Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Caroline Myss is the author of the New York Times bestselling books Invisible Acts of Power, Sacred Contracts, Why People Don't Heal and How They Can, and Anatomy of the Spirit, and is a pioneer and international lecturer in human consciousness. In 2003, she founded the CMED Institute, an educational program that specializes in intensive classes on archetypes, personal power, and mysticism. Her audiotapes include Entering the Castle (Hay House) and Why People Don't Heal and How They Can; Spiritual Madness; and Spiritual Power, Spiritual Practice (Sounds True). Her work is featured on her popular website www.myss.com. She lives in Oak Park, Illinois.
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Invisible Acts of Power

Free Press

When I was growing up Roman Catholic, we were bilingual in English and angels. Miracles could happen every day. The invisible power of angels and saints was everywhere and their existence was a given, a fact, ordinary. It would have been unthinkable not to believe in them.

Every day was a saint's day and gave us the opportunity to recognize the importance of a particular virtue or energy that each saint embodied. We regularly invoked the saints' and angels' strengths: St. Jude gave us the courage to face impossible causes; St. Anthony helped us notice and find lost objects; St. Francis protected our animals and taught us compassion for all life. Even as an adult, when I was selling my home recently and wanted to make it go as fast as possible, I borrowed a statue of St. Joseph from a close childhood friend and, according to tradition, buried it upside down in the backyard. Say what you will, but my house sold within days of that little ritual.

For some of us children, the angels and saints were our first brush with invisible power. These nonphysical beings peopled our spiritual world and surrounded us with their support. We were never alone, and when we called or prayed to them, they always answered. They were our first spiritual community. Their lives modeled the power of faith -- proof that no physical force on earth, from political oppression to illness, could defeat heaven.

To this day, the saints and angels are invisible forces in my life. Yet I also have a faith in an even greater power: the energy, or grace, that animates our seemingly impersonal but intimately interconnected universe. We receive infusions of grace on a daily basis, but in the middle of the everyday tasks of making a living and taking care of our family and friends, we can miss its subtle power. Grace holds together the whole of our life -- and all of our lives collectively. It watches over us and will come to our aid if we ask.

Many times I have wished that I could convince others to have faith in this immeasurable, invisible force that surrounds and protects us. I feel profound bliss in knowing that even in the direst times, our prayers are heard and answered. I have seen and experienced far too many miracles to believe otherwise. Like you, I've had to move mountains in my personal and professional life. Whenever I am striving mightily on my own, pushing and getting nowhere, I usually realize that it's time to step back and remember that, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain,/Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove." As the Tao Te Ching also advises, "Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity." Nothing is impossible for you when you have faith -- in yourself and in your purpose.

Faith is an active force -- not a passive one -- an invisible power, like love. It is not simply a belief in goodness, it is a belief put into action in the present moment. In the ancient Hindu belief system, faith also conveys protection, by giving us trust and confidence in the rightness of what we are doing. Faith enables us to have a positive attitude and hope even in the face of seemingly irreversible setbacks.

God works anonymously -- invisibly -- through these powers of faith, love, and grace. Perhaps this is because we humans are too meddlesome to be trusted with a direct divine intervention. Remember that mortals in ancient mythology who looked directly at a god (who was not disguised in an earthly form) went blind or mad from the sight. God frequently sends divine grace through human agents who perform nonrandom acts of kindness.

As I often tell the people who study spirituality and intuition with me in my workshops, we are all born here to go to Earth School. We're on this planet to learn to be spiritual beings in a physical body, to gain consciousness of our greater purpose. Life on Earth is all about learning to manage your power. So this book is a course in Earth School about managing your personal power in a way that enhances your own spiritual growth, while also contributing to the evolution of the people around you -- and to the entire global soul.

Giving and receiving are learned arts. As children, we first learn to give and to receive in visible ways -- we're fed, clothed, and sheltered and we learn to feed, clothe, nourish, and care for others. As we mature, we undertake other vital acts of caring -- we serve as listeners to our friends and loved ones; we encourage them and pray for them; we grow in our effectiveness in the world and learn to help and empower others.

Learning to manage your personal power means that you have to become aware of how you work with your energy and whom you give it to. "Those who overcome themselves are strong," wrote Lao-tzu. It's also about how much you are willing to surrender to divine guidance, which often comes to you in the guise of inner intuition. By finding your inner compass and acting on its promptings, you come into your full power and fulfill the life mission you were born to complete. I call this mission your Sacred Contract and it includes not just the daily work you do, but every relationship you have and every person you meet, everyone you help, and everyone who helps you.

Oftentimes, an author does not know how to begin a book, but I found it difficult to end this one. When I began, I had intended to write a simple examination of how we are called into action to help each other. Yet the writing grew into a personal spiritual awakening for me. In my previous books, my intention was always to teach a new method of seeing and understanding your spirit and your life. In this book, I want to do that and I also want to make you redefine your view of power in this world. I want to help you realize that no matter how much money you have, no matter what sex, race, or age you are, you do have power. You can make a difference in your world and in the life of every single person you encounter.

In the course of writing this book, I solicited stories from readers and subscribers to my Web site about their experiences with grace and life-changing acts of service. I was honored and overwhelmed to receive twelve hundred letters within six days of making my request. I discovered that it is one thing to talk abstractly about human goodness and our potential to be kind, but it's quite another to come into direct contact with hundreds of real stories of real people exercising their power to heal, to help each other, to make a difference. I felt saturated in the caring and warmth of being human that these stories convey. They are solid evidence that the great power of compassion, honor, and grace still exists, even in the middle of national and world crises. They also prove that we are not alone in this world and that even in the direst times, our prayers are heard and answered.

I have worked as an intuitive for more than two decades and have been teaching others how to develop their own intuition for more than ten years. The main thing that I stress with my students is that they -- you -- are already intuitive. But you have to open yourself to the messages that you are receiving. Many people resist hearing the messages their intuition sends them, often because they don't want to deal with the changes that they would have to make if they listened and acted on the guidance. But these stories demonstrate...