This past month or so has been an extraordinary time for me. My book is released and is becoming a bona fide hit on Amazon; my speaking career is in the process of revealing itself to me. (As in: what the hell might I say to a roomful of listeners? And in what sorts of venues might I say it?)

I’ve also informally partnered up with an amazing producer type guy and we’re collaborating on film and book projects; and in general I’m bowled over by the outpouring of love and support from all sides as I step forward and try my hand at this crazy public messengering thing.

So naturally, it was time for my ego mind to weigh in on this beautiful turn of events. Because that old ego’s been with me a long, long time. It knows me better than anyone else. And it knows with absolute certainty that all this success is just some cosmic mistake – I don’t deserve it and soon we’re going to have to engineer some kind of drastic monkey wrench in the works, something that slows my progress to a crawl.

Because a little love and success is fine, but enough is enough. It’s time to reestablish the natural order of things.

I woke up today very painfully aware of the deep down rage-filled workings of my ego mind. Which was ok with me, because lately I’ve been asking to see (and heal) the entirety of that unconscious mountain of mud. So while I was excavating down in angry, fearful Mudland, I took a good look at my firmly held belief that I can’t tolerate sustained success – and then chose to release that firm belief.

I handed over that very mistaken idea to Spirit. And then got out of the shower and got dressed.

A minute later the phone rang. It was Fran, calling from Sedona. She said she’d been trying to email (bad internet connection) but Spirit said, “Call her.”

She said she wanted to tell me how richly deserved all my success and momentum is. That she’s so proud of me, and feels like I’ve waited my entire life with the ‘pause’ button on, but now for the first time am stepping forward to tell my story with the voice of my true authentic self. (It feels that way to me, too.) And that Heaven can't help but shower me with its joyous outpouring of ongoing love and support as a result.

Well that took my breath away. Spirit often speaks to me through Fran, but somehow the fast turnaround time really caught me off guard this time. I told her what I’d been wrestling with and she laughed and said:

“Well, those kinds of things will continue to come up from time to time. Think of them as commercial interruptions from the ego. So when it happens, just say you’re not interested in buying the product!”

Well I’ve been laughing with gentle joy ever since.

Sure, there’ll be ups and downs along the journey. How could life in this dreamworld be otherwise? But now I realize I don’t have to watch the commercials anymore.

Kind of like getting a spiritual DVR. Goodbye to unquestioned ego beliefs, and hello to the 30-second skip!

(Reporting live from Santa Fe) – Ever feel like your life is filled with so many Heavenly blessings you’ve run out of fingers and toes to count them all? That might seem an odd way to begin a story that nearly ended up in the emergency room, but sometimes it goes that way.

Here’s how it started: Due to a whole other series of mind-blowing Heavenly blessings, I was offered the amazing opportunity to come to Santa Fe to be interviewed about my soon-to-be-released book (9 days & counting!) and to meet a couple of writer-heroes of mine, Nouk Sanchez and Tomas Viera, authors of Take Me To Truth.  Their book lives permanently on my nightstand, along with A Course in Miracles.

The day before I was to leave for Santa Fe, my right eye started to hurt for no reason. So I took out my contacts, thinking that would fix the problem. Wrong. The eye grew more and more irritated as the day wore on; by nightfall it was red and swollen and streaming tears, and by bedtime it hurt like holy hell. In total darkness the pain was bad enough, but the faintest glimmer of light brought what felt like a parade of stiletto heels stomping on my eye.

Ooh baby, it was gonna be a long night.

Around midnight I started toying with the idea of the emergency room; by 2am I was starting to wonder whether I’d have to cancel my trip? That meant passing up a (literally) God-given opportunity; it also meant I’d be pissing away $1000 or so on nonrefundable travel arrangements.

On the other hand, I was now virtually blind in one eye, unable to function except in total darkness and nearly mad with pain. Perhaps it was not the best idea to drive myself to LA, get on a plane and go to another city for 5 days.

Well I had no friggin’ idea what to do.

One thing I did know: I want to wake up from the dream of 3-D existence more than anything else in this world. And sometimes the best way to help do that is when your back is to the wall and you’re completely out of options. So I let go of all my own opinions and fears about what I was supposed to do in that situation, and I started to pray.

But I was determined not to merely replace the dream of pain with a dream of healing. (After all, I want to wake up from all dreams.) I didn’t pray to feel better. I just handed the whole mess over to Spirit with no strings attached, and asked only for an unmistakable sign whether I should keep my date in Santa Fe or not.

Then something curious happened. Right away the pain sort of dissolved and I fell into a kind of interim state (it definitely wasn’t sleep). 2 hours later, just before the alarm went off at 4am, I snapped out of it and realized my eye felt at least 50% better. Definitely bearable now. Taking that as my unmistakable sign, I rolled out of bed and hit the road.

But as if surrender and spontaneous physical healing were not enough, there was actually another (and far deeper) healing connected to this event.

You know how sometimes you don’t realize how much you’ve changed or grown until all of a sudden you’re thrown into a situation that would’ve been your worst nightmare in the past but now isn’t?

To say I’ve always been deeply self conscious about my looks would be kind of a crazy understatement. I’ve caused myself needless decades of pain and shame over what Spirit has referred to as ‘my self-imposed prison of ugliness.’ And I know the whole thing is stupid, but have always been unable to get at the roots of those deeply held beliefs to be able to heal them.

But as I wandered the LA airport with a blood red eye, glasses and no makeup – not my best look, I assure you – I was surprised to realize my appearance didn’t matter to me at all.  At all.

It was as if the door to my prison cell had been hanging wide open for ages, but only now did it occur to me it was ok to step outside (blinking in the unfamiliar and still somewhat painful light). That I was free at last.

Oh, the interview: Fabulous. And meeting all of those wonderful people: Even more fabulous. So fabulous, in fact, that in September Nouk, Tomas AND I will be putting on a 3 day seminar together here in California.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Holy crap, this spiritual journey is fun.