What may only appear as a cute photo of my dog Chloe, can actually offer many insights into life. What do I mean? Remember Descartes famous phrase, "I think, therefore I am?" Though well intentioned, it set society up to adopt a false belief. As Chloe proves, “I am consciousness, therefore I am.” “I think, therefore I am,” although a false idea, is a belief anyone can choose to believe. And when one does, they start to believe their thoughts are real and that their thoughts make up their beliefs. But people like Diederik Wolsak and others have shown that it is in fact our beliefs that create our thoughts. This might seem like a banal platitude but stay with me. Many times in life, I’ve tried to alter my thoughts to “fix” or “better” my life. It didn’t work. Why? Because of the underlying belief system. I needed to choose again on certain beliefs that weren’t serving me well. Sadly, “I think, therefore I am” was part of that negative operating system. When I accepted “I am consciousness, therefore I am” as the truth, it allowed for something truly deep to flow through me—unconditional self-love. You want to become fully present in your life? Love yourself unconditionally. Really. That is the path to awakening. That is what it means to be enlightened in the truest sense, knowing yourself. And how can you know yourself if you can’t even accept yourself because of “conflicting thoughts” (which again, really stem from beliefs you’ve chosen to accept)? What thoughts am I referring to? Dig in and explore. Have you ever thought you weren’t enough? Have you ever felt the need to do something to prove to “someone” that you’re worthy? Have you felt unloved? Have you ever called yourself a piece of shit? Have you ever had imposter syndrome? All the few ways in which we devalue ourselves and evidence that we’re not loving ourselves unconditionally. But here’s the good news. Everyone started off with unconditional self-love. Somewhere down the line, we learned and came to agree with limiting beliefs. So, here’s a rule to live by: if you were born with it, keep it, if you weren’t, unless it’s useful like language, get rid of it.