Our voice is the bridge between our inner and outer worlds. We BECOME when we speak the truth of our experience, when we put sound to what we know to be true. We accelerate our healing and transformation when we sound ourselves out and are witnessed by others. Although we can do a lot of personal development work in the privacy of our own mind, if we don't go out into the world and are not heard and seen for who we truly are, we can only go so far in realizing our soul. Our voice is the instrument the fire of our soul needs to actualize itself.
In my live programs, I see firsthand how life-changing it is to speak out loud the truth of our own experience and be witnessed by others. We can speak our truth more easily when we feel safe and can be witnessed by a group that is compassionate and non-judgemental. This kind of environment helps our nervous system redefine safety, so when we go back into the world, there is less of an edge to our emotions when we want to speak. When we find...

Excitement is a fire emotion, a take action emotion. So is anxiety. At the emotional level, they are both arousal feelings. At the spiritual level, they are both the element of fire. Except that with anxiety, instead of feeling inspired, we are stopped dead in our tracks, we back away, our fire remains unfulfilled.

One week before I was to lead my very first retreat, 10 years ago, I was really nervous. And I was frustrated with myself because up to that point I had been really excited about finally making this dream of mine a reality. But it didn’t feel so good now, I even thought of canceling the program. 

At the time I was working closely with Laura Kealoha, a Kahuna from Kauai, so I called her for some advice. She said: “Have you considered that this feeling you are having might actually be excitement, but it just feels different? Focus your anxiousness into a concrete action toward your goal, just as you would with your enthusiasm. Use that nervous feeling and...