About a year and a half ago we took a trip to Molokai, Hawaii. The small island is now facing some difficulty over the management of the land on it’s Southwestern tip called La’au Point. I wrote about this controversy after our return in a post called, Saving La’au.

Endangered Monk Seals are right at home on La’au Point.

Molokai is special to me. I truly love this island and its Spirit. People don’t come for nightlife, chain stores or shows. People come to Molokai to connect with the locals, the land and to unwind.

Island time, truly exists here…stay awhile, and you’ll get lost in the timelessness of the place. The sacred also exists here, you see it in the faces around you, in the long ocean beaches, the red soil that stains your socks, the sheer cliffs of the northern shore and the fact that there is not a single traffic light on the entire island!

I understand why the people of Molokai protect it and why they are careful about the kinds of development they endorse. The land is a member of their family and so as we speak in this moment they are sacrificing their own comfort for the health of that family member, having opposed Molokai Ranch’s Master Plan for developing their holdings at La’au (an entity that owns roughly a third of Molokai). As a result the Ranch announced they are closing all of their operations on the island, taking 120 jobs away from the population of 8,000 who live there.

If living courageously is the key to co-creating life…then the people of Molokai are no strangers to courage.

I can’t help but wonder when this same dynamic will be a force of circumstance for those of us who reside here in the wide, open spaces, where the necessity of an act like this is harder to see…where we are less mindful of our connectedness than is an island…or can we, will we learn now where to draw the line on progress, from their example before it comes to that?

I don’t know the answer to that question…so instead, I’d like to share with you some of what I encountered while visiting the island, so that you can see what it is that the residents there are trying to protect.

Memories from Molokai

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The first trip I took to Molokai was very active. My husband had been coming to the island since he was a child, so we hiked as far out as our feet would take us nearly every day, rarely encountering another soul.

Toward the end of this first trip we hiked down into Kaluapapa on a trail consisting of 26 switchbacks stretching out over three miles, taking us down over 1600 feet to the sea level peninsula that was both home and prison to those struck with Hanson’s Disease in 1866. We learned about Father Damian, the priest that came seven years later to help by building houses, a hospital and a church for the inhabitants.

We were toured through the old structures and told the history of its residents; from the times when they were cast off into the ocean to fight their way to shore in the 1860’s, through to the drugs that cured the disease in the 1940’s up to Kaluapapa’s current modern day residents…survivors, whom remain by choice.

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Awe inspiring beauty and the horror of its history co-exist in this place…serving as an opportunity to break open the hearts of all who visit for under the surface, a living, almost palpable strength of spirit that is unifying beyond the challenges that one encounters in the world can be found here. It speaks to the beauty that exists…in and through all forms of life.

When the tour ended however, there were some four-legged forms in particular that we wanted to get ahead of, so we hustled back up the switchback path attempting to beat the caravan of mules that had served to bring many of our tour fellows in. Slowly hiking up a path covered in fresh mule dung on a hot afternoon just didn’t seem appealing…so it was our plan to get through first

On the way up, sweating, panting and striping off as much clothing as we considered decent, we were passed by a friendly and very fit Hawaiian who was not at all out of breath. He smiled at us and said, “You guys are doing really well!” as he continued up the path, as if on a leisurely stroll.

We looked at each other, barely able to inhale in the unaccustomed humidity and watched him continue on, not missing a beat. With our heads down and our hands grasping our knees…we started laughing as soon as we could catch a breath. It was amusing to us because in that moment our perception of health and of being in shape shifted to a new possibility.

My husband and I have always been people that work at health and at that time in our lives we were especially disciplined. This man however, was in a league of his own. It would not have surprised us if he walked this grueling hike everyday for fun!

Thinking of him, made the climb easier and to a large degree we stopped taking ourselves so seriously the rest of the way up…just in time too, cause our next stop was the infamous Phallic Rock

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The Phallic Rock is an ancient fertility site dedicated to the male fertility God Nanahoa. As the God himself was thought to be encased in the stone, barren women throughout the ages would bring offerings and spend the night at the rock’s base in hopes of conceiving a child. Women still come here to bring their offerings and pray for fertility.

I’ve been to the rock twice, once on our honeymoon and once while 36 weeks pregnant. The stone has amazing energy that most people find irresistible.

If you hang out there for long enough you will see people laughing while they sit on it, straddle it, or stand next to it. Most can’t help but allow their hands to follow over the contours of the stone for a time as well, seemingly reluctant to leave. Apparently, Nanahoa’s power is still there working in full bloom as we’ve heard and experienced quite a few tales of conception surrounding visits to the Phallic Rock!

What’s Next for Molokai?

Well, this is not an easy question…but I think the answer lies in connectivity. From what I understand the Molokai Community Service Council is working toward raising enough money to buy the land at La’au Point from Molokai Ranch. The Ranch is saying that the development of this land was necessary for them to continue their Molokai operations. It is uncertain if the jobs will come back once they have divided up and sold the land at La’au.

Part of the struggle that the people of this island seem to have faced over recent years stems from outside interests. The investors that own land do not live on the island and so, if something changes in the financial climate they simply leave (this is what happened to the plantations some years ago). I would like to see what would happen if the jobs that sustained the people on the island belonged to the community, rather than individuals

What Can I Do to Help?

Many believe that what happens to one of us, in actuality is happening to all of us. There is a fabulous rain forest myth about a man who kills the song bird of the forest, and with the bird, he kills the song and with the song…he kills himself.

So this question of how to help has been on my mind the most. My first response is to pray for them, which I have been doing because I believe there is power in that. My next idea was to create some kind of symbolism (like the song bird was in the above mentioned myth) for the spirit of the people, something that illustrates their aliveness while emphasizing connectivity.

In my mind the symbolism that came out of this line of thinking was a Hawaiian version of Friendship Bread. For those of you who are unfamiliar, this bread requires a starter (like in sour dough). Making this bread is a ten day process of intent and sharing.

Once it is started, it spreads and the starter then has to be fed and passed onto others, who will likewise do the same. The care and concern required to make this bread is symbolic of the community spirit that is necessary to get through a situation like the one currently facing the residents of Molokai. If you are interested in participating in the bread chain, please e-mail me at pk@paulakawal.com.

Lastly, there is the option of financial support. If you want to donate (this is not a pressure thing, I think prayer is just as powerful), then please click here. You will be taken to the Molokai Community Service Council’s donation page to buy Molokai Ranch.

And as always…much love to you…or as they say in Hawaiian:
Me Ke Aloha Pumehana!

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This is the continuation of an article I wrote on Valentine’s Day called Manifesting the Love of Your Life, in which I outlined the process of creating your love list and invited you to take my beliefs about love questionnaire to help you determine what energies are operating in your love life.

Armed with your list of what you want in a romantic partner and the belief systems you have about love that have been playing in the background you can now determine how close of a vibrational match you are to getting what you want.

Most people find incongruities at this point…and end up facing the fact that many of their thought patterns (while living in the same space) are in direct conflict with one another. With their energy so divided…it’s easy to see why they’ve been getting the results they have been.

Bringing it all to a clear space, is what I’d like to talk about next.

Adopting the Attitude of Heart-Centered Living

What most of us really want is relationships in which we feel safe to be ourselves, in which we can let down our walls and in which we don’t have to hide or guard our vulnerabilities.

This viewpoint can actually constrict our ability to love ourselves and others due to the amount of attention and energy we spend toward trying to be safe.

In heart-centered living, we don’t have to try to be safe because we let the feelings of life move through our hearts, seeing both pleasure and pain as part of the human experience. This viewpoint moves us into closer connection with ourselves and others as we are no longer occupied with rejecting, avoiding or otherwise resisting our life’s situations.

The most common ways people tend to get it wrong are:

(A) Not knowing how to safely experience pain and
(B) trying to find someplace outside of themselves in which to be safe.

You Are the Only One Who Can Break Your Heart

Relationships are often filled with these two motivators, fear of being hurt and the search for a safe haven. So will this person break your heart or will they be the safety you’re searching for?

The answer is neither. Your partners actions can not break your heart. Only you can do that. Pain is resistance to whatever we are experiencing. It is how we interact with, interpret and give meaning to the events in our lives that causes us to suffer as a result of pain.

Pain in and of itself is a good thing, it is a warning system that is there to give you information about your environment.

Emotional pain happens when we create a restriction of the flow into and out of our heart system by not fully acknowledging, feeling and accepting our emotions. When our emotions are not fully expressed, the energy of the heart becomes blocked and contracted creating a sense of isolation and aloneness.

You break your own heart by rejecting life and this in turn disconnects you from your inner being…so when you find yourself immersed in judgment, rejection, pain, grief and other emotions that make you want to contract, bring kindness to yourself and comfort the part of you having the feeling. Don’t abandon yourself…be there for you by accepting and being present with your feelings.

The Spiritual Levels of Sexual Partnership

Sexual union and marriage on a spiritual level can be visually understood by observing the yin-yang symbol which represents opposites that are mutually rooted within the same system, transforming into one another while always holding the balance that creates the whole.

A marriage, or intimate relationship represents the process of two becoming one. Sex is the closest we get physically to this spiritual experience.

When you enter a relationship, your commitment is not to the other person as much as it is to the process of becoming whole…this is where we often become confused. We’re not loosing ourselves, giving up or otherwise being unfairly treated as our egos would have us believe by being in a relationship…instead we are surrendering our lives over to our authentic selves and sacrificing our egos so that our separateness becomes one, spiritually.

This is about riding the line of our connectedness…or our bliss. The goal is to stay centered in that connected space. When we keep our beingness and consciousness on that line we create rapture…and through the doors of rapture resides the timeless space that is the gateway to both life and death. In essence, sexual union represents this timeless, whole state of rapture…the death of separateness and a re-birth into a state of wholeness, which on the physical plane is the energy of creation itself.

As you can imagine, the ego has no vested interest in going down this path which is why you need to be the one calling the shots…

So how do you want to show up in a relationship? Which version of your current reality will get you closer to being whole? Is it the story of love’s past, of your broken hearts, of your bad luck or is it something else?

Putting it Together

Creating something else requires us to view our role in a love relationship from a more empowering perspective.

Much of this is accomplished by aligning ourselves with the higher level spiritual truth behind the desire to be in relationship with a partner…the opportunity to consciously experience our spiritual wholeness on the physical plane.

So now that you know what the real goal is, are clear about what qualities you want in a partner and the beliefs you held around love that have been interfering with creating the kind of relationship you want, it’s time to tap into your personal power and determine how you want to show up, so that you can get different results.

Choosing How You Show Up in a Relationship

The following exercise is useful for determining possibilities and filtering through them for the most empowering results.

Enter a meditative state, close your eyes, relax, breathe deeply and see yourself surrounded by protective white light.

Travel in your mind through time and space, to a place where you can see stretched out far behind you, a path that represents your life so far.

Out in front of you is the myriad amount of possibilities that could unfold. Stretch your hand out before you, and set your mind toward how life would look if you were living it as your most loving self.

The possibilities respond to your thoughts and begin to reorganize, reaching up to touch your hand and as they do, you see a movie of what life is like in each of them.

Try on as many as you like, get curious about them and study their differences until you find one that fits you. You’ll know by the energy and love you feel in your body as you experience it.

Once you’ve found it, examine the actions you take from this possibility as well as the thoughts and beliefs you hold as this most loving person. Notice what is happening in your life as a result.

When you are satisfied, make a commitment to yourself to allow your consciousness to reside in this possible reality, by building a bridge between it and your present circumstances.

Create a vision board that represents what you saw and felt as your most loving self…allowing it to flow into manifestation through the power of your conscious choice and intent.

Remember, you are one who is in control of and designing how you show up in life and in love

As always, feel free to share your thoughts and experiences!

As a coach, I spend a lot of time working with the value systems of my clients. In fact, it is one of the areas that I will first search for incongruencies that leak and dilute their personal power and prevent them from showing up fully in their lives.

Many clients have ideas about what they want in life and can’t figure out why they are not creating it.

What a client creates can be looked at as a reflection of the connection or lack of connection that they are currently experiencing with their values system. Within the dance of this system is a call to deeply and truly connect with and honor themselves.

For this reason, we have to get honest with ourselves about what is really important to us, and honor it, in order to get what we want in life. When we get clear about ourselves internally, we are ready to shift our external experience.

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What Do You Value?

In order to find out what my clients value I have them do an exercise with index cards. I ask them to think about what is really really, important to them, and why it’s important. I then have them write these things on the front of the cards.

On the back of the cards I have them list all of the ways that they support these things with their time, money and energy.

Because much of what we do is unconscious, most people will find that there are areas in life that are really important to them that are not supported by their actions. I like to think of this in terms of voting.

Determining How You Vote

Because time and money equal energy, writing down how you support your values is a really clear way to see what level of alignment you currently have with the forces that drive you in life and where to make shifts that can bring you closer.

For example let’s say that you live in an artsy town and you just love the fact that you are surrounded by creative people because one of your values is to experience unique and beautiful things because this helps you be present to life.

If every time you buy something for your home, you find yourself in Ikea instead of the beautiful little artisan shops in your town, then you probably aren’t voting very consciously toward this value

At this point you can examine the energy behind the thoughts and impulses that led you to put your time and money into Ikea.

The Nature of the Thoughts Surrounding the Activity

In the above scenario we could imagine a thought of going to look for a few items for one’s living room, which then triggers an unconscious reaction which results with the idea of Ikea popping into your head and off you go without further examination. What happened to the value? Why did it never come into play?

Values take conscious awareness to implement and align with. In the above example, I used a value that is often brow-beaten by our unconscious alignment with our societies thought pattern of getting the best possible deal.

When I examine my own thought processes of getting a great deal, I notice a huge undertone of lack. Personally, that’s not the energy I want to put out in the world. This kind of unconscious motivation puts an invisible wall up between me and what I want to experience.

Using Body Wisdom to Determine What’s Most Important to Experience

For many people values are vague concepts floating around in their heads in a way that is disconnected from their experience. Often times they are not yet living their values because they haven’t learned to bring them into their bodies and therefore into their physical experience.

When you place your values inside of your body, you can access them environmentally, in this way you can feel where you are voting with your time and energy and whether or not you are honoring yourself with your actions.

When I place the energy of getting a good deal in my body as my primary motivation, I feel a bit sick in my stomach. When I place the energy of choosing to work with companies with an eye out for the whole as well as themselves, I feel a deep sense of rooted power.

My body will tell me which is the correct action for me. Now to clarify, I’m not saying to completely ignore price, I am only saying to examine the order in which you structure what is important, in other words, to determine which should come first.

Aligning Your Business with Your Values

When I first became aware of some of the unconscious processes that ran automatically in the background when I would search for products and services for my business, I was literally startled by what I found. I instantly made the decision to restructure my business to honor my values and I thought perhaps you might like to join me.

Here is what is on my list to do:

1. Find a hosting company that runs on solar energy
2. Use a credit card processor that gives 10% of their proceeds back to the environment
3. Produce business products, recordings and books on post consumer recycled paper and pop bottles
4. Use a financial institution who works with small companies that want to positively impact the world

Putting it in Action

When the main thrust of my energy enters the world from within my values, it makes a huge difference in how I honor myself and others.

If you would like to experiment similarly, and are searching for an easy way to find conscious businesses with which to partner, I suggest looking in the Co-Op America’s National Green Pages for the services you need.

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A few years ago I read the Architecture of all Abundance by Lenedra Carroll. Although this book had a profound impact on me at the time, one line, however, would prove to be somewhat life altering even beyond the scope of an already amazing story.

I was working on a recording project when it was recalled and I kid you not, it was like one of those skies parting moments, when everything changes and angels speak. It hit me like a ton of bricks crashing down on my head, leaving me in dumbfounded confusion, as I sat face to face with my own unconscious resistance to the word artist…

Remember that you are an artist.

The Resistance

Why would I have a problem with this word? I wondered. I’ve always loved artists…and in fact, spent a lot of time working with them. I questioned what this was really all about as I followed the trail further back through time.

A part of me began to speak through my memories. My youngest of watching and being attracted to singers and performers on television as a child, then there was the strong link to music when I was a teenager and how I used it as an extension of my own voice, onto actually working within the music industry as an adult in which I witnessed others use it as an extension of their souls.

I started to notice my pattern with both the written and recorded form of the arts. I could see how deeply connected I was to these artistic expressions and how I admired those who had the skills and talents to create in this way. At the same time I was able to look at my own past attempts at expressing myself in these mediums. The reason why I failed to bring this aspect of myself into the world was perfectly clear…I had never considered myself an artist.

I could acknowledge it in others but not within myself…without this form of inner permission I was seriously impeding my ability to create…not only in an art way…but in any way at all.

Learning to Embrace My Inner Artist

The revelation came as I began to prepare my audio project for iTunes. There in the artist box was my name. I sat in my chair with the quote from Lenedra’s book flowing inside my mind and in one great ah-ha moment…I felt, I knew…that this was true.

Breathing into it deeply, I allowed the word artist to move with my breath into the depths of my being, permeating my every cell with it’s higher level meaning and creating within it, a wonderful vehicle for the movement of my soul.

The Art of Life

So why was it so important for me to be able to call myself an artist?

An artist is able to surrender completely to the energy of creation which is always flowing between a state of contraction and release.

An artist aligns themselves with that flow, channels it and uses it to create new solutions, reroute their current path and overcome limitations.

This ability to become fluid in perspective, identity and context aligns them with a deep universal truth.

The keys to freedom, and the way to unlocking our own prison doors lies in matching our nature to Nature.

Our egoic tendencies trigger resistance as we attempt to keep ourselves separate from the totality…our true selves recognize that we ARE the totality…and that all we really ever need to do is tap into that and flow.

These qualities are something that each and everyone of us is here to express. Your artistic or creative side is an important part of yourself to integrate regardless of who you are or what you do as it will often determine how you show up for life.

Questions to Ask Yourself

How close are you to being able to acknowledge your own inner artist?

If you’ve not yet done so, what stops you?

If you found some kind of fear, ask yourself what holding onto that is getting for you?

And as always, feel free to share your results and experiences