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My Journey: A Story of Transformative Learning

Hoi An, Vietnam, January 8, 2018

I was born to a fifteen-year-old, uneducated mother, in an Arabic-speaking Muslim family, in the heart of a centuries-old Moroccan medina. I am the oldest of four siblings. At seven years old, I was admitted in a French elementary school attended mostly by French children. Needless to say, this first learning experience was a shock. At eighteen, and in the grip of teenage angst, I dropped out of twelve grade and traveled by car with a boyfriend and a team of book salesmen to Europe, the Middle East and Africa selling French books for a living. After four years, I had enough savings to return to Morocco, this time after rationally weighing my options for the future. I enrolled in a correspondence course in preparation for the French Baccalaureate Exam as an independent candidate, and passed it with mention.

Six months later, I traveled to New York, Japan and Hong Kong and upon my return home, recognized that I needed to learn English to engage with the wider world. I immediately signed up for an intensive six-month study in London. Only weeks after I passed the TOEFL, and with the financial help of a generous uncle, I started college at the University of Florida where I graduated just two and a half years later with Honors and an induction in the Phi Beta Kappa Society, a distinction which was still a mystery to me. By then, I had fallen in love with academia and I applied to a few prestigious graduate schools knowing full well I couldn’t afford any of them (my uncle’s largess having ended) but hoping they would come through for me even though I was a penniless foreign student. 

I was quickly accepted by Johns Hopkins and Harvard, among others. I chose instead New York University because it was the only institution that offered me a full fellowship including a monthly cash stipend, provided I maintain straight A’s. After I received my Masters Degree and finished the PhD coursework and comprehensive exams, I was awarded a generous year-long doctoral research internship by the Guggenheim Foundation, which was interested in the subject matter of my doctoral dissertation: International Terrorism. Unfortunately, I hit a wall before completing my PhD. I was struggling with stress and anxiety and lacked proper guidance and mentoring. It turned out there were limits to my independent, intrapersonal, self-learning abilities. I found a way out by becoming pregnant and giving birth to a colicky, hyperactive baby and forever remained an “All But Dissertation.”

After that, my life took on a radically different path. My love marriage to my college sweetheart collapsed after years of discord and, as a divorced single mother, I faced financial ruin and looked for jobs primarily to make money and support my daughter and ailing mother. After a couple of years as a Manhattan real estate agent, I answered a Merrill Lynch employment ad in The New York Times. I was hired as a rookie broker in a midtown branch and studied for the various Series Exams required to work in the financial industry and stock markets. That was the easy part!  When in the first few months I started prospecting for clients, I found I loathed cold-calling. But I persevered using networking and, within a decade, became a rising star; one of only a handful of women in the industry.

As a Merrill Lynch Senior Financial Adviser and VP, I occupied a large office overlooking the East River on the 47th floor of the Citicorp Tower. In the eyes of all those around me, I was the embodiment of the American Dream! Only, inside, I was a wreck, reacting to not only the stock markets debacles but also all kinds of other events, such as 9/11, the Iraq War, and my Muslim identity. Needless to say, I was always stressed, lived in perpetual fear, and carefully kept up appearances thanks to anti-anxiety medication and strenuous gym workouts. By the time, my mother’s illness led to the complete loss of her mobility and she required around-the-clock care, I was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. The decisions I took then were for the most part irrational and short-sighted. I took a leave of absence from my job and when my mother passed away within months, I had just undergone a full hysterectomy and was in the midst of utter mental confusion. I never went back to work, turning my back in doing so to an enviable Wall Street career and loads of money.

Fast forward fourteen years later, the mature woman I am today finally figured out some of the big problems that caused the devastating crashes that ended my promising career paths before their time. For even though I had entered and pursued those careers wholeheartedly, their unplanned endings came about reluctantly and irrationally. My decisions stemmed from deep emotional turmoil and a reactive and negative state of mind. For a while, I was so enthralled by the capacity of the intellect to create and control events in my life, I had pretty much dismissed my unconscious emotional self and I was perpetually at war with it. Because my mother and most of the women in my family during my childhood were all either completely illiterate or uneducated, I viewed education and reason as the holy grail for a fully independent life. I entered a male power system with a man’s mindset, and I couldn’t understand why I harbored so much angst and why I couldn’t control my circumstances when they took on unforeseen turns. My capacity for lasting transformative learning was showing its limits. And that is where Mezirow’s theory with its over-reliance on the rational mind stops being helpful for people like me.

After four years of self-reflection on the content, process and premise of my life experiences (Mezirow, 1997), I was met with the same stumbling blocks, namely the values and judgments of the dominant white, male, middle class culture I was living in, the one I had so proudly conquered. Only that which causes the problems cannot beget the solutions. I was stuck and desperate. Time and again, my rational mind came up with actions to get me out of my predicaments only to present me with further problems instead of lasting solutions, because they were marred by fear and doubt. The light at the end of the tunnel appeared one spring day when a friend called to recommend I read Eckhart Tolle’s “A New Earth,” and I suddenly realized I was a prisoner of my mind. My incessant thinking had tormented me to the point of despair. It was time for me to learn to be still and open my heart to my emotional being in order to integrate my shadow self, as Carl Jung calls it.

Robert Boyd understood this missing aspect in Mezirow’s theory and, borrowing from Carl Jung’s work on ego, shadow, persona and collective unconscious, expanded the purview of Transformative Learning Theory further. The deep conflicts between the ego (the conscious mind) and the unconscious within the individual’s psyche must be resolved for true transformation, defined as: “the fundamental change in one’s personality involving conjointly the resolution of a personal dilemma and the expansion of consciousness resulting in greater personality integration.” (Boyd,1989) From that moment on, I went on a quest for spiritual expansion and emotional growth that’s still ongoing. All my life, I had been oblivious, or rather dismissive, of my feminine/emotional being, whilst exhibiting a self-assured, rational persona, which depleted my energy and left me wanting. I aspired to fit in and succeed in a world that devalued and derided feelings and emotions and appreciated above all the analytical mind, the ego and the Newtonian model of cause and effect. Feelings are anything but rational and explaining them rarely makes them go away. We end up repressing and denying them, which over time comes back to haunt us in the form of mental and physical sickness.

More importantly, the over-reliance on the intellect at the exclusion of the heart deprives us of our wholeness and ultimately of our expanded consciousness and full cognitive abilities. I was busy pushing away my conflicting negative emotions lest they be seen by others, so intent on appearing strong and confident that it almost destroyed me. I preferred to run away rather than be found out as a fraud and admit to my vulnerability. My lack of self-worth and tragic need to prove myself over and over again manifested as insurmountable obstacles when life threw me a curve-ball. My “disorienting dilemmas,’ as Mezirow calls them, were impervious to self-examination and critical reflection. They yielded and transformed only when I sat still with my negative emotions, embraced them despite the pain, and surrendered to my shadow self. When that happened, my negative feelings turned into deep peace and compassion. It was only then that my critical mind became productive again, creative and potent, not before.

In Kabbalah, it is asserted that the less we react to events, circumstances and others, the closer to God we get. Hence, just as I started to settle into a feeling of authenticity and wholeness, integrating my shadow self and transcending many of my subconscious negative feelings and beliefs, I began contemplating yet another challenge: expanding to still higher levels of consciousness and love. Inside me the impulse was growing, an instinctual urge I couldn’t ignore much longer, only this time, it was not born of confusion or dilemma, it was emanating from a deep state of knowing and bliss, which does not mean my ego was not in full panic mode at times. This type of transformative learning is an entirely different animal. It is a spiritual drive motivated by the desire to know god within, to embrace the unknown armed with faith alone. I believe that many of us today are feeling that calling and have set on the path of bringing more love and awakening onto the world, an endeavor that starts with greater individual awareness.

Shortly after my birthday, in the summer of 2016, I gave away all my material belongings and most cherished possessions, left my home, family and friends and went on a solo travel around the world to countries where I had never been. In my view, there is not a bigger trigger for transformative learning than overseas travel. And I am not talking about the kind of travel that seeks to duplicate the comforts of home while away and shields you from the imponderable, but of the type of solitary travel that throws you into an altered state of consciousness. The kind of travel that obliterates your identity, habits and frames of references and finds you naked and raw in the face of the unknown and utterly unfamiliar. I recently returned from that adventure and have been reflecting and writing about the extraordinary changes I have experienced. My journey, it turns out was not so much about the wondrous countries and peoples I discovered as much as about the deep emotional shifts and altered mindsets that have taken place within me while stretching the envelop of my awareness.

Eighteen months, fifteen new countries, and a new book later, I am back home ready to embark on a whole new chapter, my Life’s Third Act, as Jane Fonda famously calls it in her 2012 TED talk for Women. This latest phase of my personal psychic development and transformative journey has moved beyond the personal ego-centered development to a desire to share with others the fruit of my spiritual expansion and higher consciousness. Scott (1991) wrote: “When one transcends his/her ego, collective needs, wants and desires represent a stronger force… [and the] group can serve to represent symbolically alternative thoughts, structure, directions and images for what is appropriate in today’s society.” The group I am thinking about is the growing army of light workers who are seeking enlightenment and empowerment while spreading love and compassion in the world today.

This was the story of my own evolution. The intent to share it with you stems from my desire to shed light on some of the basic premises of Jack Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory and highlight a couple of alternative perspectives that appear to support my own transformative journey. Transformative Learning, as a fundamental change in the way we see our world, has been crucial in my life experience from early adulthood. For most adults, their perception of themselves, the perception others have of them, and fear of judgment make them impervious to taking risks and expanding beyond their current perspectives. As we get older, most of us tend to root ourselves into daily routines until our unconscious mind becomes so hardwired that attempts at change are not only difficult but also painful. Yet, some of us, have a seemingly infinite capacity to undergo a multiplicity of perspective changes throughout our lives and to reinvent ourselves time and time again.

My hope is that my journey will inspire others, especially older women who are the largest demographic in the Western world today, who like me yearn to be the best version of themselves while living their best lives. And perhaps, since we are talking about transformative learning in adults, let me say a word about this phenomenon of our time which is the explosive growth of seniors in the developed world. These so-called Baby Boomers are entering the third act of their lives at unprecedented numbers and many of them do not feel they are on a path of decrepitude or decay but further growth and expansion and most of all service. To them, Fonda, today at the beautiful ripe age of 80, offered a different metaphor for aging, one that is no longer defined by an arch but a “staircase,” symbolizing in her own words: “The upward ascension of the human spirit bringing us into wisdom, wholeness and authenticity. Age not at all as a pathology, age as potential…” Because after all, scientific research now shows, the brain, with its magnificent plasticity, has the ability to form new neural pathways, expanding our capacity to learn and transform into very old age. Neuro-plasticity is opening the door to the secret of immortality, which is infinite flexibility and creativity: Transformative learning as a lifelong voyage.

Note: This article was written as a story illustrating Jack Mezirow's  Theory of Transformative Learning for Teachers College 20th Anniversary of the International Transformative Learning Conference in November 2019.

Confessions of a Brokenhearted Liberal

I went from intense excitement to growing anguish very quickly that night. The big moment had arrived and suddenly the world was falling apart!

It’s been a jarring time for many of us following the shocking results of the 2016 presidential elections. Shortly after 7:00 PM, as the polls began to close throughout the Eastern states, and the electoral colleges allocated to the candidates, I was already in panic mode.  I texted my daughter who was in the same mood and then decided to quiet my nerves by watching an entertainment segment I had saved on my DVR.  Once in a while I would glance back at the live TV broadcast and promptly return to my pre-recorded show more distressed than ever.  At the end of the show, I tuned back to the election results admonishing myself to quiet down and face reality but could not stand it. I was a total wreck and by 10:30 PM, I decided to turn it all off, TV set, iPhone and iPad.  By then Ohio was allocated to Trump and Florida was still too close to call but with an edge for Trump.

At 11:00 PM, I was in bed, desperately trying to calm myself. I prayed and yielded to my frayed emotions.  I fell asleep for 30-40 minutes only to awaken again and experience painful butterflies in my guts. I resorted to the many letting go techniques that had helped me on so many occasions, but incredibly, nothing seemed to work. I was puzzled by the intensity and resistance of my reaction. I was hoping against all hopes that there was still a chance and that the unthinkable was not real. On a couple of occasions, I struggled with the desire to turn the TV or internet back on to check the results but remained lying in bed in the darkness vacillating between fear and denial.

It was not until 7:00 AM the following day, that I finally knew with certainty that the nightmarish scenario had come true. On my iPhone, there was a text message from my daughter with a single word “Mommy!!!” and a crying Emoji next to it.  That morning, after my persistent emotional surrender throughout the night and my acceptance of what was, I felt calmer and able to go on with my day as usual.  That is until a press alert in my inbox signaled that Hillary was going to give her concession speech, and I turned my TV on.  As I watched her speak words of acceptance and grace while containing her sadness and regret, I fell apart and couldn’t hold back my tears anymore.  I cried for her, her hard and courageous work, and the death of our common dream. I shed a river of tears for all those whose hopes were dashed. I wept with profound sorrow for me, for my daughter, my mother, my sister and all those women who had hoped with all their might that we were finally going to make history. 

Inside me, an unfathomable sorrow was mounting, an immense dread of the unknown facing immigrants and Muslims, minorities and disabled, and all those that Trump had humiliated and insulted for 16 months straight.  Had he not unleashed the most hateful instincts in so many of his supporters who felt their prejudice sanctioned by this powerful rich man, now president-elect, who could shout it all out loud without any human decency, shame or fear?  The spewing of the most venomous kind was thrown in our faces day in and day out and now we had to live in a nation whose leader was the mouthpiece for that ugliness.  How could it be?

The Personal Perception

I am known to have celebrated the new energy of love and hope in America. After all had this country not voted for a black man twice?  But I had underestimated the misogyny and the potency of the lies that were spread initially by Republicans with a visceral hatred of the Clintons and later perpetrated by Bernie Sanders’s most vitriolic supporters.  Outrageous conspiracy theories abound everywhere. Fake news and fabricated lies were circulated on the internet ad nauseum.  The truth was a subjective construct at best.

Like many bleeding-heart liberals, I was stunned by this most shocking turn of events.  Throughout the ugliness of the election campaign, I kept seeing signs of the Universe orchestrating a shift I believed had been in the making since the election of the first African-American president.  The fast pace of positive social change in America and elsewhere was a sure sign that we were on the right path.  With the prospect of a female president of the most powerful nation in the world, I became intoxicated with my own dreams of justice and aspirations for a new, kinder Earth.  Election night inflicted the cruelest of awakening. 

I forgot that no evolution or progress happens all at once or in a straight longitudinal manner.  More often than not, the change that occurs is met with not only resistance but also set backs of various magnitudes. Our collective consciousness is so set on building a world with universal love and compassion that I came to believe that this time the change was not only accelerating but also inevitable. I found myself repeating to everyone who would listen that the rational modern man’s mind had inflicted too much pain on the world and it was high time for feminine energy to take over.  It was what was needed to heal humanity and the planet.  I cited the increasing caring for Mother Earth and the environment, for animals and their suffering, for sexual diversity and racial equality, for the disabled, the refugees and downtrodden of the world.  This was LOVE in action; this was human awakening as we had anticipated. 

Where I saw hate and violence, I explained away by rationalizing that we needed to uncover the Evil to bring about the Good. I insisted that we could not defeat darkness unless we shed the light on that which was long kept in the shadows.  I was not blind to the suffering, the fear, the anger and the hate that was raging in the hearts of so many. I did see it all, I thought.  Only I chose to keep my focus on the positive signs around me that showed me we were still on the righteous path. I persuaded myself that the only long lasting way to defeat the darkness was to stick with love and compassion and continue to embrace the power of alignment with Source. There were times when, I even felt like the lonesome lighthouse on the rocky cliff, battered by the furious sea still standing in the storm.

I knew I was not alone. I live in a community of light workers; I am surrounded by men and women who believe in their core that we are living in a time of extraordinary transition and empowerment.  And yet for a while now throughout the lengthy electoral process, I engaged in an exercise of complete dis-empowerment by investing myself too deeply in it; even believing that the change I was craving was coming from outside of me. The first woman president was going to embody it and we were all going to be saved somehow.  I was not prepared for the shattering loss because of that dis-empowerment. I cried and mourned as if the collective loss was an intensely personal one.  And it was because I had given away my power to external events.  My reaction was that much more surprising that I had been preaching for some time that it is not what others did or what events happen that mattered but how we react to that.  Reactivity is the most human of traits and it is an insidious enemy.  It robs us of our peace and joy by laying blame on others. And oh did we have a chest full of blame to hurl out. 

The Illusion of Separation

What I failed to see, what we liberals were blind to, was that the other side had felt exactly the same way. Half of the nation had voted for Trump even as the other half grieved in disbelief.  Many on the other side of the American political divide, many of whom it turns out had voted for Obama twice, had felt profound and mounting despair over the course of eight years of impotent government.  Many of those who had seen salvation in the charismatic Black leader who ignited hope in them and subsequently turned to the revolutionary rhetoric of Bernie Sanders, had seen their hopes of advancement evaporate with the Clinton nomination.  They contributed to the Trump victory either by not voting at all or voting for him or a third party candidate. Those groups were all motivated by one thing and one thing only, Hillary represented the status quo and they were desperate for change, any change.  And if there ever was any doubt of things staying the course, one had to only witness the unprecedented support by the seating president and first lady bent on protecting the Obama legacy. Knowing all along, that a Senate majority was a must if that was to happen. If not, Hillary’s election would lead to yet another stalemate.

Of course, Trump voters and supporters too had fully dis-empowered themselves by embracing a man who stood for radical change. The power of their belief was so strong, that they were willing to turn a blind eye to all his horrifying shortcomings and only see the relief he promised.  We know now that the hordes who voted for Trump were not all “uneducated white men” - as we disparagingly view them amongst liberals. The divide included almost half of all white women – a fact that added insult to injury to many women, including me. 

Regardless of where we stand now, we must realize how each and every one of us contributed to this ghastly breakdown of our social fabric and how our government only reflects our divisions.  The advance of social media has made us more entrenched in our beliefs and created deeper chasm that ever before in our history.  We stopped talking to each other and only talk to ourselves, reinforcing and strengthening our own perspectives, demonizing each other in a blatant lack of general empathy.  We think of each other as stupid and blind to the truth.  We are able to look at the same things and only see what we believe and nothing else. We’re ceaselessly pointing the finger at each other.  

For even though, I did see the rage and fear on the other side, I did not accept it and even worse, I dismissed it, refusing to discuss it, respect it or honor it.  Instead, I belittled it and often called it aberrant.  Hoping to defeat an uncomfortable reality, I shut it down viewing it as dangerous and misguided.  I was easily offended by the hateful rants instead of seeing the all too human frailty, the fear and anxiety underneath.  Instead of reaching out and opening my heart and genuinely aiming for peace, I went to war by unfriending and blocking the negativity.  Now I can see that what I did with others I had done with my own negative feelings on a personal level.  I repressed and denied them, until they reemerged in the form of disease and lingering pain both physically and emotionally.  In other words, I repeated the same old pattern of suppression and projection on the social plane with other groups of people.  It is rather remarkable this state of affair!

Trump may have won a decisive Electoral College and Congressional win, since his party also holds a Senate and House majority, but we as a nation LOSE if we continue on the path of separation and anger.  We fail our nation when we fail ourselves and each other.  

We must now take responsibility for our dis-empowerment and divide and accept the blame where it truly lies: within.  At least those of us with the courage to look inside and be conscious and aware must now turn our focus on what we know to be the Truth: we create our world.  By keeping a steady focus on our fears and projecting our negative emotions on the other side, we have attracted and manifested this new reality. The only way out is to return to love and compassion and open our hearts and our minds to the other side and the best future for our country. Embrace everyone, including those on the other side of our beliefs, and listen to them with love and respect, and by being everything we wish them to be.  We are mirrors.  

In the end, my fellow broken-hearted liberals, nothing has changed, only our perspective must.  We are still beacons of light in a world marred in much darkness. We may not have realized the dream of a female president, and the side of anger and fear has had its way this time around by electing a man who represents their raging discontent, but that is of no consequence; a small detour at best in the path of love.  We have fallen prey to our own demons.

What are we to do now?  Stay the course and take full responsibility for contributing to our separation and dis-empowerment, knowing that our human mind is not equipped to see the larger picture. Only our Higher Self can do that.  We are being tested in our resolve to keep walking the path of love and compassion no matter what the external circumstances are.  We must tend to our personal healing and extend our love to those we perceive as being misguided.  There are several paths to the truth and we cannot judge others as less than us no matter what they do or say.  For remember, they too are us.        

Why I Am So Passionate About This Election

I'm an emigrant woman of Arab and Muslim background and I've been a naturalized American citizen for thirty years. I was born in Morocco in a proud, beautiful Muslim family. My mother was married against her will at 13 to my father who was 20 years her senior. This was neither cruel nor unusual in those days. She was barely literate (and none of her three sisters could read or write) but she made sure that her four children - of whom I am the oldest - had an education. My parents divorced when I was 14 but my father also had the highest aspiration for me and predicted that I would earn a PhD when I was just 7 years old and starting school.

In America, I went on to earn a BA with High Honors at the University of Florida in Gainesville FL and a Masters degree and almost a PhD from New York University. I never missed an election and when my mother, with my sponsorship, became a US citizen, she felt she was in Heaven living in the greatest country on earth. She cried when she could finally vote for Bill Clinton in 1992. 

I've always been a liberal Democrat and a passionate feminist. The year she turned 18, my daughter and I voted for Hillary in the 2007 primaries before voting for Obama in 2008. I already felt then she was the more qualified candidate, and though it was not meant to be, I was proud of our first Black President. Then as now, America made history and I was proud of our vote. Sadly, my mother passed away in 2004, too soon to see that happen. In her memory, once again my daughter and I are voting on Tuesday for Hillary, for my mother and my aunts, and all the magnificent women who have never had a chance to witness history being made once again in this great nation. 

I have been frantically active this election on Facebook and Twitter. I volunteered and phone-banked and I am convinced Hillary is going to win in a landslide this time against an undeserving, narcissistic and incompetent bigot in an election that shed the spotlight on the deep seeded racism and misogyny still pervasive in our country.  Finally, I've turned 60 this summer and Hilary's election for POTUS will be undoubtedly one of the best gifts of my life so far. 

Maman, this one is for you!

My mother and I, two weeks before her death in 2004

Seeing is Believing? Not so!

I appreciate that in a democracy we have different parties with different ideologies. What I do not understand is how one Party can so blatantly deny the facts when they are easily verifiable and obvious for everyone to see and that there are people who believe such misrepresentations solely on ideological grounds. This curious phenomenon stands in opposition to the saying that "seeing is believing". In fact, the contrary is true, believing is seeing; corroborating the notion that we are only able to see what we already believe! Hence, I stopped arguing with people who have set and distinct opinions from mine. It is a complete waste of energy. At the same time, this has made me more alert to my own beliefs and the necessity for me to not judge too fast or be stubborn in my opinions. A healthy open-mindedness is necessary for constructive discourse.

This realization is illustrated by an article by my friend Diane Vacca who writes: "What the [Republicans] refuse to acknowledge is that since Obama took office, the budget deficit has declined by roughly $1 trillion, and we are in the longest period of sustained job growth in our history. Unemployment, which reached 10 percent in Obama’s first term, is now 5 percent, lower than when the sainted Reagan left office. Under Obama, the economy has recovered from the Great Recession, which he inherited from his predecessor, George W. Bush, significantly faster and better than any of the other major world economies."

Vacca goes on to say, "Gene Sperling, the former director of the National Economic Council, told the NY Times, “If we were back in early 2009 … with the economy losing 800,000 jobs a month and the Dow under 7,000 — and someone said that by [Obama’s] last year in office, unemployment would be 5 percent, the deficit would be under 3 percent, AIG would have turned a profit and we made all our money back on the banks, that would’ve been beyond anybody’s wildest expectations.” But most people don’t know that because the Republicans have constantly been hammering the lie that the economy is in shambles."

I would add the incredible turn around of the US automobile industry and the drop to 10% from 18% of the US population which is still without healthcare to the list of accomplishments; and this despite the hysterical opposition of the GOP to Obamacare and other Obama policies. Had the US Congress been more cooperative, the economic recovery of the last 7 years would have been even more impressive.

Source: https://dianevacca.wordpress.com/2016/04/28/donald-trumps-presidential-debut/

There is Great Power in Surrender

There is Great Power in Surrender

In our high achieving society, hard work and strife are often viewed as the means to succeeding greatly.  The concept of surrender and letting go is devalued and misunderstood as a lack or loss of control.

It is of course the opposite.  We struggle in life when we do not know who we are. The masquerade of our ego leads one to believe that since life is a jungle, we must learn to fight and compete to overcome adversity and achieve our goals.  This belief will break us down and lead us to self-destruct eventually.

It takes knowledge and acceptance of our total self to surrender and let go. True achievement comes when we forsake our forceful drive and egotistical pursuits and harness the awesome power of Universal energy and its infinite intelligence. 

Going with the flow of the river of life will take us faster to our destination than forcing our way upstream, regardless of how many detours.  And when we get there, we feel refreshed and empowered instead of stressed, broken and empty. So lose the oars, listen to your inner guidance and trust your heart. 

Wafa Faith Hallam

Happy Earth Day 2016

Remember to make Earth Day every day!