Yet, truth be told, most days I feel quite alone. I make the effort to reach out and to connect, but I don’t hear or feel the response.

And here’s the truth of the matter: If I were to just focus on the real purpose behind what I do, I wouldn’t have to try so hard at all.

A few weeks ago I interviewed Julien Smith, co-author of Trust Agents and author of The Flinch (which you can get for free on Kindle). He told me that you shouldn’t have to share links to your blog posts on social networks. Your readers should simply share them for you because they like them so much.

That’s actually the truth. And if you are on purpose, if you are writing, working, speaking, networking, whatever,  from your heart, doing what you are meant to do–and doing it well, your message will touch people in a way that makes them want to spread the word. You will get heard and noticed.

You won’t feel like you are working in a vacuum. You won’t feel like you aren’t really communicating.

So, the big question becomes: What’s the real purpose behind what you do? In other words, why do you do what you do? Do you feel a sense of mission? Do you want to help others? Would you like to provide a solution to a problem?

If all you want to do is earn money, accrue a huge amount of cash in the bank, no one will probably listen to you–or share anything that you have to say. You’ll still be all alone at the end of the day.

If you do it just to get more people to like you or to buy your product, you’ll still be alone at the end of the day.

But if you want to give to others, to share your knowledge, to help in some way…that’s different.

The Kabbalists tell us that’s the real purpose of being here–to give, to share. Everything we create should be shared in some way.

So, I’m rethinking what I’ve been doing lately. Getting quieter. Going back to the core purpose behind my actions…trying to fulfill my purpose. Doing what I was meant to do in the way I was meant to do it…and sharing as I go.

It’s easy to get off track in this harried world we live in where we are tethered to our phones and social media, never wanting anyone to forget where we are, what we are doing, where we are going, or what we might be thinking. They might forget us. We might end up alone. We might end up with less friends or followers than someone else. No one might see or hear us. That’s not a good enough reason to keep doing what we do.

What about you? What’s the real purpose behind what you do?

Maybe growth is simply a natural process over which we have no say. I’ve heard that said. However, when we have goals and dreams and we take action towards them, sometimes we do, indeed, cause growth to happen.

The other day I stood  in my driveway prior to going for a walk and looked up at the redwood trees that grow all around my house. They towered over me reaching seemingly to the sky. I wondered how tall I could grow. That tall? As tall as those majestic trees? How big or wide? In my backyard there is a redwood tree that is absolutely huge–bigger and wider than most I’ve seen. And it continues to grow.

I had a dream of who I could become. And I took action to make that dream come true. To stop myself from growing into that person, I’d have to stop nurturing my growth, my dream. I’d have to allow myself to wither up and…well…to fail.

Some days, success feels scarier than failure. But failure at this point would disappoint more people than just me.

I’ve watched the redwood trees go through phases at different times of the year. During the drought of late summer, they drop an enormous amount of needles. It’s as if they draw back into themselves and get rid of what they don’t need to conserve energy. They don’t stop growing, though. Like them, at certain times I have to pull inward and drop things–activities–so I can accomplish what I need to do to keep growing, keep moving forward toward my goals.

At other times of the year, such as in the winter, the trees produce fruit, small cones and berries that drop onto my patio and stain it when it rains. I can hear the birds and insects in the trees eating. The redwoods seems to be sharing what they have to offer, giving away the fruit of their work. At times, I do the same, freely and willingly as I reap the benefits of my progress.

Always, though, I am stretching upward, still growing. And I’m trying to allow my roots to grow deeper, keeping me stable, grounding me. Like the redwoods, I’m also hoping to create a circle of friends around me–a cathedral of those that know me, support me, appreciate my growth, my work, my progress, that encircles me. There the sacred giving takes place…

The giving of what we gain as we grow really is the sacred act. And what better place than in a cathedral? Call it a tribe, a circle, a fan group. It really doesn’t matter.

But as the cathedral grows, I’m pushed to continue growing. And I have to ask myself, “How big, how tall, how wide am I willing to grow? How large am I supposed to grow?” I know there is a Greater Plan for me and I’m just following it, fulfilling my purpose. I wonder if I can fulfill than plan, that purpose.

So I continue to water, to fertilize, to push myself to grow.

How about you? How big, tall and wide are you willing to grow?

What does it matter how the messages arrives and from whom or from what as long as you receive it? The importance lies in the reception of the message.

When I attended the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communication at Syracuse University as a magazine journalism major, we were taught that for communication to happen there had to be someone broadcasting a message and someone receiving it. If no one hears what you say or write or show–or understands it–then communication doesn’t happen.

I often say I receive messages. Where do they come from? Sometimes they are gut feelings–a kind of intuitive knowing. However, I’d define intuition as being tapped into my higher self or my soul and then being able to sense what it is telling me. That part of me is connected to what I would call Source or God. So, I guess I could say at those times I’m actually getting messages from God.

Other times I get messages from the world around me; I suppose these could also be seen as messages from God, the Universe or Source. Or I could just be reading into them what I want to see–need to see. It’s all in your perspective.

Just this week I received a few messages in this manner. I’ve been trying to figure out how to cut back and to focus more on the work-related things that are important to me and to find more balance in my life. I’ve let spirituality and religious practice fall by the wayside over the last few years, as well as human potential and self-improvement study. I want to make time for these. At the same time, I need to increase my activity in several areas of my professional life. I’ve said, “I need to cut back and gear up.”

Interestingly enough, on Friday night I received a call just before Shabbat from a rabbi acquaintance of mine. I’d call him a friend, but we don’t spend time together. We’ve never socialized. I’ve studied with him, and I have spoken with him about a variety of things on numerous occasions. Out of the blue, he called just to say hello because we hadn’t spoken in a long time, and he wanted to wish me a “Shabbat Shalom,” a good and peaceful Sabbath.

I told him about the vision map I’d made for this year, describing how for the first time in many years the professional section was smaller than the personal section. To my surprise, he not only knew what a vision map was, he said, “When I make one or anyone I know makes one, I advise them to put the Hebrew letter ‘hey’ in the middle to represent God. Everything we do always comes back to God.”

Ah. What a great reminder of something I already knew but had forgotten–something I could apply to help me bring spirituality and religious practice into my life fully. Everything–even my work–comes back to God. It flows from God and back to God. My whole life can be about spiritual practice if I have that focus.

A wonderful message. You know what? This rabbi had never before simply called me to chat. Never. Not once. Yet he offered me just the message I needed to hear. I put the hey on my vision map.

The next day I had to do an interview with a best-selling author. I read his book just before the interview and found myself inspired by the message. We had a great conversation, and at the end I told him how I planned to publish different parts of the interview in several places. He asked me, “For how many different places do you write?”

“I have three blogs of my own and two on-line columns,” I replied, actually leaving out two of my blogs.”Then I also write for one magazine at the moment.”

“How do you do it all?” he asked.

“Well, it takes a lot of time, but I’m thinking of cutting back to focus more on my own blogs,” I replied, voicing a thought that had been running around in my head and that had been “feeling” more and more right to me.

“I can see why,” he replied. “That sounds smart.”

Ah. Confirmation? Another message–this time from a complete stranger?

Interestingly, I’d heard the same thing from a colleague earlier in the week–someone who was supposed to help me market my new book (How to Blog a Book). When she found out what all I do, she said maybe the best thing she could do to help me market the book was to help me consolidate what I was already doing.

Hmmm. Twice in one week the same message from people outside my daily life. By the second time, I was really listening. And my gut–my intuition–was agreeing.

I can ask myself questions, too. I receive answers. Is it just me answering? I don’t know. If I intuitively sense that the answers are right, I trust them.

What about you? Do you get messages? How do they show up? Are they in the words or numbers on the license plate on the car in front of you in traffic? Are they visions while you sleep? Are they in links emailed to you by a friend? Or does God speak to you?

It doesn’t really matter as long as you receive them…and heed them. But I’d still like to know about your experience. Leave me a comment.

I wrote my vision and my goals. I created a vision map or board. I set out with good intentions. Nothing. Same ol’, same ol’.

I could blame it on the fact that my daughter is here visiting. That clients called. I had things that got in the way..projects, the need to learn to podcast, interviews to conduct, old work to get handled and out of the way, bills to pay, shopping to do, emails to answer, social media to attend to, etc., etc., etc.

It felt l like 2012 came in with a rush, driving me forward at breakneck speed. That’s how 2011 went out. Why would the new year be any different? I don’t seem to have brakes on this car I’m in. I’m not sure I’m driving. I’m trying to get control.

Here’s the fact: In the first eight days of 2012, I  didn’t keep to the schedule I set as part of my plan. I didn’t do even one of the things I said I would do. Well…I take that back. I did do one thing. I took a bit of time off to spend with my daughter. I relaxed with family. That is on my vision map and in my goals–to find balance in my life between work and personal.

Yay! I made one change. I made it consciously.

Changing habits can prove difficult. Yet, to achieve some new degree of success we must change our old habits. They’ve only gotten us the degree of success we enjoy right now.

Anything can get in the way and become an excuse. For me, getting up early to complete my client work first is a new goal, a new habit, I’d like to form. It’s easy to say I went to bed too late and simply not get up early. It’s easy to answer the phone when it rings during that time period, or to schedule an activity anyway (like walking with a friend, since that’s a goal, too), and to say that’s why I couldn’t meet my goal, make the change, create a new habit.

I find myself saying all too often I just don’t have the time to change, the energy to change. I’ll do it tomorrow or next week.

Well, a week has gone by of this new year…this year that everyone said would be one of such awesome change…when we could affect change in ways heretofore not possible. I, for one, have not found this year much different. It still remains up to me to make the change. (I hear the refrain of some song…I can’t quite put my finger on it…)

Ah, well…the Kabbalists must right. We are simply in transition. We have a long way to go before the predicted time of peace on Earth or the World to Come. (They say not until the year 6,000 on the Hebrew calendar.) Actually, many other people also say we are simply in a time of transition. And it’s likely our consciousness is changing. We can affect change and do so faster, more effectively if we do it in a conscious and focused manner. We don’t need a new year, a new era, a new anything for that.

The trick is to put that lesson–an old one really (and no “secret” either) to use now to create the desired change. For me, I’m starting small–in my life, with my habits. This helps me achieve what I need to achieve and then has a ripple affect, allowing me to affect others through my work.

I’ll go back and focus again on my vision, my goals, my vision board. I’ll work every day to keep on track, making those little changes that end up in new habits formed. By year’s end, I may have achieved a new level of success based upon those new habits.

What about you? How’s it going after the first week of the New Year? Does the energy of 2012 seem to be supporting you? Is change happening in your life or around you?

But there are some other things I do, too. These are not necessarily done on the physical plane…or not all of them. They have more to do with using my mental focus to create what I want in my life. Some of you may find these actions, if you will, somewhat woo woo, metaphysical or spiritual, but some of the most successful athletes, businesspeople and creatives I know use these same steps in one form or another. So, today I thought I’d share them with you.

First, I get very clear about what it is I want to create. For some people, this might be a new job or relationship. For others it could be better health or a new car. Because I work with a lot of aspiring writers, I’m going to use a writing example. Maybe you want to create a career as a writer, a published book (a career as an author), a relationship with an agent, an acceptance by a publication, or something else related to your writing. In this first step, write this down in fine detail, but do so in the present tense (as if you had already manifested what you desire). You can write about it in the past tense, too. Create a clear picture of what you want using words.

The second step often is missing from this process. Consider how your creation–your article, book, career as a writer–will serve others? How can you give to others by getting what you want? Will you donate money to charity? Or will your book or article actually help solve an important problem people have? Can you give the gift of support via your writing? Or can you go a step farther than that? Consider how you will share your creation into the big picture of actually creating it.

Third, read this description of what you want aloud. When you do, instil in it all the feeling you can muster. By feeling I mean all the emotion you would have in this moment if you already had what you want. How would it feel to have just gotten off the phone with your agent, to be holding your published book, to see your article in a magazine, to pay your mortgage with the income you make as a writer? Don’t forget to imagine what it will feel like to share your dream come true with others. Muster up these emotions and combine them with your imagined scenario.

Third, close your eyes and consider what actions will bring  your dream into reality. What must you do? More importantly, what do you feel inspired to do? Or what do you feel intuitively that you must do? Create a to-do list and start taking action to help bring your desire into your experience.

I employ these steps all the time. In particular, I use them when bringing my dreams into reality feels difficult, or when I feel things aren’t going as I’d like.

I call this Kabbalistic conscious creation. It’s similar to other deliberate creation processes, but they tend to not include the aspect of giving. When I teach this, I also speak about the four worlds. You can learn more about this in my book, The Kabbalah of Conscious Creation.

Try the process, and then tell me how it works for you. Leave me a comment, and tell me your results.

This year Chanukah and Christmas fall during the same week. Christmas is about miracles,too–the miraculous birth of Jesus.

It doesn’t really matter if you believe either of these stories are true. Our wisdom teachers–the Kabbalists in particular–tell us that this is a time when we can access the energy of miracles.

As we soak in the light of the Chanukah candles–or any candles–we can become receivers of miracles. Like the oil put into receptacles used to create light, we can make ourselves receptacles for God’s goodness.

Light has always been associated with God. And the Kabbalists say God created us as receivers. We need only open ourselves to that light, allow it in…make room for it in our lives and with ourselves.

How do we do this? I suggest we spend eight days considering the miracles in our lives already. Gratitude is the strongest prayer of all, so why not consider the miracles we already have in our lives, and be thankful for them?  Each night, thank God for a small or large miracle you now experience or have experienced over the last year.

Bask in the glow of miracles.

If you want, you can also imagine the miracles you’d like bestowed upon you in the coming year. Offer gratitude for them–as if God had already graced you with them.

Bask in the glow of these miracles as well.

Eight days of miracles…When you spend more than a week considering miracles, you’ll realize you live a miraculous life all the time. You’ll appreciate the miracle of life and the miraculous nature of God.

That’s the miracle of truly observing Chanukah.

They say the Jewish people are God wrestlers. We don’t always accept God’s word or anything to do with our religion without questions, without wanting to understand why, without pondering the value, the validity, the truth of what we are told or asked to do.

Yet, Jewish, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or some other religion, sometimes we get stuck in fear—fear that if we don’t listen to God’s word, believe every single word we hear and do as those words command—something bad might happen. We might be struck down by lightning, fall from grace, not live another year, not receive God’s goodness. Then we stop wrestling with God.

It takes a lot to move out of that fear and to begin questioning again, wrestling again.

I was pleased this week to find a current example of someone who moved through that fear and began God wrestling—and did so in the public eye. I read in a JTA article that Chassidic reggae musician and singer Matisyahu publicly shaved off his beard and peyes and uploaded a picture of himself clean shaven on Twitter on December 13. Along with it, he posted this message:

“This morning I posted a photo of myself on Twitter.

“No more Chassidic reggae superstar.

“Sorry folks, all you get is me…no alias. When I started becoming religious 10 years ago it was a very natural and organic process. It was my choice. My journey to discover my roots and explore Jewish spirituality—not through books but through real life. At a certain point I felt the need to submit to a higher level of religiosity…to move away from my intuition and to accept an ultimate truth. I felt that in order to become a good person I needed rules—lots of them—or else I would somehow fall apart. I am reclaiming myself. Trusting my goodness and my divine mission.”

The next day, December 14, the JTA ran another story. In it he explained this decision in more detail during an interview WNYC’s Soundcheck. He began growing his beard when he became religious. The decision not to shave was based on a teaching from Kabbalah that the beard is a manifestation of the 13 divine attributes of mercy, he explained. (Learn about the 13 Attributes here.) He feared that if he were to shave the beard, he would no longer be privy to those blessings of mercy.

Recently, however, he asked himself, “How can [God’s mercy] possibly be connected to me shaving or not? And I began, over the last few weeks, I went through a pretty major transformation, probably bigger than any in my life, due to several things, but a lot of revelations and a lot of realizations started coming clear to me, and I realized just like these fears that I have, the idea that God’s mercy is connected to whether I shave or not is ludicrous. And I just need to trust myself, and that if I’m deserving of God’s mercy, I’ll get it regardless.”

That’s a big jump…to trust your own goodness and to trust God to be merciful whether you follow His commandments or not. Orthodox, or observant, Jews, live within the confines of God’s laws, God’s mitzvot. They offer structure. They offer a way of life. They offer a means by which to be a good Jew, a mensch.

Yet, here we see someone coming out of that world and saying, “I think I can be a mensch, I think I can be a good person, a spiritual and religious person deserving of God’s grace and mercy without observing every single mitzvah—every commandment.”

And haven’t those of us who are not that religious wondered what would happen—in the reverse—if I suddenly became more observant? Would God be more gracious, more merciful? Would my prayers be answered?

But maybe it’s simply about being a good person, about being deserving—beard or no beard.

What about you? Do you wrestle with God? Do you question your beliefs? And do you occasionally shave  (or have you ever shaved) your beard—metaphorical or real—to see what might happen?

When I ask most people what makes them who they are right now, they respond, “My past experiences. My education. My environment. My genetics.” These are things that either happened in the past or that you were born with–things you carry with you from the past into the future.

And when it comes to the experiences you had, you made decisions about those experiences that you also take forward with you. In fact, you project them forward into the future. You expect those decisions–those thoughts–to continue being true.  Thoughts like:

• I’m not good enough.
• People don’t like me.
• I should have been a boy (or a girl).
• Men (or women) leave me.
• I never have enough money.
• I’m not worthy of earning more money.
• I make bad decisions.
• I’m unlovable.
• I’m ugly.
• I’m stupid.

With these thoughts projected out into the future–with you expecting them to be true tomorrow, the next day, next week, a month from now–you perpetuate yourself being that same person you believe yourself to be in the future. You recreate the same experiences over and over again, proving to yourself over and over again that you are, indeed, this person.

When you stop expecting to find yourself in that same situation over and over again–expecting to find poof that you are that person, you will stop having those experiences. For this to happen, you have to leave all of these experiences and decisions in the past. Stop bringing them with you into the future.

I learned all of this long ago when I was doing a variety of self-help, personal growth and human potential workshops and seminars, like the Loving Relationships Training. It can be hard to remember these lessons though, when you aren’t around other like-minded people who also know these principles. The other day a colleague invited me to a preview of the Landmark Forum workshops. There I was reminded of this idea.

It made me stop and consider what decisions I made because of past negative events or experiences that I place in my future and then create that same unwanted outcome. If I can become aware of the experience and the thought, or the decision I made about myself, I can then affect my future outcomes, I can begin changing them. If, for example, I believe I am unworthy of earning more than $50,000 per year because I’ve never been paid more than that before and I’ve had many experiences where I was told I would not be paid what I thought I should be paid based on my experience or worth, I can change that thought, that expectation. And I can expect to earn $100,000 per year or more.

By being conscious of the decision made in the past about myself, I can affect my future and change who I become. I can become someone who earns more money.

Byron Katie, an author, says we should always ask if we really know something is true. I would have to ask myself if I really knew it was true that I was unworthy of getting paid more. If I can’t answer, “Yes, it’s true,” then it must be true that I am worthy of getting paid more. So I have to ask myself if this is true. Can I answer yes to that question?

Can you think of a decision you made in your past that is affecting who you are now? Do you know if the decision is based on truth? Can you change your mind so you can affect your future positively?

Yet, I consider the trip one that I must make each year–and that my husband and children must as well. My family is small. My father died when I was seven. Who knows how many years my mother has left to live. I only have two sisters (and a few relatives in Israel).  This family reunion is a time for me to remember the gift of family–even if it doesn’t always feel like a gift.

And this year I am spending it with my two children who now live away from home in New York City. I am grateful to have the holiday to relax and enjoy their company. (I just spent a few days in the city where I had a chance to be with them a bit as well.)

So, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, I find this a time to count my blessings–the blessing of family, first and foremost. I also feel blessed to have the ability to travel across the country from California to see my children and the rest of my immediate family. And I feel blessed and grateful that I can still visit my mother and see my sisters and their families.

In general, I am grateful, and I appreciate that Thanksgiving offers the opportunity to move out of the nasty habit that I, and so many other people I know, have of feeling ungrateful. Instead, we spend some time focusing on gratitude. On thanksgiving. We think about all the large and small things for which we feel grateful.

I was once taught that gratitude is the most powerful prayer one can say. I believe that. Feeling blessed is an expression of gratitude, and in the Jewish tradition we are told to say one hundred blessings a day. Why? So we focus on gratitude…on feeling blessed. Typically, we bless God–an odd thing to do, I suppose. We say, “Blessed are you, God…for the sunset, the food I’m going to eat, my health, my family, this holiday, etc.” We thank God for the wonders we receive. We say, “I’m so blessed to have received this…”

I used to keep a gratitude journal. Every night I wrote down a minimum of five things for which I felt grateful. This practice did not make me feel grateful all day, but it did keep gratitude in my consciousness more often and it made me count my blessings at least once a day.

We don’t have to celebrate Thanksgiving to count our blessings, but it’s a wonderful opportunity to do so. I find that I don’t do so often enough. What about you? Do you count your blessings on a regular basis? If so, how or when? I’d love for you to share with me by leaving a comment.

Happy thanks-giving!

I don’t think anyone really knows what 11-11-11 truly means. That said, I think we can derive a bit of meaning from some of the research that has been done on the occurrence of the number 11 and 11-11 historically. I found a great compilation of data and some analysis of it by none other than Jewish paranormalist Uri Geller. (You can read it here.) He says the number appears as a wake up call, and that when we see it we should take note.

So what should we be taking note of right now? Should we be remembering that the year is coming to a close and it’s time to start reviewing the last year? Or should we being remembering that we as a people very likely are heading toward a major transformation of some sort?

Of course, if we consider the approach of the year 2012 and the fact that many have predicted that the New Year will bring with it a huge change in consciousness that coordinates with the end of the Mayan calendar, which ends then, I begin to think about what new type of world we will discover, what new word will be created–or we will create, at that time.

The Kabbalists would say that we have been in transition and will continue to be in transition for some time to come. The change of consciousness is, indeed, happening, but the major change expected after January 1 is actually a long time off. The Hebrew date of Cheshvan 14, 5772, or November 11, 2011, is 228 years from the time the Kabbalists expect drastic changes in consciousness.  But maybe today is the day the change begins to be felt, the day we begin to truly see the new world, what Jews call the World to Come  and Christians call Heaven on Earth, beginning to take shape.

Why do I say this? Reportedly, Hebrew Scriptures place September 11, 1999 as the 6,000th anniversary of Adam’s creation and year 1 on the Hebrew calendar. If this is true, maybe today is the day a new human being is created and the new calendar actually begins–not on January 1. Could this be true, at least on a spiritual level? It’s worth considering.

It’s worth considering at least for 11 seconds at exactly 11:11 a.m. on 11-11-11 and again at 11:11 p.m. on 11-11-11. Don’t you think?

Or maybe it’s just the day that you create a new you, that you take on a new consciousness, that you begin to prepare for the new year if not for a new age. That, too, too might be worth considering at least for 11 seconds at exactly 11:11 a.m. on 11-11-11 and again at 11:11 p.m. on 11-11-11. Don’t you think?

Geller says 11:11 is a positive sign whenever we see it–on a clock radio, a hotel door, the odometer of your car, the columns in front of your house. See today’s date as just that–a positive sign that it’s time to wake up. Have you been sleeping, sleep walking through life? Just becoming more awake will change your perspective, your consciousness. That’s also worth considering at least for 11 seconds at exactly 11:11 a.m. on 11-11-11 and again at 11:11 p.m. on 11-11-11. Don’t you think?

Not surprisingly, from a Kabbalistic standpoint, the numerology of today’s date also points to the beginning of the new age: the arrival of the World to Come or Heaven on Earth. If you add up all those ones (1+1+1+1+1+1), you come up with the number 6. Six equates to Tiferet on the tree of life. Tiferet is the domain of beauty, harmony, artistry, gracefulness, synergy, peace, blessing, and balance.  It can be best described as many voices blending together in beautiful harmony; it’s the opposite of discord. Sounds a bit like peace on earth, no? A bit like heaven?

That’s something to think about, to pray about, for at least 11 seconds at exactly 11:11 a.m. on 11-11-11 and again at 11:11 p.m. on 11-11-11. Don’t you think?