In a world full of stress, deadlines, needs, and scarcity, it is sometimes hard to determine that you have any power. Helping yourself can feel like an overwhelming and unattainable mission. However, we also live in a world full of new information and understandings. Ideas of self-empowerment and the feelings that these truths bring is testimony for a new way of thinking.

The universe is unlimited, and, if you choose to explore it, you will awaken to a whole new way of knowing---a whole new way of being. Spirit is available to all people at equal levels; there is no "better than," or "more deserving." The choice to raise your consciousness means to broaden your awareness, open up to new possibilities, step out of your comfort zone, and allow information other than what you already "know."

Spirit has many names: God, Great Spirit, All That Is, Mother/Father, Great Mystery, Allah, and Lord. All are interchangeable. Your spirit, which is housed in your body, is part of that giant whole. In fact, everything is made up of the same energy. All things---every tree, rock, grain of sand, gust of wind, drop of water, animal, insect, bird, planet, star---are expressions of the divine, and we are all interconnected in a divine and profound way.

You are an incredible spirit of divine perfection, the same composition as Spirit. Creator is an ocean and you are a drop of water in that ocean. You carry within you the exact components and properties of the entire ocean. You are made of Spirit, in the reflection of Spirit, and Spirit is in you.

The following basic truths are unifying principles I have learned in my work with the spirits. These truths present concepts about healing and working with energy. They also provide suggestions on how you might apply them to your own life to enhance your process of healing and well-being. I guarantee that if you make them a part of your daily life, your life will improve in a dramatically positive way.

Anyone, at any time, can make choices for happiness and for healing. This includes you. Read the following truths and begin to ask how they might affect your life.

Universal Truths

1. Spirit loves and values you unconditionally.

2. You are first and foremost a spirit---a soul having an earth experience. This earth-walk is but one fraction of your being.

3. Your spirit has a divine purpose.

4. You agreed to forget your previous existence. This makes becoming enlightened a quality of remembering who you are. Remembering is embracing this reality and then making the necessary changes in your life to reflect this truth. Respect, honor, compassion, and reverence for all life are necessary components for the path to awareness.

5. You are here on earth to experience, to create, and to remember. If you do nothing more from this point on in your personal growth, you will achieve two out of the three before you die: You will experience and you will create. You cannot help it. It is happening every second of every day. It will, however, take a conscious decision to remember. It is a conscious decision to awaken, to grow spiritually, and to become the greatest version of yourself.

6. Walking the spiritual path means that you made a decision to seek the truth of who you are. The quality of life that you live is strictly a matter of choice. You may choose to live your life at any level of awareness; all are honored and respected; nothing is judged.

7. The universe is continually offering opportunities, opening doors, and answering prayers. You can choose to be conscious and awaken to these offerings.

8. Judgments, punishments, opinions of right and wrong or good and bad are human concepts. These concepts are illusions that hide the perfection of the soul. Judgments and punishments do not exist in the spirit world.

Life is a journey of becoming, a continual cycle of evolving from one lifetime to the next. What you do not achieve in this lifetime, you will achieve later. You choose the rate at which you evolve. To follow the spiritual path is a choice and a matter of readiness, but it offers phenomenal rewards. Your spiritual path is a completely personal experience; no two existences unfold in the same manner. As the spirits constantly remind me, everyone participating in the earth-walk will eventually come to complete consciousness. It is only a matter of when.

Judgments are what most often get in the way of personal growth. When a person directs judgments toward others, it usually indicates personal feelings of inadequacy, unworthiness, low self-esteem, and lack of self-love. Judgments can cause fear, hatred, arrogance, war, greed, anger, blame, jealousy, pain, and loneliness---the psychological disorders of the human experience. They are often imprinted heavily and cloud the reality of one's own being, which creates tremendous fear. Judgments have nothing to do with truth or the perfection of the soul. Our job as humans is to clear ourselves of the many judgments we hold toward others and ourselves.

Spirit does not pressure you to change, because you are loved unconditionally for all of eternity. The urge for change is a pressure you feel from within---your own soul urging you to create a better life. Happiness, peace, deep joy, and a closer connection to Source are all available to you. Something has encouraged you to ask questions, to seek, to pick up spiritual material. If your life is not being lived from a place of fullness, love, spontaneity, passion, sensuality, and divine joy, then you probably need to make some changes in your life in order to attain these qualities.