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Shakti Gawain is an international speaker and best-selling author of Creative Visualization, Living in the Light, Path of Transformation and her newest release, The Four Levels of Healing This is an exclusive interview with Bette Saxton, Publisher of Concerning Women.

BS ? How did you first get into the concept of Creative Visualization

SG - There wasn’t any one spectacular event or turning point like there is for some people. From the time when I was quite young, I was really curious and fascinated about "What is life all about? Why are we here anyway?’ I wasn’t brought up in any type or organized religion, and by the time I was born, my parents were more or less atheists. I think because I wasn’t brought up with any kind of dogma I was curious and wondering. When I was in my teen years, I got interested in hatha yoga, and Eastern philosophies, and was studying psychology in college, and started doing some encounter groups, and was basically on a path of my own personal growth.

BS ? What time was that?

SG - That was in the early ‘70’s. One of the books that was really quite influential for me at an early stage was The Nature of Personal Reality; one of the Seth books. In which I grasped this idea that reality was not a fixed thing ‘out there’, but was constantly being shaped by our own consciousness. We experience reality in a particular way because of what our beliefs, attitudes, and life experiences have been. his is not just happening to me, but I am part of this practice So I began meditating and using creative visualization a few minutes in the morning and a few minutes at night, before I went to bed, whenever I had time to do it, just for five minutes or so, and I found that was a very powerful thing. Since we are visualizing what we want out of life all the time anyway, I realized that we can begin to do it more consciously. I started leading workshops and groups and then decided to write a little booklet. I sat down and wrote it. My boyfriend at the time was a writer and knew a little about publishing, and we published it ourselves. We didn’t know what we were doing and had very little money. We just blundered into it! It just all unfolded in a surprising and marvelous way.

BS ? So how do we make our own reality?

SG - It is a tricky concept to understand and use constructively. In Path of Transformation, I point out how people easily misunderstand and misuse this concept. First we have to understand that while we make many choices about our life that we may not be aware of on a personality level, even before we come into this life, our soul may make choices about what we need to learn or about what our development needs to be, once we are in here we go, "Why would I want this to happen to me?" But on a deeper level, it may be exactly what we want and what we choose. I can make changes in what’s happening to me. People misuse this by confusing taking responsibility for your life and blaming yourself for your life. Whatever happens to us in life we can either use it or be a victim to it.

BS ? When you say creating your life as an art form and ‘taking on’ that reoccurring problem, what do you suggest we do with it?

SG - We have many energies within us and part of what we are challenged to do in this life is to develop as many aspects of ourselves as we can. We all have certain aspects strongly developed and then there are other parts that haven’t gotten to be expressed. When we have problems in any area of our life, in our relationships, finances, or health, it is always a reflection of where we are out of balance, or the next thing that we need to learn to develop.

BS ? Is there a specific technique for this?

SG - The best one is the one that I write about in my most recent book, the process of voice dialogue. It is a wonderful way of bringing more balance into your life in a powerful and effective way.

BS ? Where does creative visualization come in?

SG - Once you recognize what the qualities are that you need to develop, you can imagine what you would be like with more of that quality. How would that look? How would that feel? How would that change your life? Basically, there are four basic levels, or aspects to our existence: the spiritual, the mental, the emotional, and the physical, and they are all equally important. Part of the challenge is to really be able to develop each of these levels and to bring them into harmony. The spiritual is our deepest essence, it is the eternal part of us, and connected to the oneness of all life. Being in touch with our spiritual part gives our life meaning and purpose. The mental level is what makes us uniquely human. We have the interesting challenge of letting our brains serve us and not let them dominate us. When we are disconnected from the spiritual level, we feel alone and need to find a spiritual practice to give us the sense of connection. On the mental level, we need some healing to acknowledge and appreciate our own kind of intelligence and the constant process of evolving our beliefs and philosophy of life. On the emotional level, we have all been wounded to varying degrees, because we are all so vulnerable emotionally. If we want to live fulfilling lives, we really need to do some emotional haling, and that requires help at some point. The essence of emotional healing is accepting what you feel, knowing what you feel, and being able to express that to at least one other person and have them say, "That’s O.K. I understand how you feel. That’s not stupid, crazy, bad, or wrong to feel that way. That’s just human. The physical level is somewhat the most complicated, and where we live. The other levels all live in our physical body, and our physical body is very much affected by expressing what is going on in all the other levels. So learning to live in the physical body in a healthy, balanced, wholesome way is the challenge. We have learned to love, respect, and listen to our bodies. This applies so much to women. We hare so much conditioning around not accepting or loving our bodies, and we really need to do healing around that. Our bodies have an innate wisdom and know how to live in the spiritual world. Spiritually we know that we are divine. Mentally we know that our bodies are amazing and that we are unique. Emotionally, it is much more difficult, so we learn it layer by layer.

BS ? In some of the things I’ve read, you talk about trusting your inner self. What do you mean? Look at the main qualities in your life and what they are. Take time to appreciate those qualities and what you’ve developed. Then take a look at the opposite qualities, that aren’t developed, that maybe you need. Look at what you’re good at, and then what you need to balance those things.

SG - We carry a wisdom inside of us that knows what is true for us at any given moment, and we’ve been taught not to trust that, to look outside of ourselves, to have someone tell us what to do. But it is not difficult to get a sense of your inner truth, and to act on it, in your life. It is consciousness! It is becoming aware of what is going on inside of us! It is acknowledging all parts of ourselves.

BS ? In Paths of Transformation, you say that once we learn to heal, we can change the world?

SG - We are all linked on some level. We have much more power than we realize. We make the most profound change in the world by becoming conscious. Just as our life relfects our consciousness, the works reflects the mass consciousness... inner truth, and to act on it, in your life...