For the past two years I’ve been on somewhat of an internal roller-coaster ride.
Well, a better analogy would be a hike through a deep forest, filled with its own perils and mountainous peaks and distant beacons of light.
This little journey has been ongoing for more than two years, actually, but it was about two years ago when I had an epiphany about where I wanted to go with my own writing and life as an artist. Initially, I thought about pursuing freelance writing – something I’d only dabbled with outside of my day-job career in journalism and communications – which then led me to explore a bit the world of copywriting.
But something inside nagged at me – this wasn’t the answer.
So, I thought, okay, well, maybe I could try focusing on freelance writing more in the world of journalism where I’m accustomed to working. Magazines, articles, etc. etc. Yes, this sounds great.
Well, not quite. These are all good, but it wasn’t the answer. I was dancing around the real answer, and these solutions were all shadows, so to speak.
In fact, I’ve somewhat moved on from the journalism world (from a news lens, at least) and have focused more on blogging, personal essays, longform articles, and spiritual exploration, among other forms of nonfiction, as well as my own efforts with fiction writing and learning more and more on craft as it relates to fiction.
My point being that each time I’ve tried to “label” or “identify” the place I thought I should be going, I always seem to encounter a massive boulder, or fallen tree that’s blocking my path, and on that tree is a large wooden sign that says “WRONG TURN.”
So, I’ve peeled back layer after layer of myself, trying to find the truth of what I’m really after. And as I’ve done that, I’ve found myself walking down paths I didn’t know existed in the areas of spiritual exploration, art, writing, fiction, and more.
I’ve read a lot of self-help books as a result, many of which are rooted in the spiritual realm, and much of what I’ve read in this vein continues to fuel my inner fire. The idea of manifestation and the “law of attraction,” as many refer to it, has also been intriguing to me, and so I started dabbling into this “thoughts create things” idea, and have been impressed by what I’ve seen and found. Still, there are elements of this that have frustrated me. Yes, everything starts with thought, but that doesn’t mean you can always just think about receiving $100 and it will magically show up (this can certainly happen, but it may not always).
And that’s because of self-imposed blocks. I needed to dig deeper. Another massive tree (or series of them) were blocking my way still, ones I couldn’t see or identify or understand. I needed to get to the root of myself before I could really climb back out of that trench and move forth.
Enter Paul Selig’s book, I am the Word.
I read this just a few weeks ago at the recommendation of a writer friend, who I went to asking for suggestions on books that help provide guidance on fine-tuning one’s intuition. Selig’s book was on the list. It looked intriguing, so I ordered it among a stack of other books. And then I shelved it for a few days. I became frustrated with another book I’d been reading at the time, then felt compelled to pick up Selig’s work, without really understanding what I was about to read, and began.
Now, let me stop here and say that over the past several years I’ve been fascinated with spiritual exploration. I’ve read books by Brian L. Weiss, Michael Newton, Barbara Y. Martin, Mike Dooley, Pam Grout, Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra, and others who focus on meditation, Buddhism, reincarnation, etc. A lot of the material they’ve written would be considered “New Age” or “New Thought” or “Law of Attraction”-esque, I guess. Personally, I don’t care what labels they fall into. These books have come to me in some manner or other that I never chalked up as coincidence. Many of these books have changed my life in some way, some of them have even blown my perception wide open.
I would consider them all to have been primers for what I was about to read in Selig’s work.
This book – I am the Word – is just one of several books Selig has published, all of them “channeled texts.” And what that means is Paul, an author and spiritual medium, sat down to dictate words he channeled from spirit guides.
For those of you who don’t believe in this sort of thing, bear with me. Because the message of this work applies to quite literally everyone, regardless of your beliefs. And certainly I’m not here to preach beliefs one way or another. I have my own beliefs (and yes, I do believe wholeheartedly in this), but I am here to explore and learn, as we all are. And my hope is that I can relay some of the messages, inspiration, and lessons I’ve learned along the way as a writer to others who have a burning desire to create but find themselves blocked by fear, anxiety, self-doubt, or other forms of inner resistance.
In addition to that, what I want to do most is write and publish books, many of them, fiction and nonfiction, and I have ideas for many of them still baking well within me. That’s just one aspect of what I’m working on, of course, but to get anywhere with these efforts, I’ve realized, I need to deal with these inner-blocks, these unidentified trees blocking my path, if you will, before I can get anywhere.
And that’s where Selig’s work blew me away. The words in this book, the guidance provided, was so eerily direct to my own experience, and the results from the “instructions” these guides provide, was so profound and physically palpable, I was quite literally astonished beyond words. In some cases – and I’m not exaggerating here – a thought would come to me I which I’d ask “well, what about this” (whatever “this” would be), and I’d turn the page and that question would be addressed.
In essence, the whole message within this text is about aligning to one’s higher frequency, to one’s higher-self or soul (the guides call it the “Christed self” in the book, you call it whatever you want). The instructions these guides give come in the form of affirmations – I’ve had a tricky past with affirmations. It’s easy to misunderstand or misuse them. For instance, if you say “I’m a millionaire and attract money at all times,” and then you wonder why you’re not a millionaire and money doesn’t flow to you, then you’re going to get frustrated.
But again, these affirmations are about aligning you to a higher frequency – your higher frequency, so that you can start to understand yourself more, respond less to fear, judge less, feel more connected, and actually start to do the things you’ve always wanted to do. As a writer and aspiring published novelist who has been blocked by years of limiting beliefs, self-doubt, and fear, this, I felt, was exactly what I needed. And I’ve just scratched the surface.
I’m still deep in the words of the second volume of this trilogy – The Book of Love and Creation – and there are two books in a subsequent trilogy that I plan to read thereafter. I’m sort of looking at this as a multi-class workshop of soul-alignment and fine-tuning frequency.
Again, you don’t necessarily have to believe where the words are coming from if you focus on the message and the actions.
I wrote the other day about how the final stanza in Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” has become something of a life mantra for me. And that’s true. But there is one phrase within Selig’s books that is becoming a minute-by-minute mantra:
Word I am Word.
Every time I say this, I actually feel a centering take place within me. When I recite the affirmations from this book and focus on the intention and energy within the words, and what they mean, I can actually feel a vibrational shift, and a “lightness” take over, and it moves upward through my back and off my shoulders. It is an incredibly liberating feeling and, based on what I’ve read, it appears this is a common reaction for those who read these words and take them to heart.
My point in all this rambling (and not to put the author on a pedestal here, I’m just incredibly thankful for his work and grateful that I found it) is that, focusing on changing your frequency, focusing on your intent, can mean all the difference if you’re at a crossroads and not sure where to go.
This applies to anything, and it can be especially helpful when it comes to writing. It’s helped me move past a glacier of resistance to blog more, it’s helped me focus more on reading, it’s helped me resume a long-stalled meditation practice, it’s helped me look at my novel-in-progress with less hesitation, and it’s helped me plan out a renewed running regimen that I will begin shortly.
Let me reiterate: It’s only been a few weeks since I’ve started reading Selig’s book, and I have a lot more to read on this front, a lot more to act on, a lot more to learn. This is not something that changes overnight, but I’ve seen near-immediate results from this guidance, and, if you’re willing to approach this with an open mind, by all means, check it out.
You may find that aligning your frequency, even changing it slightly, can make all the difference.
Cheers.
Image via geralt / Pixabay
