For years I have known it was my purpose here on this planet to first wake up myself and then wake up others. The only problem was, I really had no idea what that actually meant.
It’s been a journey of discovery. I let the not knowing paralyze me for a while and then began to realize that part of waking up meant moving forward even when I didn’t know all the details about how and could only see two feet in front of my face. Two feet was all I needed and I was on a need to know basis.
Since then, I have been on a path of change. If you’ve watched my blog or hung with me on Twitter or Facebook for any amount of time, you’ve seen that evolution.
From bad-ass lawyer at a big, prestigious law firm to hanging my own shingle to “million dollar business owner” to bestselling author and television talking head type to hippy lawyer to hippy creative entrepreneur to community builder/farm girl.
The past two years (reconnecting to my inner hippy and letting her out) have been, without a doubt, the most transformational of my life. What led up to them was an intense period of making lots of money and discovering that my focus on money was as stage of evolution to pass through, not to get stuck at.
I see now that so many of us get stuck at that evolutionary stage (even many who calls themselves “conscious entrepreneurs” and cater to the “conscious business, spiritual, heart-centered entrepreneur” crowd) and today, more than ever, I understand why we must all wake up, break free and make the leap to the next stage of evolution.
We truly are the ones, it really is up to us and if we don’t do it, who will? The path is not easy.
Evolutionary leaps require letting go of so much (often before being able to see exactly what’s going to be there when you do.)
I think of it as being on the monkey bars that require you to let go of one bar before grabbing the next and getting comfortable in the nothing – liminal – space.
In my experience, the fastest path to this evolutionary leap is by seeing and moving through my greatest fears. Fear represents conditioning. If I am afraid, it’s a sign that I will progress forward when I dive in to break through.
Fuckin’ a, that’s scary.
Much of these past two years has been learning to trust myself to keep saying yes, yes to the things I have spent my entire life avoiding.
I understand now that when 10% of us have done this work and woken up, the world will transform and look radically different in a way that very few, if any, of us can truly imagine.
The new world is cooperative, it’s collaborative, it’s harmonious, it’s connected.
If you would like to begin to get a vision of it, read Starhawk’s “The Fifth Sacred Thing”, Redfield’s “The Celestine Prophecy” or even the now extremely popular “Hunger Games” series.
What each of these books portends and I can feel so deeply alive in my body is that the evolution is coming — we will either willingly take the steps to make the leap and learn to live, work and love together or outside circumstances will force us into it.
I generally prefer choice to force and I’m pretty sure you do too.
That means we need to wake up. We need to make the evolutionary leap from what evolutionary theorists refer to as Stage 6 or lower to Stage 7 and even Stage 8 consciousness.
We are the ones to do it. Me and you.
(This article is one of the clearest explanations I’ve seen of what it means to evolve through the stages of conscious development – wake up – and why it’s so important — archive of article as that site is now down. I’ll be writing here on this blog about what it means on a practical level to make this leap over the coming weeks and months and what you can specifically do to wake up and evolve your consciousness. You can also watch my weekly show about waking up to the truth about love and money.)
There are nearly 1.5 million fans of the Facebook page “I Am Conservative” and it’s very unlikely they are going to do it. So it has to be us.
Here’s the really good news. According to those who understand shifts in consciousness and have studied historical trends, it only takes 10% of us waking up to the next stage of evolution to create a cultural tipping point.
Only 10% of us wake up and the entire world shifts.
Maybe that means wars end, maybe it means abundance for all, no more people dying of hunger or thirst, maybe it means we finally recognize that we are all in this together and start caring for each other differently.
Wouldn’t you like to be on forefront of that movement? If so, wake up.
It’s not about the 99% and the 1% who have access to the money. The Occupy Movement is on the right track, but It’s got the wrong focus. It’s about the 10% who will wake up and make money and the corrupt systems totally irrelevant.
So, what does it mean to wake up?
That’s a great question and one I’ve invested the past ten years waking up to myself. Here is some of what I think it means to wake up and make an evolutionary leap in consciousness (from stage 6 to stage 7/from tier 1 to tier 2/from non-integral to integral/yellow to turquoise), but I’m interested in your perspective.
- No longer being motivated by fear. This alone is a quantum shift for most of us who have spent our lives and made most of our key decisions based on a fear motivation. It’s become normal. Not after waking up. Fear no longer has the same hold on you.
- Seeing your own anger, not projecting it onto others; radically forgiving and not being mean to yourself or others (no matter how awful it seems they have been to you.)
- No longer being motivated by the desire for a certain money size business –> we begin to see that it’s not necessary to obsess on how much money our business makes.(I’ve got some personal challenges around this as talking about my million dollar law firm is still a motivator to bring lawyers into our training programs and then wake them up to something so much greater. But, I cringe when I see the conscious business owner set using the promise of 6 and 7 figure businesses to motivate evolutionary entrepreneurs. Hypocritical? Maybe.)
- Not embellishing, but instead speaking the plain truth.
- Not taking things personally.
- Only wanting to win if everyone wins — never wanting to win at the expense of anyone else.
- Holding two conflicting ideas as truth — paradox.
- Being able to relax into the right now (no matter how shitty it is) with an awareness that what opens up as a result of that relaxation is far better than you could have ever dreamed up on your own.
- Making decisions not based on survival, but on a desire for sovereignty.
To me, these are some of the hallmarks of a leap in consciousness that means we have woken up. And when we do, the world does. I’d love to hear if you agree with this list, disagree or have something to add.
I think this is the single most important conversation we can be in as we move into 2012. I look forward to hearing your thoughts. Please comment below.
8 Comments
Hi Alexis – i liked your article! In a nutshell i would see all these points related to letting go of being attached to our identity and being constantly driven by phantasm (which continues the cycle of destruction and contributes to the larger grid of destruction). Without the compassion for ourselves and others the cycle continues. For me it has begun with reducing the internal dialogue and being objective in any given situation. Helps me step out of feeding my ego. Depolarizing events and dialogue has helped me a lot. I have only just begun this journey a few short months ago but i am grateful to not be so polarized on one end of the scale or the other in life, to be able to see through distortional fields i have created . The 24 hour cycles of anxiety and fear have ceased. Being honest with myself and others and looking after myself more without feeling guilty (which is really just a mechanism i use – guilt – to feed my ego and create more anxiety) I replaced forgiveness with compassion to shift from being a victim to a player. Thru awareness of all of this i continue to become free. I agree that only 10% of us need to shift in order for there to be a big cultural change. I always enjoy reading your posts. xo
Aho Ali! I resonate with much of what you share here. 😉
This article below was sent to me by one of the wisest power women I know here in my San Diego circle. She is on the pulse of all of these energetic shifts – so if she was concurring with its description of what is evolving I certainly am paying attention. I thought you might find it of interest.
http://lightworkers.org/channeling/148212/2012-what-do-you-mean-3rd-dimension-going-away
Wishing you a wonderful holiday season. Much peace to you and your family
😉
Amy
Ali, I don’t know if I’ve really conveyed to you how much I love the
truth you’re willing to speak, over and over and with ever more courage,
power, humility, and grace. Honestly, it makes my heart sing every
time I hear you give voice to the things you do. In my humble opinion,
yours is a truly great contribution to the whole conscious business
community which can indeed get so focused on making big money as a
reflection of spiritual alignment.
Years ago I got seduced by a doctoral program that was all about
understanding and facilitating deep enduring shifts in consciousness.
It’s still so near and dear to my heart, even if these days my work is
about helping evolutionary entrepreneurs grow thriving businesses doing
their great work. Not quite sure how I got here but this is where I am
for now.
I’m with you in that this is one of the most important conversations we
can be in as we move into 2012 — individually and collectively evolving
ourselves as we learn to live in harmony with ourselves, each other,
and the rest of the more-than-human world. Aho!
I’ll suggest that you miss the mark on one point – the idea that the Occupy movement has the wrong focus – it’s not that I’ll suggest that the focus on economic disparity is the right focus, rather I’ll suggest that economic disparity is not the focus of Occupy.
Occupy, as a global movement, has been slowly growing and forming for several decades now – and burst into the American consciousness having been triggered by economic disparity – but it burst into other groups consciousness before that with other triggers – the Arab Spring, the Velvet Revolution and other European awakenings, Burma, China, water rights struggles in Bolivia, Iceland disowning it’s debt and writing a new constitution, and many others.
It started with masses of humans re-awakening to their own authenticity, agency and power. A goody synopsis of some of this is a look at the effects of the work of Gene Sharp at http://howtostartarevolutionfilm.com/.
Occupy is now global and is spending time over this American winter season deepening connections, building infrastructure, and generating below the surface the energy and mass to burst forth again as spring arrives.
In doing this it is becoming more aware of itself. It is recognizing it’s place in and connection to other masses of humanity that have begun to awaken around the globe – all of which have begun to fully recognize that we are all one – and can only survive as one. We Are All One – all life on the planet, all resources, all of it – All One.
Here’s one lens through which Occupy is growing it’s awareness of being one with the evolution of our species and planet – http://occupylove.org/ – where we can see the growing awareness that living in a global gift economy is the future of our species. This example may not use that exact language but that is what is contained within.
To paraphrase an idea from John Perkins – the world continues to get smaller and we, as a species, have awoken to how small the world really is. The days of conquistadors or the rulers of the British Empire raping and sacking the parts of the world they controlled without fear that the indigenous folks in those regions would sail to Spain or England to bring the ‘war’ back home to the conquerers are long gone. That may awaken some out of fear – but even that awakening is movement forward since they can only move past their fear if they wake up to being afraid in the first place.
I believe it is correct that only 10% or so need to truly wake up and evolve – and I see signs that it is happening globally in the above and so much more.
I see the Occupy movement is a key to this. It is a movement that it has birthed itself organically and quickly and globally and technically connected. It is a movement that can live in the both-and (paradox) of responding to the immediate demands of a small location (like winning a reprieve in a single families foreclosure), holding the vision and doing the groundwork to make national change possible – regime change or the end of corporate personhood – or ultimately truly globally in being a part of the global awakening that we are part of and a transition to whatever gift-based system we evolve into next.
Like me in the past, you have the right idea on many things but not the most important one. What’s the most debated, hated thing in all the world? The Bible and Jesus Christ. I’m gonna flat-out tell you that the answers you seek are right there. I used to be a New Age-y girl. I used to have the business and the money and even the love for people. I was all about joy, love, peace, leadership, abundance. I was a really good girl, daughter, person, businesswoman, friend. And then death came into my life and SHOVED me through a door I argued against for much too long. Be willing to look, Ali. Your intentions are good. Ask & ye shall receive the truth & the truth SHALL set you (& the world) free. 🙂 With love, Narah Valenska
Like me in the past, you have the right idea on many things but not the most important one. What’s the most debated, hated thing in all the world? The Bible and Jesus Christ. I’m gonna flat-out tell you that the answers you seek are right there. I used to be a New Age-y girl. I used to have the business and the money and even the love for people. I was all about joy, love, peace, leadership, abundance. I was a really good girl, daughter, person, businesswoman, friend. And then death came into my life and SHOVED me through a door I argued against for much too long. Be willing to look, Ali. Your intentions are good. Ask & ye shall receive the truth & the truth SHALL set you (& the world) free. 🙂 With love, Narah Valenska
Ali, as always just LOVE the way you’re showing up in the world! Here’s to making evolutionary leaps together xoxox
thanks for sharing this Ali. I fell like I’m in the exact same place. What I describe as “not seeing the forest like I did before but instead putting my hand on one tree, seeing a bush, moving towards another tree, being inspired by the flowers on that path.” It takes surrender and, when as women, we’ve been taught that power is control, it feels like a wonky, unusual and uncomfortable journey. then again, if you’ve lived through the phase of “having it all” and found yourself feeling beige or worse unhappy, then the aliveness in wonky discomfort, in not knowing, in surrender is totally worth it.