So then I might say to this person, "In dealing with these issues of control, you can do a couple of things..you can go to a therapist and work this out...and then you can try..." and I would list all these alternatives. And what I always see-always-if this person is an incredibly entrenched tribal being, I'll watch them while they absorb the information I am giving them and they will transfer it to their tribal data base. They will run it past their family so to speak, even though their body has not left my room, and then they will say to me, "no, no, no, I can't do that." What they are really saying-and they don't even realize it-is, "I can't do it because no one in my family has done it before."

Now do you think those people create their own reality? Absolutely not. That's preposterous. Their reality is created by the weatherman on TV for god's sake more than it is by themselves. "Oh, it's going to be sunny? Ok, I'll be happy."

When I watch television, I hear, "Are you going to give us good weather today Willard Scott?" or, "Willard, what's wrong with you today?" What a trite, ridiculous comment- as if he's responsible for these things. But you see, that's very tribal.

DiCarlo: So what you are saying is that this marks the difference between someone who is outer directed versus being inner directed-aligned with their soul?

Myss: You could reduce it to that kind of thing, but you know what? That doesn't explain the technology of how this works. And that's what's so rich about my work. I have got the technology down to a science, literally. I can tell you what thought is associated to a particular chakra, and at what speed. You know, "this thought will cause a particular physical condition in four months."

So, in looking at the top level, when you start the journey of individuation-being an individual by pulling away from the tribal mind-you begin the journey of becoming congruent, of getting all seven chakras lined up with a more mature will. That's when you have to go into conflict with the tribal mind, because your are now purging yourself of what you want to believe versus what you have been programmed to believe.

And then the 8th chakra is where your contract is. The agreements that you make with the universe before you are born. So that's how I divide it.

DiCarlo: What are some of the possible consequences of being fully aligned with our soul-the totality of who we are?

Myss: Well, for on thing, I don't think you age. I think you mature, but I don't think you age. Let's go through the door of mystics, shall we? All mystics, east, west, up, or down-and this fascinated me in my theological years-share certain abilities. Now from the ordinary mortals point of view, they would seem to be gifts, but when you actually get into it, they have earned these abilities every step of the way. And by becoming congruent with your soul, you alter your relationship with time and space. I teach it this way: "Imagine that you have got 100 circuits going through your head. Every day, you get to distribute these circuits whenever you want. Any place you want-within yourself or outside of yourself. Now here's what you need to understand: for every circuit you distribute outside of yourself, you increase the amount of time required for anything to manifest in your life. For every circuit you contain within yourself, you increase your experience of what you would call synchronicity and at a master level, instantaneous creation. It's as simple as that. That's it, bottom line."

DiCarlo: How do you do that?

Myss: That's where discipline comes in. You must have a spiritual discipline. You must be strong enough to begin the process of taking your will out of illusion and into yourself. So you face yourself. You face every fear you have got and how much authority it has over you and you begin to challenge it. If you don't do this, that means you are losing your circuits to that fear. That fear has more authority and every day you are giving that fear more of your circuits. You are keeping it alive. Example: I have no fear of my stereo system. None. Zero. I don't give away any circuits at all. Now, how about the fear of being mugged? That has got two of my circuits. I feel it every time I am in New York City. So until I can eliminate that fear, as in the case with my stereo, I am giving it fuel. Now I don't have a fear of rocks dropping on my head. I don't have a fear of slipping into a sewer. There are a lot of fears I don't have. I don't have a fear of heights. Being on top of a tall building doesn't phase me in the least. But wherever it is that I do have fear, I have work to do. I have to face my fear directly. I have to honestly say to myself, "Do I have a fear of being alone? Or do I have a fear of being in a crowd? " If I do, I have to walk into it, deal with it, until it is nothing to me. That's what inner discipline is all about.

DiCarlo: All eastern psychologies talk about the importance of being fully present in the moment. Energetically speaking, what is the significance of the present moment?

Myss: Everything. That's the only thing that is significant. Do you know that for the vast majority of people I do a reading on, illness is the consequence of living in two time zones. If the majority of your energies are in the past you get cancer. Let me talk to you as if I were your guardian angel. This is what I do in my workshops. Now, if I were your angel, and you had a prayer, and you said, "Help me. I need an opportunity to come to me." I, as your guardian angel would say, "I know you do. But sweetheart, the kind of opportunity you want is going to require 65% of your circuits in present time-you've only got 20%." So the way I've got to answer your prayer right now, is for me to make the things that you have attached 40% of your circuits to, come into your life so you can deal with it. It's going to look like you are going to have one crisis after another. But it's the only way I can get you into present time."

DiCarlo: So it's kind of like a slap in the face to wake you up and get you out of the past and into the present. Why must a person have to physically have that experience in order for them to be fully in the present? Can't they simply will themselves to be more in the hear-and-now?

Myss: I think that most people aren't strong enough to call their spirits back by themselves. How many people do you know who live in the past in some way, shape or form?

DiCarlo: More than a couple..

Myss: If you said to them, "OK, let's call it back-1,2,3, up, up, up...." Do you think that would work for most people? Look, you don't know how much power people have invested in holding on to their past. You have no idea.

Here's what we've done. I am convinced that our culture never, ever had a language of intimacy until this massive movement started toward psychology in the 1960s. A language of intimacy didn't exist. I know people who have been married to one another for over 40 years and they never had a talk about sexual needs. None whatsoever. They only had a talk about stuff below the waist, like "what time are you getting home? " Or "what do you want for dinner?" Or "How much money are you making?" Or, "Are you cheating on me?" But personal needs, above the waist? Anything above the waist? It never went above the waist. It did not exist. So what was intimacy? How was it defined? Intimacy was defined by what was in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd chakra. How much money do you make? Where do you work? This was intimate.

Then we took the language of psychology out of academia and out of the clinics and mass marketed it, and wove it into everybody's mind, so that now, how do we define intimacy? By the exchange of wounds, not wallets. So, now two people meet. One asks the other, "Where are you from?" The other says, "Ohio." The other says, "Chicago." That's not going to bond two people. That's first chakra information. 2nd chakra: you will exchange something at the 2nd chakra level, and you say: "I am an attorney.." or whatever since that's where occupations are. That's not going to bond you either. Now let's go to the third chakra. You say, "I really like the color blue and the color green.." Nope, no bond there. Now watch this: go to the 4th chakra. Let's pull out a wound, but it can't be too big in the bonding ritual. We have to share something tribal, something small and bite-sized. After all, you don't want the other person to run away. So you say, "You know days like this remind me of my childhood....my mother never gave me doughnuts." Will I take the bait? If I wanted to, I'd send part of me back to my first chakra saying "hurry up, produce an equal bit-sized doughnut childhood memory." And we have a bonding ritual going on. "You never got doughnuts?" "I never got twinkies." Bingo-friends for life. And, every time you call me up and say, "Doughnut, doughnut, doughnut" I drop everything because that's how we have defined support.

Now why would you heal that? I ask you, "what's in it for you?" Especially if you have me dancing on the end of a rope every time you yell doughnut. You're going to give that up? I don't think so. I have seen people go to their grave rather than give up that power.

DiCarlo: Some people have spoken about a process called "soul retrieval." When a person experiences a trauma in life which they are unable to come to terms with, part of their soul departs and must be brought back. Would you like to comment on that?

Myss: That's just another word for what I would call having your energy in your past. There's no difference. "Soul retrieval" is shamanic language for the very same thing. I would say your circuits are going backwards. That's my language for it. I prefer non-superstitous language. I like a language that is much more technical, because I think the Western mind adjusts to it better.

Shamanism is a first chakra skill, so it tends to use very earthy or occult language, which by no means invalidates it. That's simply the level of that language. The first chakra is the language the church would use and they would say exorcism, wouldn't they? Getting the spirit back from a demon.So it's the same thing.

The interesting thing to notice is that these things are surfacing en masse simultaneously. Why is this? I think it's time to recognize that our energy gets stuck in different zones, and there is a consequence to that. One, our cells age differently. Two, it causes disease. Three, it makes you function in as many as 17, 18, or 30 time zones simultaneously. You lose creative ability. And you wonder why people are nuts? How's that for an explanation?

DiCarlo: One of the by-products of living in the modern era seems to be stress. Research seems to suggest that it is a contributing factor towards poor health in those that are unable to adequately cope with it. Could you describe what happens to an individual's energy field when they experience stress or anxiety?

Myss: Imagine that you have 100 circuits coming in to the top of your head. Now, something triggers anxiety. What would trigger anxiety in you?

DiCarlo: Feeling that I said something to somebody that I shouldn't have said.

Myss: Ok that's your 3rd chakra. So you have the perception that you shouldn't have said something and somebody just stormed out of the office. If you have anxiety over that, what's really going on is you have given a cluster of your circuits to that person, and that person is walking out of the building with part of your energy. It's not unlike having someone take a knife and rip your gut open, only it's at the level of your energy field. You are energetically bleeding. You are hemorrhaging.

Whereas, when you experience something like love or safety, there is no hemorrhage. So when you are not losing any energy at all, you get high. You feel vibrant. You are in ecstasy.

DiCarlo: So would that be referred to as a flow state or peak experience?

Myss: Yes, absolutely. Which is why there is such an unbelievable high when you find out good news after you've been anticipating something horrible. You were losing your energy. Have you ever really wondered if someone you love is safe? Seriously wondered? You feel yourself losing your energy, moment by moment by moment. And then you get the phone call and all is well. They've made it and they are home. In finding out that everything is OK, you feel this sense of overwhelming expansion as your spirit comes back to you, it's like life coming back to your cell tissues. It's just like that. You return to being in present time, and in present time you are always going to feel energetic. You cannot "not" feel energetic if you are in present time.