Higher consciousness: Is this a state that we will all become familiar with? Is it part of our destiny? As an author and a Story/Career Consultant, I study and am fascinated by the concept of how we move from ego into a higher consciousness that benefits the greater good both in our lives and through the stories that we tell. How do we move into a higher consciousness? What has to happen in our lives? I’m always seeking to further understand this shift so that I can help writers identify the shift in their own lives, in order for them to know how to apply it to the stories they write. I feel that writing from a place of higher consciousness is the key to affecting universal change through story.

I have found, from reading about others who have gone through this kind of transformation, a common story point in the experience – what I refer to, both in life and in story, as the “all is lost” moment. In scriptwriting, this is a moment when the central character is as far away as possible from achieving his/her goal. In life, we hit this type of moment when our world appears to suddenly turn upside down. We lose our balance. Part of our journey back to balance, I am learning, is directly linked with reaching a higher consciousness.

To reach the desire to move toward a higher consciousness in my own life, I feel like I had to hit my “all is lost” moment; it came after losing a job that I had for 15 years with two sister companies. At that moment of loss, I realized that I had become married to my career after my divorce years before. When I lost my job, it felt as if I was going through a second divorce. In finding a new direction, I knew that I had to find something deeper that meant more, spiritually. It took me losing all that was (i.e., the past tied to ego) to motivate me into venturing into all that could be – the infinite space of possibility. I find that behind the personal stories of many authors/screenwriters, there is a moment like this that causes the same type of transcendence. This is why we connect to what they write.

L. Steven Sieden is the author of the book, A Fuller View: Buckminster Fuller’s Vision of Hope and Abundance For All, which explores the life shift of “Bucky” Fuller – a wise visionary, architect, inventor and motivational speaker ¬– after he hit an “all is lost” moment. For the first part of his life (before the shift), Bucky had served as an officer in the Navy during World War I. He got married and experienced the birth and untimely death of their first child. He then went through a major business and financial failure with his own construction company. As a result of that endeavor, Bucky lost all of his money as well as the investments of his friends and family. Sieden writes, “With the loss of his construction company and the birth of his second daughter, Allegra, Bucky found himself stranded with a young family in 1927 Chicago. He had no money, no job, no formal education beyond high school, a reputation as an unsuccessful businessman, and no prospects for the future.”

Sieden continues, “Extremely dejected, he seriously considered drowning himself in Lake Michigan. It was then that Bucky had the famous mystical experience that transformed his life. He realized that he did not belong to himself, and consequently, did not have the right to end his own life.” Then Sieden goes on to explain, “In that cosmic flash, Bucky suddenly understood that he (like every human being) belonged to Universe, and he committed himself to an experiment that provided the foundation and context for his every action and decision during the next fifty-six years. He decided to embark upon a lifelong experiment to determine and document what one average healthy individual with no college degree and no money could accomplish on behalf of all humankind that could not be achieved by any nation, business, organization, or institution, no matter how wealthy or powerful.”

Justine Willis Toms, guest commentator in Sieden’s book, adds, “One concept of Bucky’s that remains a touchstone for me over the years is that we can all be ‘trimtabs’ – that is, we can play a role in changing the course of things. A trimtab is a small device that is part of the rudder mechanism, which plays a crucial role in controlling the direction of a ship or an airplane. The metaphor was so important to him (Bucky) that ‘Call Me Trimtab,’ serves at the epitaph on his gravestone.”

DeAnne Hampton is the author of The New Human: Understanding Our Humanity Embracing Our Divinity. Explaining her own shift into a higher consciousness she writes, “As I began stepping back from my egoic restlessness and dropping into an emerging essence that responded to my anxiety with more inspired thought and creative possibility, I was given graceful mirrors within my routine that allowed my physical energy to grow in equal proportion to the conscious work that I was doing and engaging within the higher realms. Enthusiasm grew as I created the space for more nothingness to enter, accepting that as my consciousness expanded from within, my ego that enhanced itself from without would become extremely uncomfortable.”

DeAnne adds, “I began to seek a new counsel within that increasingly guided me in conscious action to balance doing with being. Curiously, without knowing what it was, friends and colleagues started noticing a new glow, a radiance emerging that I would come to understand as the light of my inner being, hungry for spaciousness and room to grow… I no longer belonged to my self, I was suddenly swept up by my own higher intent to know my Self: the formless, creative, intelligent force of my spiritual essence.”

I was mesmerized by these two depictions of the life shift into higher consciousness. These books helped to increase my own awareness and understanding of how better to teach the idea of transformation into a deeper place of being – a place where we can each become a “trimtab” and, in the process of doing so, effect change in ourselves and in the world.

“Alignment” is a word that intrigues me this month, and it is a term that’s becoming increasingly relevant in our cultural consciousness. The word has such a positive feeling to it. If we are “aligned” correctly, things just seem to work. This could pertain to self, to relationships, to business, to your car, to the planets…the list goes on and on. The challenge is figuring out what connotes proper alignment for you.

In story, I believe that you should start with a specific incident that throws your central character or characters out of alignment. What often follows is a series of escalating obstacles, a turning point and an “all is lost” moment, all compiling together to get the character back in line with his goal, aligning him with his destiny. Are you in alignment with your destiny?

In life, at any given moment, our world can turn upside down. Most of us go through periods when it feels like we may have taken a wrong turn. We often fall out of alignment with our core self. On a spiritual level, I believe that our gut instinct is there to help us get back into alignment.

Having clarity of intention is key. Do you know what your goals are? Do your actions really help you reach those goals? You have to learn to calm the chaos when you’re out of alignment in any given situation and properly judge what you need to do to get back into alignment. We can all be active in achieving our goals.

Start by aligning your self. Be true to who you are and what you want. Be willing to utilize and grow from your fear rather than empowering it and letting it deter you from getting to where you need to go.

In the book THE VORTEX: Where the Law of Attraction Assembles All Cooperative Relationships, Esther and Jerry Hicks explain the “30 Minute Energy-Alignment Process,” by writing, “In doing this Energy-alignment work, your point of attraction will not only yield to you activities and rendezvous with good feeling people, places, and things — but your ability to experience the delicious depth of them will be dramatically enhanced. Rather than doing things and going places to try to make yourself feel good, deliberately get to feeling good — and let all those things and people and places come to you.”

Adding depth and positivity to your life will help you be in proper alignment with your destiny, and that’s when you’ll begin to work towards your goals and things will start to fall into place.

As a Story Consultant, I am always on the search for words that add meaning and emotional depth to life experience.  I came across two words that do just that in the book, ZEN HEART by Ezra Bayda, “Being Kindness.”  Ezra writes, “We think that we need approval.  We think that we need to be loved.   But, as usual, we have it backward.  As we mature spiritually, we discover that we don’t need to be loved–, the real need, if you want to call it that, is to love.  To love, or to live from Being Kindness, means that we’re living from our natural being — from the Zen Heart.  But to learn to live from our natural kindness, we usually have to work with what gets in the way, which, in large part, is our deep seated and pervasive need for approval.”  These words have had such a profound affect on me as I experience the rush of the holidays.  If we operate with the goal of being kindness, it opens up a world of possibility and allows us to experience things on a more positive level.

Recently, I saw the true effect of kindness.  I am the Writing Instructor for NBC’s Writers on the Verge, a diversity program structured to prepare finalists for the experience of being staffed as a television writer.  At the end of our last class, I wanted to leave each of the finalists with a positive thought.  So, I had each person in the room describe one thing they loved about every other person in the room. It was a way to get them to express themselves in an open forum but to also tell each other what their thoughts are.  It was a truly amazing experience.  Seeing their faces light up as they received nothing but positive reinforcement is a moment that I will never forget.

Another great tip mentioned in ZEN HEART to keep in mind for the holidays is the “Three Breaths Practice.”  Ezra writes, “The Three Breaths Practice involves injecting a conscious pause in the middle of our usual state of waking sleep, a pause that lasts for the duration of three full breaths.  Here’s how it works, whenever you ‘come to’ for a moment, you make the conscious intention to stay there for at least three full breaths.  You don’t necessarily focus on the breath itself, but bring awareness to your entire experience in the moment, whatever it may be.”

What if we went into the holidays and the New Year with  “conscious intention” in everything we do?  Whether it’s a meal with our family, a get together with friends, a party or even a business meeting, if we consciously think about what our intention is and how we would like to make the other people in the situation feel, the results could be a lot more fulfilling.  The key to the success of your conscious intention is my favorite two words of the season, “Being Kindness.”

The journey from the corporate world to the private sector is a life affirming and worthwhile experience.  It means going from a secure paycheck to relying on the belief that the universe will deliver.  You learn more about yourself, your strengths and what you’re really made of while traveling down this path.  In the book, WHAT WOULD GOOGLE DO?, Jeff Jarvis states, “We no longer need companies, institutions or government to organize us.  We have the tools to organize ourselves.  We can find each other and coalesce around political causes or bad companies or talent or business or ideas.  We can share or sort our knowledge and behavior.  We can communicate and come together in an instant.  We also have new ethics and attitudes that spring from this new organization and change society in ways we cannot yet see, with openness, generosity, collaboration, efficiency.  We are using the internet’s connective tissue to leap over borders..’

What does all of this mean to you?  It means that there is no better time to start – to build something that is all yours and represents your beliefs, your knowledge and your values.  It’s about finding your niche and cultivating it.  You can create something from scratch.  You can apply what you loved about your job and market it in a way that appeals to the masses.  You can do what you love for a living.  It is about believing.

My journey after being in the corporate world for over 15 years started with a course at Esalen in Big Sur called “Completions and Transitions” with Mary Goldenson, the author of, “It’s Time, No One’s Coming to Save You.”  It was there that I was able to reconnect with myself, my core values and what I wanted in my life.  Through many thought provoking exercises as well as being part of a great group, Mary helped me to see and believe that there was a way.

After that trip, I analyzed the market.  I researched everyone and anyone who was doing anything similar to what I wanted to do.  I looked at my own experience and made sure that my work background supported my company concept.  I tapped into my relationships and set up informational meetings.  I found a phenomenal website designer in Suzie Roth of Suzie Roth Designs.  She has been my saving grace in this whole experience.  From here, I started developing a brand.  This was one of the most rewarding parts of my journey.  What message did I want to send out about my business?  I came up with  Developing From Within, my belief being that the stronger we are inside, the more access we will have to our stories which makes us stronger creatively.

I am using my story to motivate you into believing.  I’ve had so many people contact me wanting to get information on how they too can start their own businesses and redefine success on their terms.  If this is right road for you, you can do it.  The key is creating a niche that fits your background and work experience and then doing what it takes execute it with clear vision.  The internet has been one of the most useful tools in my experience.  Some of the websites that I find to be invaluable are; www.constantcontact.com, www.googleadwords.com, www.prwebdirect.com and www.summitconsulting.com.  It is about focus, determination, courage, commitment to the process and discipline.  Above all, belief in yourself is an ingredient you cannot do without.  If you believe in this, anything can happen.