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Excerpt from Embracing the Now

Aliveness

When we are in our body and senses and not in our head, we experience a sense of aliveness that is felt as a subtle energetic vibration, or tingling, and a sense of being alive, illumined, and aware. These sensations are how who we really are is experienced by the body-mind. That aliveness is the felt-sense of who we really are and what we experience when we are in the Now. When we are aligned with who we really are and not identified with the ego, we feel that aliveness, Presence, energetically, and it's very pleasurable.

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The fact that who we really are, Essence, can be felt energetically is very handy because it makes identifying when we are aligned with Essence and when we aren't easier. That sense of aliveness can also help us realign with Essence when we are identified with the ego. If you find yourself contracted and suffering, you can search for the sense of aliveness, which is always present, and focus on it. No matter how faint the experience of aliveness is, it will increase as you pay attention to it. Focusing on aliveness is a way of accessing Essence in every moment.

The more you pay attention to the aliveness, the more obvious it becomes. It can become very strong, and when it does, it acts like an anchor, grounding us in the Now and helping us stay there. The sense of aliveness can drown out the ego's mind-chatter, relegating it to the background. If we focus on the aliveness often enough as we go about our day, it will become the foreground, and the mind-chatter will fall into the background.

When we are grounded in aliveness, we experience a deep calm and peacefulness, which allows us to move through our day with equanimity. That peacefulness is unflappable, unless our emotional body gets triggered by a belief or by someone else's belief we've identified with. When that happens, the aliveness is still present and can bring us back into the Now if we give our attention to it instead of to the thoughts and feelings that were triggered.

Not buying into our thoughts and feelings doesn't make us less human, as some might think. It's just a different way of being in the world, although not the most common one. Being aligned with aliveness instead of our thoughts and feelings actually makes us more effective and functional—and also more kind—than being identified with our thoughts and feelings.

Being aligned with Essence instead of the egoic mind is the next step in humanity's evolution. Eventually we will all awaken out of the egoic mind and live from Essence. Emotions will still exist in potential, but they won't run roughshod over the body-mind. Equanimity, acceptance, and love will be the most common state instead of discontentment, striving, contraction, and fear. Certain individuals are heralding this shift in consciousness and helping to bring it about. The potential to live from Essence exists in everyone, but only some people will make that a priority. The more people who do, the easier it will be for the rest of humanity to make that shift in consciousness.

You are probably motivated to make the shift to living from Essence. Paying attention to the feeling of aliveness is one of the most useful tools for awakening. Of course, the egoic self isn't the one who chooses to do that. What chooses to give attention to the aliveness is Essence, as it awakens you. The ego will fight that choice all the way. Essence is the awareness of the whole drama between the ego and the you that is awakening.

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180 Reviews on Amazon averaging 4.6 out of 5 stars!
Here's what reviewers are saying ...

“Life changing. There is immense wisdom coming from this piece of work. Between the lines are links to helping us become more aligned with what we truly are as opposed to spinning around lost in mental noise. Teachings such as this help lead the Soul home to its utmost desire of peace and contentment.” –I. Toner

“Embracing the Now is startlingly clear. On the mainstream nondual spirituality front, Gina Lake is a contender for top author/top teacher honors, along with Eckhart Tolle. Both she and this book have what it takes.” –Jerry Katz, author of One

“I just love Embracing the Now! The depth of Gina's understanding of awakening is second to none, yet she is able to share her material with breathtaking clarity. A subtitle for this book could be, ‘Tolle Made Easy!’ There are so many nuggets on every page that my copy is one big rainbow of highlight marks!” –Michael Jeffreys, spiritual teacher

“Gina Lake's book Embracing the Now is a completely comprehensive guide to waking up out of ego identification and learning to live as Essence in the world. It is consistently luminous, remarkably clear, and deeply wise in every single sentence from start to finish. This book is a marvel.” –V. Ritchie

“Embrace this book! Embracing the Now, is not to be missed. Once again, Gina Lake displays her gift of being able to point directly to the Truth in an extremely readable and accessible way. This collection of essays presents a powerful worldview that shines with clarity for both the mind and the Heart. Highly recommended.”—Chuck Hillig, spiritual teacher

“Great teachers like Eckhart Tolle are rare, and they speak of living in the NOW. Gina, who is in that class of great teachers, shows us how to live one's life from that state. This is a wonderful book to be treasured and re-read throughout one's life. There is great wisdom and comfort in its pages, and there is much to be gained by studying it as a manual for living a more enlightened life.”—J. Bronson

“While reading the book, my breathing slowed and my mind quieted, as if an energy was actually being transmitted somehow through the words on the page. Written clearly and simply, this book is packed with powerful pointers to Truth, which only resides in this moment. If you enjoyed Eckhart Tolle's books, you will draw sustenance from this as well.”—C. Murphy

“Just when I thought I had looked in every corner, this book comes along and brilliantly shows me all the little dusty corners of my Ego, still holding on, and also points me to freedom from that bondage!” –Lisa L.

“This book gives us the permission we really need to let go of all the doing and thinking and just be happy and at peace right now. It is filled with many simple and straightforward pointers to help us focus on the presence of Essence and let go of the suffering of the ego.” –Janet M.

“If you like Byron Katie or Eckhart Tolle, don't miss this extraordinary book by Gina Lake. It really tells you how to lead an awakened life, continuing where those wonderful authors leave off. It gives the hopeful message that we can stop suffering once and for all and tells us that not only is it possible, but that's what we're all here to do. I’m blown away by Embracing the Now.” –Laura P.

“I was more deeply affected by this book than I expected. Many times while reading, I had to just stop for a few minutes and let the truth of her words envelop me. However you want to put it: doorways of conscious opening, limiting beliefs being eliminated, old hurts being cast off, feeling profoundly in the flow of life, awareness of Presence.” –L. Lawrence

“One of the clearest and most practical books on becoming more aware and conscious of the distinction between whether the thoughts we notice ourselves thinking are from our ego or from our SELF or ESSENCE. This beautifully and clearly adds to the work of Eckhart Tolle.” –Bronx Docx

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