This past winter I had lunch with my dear friend and counselor Marcia Williams, Prevost, Ernest Holmes Institute and an ordained Science of Mind Minister. She told me about this wonderful book, Calling In The One by Katherine Woodward Thomas. The book is about a 7-week process to attract into your life “the love you have been waiting for.”

Well I bought the book and with a few other people, completed the process.

What I found was that I called in “many wonderful opportunities to share my spiritual gifts, opportunities to travel abroad and opportunities to give and share love in a more profound way.” I have accessed greater clarity about myself and what I deserve and desire in all of my relationships

Another participant said she found that the process assisted her in the unfoldment of her authentic self. I loved the process and I think it’s a powerful transformative process that would benefit most people. I want to share a few things with you so that you too can begin calling in your authentic life.

Our early childhood programming determines how we relate to ourselves and to others. I believe that in order to open up a space for our “authentic lives,” we at some point must resolve our childhood woundings. Katherine says, “Our woundedness is actually an opportunity for enlightenment – for truthfully, apart from a lifetime of victimization, there really is no other option.”

In the book The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle he writes, “If you are trapped in a nightmare you will probably be more strongly motivated to awaken than someone who is just caught in the ups and downs of an ordinary dream.” If you have endured incredible losses and sorrows, life is demanding that you awaken in a more profound way than most. Find your lesson and weave meaning out of your sorrows. As the Zen saying goes, “allow your hearts to break open.” It is here that we learn to love again and in such a way that helps to heal the world.

Jean Houston in The Search for the Beloved says, “How do you take your woundings, your betrayals and your ‘holes’ and make yourself holy instead of battered? The process involves the dramatic remythologizing of yourself and your life, gaining a very different perspective.”

Your parents, siblings, teachers, family, neighbors and peers were often off the mark in their assessment of you. They may have undervalued you, over-pressured you, neglected to notice your strengths and criticized you mercilessly for what they secretly feared as unacceptable about themselves. Often we perpetuate abuse against ourselves because we have not stopped to realize that what they said to us wasn’t so much about us as it was about them. When Zusya, a Hasidic rabbi was criticized for unorthodox behavior, he replied, “In the next world I will not be asked why in this life I was not Moses but rather why I was not Zusya.”

Thomas says in Calling In the One, “Our goal is not so much to get rid of the false beliefs we have about ourselves as it is to transform the relationships we have with them. They may never go away entirely. Yet we must learn to give up relating to them as though they were the dreaded truth about who and what we are.” So decide now to stop allowing other people’s opinions of us to bully us around with their litany of what isn’t right about us. We have to stay mindful of these “inner” conversations and tell ourselves a new, more empowering story about ourselves. Be also mindful that you don’t treat yourself the same way you complain your caregivers treated you. We can lament for years about our mother or father’s neglect of us but until we stop neglecting ourselves, it won’t make one bit of difference.

Many of us just don’t allow love into our lives because it is outside of who we believe ourselves to be. Our whole sense of ourselves may be tied to a disappointment… some event that suggested that we were unlovable, unworthy of love or simply alone in life.

In order to allow love into our lives, these constructs of self must be revealed for being just that… constructs… and not the truth of who we are. Are you willing to do some work on you?

A good question can take you to the core of your beliefs. If you are ready to rethink and resolve your childhood woundedness here are some good questions to get you started:

• What was a significant disappointment that you endured in childhood?

• What did you tell yourself about yourself when this disappointment happened?

• What did you tell yourself about the world and other people when this disappointment happened?

• What is an alternative interpretation of this experience?

• Are you willing to forgive yourself and everyone involved in the disappointment?

For the next week, daily write a forgiveness list and put your name at the top of the list. This practice will assist you in preparing the way for your authentic life.

And finally this exercise will allow you to look at your core beliefs.

Finish the following sentences with as many answers as you can. Don’t censor yourself. Whatever comes up, write it down even if it doesn’t make sense.

I am _____________.

Life is _____________.

The world is _____________.

Men are _____________.

Women are _____________.

Now what evidence can you find that suggests that your negative beliefs about yourself may not be true?

What evidence can you find that suggests that your negative beliefs about the world and others many not be true?

Stay aware of your thoughts for the next month. As you move through your day, as much as possible, ask yourself what beliefs you are operating out of in this moment.

Before you go to bed, write in your journal on any insights you received today regarding your core beliefs and how much or how little you are operating out of them. Write the new, more empowering beliefs ten or more times each in your journal. As you write, feel it to be so in your heart.

If you are between relationships or in one that is dissatisfactory take some time to work on you. We have learned through our childhood to adapt. Most of us have adapted and not healed. We have learned to cope but we aren’t cured and it will all show up when you fall in love or sometimes, simply begin to date. When we are needy, we are trying to get from others what was denied us in the past. No one can take on how drastically they failed us.

We have to re-parent ourselves. Be willing to give to yourself what you didn’t get from your caregivers. Give up looking for others to give it to you. They can’t.

As with any loss it must be grieved, with the ultimate goal of acceptance.

Turn your attention this month on giving to yourself those things that were missing in your past. As you fill yourself with love and acceptance you will draw to you people who do the same. As you embrace your wholeness you will attract healthy and whole people; healthy enough to love you the way you want to be loved.

Give to yourself that which you have been waiting for someone else to give to you.

It’s an affirmation of the value of your life to decide to love in the face of all that is not love. In closing, Ralph Waldo Emerson says, “What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies with us.”

Rev. Shaheerah Stephens is author of “The Wealth of a Spiritual Woman” and Spiritual Leader at Transforming Love Community. She is a keynote speaker and workshop facilitator. Visit http://tlctheplace2b.org or call (313) 270-2325.