"Persistence and open-mindedness will always be rewarded." - Forward to A Course In Miracles

Often I get asked "What does it take to wake up? "

It can seem an awful lot like winning Willy Wonka's golden ticket.

But nothing trumps trusting that the truth in you is stronger than the fiction and meeting what lies before you in each moment with persistence and open-mindedness, kindness and love.

So in the end, as well as in the beginning and the middle, fidelity to truth always wins out.

But what is that truth, you may ask.

Truth is the courage to live your life from the heart.

It is a departure from the path of following the conditioning and programming of the mind --which is the path that the world follows and knows all too well.

It is not about judging ourselves as somehow wrong or inadequate.

It is not about becoming more, better or different than we are.

It is about confronting our own sense of unworthiness and guilt and learning to love all of ourselves; our feelings, our thoughts, our bodies, our experiences.

And in learning that we are already enough, that we are more than okay, we begin to discover the peace that lies beneath all experiences.

The only experience which never changes is that of peace. Peace is the substrate of all experience as well as the unseen building block of all that is.

It is both context and content.

And as we learn to deeply love all of ourselves as we are, we begin to establish ourselves in a peace which passes all understanding.

Here we inevitably discover that there is only one thing we can always count on in this life, and that is the love God has for us.

Any limitations to the love of God are illusory constructs made by human beings.

Yes.

We have had many experiences in this life.

Each of these experiences has been part of God's plan for us.

There is great freedom and great peace in knowing this is true.

And in those moment's where we have loved ourselves the most authentically?

We inevitably find that it was not we who were loving ourselves, but God loving us.

And once we know that?

Who could possibly yearn for more?