You know the feeling, sometimes all too well.

You don’t want to be around a certain someone who really bugs you. However, circumstances dictate that you must be in the presence of this person from time to time – perhaps you are related, or you work together. Maybe you live in the same city, and that’s enough.

It’s bad enough when your nemesis seems blissfully unaware of how you feel, and acts as if you were bosom buddies. It’s even worse when your enemy is aware of your discomfort and twists the knife in a little bit more every time you have to be within spitting distance of each other.

Your commitment to your spirit is the most important commitment you’ll ever make.

You are the one who is in charge of your own spiritual growth, and it’s your personal business as to how you choose to grow. Your spiritual growth leads to all other growth. You get to decide what this means for you, and how you will go about having it.

It’s important to remember that you can’t do this for anyone else.

The choice you make in any situation will depend on the choices you see before you.

Yes, you do have free will, and are free to choose what you want, but what choices are on your menu? Sometimes you might believe you have no choice because none of the available options you see appeal to you. Remember that not choosing is also a choice.

What about the choices you can’t see?

Do you pay attention to how fast you are expected to move through your daily life?

Depending on what is happening in your life right now, you are faced with demands to get more done in your day, every day. This means you're expected to move faster, never slow down or stop moving, and produce produce produce.

You are the one making some of those demands on yourself, and it could be that you're used to doing things this way. It is a positive thing to get a lot of stuff done, and some days it's the right answer.

You might see freedom as a way of living your life, perhaps as a goal with a desired outcome.

Freedom might equate having the peace of mind to know that you don’t have to worry about paying your bills. Some people see freedom as patriotism, and all of the ideas and pictures associated with that. Then there is the freedom to love who you choose, and to be safe where you live - the freedom to be who you are.

Others, more bleakly, see freedom as an impossible to achieve dream.

There are many ways of being a healer, some of them conscious, and some not.

You can be the healer in your family, job, or group of friends, without being aware of your role.

What does this mean exactly? Well, you could be the peacemaker, or the one who keeps it together for the others. You might soak up everyone’s troubles, maybe you are the sounding board for your friends’ problems.

‘If the two of you agree on everything, one of you is unnecessary.’ -Anonymous

What gives? Why are relationships, specifically the communication in your relationships, often complicated and challenging?

Why doesn’t this person understand what you are trying to say? Why don’t you get the point he or she is making? Why is it sometimes so difficult to be heard, as well as to speak out?

Sometimes communication can feel like hard work – as difficult as if you are each speaking a different language, and nobody is bothering to listen or understand.

The gift you bring with you every day, is you.

Your good attitude matters. Whatever you’ve been feeling or experiencing, literally comes with you.

If you’re happy, happiness comes along. If you are invalidated, sad, bored, unconscious, amused, joyful, neutral, judgmental… all of that comes with too. The vibration of energy you're carrying with you affects everyone around you, whether you know them or not.

Everything possible unfolds right now. This moment is when it's all happening.

Some folks live in the past, in what they choose to remember as a happier, simpler time. Other people are caught up in trying to solve old problems, wounds, and invalidation.

The things that drag us back to the past include regrets, disappointments, dreams that died, old friendships and relationships, the way one looked when younger, the life unlived, the approval never given, the opportunities missed, the ‘if onlys’, and other things that are long gone.

When awareness dawns on you, is it like watching the sun rise?

Upon becoming aware, what had been hidden under cover of darkness is now fully exposed in the light. Once you see it, it’s hard to pretend that it doesn’t exist.

This awareness can be a welcoming thing, and it can be a sudden shock to your system. You may realize truths about yourself or other people that allow you to see things in a new way, and so you grow.

You might need to go through a period of mourning for what was, for your illusions about what existed. Being ‘disillusioned’ simply means you no longer have those illusions. Now you can work from a place of truth, of clarity and consciousness.

Consciousness is awareness. Deciding to be conscious is a choice.

Sometimes it seems like there is no reason to be optimistic, and that choosing optimism is a delusional act.

When you become aware of what's really going on around you, and allow yourself to finally see clearly, it can often seem bleak, at first. What's worse is that you might have to let go of some of your cherished illusions, the ones in which you really immersed yourself.

You may have to destroy old ways of seeing and being, if you want to become fully aware of what’s happening inside of you and around you. Destruction and disillusion are part of becoming conscious.

Your energy vibration has a lot to say about what you are able to create.

Consciously or not, your energy is set at one vibration or another right now. You might be vibrating at a happy peaceful energy, or you could be caught up in a more challenging vibe of fear, resistance, and pain.

A happy vibration of energy makes it easier for you to visualize what you want, and to know it’s possible to attain it.