Invisible Acts of Power: Channeling Grace in Your Everyday Life

221 Pages·2016·2.01 MB·English

by  Caroline Myss

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Contents
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
I
NTRODUCTION
PART I
THE STAGES OF POWER
CHAPTER 1
Grace, Intuition, and Power
CHAPTER 2
From Visible to Invisible Power
PART II
THE JOURNEY TO EMPOWERMENT
CHAPTER 1
Gifts of the Earth
CHAPTER 2
Gifts of Financial and Creative Support
CHAPTER 3
Gifts of Self-Esteem
CHAPTER 4
Gifts of the Heart
CHAPTER 5
Gifts of Choice
CHAPTER 6
Gifts of Wisdom
CHAPTER 7
Gifts of the Spirit
CHAPTER 8
Invisible Facts of Power
About the Author
I
NDEX
To David Smith, a dear friend and colleague, with heartfelt gratitude
Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to the many people who contributed their letters to this
book. While I was unable to use the more than twelve hundred wonderful
stories submitted by all these gracious individuals, rest assured that their
spirit and their influence is on every page of this book. I can never thank
these individuals as much as they deserve, for they have changed my own life
more than I can say, as I hope they will change yours.
And to my forever editor, brilliant Leslie Meredith, my boundless
gratitude, love, and appreciation for being my “creative mate” for more than
ten years. Without the support of an editor who has a soul filled with vision,
dedication to our projects, and faith in their outcome, this book, among all
the others we have done together, would not have turned out to be such an
inspiration. My heartfelt love and appreciation also goes to Ned Leavitt, my
agent, for his constant support of this book along with all my other ideas. He
is indeed a patient man. And my great thanks to Dominick Anfuso, Editorial
Director, who is such a positive and warm person to have on the Free Press
creative support team, and Martha Levin, my champion and Publisher;
Suzanne Donahue, Associate Publisher; Carisa Hays, Director of Publicity;
and Cassie Dendurent Nelson, Publicity Manager.
My dear sister-in-law, Amy, who has become my sister, deserves more
than my love and thanks for her devotion to my work. She supplies all the
organizational skills I will never have and a dedication to perfection and
details that allowed me to relax into the creative process. She is a right hand,
a colleague, and a trusted friend.
Tami Simon, owner of Sounds True Productions in Boulder, Colorado,
deserves more than my thanks for converting the text of this book to an
audio series.
I have a dear and precious circle of friends, all of whom helped so much with
their insights and support, whom I thank so very much with deep love and
affection: Michael Gluck, Mary Neville, Penny Tompkins, Donald McKay,
Penny Simon, Chandra Sammons, Lynn Bell, Jim Curtan, Pat Pilkington,
Dawn Jiosi, Charles and Sue Wells, Barbara Porter, Kathy Musker, Ingrid
Williams, Meryl Martin, Prentiss Prevette, Maureen Connolly-King, Sue
Marco, and Peter Occhiogrosso. I also thank Andy Bettis for the use of his
office and computer while in Findhorn, Scotland, during the final, desperate
days of working to meet the deadline. My gratitude also goes to Ted
Falkiewicz, Peter Harlan and Gail Prauss, who organized their activities and
schedules around mine in order to support the demands of my writing
schedule.
And with great love and devotion I thank my Earth Angels, without
whom life would be a very difficult journey: my mom and my brother, Ed.
Some people you love more than can be measured in words. I could never
adequately describe how much my mother and my brother mean to me. I am
blessed with a wonderful and loving family that also includes these Earth
Angels: my dear friend, Donald Meshirer, my cousins, Pam and Andy
Kruzel, Marilyn and Mitch Kaminski, Colleen Daley, and Chris and Richard
Witek, who never cease to be a positive force in my heart and spirit. My
nieces and nephews, who showed up late at night with “instant message”
support, checking in to see how “Auntie” was doing, are more loved and
appreciated by me than they will ever know: Angela, Allison, Joe, Rachel,
Sarah, and Eddie. And finally, my creative Earth Angels who share the day-
to-day rigors of my life and help me to succeed and survive the demands of
my life: my business colleague and dear friend, David Smith, and my devoted
assistant, Judy Haskett, who has been with me for years. Without Judy, my
professional life would be even more ungrounded and chaotic than it is.
Again, with the deepest thanks and so much love, I thank each of you once
more.
Introduction
When I was growing up Roman Catholic, we were bilingual in English and
angels. Miracles could happen every day. The invisible power of angels and
saints was everywhere and their existence was a given, a fact, ordinary. It
would have been unthinkable not to believe in them.
Every day was a saint’s day and gave us the opportunity to recognize the
importance of a particular virtue or energy that each saint embodied. We
regularly invoked the saints’ and angels’ strengths: St. Jude gave us the
courage to face impossible causes; St. Anthony helped us notice and find lost
objects; St. Francis protected our animals and taught us compassion for all
life. Even as an adult, when I was selling my home recently and wanted to
make it go as fast as possible, I borrowed a statue of St. Joseph from a close
childhood friend and, according to tradition, buried it upside down in the
backyard. Say what you will, but my house sold within days of that little
ritual.
For some of us children, the angels and saints were our first brush with
invisible power. These nonphysical beings peopled our spiritual world and
surrounded us with their support. We were never alone, and when we called
or prayed to them, they always answered. They were our first spiritual
community. Their lives modeled the power of faith—proof that no physical
force on earth, from political oppression to illness, could defeat heaven.
To this day, the saints and angels are invisible forces in my life. Yet I also
have a faith in an even greater power: the energy, or grace, that animates our
seemingly impersonal but intimately interconnected universe. We receive
infusions of grace on a daily basis, but in the middle of the everyday tasks of
making a living and taking care of our family and friends, we can miss its
subtle power. Grace holds together the whole of our life—and all of our lives
collectively. It watches over us and will come to our aid if we ask.
Many times I have wished that I could convince others to have faith in
this immeasurable, invisible force that surrounds and protects us. I feel
profound bliss in knowing that even in the direst times, our prayers are
heard and answered. I have seen and experienced far too many miracles to
believe otherwise. Like you, I’ve had to move mountains in my personal and
professional life. Whenever I am striving mightily on my own, pushing and
getting nowhere, I usually realize that it’s time to step back and remember
that, “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this
mountain, / Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove.” As the Tao
Te Ching also advises, “Do your work, then step back. The only path to
serenity.” Nothing is impossible for you when you have faith—in yourself
and in your purpose.
Faith is an active force—not a passive one—an invisible power, like love.
It is not simply a belief in goodness, it is a belief put into action in the
present moment. In the ancient Hindu belief system, faith also conveys
protection, by giving us trust and confidence in the rightness of what we are
doing. Faith enables us to have a positive attitude and hope even in the face
of seemingly irreversible setbacks.
God works anonymously—invisibly—through these powers of faith, love,
and grace. Perhaps this is because we humans are too meddlesome to be
trusted with a direct divine intervention. Remember that mortals in ancient
mythology who looked directly at a god (who was not disguised in an earthly
form) went blind or mad from the sight. God frequently sends divine grace
through human agents who perform nonrandom acts of kindness.
As I often tell the people who study spirituality and intuition with me in
my workshops, we are all born here to go to Earth School. We’re on this
planet to learn to be spiritual beings in a physical body, to gain consciousness
of our greater purpose. Life on Earth is all about learning to manage your
power. So this book is a course in Earth School about managing your
personal power in a way that enhances your own spiritual growth, while also
contributing to the evolution of the people around you—and to the entire
global soul.
Giving and receiving are learned arts. As children, we first learn to give
and to receive in visible ways—we’re fed, clothed, and sheltered and we learn
to feed, clothe, nourish, and care for others. As we mature, we undertake
other vital acts of caring—we serve as listeners to our friends and loved ones;
we encourage them and pray for them; we grow in our effectiveness in the
world and learn to help and empower others.