Ah, the ego! That little voice that constantly talks to you in the back of your mind. The all-too-familiar, endless dialogue that taunts and teases you. It can be the withering sub-text of an argument or the moral boosting rant of how you are better than all that.

Yet, at the end of the day, as you lie in bed tossing and turning listening to the ego rehash the day's events, you feel lost, belittled, disempowered, and anxious. It robs you of your peace of mind. It takes away your power. The ego's constant diatribe leaves you physically exhausted, mentally worn out, and emotionally overwhelmed.

The ego colors how you do everything in your world. It dictates how you think, how you react, how you feel, and how you respond to other people in your life. Where to turn? What to do? The ego and how we respond to its rants and beliefs is the true core of stress—it is the heart of anxiety, in my professional opinion.

Like most people, I transitioned into adulthood believing that stress and anxiety were the result of how I responded to my environment. I believed all the rhetoric that all I needed to do to create more balance in my life—despite the demands of my career, endless deadlines, and my home life—was to eat a more balanced diet, exercise, get eight hours of sleep every night, and (oh, yeah) try daily meditation, while you are at it.

To be honest, I did try to create that utopian image of living my life in harmony and balance while trying to hold it all together through the stress and anxiety that enveloped my daily life. But that ever-present little voice in the back of my mind never failed to remind me that I was always missing the mark.

Then one morning, after being on medical leave for a few weeks, I found myself craving meditation. As I sat there in the silence, watching my breath, I gasped when I felt myself become one with everything in the universe. I felt only total complete love and oneness. It was sublime. Although it only lasted for a few brief seconds, it was enough. I was filled with total and complete joy for three solid days. It was during this period of complete bliss I came to see and experience at a cognitive level that I was not my ego.

That came as a shock! For the first time in my life I could see and experience the separation between what I thought and believed I was in relation to what I was truly, at a soul level. I became aware that I was experiencing my life from two different perspectives. One perspective was from my ego's interpretation, and the other perspective was my soul's truth. The statement that "we are all souls having a human experience" took on a whole new meaning.

I was completely unprepared, however, for the reality that I needed my ego. It wasn't an enemy that needed to be subdued and vanquished; rather, it was an important part of the journey and I needed to learn how to work with it. My ego created the physical image of who I was and how I presented myself to the world. It was how others saw me and responded to me. But there was also a part of the ego that worked very hard at convincing me, emotionally, that what it thought, said, and believed was the truth. This created a lot of stress and anxiety in my life. That was the part that I needed to work with.

As I started to shift my perspective and stopped believing everything my ego said, my mind became quieter and less reactive. I started to notice that I was reacting differently to events in my life. I felt less anxious and stressed out. Stepping between the different perspectives of my ego and soul voice became the dance. My life became a more loving and peaceful soul experience that observed the human journey.

At first the dance started innocently enough. I began to journal almost every day. I would record the day's events, my feelings, and what I had dreamed about the previous night. When I reviewed what I had written, I began to notice a pattern. There was one tone to what I had written and a different tone to what I was reading. It created a different perspective. Then there were the sentences that I didn't remember writing down, which gave me even deeper insights. I began to realize that the different tones were a shift between the ego voice and my soul voice. My soul voice was showing me how my ego was trying to make me believe things that were not the truth. Over time I came to realize that what I thought of as my soul voice, was in fact, my intuition. I always knew I had this ability to understand things at a different level. I had spent most of my life listening to "that voice," but it wasn't until I reached adulthood that I found out there was a name for what I "did."

As I started to work with my intuitive voice more consciously my life began to unexpectedly change very rapidly. Through all the changes, challenges, and revelations I was led to train as a healer and medical intuitive. After sixteen years of being in private practice and working with clients from around the world, I saw direct evidence on how the true source of stress and anxiety is not what is happening in our lives but is the direct result of how our egos react and think about what is happening in our lives. A big difference!

Everyone is intuitive. We all have that natural "soul" voice speaking to us from the sidelines trying to show us that the ego is not the truth. You think your ego is truth. You are afraid it is the truth, but I can honestly say, it isn't your truth. The Intuitive Dance: Building, Protecting, and Clearing Your Energy is about learning how to master your ego by utilizing your innate intuitive abilities and finding your way back to inner peace and harmony. This can be accomplished by using the spiritual techniques contained in the book, including:

• The most powerful grounding technique you will ever learn, The Vertical Axis
• Creating deep, restorative sleep using Dreamtime Management
• Cutting energy cords with everyone you have been in touch with on a daily basis using the power of angels
li>Discovering what type of intuitive you are and how to use this innate ability more effectively
• Creating your own personal cloak of privacy
• Developing a more powerful form of the White Light of Protection
• Clearing space for your home and office
• Overcoming negative belief systems and fill your life with abundance
• Effectively dealing with energy tyrants
• Overcoming emotional blackmail
• Removing the toxic energy that can form after conflict and transform it into love and light for the good of all

Through my work with hundreds of clients I have found that changing that inner dialogue using the spiritual practices contained in The Intuitive Dance has reduced stress and anxiety by up to 50%. All the techniques contained in the book are quick and easy to use; most can be mastered in a few minutes and used daily for less than five minutes. I have conducted a research study to confirm these findings.

I firmly believe that if everyone understood how simple it is to manage their own inner dialogue we would be a whole new society in one generation. It would make us better parents, more knowledgeable leaders, and more loving and compassionate human beings.

May you find the intuitive dance with life a joyful one.