You must have the guts to throw off the chains of modesty and mediocrity in order to be the light that the world needs.

To get to this place of a warrior’s courage, we must give up the stories that have ruled our lives and shatter the self-image we created to affirm our story.

We must be willing to take an honest look at ourselves and step out beyond our judgmental mind. It is here that we will have a life-altering shift in perception, an opening of our heart.

The Toltec tradition tells us that we surrender a portion of our life force when we dwell on any unhealed wounding event from our past. The unprocessed emotions surrounding these events burden us and weigh heavily on our hearts. They must be dealt with if we want access to all of our vitality. Ultimately, what we will find is that forgiveness is the key to reclaiming all the life force locked in past hurt.

Jung first gave us the term ‘shadow’ to refer to those parts of our personality that have been rejected out of fear, ignorance, shame, or lack of love. His basic notion of the shadow was simple: ‘the shadow is the person you would rather not be.’ He believed that integrating the shadow would have a profound impact, enabling us to rediscover a deeper source of our own spiritual life. ‘To do this,’ Jung said, ‘we are obliged to struggle with evil, confront the shadow, to integrate the devil. There is no other choice.’

Every day, each of us makes a multitude of choices that will impact our lives...the quality of our choices will dictate whether we will struggle in frustration or live an extraordinary life--the life of our dreams.

Every important choice we make is being guided by one of two places: either it is an act of faith or it is an act of fear. Faith opens the door to a new future.