I like my eggs scrambled with cottage cheese and served with toast, or scrambled with spinach and wrapped up in a corn tortilla with hot sauce.

My boyfriend likes his eggs mixed up with milk, and then fried flat, like a pancake, until the edges turn brown and crispy.

Have you ever stopped to examine the little things you do in your life, like the food you prepare and eat, the clothing or accessories you wear, how you decorate your house, or why you use Comet to clean your sink instead of Soft Scrub?

Are all these little pieces of our lives really our own, or did we pick them up unconsciously from our parents, friends, lovers, the media? Really stop and think about it for a minute. Let's start with eggs. How do you like your eggs? Do you really like them that way, or do you just eat them that way because that's how you've always done it, or that's how your lover or kids like them?

This simple little exercise can tell you a lot about yourself. Do you really know yourself from the inside? Or are you mirroring someone else's preferences and just unconsciously adapted them as your own?

I just watched the Julia Roberts movie Runaway Bride. The story is about a woman who has found herself walking down the isle towards marriage with three very different men, and with each partner, she's adjusted her life to fit theirs, including the music she listens to and the way she eats her eggs. But just before she reaches the alter, she bolts from her own wedding, running for her life, some deep instinct waking up in her at the last minute. She finally hears her authentic voice as she runs for the hills.

Choosing to live authentically by my own light has been a journey of epic proportions. Starting back in 2009 when I filed for bankruptcy, it was the first step in clearing out all the garbage I'd accumulated mentally and emotionally, not to mention physically.

Painful, upsetting, unbalancing, declaring bankruptcy ripped away all thought I knew about myself. It was the tsunami of clearing and letting go, taking me to my knees in surrender. I no longer knew who I was or where I was going, what my truth was. For so long I had lived by other peoples' light, by their ideas of who I was and what I was supposed to do and be and say and act. And I was great at it. I played the part so perfectly I no longer could see I had lost my way and stopped following my heart. I had lost all sense of my authentic self. I had to clear it all away before I could start bringing the pieces of my life back together again.

It's like when one suspects one is allergic to something, but you don't know what. You have to clear all suspected allergens from your life and one by one, reintroduce them to see what is triggering the allergic reaction.

Being this conscious of how your body reacts is the most important part of healing and recovering your authentic voice. You must pay attention to every little nuance and ask yourself whether it feels good or not!!

Because of this conscious awareness, when you reintroduce something that doesn't feel good, you can choose to no longer eat that food or engage in that behavior,and so through this process navigate through all the programming from childhood. You begin to recognize you've been doing an activity because it makes someone else happy, keeps the peace, or avoids conflict.

It feels much more fun and playful to live by your authentic light. So what if I'm a punk rocker who likes to listen to Windham Hill new age music? That is part of me but I covered it up because it was met with judgement by the circles of people I was trying to fit in with.

As I approach my 50th birthday, I truly desire to live life by my own light; enjoying the experiences that touch my soul and enhance my life. I practice speaking my truth now with kindness and love directed towards myself, so I feel safe when what I want doesn't mesh with someone else's agenda.

Trust me, everyone has an agenda. We're human, and we're going to get our needs met one way or the other. The path to happiness is to become aware of that fact, and then act accordingly. Do your wants, needs, and likes get the same attention as you give to your loved ones? If not, speak up!

If it doesn't feel safe to speak your truth and shine your own light, maybe that's the answer to your prayers. Maybe that's how you're being guided to change the circumstances; to leave that job, talk honestly with your partner, boss or family, or take the risk of following your heart and studying literature instead of science. Become clear about who you are and what you like and life will open up. I guarantee it! After all, I am living proof!

These last couple of months have been very difficult for me. All the rushing around and effort I expended led me to stop my self care routine of meditation, healing, getting plenty of rest and balancing my work with play. In the end, my body was so run down and depleted, I got sick. It's taken me almost two months to move through this growth period and get back to a more balanced place of health and wellness.

Through this process, I struggled with accepting where I was so I could heal, vs. forcing my self to get to where I wanted to be. And finally, this morning, I surrendered. By surrendering and accepting one's  circumstances, it immediately brings one right into present time, back from the regrets of the past and the what ifs of the future.

Only by acknowledging what is is one able to change. I'm self employed, and the worry about money and paying my bills is constant. But I chose
this! It didn't just happen to me. This uncertainty is part of my daily scenery. So I surrendered and accepted. This is where I am at right now. I only have so much energy to spend each day creating opportunities to bring financial flow into my life. I can only do a certain number of tasks today. And that's ok. Tomorrow always brings more opportunities.

Surrender and acceptance go hand in hand. The act of surrendering has always gotten a bad rap. People think it's giving up, but it's not! Until you surrender to what is, you can never accept it! And if you don't accept it, you can't change it. You will always be in resistance to what you don't accept. And resistance sets up the energetic equivalent of a police barricade: Nothing Can Cross This Line! Which means you are blocking out the assistance of the Universe, your angels and any other divine force from helping you shift your life for the better.Resistance comes from a place of fear, of not knowing.

Fear is irrational, but it stops you dead in your tracks. Like a frightened horse that refuses to move forward, that fear is irrational, but it feels very real.

I recently watched this amazing documentary Wild Horse, Wild Ride about rounding up wild mustangs and gentling them down to make them ready for adoption. One of the trainers put a blindfold over the horse's eyes to help create trust. That horse had no choice but to trust the trainer to lead him forward safely. Only when that horse surrendered, accepted his circumstances and opened his heart to trusting the trainer was he able to move forward. He was led over a bridge, and down a slight incline by that trainer, and little by little that horse began to trust the trainer and have faith that he would be safe. He surrendered, accepted and opened his heart up to what is and could then move forward.

It was a beautiful thing to see, and such a reflection of where I am right now. Surrender the fear and resistance. Accept my present circumstances; this is what is right now. And then trust that when the time is right, a window will open, a pathway will clear, leading me forward, safely, to what is coming next.

When we make the commitment to change our lives for the better, often times things get worse before they get better. This is because there is so much old junk to clear out that a little turbulence may be in order to really get you to let go of it.

I have commited to finding more peace, serenity, joy and abundance in my life, but when I openeed that door, I had very little idea about what that would entail.

Through bankruptcy, the dissolution of a business, a physical move, gut-wrenching lack, and a myriad of other challenges, my life has slowly shifted to the point where I woke up this morning with my heart overflowing with gratitude at all the abundance that surrounds me at this present moment of time.

Everything is shifting, changing and moving and it feels very good, but also sometimes very scary. But I know in my heart if I just stay centered and grounded I will flow through these changes effortlessly. It feels like I'm on those moving stairs in a Harry Potter movie, where all of the sudden the staircases start moving and rearranging themselves while Harry is in the process of ascending them. Notice in the movie, he doesn't bat an eye, but stays still until the moving stops, and then continues up the stairs!

When I am in the midst of turmoil, I close my eyes and look at all the abundance surrounding me, and I am amazed at how rich my life is. I feel so blessed! I am so in love with my life now and the people in it! I am amazed at the riches that surround me: baskets full of lush ripe heirloom organic tomatoes, crisp cucumbers, peppers of all flavors and Asian eggplants, hanging heavy from the bush like little Christmas tree ornaments, emerald-green zucchinis, fresh herbs and rich golden olive oil drizzled over it all, sea salt and fresh cracked black pepper to add a little spice.

All this set within a heavenly setting of bright colorful flowers, dancing butterflies and darting hummingbirds. My little pond is filled with jewel-toned koi fish, and my sweet little puppy Dooly is right by my side, tugging at my bathrobe this morning wanting a little love and attention. The love of my life is asleep in the next room, safe and healthy.

I am so blessed by the Grace of God that surrounds me in all these instances, it makes me want to weep with gratitude as I look back at the mine-field I've walked across. Life really is a miracle and I open my arms to embrace it fully, to savor the rich textures, smells, colors and flavors all snuggled with in this moment in time.

I love my gentle morning ritual of going within, and tapping into my inner source, my voice and validating these experiences by writing them down. When I hit that inevitable turbulence, I have proof things were absolutely 100% wonderful not just a few short hours or days previously. I wrote it down right in the midst of experiencing it! It must be true since I was feeling it at the time because there it is in black and white right on the page in front of me!

When those trying times come and the worry starts to creep back in, I can read those words and know that peace and tranquility will be mine again soon enough. I simply need to sit still and find the eye of the hurricane where stillness resides, and take no action until the storm has passed. And just like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I am able to stand up, dust myself off, push away the wreckage surrounding me, and step back into my sparkling clear world again, grateful I am unharmed in any way, that the fear has passed and I am safe.

When I know this is how it always works out, it is easier to be still while the hurricane is ravaging my life. A rainbow always appears after the storm.

Lessons come to us in many different ways.

Sometimes they come gently, with an awareness that blows into our lives like a gentle spring breeze.

Sometimes they come to us in joy and exuberance; having an experience filled with such pleasure and laughter, you know you totally made the right decision!

And sometimes, lessons arrive shrouded in pain, dark clouds, misery, and heartbreaking disappointment. However the lessons arrive, our job as spirit having a human experience is to notice, become aware, and learn to receive the lessons that we decided to learn long before we took a body to experience them.

We all have many lessons we need to learn, and we can tell this if situations keep coming up over and over and over again with the same outcome. A lesson I have struggled to learn is how to receive. Another lesson is "Letting Go and Letting God."

What does that mean? The two are inseparably intertwined in my life. As an out of control "people pleaser"  I have lived by the words of the infamous Jeff Spiccoli from the movie Fast Times At Ridgemont High, "I can fix it man, I have some tools!" In this particular scene, he has just crashed a very expensive car, and it's totally banged up, but being the optimist, he's sure with just a little banging and pushing, he can make the car good as new!

How many of you live like this? Feeling responsible and ever-optimistic that despite the dire circumstances surrounding you, you can make it better? It's really laughable now as I stand back and realize how obviously naive I am. There is a lesson here, and "fixing it" is not the lesson, no matter how often I am faced with this same scenario.

One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different outcome. By this definition, I am totally, completely insane.

I've been on the spiritual path to consciously heal myself for about ten years now. Despite the numerous classes, seminars, books, and whatever else I've engaged in, the lesson of "letting go and letting God" has eluded me, as has the lesson of receiving the good that I so long for.

It really boils down to one universal law that I also struggle with: Everything in Divine Perfect Timing.

Up until now, I have pushed pushed pushed to make things happen, to open doors, and to create new experiences for myself. It's been painful, and cumbersome and sometimes downright overwhelming. And most of the time, I'm completely exhausted by the end of one of these episodes.

There are the rare times when I've had an idea of something I wanted to do and experience and everything just flowed effortlessly and easily, and it's been a delightful experience, leaving me feeling vibrant and alive at the end of it. This is a really big clue!!

When you're forcing and pushing and trying to make things happen, and the doors remain closed, or the barrier refuses to move, or the situation just won't change the way you want it to, this is a hello from Spirit; the direction you're trying to go isn't right for you at this moment in time. Ding Ding Ding!!

This is when it's time to sit back and release the situation to the Universe, to the ever changing ebb and flow of the cosmic dance that is happening all around us. When you're trying to make something happen, you're coming from fear, not faith and trust and the belief that all will work out for your highest good.

I know this from first hand experience. Lots of doors were opening for me recently. But because I was so afraid to miss an opportunity, I was saying yes to everything, worried that if I didn't I wouldn't be able to pay my bills this month. But the funny thing was, I was overwhelmed and exhausted and completely didn't enjoy all the marvelous opportunities coming to me because I didn't trust myself to choose the right one, and more importantly, I didn't trust that I would receive exactly what I needed if I just relaxed and let go of the pushing and pulling and trying to fix my life and make it better!

Just because you have the tools, or the opportunity, doesn't mean you have to say yes to everything. Sometimes, you just have to say thanks, but not right now, and trust that if it's meant to be in your life, it will come to you again at a better time. This is Divine Perfect Timing in practice.

As spirits in bodies, we have free will. This means that as we check in with our higher self to see if an opportunity is in alignment with our dreams, hopes, gifts and skills, we can choose to experience it or not. It's not up to us to do this for others; they have their own free will to choose what works for them or not.

By letting go, being open to receiving the good that is coming to you all the time, and trusting that Divine Perfect Timing is always in operation, you will learn to flow more effortlessly with life and those around you; chaos will dissipate, and serenity will start being the norm, rather than the exception.

You just need to activate a little faith, trust and being open to receiving the good that is waiting for you. Then be willing to sit back and notice how much more gentle and fun your life can be when you learn to go with the flow.