Whether you are looking for a new friend or a more intimate relationship with a new partner, you will tend to approach possibilities differently than when there was no emphasis on consciousness.  For those caught up in ego, the basic question when considering a new friendship or romantic relationship is, “Can I have fun with this person?”

We tend to have standards by which we decide whether to bring someone into our lives on a regular basis.  If you are stuck in the old school way, then the most influential criteria might be how much the other person lets you control them, or it may be about how they look or how well-connected they are to others you would like to spend time with.

As you evolve spiritually, your values change.  You learn that certain standards you may have had before are not as important as you had thought they were.  You learn that perfectly-formed body parts—your own or your potential partner’s ---are not as important as you had thought.  You learn that prioritizing spending time with someone based upon how much money they have is not something that feeds your higher self or theirs.

As we learn how to trust, we tend to look for friendships and partners who help push us along the spiritual path, and those who can learn to trust us to push them without control or attachment.   We also tend to learn how to let the other person be as they are, to not make the relationship about fixing them or about it being about them fixing you!

Ego-based relationships tend to be based in supporting what I call false power, the "power" that is experienced through control, attachment, and possession.  True power is that which is based in love.  Loving power is the only real power.

When deciding how much time you want to spend with any friend or lover, here are some questions that you might find worthy of your consideration:

• Do I trust this person or do I think I can develop trust with them?
• Am I willing to accept them as they are right now?
• Can I see our connection developing to a point where we are both strong enough to call each other on our “stuff”?
• Can I see our connection with each other growing to a point where we will both be OK with having the other challenge us on our “stuff”?
• Am I attracted to this person because I think I can control them?
• Are they attracted to me because they want to be controlled?
• What can I learn from this person?
• What might this person be asking me to teach them?

What other questions can you come up with here that might be worth asking yourself as you consider a new friendship or romantic relationship?

If you are single, or if you are just intending to increase your circle of friendships, you may find great value in journaling about this, writing your thoughts down about these questions as a way of more clearly understanding what you really want.  Push your "pause button" now, if you will, and tune into what your heart has to express about these questions.

Enjoy the process!

It sure is strange what is going on for so many of us at this time.   We want stress relief.  We want to learn how to trust.   The world is shifting as we are shifting.  Many of us feel less grounded, more chaotic.  Lots of people tend to think that this is a “bad” thing.  Is it, really?

The mind tends to lead us down all sorts of dead-end alleys, self-destructive paths and pain extenders.  Its basic design is to help us to take care of practical matters like when to eat, when to pee and what to do when there is a red light in traffic.  If we misguidedly make the mind our master in dealing with emotions and our spiritual nature, we set ourself up for a treadmill of pain...until we change our mind about how to use it.

It seems that the natural way to ground oneself is in the Earth.  As we are evolving individually and collectively, we are being pushed to consider another source for our grounding: our heart.    I see this intuitively as a truth.  If we see the Earth and the mind as vehicles, rather than as who we are, then the question arises: To who or what do I identify myself with as me, as my essential self?

When we have been challenged by stress, by the apparent chaos of life, how do we respond?  The old-school way takes one of two approaches:  The first is to look for ways to explain and solve it with the mind: psychological theory, religious scriptures, common sense, or what some teacher told you about how you should think.

The second approach, also very common and generally counter-productive, is to use the mind to “explain a problem away” or to avoid it as much as possible.  We can convince ourselves that a challenge is not a challenge if we tell ourselves so often enough.  When that doesn’t work, it is easy to slide into avoidance behavior such as addiction to distract ourselves from the pain we experience.  This kind of short-term “solution” not only numbs us temporarily, but it saps our strength to physically and emotionally deal with what is in front of us to face.

Especially during this high-change time of the Summer Solstice, we are served to find our balance in attuning ourselves with---and identifying ourselves with---the heart.  I suggest that you play with this as you have times when you are challenged emotionally.  See your heart as the essence of who your are, as your true home, and as your conduit to the feeling of connection with all Life.

To try to explain with clarity and verification why we are experiencing what we experience is futile.  Yet, taking two simple steps can make a significant impact on your success in more gracefully moving through life.

1. See everything that happens to you and all of the people in your life as your teachers.  Seeing anyone as simply a terrorist or tormentor wastes the lesson they have for you.  And it is suitably difficult to be upset with someone if you recongnize them as teaching you something of value.  Sometimes, their lesson to you is to say goodbye to them.  Sometimes their lesson is for you to be more loving.
2. Identify with your heart.  While so many identify with the neediness and chaos of the ego, seeing and feeling yourself as the will of your heart is empowering.

In these shifting times, the messages that the apparent world gives to you can be food for the useless ego:  That you need some pill to make you happier, that your next partner will be kinder to you and that will solve all your problems, that the world will treat you better after you have lost a few pounds,  that the next job will be more supportive of you….

A major step along the path for so many of us as we learn how to trust and integrate the often simple perspective tools for stress relief comes when we more fully allow our lives to be managed by the will of the heart.

An experiment:  Read the sentence below three or four times and then close your eyes, focus on your heart, and be aware of any feelings or thoughts that arise:

I attune to the loving will of my heart

as I sense my true loving power

connected to all of creation

as one loving body.

*********************************************

On Thursday evening , June 24, 2010, hear Carlo Ami on BlogTalk Radio's "I Love Authors" Show with Melissa Lierman.

See http://www.blogtalkradio.com/iloveauthors for details.

Here you will find a basic media kit that will answer many of your questions.  Carlo enjoys doing internet and standard radio interviews as well as group Pause Session Presentations. He lives in San Diego, California.

What makes Carlo Ami an interesting interview for radio, television or print media?

He brings a fresh perspective during these challenging times to the discussion of stress relief.

He has a unique, direct and calm approach to helping people with the challenges of life from the spiritual perspective.   As the challenges of depression and anxiety have reached new levels of challenge, he suggests going within oneself for solutions rather than on relying on external sources that often happen to be very counter-productive.  He teaches people how to trust their inner wisdom and their capacities for calm, happiness and love.  Over the last 11 years, he has developed the Pause Button System to help people gain further understanding and appreciation of their inner resources.  He is the author of two books, "All That Matters" and "The Wake Up Book".  He has also voiced, composed and produced the audio CD, "Quick Inner Retreats to Calm" which also makes use of the Pause Session method.

What is a Pause Session?

Pause sessions take a single belief statement or series of related beliefs and asks the reader to pause after each line to ponder the idea from the level of the heart.  In our information-overloaded society, it is important to pause and contemplate important ideas---particularly those that have to do with beliefs---in order to clarify what yours are.  Rather than present the beliefs in his books as truth or "dogma", Carlo encourages his readers to edit the lines in his Pause Sessions so that they fit the reader.  It may be a word or two changed in any given session statement, or it may be the entire basic idea that is changed.  The key to ensuring that the system benefits the reader is their willingness to be aware of how their life WILL teach them whether the belief is a spiritually, practically or emotionally effective in enhancing their life.

What are some of the more important points that he makes in his books and CD?

Each reader is encouraged to develop their own beliefs about the following, not simply take on those of the author.

*   You are your own best teacher, especially when learning about who you are and what is important to you

* The best way of finding stress relief is through simple practices you can do on your own

*   The only hells are those we create through unproductive action and thought

*   We are all connected with each other in a way that the mind cannot understand.

Some things were meant to be mysteries.

*  Most religions are spiritually counter-productive (This can be side-stepped for your group, if you wish!

Just know that there is direct content of this type in the books.)

*  Evolving spiritually requires discipline, risk and courage

*  Since we have been conditioned to live in ways that are not generally productive to our happiness and              contentment, it takes focus and repetition to integrate new ideas and ways of living that work better

What is the newest book?

Carlo's newest is "The Wake Up Book".

What does "Seventh Direction" mean?

From the preface of the book:

Among the beautiful spiritual traditions of many Native American tribes, seven directions are recognized.  In addition to the standard four are added Above

(Sky) and Below (Earth).  The Seventh

Direction is the most challenging

and rewarding of any that we

might take our

attention:

Within.

When you allow it, this book can be your framework to discover the depth of this wondrous and powerful direction.

More from the Preface:

“What am I here for?  What is the point of living?”

There are no other questions as important to answer.

Unless you have come very far on your spiritual path, if you read my reflections on these questions below, chances are strong that you will view it with the egoic mind that you may think defines you.

As you read this now, your egoic self may already be getting cranky, ready to reject what is written here, ready for a nap, some ice cream, a romance novel, some mindless television or another distraction .

Ego has no interest in exploring the spiritual path.  Ego thinks the present is to be avoided and rejected.

“More! More! More!”  This is the cry of the ego.  More money, more sex, more silly excuses for more silly ‘foods’, more people to tell me how wonderful I am, more people whom I can manipulate so that I can feel good about myself.

“Less! Less! Less!”  This is also the cry of the ego.  Less pain, less body weight,  a boss who is less mean, a lover who is less angry.

The egoic mind is rarely satisfied.  For it, there is never enough of what is wanted.  There is never so little of what is not wanted for it to be content.

So for our imaginary egoic selves, perverted little non-beings that the “are”, satisfaction is impossible.  Success is never complete enough for ego.

My suggestion for your consideration is that you are not your egoic mind.  You are heart/soul-centered.  If you choose to read the rest of this preface with that as at least a temporary supposition, then you may find powerful inspiration in these words.

I know at the deepest depth of my being I am a fully loving being.  I deeply sense that what I, and all of us, came into this life to do is to realize our loving  nature and to live it.

I am in the process of doing that.  Some have achieved it and become fully loving beings.    It is not about overcoming anything.  It is simply about realizing and practicing, more and more consistently, until each and every one of us realize that we are, in deed and in thought, completely loving beings.

Until one sees oneself as imprisoned, one cannot be released from our own prisons.  Until we can see ourselves creating a happy, loving, harmonious society, we will not see that society.

By more deeply recognizing the fullness of our loving nature, we also declare the truth that the worldly power brokers fight daily to keep us from knowing: that we are divine.  A united, loving divinity swallows any apparently negative forces.  The negative forces only have apparent power as the masses of humanity grant them via fear, doubt and a sense of unworthiness.

There is nothing more important for us to do in this life than to recognize the infinite nature of the power of Love to heal and unite.  As more and more of us fully recognize this, we heal our Selves and our world.

I have developed a simple system, as presented in “The Wake Up Book” and the “Quick Retreats” CD, to help people unfold their loving nature.  After over five decades on this planet, the vast majority of which I have resisted my loving nature, I am using this system to help myself evolve.

I believe with all my heart that anyone with an open mind and the courage to delve into their inner Self regularly, can accelerate the advent of our collective awakening by more rapidly unfolding their Loving Self.

This is the ambitious intent of The Wake Up Book.

This book will be helpful to you only if you are willing to be guided by your own heart.

What kind of radio voice does Carlo have?

Carlo has a deep and powerful voice.  People keep telling him that he ought to be a deejay.  For a sample, click here.

Jpeg images

Tell me about Carlo's personal presentations

Carlo offers presentations to groups of all sizes and age groups.  Most of the time spent with these presentations finds the audience in silent contemplation; several Pause Sessions are incorporated into each presentation.  Currently, Carlo works primarily in the Southern California and Arizona areas.  If you are outside of this area, please call to see if a presentation may be arranged for your group.  A calendar will be available in the Resources Section of this blog starting in July, 2010.

Presentation emphasis can be placed on the Pause Sessions or more specifically on simple practices one can do independently for stress relief.

What are the fees for such presentations?

At this time, Carlo does not charge any fees for his presentations as long as he is allowed to make his books and CDs available to the audience at the end of the presentation or after any following spiritual services.  For further information, please call or write.

How do I book Carlo Ami for an interview or presentation?

You may reach Carlo directly by phone at 760-990-1630 or write This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it