Is it one of those days, my beautiful child, when even someone saying to you, “Yes, I understand” makes you want to scream, “No, you don’t!  You’re not me!”  You are not alone! When the not so good stuff comes up, let it. Yes, it can be challenging.  No, it might not feel all that good.  But, once it is up and out it is not coming back. Always remember; you are in the process of becoming a better person every moment of every day.  Keep releasing! ~ Creator

You are not your body. You have a body, which houses your soul.

You are not your thoughts, worries or fears. You can control your thoughts or observe them as they come and go, which shows that you are something separate to and greater than them.

You are not your titles or roles, like mother, son, employee, writer or friend. They are simply your social masks which you need to wear from time to time.

So then, what are you? You are the deeper essence beneath all of these transient parts of you. You are your soul — your inner spirit.

Here are 10 qualities of your inner spirit which you may not be aware of:

1. You are energy.

At a very fundamental level, everything we see as solid is made up of energy particles, including you.

2. You are divine.

There is something pretty magical about the Universe, right? The stars, planets, ocean, rainbows and trees. Well, you are made of the same basic energy particles. So in effect, you are stardust!

Eckhart Tolle once pointed out something quite profound — that we are not just humans; we are human beings.

But most of us forget this. We focus solely on our human side — on being a human doing.

We’re taught that we must study, get a stable job, work hard, have a family, buy a house, travel twice a year, and tick off a suitable number of acceptable human accomplishments before we can conclude we are enough and our life is worthwhile.

When we run into old friends or family members and they ask how we’re doing, by default we talk about what’s going on in our external world — our travel plans, work projects or renovations. We may even feel awkward or a little embarrassed if we’ve not been ‘doing’ enough to keep busy and have no new concrete ‘activity’ to report.

Self-love can sound a little cheesy or even egotistical, right? The truth is, it’s a hugely underrated key to finding long-term happiness, inner peace and living a full life.

Self-love is crucial because your external world will reflect how you feel about yourself.

Self-love also gives you a safety net to take risks and go after your dreams, because you know that no matter what the outcome, you’ll be OK — your self-worth is not on the line.

The problem is, many of the teachings on self-love can be surface-level only. Yes, it’s great to be able to look in the mirror and embrace your flaws, but real self-love is about so much more than that.

So what is the secret to real self-love?

Real self-love is about recognizing that your true identity is your inner spirit — you are a soul, not just a body. You simply have a body to carry your soul from place to place.

By  Carmen Allgood

Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

It is unfortunate that a lot of our time here will be spent trying to heal past pain. We come into this world kicking, screaming and crying, and many of us will depart in a similar fashion. Eventually we will embark on a path that we hope will lead us to enlightenment and save us from our lack of love of self.

The Poison and Antidote

For happiness to flood our mind there are steps that must be taken in order to be the recipient of this miracle. Happiness is a state of mind and every thought we choose results in either peace or conflict. Our choices will either make us a prisoner of our own thought system or set us free from suffering and release us to endless joy.

Zen Gardner, Guest
Waking Times

That’s simply it – just don’t be there. If at all possible you shouldn’t be in a place like that. If you can avoid getting pinned against anything, that’s your smartest move. That’s why I like to keep changing and moving. But you can’t be carrying a lot of baggage if you want to do that, physically or spiritually.

Now’s a good time to free yourself from attachments and be ready for anything. Each according to his own, but you don’t want to get caught flatfooted if you can avoid it.

In my basketball days we had a defensive drill where you’d take your stance and the coach would come and try to push you over. If you were on your heels you’d fall back quick and easy. But if you’re in a ready stance, knees bent, arched back, on your toes with your hands extended for balance, you not only couldn’t be pushed over, you could easily move side to side, front to back, block passes and shots, and even steal the ball.

Credit: Theloverevolution.tumblr.com

By Wes Annac, Culture of Awareness

You might’ve heard that we’re undergoing a social and spiritual revolution, but what exactly does this mean?

Some people are familiar with the idea of social revolution, which we have people like Che Guevara and Bob Marley to thank for, while others are more familiar with spiritual revolution, which some well-known people like Russell Brand have brought to the mainstream’s attention.

In my eyes, social revolution can be described as a group of people, large or small, who are fed up with the way the system functions and are ready to bring it down and replace it with something that works for the people instead of a small handful of powerful elites and the corporations they run.

Moderate social revolutionaries plan rallies, protests and other events that are intended to get the world’s attention – either on a specific issue or a group of issues that have to do with the way our society functions – and these events are successful in some cases.

Spiritual revolution is similar, and it comes from people who are not only fed up with the system, but who understand that there’s a greater reality beyond our conscious understanding that, once we become aware of, we can tap into and use to help the world.