by Rev. Greta Sesheta, Minister at Agape Intl Spiritual Center

(excerpt from interview for the documentary)

To awaken to your life’s purpose is an opportunity. to awaken, to listen, to do what we call lowly listening.  To get still, to get quiet, to move into a place of serenity, and actually, listen. Sometimes this involves asking a question.  And it’s important to ask the right question; the questions that will get you the results that you’re hoping for.

So the questions would not be for example, “Why is this happening to me?”, which then just brings up all of the justifications, the excuses, and keeps me in the place of a victim, but the question might be, “What is it that’s happening now?  What is it that’s wanting to be experienced by me?  What is it that’s wanting to express itself as me?”

And then having asked the question, listen, and be aware of the ways that the question might be answered.  It might be something that I hear, it might be just a sense that I have about things.  There might be a sign or a symbol somewhere, even in a bumper sticker.  The signs are all around us.  Listening, asking the questions, being aware, being open, being receptive to the answers that you get.

To move out of judgement about what the answers might be, or my preconceived ideas about what a good answer is, or what the answer wasn’t that I was looking for, but to be open to the divine wisdom, guidance, and direction that is within me and is all around.

I think that meditation, having a time of quiet reflection and contemplation is like it’s a requirement for the day.  Start the day with it, end the day with it. Take a couple of moments, it doesn’t have to be hours and hours.  It can just be, on the breath, an inhalation, and exhalation, breathing in the breath of god, a meditation.

And reflective reading, reading things that inspire and uplift me and support my ideas and stretch my imagination in terms of what is possible for my life.

I think that being of service is very importaint in the community.  Wherever it is that I am, where I can support someone, that I can offer, that I can give a smile, that I can share something of myself, that I can volunteer my time.  Any way of being in service to some greater good, within community is the idea of come unity, people coming together.  Like minded people coming together to grow and to share together.  Those are very important tools.

Greta Sesheta is one of 24 experts featured in the inspiring documentary Beyond Belief.  To see the trailer and get the DVD go to:  www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com

Short video by Judith Orloff, Medical Intuitive.   You can hear Judith speak on intuition in the film Beyond Belief: www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com

by Julia Cameron

The following is an excerpt from the interview with Julia Cameron for the documentary Beyond Belief.

I think that people have a lot of mythology around artists, they think that real artists are born knowing they are artists, and they are fearless and they pursue their craft w/out any thought of criticism.  In fact, the truth is, quote real artists are people who have learned to live with their fears and make their art anyway.

So if people come to me hoping to be taught to be fearless, I say I can’t really teach you that, but I can teach you to live with your fears, and when they start living with their fears, and becoming more intimate with themselves they begin to get just the smallest glimmering of, “Hey it might be fun to try this, or I’d like to try that”  and that’s the little tell tale whisp of creativity that people learn to listen for more and more clearly.

I think we come from a culture which demonizes creativity.  We have a belief system that says artists are broke, artists are crazy/  We have a lot of confusion with alcoholism and creativity, because many of our finest artists were also alcoholic, and so we think in order to be an artist I have to be a down and out alcoholic, and we hold these beliefs as a sort of club over our head, and we say if you try creativity you’re going to really rock the boat.  What I tell people is, well maybe you’re going to rock the cradle and not the boat.  Maybe it’s a much more gentle process than you believe it is.

As people start working, I have them do a tool called shadow artists.  I have them take a look and see in what ways they have been batteries for someone else’s creativity, someone who is officially creative, and very often we find that people surround themselves with other people, or a significant other, who they say their dreams are more important and they are more talented.  So what we start to do with morning pages is say your dreams matter, you are talented, try gently to do just a little bit today.  As people do this they begin to experience an alternative to their negative belief system

That inner voice isn’t the truth, and I have people do an exercise where I ask them to write out the reason I can’t be a brilliant and prolific creative artist is…??  ..and they will find that they have lots of irrational thoughts related to being an artist.

Many times people have either or thinking:  either I can be an artist, or I can be in a loving relationship, either I can be an artist, or I can be solvent.  Usually they put something that they hold precious high up on the list of what they will lose, and then they scare themselves, they terrify themselves out of trying art.  Because, you know, who wants to be an artist if it means you’re going to be crazy, who wants to be an artist if it means you’re going to lose your house, who wants to be an artist if it means you’re going to be a bad parent.  So when we get people to look at these subconscious beliefs, people begin to say, oh, that’s sort  of silly, that’s not true.  I have them do an exercise where they replace their negatives with positives.

Artists are crazy might translate into artists are free-spirited.  Artists are broke might translate into artists are solvent.  So we just sort of peak under the rug of people’s consciousness and see what the lumps are.

When people start to connect to themselves they can be lead in many different directions.  One of the things I find kind of sad, is how thorough our brainwashing is around money, and how deeply we tend to believe if we work our creativity we’ll be broke.

People are often very surprised to move into their creativity and find that their earning power in fact goes up.  I can’t promise you, work The Artists Way and you’ll be solvent and self-supporting through your art, but I can say work The Artist’s Way and you’ll be led to more sense of support.

I believe that when people pursue their creativity they are in effect pursuing a spiritual path, they begin to have more intution, they begin to have more coincidence, they begin to experience guidance.

NOTE:  Extra interview clips that were not featured in the documentary may be found on the Audio CD Set at:  www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com/store

By Judith Orloff MD

Adapted from Second Sight  (Three Rivers Press, 2010) PART TWO of TWO

….but then I had a heart-wrenching wake-up call that changed everything. It was an intuition that a patient, on antidepressants, was going to make a suicide attempt. Because she was doing so well–nothing supported my hunch–I dismissed it. Within a week she overdosed on the antidepressants I’d prescribed and ended up in a coma for nearly a month. (Had she not survived I would’ve been devastated.) The hardest part, though, was that I thought I’d harmed her by not utilizing a vital piece of intuitive information. This was intolerable for me. From then on, I knew, as a responsible physician, I had to integrate my intuitions into my work.

After this episode, my journey to bring intuition into my medical practice began. I didn’t know how I’d do it, but I put out a silent prayer to the universe to help me. Soon, I began meeting people, more angels, who showed me the way. Gradually I grew comfortable with my intuition, set out to write “Second Sight.” This took me seven years to complete because I had so much fear about coming out of the closet as an intuitive. I was afraid of what my physician-peers would think, that they’d mock me or blackball me from the profession. My mother warned, “They’ll think you’re weird. It’ll jeopardize your medical career.” Ah Mother: I loved her, but thank god I didn’t listen. Finding my voice as a psychiatrist and intuitive has been my path to freedom.

Sure, there’s a risk when you stretch yourself, but the rewards are enormous. Now, I’m blessed to travel around the country giving workshops on intuition to auditoriums full of extraordinary people–health care professionals and general audiences–who long to embrace their inner voice. I’m heartened to see that many physicians are eager to deal with patients in the new way I offer.  I gave an intuitive healing workshop at the American Psychiatric Association convention, a annual gathering of the most conservative psychiatrists in the world. I’m pleased to report the response was wonderful.

I’m sad to report that my mother didn’t live long enough to see this. In 1993 she died of a lymphoma. But, on her deathbed, she decided to tell me our “family secrets.” She told me, “I want to pass the power onto you.” I was astounded to learn that I came from a lineage of intuitive healers on her side of the family–my Jewish grandmother who did laying on of hands in a shed behind the pharmacy she and Grandpop ran in Philadelphia. East coast aunts and cousins I’d never met since I grew up in California. Also, my mother, herself, had a strong inner voice which told her how to treat patients for over forty years. She’d listened to this voice and secretly used her innate healing powers to keep her lymphoma in remission for many years. “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked her. She said simply, “I wanted you to lead a normal, happy life, not to be thought of as weird like your grandmother was.” Oh Mother… I’ll always be grateful for what she shared, but, still… she’d waited so long. Even so, I believe in the wisdom of the paths we’ve been given. Mine has been to fight for what I believed in despite what my parents or anyone said. An invaluable but rugged lesson in empowerment.

These days, no matter what I’m going through, especially when my heart is torn in a million pieces my intuition has sustained me. I hope that my journey in my book “Second Sight” can help you. One thing I’m certain of: if you follow your intuitive voice, you can’t go wrong. Stay true to it. Intuition is about empowerment, not having to conform to someone else’s notion of who you should be. It’s about being true to yourself, and all the goodness that comes from that.

Judith Orloff, M.D is author of the new bestseller SECOND SIGHT, an inspiring and controversial memoir about coming to terms with her intuitive gifts, upon which this article is based. Her other books are Emotional Freedom, Guide to Intuitive Healing, and Positive Energy. She is assistant clinical professor of Psychiatry at UCLA and an international workshop leader. For more information about new updated edition of Second Sight and Dr. Orloff’s books and workshops visit:

http://www.drjudithorloff.com/second-sight-promotion/

Please visit Judith at www.drjudithorloff.com

Judith Orloff is one of twenty four experts featured in the documentary Beyond Belief: www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com

By Judith Orloff MD

Adapted from Second Sight  (Three Rivers Press, 2010) PART ONE of TWO:

I’m a psychiatrist and intuitive in Los Angeles. What I do isn’t my job. It’s my life’s passion. With patients and in workshops, I listen with my intellect and my intuition, a potent inner wisdom that goes beyond the literal. I experience it as a flash of insight, a gut feeling, a hunch, a dream. By blending intuition with orthodox medical knowledge I can offer my patients and workshop participants the best of both worlds. Now, listening to intuition is sacred to me, but learning to trust it has taken years. I’ve described the details in my memoir Second Sight which is meant to assure anyone whoever thought they were weird or crazy for having intuitive experiences, that they are not! This brief synopsis gives you a good sense of the book.

I grew up in Beverly Hills the only daughter of two-physician parents with twenty-five physicians in my family. From age nine, I had dreams and intuitions that would come true. I could predicts illness, earthquakes, even the suicide of one of my parent’s friends. This confused and alarmed me, as it did my parents who were entrenched in the hard-core rational world of science. At first they tried to write my intuitions off as coincidence. Finally, though, after I dreamed my mother’s mentor would loose a political election–which to my horror, came true–she took me aside and told me, “Never mention another dream or intuition in our house again!” I’ll never forget the look in my dear mother’s exasperated, frightened eyes, nothing I ever wanted to see again. So from that day on, I kept my intuitions to myself. I grew up ashamed of my abilities, sure there was something wrong with me.

Luckily, I’ve had many angels in human form who’ve pointed me to my true calling as physician. In the sixties I got heavily involved with drugs in an attempt to block my intuitions out—not something I’m recommending to you! Following a nearly fatal car accident at age sixteen when I tumbled over a treacherous 1500 foot cliff in Malibu Canyon, my parents forced me to see a psychiatrist. This man was the first person who ever “saw” me–not who he wanted me to be, but who I was. He taught me to begin to value the gift of intuition, and referred me to Dr. Thelma Moss, an intuition researcher at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. She was to become my mentor and guide to developing my intuitive side.

While working in Thelma’s lab I had an amazingly specific dream which announced, “You’re going to become an MD, a psychiatrist, to help legitimize intuition in medicine.” When I awoke, I felt like someone was playing a practical joke on me. I’d never liked science, and I was bored around all my parent’s doctor-friends. I was a hippie living in an old converted brick Laundromat with my artist-boyfriend in Venice Beach, working in the May Company’s towel department. (I’ve had a great love of towels and sheets since!) The last thing I envisioned doing was medicine. But because I was beginning to trust my intuition, I enrolled in a junior college just to see how it would go. So one course became two, became fourteen years of medical training–USC medical school and a UCLA psychiatric internship and residency.

The irony was, that during my medical training I strayed far from the intuitive world again. Traditional psychiatry equates visions with psychosis. Working in the UCLA emergency room, I’d keep seeing psychotics who were wheeled in screaming, strapped to gurneys, accompanied by cops with billy clubs. These patients professed to hear God and to be able predict things. They also felt their food was poisoned, and that the FBI was on their tail. No one tried to sort through this mishmash of claims. Typically, patients were shot up with with Thorazine, hospitalized on lock-down inpatient units until their “symptoms” subsided. Seeing this so many times I doubted whether it was safe or appropriate to integrate my intuitions in medicine.

When I opened my Los Angeles psychiatric practice in 1983, I had every intention of it being traditional; I’d use medications, psychotherapy, but I didn’t intend for intuition to play a role. My practice was extremely successful. Since I was a workaholic and also loved helping people, I had twelve hour days, though very little personal life. But then I had a heart-wrenching wake-up call that changed everything. It was an intuition that a patient, on antidepressants, was going to make a suicide attempt. Because she was doing so well–nothing supported my hunch–I dismissed it. Within a week she overdosed on the antidepressants I’d prescribed and ended up in a coma for nearly a month. (Had she not survived I would’ve been devastated.) The hardest part, though, was that I thought I’d harmed her by not utilizing a vital piece of intuitive information. This was intolerable for me. From then on, I knew, as a responsible physician, I had to integrate my intuitions into my work.

CONTINUED IN PART TWO….

Judith Orloff, M.D is author of the new bestseller SECOND SIGHT, an inspiring and controversial memoir about coming to terms with her intuitive gifts, upon which this article is based. Her other books are Emotional Freedom, Guide to Intuitive Healing, and Positive Energy. She is assistant clinical professor of Psychiatry at UCLA and an international workshop leader. For more information about new updated edition of Second Sight and Dr. Orloff’s books and workshops visit www.drjudithorloff.com

Judith Orloff is one of twenty four experts featured in the documentary Beyond Belief: www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com

By Brad Morris

Hello & Cowabunga Namaste;

Did you know that you have the most powerful intuition out of ANYBODY you know!?

Did you know that you have the ability to tell what is in the highest and greatest good for YOU in each & every moment?

Before participating in this article, lets just take a few breaths together so we can get into our bodies, get grounded onto Planet Earth and allow ourselves to be present and in our hearts. By being in our hearts weʼre able to decipher Truth & Falsity much easier.

Take a slow breath in through your mouth…….gently exhale through your mouth. Breathe in fully through your mouth……..gently exhale through your nose. Breathe deeply & fully through your nose…..slowly exhale through your nose. Take a deep breath in through your nose…………..gently exhale through your mouth.

Now that youʼre feeling more present, YES, it is TRUE that your intuition is more powerful than anyoneʼs you know! There is nobody on Planet Earth who can tell you what choices will serve you best and which ones wonʼt, better than you. That strong, silent, yet powerful voice inside of you is the TRUE voice that you want to be listening to. It is the voice of Destiny.

Have you ever had all of the closest people in your life telling you that ʻyou should do this and you should do thatʼ…. but never stopping to ask you what you are doing or what you plan to do???

I have found that with a consistent daily practice of yoga and sitting meditation (doesnʼt matter which kind) have helped me to become more powerfully attuned to MY OWN INTUITION. Before I learned to quiet my mind I would feel confused and chaotic inside because everyone around me was telling me what to do, how to do it, where to go, etc…I was never listening to My Inner Calling. Sound familiar?

ʻLife can be like the currents in the Ocean; throwing us around, left & right, smashing us up against painful rocks. That is until we find the power to ground ourselves like a rock and listen to that intuition. When we are grounded, centered and focused, it does not matter what the current around us is doing, because we are All Knowing & Confident.ʼ

I want to re-affirm to any of you self-doubters out there. Listen to yourself, to where inspiration leads you. If you practice tuning in to what your body is speaking, then youʼll know more often when to say ʻyesʼ and when to say ʻno.ʼ If you listen to what everyone thinks about you and if you let other peopleʼs judgments get the best of you, then youʼll remain in a stagnant, unfulfilling rut in your life.

To practice the power of your intuition, you have to practice LISTENING to it and FEELING what it is saying. So, here is a simple & FUN exercise for you to begin practicing today. . . . We are given many choices everyday, often multiple choices each moment. Your mission is to begin questioning the actions you commonly take without thinking about.

YOUR 24-Hour Intuition Challenge:

For the next 24-hours and beyond if you decide, your mission is to ask yourself before making choices this question, “Is this in my highest and greatest good?” OR “What is in my highest good right now?” You will know, based on your bodyʼs response if it is, or if it isnʼt. And the challenging part of this exercise, is saying NO when itʼs not in your highest good and YES when it is!!

When youʼve completed the 24-hours, share your experience, thoughts and opinions at my blog site, www.CowabungaLifestyles.wordpress.com

Good luck. And have fun communicating & listening to YOUR intuition!

– Cowabunga Namaste           

Brad Morris Biz’: ‘the GratiDudes’ & ‘Grounded Perspective’

www.theGratiDudes.com   www.Cowabungalifestyles.wordpress.com

Brad Morris is one of twenty four experts featured in the documentary Beyond Belief: www.beyondbeliefthemovie.com