Self-Help S USA $25.99 Publisher’s Price Varies in Other Countries (Cont’d. from front fl ap) O “Soul Shifts is a brilliant, authoritative, practical A masterful and moving teacher, Dr. De Angelis S S will offer you illuminating guidance and invaluable guide to higher awareness written by one of my all-time OUL HIFTS techniques for living a life of practical spirituality favorite colleagues and friends for the past three decades. and making your own personal Soul Shifts. Writ- U Every page brims with highly specific suggestions for T ten with Barbara De Angelis’s trademark eloquence, here are pivotal moments in the lives of all keen insight, and compassionate wisdom, Soul shifting to a more enlightened way of being. seekers when we realize that we’ve been trav- Shifts takes you on nothing less than a sacred inner I love this book, and I absolutely love this woman.” L eling on our path of growth toward happiness journey to emotional and spiritual rebirth and last- and fulfi llment, but, simply put, we want to go ing attainment. Reading it will leave you truly and — DR. WAYNE W. DYER faster. How we have been living, working, and authentically uplifted and transformed. loving just isn’t enough or even acceptable any- #1 New York Times best-selling author of I Can See Clearly Now S more. We know we’re being called to something more signifi cant and expanded—we can feel it. YOUR INVITATION TO REMEMBRANCE AND AWAKENING At these times what’s needed is not simply more H DR. BARBARA DE ANGELIS is one of from #1 New York Times best-selling author Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D. change or an adjustment in our outer life, but the most infl uential teachers of our time in the profound transformation. We don’t just want fi eld of personal and spiritual transformation. A Waking up is for the brave. to rearrange the pieces of ourselves so that they renowned author, speaker, and media personality, Becoming a seer, and not just a seeker, is not for the faint of heart. I look better temporarily. We want nothing less she has earned legendary status as one of the fi rst It is for the visionaries, the awakeners, the Soul Shifters. F than rebirth. We are ready for Soul Shifts. people who helped popularize the self-help move- It is for you. Soul Shifts is the groundbreaking new book ment in the 1980s. from New York Times best-selling author and re- Dr. De Angelis has written 14 best-selling “There’s nothing missing inside of you. We suffer because we’ve forgotten who T nowned transformational teacher Barbara De books that have sold over 10 million copies and we are. All awakening is remembrance. You’re not trying to change into something Angelis, Ph.D. Now, in her most powerful offer- been published in 25 languages, including four #1 you’re not. You’re not searching for something you’ve never had. You’re retrieving ing yet—and the culmination of her life’s work— New York Times bestsellers. She has starred in her S something you forgot that you lost, and remembering that you had it all along.” Dr. De Angelis offers a practical handbook for own television shows on CNN, CBS, and PBS; and awakening, and a brilliant revisioning of the has been a frequent guest on The Oprah Winfrey journey of personal and spiritual transformation Show, the TODAY show, and Good Morning America. “Most of us try to change ourselves on the level of our thoughts, on the level that will inspire and enlighten longtime seekers Dr. De Angelis is President of Shakti Commu- #1 of our feelings, or on the level of our behavior. But this is control, not transforma- as well as new arrivals to the path of growth. nications, Inc., dedicated to bringing enlightened NEW YORK tion. True transformation must happen, and can only happen, at the level of your TIMES Soul Shifts are radical, vibrational internal messages to the world through her work. She offers vibration for it to be authentic and permanent.” BEST- shifts that spontaneously and inevitably trans- seminars, retreats, online courses, and training pro- SELLING form the way you relate to yourself, to others, grams to all those longing to live a life of mastery, AUTHOR and to the world. For transformation to be real fulfi llment, and freedom. She is delighted to be a resident of Santa Barbara, California. “The best thing you can do for everyone in your life is to operate from your and lasting, it must originate from the inside out, D Please visit: www.barbaradeangelis.com. Highest possible vibration. Your choice to be in the Highest can recalibrate other D so that instead of trying to constantly micro- people to their Highest. This is actually the true meaning of love, and the true R manage everything, you operate from true e purpose of service. Understanding this, we suddenly, joyfully, realize that, in each . mastery at the deepest level of who you are— Hay House USA moment, we can be living our Highest purpose—to vibrate with as much love as AB the soul level. P(7.O60. )B 4o3x1 5-7160905, Cora r(l8s0b0a)d ,6 C54A- 591220618-5100 possible in each situation and in every moment. NA When you learn how to make these Soul (760) 431-6948 (fax) or (800) 650-5115 (fax) “Whatever your profession, education, or circumstance, nothing you could GR Shifts on the inside, everything on the outside of www.hayhouse.com® do would be more healing and uplifting to others than to walk around the world EB your life shifts. Places where you’ve felt stuck or Hay House UK: www.hayhouse.co.uk with an open and loving heart.” LA confused become illuminated with new clarity Hay House Australia: www.hayhouse.com.au Hay House South Africa: www.hayhouse.co.za IR and understanding. Obstacles turn into possi- S Hay House India: www.hayhouse.co.in ISBN: 978-1-4019-4442-1 A bilities, dead ends transform into doorways, and 52599 Tune in to HayHouseRadio.com® for the best in challenges convert into astonishing maps lead- inspirational talk radio featuring top Hay House authors! ing you to exciting new territories . . . all because Front-cover design: Barbara De Angelis you have made a Soul Shift. Photo of Barbara De Angelis: Charles Bush Printed in the United States of America 9 781401 944421 (Cont’d. on back fl ap) Soul Shifts dust jacket.indd 1 12/10/14 11:03 AM S O U L S H I F T S Transformative Wisdom for Creating a Life of Authentic Awakening, Emotional Freedom, and Practical Spirituality DR. Barbara D Angelis e HAY HOUSE, INC. Carlsbad, California • New York City London • Sydney • Johannesburg Vancouver • Hong Kong • New Delhi Soul Shifts.indd 3 12/17/14 12:05 PM Copyright © 2015 by Barbara De Angelis, Ph.D. Published and distributed in the United States by: Hay House, Inc.: www.hayhouse .com® • Published and distributed in Australia by: Hay House Australia Pty. Ltd.: www . hayhouse.com.au • Published and distributed in the United Kingdom by: Hay House UK, Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.uk • Published and distributed in the Republic of South Africa by: Hay House SA (Pty), Ltd.: www.hayhouse.co.za • Distributed in Canada by: Raincoast Books: www.raincoast.com • Published in India by: Hay House Publishers India: www .hayhouse.co.in Excerpts from “If the Falling of a Hoof” and “An Infant in Your Arms,” from the Penguin publication The Gift: Poems by Hafiz. Copyright © 1999 Daniel Ladinsky and used with his permission. Photo of Barbara De Angelis on page 313: Charles Bush All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced by any mechanical, pho- tographic, or electronic process, or in the form of a phonographic recording; nor may it be stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or otherwise be copied for public or private use—other than for “fair use” as brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews—with- out prior written permission of the publisher. The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, the au- thor and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions. Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file with the Library of Congress Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-4019-4442-1 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 1st edition, March 2015 Printed in the United States of America Soul Shifts.indd 4 12/17/14 12:05 PM Offered with the Highest love in honor of my beloved Teachers. Offered with the Highest love in honor of my beloved students, who have given me the privilege of being their teacher and who have also been my teachers. Offered with the Highest love in honor of all who are courageously remembering. Soul Shifts.indd 5 12/17/14 12:05 PM C ontents Preface: In Service to Your Highest ix Introduction: Before We Begin xiii Part One GATEWAYS TO AUTHENTIC AWAKENING 1. Stepping Over the Threshold 3 2. Turning Walls into Doors: Shifting from a Seeker to a Seer 25 3. From Forgetfulness to Remembrance 47 4. Deep and Up: Transforming Yourself from the Inside Out 63 Part twO THE TECHNOLOGY OF TRANSFORMATION 5. Your Cosmic Dance: Spiritual Physics and the Secret of Vibrational Transformation 81 6. How Are You Vibrating? Ascending from Performance into Presence 109 7. Everything Counts: Cultivating Vibrational Credibility 135 Part three SOUL SHIFTS FOR PRACTICAL SPIRITUALITY 8. Taking a Stand for Awakening: From Contraction to Expansion 165 9. Mastery in Each Moment: The Spiritual Practice of Choice 193 10. Finding Your Way Back to the Highest 211 Soul Shifts.indd 6 12/17/14 12:05 PM Part FOur LIVING YOUR SOUL SHIFTS 11. Soul Accomplishments and Your Cosmic Curriculum 235 12. Sacred Love, Sacred Time 247 13. Shifting into Gratitude and Opening to Grace 259 14. Why You’re Here: Making a Vibrational Difference 279 15. Your Legacy of Love 289 Your Soul Shifts 301 The Soul Shifts Mantra 305 Acknowledgments 307 About the Author 309 Author Contact and Offerings 311 Soul Shifts.indd 7 12/17/14 12:05 PM P refaCe In Service to Your Highest “Your own Self-realization is the greatest service you can render the world.” — Ramana Maharshi My Highest welcomes your Highest to this great journey of awakening! I’m overjoyed that you remembered our appointment with each other, and, even more important, that you kept your appointment with yourself and with the unfolding of your own emotional and spiritual freedom. I’ve been preparing for your arrival for many years, creating a sanc- tuary of healing, revelation, and remembrance in the form of this book. Now it’s complete, and everything is ready for you. It’s finally time for me to joyfully fling the doors open and invite you in. This is what teachers do—we prepare ourselves to serve the stu- dent, and then we wait for the student to arrive. So it’s a great moment of celebration when we can finally deliver what we’ve been saving for you. My own teachers were in service of my greatness. I’m honored to have the opportunity to offer myself in service of your greatness, in ser- vice of your freedom, and in service of your Highest. For 40 years, I’ve been an author, a speaker, a radio and TV host, and an educator. Mostly, however, I am a mystic. A mystic is someone who un- derstands, contacts, and maps the invisible roads inside of us. Since I was a child, I’ve always felt as comfortable navigating these inner highways as I have moving on the external plane of existence. It seems that I show ix Soul Shifts.indd 9 12/17/14 12:05 PM SOUL SHIFTS up in people’s lives when they’re ready to cross a threshold into more consciousness, healing, and awakening. Over the past four decades, my work as a transformational teacher has undergone several major paradigm shifts. Each time, these external shifts have been birthed by my own foundational spiritual shifts, signifi- cant inner transformations that made it possible for me to be a more pow- erful and transparent channel for love and wisdom, and, subsequently, to be able to actively transmit these healing energies to my students for the purpose of the upliftment of their vibration and the acceleration of their return to wholeness. Now I’m at a place in my life where I find myself with an abundance of harvested, ripe wisdom. This kind of authentic wisdom can only be born from a mysterious process of the alchemy between profound con- templation, deep mystical and personal experience, the passage of time, and the careful articulation of all of these. Imagine an explorer who knows there is an amazing destination that will take them years to get to, years to explore, and then years to travel back from, but the promise of what they will find there is irresistible. They depart, and when they return, they aren’t the same. This is the ex- citing adventure I’ve been on—I’ve taken eight years away from writing to immerse myself in teaching and a serious deepening of my own jour- ney. Out of this, Soul Shifts emerged. This is the most important work of my lifetime. It has transformed me, it has transformed my students, and now I’m hoping it will transform you. The nature of this kind of wisdom is that it yearns to be transmitted to others. For a true teacher, the feeling of passionate enthusiasm that accompanies this is not “Look at me,” but “Look at this! Look at this golden goblet of wisdom! Look at this sparkling jewel of understand- ing! I want you to have it!” Books arrive in our lives like gifts delivered by mysterious benefac- tors—a friend, an article, an e-mail, a store display. Something inside of you whispers, “You need to read this.” You sense that it contains messag- es and guidance you’ve been waiting for. It’s the answer to a prayer, a question, or a longing, sometimes especially those longings you haven’t allowed yourself to fully acknowledge or articulate. It’s as if your soul decides it wants the book before your mind can intervene. It recognizes a piece of the puzzle you’ve needed, and grabs it. x Soul Shifts.indd 10 12/17/14 12:05 PM Preface Some books offer us information, and some books take us on a jour- ney. I’ve designed Soul Shifts to do both. When I write, my highest inten- tion is to create a virtual “Ashram of Words,” a refuge, a place to which all of my students—past, present, and future—can come for guidance, inspiration, and practices to help them on their own path to freedom. “The fruit ripens slowly, but falls suddenly and without return.” — Nisargadatta Maharaj When I was 20 years old back in 1971, I spent six blissful months in residence on the island of Majorca off the coast of Spain with my first spiritual teacher, His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, as part of a meditation teacher–training program. Maharishi was a great enlightened master and a radiant being. Every night, he’d sit with us and share pro- found, life-changing wisdom. During those six months, I wrote down every single word he said in a series of large hardbound notebooks. Yesterday, something prompted me to find one of these precious notebooks and page through it. As I did, I came upon this beautiful sen- tence I’d noted that was part of a talk he gave to our group the day before our course was over, as we were about to leave for different parts of the world to teach meditation. He said: “When the fruit comes on the branch, the tree bows down.” There are so many layers of wisdom woven into this seemingly sim- ple but stunningly profound sentence. The ripe fruit creates a triumphant heaviness on the branch of the tree, helping it to bow down so that it can more easily offer itself to whoever is waiting to receive it. The fruit blos- soms on the branch and the tree does not feel proud, but bows in humble awe at the miracle of what has been revealed. My teacher was teaching us how to be teachers: to always remember that teaching is an act of service; and to not feel elevated, but rather to be hum- bled by the ripening of our own awakening that he knew would unfold for many of us as the years passed. xi Soul Shifts.indd 11 12/17/14 12:05 PM SOUL SHIFTS Forty years later, I am awed by the fruits of wisdom and awakening that have appeared on my branches, and I bow down in humble grati- tude for the opportunity I’ve had to serve others on their path and be a channel for healing. “The instrument is blessed by that which flows through it,” said Paramahansa Yogananda. This book is my ripened fruit, offered to you with great love. I feel so deeply blessed to have been the in- strument for the delivery of Soul Shifts, and I am honored and delighted to pass the gifts, guidance, and grace it contains on to you. Our responsibility as conscious beings, sincere seekers, and planetary transformers is to rebirth ourselves over and over again. May these Soul Shifts bless and free you as they have blessed and freed me. Offered with great love and in service to your Highest, Barbara De Angelis August 2014 Santa Barbara, California xii Soul Shifts.indd 12 12/17/14 12:05 PM