There once was a man who lived just outside of Pittsburgh.

He operated a small dairy farm. Day in and day out he worked laboriously, earning a meager living for himself and his family.

One day, several men who had been surveying some adjacent land walked across the pasture. The farmer noticed them as they were crossing a stream of water that ran through the field.

Suddenly, some of the men stooped down, and the farmer watched as they began studying the slime and the scum that had collected against the crude footbridge the farmer had laid there.

One man scooped up some water in his hand and drank it. Another collected some water in a canteen he carried attached to a buckle on his belt.

The farmer was puzzled and wondered why anyone would be interested in that water. Even the cattle didn’t like it – they always pushed the scum aside to drink the clear water.

Some weeks later, one of the men who had been studying the water in the stream called the farmer and offered him a fabulous price for his farm.

The farmer thought,

“This man must be crazy. Why is he offering so much money for such a mediocre farm like mine? He’ll never get his investment back!”

But the farmer was joyful at the prospect of receiving so much money. So, he sold the farm and bought another one in Canada where his brother lived.

Animals touch our lives as well as our hearts and souls—whether they have fins, wings or fur, two legs or four. They love us unconditionally, teach us to play, but most important, show us how to live in the present moment.

Many of you already know much I love animals. One beautiful puppy—Koda—changed my world more than a decade ago. He has taught me so much, and because of him, I’ve given my time freely to animal charities and set up the highly successful Koda Fund. I’m a true believer in giving back for all the blessings these animals have given me.

We may be uniquely distinctive and individual souls, but there’s a commonality that binds us together—a spiritual force. The same energy that creates the stars in the sky, the same energy that courses through the Universe, is in each and every one of us…and that includes animals. As sentient beings, we’re all connected.

Because everyone has self-awareness, human beings know what it means to be happy or unhappy. This feeling is so basic that seeking happiness comes naturally. Yet for some reason happiness proves elusive, and feeling that you can find permanent happiness can seem futile.

If we look closely, however, there are three ways to be happy. The first two arise in everyone’s life; the third is rare. But the third way is the only one, after centuries of seeking, that has stood the test of time. Every age is challenged to rediscover the third way, including our own time.

The first way to be happy is to follow your impulses without judging them, taking life as it comes from moment to moment. This is the way of babies and small children. They are motivated by the next thing that occurs to them, and they have little ability to predict what will turn out to be a sad or glad experience. Impulsiveness lingers in many people after they become adults, but the vast majority of people move on to the second way of being happy.

Do you have storms in your life that haven’t passed? Storms that were formed when you were four, eight, twelve or fourteen years old? Pains, resentments, fears that remain in conflict in the center of your being?

We live in a very peculiar state of being. We live with pain, heartache, grief, and fears that go on and on. And not only do they go on, but they actually tend to get worse.

That’s not how it’s supposed to be! You and I are not meant to live with any lingering negative state whatsoever, regardless its cause. No matter who or what happened to you in your life, the pain that is in you doesn’t belong in you! It was meant to be healed, and it wasn’t. Now the question is, why not? That’s the big question.

 Have you ever seen a storm in nature that didn’t pass? Why do storms pass in the world, but storms in human beings don’t pass?

In nature, storms are produced by colliding systems of high pressure and low pressure. Nature handles this conflict by balancing the opposing forces that cause the storms. As human beings, we also have conflicting forces as part of our nature. But unlike Mother Nature, who is able to reconcile these opposing forces that produce storms, there’s something in us that not only doesn’t reconcile them, but actually causes them to continue.

What makes your life?

The Practice:
Accept dependence.

Why?

Want to try a little experiment?

Stop breathing. Really. For a few seconds, maybe a few dozen seconds, and see how it feels.

For me, this experiment is an intimate way to experience a deep truth, that we live dependently, relying on 10,000 things for physical survival, happiness, love, and success.

For example, within half a minute of no air, most people are uncomfortable, after one minute, they’re panicking, and after four minutes, they’re brain-dead or severely damaged. Second by second, your life and mind require oxygen, the plants that “exhale” it, the sun that drives photosynthesis, and other stars blowing up billions of years ago to make every atom of oxygen in the next breath you take. Or think about the people you rely on – the touches, attention, and caring – or the medicines, wisdom teachings, civil society, technologies, or your own good efforts last year that you profit from today.

Every single one of you has had a past life or multiple past lives centered around ascension and evolution. We access all of the potential that we have connected with through every incarnation, every prior incarnation. That's why you're good at certain things. That's why you are gifted in the way that you are. And, it's why when you learn things like healing modalities, or you take classes on mediumship, or you begin to dive into the esoteric world, you excel at it. 

It's not an accident that you excel at it. Some of you are even better than your teachers because you are a natural at it because it's who you've been before. So at some point, you have to understand that who and what you are is an oracle. And an oracle is an individual that brings light energy and information into this reality. 

Disappointment. We’ve all been there.

Whether it was the promising new relationship, the job interview that seemed so right, the passion project that didn’t pan out, we have all known the disappointment of not having our big dream met.

Even though the feelings of loss and sadness that come with disappointment totally suck, there are actions you can take to move you back into possibility.

When this happens to me, I give myself permission to spend a few minutes to experience my sad and blue feelings. Then I will journal these feelings and really exaggerate just how bad I feel. I let my imagination run wild on the negative side just to purge it all.

Next, I take a few moments to close my eyes, drop into my heart and remind myself of all the goodness in my life as I practice breathing deeply in and out through my heart.

Finally, I get my journal out again and this time I write myself five true and positive statements about my life.

My transformational awareness journey began at age twenty when I broke my neck in gymnastics, was paralyzed and told I wasn’t going to recover. Completely recovering from my accident caused me to look at my life from a whole new perspective. Writing my book “Broken To Brilliant” allowed me to connect the dots (experiences) to develop a new perspective on why my life unfolded the way it did. More importantly, it exposed the truth of what really happened, versus the stories I told myself to make sense of my life. The things our minds make up to make us feel safe. All of our experiences and life stories have shaped us. How we interpret and give meaning to those stories forms the beliefs of who we think we are and what we’re capable of. Having an awareness of our stories is the first step in creating change in our lives.

Often, we believe that things in life, like this horrendous accident of mine, happen to us. I now believe life happens for us.

If you could gain a new awareness, a new perspective of your experiences and begin to uncover the potential gift in each one of them, how would your life be different? Having a new perspective could give you a whole new outlook on your life and a better understanding that ‘everything happens for a reason’.