• Come to hear about the global energetic shifts affecting how we collaborate and co-create.
• Discover the 3 things you can do to take part in the collective manifestation movement
• Come with your curiosity and questions about what new intentional community is

This is a free public event. I’ll be signing books for you and others you want to gift with the book.

Collective Manifestation: Heart-Centered Blueprints for Creating Intentional Community

Part self-help guide for creating cohesive groups and communities, part inspirational social-change manifesto empowering individuals to use their talents, skills and passions to make changes that benefit all.

Collective Manifestation: Heart-Centered Blueprints for Creating Intentional Community, a non-fiction book by Melissa Wadsworth, launches October 9, 2014. It offers an inspired vision of a new era of collaboration, creativity and progressive social change being manifested through diverse groups and communities worldwide.

According to Wadsworth, Collective Manifestation shares stories about how pioneering people around the globe are connecting to one another to amplify personal passions, impact world change and progress, and to experience more life fulfillment.

“Whether they occupy physical space, are event-based or are online, intentional communities are planting the seeds for new realizations of love, peace and plenty, related to the environment, the economy, technology, education, healing modalities, property ownership, and much more,” said Wadsworth.

Collective Manifestation is part self-help guide, part social-change manifesto, featuring progressive ideas and processes helping individuals, groups and teams to expand their vision and potential. Wadsworth wrote the book to facilitate cohesive creation of online and offline intentional communities that inspire, innovate and contribute to evolutionary manifestations of love, peace and plenty around the globe.

Wadsworth believes this surge in collective participation and contribution is sparked by several factors. First, technological advances make “face-to-face” interaction possible between motivated people who would never have met each other ten years ago. As she stated, “Amongst innovators, leaders, and self-initiators there seems to be a growing desire to bypass the stagnancy of old societal structures and norms that create barriers to the evolving collective consciousness.”

Secondly, Collective Manifestation identifies primary energetic shifts that are inspiring people to connect in newly collaborative and creative ways. Among the shifts identified are:

• The shift from consumer to creator
• The shift from exclusive to inclusive
• The shift from hard work to focused play
• The shift from mental dictatorship to heart leadership
• The shift from separation and dislocation to the sense of oneness with all living beings.

Wadsworth broadly defines community as inclusive of all kinds of groups that interact online as well physical organizations, events and locations. “Significant change is happening in every area of modern life and people are sensing that they can have a positive role in manifesting a different reality than the one being generated by popular media,” said Wadsworth. “The people I interviewed for the book are highly engaged and enthusiastic about their own potential and the possibilities being presented by a world in flux. Intentional communities are innovating sustainable ways to live, solving social problems, refocusing business leadership, expanding creativity, and redefining how to participate in community.” said Wadsworth.

Collective Manifestation offers both practical organizational exercises and wisdom-expanding intuitive processes that can be used independently or layered as part of cohesive community creation. For instance, the 11 keys to collective manifestation that Wadsworth describes came out of the various intuitive processes her own community, New Village 22, used during its foundational stage.

The book is highly accessible and useful, covering diverse topics such as the new customizable economies, how to release and clear old wounds, and why it’s time to rethink one’s relationship with property and real estate. It is designed to generate discussions about how global communities full of fearless creators and compassionate instigators can facilitate collaborative curiosity and cooperative creativity to expand what is possible for humanity and this planet at a pivotal time.

Melissa Wadsworth is a law of attraction and dream board expert, change catalyst, author, inspirational speaker, intuitive artist, and certified dream coach. Her first book, Small Talk Savvy (Adams Media), was based on her personal communications expertise and love of people. The founder of Brilliance Unlimited, LLC and New Village 22, Melissa has dedicated her life to exploring consciousness, expanding spirit-driven creativity, and living authentic relationships. She is devoted to supporting people in the manifestation of amazing life journeys, and to bringing healing change energy to the world. For more information and to order the book go to http://www.collectivemanifestation.com

# # #

Click on the link, watch the video about this project. If it resonates, please contribute. Each contribution makes a wonderful difference.

Already the year will undoubtedly go down as one of the most transformational of my life. And that’s saying something.

Writing and editing Collective Manifestation: Heart-Centered Blueprints for Creating Intentional Community continues to be a great, fun adventure. It hasn’t gone anything like I thought it would and that’s good, because it is so much better.

I have connected with amazing humans who are already changing the world by merely changing from mental leadership and participation to heart-centered leadership and contribution.

I am more excited now for the future of the world than ever! All I can say is stop focusing on the negative distractions and start tuning into your own brilliance and that of others. Choose to see the difference being initiated, interact with it. Say “Yes” to doing your part to give form to the light and love that flows through your gifts, your words, your attitude.

My heart is open and anything is possible.

Melissa Wadsworth is a new-community visionary, certified dream coach, creative intuitive, and author. Her vision and leadership integrate her own life-lessons, inspirational optimism and her commitment to bringing healing change energy to the world.

Specifically, I’m interested in intentional communities. These are the growing number of groups that meet online, through blog feeds, and in virtual words. Intentional communities come together for special events, and they inhabit geographical locations in order to anchor love to our planet.

The potential for creating intentional communities that do amazing things in the world is where it’s at! No longer do we need to go it alone. In fact, going it alone is passe, part of the old paradigm.

I decided to walk my talk recently by launching an Indiegogo.com crowdfunding campaign. This enables me to reach out and connect to people who are interested in supporting projects that excite them, and that they perceive as needed.

This is a great way for committed groups of people who have great ideas and passion to create a foundation of support. We need people connecting to others and engaging in daily life in a more empowered and intentional way. The planet needs the collective force of many devoted individuals doing what they are best at. We need to support one another.

We need all the innovation, invention, and creativity humanity can produce. We need heart-and-soul driven projects led by caring people who have a vision of the difference they can make in the world.

In the past community was a place of security. Through the past fifty or so years of the “me” movement we have moved away from that definition. The rise of the individual came at the cost of losing our sense of connectedness.

Now we are shifting from “I” to “We” in a new form. Today’s “We” is not just about taking care of one’s immediate community. The communities of today want to have a ripple effect out into the greater world.

The “We” of today is more inclusive. It’s not about tribes or the Hatfields and the McCoys. Today’s connectedness is meant to absorb differences and diversity in order to make use of individual brilliance for the benefit of the whole of the world.

In today’s intentional community you will find lively engagement and support. You will find people stepping out of traditional roles to inhabit roles that didn’t exist ten years ago. You will find people asserting their personal flair as part a team effort. It’s not about losing one’s sense of self; it’s about expanding one’s sense of self and putting this self in a grander context.

With all the technology available and the World Wide Web providing a whole new world of space or “geography,” what community can be has exploded!

I’ve found some of the tightest and most powerful groups online in social media and through blog communities. Here it seems individuals are more free to be their quirky selves. Online they can drop the social facade and speak more authentically. They can come from the heart without worrying so much about how they will be “seen.”

We haven’t broken free completely from the constructs of old social programming entirely. Yet, I see that we’re are giving ourselves permission to explore and play with belonging to different intentional communities. There are more places we feel we can “belong” to. This is bringing back that sense of connectedness we had lost.

My greatest hope is the people will remember that we are forging new communities with each physical meeting or online contact. We are testing the extent to which we can expand our mental and emotional capabilities. How inclusive can we be? Very inclusive I hope. Inclusive enough to not only include other humans in our intentional communities, but to include all beings that occupy the planet with us. Then it truly will be a brave new world that we create together.

Melissa Wadsworth is a new-community visionary, life coach, creative intuitive, and author of inspiring clarity and exuberant illumination. Her vision and leadership integrate the lessons of own life expansion into spirit-driven creativity, authentic relationships, and a commitment to bringing healing change to the world. She will launch her book Collective Manifestation: Heart-Centered Blueprints for Creating Intentional Community in September 2014.

All creative and innovative people need help funding their projects. It does indeed take a community.

The Top 10 Reasons to Use Crowdfunding and to Participate in Crowdfunding that I perceive are:

1. Expanding Global Creativity. Creative people can’t usually make a living on their creative endeavors. Inviting others to participate via crowdfunding is a great way to expand creativity in the world.

2. Self-empowerment. Crowdfunding allows anyone who wants to make a difference to create their own project and community of supporters.

3. Creating New Definitions of Value. Crowdfunding lets you step out of the mold of traditional funding. You don’t need a banker to buy into the value of what you want to do.

4. Generating More Heart Energy. Through crowdfunding the “crowd” decides what they are excited about! Having a populace excited about what’s possible is always good.

5. Losing the Hierarchy. Crowdfunding is empowering to both the project creator and the people who fund the project. No middle man, no layers of hierarchy to go through. It’s going direct!!

6. Access to Alternative Dream Paths. Crowdfunding is an alternative economy. The traditional just ain’t working for many people around the globe. This is another way of making dreams happen.

7. Global Connection. Crowdfunding connects people to other people doing wonderful, amazing and heart-felt things! This is connection that inspires and initiates sparks of ideas in a grander way. We get to root for people and their brilliance!

8. Pre-launch Publicity. By supporting a project through crowdfunding you get an idea of the demand, desire and popularity for what you’ve invented, created or produced. People get to preview what is new in the world.

9. People Become Invested in Your Success. People who love what you propose want you to succeed. That energetic support is invaluable. Additionally, the people who invest at a level that ensures they receive your product, want you to reach your goals so that they can be early adopters, readers, viewers of your brilliance.

10. You Become Authentically Known. In the launches I’ve looked at people feel very authentic. They really seem to be interested in creating and inventing from their true genius. That’s inspiring and hopefully contagious.

What other advantages to crowdfunding do you perceive?

Melissa Wadsworth is a new-community visionary, life coach, creative intuitive, and author of inspiring clarity and exuberant illumination. Her vision and leadership integrate the lessons of own life expansion into spirit-driven creativity, authentic relationships, and a commitment to bringing healing change to the world. She will launch her book Collective Manifestation: Heart-Centered Blueprints for Creating Intentional Community in September 2014.

Yea of little faith in your evolutionary perfection. You came into this life success-ready and no amount of societal re-programming, no matter how crazy-making your ego-mind gets, you can’t screw up the life you came to live. That doesn’t mean that your ego-mind will perceive what you live as success. That’s why happiness is a choice.

Your surface mind easily perceives failure, even though at a deeper level you are always on track When you trust this, you can choose contentment, you can choose to feel satisfied, you can choose expansion. Trust gives you the pause to look below the surface of life at what feels right and good. This means looking beyond others’ reactions to you and your path. Others are not necessarily a good judge of what success is for you and certainly have no idea whether or not you are living up to your life purpose.

The question is: can you be satisfied with this knowing? Do you also need to see surface evidence that your life is a success? Why? And how would you go about proving your success to yourself?

If you use American societal guidelines for success, which are seriously limiting, then the only way to measure up as successful is to:

• be rich
• be powerful
• be popular/influential
• be beautiful by prevailing standards

Of course these standards have a very short shelf life, due to the short attention span and “what have you done lately” attitude of the populace that buys into these standards of success. Today you’re IN tomorrow you’re OUT!

What if you measure your life success compared to our cultural heroes?

What does it take to be a cultural hero?

• Being notably victorious in some physical manner that represents something greater (Alexander the Great, collectively the Allies of WWII, Jesse Owens, Mohammed Ali, Billie Jean King). This includes all forms of military aggression and fighting, as well as those like Owens whose physical victory transcended his sport to become a moral, social and political victory.
• Effecting the course of human history in some pivotal way (Queen Elizabeth the first, Lincoln, Hitler, Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Rosa Parks) and usually at great personal sacrifice.
• Influencing a huge number of people, often through a message of love or fear (Oprah, Billy Graham, Deepak Chopra, Rush Limbaugh, Ellen DeGeneres)
• Excelling at your area of expertise in an out-of-the-ordinary and single-minded way (Einstein, Captain Cook, Amelia Earhart, Walt Disney, Mother Theresa,  Jane Goodall, Bill Gates, Michael Jordon)
• Discovering or creating something new (like a cure for polio, AIDS, or cancer, the airplane, sewing machine, the condom, the automobile, the computer) that improves life quality.
• Being a creative master  (Michael Angelo, Picasso, Elvis Presley, Georgia O’Keefe, the Beatles, Shakespeare, JK Rowling, Mary Oliver, Meryl Streep, Madonna)
• Bringing great beauty to the world (Frank Ll0yd Wright, Estee Lauder, Olmstead Brothers, Coco Channel, Martha Stewart)
• Bringing humor to the world as a reflection of our human silliness (Charles Shultz, The Marx Brothers, George Carlin, Carol Burnett, Lucille Ball)

To achieve cultural hero or heroine status, moderation is out of the question. This means you need to break with established norms and guidelines. Forget about fitting in, your passion needs to drive all that you do. Break all the molds, create new structures that better facilitate your genius, hone your preferences, and find vehicles for your expressive YOUness!

Make Your Presence Matter![/caption]

Put your life purpose into meaningful context

For most of us, our life purpose flies under the radar of prevailing social consciousness. Yet, your life purpose is no less important to your soul’s evolution and to others due to the ripple effect that broadcasts your intentions, your actions and your influence through many generations and out into various layers of society.

These ripple effects are sometimes known by you, but often go unknown and unseen. Good enough reason to think about sending a note to someone, telling them exactly how they have effected your life. It will mean a great deal.

You can also use the example of the millionaires and the cultural heroes to break out of your own self-inflicted ego-mind fears and societal programming in order to access your own power. This means focusing on things that hold you back less often and paying attention to your boundless potential more.

The beauty in which you live aligned to your purpose is what matters!

Trust that you bring something unique and/or needed to the world. You affect the specific lives of family, friends and associates, both positively and negatively, as you are meant to. Be aware that we term or think of as “negative” (negative attitudes and behavior) may actually be the most effective “tension” necessary to bring about needed change. Others’ so-called “shortcomings” may actually be opportunities for us to step up and be helpful. What appears to be “messing up” may actually be life purpose perfection. Just imagine, if everyone was “perfect” in the ways we think they should be how boring life would be. Leaps come from the biggest tension points. Growth happens due to stimulus not due to stagnancy.

Your life mission brings your particular brand of brilliance into your family, workplace, community, and around the globe. We are all here to express the LOVE: love of what we do, love for all beings — that’s the “umbrella” life purpose we all share in common.

This love gets filtered though all professions and all human activities. You see it through the filters of people’s personal life missions related to:

• education
• parenting
• health (traditional and alternative)
• building, engineering and construction (architects/designers, contractors, urban planning, etc.)
• legal/judicial systems
• sales and marketing
• sports
• entertainment
• arts (culinary, music, fine arts, etc.)
• personal growth and professional consulting
• nature/landscaping/environment/park systems
• financial
• utilities
• real estate
• fashion
• non-profit

What a clear life purpose is

“To inspire others” is not a clear life purpose. To inspire others through your dedication and compassion as a healer is a clearer life purpose statement.  To be a vehicle for divine love through family is a clear life purpose. To be a pioneer in the field of personal growth is a clear life purpose.

As I said before, you can’t mess up your life blueprint even if you don’t know exactly how to state your life purpose. You are living it!! So what are the new success values that are coming into collective consciousness in a compelling and obvious way?

• Joy: How much you enjoy  your life and accept that what you create is of value. How much joy do you spread to others?
• Engagement: How fully engaged you are in life (interested, curious and connected rather than bored, dissatisfied and isolated) is a success value.
• Authenticity: Includes honoring vulnerability and honest connections to others as well as authentically expressing your truth.
• Clarity of intentions. This means being transparent. Stand in your brilliance and to shine your light with direction. Be clear about how you choose to shine.
• Spiritual Connection: How much you let your spirit inspire your choices and actions (intuition) and working toward the collective good of ONE and ALL (heart expansion).
• Optimism: This success value rests on how often you say YES to opportunities planted by the angels in your life. It is determined by your willingness to allow GRACE to enter and guide you and your life.
• Releasing the old: The extent to which you release the mental stories of the past, and live brightly in the here and now in all that is newly possible.
• Self-Expression: You are wiser than you know. How fully you express you true essence in all that you do and say is key to feeling like a successful vessel for your life purpose.

Each of these success values and aspects put you on a path of discovering your inner Home (your sense of perfectly poised self and purpose). There will inevitably be times when the world and the people in it seem to be at odds with your vision and your life purpose. A strong sense of self, inner fortitude, emotional resiliency, and a clear vision mean you won’t knocked off balance or trip over yourself due to the fickleness of fads, the whims of others, and the dogma of the pack. Yet, even if you do feel like you’ve lost your way, know that for the important things in your life you are never off track.

The All That Is built this human evolution-achieve-your-purpose paradigm with great skill, cleverness, knowing and even humor.

Living a life of direction means trusting your instincts and consciously developing and listening to your intuitive wisdom on a daily basis. The most important thing is to know yourself and to be curious about what it is you can bring to your relationships and to your work and to your hobbies that is uniquely you. Purpose is part of the mystery and magic of life. Even if you really make a muck of things on the surface, grace keeps coming around, and life purpose continues. So mindfully give yourself permission to follow your passions, to enjoy life on your own terms, and according to our own standard of success!

Certified Dream Coach® and author Melissa Wadsworth has empowered thousands to move past their doubts and “I’m not enough” thinking to access their authentic vision, intuition and life purpose. Sign up for her Winter Solstice One-Day Planning Intensive for 2014

I choose to focus on the celebration, for indeed celebration is in order for a life that was so extraordinarily lived. There is no tragedy here. The degree to which Nelson Mandela led the world out of social justice darkness and into an era of expanded peace and social equality is remarkable. Mandela focus on inclusion rather than exclusion created huge leaps forward in the minds and hearts of humanity.

There are so many lessons that we might inherit from the example of Mandela’s life – that are his legacy to us. Here are the top 3 lessons that come to mind for me:

1. The first that comes to mind is the obvious truth that many social norms and established societal structures are in conflict with our true potential as individuals and as a collective global community.

It is our turn to live outside the bounds and limits of the prevailing societal order so that we may continue to use the energy of his life example to expand into our own possibility, and to expand into our collective good.

Nelson Mandela’s life reminds us that the status quo only serves the prevailing powers in charge, and not even them.  For on a spiritual level, and on a life-potential level, societal power brokers are as deprived as the communities they seek to control and contain, and as depleted as the earth they have attempted to use up.

Everyone must embrace change and movement. Otherwise stagnancy and complacency set in. Mandela’s life shows us that embracing values outside the current societal guidelines can ignite the fires within us of what is truly possible.

There is certainly more work to be done around this truth. There are more shifts in belief and perspective that we can contribute to through our own personal intentions to have a positive effect in the world for ourselves AND others. These values are already part of who we are, we just need to begin listening to the wisdom of our own inner voices that carry the seeds of new beginnings and impulses to continue in the example of such brave and focused greatness as Mandela lived.

2. We are being invited to get clear on what our new values are for ourselves and for the benefit of our global communities and neighbors. From such clarity we can help to build nourishing communities that serve the many rather than the few. For some this might include releasing the need for security in exchange for valuing flexibility that enables one to better harness their true brilliance.

Nelson Mandela had the ability to adapt to his situations in a way that empowered him, his growth and his goals rather than diminishing his spirit.

Old values around power, money and success are being re-evaluated whether or not the power brokers of our time like it. A change is continuing to flourish, advanced by the life energy of people like Mandela, who so generously gave of himself. New values of co-creation, collaboration and compassion will continue to take us out of our collective darkness and into the light of our true potential.

3. We can move forward past our fears and the realities of the past. Mandela’s life is such a clear example of this. Had he “inhabited” his isolation and incarceration as an indicator of his future path, Mandela’s life force, his light, would have been greatly dimmed. Yet he used this time for clarity and the consolidation of his energies behind his life purpose. His life showed that there is indeed perfect timing to all that is. His time in prison was not wasted or lost. Just as his time as a leader was exactly enough. He gave the best of himself to his fullest measure. Wow, what a celebration should each of our heart’s experience as we appreciate this about Mandela’s legacy to us.

Mandela’s life encourages each of us to have courage, to take up the battles for social justice, for peace, and for the thriving of our planet that matter. We cannot keep leaving greatness to others, that they might do our part.

We are better, braver, and more brilliant than we ever imagine. Mandela’s greatest legacy can be that we realize he was not a giant among men, but rather a man who believed fully what was possible and did not shrink from his opportunity to take a lead in the unfolding of a brighter future.

Melissa Wadsworth is a new-community visionary, inspirational speaker, intuitive artist and life coach. http://www.melissawadsworth.com

I keep getting this message loud and strong:we all play our life part perfectly and what we do is fully enough. This message feels so much like a gift that I feel compelled to share it with you.

You are Gift Enough

You are abundantly, richly enough!
Your self-development, your influence in your area of expertise, your life’s ripple effect on other people’s lives, your contribution to the planet and to the cosmos, your part in the evolution of the human species and beyond… it’s all good, it’s all enough. Stop sweating it!

You are always aligned with purpose
For all you know, you have already achieved your life purpose, the thing that your soul showed up to do in this lifetime. So everything else is icing on the cake. Might as well choose what lights you up and do that. Look at what you are passionate about and keep being passionate about that thing whether it’s politics or parenting, cooking or splitting atoms, making friends or creating beautiful works of art. No one’s path is quite like yours so quit comparing!

Take a deep breath of relief! It doesn’t have to be as hard as you imagine. Being your brilliant self is a no-brainer. Take inventory of what you enjoy and are good at. Follow the bread crumbs of what interests you. Say “Yes” when opportunities are presented that might expand your mind, your heart or your soul. Say “Yes” to those opportunities that take you out of your comfort zone. Say “Yes” to relationships and endeavors that set you on a path you could have never imagined or planned for.

For indeed, it is those yeses that will most often align you with your life mission. Ditch Fear. Forget limits. What would you do if you knew you could not lose; if you knew you couldn’t get lost; if you knew whatever you did was fully and completely enough?

Give yourself a break — It’s all going to be alright
The main thing that affects your happiness is this: you either live angry at people and the way your life is progressing or you love people and feel the blessing of being alive at all. People who are kind to others, laugh at themselves, and embrace the simple grace of being alive are the happiest I believe.

So drink it all up! Whatever you choose to do, it’s enough! The actions you consider insignificant may in fact be the greatest things you do in your life – brilliant! My father never felt that what he did was important enough. He made himself miserable thinking he should be more “important.” Every once in awhile I get emails from his grade school and junior high students telling me exactly what he did that made a difference to them. I used to think he failed at living, now I know he did not.

Your mind is not a very good determiner of your greatness. Your ego-mind will keep telling you that you need to jump higher, do more, be more well-known and make more money. Yet, your soul aligned heart knows exactly what your truth is — so pay more attention to the heart’s wisdom. Feel, really feel at the heart level that you are brilliantly fulfilling the life you came here to experience. Once you do that you open the door to hearing/feeling/sensing clearly what it is that will be the most fun, exciting, fulfilling to do next. It might be as simple as taking a bath or as complicated as running for office. Regardless, it will feel right for you.

Life isn’t about doing more; it’s about experiencing more fully.
You can sit quietly in the comfort of your home and fully enjoy what you are experiencing, just as someone who decides to travel the world may be fully experiencing their life. No judgments. One is not better than the other, they are just different experiences in the here and now.

Keep in mind that we seldom recall the past lives that have perfectly set up our life path and even specific choices in this one. I always say to people about my choice not to have children, “I know I had children in another life.” I know this is true. That doesn’t mean that I don’t sometimes wonder what I am missing by not being a mother. Yet, I own my own choices, knowing what is meant to show up on my life path, will. This makes it ever so clear to me that it is important to make no judgments about what other people have chosen for their lives. They are as perfectly poised on their paths as I am. So guess what? We don’t need to control them…Phew!

Strive beyond fears knowing you can’t go wrong
That doesn’t mean we can’t personally strive to live beyond our fears, worries and frustrations. Exactly the opposite! It means that we can release the fears, worries and frustrations so we can live more boldly and without so much trepidation and self-judgment. Fear, worry and frustration are merely signals you are in old messages in your head and not in the heart here and now! There is nothing that you do that can’t be woven into the greater work of art that is your existence and your multidimensional consciousness. Yeah to that!

So what is it that you’re afraid to try, to be or to expand into? Once you know that you’ve already perfectly positioned yourself for your next wonderful life adventure, what adventure do you choose? What will make you happiest? Just choose: happy or not happy, and take responsibility for the choice.

Open up to the possibility that what you think will make you happy may not be it. Did you know that researchers have time and time again found that the constant striving for material goods actually suppresses happiness? And that often people who have very little by America’s modern standards are actually the happiest. And, that those who willingly share and spread the wealth so that everyone in their communities have what they need are the happiest.

The greatest factor to personal happiness
I believe that living a  fully engaged life is the most important factor to happiness. It’s not that you’ll be judged when you die for being engaged or not — it’s that it will matter greatly to YOU whether or not you are living life in joy (as you define it) or whether you’re bored and dissatisfied.

What is calling to you to from outside the boundaries of your comfort zone? What do you want to express to yourself and to others? There will be hints. The Universe always leaves bread crumbs for us to follow; you just need to live aware. The Universe even throws the best opportunities right into your path. Once your ego mind shakes off the surprise of, “I didn’t see that coming,” or “I didn’t plan that!” you can use your wiser soul-mind to proceed with the opportunity.

You have enough room to play with an entire rainbow of possibility
We’ve been programmed to believe that we can make a wrong choice that will totally mess up our lives. The truth is we really can’t make a choice that will get us out of the energetic blueprint or purpose we came into this world with. This life gifts us with so much room to play! There is more spaciousness and possibility than we can comprehend. Again, phew!

Even if the planet’s collective rise in consciousness means we each have received a new blueprint, we will begin live according to that. And, it will be enough! Got it, enough!!

Know this: in the end you pass the test and you’re not scored in comparison to anyone else. Every life is a CELEBRATION of life force energy and all the possibilities of that force. The force is always with you. That’s it. Period. Party on and peace out.

Melissa Wadsworth is a Certified Dream Coach who helps women in midlife connect to their mental, emotional, physical and spiritual brilliance for a life of joy, purpose and passion. http://www.melissawadsworth.com.

That’s right…we are all consumers, over-consumers even. That’s what we’ve been bred to be. For decades, all aspects of our modern society have reinforced our right to be super-sized consumers! It’s even been assigned as our real job as contributing members of society!

What’s wrong with this picture? Maybe during this season of gift-giving it’s time to roar back at this brain-washing or at the very least to shift into a higher gear of true gift-giving.

Consider the following:

• Politicians have encouraged us to shop to save or jump start the economy. As if it is our responsibility to pump up and cover up government over-spending failures with our own consumption. (Former President Bush encouraging us to spend after 9/11 comes to mind.)
• Media falls right into line as a consumerism pimp. Just read the business page headlines on any given day. You would think a war was going on. Companies are threatened by other companies trying to “steal” market share. When consumers get nervous about the economy and cut back on their spending ways, the news media goes to work trying to make the populace feel guilty about hurting local business and/or to convince that there’s nothing to worry about. The media has given up it’s role as an observer and reporter of news. In an age of instant news alerts and social media, who has time to investigate and look into the facts? It’s a race to be the first to announce the so-called news, whether it’s correct or not, apparently because being first is the only relevant role left. The integrity edge in reporting is long gone in the push for advertisers and any means possible to survive. Once television, newspapers and magazines decided to get in bed with its advertisers (as they continue to deny any connection), once they agreed to read press releases rather than do their own reporting, the truth came second or third as they became mouth pieces and pimps for advertisers.
• Entertainment — the movie, television, and music industries — is a vehicle for “the whole package.” In our day and age this means that entertainers look right, sound right and act right. They wear the latest styles, promote the advertisers without question (notice how American Idol contestants are put right into the commercials!), and support the bottom line of the entertainment company/network. What is the message we are getting loud and clear? Sharing one’s talent is not enough. Talent isn’t even necessary for success (as so many reality shows prove). Talent seems to come in second to being a great vehicle for selling an image. Then the media has a field day when these programmed entertainers (who have played the game so well) lose their way (their soul guidance and sense of self) or no longer want to live as a marketing facade. This was famously proclaimed by George Micheal back in 1990 in his song/video Freedom, in which he rather ingeniously and smartly used the thing he was railing against to spread his message of rebellion — super models, the ultimate in the right look upon which any marketing message can be over-laid. Of course you can’t view it without first seeing an ad!

I don’t usually rant or roar. I like to think of myself as a quietly inspirational person who gently encourages personal growth and the value of one’s soul brilliance. I try to meet people where they are. Suddenly, I feel the need to voice my stand on this topic.

Perhaps this rant is more for myself than for others. It’s entirely possible that I’m the main one who needs to finally wake up to, and change, my consumer ways. Yet, we are all connected. The ONE is the many; the personal is global. What is true for ONE is most likely true for others. So I own what I need to change. I admit that I’ve had fun being a consumer. Yet, a needed change is coming. In an age when the earth is suffering and other humans are suffering due to this collective blindness, I am setting an intention to be the change I wish to see in the world.

These are my resolutions in relationship to consuming:

1. I will live awake; I will celebrate each day as special. No longer will holidays, and “special occasions” created by advertisers, be reasons to consume. I am awake up from the marketing trance that dictates that certain days are more special than others. Each day is a blessing and a gift.
2. I live aware of my true heart’s desires. As I tune into my own heart for guidance, and live my life directed accordingly, I will notice less and less the shrill marketing messages that attempt to convince me of my less than average-ness. I step onto my true path.
3. I will live intelligently. I tune into my own brilliance, my soul connection, that unerringly knows what true satisfaction is for me and what my authentic personal value is to this life. I will check in with myself and discern my own answers rather than relying on others to tell me my truth. Okay…truth told I’ve always been anti-authority, so this will not be new for me (can you tell?). I will define my own idea of success.
4. I will live divinely guided. No longer transfixed, comatose, numb and tuned out, I will disrupt my consumer habits in order to make space for my full potential. Each day I will opt for a juicy life of purpose, passion and freedom.

What is personal is global. The economic, environmental, physical, emotional, and spiritual imbalances we see around us are a mirror for our own imbalance! It is time to claim the satisfaction, the enough-ness we long for.

From Consumer to Creator
As long as we pretend that being a “consumer” has no downside, that it is innocent and of no harm, we are still asleep. Start seeing yourself as a creator instead — the source from which all goodness into your life flows. Bring your inner presents (presence) out into the world!

My hope for all of us during this holiday season of gift-giving is that we give of ourselves and our true brilliance in ways that are truly meaningful to others. No doubt about it, this calls for some adjustments to be made that are not easy. We have to be willing to ask others what it is we can really do for them. Then we have to be willing to really give of ourselves in ways that matter to others. It will be an adjust for all. Yet, just imagine the deeper connections that will result. Just imagine the world problems that may begin to be addressed as a result.

A few simple gifting alternatives:

• Give gifts of charity to those who touch your heart on behalf of family members who have more than enough stuff.
• Give gifts of your talents and skills to friends, family and community members who could really use your personal brilliance. Volunteer. Make artful gifts. Sing at retirement homes and assisted living facilities.
• Give of your time and attention. Take a loved one to lunch. Expose someone in your community to a new experience they wouldn’t be able to afford. Help someone to learn a new skill. Write someone a nice long letter. Help a child or teen with a project they are struggling with. Call someone in your life with words of support and love.

We are each so much more than we imagine. Let’s all wake up to our true brilliance during this holiday season and give the gifts of our full magnificence and love.

Melissa Wadsworth’s life and soul coaching helps clients to shake up the status quo, creatively explore authentic potential, and tap into one’s heart and soul-directed self — for a life that is beyond the ordinary, limiting and habitual AND full of joy and grace! The transformational 11-day video course “How to Live the Life of Your Dreams Through Clarity” provides effective daily focus that creates meaningful outcomes. View it at http://www.melissawadsworth.com

Do you realize that prevailing societal norms of success (as established by manufacturers, corporations, lobbyists, and media (with full support of many religious organizations) are wholly dedicated to:

• Creating narrow definitions of who is “good enough” (social-status wise, look wise, money wise, health wise, soul wise, and relationship wise) so that most of the population is found “deficient” or “lacking.”
• Us self-describing ourselves as “less than” so we try day-after-day to close the gap between ourselves and the “models” of success fed to us through advertising, marketing, entertainment, and all forms of media. As long as we want to “fit in” we are able to be kept in line and we won’t discover our real greatness which is a threat to the established order.
• Promoting our belief that for society to succeed we must keep grabbing at the illusion of what we can buy to “measure up,” what we can attain and become, how we can look, and even how long we can live if only we buy the right products and services. And, if success hasn’t happened yet, it must be because we haven’t found the “secret” products and services that really work.
• Making us feel important because we are in the “know.” This is when we refer our family and friends to products and services while we are still in the flush of feeling that maybe the products will indeed “work,” or that maybe we are on to something we can be the first to tell others about (the modern marketing/social media machine).
• Socializing us into being “good citizens,” which means being mass consumers who know our place, play by the rules, behave ourselves, seldom draw outside the lines, and never challenge the prevailing norms or established power structures.
• Distracting us through trance media. Like the magician who distracts you so you don’t see what is really going on, we follow the bouncing sparkly ball of marketing bullshit, even when we sense there is a shell game going on. We are being distracted from being our powerful creator selves.

Wake up; it’s a nightmare, it’s a trance — it’s not a dream!

As long as we allow a well-worn, dried up societal template dictate what we can be and how we can express our genius we are screwed, we are broke and broken, we are starved, and we are disconnected from our souls. As long as we play along to this vision of what it means to be human we allow our true brilliance to be reduced and sucked from us time and time again.

As long as we agree with the standards that corporations and industry establish we are losers. As long as we let politics, fashion whimsy and entertainment distract us we are sleep walkers — we are zombies in a continual state of hypnosis.

We have been living a mass “consumer” trance. Call it a party, a roaring good time if you like, but admit that it’s time to take the lampshade off your transfixed mind and start making your way home to your true soulful self — that is both more humble and more courageous than you have probably experienced. Your true longing is to be alive and more lit up by life than you can imagine.

From Consumer to Creator
It’s time to throw out the habitual consumer ways we were born into and to create something for ourselves that is a true reflection of who we are and what we can contribute to the world now, in its current state that is both beautiful and wounded.

You know it’s true. An entire industry has been created to help us manage and organize our homes that are bursting with “stuff!” The oceans are awash in tangled islands of trash. The world is darkened by the slave labor and energy it takes to produce all this worthless stuff.

Be bewitched no longer. Explore the idea that you don’t need to be a consumer to be happy! Consuming will never do what the ads, the “first adopters,” and the corporate machines promise that it will do for you and your life. Why do you think so many people are eating their way to obesity, and hording themselves into isolating home prisons? The promises that all we need is more and more and more to be happy are all empty; there is no nutrition or satisfaction to be found no matter how much we consume.

Ask the neighbor who has chased a so-called higher standard of living, what chasing that dream has actually done for their quality of life? The illusion of financial security is shown for the smoke and mirror game that it is time and time again. Yet we keep agreeing to keep believing that it is worth believing in.

What if there is actually no value in our financial system at all? What if we are being called to discover our own true worth — as individuals, as communities, as humans? Are you willing to take a shot at defining your real value? Are you willing to see abundance as something other than money? Abundance as personal and soul-based substance — not merely something you give lip-service to at Thanksgiving.

Defining Your Own Value
You probably won’t believe this at first, but consider this: you don’t need the stuff, and you don’t need the money to buy all that stuff. You can have more time to enjoy your life, to appreciate nature, to love your family, and innovatively share the light of your true magnificence in whatever genius manner you choose or are called to.

Only then will we have the clarity to actually come up with innovative solutions to global issues. Only then we our lives feel full and connected, rich and magical.

I had a dream last night in which I was being hypnotized. In this hypnotic state I was black and white (polarized, a symbol for the past). It was like looking at myself in an old movie. All the while, I kept focusing intently at a spot right above the hypnotizer’s left shoulder. All of a sudden a flash of pink sparks go off at that spot, and I instantly know I have just perceived the magic that exists all around us! Even when the hypnotizer told me I was out of the trance, I had to keep shaking and shaking myself because I didn’t feel awake. Finally as I came free of the trance I was in full color – in all my multi-dimensional glory! No longer was I a dull black and white cutout version of myself.

Finding a New Dream
The meaning of the dream? It’s simple: we are hypnotized by societal norms, habits, restrictions, roles, and advertising. Only by shaking ourselves up and out of our respective trances can we wake up to the true gifts and really shake up the world and be in our lives for the better. Best of all we can use our gifts create fuller, happier lives that naturally spread our mental, emotional and energetic wealth to the world.

All you have to do is first wake up and start to shake off the conditioning. In the resulting emptiness of “want,” what is possible, what would the real dream be? What would a unified, conscious populace be able to achieve? Wouldn’t you like to find out?

Certified Dream Coach® and author Melissa Wadsworth has empowered thousands to move past their doubts and “I’m not enough” thinking to access their authentic vision, intuition and life purpose. She guides midlife women at a crossroads to more clarity, direction, confidence and joy — propelling them to their Brilliance Unlimited™! https://www.MelissaWadsworth.com