13 PRINCIPLES Of CONSCIOUS CREATORS

1st PRINCIPLE
Acknowledge
Recognizing and acceptance of the truth or fact of:
I acknowledge that I lack conscious awareness of my thought patterns and beliefs which makes my life unfulfilled.

2nd PRINCIPLE
Open Mind
Willing to personally explore new ideas and possibilities.
I accept the possibility that cultivating an intuitive relationship with my Being will increase my conscious awareness.

3rd PRINCIPLE
Alignment
The process of adjusting parts into proper attunement
I make a decision to align my will with my Being’s intuitive guidance.

4th PRINCIPLE
Awareness
Developed understanding of a situation or condition
I take action to gain awareness of my thought patterns and beliefs.

5th PRINCIPLE
Intimacy
A close association based upon compassionate understanding
I acknowledge the effects of my self-defeating thought patterns and beliefs to myself, my Being and another.

6th PRINCIPLE
Surrender
To abandon oneself entirely to; give in to
I surrender my investment in all thought patterns and beliefs that no longer serve me.

7th PRINCIPLE
Commitment
The quality of being dedicated to a cause
I commit to acting upon my Being’s intuitive guidance.

8th PRINCIPLE
Willingness
The quality or state of being prepared to do something; readiness.
I identify the self-defeating aspects of my present life and become willing to address them.

9th PRINCIPLE
Conscious Creation
Deliberate and intuitive process of bringing something into existence
I consciously create experiences that honor my intuitive truth and fulfill my fundamental needs.

10th PRINCIPLE
Consistency
Conformity in the application of something
I continue to gain awareness of my thought patterns and beliefs and surrender my investment in those which are self-defeating.

11th PRINCIPLE
Conscious Awareness
The cultivation of a deliberate and intuitive understanding
I continue to cultivate an intuitive relationship with my Being; creating new life-affirming experiences that honor my intuitive truth.

12th PRINCIPLE
Service
The action of helping or doing work that supports love’s expression
Having become a Conscious Creator, I set forth to guide others, who are willing, to do the same.

13th PRINCIPLE
Collective Consciousness
A group whose individual attitudes and motivations are in harmony with a specific cause
We form alliances with other Conscious Creators who share similar motivations

Please feel free to join our conscious creators meetup page! new gatherings beginning soon
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To Embrace One’s Humanity.

To challenge one’s accepted identity.

To reunite with one’s creative power.

To embrace one’s humanity.

To hold one’s humanity up to the light, so that one can see their dark unacknowledged parts. Those aspects within us all that squander potential. Mind you that this potential is not ego centered. It is not a potential that seeks to establish superiority but rather explore possibilities. To embrace this gift of life in a human body. To cherish this opportunity rather than squander it through the telling of stories that limit and confine us.

In opening one’s heart, the mind becomes reunited with its own creator. Stories slip away. Peace becomes rather than pursued. People are seen in the likeness of the being they possess, even if they cannot see this within themselves. True leadership is nothing more than the ability to remind others of their true nature, their fundamental essence. True loving kindness grows through cultivating that which has been neglected. Loving that which is already loving us, if we would simply stop running away from it. Trying to replace it with things, material.

In actually dissolving this story, we become reacquainted with a truth so uniquely ours, much like a sky of snowflakes. We are all messengers. We all see and know and sense this great expansive oneness in a unique and independent way. This is our birth right.

A thought is never fully formed much like a loving embrace never really ends. It has happened. We have experienced it, it can always be called upon to comfort us in the future, no matter how dark and isolated our days can become. We can bury these gems of emotional oneness with others but we cannot delete them from our experience. They did happen. We were there to experience them. Our minds can take those moments and add meaning as we grow further from them. We try to hold on to them, to grasp them, possess them. Chasing something implies that they cannot not be experienced again.

Principle One: I acknowledge that lack of conscious awareness makes my life unfulfilled.

1st
PRINCIPLE

Acknowledge:
Recognizing and acceptance of the truth or fact of:

I acknowledge that lack of conscious awareness makes my life unfulfilled.


We are always aware of something. We are always aware of some aspect of our reality. We can become so aware that we begin to concentrate solely upon it. This can happen with both our inner and outer worlds. It does not seem to matter if this reality or personal identity is fancied or real, once we become fixated on it, we become identified with it. This aspect of our reality becomes a part of us. We begin to protect our perception of the reality we perceive as if we were protecting ourselves. If this perceived reality holds little value to us, then we have unknowingly devalued ourselves. In either instance, we begin to reject opportunities that do not correlate with what we have accepted to be our identity.

With this, our viewpoint or concept of reality becomes limited.

We see what we want to see and what we see, is a reflection of who believe ourselves to be.

In these instances we are still aware, in some cases, we are hyper aware. Sometimes this awareness is upon nothing but a story inside of our own minds. This story is comprised of lingering fragments of our past experiences. This inner narrative within our minds controls our awareness of the past. This sort of awareness is also distorted and limiting. As we have moved away from so many seemingly fateful past experiences, our minds perception of those experiences becomes increasingly distorted. Our recollection of the past slowly becomes the next chapter in the personal narrative with our minds.

You know on some level that your life, created up to this point, as you read these very words, was not simply the hand of fate. Deep down you know that you are not fated to endure. Deep down there is a quiet voice that knows otherwise. This voice of intuitive truth can guide you beyond the mold of your conditioned mind.

Our relationship with this fundamental essence must be cultivated. It must be honored. To avail our mind and its awareness to this sacred part of our Being within us, avails us true creative power. Our being has its own consciousness of which, we must be made aware of. The quality of the reality we collectively share and enjoy depends on our willingness to cultivate this intuitive relationship. The consciousness of our Being is connected to a universal consciousness. We are the protons, neutrons and electrons who comprise the universal atom. We all have our unique energetic charge. This charge is an energy vibration. It is our true essence. If we are not vibrating in our homeostasis, we are off balance. We are not consciously aware. We have diminished our awareness of our intuitive truth. For most of us, we limit the qualities of our lives and personal relationships with the unconscious awareness we sustain.

We become Unconscious Creators.

Not only are we unaware of our Being’s Consciousness, we are also unaware of our own thoughts and the effect they have on our quality of life. Many of us are totally unaware the fact that we are motivated by fear. Fear involves running, fighting and freezing. If you find yourself at odds with your environment then your fear has compelled you to fight. If you find yourself avoiding your environment then your fear has compelled you to flee. If you find yourself in the throes of apathetic inaction, then your fear has compelled you to freeze. This fearfulness creates an instinctively reactive mindset.

This fear driven mindset has no choice but to attempt to control its environment. This environment includes people, places and things. By universal law, there is always an internal “thing” that are somehow supporting the validity of the external environment we experience. These things are usually Unconscious Thought Patterns and Self-Defeating Beliefs. If someone believes that they are incapable or unworthy, then their patterns of though and subsequent action will support this belief.

These habitual rituals needs to be brought to our awareness.

“Until we make the unconscious conscious, it will direct our lives and we will call it fate”.
-Carl Jung

In this process you will slowly bring the unconscious recesses of your mind into your awareness. In doing so, you will see that this fate may be more self-perpetuated than you realized. As this new awareness naturally grows, you will become increasingly less identified with your habitual mind and the character it sustains. As your unknown allegiances to unconscious creation become known, they can also become surrendered. You can actually become unidentified with a belief you supported which caused you unknowing frustration and suffering. This self-defeating belief and the unconscious thought patterns that supported its validity slowly begin to dissolve. They become untrue for us. As you proceed through this process, the voice of fear and control will become whispered and then vanish from your awareness. In the same instance, your inner voice of intuitive truth will become more apparent. This process facilitates an actual changing of the guard within our mind. Fear and control will give way to an intuitive truth that supports love’s expression. As we reach inner homeostasis we consciously create our lives from this sacred space. The more we practice the principles outlined in this process, the more we will consistently align our creative ability with a power far greater than our learned doubts and fears.

Slowly, our moments begin to change.

Our relationships begin to change.

Our abilities begin to change.

Our degree of fulfillment begins to change.

Our fundamental needs beyond those of survival come into our awareness.

As this occurs, we become increasingly more willing to act upon our intuition’s subtle viewpoint. With this willingness we have also rediscovered a desire that we were not aware of.

Aligning our Creative Will with our Being's Intuitive Guidance to Create New Patterns of Thought and Action

3rd
PRINCIPLE

Alignment
The process of adjusting parts into proper attunement

I make a decision to align my Creative Will with my Being’s intuitive guidance.


How many decisions do you make over the course of a day?

How many actions do you take over the course of your day that are based upon decisions you made a long time ago?

When you get up and take a shower and go to work, did you decide to do this in the moment or did your crazy alarm trigger your mind to engage it, thus setting a whole bunch of ingrained and automatic actions into motion?

Think about it.

Your alarm wakes you up and you go through the motions, still half asleep, of getting yourself ready to head out. If you have children, you do the same with them. You know exactly when you need to get up in order to complete your morning ritual and get to work on time.

What if you disrupted this ingrained pattern by setting your alarm an hour earlier to do some sort of activity that was totally outside of your established pattern?

Say, for example, that you decided to work out, do yoga or practice piano during that extra hour. How would your mind respond to such a decision? Would it be resistant? Would it fight you every step of the way? Would you hear your mind come up with a barrage of all sorts of angry reasons why this is a bad idea?

This is a very common reaction to any disruption in our established routine.

Are you someone who immediately reaches for your phone to check your Facebook account upon waking up? What if you made a decision to put this ritual off until after you meditated for 20 minutes? In the beginning, you would probably experience your minds automatic pull towards getting online. Yes, you could chalk it up to an internet addiction, but how is this possible? In reality your mind has simply established ingrained automatic thought pathways that compel you to do the same thing over and over.

It matters not if it is Facebook, a morning cigarette or compulsively imagining about the “what if’s” that surely await you in the day to come.

These are all habitual patterns of thought and subsequent action that we have established through repetition. They are often as automatic as tying our shoe laces.

With the work we do in Conscious Creators, we must first become aware of our patterns then decide how they add or detract to the quality of our daily lives. This sort of decision is often overlooked. These decisions lay the ground work for further decisions that involve creating new habits already listed above. Once we decide we would like to do something different. We must then decide to align our Creative Will with our Being’s intuitive guidance. We simply acknowledge that our specific pattern is self-defeating and request intuitive guidance in cultivating a new pattern that is life affirming to replace it. At this point, we simply carry on about our day as usual.

In our experience, within a short period of time, we will become inspired to do something. Maybe its 20 push ups or making our bed first thing in the morning. Maybe its meditation for 5 minutes. Some sort of intuitive suggestion will find its way to us. When we recognize it, all we need to do is simply begin acting upon it.

We have made a beginning.

This builds organically over time. Before we know it, we have created a whole hour of new, life affirming activity to start our day which has slowly become more automatic than our past ingrained pattern.

It begins to override it.

As this occurs, other intuitive suggestions will come to us.

Please note, that these suggestions often find us through our routine dealings with others with whom we are consciously connected. This includes our roommates, partners, coworkers, friends etc. They will say something which strongly resonates with us. Perhaps one of them begins talking about a yoga class they take or a workout routine they have found helpful. In that moment, something moves us deep inside. This is our intuition letting us know that within this interaction, a clue or piece of the puzzle has been presented to us. This requires our awareness to recognize and our Creative Will to begin to practice.

Asked to Accept the Possibility

Asked to accept the possibility;

In Principle Two we are asked to accept the possibility that forming an intuitive relationship with our Being would increase our conscious awareness.

By increasing conscious awareness of our own thought structures, we discover the power to change those very same thought structures.

This marks the beginning of our personal empowerment. As this awareness grows, so too, does our ability to create a new experience. As our awareness increases, so too does our power to make different choices. We will no longer be locked into making the same automatic, often self-defeating decisions, which left us unfulfilled.

In order for this to happen, we have to tap into a power that can guide us in literally changing our minds.

Little by little, with consistency and willingness, we can take an active role in our own personal transformation.
This transformation can be defined as a thorough or dramatic change in mindset and expression.

After all, these self-defeating beliefs did not manifest overnight. They took years or even decades to fully take control of our minds, to take control of our decisions, perceptions and actions. We had to engage in certain self-defeating situations time and time again for this to be cemented.

This is not due to fate.

These thought patterns and self-defeating beliefs are products of our conditioning. We created them, which means that we can intentionally create something different. In order for this to happen, we must be willing to accept this possibility.

Is it possible for you to create something different?

Do you have a desire to experience something other than your present reality?

Do you believe that this is possible?

Yes it is possible indeed, but we must first surrender our belief in who and what we are.

This is actually the gift of an open mind.

That’s what this principle is all about. It’s about opening our minds up to other possibilities.

Flip on any episode of Hoarders to gain a clear example of how this Unconscious Personal Narrative Operates

A recruit who stands at attention while his drill sergeant screams commands at him is not open-minded.

He is anything but open-minded. This recruit, and his drill sergeant, for that matter, are both closed off to love and truth. This is reflected in their body language. As the recruit stands at attention screaming “yes sir” and “no sir” he is concerned mainly with not making a mistake or getting in trouble. He is in this sort of low grade instinct activation where unconscious personal narratives thrive and fundamental needs for love, intimacy and creative expression remain unfulfilled.

Interestingly enough, the tone in which that drill sergeant barks his orders to the trembling recruit is not much different than that used by the inner narrator within our minds.

It is both the tone and the nature of commands given by our own inner drill sergeant that limits our ability to remain open and intuitively guided. This voice which has driven so many of us through life, is only heard within our own mind. In fact, the main reason this voice exists is to block out the voice of our intuition, which could also be called the voice of reason.

Flip on any episode of Hoarders to gain a clear example of how this unconscious personal narrative operates. The hoarder has a plan, story and reason for everything in their collection no matter how this collection may appear to the skeptical onlooker. These onlookers see the hoarder’s precious keepsakes as trash and literal filth.

What’s the difference?

What makes the same item trash for one man and treasure for another?

Well, quite simply, it’s the meaning that the individual places upon the item.

That's it really, nothing more.

That's the way The Unconscious Personal Narrative works, too.

The more we hoard, either material scraps or mental scraps, the less room there is for anything else to come into our lives.

Sure, the thoughts we have supported over the course of our lifetime may be familiar like the surroundings of a broken down estate may be for a hoarder, but do these thoughts help us fulfill our fundamental needs? Or, do they merely distract us from the self-defeating emotions brought about by the beliefs we support?

There is no wrong way to go here but we could benefit from becoming aware of the fact that there is no room for other treasures to find us if we use all our creative energy supporting stories about empty tuna cans.

When we are connected to our intuition, suggestions do not have the same influence on us. Instead, we are less fearful. Our capacity for love expands. Our incessant need to acquire things begins to lift. We don’t eat to change our feelings. We do not purchase to distract ourselves or have sex for validation. Shopping, sex and eating are not the issue. The real issue is our lack of fulfillment, which compels us to seek relief in the first place.

Over time, we will be able to distinguish within our own minds, the master from the substitution, our personal narrative from our personal truth. We will begin to grasp the difference between superficial needs and those needs which are fundamental.

We will be able to see the world for what it is rather than what our narrative perceives it as being.

This is a process.

In Aligning Our Will

In Aligning Our Will:

Don't be nice simply to get something that will give you pleasure. Find the emanating pleasure center within you and give freely of it.

Don't compromise the profound nature of of your life's work with self doubt in your worthiness to be its care taker.

Be grateful for the option of being able to grateful.

There is nothing left to protect.

Thank your Unconscious Character for its insane attempts at protecting you.

There is no more time to create pain of your own making.

The damage you try to fix in others is the same you protect within yourself.

I am love therefore I am worthy of receiving and giving love and supporting loves expression.

I am willing and desire to discover love that reflects and honors my intuitive truth. None other will suffice.

Alignment of one's Creative Will with Infinite Intelligence puts us in direct position to be of service to love's expression.

It all begins with nurturing and loving our children. When we neglect them and their needs we have gotten off track.

You love your children as you love yourself.

What sort of relationships do you have in your life?

Being the holiday season and all, my thoughts have been on food and relationships.

Driving home from a delicious Christmas meal with family, my thoughts began to wander.

What a delicious dinner! A couple of new friends spent 24 hours preparing this feast fit for a king.

Pickling the beets with horseradish , rosemary in the potatoes, a Yorkshire pudding crisp and decadent, the seasoned prime rip cooked to perfection.

It was quite a sight to behold.

I was very blessed to be a part of it.

As I was driving back to Los Angeles I began thinking about my relationships over the years.

I began examining them.

I put myself back in in many of the relationships I have forged with others. .

I remembered how I felt in them.

Some of my relationships with others were very much like that dinner I savored tonight.
Fully present intimate affairs made with love.

Others were to be devoured like an exotic flavor or sweet delight.
Those were usually short lived.

There were also relationships that were more like fast food, full of empty calories.
Just kind of filler, if you wanna know the truth.
Nothing more than fuel to keep me going until the next meaningful and substantial union.

Some relationships were like Hometown Buffet.
I could just keep going back for more and more, resulting in a tummy ache.

Some relationships have had all of the above interwoven through their lengthy span.

It would appear that I have used food and my relationships with others in a very similar way.

If I don't feel like putting out any effort and dont mind paying the dough then I can just call a hooker or order yummy.com.

If I want to kill the time I can just companion up with someone and we can both eat sunflower seeds together ONE by ONE.

You get my point.

I guess lately I have been thinking about my relationships with others.

How willing and I to let them get to know me?
How willing am I to share an experience with them?
What sort of an experience does my soul crave right now?

Like our body craves certain nutrients, perhaps, so too, do our souls crave specific experiences?

Can I honor my souls calling?
How can I not?
It needs the loving, intimate, vulnerable nourishment of a deep and profound relationship.
In needs for me to stop pigging out on Subway trying to fill some whole.
It is trying to get me to connect to the fact that the this relationship ideal does not come through the touch or validation of another.

It comes from remembering what I am and standing in that place long enough to create something special, because I am special.

Facilitating The Process of Reunification with Being

At this point my Unconscious Character, or ego rather, will take one final push to regain control of my creative will.

It begins projecting mental image pictures into my stream of imagination.

Then comes the sensation of fear as my instincts activate and adrenaline takes control of my mind.

Once this happens I disconnect from the consciousness of my Being.

In this state of unconscious disconnect my emotional spectrum goes from a sustained feeling of safety and comfort to anger, blame and regret.

This is the state of triggered activation that allows my unconscious character to have full control of my creative will.

My will to create is now in the hands of a literal lunatic rather than a conscious being.

It’s a war that's going on inside my mind at the moment.

But it’s just a matter of time till I have totally created a new thought structure within my mind which will compel my character to submit and adapt into a partnership with my being.

The unconscious aspects of this character will dissolve into gray matter.

This “energy glitch” will eventually dissolve as new power begins to transmit through my words and actions.

I am now facilitating this process.

The Conscious Creators Handbook

Conversations with Being

Self: Fight back man. Fight fucking back!

Being: I don't fight brother. You’re fighting yourself.

Self: You mean I am my only enemy?

Being: Yes as well as any relationship based on continuing this war you’re waging.

Self: But I love conquest and all the riches.

Being: That's all you’re capable of loving or rather worshiping.

Self: Are those the "false gods" the Bible speaks of?

Being: Any God is false except the one that dwells within you of which I can guide you in discovering.

Being: But I cannot force you to do anything.

Self: If I do this what becomes of me?

Being: Whatever we create together.

Being: But you must stop judging your moments and learn to love them.

Self: Can you teach me to love?

Being: You can learn how to do this and I can help.

Self: Well, what are you waiting for?

Being: For you to finally let go.

Being: How can you forget something you are?

Self: I don't understand

Being: You are already love, you have spent your whole life learning something else.

Self: If I am already love then that must mean I am worthy of love as well.

Being: I have done my job, I have helped you remember.

A butterfly can only appreciate its metamorphosis if it can remember it’s life as a caterpillar.

A butterfly can only appreciate its metamorphosis if it can remember it’s life as a caterpillar.

Imagine trudging through your life as a caterpillar? Moving along the earth’s terrain at a snail’s pace, daring not to even look up into the sky, the caterpillar knows no other way. Then suddenly the lowly caterpillar awakens to a day with a very strange inclination to begin its final crawl to the safe haven of a tree branch. There, the caterpillar begins to tuck itself safely within the confines of its carefully crafted chrysalis. Within its self-made cocoon our friend the caterpillar begins its very slow yet deliberate transformation.

Does it have any conscious knowledge of what it will soon become?

Does the caterpillar, as it spent its days trudging to a fro, look up into the sky and see its brothers and sisters flying gracefully through the sky, think to himself that one day he will be there too? Or does the caterpillar have no clue of his impending transformation? Does he simply think that he is to live out the remainder of his days abiding the laws of gravity?

As our friend slowly emerges from its chrysalis and spreads his new found wings for the very first time, does he have any recollection of his previous life? As he pushes off from the tree and takes his maiden voyage, does he have any idea of what has just happened? Or does he just awaken again without any recollection nor residue of remembrance of his former life?

I for one would love to have a conscious appreciation of where I had come from. I would love to spend my days gliding through the sky tasting the sweet nectar of flowering buds knowing the long and challenging path I had to endure to experience such moments. I would love to dance through the air in all my glory, in total awe and appreciation of what had just occurred.

Only through enduring the journey of a caterpillar could I truly appreciate being a butterfly. For simply awakening one day as a beautiful butterfly with no recollection of the journey I had to endure would not have the same significance. Perhaps I would take this gift for granted. Perhaps I would find myself looking down upon the other caterpillars, not realizing that I was just like them, nor realizing that they too will one day be like me. And in the end, that we are all the same.

A Descent into Unconsciousness

I can still vividly recall doing my big art show back in high school. I was a promising young artist. Art was an outlet for my creative expression which gave me relief from an otherwise uncomfortable and insecure mindset.

As long as I was creating as an outlet, art was healthy and non-threatening. Once my work began to attract attention, it became something completely different. It brought me so much discomfort.

During senior year, my art teacher took a particular liking to me. He saw a lot of potential in me that was difficult for me to see in myself. He tried to mentor me. He began showing me special attention. This sort attention was one that I was not used to receiving.

I was one of the most disruptive kids in my class. I would do almost any-thing to gain “negative” attention. This is what I was most comfortable with. I thrived on being the “underachiever” or “trouble maker”. The attention he bestowed upon me was something entirely different.

It made me so uncomfortable. I literally believed that he was just faking the whole thing to somehow get to me and cause me harm.

Due to my early experiences with male figures, I had become conditioned to irrationally react to men in general, especially those who showed me special attention.

I was only used to criticism.

Or worse yet, emotional and even sexual abuse. I did not know how to accept love and support from a man. This being said, I began the unconscious ritual of trying to push my art teacher away. It literally felt like he was an evil demon to be avoided at all cost.

The thoughts in my mind would race.

Why was he being so nice to me?

Why does he keep praising my art?

What did he really want?

What the hell is wrong with him?

After all, there must have been something wrong with him. Why else would he be so nice to me?
This must have been confusing for him.

He was trying to convince me to apply to art schools upon graduation. I resented him for this. I believed that I was not good enough.

I was afraid of being rejected.

Throughout high school I had poor grades. I barely graduated. I had a combined score on my SAT’s of 640. Obviously, this and a “D” average was not going to be enough to gain admission to any of the universities that all my friends were getting accepted to.

I felt like a failure.

I did not trust what he was telling me and simply believed that my art was not good enough to pursue at a university level.

The school year was drawing to a close. Part of the final for art class was to participate in this art show. I can vividly recall the morning of the show. All of the students were assigned spots in the main corridor of our school. We were supposed to set up our sections and stand there with our art all day.

There were almost 5,000 kids in my high school and the prospect of having to display my art and have it be subject to public scrutiny was more than my 17-year-old mind could bear.

What if they hated it? Or worse yet, what if they loved it?

That morning I packed up my work and a bunch of beers I stashed in an old tree fort in the woods behind my house. I pounded one on the way to school and had a couple more in the car before I even went in. I drank a couple more during my lunch break.
Needless to say, I was pretty drunk by the end of the day.

It wasn't that I had to drink beer every day. It was more about the fact that I was insecure and sensitive.

This would be a theme throughout my life.

I used alcohol and drugs to change or control how I felt. Over time I relied on them to create a different experience. Living life burdened by my critical and insecure mind-set was cumbersome to say the least. These mechanisms somehow turned that part of my mind off at times, which allowed me the ability to create a different experience.

Sometimes I would use these mechanisms to help me “be a part of”, while other times I would use them to lower my awareness. Sometimes, it was about communion while other times it was so I could “act out” and not feel the repercussions of my actions. In other words, not feeling the guilt, shame or regret.

These mechanisms helped to keep me from seeing my part in things. On this particular day, I needed some relief from my own self-defeating mindset and to sabotage an opportunity, as well.

I finally got my installment up. All of the art I had been working on over the last four years was proudly on display for everyone to see. In this moment I can see that showing my art is a way of sharing myself. It is a way of loving others and allowing them in. Back then, I did not have this viewpoint.

I was too afraid to open up.

I loved creating those pieces. In those moments, as I was making them, I could connect to a part of me that was sacred. I could connect to a beautiful Being that was obscured most of the time, that part of me only knows how to love and be loved.

As you may be able to relate, there was another part of me that was afraid, confused and believed he did not measure up. It was this part of me that always kept that sacred part of me locked away.

The scared part of me was so critical of that sacred part.

The fearful part of me was very uncomfortable with putting himself on the chopping block for all to see.

As the other kids began to come and experience my art I was only focused on comments that would confirm what I wanted so badly to believe. There could have been 100 praises and only one comment that could be taken as being critical. My magnifying mind would only focus on the comments that could be perceived as critical or demeaning.

It was like this for me.

I would always focus on the person who I believed did not approve of me. I would obsess on gaining their approval. I would do this as I also resisted acknowledging those who did love and appreciate me.

By the end of the day I had convinced my-self that my art was horrible, that I had no future in it and was doomed to work a crap-py job while all my friends went off to school and lived the lives of their dreams. This is the literal storyline my burdensome mindset sustained for much of my life. By the end of the day, my idea of things and perception of my value had done a number on me. The beers just amplified my mindset and primed me for what happened next.

Towards the end of the show, my art teacher came up to me and could tell that I was in a very dark place. He asked me what was wrong. He tried to love and support me for the final time. I made sure of that this was the last time by completely freaking out on him.

I don’t remember what I said. I only know I picked a fight. I was so mean to him that he had no choice but to leave me alone. He walked away, obviously hurt by my comments. This made me feel even worse. What if I was wrong? Why was it so hard to let him help me?

Those are all questions that would take twenty years to fully answer.

Those answers are what this book is about.

After that interaction I was so emotional and distraught that I left myself no choice. I decided in that moment that there would be no art school for me.

I would not run the risk of trying and failing.

Besides, I had already decided that I was not worthy. I had accepted this belief long ago. Finally, I decided that I was not going to remain in my hometown and work some stupid job.

At the end of the school day I packed up my art and threw it in my car and drove directly to the U.S. Navy recruiting office. In that moment I decided that I would join the United States Navy.

I was quite sure that they would take anyone.

Rather than run the risk of being rejected or worse yet, seeing that I really was a talented artist, I took myself down to the recruiting office and signed up to be a cop in the Navy.

A cop in the navy?

Being a cop in the Navy was about the furthest thing I could think of from art school. Three months later I was in boot camp in San Diego, three months after that, I was shipped off to the Middle East on a helicopter carrier in support of Operation Desert Shield.

I would not create any art again for many years.

This short story is a mere glimpse into my own self-defeating mindset. Over the course of my life this sort of a mindset played out in every way one could imagine. I had opportunity after opportunity to enjoy love, intimacy and creative success throughout my life. This long and treacherous journey of self-sabotage led me to becoming a drug addict, an inmate, and homeless.

From The Conscious Creators Handbook

COPYRIGHT 2014 Retro-Collective Publishing Group

Conscious Creators Introduction

INTRODUCTION

We are born into this world to create. We are all creators. Our creative nature is always at work from our first breath right up to our last. As creators we can love as well as fear. As creators we can fulfill our fundamental needs such as love, intimacy and creative expression and we can also validate and support limiting thoughts and beliefs that keep us Unfulfilled.

We can do both in the same moment sometimes.

As creators we can experience our moments with a sustained feeling of safety and comfort. We can also experience those very same moments with toxic emotional attachments such as guilt, anger and shame.

All of these sorts of self-defeating feelings compel so many of us to seek relief and or distraction through addictive mechanisms.

What on earth is an addictive mechanism you ask?

Well, here is our definition of addiction and mechanism to which you may find helpful.


ADDICTION:
A conditioned dependence to any psychological or physical mechanism in order to produce and or control a desired emotional effect.

MECHANISM:
The agency or means by which an effect is produced or a purpose accomplished.


Keeping our very broad definitions in mind, you can begin to see how we become habitually dependent to just about anything that changes or controls how we feel.

Sometimes we are trying to feel better.
Sometimes we are trying to feel worse.
Sometimes we don't want to feel anything at all!

There are also times that try to distract ourselves from whatever emotional state we are used to experiencing. Often times we are trying to recreate the sort of feelings we were conditioned to experience. In other words, some of us recreate the feelings that we grew up experiencing.
Some of us grew up experiencing lots of love and support. We watched our parents share a life affirming relationship. We may have recreated that model for ourselves and found it to be unfulfilling.

Perhaps we craved more or different types of relationships.

Maybe we found it difficult to fulfill all of our needs with one primary relationship.

Whatever our truth may have been, we judged it away.
We told ourselves it was wrong and tried to make the best of the situation.
This led to discontentment and restlessness.
All from not honoring our own personal truth.
What brought contentment for others was just not the same for us?
Until we came to terms with this, we were literally living a lie.
We always think something is wrong with us
This self-incrimination creates self-defeating emotions
This exact scenario leads to habitual addictions

There are many variations of these sorts of scenarios.

Many more of us have become addicted to being right about the stories we hold within our mind. Exactly what did being right get you?

Almost all of us have some form of an addiction to distracting ourselves from the mindset we possess.

Here are some that you might find interesting...

We can distract ourselves with relationships that lack true fulfillment but keep us from going nuts or being alone. There are a lot of us who will endure just about any sort of dysfunctional relationship to avoid being alone.

Some of us seek out people to habitually dump our drama filled thoughts upon.

Then there are those of us who habitually attract people who will dump their drama on us just so we can distract ourselves. Without even being aware, many of us have become addicted to the drama and struggles that life seems to be all about.

In actuality, we are addicted to thought patterns that tell us life is a drama and a struggle.

(Autosuggestion and Suggestion) The building blocks of Self Defeating Beliefs

Whenever we are unconscious we are often unaware of the beliefs that we have accepted about life. These unconscious and self-defeating beliefs keep us recreating the same unfulfilled experiences again and again.

Let’s focus upon these self-defeating beliefs that we have discovered to be one the main roadblocks to enjoying a life of fulfillment.

First off, let’s define the word Belief:

A Belief is a mental attitude of acceptance toward a suggestion without full knowledge required to guarantee its truth.

A perfect example of a belief can be found in the idea that our world is flat. This sounds absolutely ridiculous to even consider today but for thousands of years this was what most people on earth believed. In fact, those who argued that the world was round were often mocked and chastised. Those who thought that the world was flat upheld this belief with such conviction that they would fight anyone who thought differently. This is a form of cognitive dissonance when one believes something with great conviction despite proof to the contrary.

Today, beliefs in certain religious doctrines invoke similar reactions from their followers. What they believe is not only true for them but for all who inhabit the earth. Anyone who believes differently is perceived as a threat and often tortured, or even murdered - for believing otherwise. There are countless examples of beliefs which keep humanity divided.

None of these limiting beliefs would be possible without first having a divided mind.

Many of us believe that we must compete against one another to get our fair share. We support a belief in lacking; that there in not enough. This goes back to the days when we had to work much harder for much less. As we have advanced so too has our ability to create an abundance of all things material. Yet conditions such as poverty still prevail due largely to our impoverished state of minds.

There are those among us who believe that if they accumulate enough money or weapons that they will feel safe and in control. These people are not out to get the rest of humanity; they simply feel that they need to take extreme measures to remain in control and safe. These folks have yet to discover that it does not matter how much money or power they accumulate, nei-ther will ever be able to fulfill their fundamental needs!!

Many believe that there are people conspiring against them and that the mysterious “They” are to blame for their woes. These folks blame the rich and powerful for their own lack of fulfillment. They judge those with “more” but would switch places with those very same people in a heartbeat if they had the chance. These people get caught up in the notion that the world is unfair and they have nothing coming!! These "notions" are kept alive by their own unconscious thought pat-terns that sustain their apathy and victim hood.

Many believe they must only maintain their physical beauty in order to attract a lover.

Many believe they must have enough money to attract a worthy partner.

Then belief gets into the realms of superstition such as the belief that we must act in accordance with whatever our church claims to be acceptable or we will be banished to hell when we die.

Many of us believe that only “positive” experiences are to be appreciated or acknowledged. Others of us believe that they are neither worthy nor capable of experiencing those very same "positive" experiences.

Many of us have a set idea of how and where we can find contentment and safety and any other way is just plain wrong.

Many believe that they’re powerless to change their lives and that their God is the only power that can save them. Even if their "God" could save them, they would still have to become willing to be saved. This process serves those folks too!

Many believe that they cannot find happiness unless their life looks a certain way.

This list goes on and on.

Where the heck did all of these beliefs come from? Well, beliefs, as well as the mental pathways that support them, are all formed by suggestion. If you go back to our definition of Belief, the word Suggestion is the key to understanding the scope of a self-defeating beliefs all-encompassing effect.

Suggestion has two ways of affecting our minds.

Suggestion: The process whereby the mere presentation of an idea to a receptive person leads to the acceptance of that idea.

Here is an example of a life affirming suggestion:

"You're a very talented boy"

Here is an example of a self-defeating suggestion:

"You're a worthless loser"

Autosuggestion Is the process of suggestion in which a person supplies the means of influencing their own behavior. This is the way that those mental pathways are reinforced within our minds.

Here is an example of a life affirming auto-suggestion:

"I can do anything."

Here is an example of a self-defeating auto-suggestion:

"I am an idiot."

We are all influenced by the suggestions of others as well as the suggestions we tell ourselves. Modern advertising thrives off of the use of subtle suggestions including images shown on billboards.

Every belief begins as a mere suggestion.

Any belief becomes true for us when we automatically autosuggest enough thoughts to support it.

Let’s go back to our self-defeating autosuggestion example to gain a clearer picture. If someone habitually calls themselves an “idiot” then they are actually unconsciously supporting a self-defeating belief in their own stupidity. If someone believes they are a “stupid idiot” then they will set forth to prove this belief right by acting like a stupid idiot.

That’s pretty much it!

Copyright 2013 Retro-Collective Publishing Group

How does powerlessness over these thought patterns make us unfulfilled?

Let’s take a closer look at what we mean by “unfulfilled”. After all, if these unconscious thought patterns did not have some sort of a limiting and self-defeating effect on our lives, we would not be turning to this suggested plan of action for assistance.

How does powerlessness over these thought patterns make us unfulfilled?

When we say that our lives have become unfulfilled, we are referring to needs of a fundamental nature. In our experience, a life that does not enjoy love, intimacy and creative expression is unfulfilled and susceptible to undue pain and suffering. Our other fundamental need is a sustained feeling of safety and comfort within our own bodies. Without this elusive combination we became prey to all sorts of addictions in an attempt to change and or control the way we feel.

In our experience, we have discovered that many of us had no true ability to love others, as we desired. Many of us had been in relationship after relationship that had moments when we shared love, but with those fleeting moments, more often than not, there was a consistent feeling of fear and or discontent. We saw the relationships others seemed to be enjoying and became distraught that those same qualities simply did not exist for us.

Many of us engaged in a different sort of relationship. We seemed to choose partners that all but ensured future heartache and defeat. Or, many of us, who had our fair share of those roller coaster rides, resigned ourselves to settling into relationships that were safe and stagnant.

We would choose partners that we could take or leave.

We chose partners who we could easily control and remain safe, so to speak.

The same seemed to carry over into the relationships we shared with our friends as well. Most of us had difficulty meeting new people or allowing new friends to get close, instead we settled into unfulfilled friendships with people who related, on some level, with our outlook upon life.

Many of our friendships seemed to share a survival type mentality. These relationships seemed to share the bond of mutual suffering rather than fulfillment. Over time, we became increasingly distraught over the lack of true love we shared with those around us. For many others, we had simply accepted this sort of interrelation as our only option.

We were simply not aware that we could experience anything else!!

Of course, after enough of these types of relationships, we began to question what the common denominator was.

What did all of these unfulfilled relationships have in common?

The answer was simple.

We were in every single one of them!

We began to see that we were only capable and or willing to participate in certain kinds of relationships. We did not know how to go about experiencing anything different. After diving into the work outlined in this suggested plan of action, we began to see that it was our Unconscious thought Patterns that attracted others who reflected the core beliefs we supported in regards to love and intimacy. We began to take hold of the notion that we had all learned specific ideas or concepts of love that held very little in common with the love we yearned to experience.

We began to see that we went out of our way to choose partners and experiences with others that could confirm what we believed love was. We discovered that we wanted to be right about what we believed about our-selves. We had developed conditioned beliefs in regards to our worthiness to experience love and intimacy with others. Unfortunately, being right about what we believed in regards to our ability to experience love and intimacy made us feel defeated. At this point we often gave up on the prospect of love and intimacy all together and began to engage in other activities, which kept us really busy and distracted, yet equally unfulfilled.

Of course, we were not Consciously Aware that we were the common denominator in our own unfulfillment until we acknowledged that we supported all of this with our own mind.

We simply held thoughts and beliefs that limited our range of experiences. Once we could admit that we were Not Victims we also had to admit that in our current state of mind, we were absolutely powerless to change this cycle of unfulfillment.
The same mental process that led to our unfulfillment with Love and Intimacy also carried over to the Professional and Creative aspect of our lives. Many of us had unfulfilled creative desires that had been tormenting us for quite some time. Many more of us were caught in a bewildering cycle of dead end jobs that crushed our soul and drove us to escape life whenever possible. Others of us got the job that looked really great on the out-side but left us discontent and exhausted nonetheless.

There is another fundamental need that is often overlooked, but is the key to sustained ability to achieve the Love, Intimacy and Creative Expression that we yearn to experience.

This other fundamental need is a Sustained feeling of Safety and Comfort within our own bodies. Without this feeling of safety and comfort, all those other fundamental needs run the risk of devolving into addictive mechanisms in order to feel safe or comfortable, if only for a moment.

In other words, if we feel fearful and unfulfilled rather than safe and comfortable then we will take action, often times drastic and destructive action, to change how we feel. This is where every form of addiction comes into play.

This is a section from the book entitled "The Conscious Creators Handbook" by The Creative Collective Alliance.

Copyright 2013 Retro Collective Publishing Group

THE WAY OF THE CONSCIOUS CREATOR

“There is nothing more dangerous than a man who believes his deceptions of self and builds his life upon them as it they were the truth.”


THE WAY OF THE CONSCIOUS CREATOR

This first step in the way of the conscious creator helps you determine the foundation your life is built upon.

This process digs deep to connect you, the reader, to your only true enemy. This most formidable foe is not another person but rather the recesses of your own mind.

This first handbook shines a dim candle of awareness upon the unconscious thought patterns that have hijacked our relationships, esteem and above all else, our relationship with our own being which knows the way in all things..

This process connects you to the being within.

This process empowers you to take the surgeon’s scalpel and dig deep enough to ad-dress the cause of your unfulfillment.

This process also helps you to see the madness in living out the remainder of your days medicating the effects.

This is a process of acknowledging that we have been wounded and that we are also healers.

This is a process of reuniting with our being and consciously creating our masterpiece.

The first brush stroke comes with a simple acknowledgement.

Let us begin!

What Are Unconscious Thought Patterns?

HANDBOOK ONE OVERVIEW


"We acknowledged that we were powerless over our unconscious thought patterns which had made our lives unfulfilled."

So, what are unconscious thought patterns?

Unconscious thought patterns are ingrained and automatic thought pathways within our minds. These pathways are similar to grooves on a record. They are much like a path that has been well worn. Our thought impulses have traveled across these well-worn paths time and time again. When we think a thought long enough, especially an emotionally charged thought, it quickly be-comes automatic because the neural path-ways for this thought become strongly em-bedded in the neural network of our brain. They become habitual. As in, our unconscious thought patterns become something we act upon automatically.

For Example:

Just think back to when you were learning to ride a bike. In the beginning you had to make a very conscious effort to stay balanced and move the pedals. After a while, and with much repetition, this became an ingrained response. It became second nature. At this point, the bike pathways within your mind had become established. This is when riding a bicycle became effortless and automatic. That’s why you never forget how to ride a bike!

Unconscious thought patterns are very connected to our subconscious. We view the subconscious like memory in a computer or one of those old cameras that burns an image on to a sensitized plate. The subconscious is similar to a storage device. It registers every moment experienced. It stores all the thought impressions we have over the course of our lives. The more emotionally charged or habitual these thought impressions are, the stronger the impression our subconscious registers. The more thought impressions our subconscious registers, the stronger the thought pathway that supports those thought impression will become.

If you have ever moved the trashcan in your kitchen from one area to the other then you understand how this mental process works. Perhaps the trashcan used to be under the sink. Perhaps it was there for years. Then you bought a new trashcan that would not fit under the sink so you moved it against the wall. How many times did you have to catch yourself getting ready to throw your trash under the sink even though the trashcan was now against the wall? Perhaps it took a few days or weeks before you automatically registered that the trashcan was against the wall.

As you can see, unconscious thought pat-terns are neither good nor bad. They are what we have made of them. They are the mental reflection of the lives we have experienced and the thoughts we have supported. The focus of Handbook One is to acknowledge those unconscious thought pat-terns, which are self-defeating.


THE WAY OF THE CONSCIOUS CREATOR

HANDBOOK ONE

THE CREATIVE COLLECTIVE ALLIANCE

COPYRIGHT 2013 RETRO_COLLECTIVE PUBLISHING GROUP