Welcome to Day 6 of the 21-Day Consciousness Cleanse. You have been actively engaged for almost a week in a process that is designed to support you in reconnecting with your deepest purpose. Reflecting back on the previous five days, you have worked to identify and clear away the emotional and psychic debris that has littered the path to your future. It is natural that uncomfortable emotions may be surfacing as you navigate your inner world. But today the tide turns.

It is clear to me that one of the biggest obstacles we face as human beings is the pain we put ourselves through when we resist and wrestle with our emotions. It would be impossible to estimate how much time and energy we invest in trying to fix, change and deny our emotions—especially the ones that shake us at our very core, like hurt, jealousy, loneliness, shame, rage and grief. But what is even more sobering is the fact that somewhere along the way, we decided we were supposed to handle all those emotions on our own.

So today, invoke the agent of change known as surrender in order to create a relaxing environment of tolerance and spaciousness within yourself. Surrender to your emotions—simply allow all of them to exist. When you stop resisting your emotions, you will quickly realize that your feelings are your friends. They are your soul's way to communicate with you and are meant to guide and inform you. When you allow your emotions to be as they are—just as you would encourage a child to do—something magical happens: They pass through you. The moment you surrender your emotions, they will be transformed into evolutionary fuel for your soul.

Cleansing Ritual

Imagine that your resistance to your emotions is based in fear. Tune in to the voice of fear. Listen to the judgments you hold on these emotions, and then write out everything you hear.

Soulful Action

Your Outer Goal: What action step could you take in the outer world today that will support the fulfillment of your goal? Can you do it immediately? If not, put it in your schedule and make it a priority.

Your Inner Goal: Identify an action you can take today that will give rise to the feeling you wish to embody this year. Take the action as if it's one of the most important things you will do today...because it is.

Soul Food: Divine goodness awaits me.

Debbie Ford is the national best-selling author of The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, The Secret of the Shadow, Spiritual Divorce, The Right Questions, The Best Year of Your Life and Why Good People Do Bad Things. Her new book is The 21-Day Consciousness Cleanse (Harper Collins). She conducts workshops across the country. She lives in California with her family.

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