenges, the things you think you have to overcome? But the only way to overcome those is to turn on the light, is to raise your vibration. And when you raise your vibration, your mind shifts in consciousness and then you do. All the results, all of the things and solutions that you need to solve any problem you have, is with a raised consciousness, not by beating at darkness with a stick. You have to turn on the light.

Connie: Now as you were saying, your life has not always just been so perfect. And in your book I read that you were in a difficult relationship for over ten years before meeting your husband Anton, and then having your first baby at 40. And I want to say, good for you, for that… Can you tell us what you did to make such a big shift in your life. I think a lot of people have relationship problems or issues. I’m sure they’d love to hear what you have to say about that.

Elisabeth: Yes. Well, I’ve got to tell you I usually start off my speeches saying that I’m very sincere and I really want to help everyone. I want to change your life. And I always start off that way, but then I say to them, but I really don’t care about your goals. Everyone kind of looks at me saying: “Oh, don’t you really care, Elisabeth?” And I say: “Yes, I really don’t care about your goals.” You may have a goal to be in a wonderful relationship, and you may have a goal to lose 20 pounds, or you may have a goal to get out of financial difficulty. And you may reach those goals and good for you. But I can guarantee if you haven’t shifted your consciousness, next January 1, you’re going to be writing out those same goals again.

So we have to shift the consciousness and so when we have things that happen in our lives we try to beat them. It’s like beating at darkness with a stick. You’re not going to do anything with it. You just hurt yourself and everyone around you and you’re blinded by it. You have to turn on the light. So when you shift your consciousness, everything becomes clear. And I’ve heard it said that you cannot solve a problem with the mind that created it. You have to shift your consciousness. And so, yes, I’m real. I’ve had a real life, In my 20’s I was in a relationship that was not supportive. And I don’t blame anyone but myself. I take full responsibility for it because my consciousness attracted that.

I can give you an example: if you’re in an abusive relationship and you say: “Well, how could I have attracted someone that would be abusive to me? I’m not abusive.” But if you have someone who has the need to be dominated, they will attract someone who is domineering. And that’s the way the Law of Attraction works, you see. So when you remove that need to be domineered, then you won’t attract that type of partner.

So we have to take responsibility that if we want to know what our vibration is, if we want to know what we are vibrating, just look at what you’ve attracted. But again, looking at that, give yourself a little bit of a break. It’s who you were, it’s not who you are. Who you are is what you are thinking right at this moment. You can shift your energy immediately by your thoughts. A great way to do it is just by gratitude.

And so learn that what you think attracts, that what you speak becomes true, and that gratitude and smiling and paving forward what you want is going to create what you want … even when you’re setting your goals. We were working with Jack Canfield this weekend about it and he was getting everyone to write out their goals. And he asked a really neat question. He said: “Look at the goal that you have written down. Did you write down a goal really that you want, or did you write a goal that you thought was within the means of possibility?” Think about it. We look and we have a goal and we try to adjust it so we think it’s in the realm of possibility. When in reality, Connie, anything is possible.

So what do you want? Really what do you want, because the universe is waiting to give it to you. And if you want to stifle your dreams because you think: “Well, am I going to get any better? This man loves me. Do you really think I should take the risk of being alone?” Gosh, what do you want in life? Do you want a good relationship - then make it happen! If you give what you want, because when you give what you want you resonate it, it will be attracted to you. It is universal law.

Connie: Excellent, excellent answer. Okay, you are also one of the featured experts in the film, The Opus, which you’ve been talking a little bit about. But for people who haven’t seen The Opus yet, it teaches formulas and patterns that top achievers use to create greater abundance in wealth, health, relationships, and self-achievement. And in the film, Elisabeth, you talk about the power of pre-paving. And I want to know, did you pre-pave your involvement in The Opus?

Elisabeth: Oh, I’m so glad you asked me that, Connie, because I tell this story wherever I can because it really is powerful. I’ve been using pre-paving for probably ten years now. And I do make it the focus of my teaching because I know that this one technique will take you to your dreams. It really, truly will. I’ve been teaching the Law of Attraction for five years, but a year and a half ago when The Secret (TS Productions LLC, 2006) came out or when it got on my radar anyway, friends of mine (students who had taken my classes) invited my husband and I to watch a movie. And we had no idea what was in store for us.

And there we were with a group of friends and all of the sudden The Secret came on. And my eyes lit up. I looked around the room, a room full of my students and I said: “This is my class. This is what I teach. This is what I’m passionate about.” And they were all smiling saying: “Yes, we know, Elisabeth. This is why we’ve invited you.” And I was so excited about The Secret because when I started teaching the Law of Attraction, it wasn’t always an easy sell. People didn’t know what it was. What is this Law of Attraction stuff? Is it how to be sexy, how to be attractive, how to attract the perfect mate? And that’s not what it is. The Law of Attraction is how to create a life of abundance and love and health and everything. It’s everything! It’s the ticket to happiness.

And so to me The Secret was an eye opener for the world and it put the Law of Attraction on everybody’s radar which meant for me, it opened up doors. But instead I thought to myself: “Gee, I should have been in that film!” What I did was I looked at those teachers - I looked at the Jack Canfield’s, the Marcie ... and the John Demartini’s and I looked and I said: “I am that caliber. I am that caliber of teacher. I will be in the next film.” I pre-paved it.

Connie: Good for you!

Elisabeth: “I will be in the next film because I am that.” I believed in myself. I knew that what those teachers had to say, I had just as much to say in just as powerful a way. I truly believed it. I told everybody I knew: “I’m going to be in the next movie.” And they said: “Oh, when is it going to be?” I said: “I’m not sure but it will come out soon.” And I truly believed it. And in the movie I say that you can’t sit on the couch and eat potato chips and expect your life’s going to happen magically. You have to act. And so I did. I got off the couch and I did act. I made a few phone calls.

But you know, when you have shift of consciousness, when you shift your consciousness and pre-pave what you want, really the action is minimal. Yes, you have to act, but the way the universe works is, when you raise one hand, the Divine lowers two to pick you up. It’s like putting in an investment plan. The universe will match your investment. So it’s like buying a lottery ticket to win. You have to buy a ticket. So really, your form of action is: 1) to pre-pave it, and then 2) just do one thing.

Jack Canfield says do five things a day, every single day, to take you towards your goal. And the more you do, the better. And I even think, I go further and I say when you shift your consciousness, the more you mentally prepare to receive what you are looking for, the less you have to physically do. And that’s truth.

And so what happened was a series of events. Really not much happened for about eight to nine months, but I kept telling friends: “I’m going to be in the next movie.” I didn’t know when it was. And it was about eight months later after a series of events, this woman came into my life named Sherry. She’s still in my life and brings me so much value and I’m so grateful for her. And she and I connected through friends trying to get us to connect - serendipity, synchronicity stuff. We were chatting and she was promoting Dr. John Demartini to come and I was doing a private viewing of The Secret at the time. And because I was so passionate about it I rented the Globe Theater and invited 400 of my closest friends, and they wrote about it in the paper. See I do things in a big way, Connie, go big or go home.

So Sherry and I met ... and I said: “You know what Sherry? I’m going to be in the next film and you’re going to help me do it.” And she said: “Okay.” And later on she told me: “Elisabeth, I had no idea how I was going to do it.” But she was the one who made the connection.

And that’s one thing I really need to say is that often we discount our dreams because we don’t believe we know how it’s going to happen or how could it happen? When we tell the universe we want this, the universe is already starting to create it. If you doubt, you are telling the universe: stop the creation. So I never think about how something is going to happen, I know that if I want something and I tell the Universe this is what I want, and I say thank you, I know that it is already being created. And all I need to do, to be in a receptive state to receive, is to feel good. That’s what you need. You just need to pre-pave it. You do it with gratitude and then feel good, because it’s on its way.

So anyway, Sherry, shortly after called me and she said, “Guess what? I just spoke to the director and the producer of the movie that is going to be deemed as the unofficial sequel to The Secret.” And I said: “I’m not surprised.” She said: “He’s got one more day of filming in Calgary and he wants to meet you.” And within three days, there I was with this producer, Douglas Vermeeren, sitting in a coffee shop. And he interviewed me and he asked me some questions. I gave him a copy of my CD and he and his wife listened to it and they called me the next day and they said: “You’re in!”

Connie: Good for you!

Elisabeth:;; So three weeks later, there I was filming for my first official movie as a speaker. I mean, I’ve been in films before for Mr. Joyce, but this was my first on my own. And I tell you it has been the most amazing experience. I have met with many of the authors, speakers in the movie, phenomenal people, and I’m working on other projects with them. And I tell you my life is just coming alive. It was so alive before - I didn’t know it could be more alive! And I’m just thrilled to be able to now take my message around the world.

Connie: So how would you say that the The Opus is different than The Secret? You say it’s like a sequel. How would you say it’s different?

Elisabeth: Well, we’re positioning it as the next step. The Secret was a phenomenal success, and it put the Law of Attraction on the radar so to speak, which is great because people … are open to it. Maybe ten years ago we weren’t, so Rhonda Byrne came out with the movie at the exact perfect time.

But some of the people, most of the people actually said: “Oh, I know this stuff. I know this already.” But really, do they practice it and are we practicing it? And do we really know the practical application of it. And I believe if we’re going to look at The Secret and The Opus, I would say in a nutshell that The Secret is theory and The Opus is the practical. So The Secret really brought to our attention, to put the Law of Attraction on the scope. It brought our minds to it and said: You visualize, yes, you will materialize.” If you can hold it in your mind, you can hold it in your hand. But The Opus teaches you how to take action, how to really get a clear picture and how to take action.

And the storyline of The Opus is really beautiful - it’s touching. The Secret had different little storylines. The Opus has one consistent theme - every time you go back to the storyline, it’s a consistent theme and I like that. And also, the speakers were very varied, not just Law of Attraction people, I mean, I’m one of the Law of Attraction coaches in the film but there were people from all walks of life. There were people sharing adversities, there were billionaires that were sharing their secrets … normally not people that go out and speak.

So it was a little bit more of a varied group of people, but a very cohesive message. And we had the Vegas opening Friday night and we got a standing ovation. I don’t think there was a dry eye in the room. Everyone there just said: “Thank you. The Secret took us so far, but we really needed this. We really needed to know how do I make this come true in my life? How can I take it from vision to action?”

Connie: Actually you talk in your book about four steps to conscious creating. Could you tell us what they are?

Elisabeth: Sure. I’m all about conscious creating. That’s really what pre-paving is. I’m going to start with two, and then we’re going to expand, because two is really easy to say. You need two things and there’s an actual universal law for this - it’s the law of Deliberate Creation. Once you know the Law of Attraction (that what you think you attract) now you need to know well, how? Really, how can I become a deliberate creator? You need two things: desire and belief. If I want something badly enough and if I know and believe I can have it, then it will manifest.

But I like to expand it to two more things so that’s why I say in my book, there are four. So before you can really truly desire something fully, Connie, you need to know what it is that you want. You need intuition. And there’s a reason for this. I’ll tell you that the energy reason, the Law of Attraction reason, is that many of us are so in tune with what others want for us, we really don’t know what we truly want for ourselves. And so we’re putting out contradictory thoughts, saying: “I want this. No, I want this. No, I want that. And so and so wants this for me.” And so we send out contradictory thoughts. The moment we send out a thought, the universe is already starting to create it, you see. So when another thought comes in the universe is starting to create that, and we really don’t create much of anything if we’re swerving. So we need to have a clear vision.

And when we know what we want, we really need to focus on it. And I said earlier, let’s say you want a really wholesome relationship and a really healthy relationship, one that supports you and one that makes you feel loved, but if you’re in a bad one and you focus on what is you’re going to create more of what is. So it’s a shifting - it’s not just desiring something, you must put your attention on it. So the first two steps is knowing what you want, desiring and putting your attention on what you want, those two things.

Now the next two: belief and then action. And really so many people get to the intuition - they know what they want, they desire it, but then they don’t take it to the belief stage. Paving it forward and pre-paving is what takes care of your belief. Maybe all along you didn’t believe you could do it. In fact, we have so many limiting beliefs, Connie, and it’s the one thing that holds people back.

Because no matter how much you want something, if something isn’t working in your life that you want, you can bet you have a limiting belief surrounding it. And so by pre-paving what you want, even though you may not at first believe it, your subconscious mind takes it to be truth. Your subconscious mind is like the soil. You plant the seed of a pre-pave in it and it will grow. But now if you keep plucking up that seed saying: Oh, how is it going to grow, or is it growing?” your seed will never grow.

So your subconscious mind is the soil. You put a pre-pave in there and you water it with gratitude and good thoughts and feeling good and that seed will grow. And if you put in an orange seed, you’re not going to get coffee beans, okay? So if you put seeds in there of past regrets and “Oh, this person did this to me…” You see, whatever you’re putting into your vibrational field is creating your magnet. Your power for creating is in the present moment. So how do you create a belief system that matches your desires? You pre-pave it because your subconscious mind does not decipher between reality and a wish.

So let’s recap. We’ve developed our intuition; we know where we’re going. We decided this is what we want and I’m absolutely clear. I know what I want and I’m putting all my attention on it. Now we’ve pre-paved it and that’s really your first form of action. So we are programming our subconscious mind for success to match our desires and actions and now you need to take action. Because, like I said, the universe matches your investment plan. You raise one hand, the Divine lowers two to pick you up. You have to buy the ticket. But the more mental work you do, the less physical work you have to do. So action really isn’t a huge part of it, but it’s the final step. You really must pre-pave. It is really your biggest form of action. Because so many people say: “Oh, maybe I can’t do it” or they doubt themselves.

Or I’ll give you an example. You get behind the wheel of a car and you say: “Gee I hope there’s not a lot of traffic today.” Well, you’ve just pre-paved yourself. And so when you get behind the wheel of a car and you say: “I am safe and I reach my destination quickly, efficiently and with joy,” you are lining up the energy for that.

And I’ll show you physically what lining up the energy means. If I pre-pave safety - maybe I go to Tim Hortons every morning for my coffee... But today I decide I’m going to go to Starbucks because I just kind of feel like a gingerbread latte. Well, your mind has guided you over here and so you miss a large car pile-up that would have really set you back.

So the universe is guiding you through your mind, through your intuition, through your awareness. And it lines up the energy for success and it brings to you and attracts to you all of the resources and things that you will need. That’s why you don’t have to worry about the “how” because when you raise your consciousness and raise your vibration, you are in a state of receptivity, and all of the resources that you need will come to you almost like magic.

I remember when I worked for Mr. Joyce, there were Heads of State that would say to me: “Elisabeth you’re magical. How do you make these things happen for Mr. Joyce?” I practiced these teachings. I practiced the Law of Attraction and pre-paving with him. There were times where things were challenging. I had a really grueling work schedule.

One day Mr. Joyce and I were speaking very frankly and he said: “You amaze me, no matter how hard you are crushed, you always come up smelling like a rose.” And that meant so much to me. It meant that I was practicing what I was preparing myself to teach one day. When we are squeezed and we are tested, what comes out of us is what is inside of us. It has nothing to do with outside; it has nothing to do with the circumstance. When you squeeze an orange, what comes out is juice.

So when we are tested, when we are squeezed, what comes out is what’s inside of us. And what is inside of us is what we are focusing on. The Masters of India say you can focus on the sewers of life or you can focus on the birds in the sky - who do you want to be? And wherever you put your attention on, there is your energy for creating. And I’ve said that before. It’s very important. Where you put your attention, there is your energy for creating. And your power for creating is in the present moment, telling the universe what you want, and saying thank you. That’s all it is.

Connie: Now, along that line, you teach a method of journaling call the Journal of Positive Intentions, which I thought was great. Can you tell us more about that?

Elisabeth: I love this, Connie… There’s a traditional sort of journaling that has gone on for years where you write your feelings – “Oh, this happened to me,” “This makes me upset” or “This is what I was feeling.” And there’s nothing wrong with getting in tune with your feelings. In fact, I teach that, because feelings are a gift. They teach us. A negative feeling is just a sign to tell us that we are not, that our thoughts are not, taking us in the direction we are wanting to go. But, let it be known in the Law of Attraction, that what you think about, what you speak about, what you write about, comes true. It manifests. So when you go into your journal and you get all emotional and you start writing about all those things that you’re resentful for and all those things that you’re trying to overcome, you give it power. You are actually creating it.

Whichever type of journal you want or you have, or whatever type of journaling you do, this is your creation journal. Call it your creation journal, because whatever you are writing you are creating. So I created a journal of positive intentions and it’s a creation journal.

So I say to you, take three areas of your life and dream. What do you want? Take work, love and this life in general and dream it. What do you want? And get emotional. Get your emotions into it. If you are writing and you’re not getting your feelings into it, it’s really not creating much; I’ll tell you that. So you’ve got to put it in. The more you write about it, it brings power to it. You create by writing it.

And you know what? It really gives you clarity. I remembered for many years, I wanted to become a nun. I wanted to move to an ashram and just dedicate my life. And so when I started my first Positive Intentions Journal, I was so out of tune with what I wanted. I was trying to get away from desires and I was so out of tune. I remember telling my Reiki teacher that I have no desires; what am I supposed to write about? And she said: “Elisabeth, if you don’t know what you desire, then you’re out of tune.”

So here I thought I was doing great. I’d spent so many years with the Masters of India, saying that I need nothing, saying I want nothing. But really, Connie, we are here to create. We’re here to desire and not in a bad way; it’s good. We’re here to express and so when you start to write you would be amazed at what comes on the page. You’re going to be amazed. The moment you start to write, you’ll say: “I didn’t know I wanted that!”

I have 25 to 30 of these journals and I look back and the very car I drive right now, which is a gold Mercedes is something I put in there about six or seven years ago. That was in my journal, that exact car, and I drive it today. I forgot I wrote about it.

Now today, I might put in a different kind of car and maybe in a year or two from now that’s the one I’m going to have. But honestly, I built my business with it. Everything I have in my life is from paving it forward, from pre-paving, writing about it, feeling it, visualizing it and knowing that it’s already mine.

Connie: Good for you. Okay, our last question. The Opus speaks about the importance of becoming a legacy. What do you feel your opus will be? What do you want it to be?

Elisabeth: Well, you know, I’m so grateful for The Opus, because it’s actually helping me take my teachings around the world. The movie is going to be going around the world in the next 12 months and I’m going with it. And my opus is: As I had the light turned on for me, and as I was able to become a conscious powerful creator, I want to go around the world and teach everyone that I possibly can touch, every heart I can possibly reach, that you are a powerful creator and whatever it is that you want, you can make it happen. You have got the power; no one else. And don’t let anyone tell you that you can’t because you have everything inside of you - with your thoughts, with your words and what you write about, you can make it happen.

Connie: Well, thank you so much, Elisabeth, for talking with me today. Our readers can learn more about you or contact you through your website: www.elisabethfayt.com

Elisabeth: Yes, and an easier way, Connie, too is if they just go www.PavingItForward.com and that will get them there too.

Connie: Well, thank you so much, Elisabeth. You were just great and I’m sure our readers are going to love everything you say.

Elisabeth: I love any chance to talk about the Law of Attraction.

My husband and I had just bought and moved into our first house that same December, only three blocks away from where Sheila was murdered.

I drove by that building a thousand times over the next few years and I thought of her almost every time. Her death touched me even though I never knew her. I have to confess that I couldn’t have imagined that any good could come out of such a tragic situation.

Yet, 13 year later, I am so honored to have her daughter, Sarah Salter-Kelly, share her healing journey in Mosaic with all of us. Her powerful story is on pages 34 and 35. I cried as I edited this story. It is such a testimony of how resilient and magnificent we are as souls. It showed me that good can come from any situation.

And it also inspired me. I want to invite anyone who has a powerful personal story of ‘Transformation & Triumph’ to email me their story to mosaicmagazine@shaw.ca (1300 words or less). I would like to feature one story of personal transformation and triumph each issue because stories like this can change people’s lives. And that is my ultimate goal with Mosaic - to bring you information that can change your life.

I also had the opportunity to interview Elisabeth Fayt, an amazing business woman from Calgary, who is one of the experts featured in the new movie The Opus (Magnificent Motion Picture Works, 2008). Elisabeth is a wealth of information on how we can each use the Law of Attraction to change our lives for the better through a technique she calls pre-paving. Read my interview with her on pages 28, 29 and 33.

We couldn’t fit our whole interview with Elisabeth in the magazine, so the ending is on our website at www.ILoveMosaicMagazine.com. You can either read it all there or listen to the actual interview by clicking on the audio link. I didn’t forget any questions this time .

I honestly feel that this is the best issue of Mosaic I have ever published. BUT I think that every issue! Each issue, I wonder: “How can I ever beat this?’ and yet the next issue that comes is even more spectacular.

Our feature artist is Kathy Meaney. I love her art which is all about celebrating woman and life. It’s fun, beautiful and real. Her artwork and article is on page 44 and 45.

Now here are the Mosaic readers who won a prize from entering our last Mosaic Reader’s Survey contest: Debbie Ewing (Onoway), Nicole Bouclin-Graves (Edmonton), Shelley Trohubiak-Huff (Camrose), Bonnie Heritage (Edmonton) and Aline McGinn (Edmonton).

We’ve got even more amazing prizes for you to win in this issue’s Mosaic Reader Survey. Check out the bottom of page 31 to see the prizes you can win and then send in your survey before July 1! There’s everything from tickets to psychic Michelle Whitedove’s Edmonton show on August 10th, to a Reiki Treatment, a Detox Foot Spa & Infrared Sauna Session, an Angel Reading and a print from our feature artist, Kathy Meaney.

And don’t forget about Mosaic’s Delicious Book Club Dinner on May 13th at Spago’s Restaurant (12433 – 97 Street) at 6:00 p.m. If you like to eat delicious food, read delicious books and enjoy the company of like minded people, then meet us on May 13 to talk about our first delicious book: Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Email mosaicmagazine@shaw.ca by MAY 9, so we can advise the restaurant of how many people are coming.

If you can’t make the May 13th dinner but want to keep informed about other upcoming book club dinners, then simply go to www.iLoveMosaicMagazine.com and sign up for our monthly ezine/newsletter.

The Mosaic ezine/newsletter features different mind, body and spirit information that isn’t published in the magazine, as well as keeps you updated on when new issues of Mosaic hit the stands, our deadlines and how to be a part of the next issue. You’ll love it!

With amore,

Connie

Chicks… When I hear the word chicks I think of two things.

The first thing I think of is young women who are trendy, impressionable and live for the moment. The second thing I think of is young, fluffy, soft, yellow, itty-bitty, baby chickens… the kind you see at Easter.

I grew up on a farm and what I remember about sweet, little baby chicks is not so nice or cute. I can remember watching a group of new born chicks huddling together in camaraderie until they noticed another baby chick that was weak and struggling in the corner. To my utter horror, they ganged up on it and began to peck it to near death. I’ve never forgotten that. My Mom had to separate it so it could survive.

I’ll be honest. What really scared me was my affinity to that weak chick. I’ve been that weak chick at school and got picked on. I’ve been that weak chick in my family and in the world. So what I decided quite early on was that if I wanted to survive, it was better to hide all my weaknesses and never be noticed as a weak chick.

This belief (that I could not show any weakness, vulnerability or imperfection to anyone except my closest friends and sister) ran my life for years. And I saw many things that reinforced that belief along the way because sometimes people’s primitive response is to attack or ostracize vulnerable people.

A few weekend ago I attended a workshop that focused on building female/male relationships. One of the exercises for the women was to dance for each other, to celebrate each other through dance and movement. Well you might as well have asked me to dance the Cha Cha naked for the Pope. It was that foreign to me. I mean, I can dance in a nightclub after drinking a couple glasses of wine and think I’m Madonna. But to show another woman know how wonderful they are through dance (and to also accept it back) was so uncomfortable for me.

I felt like an idiot. I wanted to run away and I said this at the end of one of the dances when we were asked to share how we were feeling. I said that I felt very uneasy, that this was foreign to me and that I just didn’t know how to do it. Of course, I was the only ‘chick’ that said that out loud! After the words came out of my mouth and I had 50 women staring at me, I instantly felt vulnerable and sorry that I had said it out loud.

Yet when the next dance came on, the most wonderful thing happened. A bunch of amazing women took turns dancing with me, showing me how to dance and enjoy moving freely to the music. When the first woman grabbed my hand, I was pleased by her kindness. But as it continued, a chain of wise women supporting and teaching me, it touched me deeply…to the point of tears.

This was not something I was use to experiencing. I have not had many experiences of being so openly supported after sharing a weakness. And I thought to myself, so quickly in that moment: “I could be safe anywhere in the world if I knew I could be supported like this from people I do not even know.”

I know my sister Shelley or my close friends would do anything for me. But to believe that there are people in the world that would help me, protect me and nurture me, without knowing me for more than a moment – that knowledge healed a part of me that has not believed that the world is a safe place.

I wanted to write this column because I think that as women, as chicks, we need to support one another and not look at each other as competition or a threat. We all have so many wise gifts to share with one another. We are all mothers, daughters, sisters, friends, wives… We are all SO MUCH. Yet there is this primitive part of us that thinks that if we give to another woman, we are taking something away from ourselves.

When you really think about it, how can that possibly be? When we give, we always get back. That is a law of the universe.

Once upon a time a high school friend of mine, Brenda Duchesne, told me: “If I compliment you, it doesn’t take anything away from me. It only adds to you.” It was an ‘aha’ moment for me because I instantly knew she was right!

Let’s consciously make a choice to add to each other. Let’s grow and evolve from being ‘chicks’ to being wise women who support one another. How wonderful would that be for all of us?

And then it happened …

The thing that I feared the most.

There I was in the middle of my phone interview with renowned author and peace troubadour, James Twyman. He had just finished answering my last question. I had my next question in my mind but I wanted to tie it together with some of what he had just said. I started talking … and then it happened…

My mind went totally BLANK!

Everything went quiet on the phone but in my mind two things happened quickly. The first was stunned disbelief. My chattering mind had never been so quiet. But that changed pretty quickly into something else that was a little bit louder for me - a piercing inner scream: aaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! If you need a visual on how I felt at that moment, think Edvard Munch’s painting ‘The Scream.’

But James was great about it. He just waited until I remembered what I wanted to ask. Then I could have asked him questions all afternoon. He is so inspiring and passionate about world peace and our individual ability to make a difference. Despite my “I’ll never be Barbara Walter’s moment,” I felt privileged to be able to talk to him about many things, including his upcoming book and film The Moses Code.

We’ve got his interview for you on pages 28, 29, 30 and 33. We couldn’t fit it all in the magazine, so the ending is on our website at www.ILoveMosaicMagazine.com. You can either read it all there or listen to the actual interview by clicking on the audio link. Just remember, when you get to the silent part… it wasn’t so silent for me.

This feature interview is only one of the great articles we have for you in this issue of Mosaic Magazine. Yes, I’m 100% biased, but I have to say that Mosaic seems to get more amazing!

Every issue of Mosaic is an adventure. There are new writers, new advertisers and new ideas bubbling in my mind. This issue we introduce a new page called ‘Books That Changed My Life.’ Kate Stuve of Lifeforce Healing Herbal Centre talks about a book on cancer that she thinks is one of the best that she has ever read (page 34).

Our feature artist is Crystal Driedger. I just love her stuff. This is one of my favorite Mosaic covers. Her art is featured throughout the magazine and along with her article (page 44).

And what is one of the best parts of my job? Calling up Mosaic’s readers and telling them they’ve won a prize from entering our last Mosaic Reader’s Survey contest! The winners were Jennifer Snoek, Larrel Gauld, Carrie Gontowiuk, Babette Jessen, Deb Charchuk and Marijke Lindner.

We’ve got even more amazing prizes for you to win in this issue’s Mosaic Reader Survey. Check out the bottom of page 31 to see the prizes you can win and then send in your survey before April 1st! There’s everything from tickets to James Twyman’s workshop, to sessions in Theta Healing, Acupuncture or Lymph Drainage Therapy, to a set of limited editions prints from Crystal Driedger.

And that wraps up another issue of Mosaic. Do you wish there were more? If you are one of the many people who tell me you want more of Mosaic, sign up for our on-line Mosaic ezine/newsletter at www.ILoveMosaicMagazine.com

The Mosaic ezine/newsletter will feature different mind, body and spirit information that isn’t published in the magazine, as well as keep you updated on when new issues of Mosaic hit the stands, our deadlines and how to be a part of the next issue. You’ll love it!

With amore,

Connie

James is coming to Edmonton as a keynote speaker for the Body, Soul and Spirit Expo on April 12th to talk about his upcoming book (Hay House) and documentary film (Emissary Productions & Hay House) called The Moses Code. The film will be out on April 5th followed by a worldwide prayer and meditation on April 6th to focus on world peace.

Welcome, James. Let’s start with the most obvious question first. What is ‘The Moses Code’?

James: Well, that’s a good question. Let me back up just a little bit and tell you how my exploration of that all came about.

First of all, most of us are aware of a movie that came out a year or two ago that got a lot of attention. That was The Secret (TS Productions LLC, 2006), a movie that focused on the Law of Attraction and how we can use that spiritual law to attract whatever we want into our life. Like everyone else, I saw that film and was very happy that there was a lot of energy around the world for people who wanted to understand and then begin practicing that law.

Almost from the very beginning, I began to sense that there was a real danger with the way it was being perceived because in my opinion, the Law of Attraction was being explored more as a way of serving the needs of the ego - which is that part of us that is always thinking that there are things outside of us (outside of who we really are) and that if we could only get those things, then we’d be satisfied, then we would have what we think we really want. But as most of us have realized by now, even when we do attract those physical things - whether it be new cars or relationships or houses - even when we do get those things, it hasn’t satisfied the real longing, which is the longing of the soul.

I think it’s very important for us to make that differentiation. The longing that we’re feeling is not coming from the ego. We could get all of those things, but all it really ends up doing is increasing our poverty because the longing that we’re trying to fulfill will never be satisfied by getting anything. That longing will only be satisfied through giving from our soul. This is really where The Moses Code came in.

I had written a book called The Art of Spiritual Peacemaking (Findhorn Press, 2006), where I explored very briefly the power that is found in the name of God that was given in the conversation that Moses had with God at the burning bush, 3,500 years ago. It was through that conversation that Moses was given the name of God, which in Hebrew is Ehyeh Asher Ehyea, or is often translated as: “I AM THAT I AM.”

Ultimately, what happened was Moses used this name and the power therein to create some of the most powerful and important miracles in history, all of which lead to the release of the Israelites from slavery. Even though this power and the power in that name did create those miracles, it was almost decided immediately that it was so holy, so far beyond our scope, that is was hidden away. It was locked away. People forgot about this incredible gift and how it can be practiced.

So I began to look at these two things together, both the power in that name and how it can be used to create miracles, and also how so many people today are wanting to realize and fulfill that longing which can really only be fulfilled in the soul. That was how both the book and the movie for The Moses Code came about.

I wanted to offer a practical and powerful tool through ‘The Moses Code’ or through the name of God: I AM THAT I AM and also to demonstrate how that can be used, not for the ego’s agenda, but to fulfill the longing of the soul. Quite simply that can be explained by saying that the ego is constantly trying to use these spiritual laws to get, whereas the soul is using them to give.

I think this is really where the soul is calling us today. It’s calling us to use these spiritual laws to serve and to help to create and to realize what we could call the ‘Peaceable Kingdom’ or a world that’s based upon the laws of compassion and peace instead of just simply trying to satisfy the endless longing of the ego.

I think this is the most important issue today. There are so many people who are aware and awake. If we can come together using the power of this through this conversation with God that happened 3,500 years ago and through allowing our soul to open to its greatest longing, this is really how we are going to serve the true needs of humanity on this planet at this remarkably important time in history…

…As you can tell, I’m very passionate about this. I look out at the world today and I see that on one hand this is one of the most difficult times in human history. There are more people who are focused on the ego. There’s more war. We’re destroying the environment. We have the ability to destroy the planet itself seven times over. Yet at the same time, this is one of the most positive and important times in history because there are so many people who are activated and passionate. We just need to come together in the soul rather than in the ego.

I don’t mean to belittle The Secret, but I do think that if we stop where The Secret stopped, we are doing ourselves an enormous injustice. We have to take that, perhaps, as a first step, but we then have to keep moving away from the ego’s constant desire to get more stuff and to use these spiritual laws just to serve that endless agenda and use it to serve the souls’ agenda, which is to truly transform the planet.

Connie: Can we just back up a little bit? In The Moses Code, in this book or the film, you’re going to teach people the power of ‘The Moses Code?’

James: Absolutely. Both the movie and the book teach a chant of using that name, I AM THAT I AM, to manifest from the level of soul rather than ego. So our intention with the movie in particular is that on April 5th, which will be the worldwide release of the film, we hope to have several thousand gatherings, whether it be in homes or theatres or churches or wherever they might be, where there are groups of people who first watch the movie and learn ‘The Moses Code.’

Then on April 6th, that will be the day where the worldwide prayer vigil will be taking place. It will be from noon to 1:00 p.m., Eastern Time. People all over the world during that hour will be using ‘The Moses Code’ in a practical experiment, sending that energy to the Middle East, which is obviously a place that is so in need of prayer and light right now.

I think what’s going to happen is on that day after everyone has learned ‘The Moses Code’ and then applies it on April 6th, we’re going to see a dramatic shift in things. I’ve had the opportunity, as you know, to travel to the Middle East many times and to focus other prayer vigils in Iraq and other places. Each time we’ve done that, we have felt tangible, energetic results. Having the opportunity to do this with this powerful tool called ‘The Moses Code’ is only going to amplify that.

Connie: So what would you say then is the goal of your film? Would it be to promote world peace?

James: Yes. Well, that’s a good question. I would say that the primary goal of this film is a call to action. It’s a wake-up call. It’s a call for us to once and for all wake up and realize that the world itself, our planet, humanity, stands on the precipice of an amazing and important decision. Are we going to continue to move in the same direction that we’re moving right now and completely destroy the planet or are we going to use these spiritual tools that have been given to us through divinity itself? Are we going to begin to use them to create something that will sustain the soul’s agenda, which is peace and compassion?

So this is the goal of The Moses Code itself to show people the urgency of this time and to show that each one of us has an important role to play, although that important role may reveal itself in very ordinary ways. Basically, every moment, we have an opportunity to be in service. Every moment, we have the opportunity to bless, to heal, to transform. If we can realize that and begin to apply that in the ordinary moments of our lives, then this energy that we call ‘The Moses Code’ is going to take off and will begin to build such momentum that the ending will be exactly what we’ve always hoped for.

Connie: You’ve described ‘The Moses Code’ as the most powerful manifestation technique ever known to humanity… You say that it’s such a huge thing and such a huge tool, yet nobody really has done anything or known anything about it. It’s been hidden for so long. Why do you think that is?

James: First of all, in a general sense, it has been hidden. As I said before, what we’re talking about when we say ‘The Moses Code’ is harnessing the identification of ourselves as one with our divine source, or one with God. That was first done and realized 3,500 years ago when Moses was at that burning bush and was given the name of God. He used the power of that name to create some of the most powerful and important miracles in the history of the world. So that is why I say that this is the most powerful, manifestation tool in history because many of the miracles that we still read about in the Bible were created through this.

As I also said, unfortunately, at that time, maybe it was simply that we weren’t ready to fully harness it. At least from an Orthodox Jewish perspective, it was claimed that we couldn’t use the name. It was locked away. Even the exact pronunciation of the name of God was lost. Yet, if we look back through history, we can see that there are many saints and sages from many different traditions who have also unlocked ‘The Moses Code’ and have used the name to create miracles in their life.

One example would be Jesus. There are quite a few stories, actually, in the Gospels where we can see ‘The Moses Code’ arise. Jesus harnessed that power. One example would be when Jesus is talking about the temple and how the temple could be destroyed, but it could be raised up. No one can believe this. So he says to them: “Before Moses and the prophets, I AM.”

Basically, what happened then is it says they picked up stones to kill him because in saying that, he committed blasphemy because he had used the name of God, I AM, or Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh in Hebrew, and he had identified himself as one with that divine source. In other words, he claimed that he was God. That was the reason why they picked up stones to kill him.

So it was obvious from some of these stories that Jesus not only understood ‘The Moses Code’ but that he was practicing it himself. This was the source of his own unified consciousness or realization - that he was one with God. Then he was able to harness that power as Moses did.

So though it’s been hidden all this time, it does show up in many different ways through the mythical traditions in many different religions and traditions and also through some of the greatest teachers, Jesus being one example.

Connie: I actually went into your web-site, www.TheMosesCode.com and I watched the trailer. Those two words came up over and over: I AM. I AM fat. I AM unhappy. I AM …, I AM…

James: Yes.

Connie: What do you think the power of those two words are for people, everyday? People say that all the time. I AM this. I AM that.

James: Yes, that’s a great question. One of the people in the movie that addresses this so well is Iyanla Vanzant, who you saw there in the trailer. What Iyanla says is that our name indicates who we are. When we use the word, ‘I’ it’s like we’re claiming something. Using the word, ‘am’ gives action to that word. So when we say: “I AM something,” what we don’t realize is that we’re actually creating an energy pattern that is much more powerful than we think. When we say something like: “I AM fat” or “I AM unworthy” or whatever, what we’re really doing is actually harnessing the energy of that and claiming that through that divine source of power that’s within each one of us. In other words, we’re using ‘The Moses Code’ in reverse.

The fact is even though the technology has been lost for 3,500 years, we all use ‘The Moses Code’ every day. We say: “I AM this” or “I AM that.” When we claim something like that, the universe responds and says: “Okay. Then let’s bring all of that into your conscious reality so you can experience what you’re claiming yourself to be.” So, if I say: “I AM unworthy” then the universe is going to give you lots of different ways of realizing that you are unworthy.

If we can turn that around and say: “I AM holy. I AM whole. I AM worthy of love,” the same thing will happen. The universe then begins to provide us with opportunities to realize our loving nature, to realize our wholeness, our oneness.

Part of The Moses Code is to realize that we are doing this already. We simply have to be more conscious about who we’re claiming ourselves to be and what we’re drawing into our reality through the Law of Attraction. We can use this, if we’re conscious, to realize the soul’s longing which is to realize wholeness as opposed to the ego’s longing, which is to realize separation.

Connie: Debbie Ford is in the documentary. She’s also co-producer of the film. Who are some of the other spiritual teachers? You just mentioned Iyanla Vanzant. Who else?

James: Some of the others would be Andrew Harvey, Cheryl Richardson, Neal Donald Walsch, James Van Praagh, Harvil Hendrix, Gregg Braden, John Holland. Who am I forgetting? I’m probably forgetting quite a few. There are so many people that really were interested in this.

I have to say that one of the reasons why so many of these very wonderful, well-known, spiritual teachers wanted to be part of this was because, like I did, they all felt that something needed to be added to this discussion on the Law of Attraction that was reflective of the life of the soul rather than the ego.

I can’t say how many people I’ve talked to, not only spiritual teachers, but just people who have watched the film, who have on one hand as we’ve said before, been happy that this first step was taken, but on the other hand, have said: “My goodness, we need to add something to this because if we don’t, we’re in trouble because if we continue down this path, just using these spiritual laws thinking that it’s all about me, me, me, then all we’re going to do is keep adding to the problem. We’re going to accelerate this path that we’ve been taking into complete disaster.”

We, as people who are on spiritual paths, need to be the ones who are offering the alternative to that. The only way that’s going to happen is by using these spiritual laws to serve, to fulfill the soul’s agenda, not the ego’s agenda. So many of these teachers were completely in line with that. This is what their lives are about. So that’s why they wanted to be part of The Moses Code.

Connie: Yes. I’ve heard a lot of people say that same thing about The Secret. So would you say that if The Secret hadn’t come out, you may not have been inspired to do this book?

James: Yes. That is a very legitimate thing to say. Sometimes, you can’t continue a conversation until it’s been started. Maybe this has been the great gift of The Secret, to begin a conversation that leads us into this. I bless it for that. For me, this is not about bashing The Secret at all because I think it has played its rol