In this enlightening book, Who is God?, learn how to create the magical, incredible life that is everyone's birthright. After a spiritual awakening, Fiona Fay's own life was completely transformed. With clear, simple explanations and astonishing examples, she takes us through the journey of discovery that changed her entire world and she reveals how you can take the same journey.

If mankind is to transcend the current global challenges, we must embrace a new way of thinking and being. We must embrace the ability people have to take back their personal power which will create miraculous results within your life, whether it is health, wealth, or relationships, but it also has the power to create miracles to ease our global problems of hunger, war, finance, and the environment.

Powerful, inspiring, and controversial, Who is God? will challenge you to shed old thinking patterns that have sabotaged your success and prevented you from experiencing your true magnificence. By becoming aware of the profound messages within the book and practicing this way of living, your life will transcend to a whole new level that will enable you to have a deep and meaningful purpose in all aspects of your life.

Who is God? You are

By Fiona Fay

iUniverse, Inc.

Copyright © 2010 Fiona Fay
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4401-8803-9

Contents

Acknowledgements....................................................viiIntroduction........................................................ixChapter 1. Who Is God?..............................................1Chapter 2. Signs from God...........................................13Chapter 3. What Is Your Story?......................................19Chapter 4. Whose Voice Are You Listening To?........................27Chapter 5. It's All Energy..........................................34Chapter 6. Let Go Of What You Cannot Control........................39Chapter 7. It's a Way of Life.......................................46Chapter 8. What the World Needs Now.................................52Chapter 9. You Are the Creator......................................57Chapter 10. The Greatest Gift of All................................64Chapter 11. The Lens You Look Through...............................74Chapter 12. Our True Nature.........................................85Chapter 13. Go with the Flow........................................98Chapter 14. Trust...................................................103Chapter 15. The End, but the Beginning for You!.....................110

Chapter One

Who Is God?

You are.

You are God. When I first heard this, I was dumbfounded. Shocked, confused, and in disbelief, something inside me started to shift. Something inside me could not wait to find out more. Something inside me knew deep down my life was about to change. I started to realise what this word really meant. God was not something outside of myself, God was something that was already within.

The word "God" evoked the beginning of an amazing journey, a journey of self-discovery, wonder, and awe. A journey I am passionate about sharing with the world. It was the start of a search for a deeper meaning in my life; the search for a greater truth; the search for knowing who I am; the thirst and hunger for something more, something great, something special.

How many of us go through life wanting our life to be special, wanting it to be unique, wanting our dreams to come true, wanting to feel secure, wanting to feel like we are worthy? We do, but many of us don't really know what it is that we are looking for. I know I certainly didn't until I met someone who would change the course of my life forever.

It's important that I say up front that this is not a religious book. I know the word "God" is synonymous with religion, but when I discovered this great truth, I was not practicing religion, still don't. In fact, God was not something I even thought about. I believe in spirituality, which for me is tapping into the spirit within ourselves. This book has come to you because you are now ready to hear what it has to say.

I am so excited for you because you are about to really wake up to the power that is within you. Do you realise just how much potential you have in your hands right now? What if you were to go through your entire life only to realise at the end of it that you could have discovered you were so much more? Wouldn't that be a wasted life? If everyone knew this great truth, how much harmony, magic, and peace would there be in this world? I know that we all have limitless potential and the only thing that stands in the way is our inability to realise who we truly are.

I had a spiritual awakening about four years ago. I started to wake up from the pain and torture of my years of conditioned thinking. I woke up to knowing who I am and realized that I am part of an incredible system, a perfect world, and I am, in fact, perfect. I am God.

This may sound egotistical to those who are not living from this awareness, and it may be hard to believe for those whose conditioning has taken over. My words, however, are written with the utmost humility, courage, and truth. I could never say this unless I was aware that we are God. Without this awareness of who we are, we are only focused on ourselves and not on what we can do for mankind, for others, and how we can make the world a better place. When we operate from the truth of who we are, our view becomes a worldview, and we become concerned with leading and living a purpose-driven life, as opposed to a life of mere existence, without meaning or purpose. We become excited about leaving our legacy behind, making a difference in the lives of others, no longer wrapped up in ourselves and our everyday lives. We know that our actions are part of a bigger divine picture.

We all come from the one source; we are all God, although most of us don't know it. When I had this realisation, I could see the beauty and magic of life. It was like waking up as a child on Christmas morning, experiencing the feelings of excitement, awe, and wonder at all the gifts that I was given. I knew I had started to tap into something magical. I knew that something had "big time" shifted in me. I finally felt good about myself. I found something that felt so right. I had actually found the real me again. I started to feel secure, and a peace started to take over me. I now live in a very different way; it's a world apart from the way I lived when I was asleep.

I am going to use the analogy of being asleep and being awake as symbolism to describe the difference it made to me and my life. Being asleep is living in fear. Being awake is living in inspiration, being inspired from within. Living from this place ensures that the way you feel does not depend on what is going on outside yourself. Life is such an adventure when you are free and connected to who you really are.

If you have an issue with the word "God," you can use a different word if you prefer. Many are steering away from using the word "God" because of what we have been traditionally conditioned to believe about God, what God is and what God isn't. Other words to describe God that are often used are Life Force, Life, Spirit, Energy, your Higher Power, the Universe, Source, Peace, Freedom, Love, Light, Truth, Inner Power. Use whichever word feels right for you. I will use different words throughout the book to ensure we do not get too bogged down in what one word means. All that matters is that you experience this power and have it work for you in your own life regardless of the label you use.

As I said, I was asleep, and as a result I lived in fear. I was paralyzed by it. I lived in a place of deep insecurity where nothing was ever good enough. I was never happy with how I looked and thought I was fat (which, in reality, could not have been farther from the truth). Regardless of my achievements, having my own house, travelling the world with my job, having lots of money, having a great boyfriend, full health, lots of friends, I was still disappointed, always unhappy and wanting more. I worked within a global investment company and had so many opportunities there. Yet I still remained very unfulfilled and uninspired. To others, on the outside, I probably looked successful, but it didn't seem to make any difference to me. I was always looking for something external to make me feel better: praise from other people, alcohol, exercise, new clothes, food, travel to new destinations, climbing the corporate ladder, earning more money.

I looked for praise and recognition from others, and when I didn't get it I felt worthless and would be upset for days. Yet as soon as I received the accolades, the feel-good factor didn't last long. The emptiness seeped in once again. All of these things are quick fixes. The sense of joy or good feelings that come with these things come and go and never last. My friends and family probably thought I had my life all sorted out. So did I at the time. Looking back, the cracks and the emptiness that pervaded my soul were obvious. Most days I felt unworthy, insecure, under pressure, working too hard to prove myself. I believed that that was "just the way life is." I thought that life was supposed to be challenging and hard. It certainly wasn't meant to be full of fun, joy and total fascination. Life was okay. It wasn't horrendous. In hindsight, you could describe my life as "run of the mill." I was one of the herd doing what everyone else was doing and had come to accept this as normal.

I used to wake up with butterflies in my stomach and went to bed with migraines. I had these constantly, ever since I was a teenager. I was always tired and had no energy. More than anything, I took life and myself too seriously (a great sign of being asleep), and my drive and ambition were born out of insecurity. I was lost, and I didn't even know it. I certainly had no clue who I was. I thought I was my career. It was my identity.

Anyone who is asleep will attach themselves to something outside of them, whether it's their career, money, relationships, college degrees, material possessions, status and for the most part believe that these things are them.

You may appear to be fine on the outside, and certain aspects of your life may be working, but you may feel-as I did-that you are empty inside; that there is no deep purpose or meaning to your life. Life is just not that exciting. Maybe it is not something you give a great deal of thought to and just plod along as I did. In Ireland, where I was born and live, we love to "sweep things under the carpet" and avoid dealing with our emotions. In this culture, it was easy for me to believe that how I felt was normal.

I was lost until one day, just an ordinary day, something different happened. I remember that prior to this day, I'd said to myself, "Surely there must be more to life than this. This is hard work." Shortly after that, I was having a conversation with a friend who, it turned out, was about to become my spiritual teacher and guide. At that time, I never even knew there was any such thing as a spiritual teacher.

That autumn evening in 2005, my friend and I were driving through Dublin, on our way to a leadership talk. It was an ordinary evening as I thought, but I had no idea how significant it was going to be. On the way there, we got into a conversation about life. Seemingly out of nowhere, I asked her, "Who is God?" I remember her answer as clear as day. She said, "God is that tree we have just driven past. God is everywhere. God is you. God is me."

I had no idea why I had asked this question and the response I got meant nothing. Logically, it sounded as if she was speaking a foreign language. Yet the words resounded within me, and I became deeply curious.

That was the start of my awakening, of my remembering the truth about who I am and what life is about. You see we remember, this is what all of us know at the core of our being. I had just forgotten. Something was ignited inside me that day, and I felt a burning desire to know more. The more I uncovered the truth, the more peace I felt. I started to feel like something was slotting back into place. I was so excited. It was as if a big switch was turned on inside of me and I was illuminated. The magic had begun.

I had been raised as a Catholic. However, I didn't believe in God or experience God as part of my life. God was about attending Mass and going to confession. I felt God could only be accessed through a third party-the church. A third party that laid down a myriad of rules and laws to obey in order to know God. I went to Mass because that is what everyone else did but never felt the presence of God. To be honest, I was so robotic about these rituals that I don't think I really ever thought about God during those years. I just went along with it.

However, after that revelation on that November evening in Dublin, I was connecting with something and was enthralled. It was as if my soul just knew it was time to listen. The strangest thing was that although these words sounded so foreign to me, they all felt so right. It felt exciting, it felt refreshing, and more than anything, I felt deeply inspired and had a longing to know more. I wanted to know everything about life, about spirituality, about God, about how to really use my potential. In my heart, I knew that each step would unfold spontaneously when I was ready to understand, and that's exactly what happened in the years to follow.

To go from being spiritually asleep to being enlightened is a journey. My definition of being enlightened is to be totally free from conditioning where there is no mental torture anymore and we are living in the present moment all of the time, living in bliss. No pain can exist when we are living in the now. I knew I had to take my time and knew each step would unfold perfectly. My life was about to change dramatically.

The truth is, we all came into the world pure and perfect. If you think of babies, they totally live in the moment, experiencing their emotions as they arise. A baby operates through their feelings alone. When they are hungry, they cry. When they are amused, they smile and giggle. A baby will stare into your eyes for minutes and minutes in deep curiosity, without worrying about being rude or offensive. They act on their feelings and never their thoughts. They are just being themselves and not trying to be somebody else.

When you and I were born, we felt whole and complete. There was no question of being unworthy or not being good enough. There was no beating ourselves up with negative inner self talk. We knew we were complete. As babies and young children, we were totally experiencing ourselves and the world. Everything was fresh and exciting, filled with wonder and awe. If anyone asked us a question, we told the truth because we always communicated directly and un-self-consciously from our hearts.

So what happened? We became conditioned; conditioned by the voices on the outside. These were the voices of our parents, teachers, clergy, media, friends, family, and all external influences to which we became accustomed to listening. We stopped listening to our own inner voice (our feelings). The voices on the outside became louder and louder and started to overrule the wisdom within.

It's as if we become split in two as we start to get older. We literally start to wear a mask, take on a persona, form a new identity. It's like there is always the real us within and then we create a false us. Many refer to this false identity as the ego. We start to think we are our ego and forget to live as our true selves. Is it any wonder when we live from the false us (the ego) that we feel insecure, afraid, and lost because deep down we know that this is not who we really are?

I know that my pure and all-knowing voice inside got buried and lost, and it got to the stage that I didn't know the difference between my intuitive voice inside and all the other clamoring opinions, rules, and expectations on the outside. It's like I started to live like the genie in the bottle, feeling contained and restricted and yet knowing there was all this potential bursting to get out. I took on the fears of my parents-this was not through any fault of theirs. They only knew what they had been told by their parents and their influencers, ancestors, and so on. The cycle continues, the cycle of fear, of insecurity, of hurt. It is all handed down, generation after generation. Thankfully, I feel I've broken the cycle; I've broken free.

Being surrounded by negative conditioning when I was younger caused me to become very disillusioned, especially as a teenager. I felt that something deep inside me wanted to escape from living that way. I'd forgotten who I was and always felt there was something missing. It was like living in a cold, dark cave. It was unsafe, dreary, and depressing. My father died when I had just turned thirteen, and I had to deal with the grief of losing a parent mixed with all the confusing emotions of transitioning from a child to a teenager.

I believe our life circumstances do shape us, and I would not change a single thing. These circumstances can strengthen us, or we can allow them to destroy us. We always have the choice to view it as a gift or as the worst thing that could ever happen. I believe that we are born into the perfect family even if you say you would have chosen a different family. The events that take place within our family structure, even if these are what you perceive to be very negative circumstances, are there to help us grow. They are what help us evolve, if we choose to look at it this way. Would you be the same person you are today if you had it easier or different? I know for me, some of the darkest moments I experienced turned out to be some of the greatest gifts in my life. I know if I had not experienced feeling fearful, insecure, and inadequate, I would not be passionate about helping others to believe in themselves and live in a different way. Some people will choose to be a victim and blame their family for their dissatisfaction with life. In other words, they choose to give their power away. We have the choice in every moment to see it as a gift or to keep the shackles on.

My father's death was one of the biggest lessons in my life. I really value life and know how it can be taken away from us in a heartbeat. Life is sacred and is to be treasured. We can make many plans and spend our lives dreaming about wanting it to be so different instead of living our lives right now in this very moment.

After my spiritual awakening, I became aware of the true me, the God within, and I stopped living through conditioned thought. It was then that everything started to change. Now, I can honestly say I adore life, love life, and live life. The adventures that happen every day are remarkable. I would not change a single thing in my life.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from Who is God? You areby Fiona Fay Copyright © 2010 by Fiona Fay. Excerpted by permission.
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