introduction

Introduction:

The most empowering words in this book are these: Healing and Mastery comes as we embrace all that is exactly as it is, while taking complete responsibility for our relationship with it. Learning to sail is no more about changing our "selves" as it is about changing the tides. As we change our relationship with who we are inside, so our outer relationships change, both through shifts in our perception and the choices born of these shifts. Harnessing this power, we can ultimately reach a place where we can consciously create any experience. It is an incremental journey.

I invite you to imagine your world as a vast ocean, responding to the weather and forces of the larger environment. It is the greatest mystery. We can never know for sure what will come next. But there is reasonable assurance that many patterns will repeat themselves. While we can only begin to understand the complex forces that bring about an infinite number of situations, it is ours to learn to tack and sail in the weather that is.

What I have learned is that no one truth or technique can help me sail in all weather. As each new environment presents itself, I learn how to harness what is available to me to crest the next wave and avoid capsizing.

Sometimes we may need to tack against the wind to stay our course, making very little progress. Sometimes we must take our sail down altogether, batten down the hatches, and weather a storm. At other times there is no wind at all and it’s time to get out the oars. Each day is new. What I present here is a hundred methods to sail so that you can explore what works in the conditions around you.

Fair sailing!

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