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Living A Course in Miracles

Healing In Career & Creativity Week 3 Class

Tama Kieves & Jennifer Hadley

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Living A Course in Miracles

Tama Kieves & Jennifer Hadley

Healing In Career & Creativity................................................................................... 4

Opening Remarks...........................................................................................................4

Opening Prayer ..............................................................................................................4

Are You Standing In The Way Of Your Success?...........................................................5

A Course In Miracles Is The Basis For Everything ...........................................................7

Desire Is The Holy Spirit Speaking .................................................................................8

How Fantasy Gets In The Way.....................................................................................10

Do I Know My Own Best Interests? ..............................................................................12

What Is Inspired Success? ............................................................................................14

Paying Attention To How You Feel .............................................................................17

Giving Is Where The Overflow Is..................................................................................19

Success Comes In The Middle.......................................................................................21

The Ego Is Coming From Lack......................................................................................22

Inspired Self-Dialogues.................................................................................................25

Taking Limitations And Reaching Higher ...................................................................27

A Reading from Inspired & Unstoppable ........................................................................28

Inspired Success Launch You Kit .................................................................................29

Closing Prayer..............................................................................................................31

Copyright © 2012 by Reverend Jennifer Helen Hadley.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the written permission of the publisher.

Published by JenniferHadley.com. Printed in the United States of America.

For more inspiration to live a life of love, visit www.JenniferHadley.com.

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Tama Kieves & Jennifer Hadley 4

Week 3

Healing In Career & Creativity Tama Kieves & Jennifer Hadley Thursday, September 20, 2012

Opening Remarks

Jennifer Let’s go. Okay. We begin with that breath of gratitude. And I, for one, am so grateful that our teacher, our guide, is the beautiful Tama Kieves.

Tama’s a new friend of mine and she’s a very successful author of two books, This Time I Dance and her latest book which just came out a few weeks ago.

It’s already a bestseller. It came out as a bestseller because so many people wanted to get the book even before it was out, including myself. And it’s called Inspired & Unstoppable: Wildly Succeeding in Your Life’s Work.

This is Tama’s expertise. She’s going to help us have a healing in our career and creativity. Thank you so much for being with us, Tama.

Tama Oh, I am so grateful. I think it’s the most important topic, or certainly one of the most important topics we could ever, ever discuss.

Opening Prayer

Jennifer Yes, now’s the time for us to share our gifts and talents. Let’s begin with a prayer.

I'm going to invite everyone to place their hand on their heart and take this holy breath with me as we consciously breathe in love and breathe out gratitude.

Taking these deep breaths and centering in with our hand on our heart, we remember that we are whole-hearted, that the kingdom is within.

Living A Course in Miracles 5

It’s right here within us. Everything is preinstalled. We are preapproved.

And in this moment, we partner up with the higher Holy Spirit self and we remember that we are truly designed for success. We're designed to be the perfect givers and receivers of love.

And we live by grace, so we bring divine grace into our awareness right now, consciously placing on the holy altar fire of divine love, anything that has been a block to love, anything that has been a block to our expression of creativity, our expression of our gifts and talents.

We're opening our hearts and minds to have a healing right now. We are the two, or more, who are gathered in the name and the nature of the Christ presence.

And we are grateful to share the healing benefits of our expansion and our awakening with everyone, because we're one with them. We extend the healing in all directions and we are grateful to let it be. And so it is. Amen.

Are You Standing In The Way Of Your Success?

Tama, I want to start with… I'm just tingling. It’s so good. I want to start with a quote from your book where you say, “What if everything you thought you needed to do to succeed was actually standing in the way of your success?”

I love that. And that is such a pure… I mean that's pure A Course In Miracles right there. Everything that you think you need to do to succeed might actually be standing in the way of your success. From A Course In Miracles perspective, can you elaborate? What does that mean?

Tama That's exactly what it is. I mean that really is the definition of a miracle from A Course In Miracles perspective. It’s removing my interpretation, my ideas, my plan for success, my way of doing it.

In my career, starting to launch a dream into the world and take your dearest life’s work into the world, I got so stuck like a lot of people trying to figure out, “Well, how do other people do it? What do the experts say?


What are you supposed to do? What’s the seven steps? What’s the formula?’

And I really had to learn that you have your own way to succeed, that you have your own destiny. And in A Course In Miracles terms it’s that I'm listening to the Holy Spirit’s voice, that I'm not listening to any… Why would you listen to an expert when you can listen to your God?

Why would you listen to the map that the world gives you when you… I loved your prayer, Jennifer, when it’s installed within you, when the design is within you.

And so when I asked that question of what if everything you think you need to do to succeed is standing in the way of your success? It’s because I think it is.

If we're so busy following what everybody else says, and what the books say, and what the teachers say, and what the statistics say, we're not listening. We're not doing that deeper called listening to the voice within us, the love within us, the genius within us.

And, for me, that really is the essence of creating the work you love, or being wildly successful. It’s knowing that you have your own way to succeed. And it’s about listening to that voice and that's what we're doing.

Jennifer Now, how did you figure this out? Did you go down a path of doing the things that you thought you should do, shoulding all over yourself, and investing a lot of precious time and energy in doing what you thought the world would approve of et cetera, and then realizing, “That ain’t it, kid.”

Tama Yeah, I did do, “That ain’t it, kid,” method. That was pretty much my way. First of all, in my first book This Time I Dance, I had made the colossal this ain’t it kid strategy because, like many people, I completely ignored what I wanted. I completely ignored my calling. I completely ignored that sweet, small, still unbelievable voice within me, which at that time was, “I want to write. I want to write. I want to write.”


And I ignored that and I listened to my family and the culture and I went off to law school and got accepted to Harvard Law School and graduated with honors from Harvard Law School.

And I was on partnership track. And so that was my whole story to begin with. It’s was undoing, undoing the painful choices I had made to please the world, to do what I thought was security, to do what I thought would make me safe, and to find the ultimate safety which was really following that love and that genious.

And then in Inspired & Unstoppable it’s the same thing again. I'd been doing my work. I'd been coaching and I'd been an author and writing and all of these things. And I wanted to make it. I wanted to succeed.

I didn't want to be the starving artist. I didn't want to live that myth. I'm ambitious so I'd be reading all the success books and the business books, and what you're supposed to do. Improve your SCO and join eight million networking meetings.

A Course In Miracles Is The Basis For Everything

And then I'd read a lot of the spiritual books and they would be very soft and beautiful. But I found that I had to find my own way. And, for me, it is A Course In Miracles. A Course In Miracles is the basis of everything I am and everything I do. And I finally realized that that teaching is a manual for succeeding on every level.

So, yes, to answer your question. I did it the wrong… I was in so much pain. I think the biggest revelation that I had actually was that I had this creative dream. I had this inspiration. I had this excitement. I'd finally chosen it like, “Okay, I'm going to be a writer. Okay, I'm going to be a teacher.”

And then what happened was I tried to make it into a business and I started doing it the world’s way again. I’d lost that inspiration. You start off excited and connected and alive.

And then I thought, “Okay, now on the business level, now I have to do these other things.” And my healing was realizing that the same genius and love that inspired the dream, also inspires the means. And so it was about learning to listen again.


Jennifer That is one of the most challenging things in the world for people, Tama. It’s to have faith.

Tama Mmhmm.

Jennifer It’s to trust in the invisible. And so, people who are listening, let’s say that they have had the experience of… It’s because I think we've got different kinds of people listening.

So, for people who’ve been doing a job for a long, long time and they've been doing it because they got into it. It was easy. It was the perfect thing for them while they were raising a family. And now they're in their 50s, or 60s, and the thoughts of retirement are happening. And they actually would like to start a whole new career because now people are living to 100. They can have two, or three, careers.

But they are afraid of following their heart’s desire, their heart’s passion. They know what it is, or they have an inkling…

Tama Or, sometimes they don't.

Jennifer Or they don't. So then, what is the most enlightened… I want to say fastest path, because it’s really about not repeating the same ego mistakes, like you just gave this perfect example of. How would you recommend people begin? How would they hold it in their mind?

Tama I think that it’s really learning to trust that desire, that love inside you, that calling inside you. And I think what I love about doing this work is, for me, it’s the tangible work of A Course In Miracles.

I sneak A Course In Miracles in through the back door. I’m doing career and calling, but I'm really teaching you how to think differently, how to choose love instead of fear.

Desire Is The Holy Spirit Speaking

And so, to answer your question, I think that most of us will have a desire, will have a dream, will have an inclination and we tamp it down. We think, “Oh, well, that's stupid,” or, “That can't go anywhere. I'm too old for that.”

Sometimes the desire is, “I don't want to do anything. I want to take a nap. I'm exhausted,” right? Sometimes it’s not like, “Ooh, bliss. I'm


going to write a great American novel.” Sometimes it’s more just, “I want to walk on the beach. I want to hang out with my dog.”

Again, whatever your desire, whatever that inclination is, I'm going to invite you to think that that inclination is the Holy Spirit speaking to you, that that inclination is not something you avoid.

That inclination is not something that you say is frivolous or stupid or unsafe. That inclination is the safest thing you will ever do on this planet.

Because one of the things that rocked my world reading A Course In Miracles was I had kept… For me, writing was my thing and I just kept thinking, “Well, that's stupid. There's a million people who want to write. How could you ever do it?”

And then I remember reading somewhere in A Course In Miracles where it says the, “Holy Spirit is the voice for joy.” The Holy Spirit is the voice for joy.

And all of a sudden, I had that awakening moment of thinking, “What if my writing is God? What if my writing is the light? What if my writing is the path to where I'm supposed to go? What if what gives me joy that is spirit, and when I'm doing what’s spirit, I'm safer than I've ever been?”

That was just such an awakening moment for me. So, I guess the first step I'd say to anybody is whatever your desire is, whatever your inclination is, I would want you to follow it a little bit because what will happen is you will feel the energy. You will feel the chemistry. Your consciousness changes when you do something you love.

I think when you do something you love, you can hear spirit’s voice even more. And you will be safe and you will be guided and it is the most rock solid thing you can do on this planet at this time.

Jennifer That is… I concur. It’s such good advice, good counsel because everything is encoded within us. And that sense of desire where it’s not wanting, needing, craving so much as you feel there's a difference. It’s like oh, I love to do that versus I need to do that to get validation. Do you know what I mean?


Tama Yes.

Jennifer I want to do that so people will respect me. No, it’s not that, right? That's ego. It’s more, oh, if only I had the time to bake pies all day. I would love to have a bakery because I just love baking pies. I like to experiment with baking pies all day.

It’s because I have a friend. She loves to make cookies and cupcakes, but she’s a federal agent. She goes out on busts and things like that, but she really would love to do is bake cookies and pour her love into that.

Tama And doesn't that make sense, by the way, when you're just listening to that, when you're just thinking about that, doesn't that make sense that that really would be the highest spiritual calling would be the thing that you love to do, the thing that you would just love to do all day? That's service. That's giving.

One of my definitions of wild success at this point is not so much what you can get from the world, but what you can give to it. In my work, and I know this is true for you, Jennifer, because I know you, it’s like I have endless energy for this. I have endless energy for this because I love it, because it gives me energy. Because I could even be tired, or in my head, or whatever before, and then when I'm doing what I love, it just awakens something else in me and it serves other people. It helps other people.

Your friend, she can make me some pies. I want somebody who loves making pies. Again, the thing that you love is a gift. And I deeply believe that what we love, and our creativity and our highest career, our highest calling is where spirit comes through us. It’s where the Holy Spirit comes through us. It’s where this infinite love gets to come out and reach and connect to other people.

How Fantasy Gets In The Way

Jennifer Beautifully said. It is something that we must cultivate. We build a relationship with that energy of inspiration. Now, you have a chapter in your book. And it’s entitled, “Your Fantasy Is In The Way Of The Fantastic.”


And I talk about all the time how fantasy is like a drug. It’s like smoking crack. Well, it is. It is because here we are. A Course In Miracles teaches us that our experience in this world is an illusion.

If we're sitting in the illusion and we're thinking, “Oh, this stinks,” and instead we're going to fantasize about what would make us happy, are we not then saying, “This illusion isn't good enough. I want to create an illusion within the illusion where I'm really happy.” Can you talk about how the fantasy gets in the way of the fantastic?

Tama Absolutely. Again, it’s code for A Course In Miracles. And it’s just that. In the path of living a calling, or finding your dream, or taking it into the world, and in this path of listening, what happens is I start listening to the Holy Spirit’s voice.

I start listening to love and I think, “Okay, I really am going to be a writer. I really am going to be a spiritual teacher. I really am.” And then, of course, your mind comes in and starts outpicturing, “Well, wouldn't it be nice if I was a spiritual teacher making money. Wouldn't it be nice if this happened, or that happened.”

What happens is sometimes we hit an obstacle, or a block, and it’s not the picture we thought. We start having pictures of what we think we want to have happen, and then we hit this thing where it’s not the picture we thought. And then what happens is we shut down. We start closing our hearts. We stop being present. We start getting disappointed.

We start thinking, “Oh, I can't trust this stuff. Look, it’s not going to work. It’s never going to happen for me.” And so much of my own healing and so much of the work that I've done with my coaching clients is really about how do I become this unstoppable warrior for my life’s work? How do I become this alive, vehicle vessel for the Holy Spirit, no matter what? How do I keep my heart open? How do I stay present?

I tell the story in the book in that chapter, where I was teaching one of my first classes and it was going to be this hiking class and it was filled. And I was really excited.


And then the day of the class all these people started cancelling. It was amazing. In droves, somebody had a flood and somebody got sick and all these things.

I just got so disappointed and crushed because, “See, it’s not going to work out,” and blah, blah, blah. I made myself… Because I was miserable, not in a good place to teach and just wanting to spit at people now. Not the highest love to be coming from.

Jennifer Well, we live and we learn.

Tama We live and we learn. And so I made myself meditate. And I made myself remember what A Course In Miracles would say, you know? “Love is here. Love is here. Nothing real can be threatened,” that there's something going on. The Holy Spirit is always present. There's always a miracle present. All I need to do is remove my thoughts that are in the way.

And my thoughts were, “I'm not going to have the class I want. I'm not going to make money. I'm not blah, blah, blah.” And so I just kept getting back to, “There's a miracle here. There's a miracle here.”

And what ended up happening was just the most holy, amazing thing because it ended up being only these five women came. And one woman was grieving a recent death and she had the space to just finally feel it.

And we gathered around her and it was like this anointed, amazing experience that you know for this I came. Oh, my God. This is like a moment in life. I was meant to be here.

Do I Know My Own Best Interests?

And for me, that was one of the fundamental teachings of realizing like the Course says, “I don't know my own best interests.” I have no idea of my own best interests. I think success looks like I'm going to make this amount of money and have that check and have massive approval.

But nothing made me feel safer and more pure and more loved and more convicted in my path than that experience. And so the Holy Spirit is always giving us what we need. There's always a miracle present.


And it’s that fantasy. It’s our idea of what needs to happen that's in the way. But the biggest piece of that is always the training of not shutting down, not letting that disappointment, that heartbreak, your interpretation stop you from being present to what really is there. And to me, that’s what this rock is.

Jennifer You're so right. Inspired & Unstoppable is such a great name for your book. And you remind me of one time when I was first starting out. I had an opportunity to teach a workshop and I had to drive several hours to get there. And it was going to be after a church service so I was there for the whole church service, and then out to lunch with the people and then back for the workshop.

One person attended my workshop, one person. And then I had several hours to drive back home so it was a long day. And it was like five hours in a car for one person to do the workshop.

Tama But who’s counting?

Jennifer Yeah, and it was a love offering. But you know what? I really decided this is perfect. That was the unstoppable part. I'm not going to judge this. How do I know this isn't perfect? Maybe he’s here to teach me and he’s waited all day to teach me. I don't know. We don't know. Why would we go into situations saying we know everything? And if we think we know everything, then we've already failed to a certain degree.

Tama Exactly, and it’s such a different way to live and I think that's why A Course In Miracles is such amazing material because it is teaching us to constantly be available and present for the circumstances that are right in front of you.

And for me, living your calling, living your highest good, is really that knowing that these circumstances are custom made for me. I'm never in the wrong place. I'm never in the wrong time. I'm never. Nothing’s happening by accident.

I'm always walking with that love, but if I'm not in that love, if I'm indulging, as we all do in my negative opinions, and being right and how it should be, as though we know an inspired path, then we don't feel it. And we don't connect. And then we miss our lives.


Jennifer Yeah. If we're learning to follow the inspired path, then we need to start out really as someone who says, “I don't know anything. I don't know anything.”

And I think like you say, when you fall flat on your face. We both talked about it in the last class. We both talked about we were walking around New York City at the same time wanting to kill ourselves.

On the outside, things looked pretty good. If you're going to put it down on paper, it looks pretty good. But inside, we were filled with misery and wanted to kill ourselves.

When a person wants to kill themselves, I cannot conceive of this hell ever ending and so I would rather kill myself. And, fortunately, neither of us did that.

Tama And I think for me, and I'm sure for you too, entertaining those thoughts, there was a part of me that died. I died to that smaller self. I died to the self that was trying to control everything and make everything happen.

And I had been living totally someone else’s life, being a Harvard lawyer and doing everything you're supposed to do, and have what you're supposed to have, and not listening to my inner voice.

That's why I feel so passionate about this topic. It’s because I know that everyone has this dream inside them, this calling inside them, gifts and talents. Our world is so hungry right now for this, so hungry for us to live our calling and our talents. And I think the world is shifting so much now where the conventional isn't working, and the traditional isn't working because we are now meant, and called, to live this inspired path.

What Is Inspired Success?

In this book, I have this distinction between linear success versus inspired success. And inspired success to me, there's all the cookbooks of the eight steps to your blah, blah, blah, and the formula to da, da, da, da, da.

To me, inspired success is this, where it’s, “I'm not going to follow a formula. I'm going to listen moment by moment. I'm going to


think differently and love myself more and judge less, and love myself more and judge less. And in that space, I'm going to be moved. I'm going to know what I need to do. I'm going to know how to do it. I'm going to be inspired, and I'm going to create a path where there wasn't a path. And I'm going to create a career where there wasn't a career.”

To me, that’s again what A Course In Miracles is all about. It’s not about being, living in this world. It’s being in this world but not of it, you know? Bring in another consciousness here.

Jennifer What I'm thinking as you're saying this, Tama, is people will begin to realize that divine inspiration is live streaming 24/7. It’s always there. However, if we're entertaining fantasies of our success, then we are not available for the inspiration that can pour through us, ignite us and motivate us to true success.

If we're in fantasy land, if we're thinking we know how it should be, then we're totally not available for the highest and best.

Tama Oh, that's great. That's just beautiful. And it’s hard too, because I know probably people are listening saying, “Yeah, but what about holding an intention? What about having a vision for your life?”

And I think it’s that walk. I deeply believe that sometimes there's a picture, or an idea that comes to me that I do believe is my spirit talking to me.

For me it was about, “Yeah, you're going to write books. Yeah, you're going to teach.” But it think it’s just holding it so loosely of… You said it so beautifully before of I don't know. I don't know what anything means.

For me, it’s I want to listen to that voice more than I want to listen to anything else, and I want to know that that voice is unlimited and I am not limited by anything in this world when I'm listening to that voice.

That's been my greatest learning in this. It’s that I stop. When you talk about fantasies, there's the negative fantasies, too. There's the, “Well, you can't make that much money doing that, or you can't do this. You have to have a credential to do that.”


It’s just all the junk we tell ourselves. And I think the Course always says it so beautifully, “Your task isn't to seek for love, but to remove your barriers against its coming.”

For me, so much of what this work is is really starting to look at the fantasies, the ideas, the interpretations, the opinions you have that are in the way of what you really want and what you're really meant to do because there's something you really want and there's something you're really meant to do.

And I deeply believe it’s going to heal the world. It’s going to heal you in doing it. You're going to be a demonstration in doing it. My one choice is to save my life, my one choice to say, “Well, maybe I could write. Maybe I could try this.” My one choice is accept that tens and thousands of other people would do my book This Time I Dance, Creating The Work You Love… I've had so many people tell me how much it changed their lives.

Now this new book, people are telling me that. And it’s like I just followed what I loved, you know? the courage to follow what we love will gift this world what it needs.

Jennifer I can feel the energy of people who are, what I call the light workers, or I call them light preneurs, entrepreneur light workers life yourself and me.

We feel inspired to share our own experience, our own story what has motivated and inspired us. It’s what A Course In Miracles talks about, extending. So, we're extending love. We're extending our experience and sharing it in order to support other people in being inspired.

Many light workers get into a numbers game about how many people do you have on your mailing list, and things like that. And they're trying to get clients and get customers.

We've got a lot of life coaches and professionals listening to these classes. For someone who is trying to figure that piece out and feeling that it’s way beyond their understanding, how can you help them move through that kind of stuckness?

Tama Oh, that's a great question. That's a really great question. Actually, Inspired & Unstoppable deals a lot with that because I dealt a lot with that, because we're living a different paradigm.


We're trying to follow an inner voice. We're trying to follow an inspired path. And then we're also living in the world and we're wanting to succeed and… Like you said. There's all this pressure of the numbers game. How much money do you make, or how much do you charge, and the numbers on your mailing list, all that kind of thing?

For me, so much of this is learning how to think differently. It’s learning how to, if you're really wanting to walk in an inspired way, you have to make inspired choices. You have to learn how to think differently.

For me, one of the things I finally had to learn was, I have a chapter in the book called “The Bottom Line Is A Flat Line.” The bottom line is a flat line because so much in our world is all about the money and how much you're making and get to the bottom line. Who cares if it feels good?

Paying Attention To How You Feel

But to me, what I want you to start paying attention to is, how does it feel? Is it giving you energy? Stop paying attention to the numbers. Stop paying attention to the external criteria and start paying attention to how good does it feel. Does it give you energy?

When I first put out my first book I would be putting myself on the road. And I paid for hotels and airfare. And I'd have like seven people show up at a workshop. And it was like your story. And you'd feel like, “Oh, my God. You're going somewhere. Wahoo! Fast track to dead is where you're going, baby.”

And I judged myself. I judged myself very harshly by the world’s standards like, “You're never going to be a success because look at you.”

I had to keep coming back to, “But it feels right. It feels right. There's peace in my soul. I know I'm doing something. There's energy here. I'm seeing the light in other people’s eyes when I speak. I know something is leading me and guiding me.”

So, for the coaches out there, for the teachers out there, for all of us who are entrepreneurs in this, it’s really learning to use different


criteria. It doesn't mean that we don't look at other externals, or the numbers.

Even when I got my first book published, This Time I Dance, I had self-published it. And it got discovered. It got discovered by a major publisher and then they wanted to know how many copies I actually sold. That was like a really scary moment, like uh oh. Uh oh. They're going to say, no, now when they realize I'm a loser.

And I literally heard this still, small voice in me, because I was really scared. And I heard this voice that just said, “It’s not about the numbers. Your publisher, it’s not about the numbers. This life is not about the numbers. It’s about the energy. You will have your people. You will have your destiny. You will meet who you need to meet. It’s not about the numbers.”

I just kept saying that and that ended up being. They fell in love with the book. They fell in love with the energy of the book. They never even looked at the numbers. Praise God! It’s a miracle.

And they published the book as an “A” list book and it’s launched my career. So, again, I would say to those of us who are walking this world, “Yes, we're going to pay attention to certain things, but we're going to pay deeper attention to what we know in our bones, to what we know in our soul that maybe has not yet manifested yet, but that's our work.” That's the whole point. We know something before the world does. We know something that's true. And we are affirming that we are living, that we are bringing that into the world whether, or not, it sees it yet.

Jennifer It’s so beautiful. You remind me of the story of Wayne Dyer. I don't know if you ever heard him tell the story, but when he first started out with Your Erogenous Zones he was driving around with books in his car going to radio stations and doing things on radio stations, and bringing the books to the bookstores in the local town. It was all self-propelled until it began to take off.

What I'm hearing in this is there's this whole question everyone must ask themselves. It’s, what is your motivation? What is your motivation? If you're motivation is to get something, then you're in that giving to get. And then you're in the ego. You have to be. If you're thinking you're going to give to get, then you're in the ego. What


you're talking about is training your mind to simply be in that place of sharing from the overflow.

Tama Absolutely, absolutely.

Jennifer The experiences of flying across the country, spending all that money to teach a workshop for seven people, hello? Did you dissolve a little bit of ego attachment in that?

Tama Eventually, not at first.

Jennifer Right, well, some people would just give up. And they would say, “I can't do this,” because the attachment was so strong that they would say… And they weren’t as interested in the inspiration. They were more giving to get.

Giving Is Where The Overflow Is

Tama Yes, and I love what you just said, Jennifer. I think it’s such an important point of giving from the overflow. What came to my mind when you were saying that is, I know sometimes when people are listening they're thinking, “I don't feel and overflow. I don't feel like I have anything to give. I feel broken. I feel scared. I don't even know if I could give anything. I don't know that I have anything valuable to give.”

And one of the things that I've learned over and over on this path is that sometimes I don't feel inspired. Sometimes I don't feel like I have so much to give, but in the giving is where I discover that overflow. In the giving is where I discover that love.

It’s just like when you're practicing A Course In Miracles. I don't know about your practice, but there have been times where I'm reading it and it’s like talking about, “Joy abounds in me,” and it’s like, “No, it doesn't, not at all.” But when you actually practice it and you really start working with it, it starts to change your chemistry and your blood cells and you start to experience it.

So many times I have students who tell me, “I don't feel like I have much to give,” or, “I'm not sure I'd be good at this.” And what I want people to know is, when you start doing what you're meant to do, that's when you build your confidence. When you start doing what you're


meant to do, that's when you start knowing, “Oh, I'm really meant to do this.”

And A Course In Miracles has this beautiful concept that says, “When you see the gratitude in your brother’s eyes, you will know the gift you've given.” When you see the gratitude in your brother’s eyes, you will know the gift you've given.

All of us have love or talents or whatever it is that we've… pies, or whatever it is that we want to do, planting a garden, taking care of our child. Whatever it is, we're going to know that the Holy Spirit’s coming through us. We're going to know that love is coming through us by giving the gift. We may not know it beforehand so, when I taught seven people, I got the most out of that. I was the one who left the workshop on fire. I was the one who left knowing the miracle of what came through me.

Because when A Course In Miracles focuses on giving instead of getting, it’s like it’s accessing that spirit in you and letting it flow through you to be received by the people who need it. So, I love that you mention that, giving from that overflow.

Jennifer Well, I just get so many inspired thoughts of where we can go with this. And one of them is in your book. You have a chapter. It’s beautiful, “Stop Becoming Successful.” “Stop Becoming Successful And Start Being It.” Let’s just define that term for a second. What really is success?

Tama First of all I think it’s always going to be a unique definition for anybody. Everybody is going to have to define that for themselves. But one of the things that I finally realized that for me, because I was so externally driven, is that for me I wrote a book Wildly Succeeding in Your Life’s Work!

What I finally realized for me what wild success is, it’s not about your portfolio. It’s not about your possessions. It’s about knowing that you're doing the right thing with your time on earth. It’s knowing that you're doing the right thing with your time on earth. It’s knowing that, whether I make it or not, whether I become a famous writer, whether my pies take off, whether my children see how much I love them, whether I get the external validation in this life, or not, I'm not going to stop myself.


I'm going to know that I'm doing what I came here to do. I'm going to live that love. The chapter on being successful instead of becoming successful, that's probably one of my weakest wounds.

Success Comes In The Middle

I was so programmed to always be getting ahead and getting ahead and getting ahead. And I had to learn. I have a line in there where I say, “Success comes in the middle, or not at all.” Success comes in the middle, or not at all.

I had to learn to stop in the middle and start seeing how much I am succeeding and how much good there is in my life because A Course In Miracles always says if this were different, I would be saved, right? If this were different… If I could just get a book published I would never, ever want anything else.

And then in my life, it’s like, “Okay, if I could just get a book published and be on the bestseller list, I would never want anything else. If it could be on the bestseller list for 20 weeks, I'd never want anything.”

It never stops.

Jennifer It never ends.

Tama It never ends. And we all live in that culture. And so inspired success is ending that game. It’s really ending that game and really starting to bask in who you are and what you have now.

I have a story in the book that was really painful to me at the time. I had been writing already for awhile. And I had been a freelancer and doing articles. At one point, I was putting this article in this photo album I used to keep of all my articles.

And I noticed. I was paying attention. I noticed I felt really bad. All of a sudden I was feeling really bad about myself. And I thought, “What the heck is going on? I just got an article published?”

And I overheard that inner, horrible voice that we have. My horrible voice was going, “Oh, you're so pathetic. You're presenting this article? It’s not like the New Yorker or anything. It’s not like the O magazine, or anything. I mean this is some Podunk magazine you got published in. It’s horrible.”


And I made myself stop in that moment and I made myself think about the part of myself that had never, ever gotten published, that had sent in article after article, to rejection slip after rejection slip, after rejection slip. And how would she have felt seeing those photo album filled with articles?

I made myself take that in, that success of that moment. And I think it’s a choice. I think that's what all of this walk is, is how do I love myself in this moment? How do I stop listening to fear, or cruelty, or self-judgment? And how do I start listening to that love? Because that love, I think is spirit’s voice. And that's our work.

Jennifer That love is spirit’s voice. I love that. That is beautiful. I can feel people are saying that their mind is so convinced that success looks a particular way, and that to think that success is a feeling, that that’s a nice thing to say.

And definitely when we're in our spiritual circles we say that, but then they don't buy it. And they really are thinking that it is about accomplishment in the world of effects.

I was raised in Science of Mind so I always think of it… A Course In Miracles just says the world. And in Science of Mind, we talk about the world of effects. And I like that because I always go back to I want to be in alignment with first cause, because the law of cause and effect is always operating. It never takes a holiday.

So, the world of effects, and identifying with that and the ego, if we really are looking at success as being something that we can see with our eyes, that that's how we're measuring it. If we're measuring it in anything to do with this world of effects, then we are in alignment with the ego. The ego is insatiable. We will never feel fulfilled.

The Ego Is Coming From Lack

Tama Yes, and that is such a hard one to learn, I think, for so many of us, especially in this culture. But it is. You're absolutely right. I know for me, I crave success. And I still fall into this. I am not… I am definitely not over this one of I still fall into it, have fallen into it of craving that form and craving that next thing, whatever that is.


And when I'm in that place, it’s always coming from lack. It’s always coming from a sense of lack. Coming from lack, guess what I'm going to experience? It’s lack.

I think that's why A Course In Miracles is so profound because it really just ends the game. I came to A Course In Miracles because I had done everything the “right” way, and I still wasn't happy and I still wasn't connected.

So, I wanted something else. And I think A Course In Miracles is this unbelievable path to unconditional freedom, that no matter what your circumstance is, no matter where you are, that's where the miracle is. That's where the connection is.

Success is not something external. And it’s taken me years to realize that. And one of the ways for me that works, or the technique that works, is what we were talking before about.

When I'm feeling that lack that I'm not successful and I haven’t been a New York Times Besteller. I've been a bestseller, like that's not enough. But it’s not a New York Times Bestseller. That's the new one.

Jennifer It’s especially for a girl from New York.

Tama Exactly, especially from a girl from New York. One of the things I love about the Course is it’s so tangible. You can either be in fear, or you can be in love, right? You can be in fear, or you can be in love.

When you're in love, you cannot be in fear. When you're in fear, you cannot be in love. Going back to what we were talking about before, when I'm giving I can't be experiencing lack. When I'm in the moment of giving my talent, for me it’s writing a lot of times.

When I'm really just focused on the art and the craft of writing and listening and receiving what’s in me and putting it out there, I can't be in lack. I'm not even evaluating whether I'm successful, or not. I'm so in the experience.

And I think that's really what a spiritual path is. It’s going beyond evaluation and interpretation and taking us deeper into what’s the experience. What’s the moment? How do I be here? How do I receive this? For me, that's going to be a practice for the rest of my life.


And that's why I love teaching people how to live their calling, because that's what this is. It’s a way to shift your thoughts so that you start taking different actions. And for me personally, it’s made me more successful in the world and in my soul than anything else.

Jennifer I can hear in that, too, that people who are in denial of their gifts and talents, or they are afraid of getting somehow hoodwinked or lost or in over their heads if they follow their gifts. Instead they repress it. Then it can often show up as some kind of malaise in their life, because we're all being given this guidance all the time. And if we get in the habit of denying it, we get in the habit of not following it, then we will begin to convince ourselves that we can't succeed. It’s like they go hand in hand.

We've got a little bit of time left here. So, for people who are in that kind of stuckness, what are some practical tips and tools? Because you've got quite a lot of really useful, really super helpful things in both your books.

I really want to point that out to people, that your books are very practical guides to applying the teachings of A Course In Miracles and living an inspired life. And you're unstoppable not because your ego is muscling through, but because you are fully funded by an infinite source. So, it’s some practical things that people can begin to do to turn their mind around, turn the energy around.

Tama And that is the billion dollar question because that's the most important thing we'll ever learn in this lifetime. And for me, that word by the way, “unstoppable” is exactly what you just said. It’s not muscling your way. It’s not forcing your way. So, if you feel that malaise, or you feel drug out, or you feel like, “I can't do this and that woman’s way too high energy for me,” or whatever.

For me, unstoppable is… My definition is never stopping myself. I'm not going to stop myself anymore. The world can stop me. There might be obstacles. There might be challenges but I will not stop myself. I will listen to love every single time. I will give myself 1,000 chances every single time.


Inspired Self-Dialogues

One of my favorite techniques, it’s one of the ones I teach in Inspired & Unstoppable, because like you said, there's a lot of practices in their and exercises in there. And there's a way to lead a group in it. There's inspired success circles if people want to start their own groups. I outline that.

But one of my favorite techniques is something I called the inspired self dialogues. For me, what that is is when I'm stuck and scared and anxious, I don't know there's another reality. I don't believe there's another reality. That's the only reality that I know. I hear the thoughts of other people and they tell me you can have something else, but I don't believe that when I'm scared and I'm in my fear.

This technique helped me a lot because I wasn't a great meditator. When people said, “Just still your mind. Be quiet,” that was hell. I'd sit there with this beast outlining my faults and my flaws. And it’s like, “This is certainly not helping me. Watching TV is better than this.”

This technique helped me because I have a busy, active mind. What I teach people to do, and what I do, is I just write from fear, “You're never going to make it. You're a loser. It’s not going to happen for you. You're so lazy,” the horrible things, the horrible things.

And then what is do is I let the voice of love answer. For me at this point in my life, I believe it’s the Holy Spirit. I believe it’s this voice of the wholeness of the greatest love on this planet.

But for some people, if you don't have a spiritual access, or you don't identify with that, you might think of it as a nurturing parent, if you had a mother who was loving, or a father, or a teacher.

And sometimes it just helps to even think in terms of, “What would I say to my absolute best friend, or my child, or someone I wanted the best for? What would I say to them?”

And let that voice answer. And initially, it’s going to feel artificial, or faky, or whatever. But you're going to let that voice answer of whatever that fear is. And it starts to help you build a relationship with that voice because what it did for me was it made me realize that,


underneath that fear, underneath that agony, there was another perspective.

Like you said, spirit was live streaming 24/7, always. And I didn't realize that because I was so busy listening to fear, I couldn't hear the love. So, this for me was a tangible technique of learning how to listen to that love.

And then I dial love back and forth. I'll be like, “I'm scared. It’s not going to work,” and then love will answer like, “Choose peace, Dear One. It’s okay.” It’s like, “I can't choose peace.” And so then I just dial love back and forth.

And for me it’s been an amazing, amazing way to get in touch with what’s inspired inside us because that malaise is just simply not loving ourselves. It’s simply believing something about ourselves that is not true.

And it doesn't mean that you have to go out there and conquer the world. What I'd want you to start with is stop judging yourself. Let yourself be where you are. The Course says, “Let all things be as they are.” Let yourself be where you are without judgment and everything else will come.

Jennifer I think that some people are so afraid to even think the thoughts that they have. They don't want to get more in touch with them, so the idea of doing that inner work and journaling, they think that they're just going to open Pandora’s Box. They'd rather self-medicate than feel their feelings. But what I'm hearing you offer us is that you can actually be in a dialog rather than just be the victim.

Tama Yes, I love what you say because there's a passage in the Course somewhere where it was like, “You think you're afraid to listen to that voice because you're afraid because you'd just hurl yourself into reality, and you would.”

And it’s like I so relate to that because I was so afraid to listen to that love. I was so afraid that if I asked the Holy Spirit, “What am I supposed to do,” it’s going to be something like, “Quit everything. Quit your job. Quit your family. Go be a missionary.”

And I'm pretty like, “Oh, God, it’s really hot and I hate heat.” And for me, the Holy Spirit doesn't work that way. I'm a very timid soul. Other


people have different personalities. I can be a very timid soul, so my teacher, my inner teacher, my beloved one has worked very, very gently with me, moment by moment.

I don't think that you have to fear that if you open to that voice it’s going to change your whole life. It is going to change your whole life, but it’s going to change it in the way that's right for you. And the Course says, “This is all about undoing fear. It’s never going to be anything that increases your fear. This is the work of undoing fear. You're never going to be asked to do anything that increases your fear.”

Taking Limitations And Reaching Higher

That doesn't mean you're not going to be nervous trying on new things, but there's always going to be that love, or that rightness with it. And, yes, you're right. It’s about really having that dialog. It’s like finally just starting to say, “It’s okay that I have these fears. It’s okay that I have this stuckness. I don't have to be perfect before I'm perfected. I can reach out to this other source that can heal me. If I don't think I can do these things, I don't think I could make money, I don't think I could be disciplined. I don't think…” Whatever it is, I can take my limitations, my weaknesses, my fears and I can reach out to something higher that can help me.

Jennifer I love what you're saying, Tama, because I'm hearing in it too that, we might feel uncertain, afraid that we're being asked to do something that we don't have an expertise in. We haven’t known before and we don't yet have the awareness that you'll be provided. It will be fine.

We're in that place of learning that, yes, you can go where you've never gone before and everything will be provided to you. There is a learning curve in that. And you learn to trust that, even if it looks like you're stepping off a cliff, you're not going to fall.

It takes practice to learn that. So, people have to, in a sense, face the fear, confront the fear. Because the truth about the fear is it really is made out of nothing. It is no thing. It has no power. Love is the only power. Love is the healer.


What I'm hearing you say is that you can have a practice. We can have a practice of being with ourselves in a loving, gentle way. And the fear will be healed by that.

Tama And to me, that's the most exciting thing about living your calling. I used to think that, if I became a famous writer, or a famous teacher, that would be the exciting thing. And it’s fun and it is wonderful and blah, blah, blah. But the really exciting thing is that in my lifetime I'm healing. In my lifetime, I'm going beyond my own fears.

Like the Course says, “What you think of as your strengths, they're but a shadow of your real strengths.” And that you learn that there's something so big and beautiful in you. And that it’s about getting past the fears. And for me, that's what my lifetime’s about at this point. It’s going beyond my own fears. And we do that by following our desires. We do that by following that calling. We do that by following that love moment by moment.

Jennifer That was my timer going off, my crickets, my iPhone crickets. Oh, I want to keep asking you more and more questions because I feel like we're just getting to more and more good stuff.

I do want to ask you to share with us before we close and have a closing prayer, I want to ask you to share a few things about where people can find more besides your two books, Inspired & Unstoppable and This Time I Dance. Also, you had something from your book that you wanted to share with us.

Tama Oh, that's right.

Jennifer I'll just give you a moment to grab that, yeah?

A Reading from Inspired & Unstoppable

Tama Yes, I got it, just because I just wanted to give you a sense of this. And it’s so much what we're talking about. It’s just a paragraph. And it’s a great way to end this. And then I'll tell you about my website and all that stuff.

“There is nothing wavy, gravy about believing in your wildest dreams. You're inspired, inner voice is as real as bunions or bullion soup. It’s not putting your head in the sand to believe in a higher intelligence than mass consciousness.


It’s putting your head in the game. Love is the strongest power on the planet. You want results? Trust your inspired self. It’s a presence and intelligence that dwarfs everything else.”

I wanted to share that because I just wanted people to feel the power and the energy of knowing that there is that resource in them and we need them on this planet. We need that higher consciousness instead of mass intelligence.

Just to mention where you can get more me if you want more me because I'm a biggie on I think you need support. I think we're living a different paradigm. We're living an inspiration. It just helps to have constant reassurance, constant reaffirmation.

This training, we're all doing this mind training together and there are so many different teachers and resources to do that. I'm on Facebook daily. I do a quote every single day. We have an amazing community out there, and Twitter. But probably the best thing to do is to go to my website at TamaKieves.com and Tama is T-A-M as in miracle, A, K-I-E-V as in Victor, E-S.com, TamaKieves.com.

Inspired Success Launch You Kit

And I actually have a free Inspired Success Launch You Kit that you can download. And it’s got video coaching. And it’s got some audio interviews. And it’s got an excerpt from this book. And it’s got all kinds of stuff. It’s free. It’s just meant to start coaching you into having the amazing life that you're meant to have. That's the Inspired Success Launch You Kit.

It’s on my website. I have all kinds of resources on the website and you can find out more about the books out there and everything else, and all kinds of programs.

I just want you walking this walk and finding the teachers that support you and the resources that support you and the tribe that supports you. Because I know Jennifer’s doing this and she’s an amazing talent in this.

And those of us who are joining together, I want to see this become the new mainstream. I want to see us change our consciousness. I want to see us live the dreams that we have and live


the calling that we have and start shifting the way this world works. Again, join me at TamaKieves.com. I can’t wait to play with you and see you out there.

Jennifer I have to say that your books, Tama, what comes through is that you're a real person. You're really doing the work. Sometimes I've got stacks and stacks and stacks of self-help books, and books on spiritually. And there's quite a number of them that really just feel like the person is just making stuff up that would be good to do. Or, they took something that Wayne Dyer did and they tweaked it a little and made it their own.

And Wayne Dyer got it from Aristotle, which is not a bad place to get things from, but you have gotten this material through your own blood, sweat and tears. You have crawled on your belly to get this. And it is felt in every word, in every page. How long have you been studying the Course, like 20 years?

Tama 20 years, yeah, teaching it, teaching it.

Jennifer Exactly. You can feel it on every single page. So, if you're really interested in having this breakthrough and this healing, there are all kinds of exercises in Tama’s books.

And you've got a companion. You can tell by the sound of her voice she’s a good companion. She’s not talking down from the top of the mountain. She’s right there with you. And this is the help that we need.

And the great thing is, too, is when we are willing to share our gifts and talents with the world, then what happens is someone else will be inspired and someone else will be inspired. And it just continues on because we're all one. And that is the beauty of it.

I would like to invite everyone to make an appointment this weekend to listen to the replays, to bring your loved ones, people who’ve maybe been out of work for a long time and they feel uninspired, and they feel not only stoppable, they have stopped.

Tama They are dead in the water, baby.

Jennifer We all know people who feel that way. You can have a miraculous healing in a moment. I know because I've participated in so many of them, my own and others, as has Tama. Don't let anything tell you you're down for the count. Do not dare. Oh, I'm going to get


emotional. Don't let anybody tell you that. You are not down for the count. No one’s opinion matters because opinions are nothing. Love is everything and love has not given up on you. Don't give up on love.

Closing Prayer

Let’s put our hand on our heart. Thank you. Let’s give thanks to Tama. God bless you and your beautiful life of love, Tama. I’m so grateful to know you. And you inspire me. Thank you for being a part of this teleclass.

We give thanks to the higher Holy Spirit self right now. We give thanks that, even if we walk through the valley of death, we walk through the shadows, the light is within us. It is.

We are effulgent beings. We are light beings. And we are turning on that light right now together. And we are saying and declaring to ourselves that we are available and willing to have a healing.

We are available and willing to know our true identity, and to shine that light of love in the world, into our life, into our experience. And we are inspired to know the truth that sets us free. In grace and gratitude, we share the benefits with everyone because we are one with them. We let it be. And so it is. Amen. Amen, Amen.

Thank you so much, Tama.

Tama Oh, thank you.

Jennifer I love you.

Tama I love you.

Jennifer We love the listeners. We love each and every one of you. Thank you so much for joining us.

Tama And I bless everyone out there who’s listening and receiving and giving their gifts to the world. Thank you, thank you, thank you for being who you are and being on this journey with us.

Jennifer Indeed. God Bless. May the force be with you.

living a course in miracles - jennifer hadley · a course in miracles is the basis for everything...

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