In this conversation, we continue the Epoch Journey series as Aviv Shahar and longtime Portals friend Jeff Vander Clute explore the process of self-authoring appraisal. How do we identify the blockages, possible pain and trauma, and limiting beliefs that hold us back from the vast field of larger potential that is our natural birthright?
As we update and realign our values and mental maps of meaning, we liberate greater versatility and range, and foster new pathways into our deeper universal nature. Appraising who we are today and the influences shaping our lives does not deny or bypass real challenges we may face. It allows us to melt and heal many types of inner scar tissue and discover our natural resilience.
Among Aviv and Jeff’s other insights and discoveries:
- What external persuasions do we allow inside ourselves? A modern vulnerability is openness to impressions that foster self-doubt.
- If we deny the point of pain, or suppress unresolved trauma or unmet essential needs, then already we are in a distorted view, bypassing what the case actually is.
- We explore in the self-authoring appraisal process a way in which we let life itself lead us within the various domains of our growth, development and engagement.
- With enhanced resiliency available to humanity, the big question for the species is, are we going to make it? Do we have enough resiliency to shift from Homo sapiens sapiens to becoming Universalis?
- The self-authoring appraisal is a technology we can apply to almost any aspect of our lives, much like carefully attending to a garden, instead of running on autopilot and habit.
- We can receive guidance by connecting with our inner resources, or inner conclave. If we ask a question, and then clearly see our situation, we’re already beyond it.
- In a post-guru, epochal transition, we all lead; we need each other. Through shared discovery and co-creating, we provoke ourselves and create a greater ecology for the divine.
This conversation is part of the continuing Portals discovery into what is emerging on the frontiers of human experience in this time of profound change. Information about upcoming special events can be found on the Events page. Also visit and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Life is an open system — the universe actually is an open system. So how do we live? How do we dance with life in an open system? We are pioneering certain understandings and modalities; in the openness, each of us can show up fully and resiliently and creatively. Openness is liberation, and inquiry grounds us in our own nature, which then allows us to continue to express and flower.
Central to this appraisal process is being generatively creative in telling the story of your life. Wake up in the morning and say “No; I am not who I was yesterday. Today, I'm telling the story again in a new way.” You don’t need permission from somebody else; you are your own creator. You have permission to rewrite your story today.