Is it so hard to make certain changes in your life because the changes are difficult, or could it be because your soul is resisting your efforts to derail it from its pattern? Whether you believe you have many lives, or just this one, the awakening of spirituality leads to many questions … and, if you are willing to accept guidance from beyond yourself, many answers.

It’s fun to play around with your psychic abilities, to see how many times you’re right about the next song on the radio or to call a friend right when she’s about to pick up the phone and call you. It’s entertaining to look at people’s auras and to see what you “read” from objects you touch and places you go. And this is all well and good.

But there is much more beyond fun and entertainment. We all have serious issues and concerns that drain our energy and keep us from finding the joy and happiness that our lives can and should contain. Gaining insights into the circumstances that create negative energy in your life gives you the means to turn that energy around.

Patterns are behaviors we slip into, almost without realizing that we have done so. Certain events or situations act as triggers that activate a pattern. You don’t consciously think, “Louise is home two hours late again. I’m going to yell at her, she’ll get mad and yell at me, and then we’ll have a big fight and not speak to each other for the next three days.” But that’s what happens.

What is behind this reaction for you? Does it come from Louise’s patterns, your patterns from earlier in your life, or patterns from previous lives that represent learning still necessary for your spirit? No matter the source, gaining an understanding of the bigger picture can help you change your patterns so they support a more loving and joyful life.

Many good and right things happen to you in your life without your conscious awareness or efforts to structure or plan them. Through no efforts of your own, you end up in the right place at the right time. You might not even notice that this happens! Once you become aware of the connections, however, you can begin to use them in conscious ways.

College professors joke (or complain) that students seem to think they can learn by osmosis. Put the textbook under your pillow when you go to sleep at night, and when you wake up you will have absorbed the book’s contents. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if this could happen? But the reality is that you won’t know anything about the contents of that book until you look between the covers. You must read the book to understand its message. And you might even need to read additional books and go back to original sources to get enough information to qualify as learning about the subject.

But learning doesn’t happen by osmosis. It requires effort, work and focus. A hammer doesn’t build a house; intuition doesn’t fix a struggling relationship. It’s up to you to use the tools available to you, in ways that allow you to build the life that lets you develop and grow.

Your spirit guides are always available to help you. Often they are at work when you don’t realize that they are there, or even that you need their help. Invite your spirit guide to give you specific guidance about a particular problem, challenge, or concern. Use this guided meditation to structure your lesson.

As with any spirit communication, it’s important to stay open to whatever information comes through for you. You might feel that the information your spirit guide gave you was interesting but not especially relevant; insight and advice that comes through symbolic interaction is not always clear. Writing in your journal about your spirit guide lesson can help you to explore the many meanings that the message has.

Throughout history, leaders and philosophers have warned us that unless we learn the lessons of history, we are doomed to repeat them. We turn to this as explanation for the cycles of challenge, strife, and even war, which define human existence. If only we could “get” it, then we could end this cycle of doom!

This lifetime we’re living right now may be just one piece of our soul’s progression. This is not about being doomed to repeat the lessons we don’t get. It’s about the journey of “getting” it. It’s about having the privilege to keep learning, so that we can continue to evolve and grow.

Each of us comes to this physical life to learn. Our lessons are not just behavior-oriented lessons like being kind to one another, although certainly these acts of compassion are elements. Rather, they are lessons of insight and understanding to allow us to make paradigm shifts.

Your beliefs and behaviors form your personal paradigm. This is the pattern of your life. What you do represents what you believe, whether or not you are aware of it. In some ways, paradigms are similar to the symbolism that shows up in dreams, and in the symbolic messages that come through spirit communication.

The most important thing in your life that you can change is the way you think! In reality, this is the only thing you can control and change, and yet it’s the thing we spend the least amount of our time and effort doing.

Your thoughts are energy. Your thoughts are as tangible as your words and your speech. When you change the way you think, you change the way you move your life—just as when you change your pace when walking you change the way your body moves. When you choose to live your life in the flow of goodness and love, then you change your own energy vibration, which has an amazing ripple effect on every person you touch.

Many of life’s challenges come from worrying about the actions and behaviors of other people. You might think that you change your energy, but so what? If the energy of all the people around you stays stuck, how does that help you in the end?

You may find that you create your life by worrying about what you don’t have. All of this worrying sends out negative thoughts. When you change your thoughts, you change your energy. This is the “self-fulfilling prophecy” trap: You worry so much about something that it comes to pass, at which point you can say “See? I told you this would happen!”

Angie spent a lot of time worrying about having enough money to pay her bills. No matter how hard she and her husband worked, there never seemed to be quite enough. They argued about money; their money concerns seemed to rule their lives. Finally Angie realized she couldn’t continue this way, and made the determination that every time such a thought came into her head she was going to replace it with a positive thought about the good things the money they did have made possible. Instead of thinking, “I don’t have enough money for this,” Angie consciously changed her thought to “I have just enough money to meet this need.”

This worked fine for Angie. She immediately felt as though a tremendous burden lifted from her. She found that although not worrying about money didn’t change how much of it she and her husband had, it relieved the stress of always feeling like she had to fix things. And oddly enough, it made it seem as though the money they did have was adequate—barely—to meet their minimum needs even if it wasn’t as much as they wanted.

As Angie became more attuned to the energy of her thoughts, she realized that even though she had changed her thoughts about money, her husband still had many negative actions and thoughts. She worried for a while about how to change that, and suddenly it dawned on her: She couldn’t change him! She could only change the way she thought about him. She had to change her perceptions.

Accomplishing that shift in perceptions became her next focus. Every time she found herself thinking, “All Richard does is complain about not having enough money,” she made the conscious effort to think instead, “Richard is financially comfortable.” Eventually, this caused Angie to change the way she reacted toward Richard. Instead of snapping at him, she was able to empathize with his concerns and say things that contained heartfelt support. It wasn’t long before Richard also relaxed, and between them they were able to find ways to be economical and efficient. Feeling more confident, Richard found a new job with a better salary. Their financial situation improved considerably.

Negative thinking is insidious. Sometimes, even when your actions are positive, the thoughts that drive them come from a negative perspective. This spills out into everyday life in ways you often don’t recognize.

We tend to focus on what we don’t want to have happen. I don’t want to get cancer, I don’t want to be in an accident, I don’t want to lose my job, I don’t want to get lost when I’m driving through San Francisco, I don’t want to fail my biology test, I really hope there are no delays at the airport when I fly to Baltimore next month. Feel how the energy of these concerns shifts when you instead say or think:

When you find yourself worrying about what you don’t have, make a conscious choice to instead think about what you do have. When you change your perceptions, you change your reality. The key is to change your thinking from focusing on what you want but don’t have to wanting what you have. Hope in the positive and avoid composing your hopes as negatives. If you find that you conceive your hopes in negative terms, you may be surprised to find that, in some way, you are hoping for the worst—for something that is unlikely to happen, for your fears! Instead hope for what will happen. Thoughts are energy, and they are creative force—positive, hopeful thoughts create your positive, hopeful reality.

Change is not easy. Although this might seem the epitome of understatement, it’s necessary to say this. Change is not easy. One of the ironies of insight is that for as wonderful as it is to know why you do something, there isn’t a direct link to making changes in your life to support your newfound learning. Insight leads to decisions about actions, but it doesn’t directly result in actions.

The connection between insight and action (change) requires conscious attention and continual effort from you. You can decide to make a change, but then you must continue making choices that support this decision. Tuning into the energy of the universe, through your psychic senses and through spirit contact, connects you to endless support. We say, when we talk about this support, that it is yours for the asking and that it is there to help you carry out your spirit’s mission in this life.

It’s important to remember that this is true in the context of the bigger picture. There is a grand scheme to existence that none of us have the ability to comprehend—in physical life. It is beyond your power to change everything. Many recovery programs and support groups begin their meetings with a simple prayer: “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Negative patterns often develop as a result of inaction rather than action. You slide into habits based on can’t, don’t, won’t. You can’t get a good job because you don’t have a college degree and you won’t be able to do all the other things that you like doing if you quit your current job to go back to school.

When you read such a statement in a book, it’s easy to see the elements of choice that are present. In real life, “can’t” and “don’t” situations are those over which you truly have no control. If you are paralyzed from the waist down, your legs don’t work as they did before and you can’t walk as you did before. No matter how much you want to change this situation, you are not able to do so. These are facts of reality, and there is little that you can do about them.

You can, however, choose the ways you deal with these constraints. You can decide to work out regularly to strengthen and condition your upper body, so that you can become fully mobile using a wheelchair. You can choose to use weights, stretching, massage, and other physical therapy techniques to tone, as much as possible, the muscles and structures in your legs that no longer work as intended. You can determine that you will find ways to transcend your physical limitations that will then allow you to keep doing anything you want to do—albeit maybe in a new way!

Negative pattern is anything that’s causing you difficulty in your life, a pattern of repetition, one that you realize you fail to understand. Why do you keep doing this, you wonder? Somehow, you miss the connections between your actions, past and present. You recognize the events or circumstances that puzzle you, but you struggle to perceive the connection these have to your current behaviors and situations. You remember, but you just don’t understand the relevance all this has to your life path.

Negative patterns get the attention because they are often destructive. When things are going well, it seems that we have the tendency to coast along, not really noticing the details. It’s only when relationships, jobs, health, and other aspects of your life begin to fall apart that you might look for the patterns that establish the problems. And “if” is a key word here; noticing patterns requires mindful awareness—conscious intent.

Any time you can substitute the word “won’t” you are clearly in a circumstance of choice. This is the case most of the time! Changing your thought processes and your energy to think in terms of “will” is very powerful. You can choose to recast your thinking in the positive and fully “choose your choices,” reinforcing behaviors of strength, confidence, and love. When you want a child to be careful with a drink, you say to the child, “Hold the glass straight” rather than, “Don’t spill the milk!”

When we say things in the negative, we open the door for our greatest fears to manifest. Negatives are about fears. Expressing hope in the negative reinforces the fear, however subtly. When you express your hopes in the positive, then you move in a positive direction. And maybe others will be encouraged, both on the earth plane and the spirit plane, to move with you!

One reason that negative patterns are so difficult to change is that we focus on putting an end to them but are sometimes thoughtless about replacing them with positive patterns. Behaviors and thoughts are energy; when you take energy away, it leaves a void. Without intentional replacement, that void will fill with whatever energy is readily available. More often than not, this will be the same energy that you just sent away, because it’s right there. It’s the flow of least resistance.

When you dig a hole in the yard and just leave it, what happens? Most of the time, it fills back up with dirt, rocks, weeds—whatever is handy. The only way to keep this from happening is to intentionally put something in the hole to replace the dirt that you remove. Energy is the same way. It’s great to remove negative energy, but to keep it from returning you need to replace it with positive energy.

Leonard came to Rita for a reading because he was having extreme relationship difficulties. Now in his 40s, he had never had a relationship longer than three or four months. The person who came through to Rita was a man that Leonard identified as his father. “Was your father a doctor?” Rita asked. “He’s showing me a doctor’s bag.”

Puzzled, Leonard said that no, his father had been a jeweler. Rita went back to the spirit visitor, who again showed her a doctor’s bag. This time there was also a message. “There was something with your mother and a doctor when you were about four years old,” Rita said. “Do you remember that?”

Leonard was quiet. He did indeed remember his family talking about the matter. His mother was having an affair with the family doctor, he told Rita, and all the family gossiped about it. Leonard immediately recognized that this was the source of his distrust of women, and the reason none of his relationships lasted. He was able to release the negative energy of the mistrust and move forward with his life. He’s been in a loving relationship with the same woman for seven years.

Spiritualists believe in reformation of the human spirit at any time, here or hereafter. What this means is that at any time, we have the opportunity to change our lives and move in a positive direction. Our life paths are fluid. Life can always be turned around. If spirit is telling you the bridge is out, are you going to just drive off the cliff? You can take a detour! If any psychic or medium tells you something is carved in stone, run the other way. If spirit gives you a warning, it means that you have an opportunity to make changes.

Positive energy is powerful. You can use it to shape and focus your life in ways that allow your dreams and hopes to become your reality. What about your life would you like to change? Let this exercise show you just how effective this can be!

The first time Rita did this exercise, she knew her affirmation would be about her painting. So she went into her studio and wrote, “I show my paintings. She shows her paintings. Rita Berkowitz shows her paintings.”

She wrote this affirmation for a few days, and then realized it needed something more. So she revised: “I show and sell my paintings. She shows and sells her paintings. Rita Berkowitz shows and sells her paintings.” But this still wasn’t enough. So Rita revised the affirmation a third time, coming to, “I show and sell excellent paintings. She shows and sells excellent paintings. Rita Berkowitz shows and sells excellent paintings.”

Rita wrote her affirmation five times a day for several weeks. Then she got the idea for a series called “City Folks.” In the ordinary scheme of the art world, a painter does 10 or so paintings, takes slides of them, and then contacts gallery owners to view the slides and try to land shows. It’s a challenging, sometimes grueling, process Rita had been through a number of times already. Although it’s very important for an artist, it was something Rita had trouble looking forward to!

Rita wrote her affirmations every morning and started working on the paintings in the series. She had just completed the third painting when gallery owners began stopping by her studio, seemingly for no apparent reason related to Rita’s current cycle of work. They saw the paintings she was working on, and started asking when the series would be finished, and whether she wanted to show the paintings. This spontaneous offer to show is almost unheard of in the art business, and Rita was astonished. The series turned out to be Rita’s most successful, and the paintings sold all over the United States. Rita’s affirmation came to pass!

Your soul negotiates with the divine (God) to establish its mission, and to choose the life paths that will support this mission. This is the element of existence you might think of as destiny—it is the cosmic course of your spirit, something that is determined as the course of events that will unfold no matter what.

Destiny comes from the Latin word destare, which means “to take a stand.” This is what destiny is from your soul’s perspective—taking a stand for what it needs to accomplish during this lifetime. Taking a stand requires conviction and action. You’ll see that it is hard to take a stand by passively allowing life to flow around you. You act with firm conviction to take a stand—to put your destiny in motion—through the thoughts and actions you choose.

Your soul’s path is the means by which it takes a stand. Because your actions determine its course, it is dynamic and ever changing. Each decision you make advances your soul toward its mission. Some choices change the direction of your path and the length of time it takes to achieve what is necessary.

When Rita’s husband David came home from work in December 1996 and said that he had a new perk at his job, tuition reimbursement for spouses, Rita felt great excitement. She had long wanted to go back to school for her master’s degree in painting, and this looked like the perfect opportunity, dropped right in her lap.

She did a meditation about it, and instead got a very different and unmistakably clear message from her spirit guides: “Go back to school, get your master’s degree in psychology.” The message was emphatic and powerful. Rita did two more meditations and got the same message, which affirmed for her that it was the right choice. So she went to graduate school and earned her master’s degree in psychology. She now finds that what she learned is a crucial part of the work she’s doing.

It’s important to confirm or verify any message that tells you to make changes in your life. Ask three times, as Rita did. If you get different answers, back off. If this is genuinely an opportunity that has your name on it, it will still be waiting for you whenever you’re ready to accept it. Always make sure you are 100 percent comfortable with the message before making any changes or taking any actions based on it.

Inasmuch as your life on the earth plane is a piece of the bigger whole and but a passage in your soul’s journey, it is itself a mission. It’s wonderful to be aware of the ways in which your life fits into other facets of existence. But your life is the here and now of your current existence, and the only way to make this part of your journey worthwhile is to make it the best experience possible.

You live in the here and now. Infinite decisions, choices, and actions shape the future, some of which are within your control and many beyond it. Keep your mind open! Remain unattached to outcomes, and allow process to happen.

The Least You Need to Know