As we share with each other the insights and processes that have helped us grow, we inspire and empower others. This is the purpose and foundation of this group.

We welcome you and look forward to hearing from you.


Please share your inspiration and insights with us. Let us know what has helped you awaken to the truth of who you really are. You never know who your comments might help. :)

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow?
With the seeds of desire
Planted in faith,
Watered with gratitude, and
Fertilized with expectancy.
Then in due time,
Each plant according to its season,
My garden bursts with life.
The harvest comes like a miracle
Almost over night.
I never question when I plant
If seeds will sprout
Or flowers bloom
Or plants will bear their fruit.
For it is the way of nature
That what I plant sprouts
And what I water grows
And plants that grow,
In their time,
Surely must bear fruit.

The level of spiritual awareness of one person effects that of the people around them, the community they participate in, and even humanity as a whole. As individuals awaken to a higher understanding of reality, they actually change the reality that others experience and contribute to their awakening. The results are exponential.

Like expanding ripples in a pond when a stone is tossed in, heightened awareness spreads outward in all directions from each awakened individual.

We may seek greater spiritual understanding for our own satisfaction or to fulfill an inner drive, but in the process we touch everything in a way that blesses, supports and uplifts all life.

I'd like you to meet an amazing woman who is a powerful inspiration to many others. I promise her story will move you.
HotChocolate for the Spirit

"My name is Shannon Nelson. I am an auntie, a friend, a former dental assistant, a student, and I also happen to be a quadriplegic.
A good friend of mine and I decided to create this website after a remarkable experience. We just knew that we couldn't keep something that exceptional to ourselves, knowing that it would bring real hope to countless people who, like myself, live with chronic pain.
Even though I do like the word "inspiration", I would like to think that this website is going to be more useful and helpful than inspirational.
I broke my neck in the Summer of 1995. I have been a quadriplegic ever since. Despite my disability, I enjoyed relatively good health for a few years after my accident (although I was emotionally distraught for about a year).
I started having serious health problems (such as recurrent bladder infections) in late 1999. Since my body cannot handle pain as a regular person's would, it goes into a state called dysreflexia: my blood pressure goes sky high, my head feels like it's going to explode, and my heart feels like it's going to jump out of my chest.
By 2001, I could no longer handle the frequent hospitalizations, and following my doctor's advice, I had bladder surgery. The infections stopped, but the pain persisted. In addition, I also started to experience severe lower back pain. Within months, I was no longer able to get up in my wheelchair, I was completely bedridden. I fell into a deep depression.
I have been prescribed pain medication after pain medication. I was even given botox injections in my back to paralyze the muscles that were shooting off pain. Nothing worked. My doctor finally told me that there was nothing else that could be done for me, and that I should "learn how to live with pain". Talk about a life sentence!
My best friend started looking into alternative medicine out of desperation. She spent countless hours doing thorough research on every promising option (by the way, she and I are very skeptical of anything that cannot be scientifically proven). After a few weeks of intense research, she decided to order a book called "The Biology of Belief" by Dr. Bruce H. Lipton. She read the author's background and found out that he was a world-renowned cellular biologist (not just a wishful thinker). Reading Dr. Lipton's book is how I came to understand that our thoughts create our feelings and our feelings create our health. Even though it did shake me to the core, and despite all the scientific evidence presented in the book, I was still somewhat skeptical (believe me, it's not easy to become hopeful overnight after a decade of misery).
The next book we read was "The promise of energy psychology" by David Feinstein, Donna Eden and Gary Craig. We found it enlightening! We ended up ordering additional information about energy medicine, especially EFT (emotional freedom techniques). We put it to the test and we were simply amazed...
I am not going to tell you that you can get rid of physical and/or emotional pain overnight with energy medicine and/or energy psychology, it is a process; but I can share with you how it is helping me. Before energy medicine and energy psychology, I was taking Hydrocodone (a powerful painkiller) 3 times a day, the side effects were horrible beyond description. After a few months of applying EFT and other forms of energy medicine --such as Reiki-- on a regular basis, I gradually stopped taking pain medications and anti-depressants altogether. Needless to say, I am no longer bedridden or depressed.
In no way am I suggesting that you should replace your medications and/or medical treatments for energy medicine. I actually owe my life to modern medicine. I wouldn't have survived breaking my neck in a country that is not up-to-date with spinal cord related injuries. What I am suggesting is that you don't have to give up when traditional medicine doesn't seem to be helping. There is a place for every form of healing.
I am still in the process of becoming healthy again; but for me the fact that I can be pain-free and depression-free without the aid of prescription medications is simply miraculous. Plus my mental attitude has dramatically changed. While I still have break-through pain every once in a while, I no longer feel like a victim. I now know that virtually every physical ailment is the result of unresolved emotional trauma. I am currently working on my own list of unresolved emotional issues, one at a time. The more closure I bring to an old issue, the better I feel. I strongly believe that forgiveness played a crucial role in my recovery."

Please visit Shannon at the above link and sign her guest book. If she has inspired or motivated you in some way, tell her. Share the love!

Sacred Living
Do you have a special place in your home that inspires peace and draws your attention to spirit? Maybe a certain place where you meditate regularly or curl up with a good book? People have said for years that we should all have such a place somewhere in our home. I thought, "Yeah, that's a great idea, but right now I don't have any place to do that." I've been saying that to myself for years. Someday I would have a sacred space, but not now, not here.

Well, I finally did it! It started with just wanting to hear the water flowing in a fountain I had out front. I moved inside where I could hear it. Then I thought it looked out of place, stark and barren, so I put a plant next to it, and another, and another. The next thing I knew, I had a beautiful focal point right in my living room. It's across the room from my desk, where I practically live, so I can see it frequently throughout my day. I also do Tai Chi and Yoga in this room. (It's a wide, open space). Those are great spiritual practices to begin with, but now I do them listening to the water and looking at the beauty and grace in front of me.

I felt inspired to bless the space and see it as a sacred place, serving the purpose of bringing my attention to God, to Spirit, to Life. Meditating in front of it felt more intense and natural. It has also brought an increase in the sense of peace and harmony throughout my home. Everyone is benefiting from it. My 4-yr-old went over and laid down on the floor in front of the fountain and let out a long sigh. What a wonderful gift it is for me to have such a special place right in my own home!

You can create an inspiring and soothing space like this in your home, too. Use your imagination and think of the things that bring you peace and make you feel connected to life. Arrange them in the way that feels right to you. Then bless your sacred space and give yourself the time to enjoy it. You'll be amazed at how much it affects your whole day.

Any place can be sacred, if you decide that it is. Anywhere that we are when we place our attention on God, is sacred. Every moment in which we allow Love and Light to fill our heart is sacred. With a little imagination and practice, we can make every moment and every space in our lives a place where Love and Light are experienced and expressed. Then, we will be living sacred lives.

How can we contribute to the healing of others, humanity, and the Earth? It begins in our own heart, with the desire to help, to heal, and to uplift others. This desires comes from the place in us that knows that we are all one and that we can live in joy. There is something within each of us that wants to serve, to be a blessing to others and to the world. We can answer that ancient longing with the choices we make today.

Whatsoever we do to another, we do to ourselves. The reverse is also true. When we are critical or demeaning to ourselves, it affects everyone. With this in mind, we know that we must love ourselves if we are to love others. We must heal our own hearts so that we can help others heal theirs. When we remember that we are Love and Light, we can support others in remembering that they too are Love and Light.

If we are speaking, or even thinking, negative words about someone else, we not only bring that person down, but also ourselves. Guard your thoughts and your words with all diligence. Make a conscious determination to be supporting of the highest good in others and in yourself. Remind yourself often that every single person is a little piece of God, a perfect soul made of Love and Light, working through the illusions of limitation and separation. Have compassion for the struggles of others, but do not see them in weakness or lack. Focus your mind on the Love and Light that is the truth of who they are.

Our words and thoughts about others touch that person. We can either help them realize more of their beautiful truth, or we can support the illusions of pain, lack, loss, fear, weakness, helplessness, and disease. Seeing or speaking of another as any of these conditions only prolongs the condition because we are supporting the condition with our own energy. We cannot help anyone heal by focusing on what's wrong, but only by focusing on what's right.

Imagine others as whole, healthy, wise, and happy. Do the same for yourself. If we dwell on the problem, we support the problem and perpetuate it. We must be in the solution in order to see it manifest. The same is true of conditions in the world and of the health of our planet. Keeping our minds on war supports war. Celebrating where there is peace supports and increases peace. The more disease, weakness, pain, and helplessness that we see in another, the more crucial it is to hold them in the highest light. They need the support of our healing heart, the heart that sees the truth in them, not the illusion.

The old idea of great spiritual masters or seekers was one of giving up all worldly possessions and personal relationships to live a stark life in a cave or the wilderness. People have long thought that a spiritual person can't be wealthy and a wealthy person can't be spiritual. Why not? Why does being a deeply spiritual person mean you can't have wealth? It doesn't. In fact, the opposite is true. If we develop our spirituality deeply, worldly wealth will naturally come to us. The inspiration, guidance, and opportunities to create wealth will come to us. This is as it should be because in our world, it takes money to live, to care for others, and to help those who need it.

A Healthy Money Relationship
We've heard for years, "Money is the root of all evil. Rich people have no character. If you're wealthy, you must be arrogant, selfish, and ruthless." These have been accepted beliefs for centuries. Many of us may still hold these beliefs in our unconscious without even realizing it. If there is a bit of these beliefs in us, we cannot have a positive experience of money in our lives.

A healthy relationship with money begins with correcting our beliefs about it. If we resent or criticize wealthy people, we push money and wealth away. Money flows where it is made welcome. It is Divine energy, expressing itself as currency. As such, it is inherently Divine, not evil. How it's used is an expression of the individual, not of money itself. If you want to have a positive experience of money then you must have a positive attitude toward it. Since all things come from God, are created of God, then money must also be of God. How then can it be bad?

When you hold money in your hand, feel gratitude for its presence and the roll it plays in your life. It is a tool, here for you to use. Its purpose is to flow through our lives. Clinging to it or hoarding money stops the flow. If it isn't flowing out, it isn't flowing in. Let it flow through you. Share what you have, with love, knowing that in giving (or spending) you are assisting money in fulfilling its purpose. In the process, you open yourself to allow money to flow into your life. You become part of the Divine purpose of this Divine energy that we see expressed as money.

Keep some form of cash where you will see it often. Every time you look at it, bless it and give thanks for it. Not just for that one piece of currency, but for all money. When you bless your money, bless all money. This will help you develop a positive relationship with money that will result in an increase of it flowing through your life. When money comes to you, don't be ashamed of it and don't cling to it. Rejoice in the blessing and share a portion of it with others. Your gratitude for and blessing of money will attract it to you in increasing quantity. It is up to you to use it wisely. Remember that money is a tool. Use it to bless others and you will find that it also blesses you.

May you be richly blessed!

I created two videos that you may find useful. The first helps to heal our beliefs and attitudes about money. The second assists in the awakening of our higher consciousness.

I can't put videos on this page so I have to redirect you to my regular lenses. You can see the videos on Who is Jacqueline Stone?, After The Secret, or Conscious Change.

Choosing Freedom
I know that I am supposed to forgive everyone everything because resentment only hurts the one who holds it. That is so much easier said than done. One of the disciples asked Jesus, "Lord, how many times should I forgive? Seven times?" Jesus told him to forgive 70 times 7. The point was not the number, but that we should continue to forgive without limits. That reminds me of an old saying, "The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." I don't know who said it or what he was referring to. It does express how I feel about total, unconditional, unlimited forgiveness. Am I, as a mere mortal, even capable of it? I don't think God expects of us anything that we are not capable of, so it must be possible for me to forgive unconditionally, without limit.

There are many processes and practices for forgiving those who have hurt us, and to forgive ourselves. I have personally used several of them. The problem is that I continue to resent certain people, and it is my problem. I can easily justify all of them, if I choose to. I can decide to keep and simmer in my justified resentments because they are mine. That doesn't sound like a very wise choice, does it? Resentment weighs on us like a backpack full of rocks. It also prevents us from receiving the good that we desire. That is worth repeating. Resentment is a barrier that prevents us from receiving the good we desire.

When we hold resentments in our heart and mind, our hearts are blocked from receiving. It's like the mote around a castle that prevents anyone from coming in, or the walls around a fortress. Resentment is a darkness that thrives only in the presence of negative thoughts and emotions. We feed it when we think of our anger and judgment toward others. The more we nourish the dark energy of resentment with our negative thoughts about others, the bigger it gets. The wall between us and our good becomes an impenetrable force. Joy does not live in this environment.

O.K. We understand that resentment is bad for us. Now, what do we do about it? I believe I need to search my heart for my negative feelings toward others. I need to decide that I am done being angry. I have to make a conscious choice to let go of my resentments and judgments. Not just once, but daily. I have had 47 years of practice at holding onto and justifying resentments and I've gotten really good at it. It is an unconscious, automatic behavior. It will take more than a few days or weeks to correct this behavior. I have to pay attention to my thoughts about others and stop judgment in its tracks. If I can stop the judgment, I can prevent the resentment and subsequent justification.

In the process of changing this destructive, limiting behavior, I have to be diligent, yet gentle with myself. It will do me no good to forgive everyone else but not myself. With all that I am, I want to change. I want it so much that I am willing to do whatever it takes. The clarity to understand what I am doing to myself with judgment and resentment is a gift. It is the opportunity I needed to make real, lasting change. Now, it is up to me to practice forgiveness and release every day. This has to be a top priority if I am going to be free from this burden.

Ho'Oponopono is one of the best practices for forgiveness. I used it for a while when I first learned about it, but it became a chore and I stopped doing it. One day, I didn't feel like forgiving someone and resentment got a foothold. After a few days of not feeling like forgiving, I stopped my daily practice. I was once again a prisoner of resentment, judgment, and justification. My attitude toward my practice of daily forgiveness has to remain positive so that I continue to do it. Even when I don't feel like forgiving someone, especially when I don't feel like it, I must practice forgiveness everyday. I have to remember why I'm doing it. I want to be free. I want to live in joy, not anger or bitterness. I want to be free from the burden and open enough that joy comes easily and naturally. Do I want that joy and freedom bad enough to do whatever it takes? Yes, I do!

Its been said that acceptance is the key to all our problems, but what does that really mean? How are we supposed to accept everything? Does that mean that we don't ever fight against of for anything? Are we to be doormats, letting others take advantage of us, in order to be at peace? No, I don't think that's how it works.

Acceptance is the opposite of resistance, but it is not giving in to injustice or giving up on creating change. In fact, we can't change anything until we accept the way it is as what is. With acceptance, we can say, "This is the way it is. I don't like it or think its right, so I'm going to change it." While we are in resistance, fighting against what is, our mind and energy is languishing in the problem. No problem can be resolved with the same energy that created it, so we need to get out of the problem. That doesn't mean that we ignore it and hope that it goes away. It doesn't mean that we pretend the problem doesn't exist. That's avoidance, not acceptance.

When we accept a condition as being what it is, we have the opportunity to turn our attention to possible solutions. Some times, its not a matter of solving a problem, but of learning from the unfavorable condition. Our greatest strides in personal growth often come through our greatest challenges. While we struggle against the challenge, unable to accept it, we prolong the condition and delay our blessing. There is always a blessing at the end of the challenge, but we can only get to the blessing, the gift, when we accept the challenge and start looking for how we can benefit from it.

Getting to the point of acceptance of what is is a great beginning, but we need to go further. We're not talking about begrudging acceptance here. We need to get to joyful acceptance. In order to do that, we must believe that there is something good in all that is happening. Now lets take it one step further. True acceptance includes blessing all that is, as it is. Bless the gift, even when you can't see a gift in the situation. It is there, but we often don't perceive the blessing until after we have overcome the challenge. Give thanks for that blessing now. Bless the situation, as it is, knowing that it will in some way bless you.

When you bless what is, you cease to resist it; you cease to judge it. At that point, you can gracefully move through it fairly quickly. When you bless a situation or condition, you are immediately empowered to change it because you are no longer fighting against it. You don't have to know what the blessing in it is to bless something. Just believing in your heart and mind that there is indeed a gift in it is enough to release you from judgment and resistance.

Try blessing your struggles. Bless your relationships. Bless your job and co-workers. Bless the traffic. Just try it and see what happens. Watch how you feel. Then you can decide how you want to react to the conditions in your life.

Being Light, I perceived it not. Therefore, let me bless the darkness, that through it I may see the Light.

When someone has hurt us, or someone we love, it's easy to judge that person as bad, mean, or even evil. This may be a normal reaction, but it is not a healthy one. Our judgment of others binds us to them with invisible chains that time and distance cannot break. Those chains are built with anger, resentment, regret, blame, and fear. These are very powerful emotions that can eat away at us from the inside out.

As we make an effort to become more peaceful, joyful, and free, we know that we must let go of judgment; but how? Fighting against anything only ties it more tightly to us. Telling ourselves not to do a thing makes us think of it even more. Negative feelings cannot be changed by thinking about negative feelings. The key is conscious replacement of what we think and feel.

In order to free ourselves of the chains of judgment, and other negative states of heart and mind, we must turn our attention to that which heals. Unconditional love is the highest state we can reach for, but it may be difficult for most of us to attain right away. There are steps we can take to get there that will heal us along the way. Gratitude is a great place to start. The more we focus on what we are grateful for, the less we will think of what disturbs us. Joy is a healthy place to be and the best place to create from and gratitude can get us to joy. We cannot be grateful and hateful at the same time.

Another benefit of gratitude is the increase in our awareness of things to be grateful for. By giving thanks, our attention is drawn to more and more of the things that bless our life. As our ability to appreciate increases, our ability to forgive and let go of what does not bless us also increases. Joy, love, and gratitude become our natural state. We begin to feel freer and lighter because we have stopped dwelling on and holding onto perceived injustices against us. The chains of judgment will fall away as we neglect them in favor of seeking out the good in all things.

Turn away from that which hurts you, limits you, and keeps you in bondage. Turn instead to light, to joy, to beauty, and to love. Keep your heart in gratitude and you will be free.

Original Rejection
Everyone knows what it feels like to be rejected. We can recount numerous tales of being rejected and clearly see the people who rejected us. It hurts. People naturally want to feel connected, accepted, and a part of. Many of us have done embarrassing things in our past because we wanted acceptance and approval. It began with our parents and desperately wanting them to love us and approve of us. Or did it? Most religious people believe that the original rejection was God kicking Adam and Eve out of the Garden of Eden. They believe that all of humanity has been separated from God ever since.

What if original rejection was not something that anyone did to us, but a choice that we made? Think about that for a minute. Didn't Adam and Eve make the choice to do something that would get them expelled from paradise? Why would they do that? What could they possibly gain? Knowledge, through experience. Adam and Eve lived in perfect paradise, but they did not experience it as being better than anything else. They didn't know anything else. The wonderful could not be experienced as wonderful without the contrasting experience of something not wonderful. So, who rejected who?

I use the story of Adam and Eve because it is familiar to so many, and to bring our mind back to the point of coming into the illusion of separation. Separation is an illusion because that which is part of the whole cannot be separate from the whole. God could not send us away from God because we are all part of God. The illusion of separation gives us the opportunity to experience contrasts and make choices. The downside of this illusion is the hurt, emptiness, and loneliness that we feel as a result of believing that we are apart from our source. There is a part of us that remembers incomprehensible love, perfect peace, and unspeakable joy. It longs to be back in that "heaven." It is the pull that we feel toward God, the Divine, the Mystery, to something more than what we can experience here on Earth.

Believing that we were rejected by God establishes an unconscious belief that we are in some way "bad." From early childhood, we learn to earn love and acceptance, to work for approval. We are trained and taught that we must work very hard to be good enough. Most of us go through life feeling that we never are quite good enough. This sets up all kinds of negative self-beliefs and patterns. Look at the violence and addictions in the world and you will see the result of living in these beliefs. People are hurting so much from believing that they are isolated, abandoned, and inherently bad that they reach for anything to relieve the pain or act out in violence against others.

God did not reject you. God has rejected nothing and no one. All is part of God, always was, and always will be. YOU are part of God, of All That Is. You need not earn God's love, approval, or acceptance. It is yours by your very existence.

Now, let's get back to rejection. Most people have felt that they don't belong here; that they would rather be somewhere else. People want to be in paradise, or heaven. Life can be painful and frightening. We resist life and fear life. We withhold our energy, our love, not wanting to commit fully to being here. What if we put all that we are into living this life and then can't get back to where we came from? What if loving this life and immersing ourselves in it takes us so far from heaven that we can never go back? Do these questions bring up a feeling of sadness in your heart? You are not alone. Many people have these questions in their unconscious mind, preventing them from committing to this life. Here is the original rejection. It is us, rejecting this life. It is very common for children to feel that they do not want their parents, do not feel like they belong in their family, and just don't want to be there. They grow up to feel out of place everywhere they go. No matter where they are, they feel like they don't belong there.

This may not be true of you, but it may help you understand someone in your life. People who always feel rejected are experiencing the reflection of their own rejection of life. They have so much resistance to life that they cannot fully enjoy it. Good things may come to them, but they find away to push them away.

We have the power to change our beliefs and the way we experience life. It begins with recognizing that this life is not a punishment; it is a gift. Living this life is a gift of love, given out of immense love for us. Loving our lives and putting everything we are into them does not mean that we don't love God and cannot separate us from God. Think of a precious gift that you give to someone you love with your whole being. Don't you want them to open it up, to examine it, to use it, and to fully enjoy it? How much more does God want us to enjoy the gift given to us? What better way to show our appreciation for the gift than to live our lives with all that we are, committed to full participation? When we begin to realize that our life is a gift of love, given out of immeasurable love for us, our heart can overflow with gratitude. We begin to see just how wonderful this world and this life are. Every moment can be an incredible experience and every day another gift just waiting to be unwrapped and played with. Embrace your life. It is yours to enjoy.