To be sure, your efforts are individual, yet they are also cooperative as great numbers of people wake up and begin to connect energetically to create positive changes.

The initial phases of humanity’s transformational shifting, underway for a very long time, have led you to where you find yourself now. Some of this evolutionary growth you experienced before this incarnation, as you were preparing for what would occur during this pivotal life. As an example, you may have previously incarnated with people who you would meet again this time, helping one another to progress spiritually.

In this lifetime, you have encountered one or more wake up calls causing you to seriously challenge the status quo. There is no correct way for this process to occur, so avoid the temptation to label your experience or compare it with that of others.

Your Catalyzing Life Event

Your catalyzing life event could have been losing a job, experiencing a financial reversal, moving to a new place, divorcing your partner, facing a debilitating illness, or experiencing some other major change in circumstance. Any one or a number of these could have stirred a deep inner discontent and questioning of things you never before questioned. When this happens, it’s really a nudge from your soul, waking you up and guiding you to travel the path of spirit.

In today’s upheaval, people are oftentimes receiving what may appear to be more than one wake up call simultaneously. Also, people can have supplemental wake up calls a long time after their initial one.

Meaning of Wake Up Calls

If either of these is your situation, consider the following. First, the typical progression from wake up call to full awakening is anything but usual these days. You live in very different times, never before seen on the planet.

Humanity and the Earth are ascending, in a process that is leading to a more enlightened existence. You and others like you on the path of Light are creating a brand new way to co-exist and be. You did not have the same opportunities for awakening in earlier lifetimes.

Likewise, before this life you did not share the planet with so many people, nor was it possible for such a significant shift in consciousness to occur for the masses. Your wake up call, then, in the previous life had a different meaning, scope and potential impact.

Your Soul is Preparing You for Success

The second factor is this. Wake up calls in modern times are the soul’s way of preparing you to succeed on your path of Light during humanity’s shift. Your first one tends to set the stage for what follows.

If you pay attention to the first one, taking the opportunity to assess your life and noticing the nudges of your soul, you are redirected to a different course. How you respond to that redirection, and what actions you take, help to determine your forward spiritual progression.

As an example, if you respond to your soul’s nudges with an attitude of willingness and acceptance, your road ahead will have fewer bumps. The learned tendency, of course, is to resist change and to want to maintain the status quo.

When you are in resistance, you are likely to be blocked from receiving your inner guidance from spirit. The guidance is there, but you cannot access it. Instead, you may simply feel anger and alienation. These responses can leave you feeling disempowered and a victim of your outer circumstances.

The Process of Awakening

Here is the third factor. Despite how willing and accepting you are, and how connected you are to the nudges of your soul, your awakening is a process and not a single event. Remember that during this most precious human life, you have the potential of quantum levels of awakening not before possible!

This means that you may be a seasoned traveler-familiar with wake up calls and practiced in responding effectively-yet you won’t be complete with your awakening journey until you really ARE complete. Your ego-self can and will try to convince you that you represent a finished product. You can fool yourself into thinking you are fully enlightened, with no more awakening to experience.

This ego-based response is particularly prevalent within circles of lightworkers who compare themselves with the general populace. Certainly, when you compare yourself on a surface level with the masses that remain asleep, you are leaps and bounds ahead. Comparisons are a trick of the ego, though, and can derail you when you least suspect it.

Ready for The Big Changes

The fourth factor relates to readiness. How ready do you feel, on an everyday basis, for the big changes about to occur? Is your enthusiasm for positive change waning as you envision what’s ahead? Do you feel prepared to take on the challenges that are sure to come? Are you willing to go deeper within yourself to access the more stable sense of empowerment you will need to navigate the unpaved road ahead? Are you able to step back from the world’s fear-based messages often enough to stay in your center?

To be enmeshed in such a gigantic shifting process as you face today can take its toll. You likely are feeling impacted on a number of levels. The obvious includes your outer conditions involving your home, work, finances, human relationships, and physical health.

Other key elements include your emotional stability and repetitive thought patterns. These will determine the meaning you place on current events, and will trigger limiting belief systems recorded in your DNA. Examples are commonly-held beliefs involving lack, failure, and authority figures having power you can’t access. As belief systems such as these are catalyzed, your ability to successfully respond to crisis is compromised.

Most likely, you are being challenged beyond what you think your limits are. A part of you intuitively knows that much of your current world functioning is out of sync with where you want to be headed.

It’s not just the world financial system, now knee-deep in crisis. It’s virtually every sector of your old paradigm society that has been based on fear, greed, and ego-based manipulation. Each of these worn-out structures will need radical reshaping over the coming years.

The year 2009 is a turning point, for it is the start of several years of reconfiguration. The reshaping involved will be both personal and global.

Remember Your Role

The fifth factor is remembering your role. That means letting go of fear-based human conditioning that tells you some outside force is coming to the rescue. That same conditioning tells you that you are flawed, need fixing, need to be told what to do, and are simply lacking in what it takes to succeed this life.

It may feel comforting to imagine an advanced group of beings from the stars coming to save you and the planet. Is it also comforting to imagine that, without such intervention, you would be helpless and fail at what you came to Earth to do?

Certainly, life does exist beyond the planet you now call home. And to be sure, there are boundless intelligent life forms existing that your scientists and governments have yet to make public. Some of these life forms have been in regular contact with humanity, and not just in recent decades.

Have you ever wondered where YOU came from? Has anyone ever told you that YOU are Divine? Have you ever associated your humanness with a Divine imprint that is eternal?

Remember that you, as a Divine Changemaker, are an integral part of the shift. The key changes involve shifts in consciousness within individuals such as you. As you make these, and then interact with others and society, there is a domino effect.

Underneath the layers of falseness you unknowingly took on in human form, you really know the truth. At the core of your being, there is really no doubt about who you are, why your human experiences are such a gift, and how you are meant to be on Earth now to forever change the landscape for humankind.

In the early weeks of 2009, world leaders and people everywhere will be taking stock and choosing what will play out in this next phase. Some of this choosing will be conscious, with people being aware of what they are choosing. On other levels, the choosing will take place under the radar, masquerading as something like inaction or avoidance.

Checklist for a New Start

What kind of new start would you like to choose? What would you like 2009 and the next few years to look like? How do you see yourself taking your place alongside other Divine Changemakers? Consider these questions and the following as you envision what you want to create next. Invite your heart’s wisdom to guide you as you reflect on these ideas.

Biggest Obstacle
What is my biggest obstacle faced in 2009?
What can I do differently that will resolve this?
What resources have I not yet used fully that could help me resolve this?
How can I involve spirit more in resolving obstacles such as this?

Biggest Choice
What is the biggest choice I must make in 2009?
What’s the big picture surrounding this choice?
How will my making this choice, and acting on it, change my life?

Greatest Allies
Who are my greatest allies on my path of Light?
Who helps me to find my center when I get off track?
Who in my circle connects me with laughter and lightness of being?
Who teaches me the most about myself?
Who helps me to connect with spirit?
Who helps me to connect with my inner truth?

Greatest Opportunities
In what direction will I find expanded opportunities?
Who are the people I am meant to serve?
How do I find and connect with these people?
What can I change in what I offer to be of most service to these people?
What is the one thing to let go of for greater success?
How do I get in the way of my own success?
What can I offer that will be in demand in any economic climate?
What do I need to know or do in order to successfully offer this to the world?

As you continue the journey of rediscovering your Divine nature, we surround you with our love and blessings.

We are The Council of 12.

You are witnessing countless changes in the fabric of your world, and within yourself as you evolve and adapt to the continual shifting within humanity. In addition to simply witnessing these changes, you in fact are an integral part of the movement of change.

The more that you become consciously aware of this, and apply this understanding to your life, the more empowered you will be.

When you begin to view the chaos and shifting in this big-picture way, you have the fuel to start stepping into your authentic power. When you know that you are an instrumental part of what is happening, and that you can alter your experiences by how you respond to them, you step into your ability to become a master of your human reality.

Awakening to Your Mastery

It is your Divine birthright to awaken to your mastery and to fully embody spirit in your human form. Because of your true nature-which is Divine-you have the ability to achieve this in some lifetime on Earth.

This is the path of enlightenment undertaken by the great Masters who came before you-including Gautama Buddha, the Christ, and Kuan Yin. They gave you a path of awakening to follow. The jewel that they discovered can be yours, yet you must find it on your own.

It is your inner decision to discover this jewel for yourself that sets you apart from the ordinary human. Your decision, made initially and then reaffirmed regularly, elevates your path to one that is fueled by spirit. This changes everything!

Therefore, why not make the conscious decision that you will become enlightened, to the best of your ability, within your current human lifespan? Allow that one decision to become a real energetic driving force within you, impacting all that you do and all that you are. Strengthen the benefits of that initial decision with mindful appreciation of your spiritual progress, and with an ongoing recommitment to your path of awakening.

Remembering What is Important

Each time you feel challenged by something, you can break free of the dilemma more quickly by remembering what is truly important. Remind yourself, therefore, of your larger goal of mastery. Be willing to look beyond the surface happenstance of your challenge to understand what it can teach you about being empowered and whole.

You cannot be empowered and a victim at the same time. Therefore, each time you step into your true power as an authentic human being, the echo of your previous victim energy grows dimmer.

Humans for thousands of years have learned to think of themselves as small and powerless, with lots of things to fear. This victim mentality goes hand-in-hand with anger, hatred and other low-vibrational energies. A victim mentality has fueled all of the planet’s wars involving domination and control. Today’s wars take place in politically sensitive locations like the Middle East, but also in peoples’ living rooms where television delivers subliminal messages of fear.

The more that you awaken, the more you realize the nonsense of wars and fear-based power structures based on one entity having power over another. After all, this outmoded view of power-based on external factors-leads only to destruction and disconnectedness. It fuels peoples’ fear, and the momentum of fear keeps the old system in place.

It is up to each person, at the individual level, to say “no” to the fear and to choose authentic power. This is the sensible approach to the nonsense.

It’s normal to have lots of questions as you embark on this different kind of path. The road that an authentic empowered human travels is quite different from the road of the victim. For most people, steeped in victimhood training from an early age, this new path can feel quite foreign. To be sure, the empowerment path comes with its own language, its own energetic blueprint, and its own signposts.

Language of Empowerment

When you are expressing authentic power, you exude life-affirming energies through your mind, voice and beingness. Your thoughts are free of fear, free of judgment, and free of the need to control. You have let go of the scheming and trying to be someone you are not, having given yourself and others permission to simply be. The words you use when speaking with others are kind and without agenda. Your self-talk is aligned with your soul, providing you with an inner confidence and a joyful energy. At the same time, this empowered self-talk helps you to discover meaning and purpose in all that you observe and touch.

Energetic Blueprint of Empowerment

Once you learn this new language, and apply it in your life, your energy spirals in an upward direction. It is a natural “high.” You have an inner strength that is unshakeable, for you no longer depend on external power as your fuel. Your life force increases, and your changed energetic blueprint radiates the vibration of authenticity and wholeness. This new blueprint is harmonious with intimacy, allowing you to become comfortable relating to others. Your empowered energy is naturally broadcast out to the world as you interact with people, places and things.

Signposts of Empowerment

As this happens, you become a magnet for all sorts of positive experiences and openings of consciousness. New people begin to come into your life, and even “old” friends are seen and experienced differently than before.

Your energy has shifted. As part of that, you begin updating relationships and situations to reflect where you are now in awareness. Sometimes it means getting out of very toxic circumstances.

At other times, you could become close friends with an acquaintance you had previously kept at a distance. A romance with a platonic friend could blossom too. Intimacy is no longer the scary thing it once was. Having left your victim role in the dust, you now are able to come from an authentic place as you relate to others. The relationships you form are based on love, trust and mutual respect. You have stopped trying to change people, and you no longer feel driven to alter yourself to fit in. Your relationships provide you with outlets to express your inner joy, and as you do so, you generate even more joy!

What you do in the world-your work, your hobbies, your caretaking, your spiritual practice-becomes embodied with meaning and purpose. There is an enthusiasm you did not have before. There is a trust, deep within you, that you are putting your energies into what matters most in each moment.

You no longer look to outside authorities to validate whether you are in the right place at the right time. This old-paradigm reference point no longer serves you. You inherently know, with every fabric of your being, that what’s really important is be fully present with each activity you are guided to undertake. This guidance is internal, sourced from deep within you and connected with your soul. The more that you trust it and work with it, the more this guidance will become a natural beacon for your next steps.

Your own empowerment is a key factor in your ability to see clearly into the nonsense of these times. As long as you are coming from fear, whether consciously or subconsciously, you will miss or misinterpret the voice of your own intuitively guided reason. This voice could bring you sanity and a sense of peace when there are no obvious outward signs of sanity or peace in your world.

The Distortion of Fear

The following is an example of how fear can distort your reality.

Your typical livelihood may be threatened by an economic downturn or other changes in your workplace. Perhaps funding for your type of job is in question. You are very good at what you do, and you would like to continue doing it. You know that you have additional skills, too, which could be applied to other things, but your fear causes you to overlook this. Your focus, instead, is on the possible “loss” and your desire to keep things on your own terms.

That focus, of course, is your fear talking and not your intuitively guided reason.

When you investigate your fear, you may discover that it is based on some outmoded belief systems recorded in your DNA. These beliefs, stored in your subconscious mind and out of ordinary view, may come from your ancestral lineage.

In a way, these beliefs are part of you, for they are in your DNA, yet in another way, they are old energy you took on from people of long ago who lived in different times. When you realize you have these limiting beliefs, of course, you see how debilitating they are to the current “you” of this lifetime. You understand that these belief systems are casting a dark shadow on your experience, preventing you from seeing things clearly.

Your ancestors may have lived during a time when it was the norm to work in the family business. That work was their livelihood, and the fruits of it were enjoyed by subsequent generations when children matured and took over responsibilities. Perhaps war or lengthy severe weather patterns destroyed the family business.

The young man just about to take over his father’s role was forced into a life of servitude with another family far away.

This young man, one of your ancestors, in response to what happened, developed the following belief systems that were passed down through the generations to you.

1. When I lose my job, I lose my freedom.
2. When a business fails, I fail.
3. When my business collapses, I am never successful again.
4. When my job ends, I am poor.
5. When my family has misfortune, I am destined to have misfortune.
6. When I lose my job, I lose the place I know as home.

If you have beliefs such as these in your DNA and your livelihood is threatened, the potential job loss can catalyze the beliefs into active expression.

Then, without your conscious direction, these fear-based beliefs can begin influencing how you respond to the uncertainty at work.

Typically when this happens it’s a very subtle, but potent, force in the background. Since the beliefs triggered are from your subconscious and not from something you personally experienced this life, it’s unlikely that you connect the dots to recognize what is occurring.

Changing Beliefs in Your DNA

When you become aware of the specific limiting beliefs you hold in such a circumstance-and clear them from your DNA at the origination point-you can begin to change your experience of economic downturns and job losses.

When you change your experience of something, it’s more about changing your view and response to what is occurring. You can’t always prevent a job loss or some other type of misfortune.

However, when you embody authentic power, you don’t let these things defeat you. You see losses and other difficulties as vehicles for learning and growth. You know that oftentimes these situations are quite different than they appear. You have learned to see them as spirit’s nudges to think differently, or to move into other directions more in alignment with your soul’s path.

To be sure, many of the changes involved in the paradigm shift involve this last point. This is true for individuals as well as for the myriad of societal structures and approaches that were birthed in the much different times.

Humans on a Fast Track of Learning

Humans are on a fast track in learning new more enlightened ways to live together.

Groups of people–assembled in apartment building hallways, town halls, national capitals, and international think tanks–are moving beyond the “ME” and “what about us?” consciousness to consider innovative bridge-building solutions to impact the whole.

Some of humanity’s most brilliant inventions may come out of these times.

The momentum of positive change is accelerating at lightning speed, regardless of how it may appear much of the time. Remember this on the days when you feel that things aren’t changing fast enough, and on the days when it appears your life has been turned upside down too fast.

Using Your Uneasiness as a Navigational Tool

Have you ever had a feeling that something was about to happen, yet you felt clueless about what it was or how it might affect you? Did you then get an uneasy feeling in the pit of your stomach or in your throat?

These days, if you feel uneasy some of the time, you are not alone. After all, so much is changing so fast, and it’s increasingly common to feel a bit anxious about what’s coming next.

It can be helpful if you learn to use your uneasiness as a navigational tool. Sometimes that uneasy feeling is a message from spirit to change course, or to sit still. At other times, it’s simply your fear scaring you. Remember what fear is–False Evidence Appearing Real.

The following are suggestions to help you use your uneasiness as a navigational tool.

1. Don’t be at war with your uneasiness.
2. Don’t insist that it disappear.
3. Don’t make it wrong.
4. Don’t make it into more than it is.
5. Don’t take action until you become clear about what your uneasiness is telling you.
6. Ask questions of your own intuitively guided reason to determine whether your uneasiness is simply your fear talking, or whether it’s a message from spirit to be still, to change course, to be concerned, to take an immediate action, or to simply wait.As you continue the journey of rediscovering your Divine nature, we surround you with our love and blessings. We are The Council of 12.