Awakening by Shakti Gawain

- We create our own reality every moment, whether or not we’re conscious of it. If we’re not conscious,
we create it out of habit and old patterns.

- It’s important to create a schedule that really gives you what you want so you won’t be tempted to rebel
against it. Give yourself room for creativity in a weekly schedule. Don’t stifle your creativity. Find your
own rhythm that pleases you, works for you, makes you feel balanced and adds to your sense of well-
being.

- Messages from the universe come all the time from Spirit, which tries to guide us.

- All we ever need to do is go inside ourselves and ask for guidance, ask for truth, as for the support, love,
or encouragement we need. When we ask for guidance, it begins to come to us right away.

- The painful lessons that we get inevitably show us that we are not trusting or loving ourselves, or that
we are not expressing ourselves honestly or taking care of ourselves properly.

- The universe is playful, humorous and mischievous.

- When we express all of life’s opposites and polarities then we’re full, conscious human beings.

- Life guides us towards our opposite. The people we are in relationships with tend to push us toward
expressing the parts of ourselves we haven’t yet learned to express.

- Ex:

o Masculine, feminine
o Doing, being
o Active, passive
o Rational, intuitive
o Strong, vulnerable
o Organized, spontaneous
o Material, spiritual
o Serious, playful
o Responsible, carefree
o Giving, receiving
o Intellectual, emotional

- Everything in the universe wants to be loved. Any quality or energy you are avoiding comes after you
until you embrace it and integrate it.

- When we get the things we’ve always wanted in life, it can be disconcerted because we’ve chosen to
identify with ‘have nots’ and struggle. Thankfully, we can choose to redefine ourselves at any moment
with something else that is closer to what we want. It’s okay for my life to be easy.

- I allow myself to grieve my losses. Gradually, in my own time, I release the old and welcome the new.
- Our natural state is love when it is not blocked by repressed emotions. Embrace your anger and uncover
and express your hurts. When you learn to assert your needs and feelings directly, when you make your
needs a priority and take care of yourself, and stop giving your power away, healing will take place.

- Think of your inner selves as a committee. If you can get to know the members of your inner committee
and allow them to express themselves clearly, then you, as a conscious person, can begin to make the
decisions instead whichever part of you happens to grab control in any given moment.

- We become strongly identified with certain sub-personalities; these are the ones we unconsciously allow
to run our lives and to make our decisions. These are called our primary selves.

- Underneath our anger we find an assertive self that is trying to take care of us by standing up for us,
setting boundaries, and asking for what we need. This is an important voice that needs to part of our
lives.

- Each self offers a gift.

- The protector needs to be reassured that the changes we’re making aren’t dangerous. The more we love
and approve of ourselves, the less the pleaser will be.

- The inner perfectionist comes from our childhood. We hope that if we can live up to some high standard,
we will get the love, appreciation and validation we didn’t get in childhood.

- To the pusher: I am letting go of pushing myself. I can achieve my goals in a relaxed way.

- To the inner critic: There is nothing wrong with me!

- Most of what our critic tells us is not necessarily true. A healthy inner critic gives helpful suggestions
without hurting us. Balance the inner critic by cultivating a positive voice.

- We all retain our inner children of different ages or with different qualities, forever. The primary selves
have been unconsciously protecting and parenting the inner child the only way they knew how. Making
conscious choices to care for and parent your inner child, you begin to take over the job.

- We must fill the inner child’s needs appropriately. Many people become workaholics out of a perceived
need to provide security for their inner child, but money is not necessarily what the child wants.
Sometimes the inner child will actually sabotage our attempts to be successful or do the things we think
we should do because secretly the child knows that it’s needs will not be met by what we’re striving for.

- Our challenge is to get in touch with our inner child, to find our what the child needs, and to begin to
consciously take care of the child. The child needs love, safety, respect, physical and emotional contact,
enjoyment, and the freedom to express itself honestly and creatively.

- Because most of us did not receive fully adequate parenting, we have not learned to parent our inner
child effectively. The child inside feels unloved, unsupported, frightened and needy. Unconsciously we
may try to provide for that child through destructive/addictive behaviours.

- To effectively parent our inner child, we need to mother and father ourselves.

o Inner mother: nurturing, give ourselves love, caring, compassion, understanding, being sensitive
to our deepest needs and learning to fill them.
 o Inner father: supportive, protective aspect, making clear communication, setting boundaries,
being assertive with others and saying no to disrespect and abuse, protecting ourselves,
supporting our deep feelings with action.

- You can have a dialogue with your inner child in your inner sanctuary anytime. Ask it what it needs and
wants. Accept your inner child’s feelings if it is upset and give it lots of love and understanding. Pay
attention to your inner child’s needs and make fulfilling them a priority.

- To reconnect with your inner child, look at real children.

- Protect your inner child when it’s appropriate.

- Always be conscious of what your body is trying to tell you, not only if it’s sick.

- Whenever you do anything, ask for a blessing.

- Healing on one level supports healing on other levels.

- Everything you encounter is a reflection of what’s going on inside you.

- Many of us have lost our relationship with ourselves and what we really want and think and feel and
love. So we look outside for wholeness, which never works.

- In a close relationship, the other person will often express energies we have disowned. We can become
more balanced by expressing those energies. If you don’t integrate that opposite energy, you will
polarize even further.

- Acknowledge what is positive and beautiful in your life, because that is something you set in place

- You can channel the energy of role models anytime through meditation. The universe has a vast, teeming
subconscious that links all of us and all energy.

- If you take the time for personal healing, your relationships will reflect that and become an incredible
reflection of your self-love, aliveness and self-expression.

- Sexuality requires honesty with yourself + the other person, that honors your needs and feelings.

- Anytime we begin to withhold our truth on any level, no matter how small or subtle, we begin to block
the life force coming through us and we begin to deaden ourselves and kill our relationships. You have
to risk honesty and live your truth to have vibrant relationships.

- To feel complete we need to experience sexuality on four levels: mental, spiritual, emotional + physical.

- Many people with addictions are caught in an inner tyrant / inner revel conflict. Freedom arises through
consciousness, when you are aware of both and no longer being controlled of either of them.

- I can set clear boundaries with others by honouring my needs and feelings, by expressing my feelings,
by protecting myself, by taking my time to know people before I expose my inner child to them, saying no
to what I don’t enjoy, and keeping people out of my space if I need to or want to.

- Conscious eating:
 o Be aware of: why you eat, what you eat, what you’re really trying to accomplish. Be sure to
nurture and protect your inner child by meeting its true needs.
o Listen to your body and be aware of what it wants, when it wants it, and what it enjoys.
o Eat in a beautiful place, taking your time, being aware of what you eat, and eat with love.

- Call upon the energy of your inner warrior when you need it. It is strong, aggressive and protective. It
sets limits and takes action if those limits are challenged. It guards us, preserves our safety and well
being + allows us to express ourselves. It does not oppress us. Disowning your warrior is dangerous.

- The inner child is the source of magical creativity. As we get in touch with our inner child, we release
our creativity.

- Everyone is creative in at least one area. Think about how you are creative in that area. How do you trust
yourself and express yourself? Try applying that mentality or those strategies to other areas in your life.

- Creativity requires experimentation, a sense of adventure, and play. It is the pleasurable feeling of being
a channel, allowing the creative energy of the universe to work through us.

- You can call upon beautiful archetypal male and female energy whenever you want to via consciousness
(ie. By being aware of absorbing/expressing that energy). What’s it like experiencing both at the same
time?

- Choosing to stay with the perfection of fantasy is over-embodying the feminine.

- I give myself the things I really need and live in simplicity.

- It is respecting your self worth to give yourself the time you need to experience everything that is
important to you.

- Consciously create a balanced structure with your time and money for what you would love to
experience.

- To be able to have true intimacy, you have to be in touch with your inner child. You have to take care of
and protect it, and allow it to express itself in appropriate ways.

- If you recognize and admit your needs and really honor them, you can then express them directly. Only
then can you begin to receive from other people. If I can say I really need a hug right now, it’s usually
pretty easy for people to give. But if I say I shouldn’t need anybody, then my needs will come out in
indirect ways and take on a greater energy, because I’m denying what’s really there. Then it becomes
hard for people to respond without feeling overwhelmed.

- Intimate relationship is a constant dance between the polarities of closeness and space. If you don’t
consciously take space when you need it, you’ll create a conflict that will give you that space.

- Our inner child may prevent us from getting into an intimate relationship because it’s afraid of being
rejected or abandoned. If we are consciously aware of the fears of our inner child, we can give it the love
and support it needs to feel safe in moving into relationships.

- It’s blessed to give and receive equally because that’s what brings balance and harmony into your life.
- Think of your life as a painting and try to create it the way a painter paints. Listen to the life force within
you. Trust it and move with it. Risk trying new colors. Then stand back and look at your painting.

- Everyone at heart is an innocent child who is doing whatever he has learned to do to survive and feel
powerful and safe in the world.

- Your healing process helps others as you can’t help but exude that energy.

- Codependence is the unconscious dependency that exists when we don’t recognize and accept our need
for others. How can I reach out to create more sense of connection to my fellow beings?

- Healing:

o Physical: feel and listen to our bodies again, respond to our bodies’ needs, treat our bodies with
love as if they were priceless and beautiful, taking great care of our bodies, valuing them and not
taking risks without thinking, or doing things with them that cause discomfort.

o Emotional: allow ourselves to feel and release repressed emotions, experience our feelings fully,
being in touch with our vulnerabilities and learning to care for and protect them consciously and
appropriately in relationships and in the world

o Mental: identify and gradually release thoughts/ideas/belief systems that no longer serve us and
explore new ideas that give a fuller expression of all we are, reclaiming your intelligence if you
disowned it in childhood due to criticism or emotional trauma

o Spiritual: consciously reconnect with Spirit, allow It to take the burdens off our shoulders, have a
positive loving relationship with It

- 3 types of fear:
o There’s actually a danger and your intuition is a warning:
“Don’t go there. Don’t do this. This isn’t right.”
Respect that feeling completely and act on it.
o It’s not actually dangerous but your inner child is frightened of it. Comfort her, see what’s
needed, and make sure you are going to take care of yourself. Then when your child feels ready,
you can move into it.
o You’re ready to do something, but it’s a challenge. The fear is a temporary reaction your body
and psyche feel to the excitement of moving into a new level of aliveness. Recognize the fear as
the flip side of excitement and ride it through.

- I forgive myself for my old habits and patterns. Now I’m learning positive, effective ways to meet my
needs. I appreciate my old patterns for getting me this far. I’m ready to release and transform those I no
longer need.

- Your shadow is made up of whatever natural energies you have repressed or disowned. Energies that
have been held down for a long time build up a lot of unexpressed power that can feel very frightening
to confront. It desires love and acceptance and follows us around until we notice it and deal with it.

- All wounds can be healed if you are willing to do whatever it takes with the necessary support and time.

- To heal, we have to acknowledge whatever is not working in our lives, experience the feelings
associated with it, and learn the lessons that it has to offer so we won’t experience it again.
- Don’t be impatient to learn everything at once. Learning is a process that you must allow to happen.

- If you allow fear to control you and you are not conscious of it, then you will always be subconsciously
asking for things and yet not able to receive what anyone would give. Allow yourself to receive, without
accepting any negative thoughts about yourself or your worth or whether you deserve to have what you
want.

- As adults, we can reconnect with the child inside of us who was discouraged in school and help it to
learn in a positive way by making it feel safe and loved and encouraged.

- Stay true to yourself. Every time we don’t tell the truth, we abandon ourselves, because we’re not
allowing ourselves to feel. We are saying to the child inside of us, “I can’t be real. I can’t show who you
really are.” We essentially abandon ourselves to be with the other person, and that feels terrible. When
you do start making the choice to stay true to yourself and risk losing the other person, you strengthen
that bond with yourself. Ironically, the more you honor your own relationship with yourself, the better
your other relationships will be. I’m learning to stay with myself even when it’s scary.

- As a conscious adult, you can now address that part of you that says, “Don’t ever be vulnerable!” You
can say, “I can see why it hasn’t felt good to be vulnerable until now because it would have been pretty
dangerous and scary. Don’t worry, I won’t be vulnerable in a way that’s really stupid or foolish or is
going to get me hurt. I’m going to make some conscious choices now. From time to time, it will be okay
for me to be vulnerable in situations when there’s somebody who really cares about me. I’ll check it out
and make sure it’s really safe. I’m going to start bringing that vulnerability out, but I’m not going to take
it out and lay it in the middle of the street.” Continually reassure the protective part of you that’s anxious
because you are beginning to open up.

- Many people are unconsciously afraid to know themselves, how they really feel and how they really
think, because they’re afraid they’ll find out that they are a defective person. One thing you can be sure
of is that there is nothing wrong with you. You are a beautiful, powerful being who may not have
received enough love and support so that you could learn to really love yourself. The deepest secret of
all is that you are unique and perfect: you were created perfectly.