How often do we allow ourselves to judge someone — even ourselves — without considering that we are consciousness ever expanding? We form an opinion of someone in a hard season, a bad moment, an old story, and then we keep carrying that opinion long after they've moved past it. An awakened heart is willing to look again. And again. As many times as it takes. It is willing to see the person standing in front of us today, not the version we filed away years ago.

 

So, what does it actually take to awaken the heart? I've come to believe it happens in two movements: first inward, then outward

 

Before love can move through us toward others, it must find room inside us. We cannot pour from a heart that is clenched, guarded, or full of old static. That happens through four practices:

 

We calm down. Most of us are running so fast and carrying so much noise that we've forgotten what our own center even feels like. Calming down isn't about doing nothing — it's about slowing ourselves enough to empty out the chatter and reconnect to that quiet place inside that never actually left, it just got buried. You cannot hear your own heart over the noise of a life lived at full volume.

 

We let the past go. This is not the same as pretending the past didn't happen, or rushing past pain that deserves to be felt. It's something more specific: we keep the lessons, but we release the old stories about how we got them. Carrying yesterday's wound into today's relationship isn't loyalty to your healing — it's just exhaustion wearing a familiar coat.

 

We enlighten ourselves. This is the work of raising our consciousness — and it looks different for every single one of us. For some it's study, for some it's prayer, for some it's simply paying closer attention to the patterns we keep repeating. Whatever the path, the purpose is the same: to respond to life from a place of love rather than reaction, while still powerfully co-creating in alignment with our highest path. It's a daily choice to see a little more clearly than you did yesterday.

 

We create abundance. We are each Creators at our core — not someday, not once we've earned it, but right now, at this moment. We can build the life we dream of on every level: emotional, spiritual, relational, material. This isn't about denying hardship or papering over real limitations. It's about remembering that abundance is built not despite our circumstances, but through how we choose to meet them.

 

Once the heart has room, love doesn't stay private. It moves outward into how we treat one another — into the texture of our actual, daily relationships. I have found the following eight qualities show us what a truly awakened heart looks like in relationship:

 

Attention: Neglect born of inattention damages relationships far more often than outright malice ever does. Most heartbreak doesn't come from cruelty — it comes from being looked past, day after day, until you start to wonder if you were ever really seen at all. Showing up, fully, with your phone down and your mind present, is itself an act of love. It costs nothing and it is everything.

 

Trust: The entire fabric of our life together — working, living, breathing alongside one another — rests on a subtle, inherent trust in each other's basic goodness. Without it, every interaction becomes a negotiation. With it, we can rest into one another. Trust is rarely lost in one dramatic moment; more often it erodes in small ones, and it is rebuilt the same slow way.

 

Honesty: Still, after everything, the best policy. Not the brutal kind that uses truth as a weapon, but the kind that simply refuses to build a relationship on a foundation that isn't real. Every small dishonesty we allow ourselves — the "it's fine" that isn't, the omission we tell ourselves doesn't count — quietly withdraws from a trust account we'll eventually need.

 

Loyalty: We stand by the people we love in their darkest moments — not because we want to stand in the dark with them, but because we don't want them standing there alone. Loyalty isn't agreement, and it isn't blind defense. It's presence that doesn't disappear when things get hard, which is exactly when presence matters most.

 

Acceptance: We appreciate our similarities and respect our differences — both, not just one. It is easy to love what mirrors us back to ourselves. It is harder, and far more important, to extend that same regard to what doesn't. Acceptance doesn't mean we abandon discernment; it means we stop requiring someone to become like us before we'll consider them worthy of love.

 

Forgiveness: Imagine if everyone you knew were equally willing to apologize and to receive an apology. Most of our relational pain lives in that gap — the apology withheld, or the one offered and refused. Forgiveness is your remedy — yours to offer, yours to receive — and it is one of the few medicines that heals the giver as much as the receiver.

 

Empathy: It is our shared pain, more than our shared joy, that connects us at the deepest level. We are all walking through something, even when it doesn't show. Treating each other with that knowledge — gently, without assumption, with room for what we cannot see — changes everything about how we move through the world together.

 

Self-Love: Relationships don't create joy — they reflect it. The joy was always meant to come from within first. We cannot offer attention, trust, honesty, loyalty, acceptance, forgiveness, and empathy from an empty well. Self-love fills the well so there is something real to give.

 

Right now, wherever you are, bring your attention into your heart. Place your hand there and feel it — not just as an organ, but as the seat of something larger. Notice the subtle shift in your awareness, the quiet ground beneath fear, sorrow, anger, doubt.

 

This is the place we should pray from. This is the place we should speak from. This is the place we should live from.

 

Blessings on your journey,

Rev. Gayle

I have sat with a lot of people in some of their darkest moments. I have watched grief crack someone wide open and witnessed fear talk people out of the life they were born to live. And in all of that, one thing has become crystal clear to me: the parts of us we are most ashamed of are not our enemies. They are our oldest protectors.

Dan Millman speaks in this gateway about illuminating the shadow — those hidden, disowned parts of ourselves we've tucked away out of sight. I'd like to offer a different way of seeing them. What if those parts aren't dark or broken? What if they were simply young, and scared, and doing the very best they could to keep you safe? Calling them a shadow makes them sound like something to be fixed or overcome. I believe when you Illuminate Your Heart — when you look at those protective parts with tenderness, thank them for showing up, and gently invite them back into alignment with who you truly are — you don't lose anything. You get yourself back. You return to that place of pure potential Dan Millman points to in this very gateway.

And here is what I know to be true at the core of everything I teach: you are here to live a joy-filled life.

I know. Take a breath. Because life will hand you every opportunity to prove me wrong. The phone call in the middle of the night. The diagnosis that rearranges everything. The loss that makes the world go quiet in a way you weren't prepared for. Jack Canfield offers a deceptively simple equation in The Success Principles that changed the way I see everything: E + R = O — Event + Response = Outcome. Most of us have been blaming the Event for the Outcome our entire lives. But it is our Response — the one we choose, even on our worst days — that ultimately shapes what comes next. You won't always get the response right. Life will bring you to your knees. I know that too. But most of us will stand again. And when you do, what you believe about yourself in that moment matters more than you know.

These 12 Steps are my invitation to you — to stop managing your heart and start living from it.

Step One: Tell the truth — starting with yourself. Don Miguel Ruiz called it being impeccable with your word, and it is the foundation everything else is built on. When you live in honesty, you don't have to keep track of your stories. There is a quiet freedom in that you cannot put a price on.

Step Two: Get a bucket list and take it seriously. No matter your age, no matter your circumstances — write down what you want to be, do, and have. Then make a plan. Dreams without a date are just wishes.

Step Three: Anchor yourself in something bigger than you. You don't have to believe what I believe — I mean that sincerely. But faith in something greater than yourself is what keeps you standing when the ground shifts beneath your feet. You were never meant to do this alone.

Step Four: Be courageous enough not just to face your fears, but to question the beliefs you've never questioned. Some of what you think is truth is actually just an old story someone handed you a long time ago. You are allowed to hand it back.

Step Five: Walk your talk. This one is personal for me — as someone who stands at the front of a room and teaches, I have to practice what I preach. Not perfectly. But honestly. The people in your life will trust your example far more than your words.

Step Six: This is your life. Yours. You get to choose what you think, who you love, and what you believe. Don't trade that power away just to make other people comfortable. Fitting in is wildly overrated.

Step Seven: Look for yourself in other people. Every single one of us is a unique, irreplaceable expression of the Divine in human form. When you start seeing that — really seeing it — you stop looking for what divides you and start discovering what connects you. That is where healing lives.

Step Eight: Come back to now. The present moment is the only place love actually exists — not in the past you're replaying or the future you're rehearsing. Stay here. Love what is in front of you, including yourself. Especially yourself.

Step Nine: Your body, mind, and spirit are meant to move together. When one is out of sync, you feel it everywhere. Step outside. Watch how effortlessly nature holds itself in balance — the tides, the seasons, the way a tree bends in the wind without breaking. You are part of that same intelligence. Trust it.

Step Ten: You already have more wisdom than you are giving yourself credit for. Seek good counsel — absolutely. And then come home to your own intuition. It has never stopped speaking to you. It's been waiting for you to listen.

Step Eleven: Find what sets you on fire and protect it. Then ask yourself every single day — not someday, today — What am I doing right now that feeds that desire within me? Passion is not a luxury. It is a direction.

Step Twelve: We are all One. When you've done the work, turn around and offer your hand to someone still finding their way. Be of service. Leave people better than you found them. And while you're at it — sing like no one is listening, love like you've never been hurt, dance like nobody's watching, and live like it's heaven on earth.

Blessings on your journey, 

 

 

In Gateway Eight of Everyday Enlightenment: The Twelve Gateways to Personal Growth, Dan Millman says, “Fear is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master.” He reminds us that fear, like pain, can alert and advise us, but it can also cloud our thinking and limit our lives. Fear appears in many disguises: “I’m not really interested,” “Why bother?” or “I can’t.” We face fear every day—the fear of failure, rejection, change, and even the fear of fully being ourselves. But our fears are not walls; they are hurdles. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the willingness to move through it. 

 

Every one of us faces fear on a regular basis. Being spiritually aware of our fears allows us the opportunity to go within and do some deep inner work. Fear can be used as a barometer, showing us what is happening within and around us. But fear was never meant to be in the driver’s seat. It was never meant to run our lives.

 

In the 1938 version of the Science of Mind text, Ernest Holmes writes that fear is “the negative use of faith.” He describes it as faith misplaced—a belief in two powers instead of One. Fear happens when we forget there is One Power, One Presence, One Life, and we begin to believe there is something greater than Good, greater than God, or greater than the Divine Presence within us. 

 

And yes, I get it. We are living in a chaotic world right now. We are human beings with free will, and when people forget our connection to each other, to nature, and to this planet, chaos seems to reign. The choice we must make is whether we are going to feed the chaos or feed our faith.

 

There is an Old English proverb that says, “Fear knocked at the door, faith answered, and no one was there.” Fear often grows in our imagination before anything actually happens. We become afraid of a story we have told ourselves about an outcome that may never come to pass.

 

My husband recently learned that although his last chemotherapy treatment is scheduled for August 19th, after a two-week break, he will begin radiation treatments—five days a week for six weeks. I felt myself starting to go down a rabbit hole of anger and disappointment.

Then I was reminded of an ancient wisdom story: inside each of us are two wolves constantly battling. One is love and the other is fear. The wolf that wins is the one we feed.

 

And then I remembered: there are truly only two emotions — love and fear. All other emotions fall under one of them. So I asked myself, “Which wolf am I feeding?”

 

I took a time-out and texted my prayer posse, because I know that when I can’t see the forest, they can. Sometimes facing our fears does not mean we do it alone. Sometimes courage looks like reaching out, asking for prayer, and allowing others to hold the vision of faith when our own vision feels blurry.

 

Fear wants us isolated. Love reminds us we are connected. And in that moment, I chose to feed love.

 

Fear is not here to stop us unless we let it. Fear gives us space to look within and decide what we are going to feed.

 

Ramakrishna said, “The winds of God’s grace are always blowing; it is for us to raise our sails.”

 

So face your fears. Raise your sails. Trust Spirit. And move forward.

 

Blessings on your journey,
Rev. Gayle

 

In Everyday Enlightenment: The Twelve Gateways to Personal Growth, Dan Millman describes emotions as “waves on the sea” or “weather in the skies,” rising and passing of their own accord. That image is both comforting and challenging. It reminds us that emotions are natural. They move through us. They change. They do not need to be feared, denied, or judged. At the same time, we are invited to remember that while we may not be able to control every feeling that arises, we can choose how we respond.

 

This is the heart of the Seventh Gateway: Accept Your Emotions.

 

Accepting our emotions does not mean letting them run our lives. It does not mean acting out every impulse, speaking every angry thought, or making decisions from fear. It means becoming honest enough to say, “This is what I am feeling right now,” without shame. From that place of awareness, we can respond with greater wisdom.

 

Science of Mind teaches that we are expressions of the Divine. If God created us out of Its own nature, then the peace, love, wisdom, and wholeness we seek are already within us. Ernest Holmes reminds us in This Thing Called You that what stands between us and our good is often the accumulated thoughts, beliefs, and emotions of the ages. But what has been placed in consciousness can also be removed.

 

This means our emotions are not evidence that we are spiritually failing. Sadness does not mean we are separate from God. Anger does not mean we are bad. Fear does not mean we lack faith. Emotions are part of our human experience. They may point to beliefs, wounds, needs, or memories that are asking for our attention.

 

Many things influence our emotional state. Sometimes emotions arise from the meaning we give to an experience. Sometimes they are affected by fatigue, stress, diet, hormones, illness, pain, or environment. A restless night of sleep can make us irritable. A stressful day can make us reactive. A song, a smell, a memory, or an old relationship can suddenly bring up feelings we thought were long gone.

Because emotions have many causes, we need compassion for ourselves and others. We also need tools.

 

We can begin by breathing. When we are upset, our breath often becomes shallow. A few slow, deep breaths can create space between feeling and reaction. We can notice our posture, relax our shoulders, soften the body, and allow tension to release. We can step outside, take a walk, sit in nature, or change our environment. We can use humor to regain perspective. And when appropriate, we can take action: study for the exam, have the honest conversation, ask for help, or set the needed boundary.

The spiritual practice is not to control every emotional wave. The practice is to remember the ocean beneath the wave.

 

We are not responsible for every feeling that comes. We are responsible for the consciousness we bring to it. When we accept our emotions without surrendering our power to them, we become freer, wiser, and more available to the guidance of Spirit within.

Blessings on your journey,
Rev. Gayle

 

“Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass; it’s about learning to dance in the rain.” — Vivian Greene

There are moments in life when it feels like the storm just won’t let up. We wait. We hope. We tell ourselves that once things calm down, then we’ll feel better, do better, be better. But what if that’s not how it works?

What if the work is to meet life right where we are?

In the teachings of Science of Mind, we are reminded that our thoughts shape our experience. Not sometimes—always. That means even in the middle of uncertainty, we have a choice. We can allow our minds to run toward fear, doubt, and resistance…or we can begin to gently guide them somewhere else.

This isn’t about ignoring what’s happening. It’s about choosing how we meet it.

Taming the mind doesn’t mean controlling every thought. Let’s be honest—that’s not realistic. It means becoming aware. It means noticing where your attention goes and asking yourself if it’s serving you. Are you moving toward something, or just trying to escape what you don’t want?

There is power in that shift.

When we begin to trust ourselves, ease our expectations, and give ourselves time, something starts to change. We stop fighting the moment. We stop needing everything to look a certain way before we allow ourselves peace. And in that space, something greater can enter in.

Call it God. Call it the Divine. Call it your higher self.

Whatever name you give it, there is a presence within you that already knows the way forward.

Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is take a step back and listen. Not to the noise around us, but to that quiet, steady voice within. The one that reminds us we are not stuck—we are in process.

And every ending, no matter how it appears, holds the seed of a beginning. 

So instead of waiting for the storm to pass, maybe this is the moment to shift. To breathe. To trust. To take one small step—not away from what is, but toward what could be.

Because peace isn’t found when everything changes.

It’s found when we do.

Blessings on your journey,

Rev. Gayle