The ability to maintain a strong, loving and harmless force field that keeps us safe through challenge and turmoil has to start with a decision to be honest about who we are and commit to traveling deeply into our most innermost, darkest corners and into places and memories that our fears would have us not recall. And, it’s at those moments in life, when we feel we cannot go on, cannot live with the pain of reality that we are in most need of a change of perspective that could reactivate our protection: what if we are merely at a turning point, rather than at an end?

Think about it. How quickly you or I imagine that each dose of painful difficulty, each insurmountable obstacle is the end, the final straw – that we have failed, it’s over, we might as well give up, forget it, escape from it, turn away from it, reject it and separate from loved ones over it. How conclusive we are!

All those souls watching us from the spirit plane must be falling over themselves in their laughter, with their clearer view of our entire life flight plan! Ah well, maybe we also stood up there and chuckled at other humans, too!

Peter Rengel, a facilitator of the California-based Human Awareness Institute (hai.org) workshops suggests that if we don’t feel the fear, we are not growing.

We’ve all, I guess, been at ‘comfortable’ points in our lives, when it’s easier to ‘put up’ with circumstances and people, than it is to change it. What keeps us there is our limiting belief that there may be no better quality of life, that this could be all there is, all we deserve.

But, consider this – what if your doorbell rang one day, and there stood a millionaire on the doorstep, with a large check with your name on. “Here,” he or she says. “This is for you to go out and create a whole new life with. I have a list of perfect partners for you in my limo, the best nanny in the universe to care for your children while you are busy recreating your life, and of course, money is no object.”

Well, I can wager that most of us, once we had checked out the authenticity of the offer, would be off in a matter of seconds. We now had proof of a ‘better life’ and we were going to grab it. No longer would we settle for second-best!

Well, the lesson of Spiritual Awareness, is that you have all this being offered to you now, only you are not aware of it.

You cannot see it, or have it handed to you on a platter – but, with a little work, healing, conscious discipline, and the belief that you alone can create a whole new reality -this new life is yours. It’s waiting in the wings for you to catch up. Some of us, because of our disbelief or distrust, will not reach this prize this lifetime. But others will.

Trust in the universe – it’s much more than you can see. And, consider the possibility that whoever suggested to you a very long time ago, that you would not always get what you want – could have been disastrously wrong. Many of us have grown up with these family affirmations, spoon-fed to us by unaware parents who were, in turn, fed these from their own experiences or decisions in their lives, and by their parents:

• You don’t always get what you want
• Nobody’s perfect
• You have to work hard for the money
• Life is hard
• You only live once
• You’ve got to grab what you can in life
• Maybe this is all there is
• Don’t get too big for your boots
• There are no second chances

And so on – makes life a little sad and rather limited, don’t you think? Is this how the children of the universal life force should live? Is this all we are, all we can expect?

Once, however, we understand that these little titbits are merely free samples of larger karmic tests, we can learn how to simply hop over them, or refuse to include them in our vocabularies anymore – especially words like ‘should’ or ‘must’ that tend to be connected to shame, guilt or duty.

The more we continue to trust our intuition, and commit to continuous growth while we are living our lives, no matter how dark or frightening growth can feel, the more we clear a space for more powerful and protective energy to enter our lives.

The deeper we travel into ourselves, the more painful it will become, initially. If we know this from the outset, it can give us the strength we need to continue the journey.

It is as if we are diving into a bottomless pool, and as we stand at the water’s edge, our toes curling over the side of its banks, we notice the surface is almost solid, with murky, dense crust -as if no-one has ever broken through this top layer in centuries.

At this point, it’s a lot easier to step back, and consider a safer place to go for a little swim. Your conscious mind begins to seize control, and suggests that you don’t really need to do this – why on earth would you put yourself through all that muck?

However, this is where your Higher Self, your intuition, some inner need you have that comes from a deeper place that any part of your consciousness, whispers to you – “if your life is not happy, if you yearn to feel empowered, confident, aware, then be brave and dive! If you have a feeling that there’s more to life than what you have, then dive – and trust in the support of the universe. Know that you are always in the right place at the right time.”

So you jump – but only if you are ready to do this 100 per cent!

At first the feelings of isolation and discomfort are huge, as you battle for breath, fighting your way through the wet darkness, until you feel a hand reaching out to guide you onwards.

You trust it, and allow yourself to be guided – or you reject it, out of more fear, not wanting to be seen as vulnerable or needy – and battle on stoically, often for a lot longer than your journey would have been, had you learned the lesson of Trust.

Perhaps, the second time around, when you feel the hand again – and begin to understand that your decision to reject first has not cost you rejection in return – you may accept the support, and move into a place of knowing. Knowing that to show vulnerability is a sign of power, inner strength and potency – and not the man-made definition of weakness that comes from ancient patriarchal fears. To feel all of your emotions is to know yourself.

And, in order to move forward, we have to go back in time. Find someone who can lead you backwards – a sensitive, loving and aware facilitator of a group, perhaps – such as John Bradshaw, whose work focuses on the inner child and the family, or the Human Awareness Institute, whose workshops help people change their lifescripts about who they are. Both offer powerful and experiential workshops in many parts of the world – and, still, are only two choices for your personal growth.

After the lesson of Trust comes the lesson of learning how to be yourself, without the masks we wear each day, with a complete range of emotions, and not merely the ones we are allowed to have – such as anger for men, and sensitivity for women.

Boys and men can, and must cry; girls and women can, and must get angry without crying as the first response. And, there are so many others – so much structure, so many rules of how we should behave as humans – passed unconsciously down to us by generations of parents and children who become parents.

Remember this: If God wanted to hide on this earth, he would hide inside a human being, as that’s the last place we would think of looking! It’s true.

We can spend so much of our lives looking for God in places outside of ourselves, that we forget that we are all part of the One – whatever name you wish to call it.Just think how impenetrable your energy would be the moment you discover you have a piece of God, Goddess or Great Spirit inside of you!

In short, your life purpose is to do this now.

Your purpose is to become who you really are. So, how can you become more authentic, in your life, as it looks, right now? Sure, you’re going to put a few noses out of joint, upset the apple cart, maybe even get a bit unpopular and rock the boat, but who says that’s a bad thing?

You are here to learn to love – yourself first then other people. Notice the good in all, rather than the bad first. Understand that there are only two ways to act in this lifetime – in love or violence. As Stan Dale says, everything we do is either an act of love – or violence.

And, yes, sometimes the hardest people to love are ourselves. We can be our most savage critics. We surround ourselves with constant motion, noise and bustle – in order to not notice the loud chaos inside us. Sometimes it’s too painful to be Present.

So, let’s get back to our courageous diver, swimming deeper into the bottomless pool, allowing him or herself to be supported in this place of fear and vulnerability, and loving themselves for their own courage and ability to smash through barriers of fear.

The diver heads back in time towards the past, a time that can often be too traumatic for us to consciously remember. Luckily, our subconscious does – and ably steers us towards those old events that had us believe we weren’t lovable or deserving.

In this place, you begin to realize that it’s more about what you decided about yourself, than what happened to you.

When you’ve found that old, forgotten or repressed decision, you can start to change it, to reword your lifescript, and to talk to that child you once were, and let it know, from your adult perspective – that it is not necessary to hold onto that decision anymore.

Tremendous healing takes place at this tender level, and it’s a place that you can only reach with a willingness to grow and to feel some pain, before you can feel a deeper level of joy than you have ever known. You are then able to shed your old, painful skin for a glowing, rich, healthy, aware and happy one.

Magically, you’ll begin to attract other powerful people into your life, until your world will look vastly different from a decade ago. You’ll choose not to isolate yourself out of fear. You’ll understand that to receive love, you first have to give it – what you put out, comes back, remember?

And, the first person you have to learn to give love to, is yourself. The rest is easy. This is the key to impenetrability.