Let me assure you… a life that’s full and complete is more than make believing and pretending that everything is roses and ignoring the thorns. Particularly when life is being especially difficult or you have a seething cauldron inside (either consciously or unconsciously).

One of the major causes of all dysfunction (and lack of fulfillment), is unresolved and/or suppressed emotional issues. If you truly wish to create the results you desire and deserve you have to first and foremost see things clearly—exactly as they are. Please read that again as well as the last two blogs (“Life or Fantasy” 1 and 2).

Now I know I’ve repeated myself a lot on this one principle, but it’s that important; and it’s so different from what many of us have been led to believe, that it’s going to take a while to sink in—it certainly did for me.

Pain is the mother of all growth

Learn here how to harness pain to grow, perform and achieve in this article.

Please understand, I still believe we should find the good, God and gifts in every single life situation, even the painful ones. In fact truth be told, there are typically way more gifts in the painful situations and experiences than in the pleasurable ones.  In fact, salvation comes through suffering. (Pause long and hard on that one).

Contemplate that for a minute, roll it around in your mind; and you’ll find it true. If it shocks you, take a moment and do at least a cursory study of all great mythology—including Judaism and Christianity.

I believe there’s a distinct process to finding these gifts wrapped in pain that’s productive; and when it’s not utilized it’s most often counterproductive. The counterproductive approach ends in suppression and denial of the most primal and fundamental energies you possess.

“ The descent into matter must be complete

 before the ascent into spirit can commence.”

– Dion Fortune

The big problem as I see it in personal and spiritual transformation is the turning to the “positive” too quickly without fully grounding your toes in the sand. Also known as denial. It’s transmutation not denial that is the tool of mastery.

What the great esoteric writer Dion Fortune is communicating above is that you must get your feet grounded or you’ll have no foundation. Ponder this one. It’s like attempting to build a tall skyscraper without first digging a deep hole.

We’ve already discussed at length the first step of seeing things clearly. As the Buddha stated “facing life squarely, exactly as it is.”

When I was sitting in a 12X10 cell with my entire life gone as I knew it. I was trapped in a box with a cellmate who dipped Skoal, never brushed his teeth, spit all over the cell, who yelled at the top of his lungs in his nightmares every single night, and who never took a shower. There was no denying that my situation was bleak and painful. It sucked. The pain I was surrounded with in this hell was palpable.



I felt indescribable anguish, the depths of despair, forsaken by God; and there was no escape (literally).

I had to face my situation, my suffering, and my life squarely, head-on, exactly as it was.

To deny this initial ruthless assessment is to suppress and deny our humanity. Which is not only dysfunctional, as stated earlier, but it also suppresses some of the most powerful and primal energies you possess.

Please know that anything that is suppressed… will be expressed… in later days and uglier ways. Please read that again.

The only way to get beyond it is to go through it; and you can’t go through it unless and until you first acknowledge it for what it is.

After step one is fully and ruthlessly complete, we go to step two in the process. Stay tuned

Be awake and see clearly,

James