Our lives begin with the first awareness of ourselves. The first time we saw our reflection in a mirror. The first time we rode a bicycle. The first time we felt love. The first time we found a purpose and contributed to the world—filled us with the awareness of our independence and freedom of spirit. We are at the frontier of awakening our awareness of everything and everyone, including what’s yet to be discovered. With every gut feeling and every thought, we look beyond ourselves, furthering our awareness of who, what, and why we are. We awaken our potential to experience greater fulfillment, happiness, and peace. The adventure is only limited by the boundaries we create and the lens we focus. Along my path, I began investigating what makes existence possible. Like many people, I felt I was a part of something much bigger than myself; that reality was far more than could be seen or touched. I started taking stock of out-of-body experiences, dreams, and visions I have been aware of since childhood. To help me understand memories, I opened a dialogue with a voice that had always been present in the back of my mind—what I call my higher self. The relationship I developed led me to write Brighter Realms. The result is a book that offers the potential to experience a deeper connection to wholeness. Wholeness means unity with our higher self, where insight, intuition, creativity, empathy, and compassion flow as the instinctual qualities of our humanity. I say “offers the potential” because each person’s experience differs. People have read the book and discovered a distinct awareness of their higher self, or they felt the book gave them unique insights into who they are, yet I have also observed that some people are unconsciously tuned into their higher self, benefiting from expanded awareness and peacefulness.
For all, Brighter Realms offers the possibility to experience a deeper connection to wholeness. There’s no one-size-fits-all technique to connect, as everyone’s relationship with their higher self is as unique as their fingerprint. Brighter Realms represents a fundamental reality long forgotten by humanity, written as a reminder of your inherent abilities to benefit from the extensive resources available to you. In the greatest sense, you are already there, able to tune into your humanity with an instinctive awareness of the larger reality at play. That is your birthright. You are the connective tissue to independence and freedom of spirit, which knows no boundaries. There’s a saying that the body knows what the mind has forgotten. The body holds the memories from your past and the awareness to live in the present. I expanded this idea in another context: Our true body is the energy we are, an essence. The timeless aspects of your being. Undying, ageless, enduring—your fundamental self, your consciousness, the isness of you that makes connection possible. Everything else—intellect, ego, emotions, and physical body—are parts of the suit we wear. Insight, intuition, and creativity is seeing with our essence. Empathy, compassion, and love is feeling with our essence. As an essence, we are an extension of our higher self, with existing links to nonphysical worlds. We may not be aware of our essence, and that’s fine because it functions to immerse us fully in the life experience.
We can learn to heal old wounds, live in our purpose, and find deeper fulfillment with our essence leading the way. In Brighter Realms, I outline methods and exercises to help you tune into the hidden layers of your inner life—to see and feel with your essence—the primary instincts of your humanity—insight, intuition, creativity, empathy, compassion, and love.
PROLOGUE
As a child in the 1940s, my mother learned to sew fabric onto wings and helped her father build his kit airplane. They went flying, and she searched for angels. The nuns at her Sunday school told her they lived in the clouds. The little girl with large, curious eyes explored the world around her to understand life’s meaning. When she was uncertain about finding angels, her father suggested she look inside herself. As best friends, they shared a powerful bond. In her early 30s, she was inconsolable when he died of a sudden illness. She feared their connection was forever broken. For six months, she woke up with tears and went to bed heartbroken. One morning, she heard her father’s voice call her name. She lifted her head from her pillow and saw him standing at the foot of her bed. He told her he was happy and wanted her to be happy. He asked her to let him go. A powerful feeling of calm and a new awareness came over her. She felt her father was not far away. Their bonds were alive and well. Unknowingly, she had discovered existing connections to worlds beyond and transformed her grief. Before my mother passed away many years later, I shared these thoughts with her. She replied, “You have the story right—I’m not sure about worlds beyond.” While she acknowledged the wonders and mysteries of life, she also believed in proof and validation. What she accepted or rejected about reality had little bearing on the unconscious forces that formed her outlook. When she heard her father’s voice, she listened. Yet she was determined to resolve her grief without consciously understanding the process that got her there. She proved she could make the leap and find peace.
I’ve met many people who have shared stories of transcending boundaries and experiencing otherworldly events they could not place in the context of the physical world. Some lost loved ones. Some had life-changing events. Others recalled lucid dreams or moments of intuition. Each glimpsed spiritual realms and discovered clues to their larger role in existence. They may live in different corners of the Earth, yet they share a common ground of understanding. They’ve been unified with the experience of other worlds and the clarity they bestow. Indeed, lives are transformed through connection.
The discovery has expanded their outlook, giving them independence and freedom. The bridge to worlds beyond is always there, although it can be forgotten. Many of humanity’s problems can be better understood by unifying with the spiritual worlds all people have in common. Our separation from these worlds has led many to a disunified and fragmentary mindset, disrupting our connection to wholeness. The beliefs we adopt can set limits on what is perceived and experienced, yet our spirit knows no boundaries. How we go from here to spiritual worlds is defined by what is accepted or rejected individually. In the greatest sense, we are already there, able to tune into insight, intuition, creativity, empathy, and compassion as an instinctual awareness of our higher self.
But the life journey can be fraught with obstacles. We can struggle to feel safe in a world of uncertainty. We can feel disconnected from life and unmoored from ourselves. Fear and anger can play a role in our experience, interfering with insight, intuition, and creativity and diminishing our capacity for empathy, compassion, and love. Our essence is what we intuitively seek for courage and strength. Light and peace are our birthright. Tuning in offers the potential to access benevolent resources from our nonphysical origin. To be connected.
Imagine if humans were observed by a race of beings from a distant planet. They might see us as a source of inspiration with an immense creative drive, a boundless sense of adventure, and extensive spiritual resources. They might also see a separation from the knowledge of who and what we are. Many of us behave as if we are alone and isolated, adrift on a raft in a vast, empty ocean. Human evolution is at a critical juncture. There has never been a more important time to discover our energetic legacy. To be connected.
The vibrant inner life of children reflects the worlds they come from. The instinct to sustain these links supports mental and psychological well-being. Their closeness to spiritual worlds imbues them with instinctual awareness unhindered by the conformity of human civilization. Creating art is one of the many ways people discover connections. Just as the physical world inspires artists, the instinct to explore beyond ourselves is a powerful motivating force, producing profound artistic representations. Drawing, music, and dance are a few expressions that put us in touch with our essence and link to nonphysical worlds. Access is not just reserved for the artistic. Parents play with their children and experience a subtle interface with other realms. Some people journal, others read or walk to become quiet inside. A nap can help us unhook from the external world. Still, others practice meditation to connect.
There’s no mystery here—taking the path to other worlds is what people do in ordinary day-to-day life to experience connection and wholeness—where peacefulness and intuition restore the psyche and sharpen instincts. Reaching beyond ourselves is as natural as picking up an object with our bare hands to study its detail or opening a book to benefit from its knowledge. The only specific action needed to go from here to there is yielding to our essence—the part of us we can’t see in a mirror, our fundamental self that can only be experienced. As I write these pages, gaze at a sunset, laugh with my partner, feel my mother close by—or feel empathy for another human being, I tune into my essence.
The countless ways people move beyond themselves are the fundamental human nature we recognize among one another. All share the capacity to transcend the dense boundaries of physical existence and experience the connections we thrive in. The journey to brighter realms beckons us to explore what more there is to reality, to reach beyond ourselves and shine in the wonder of our existence.
The stories in this book are not based on conceptual beliefs, such as ideologies, religions, dogmas, or the paranormal. Nor is this work a study of mythologies. In this book, beliefs are inconsequential to the understanding people have in common—for example, knowing or feeling that loved ones who have died are not far away. Knowing or feeling we are more than our bodies. Knowing or feeling there is far more to reality than meets the eye. In this book, I tell my stories from a purely experiential point of view as I explore the spiritual worlds I have been learning about since birth.
I describe spiritual worlds as the worlds we come from before life, where we reside when not in physicality, and to which we will return someday. I use terms like “nonphysical” or “Larger Field” to describe the entirety of spiritual worlds—what are essentially limitless environments within infinite worlds to which everything known and unknown happens and where human beings have the potential to interact by way of their essence. I use the term “higher self ” to describe what is infinitely more massive than a human being’s essence. My thoughts of the essence are that of a temporary energetic extension of the higher self, and its presence in the physical world is a person who eventually returns home to their higher self. People also have associations of interrelated relationships representing their energetic family in nonphysical environments. We have a physical family and we also have an energetic family, and our higher self is a part of that family. However, an individual’s system is much more—a very large number of related higher selves, each with one or more human extensions in physicality, and there are countless systems in the nonphysical. All these terms can be interpreted in the realm of belief. They help illustrate the ideas I explore throughout these pages. I ask my readers to suspend their beliefs as I introduce stories about humankind’s nonphysical origin. The challenge is getting ourselves out of the way by recognizing our essence as the fundamental connection to the larger reality at play.
In earlier years of my life, I experienced the fragmentary effects of a diminished connection to my essence. Learning to build a strong connection has given me insights into the potential for all people to do the same. For 30 years, I have explored nonphysical environments, discovering that the most significant connection begins with ourselves. This book is my collection of stories about unity and wholeness, echoing humankind’s desire to explore their deepest existential questions. Inner discovery expands our outlook and frees us from the boundaries of our physical lives to join the larger community awaiting us in brighter realms.
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