One of the highlights of the first day of The Best You Expo was the powerful talk given by Dr Barbara De Angelis. Her European fans came out in force to meet her, and she did not disappoint, spreading her own brand of wisdom and common sense in her truly unique way
It has been 20 years since Barbara De Angelis was last in the UK and, as she commented, things have changed. She cited the fact that you can now get a decent coffee, and the food has improved – but that wasn’t all that has changed. Throughout the world, people are waking up – and it was the process of awakening that she traced in her two talks at The Best You Expo.
De Angelis is a fascinating figure. Dressed in orange silks, with raven-dark hair, she radiates a timeless spirituality.
But her message isn’t one of vague etherealism, it’s about how advanced spirituality affects your everyday life and the people around you.
“Your own wakefulness, your own consciousness, your own shifting, vibrationally, blesses other people, just as you walk through the world.
So you may think you came here for yourself, but you are an ambassador right now.
Sitting here, you’re an ambassador for your friends, for your family, for strangers, for the country in which you live. You’re an ambassador of consciousness. Just vibrating and learning to vibrate with a higher consciousness will and does – and must – make a difference on the planet.”
The people in the room had answered their cosmic alarm clock and woken up. It made them advanced souls who had started out on a new stage of consciousness. And now more than ever, being aware of that new consciousness was vital, in a period in which the world is in a battle between light and dark.
In many ways her message was about taking responsibility for the thoughts and actions you have and do, and to recognise how that affects the whole world.
“Are you going to live with consciousness or not?” she asked the audience. “Are you going to live with openness or not? Are you going to pay attention or not? Are you going to live a life awake and present or not?
You may think, well, it doesn’t make difference to other people what I choose. It makes a difference to everybody, because you’re always making a difference, vibrationally.”
Her own role was that of a teacher. She compared herself with the map that you might be given in a giant museum, making sense of so much data, and getting people to see the best routes to take.
She was also clear to say that the path of awakening is open to everyone. No-one is disqualified from becoming more conscious and more aware because of their past.
In fact, “The things you think disqualify you, qualify you.” The very things people have experienced have turned them toward soul-searching. Sometimes, the confusion in a life is the doorway to greater understanding.
De Angelis took the audience through her own life, relating her own journey, and commenting that the very act of seeking for answers was “your inner awakening in action”. In fact, the sense of confusion, of never feeling quite in control, of meeting problem after problem can be a sign of increased spiritual velocity. She called it “divine discomfort.”
The feeling that your life is out of control and you are having to hold on tighter because you are going faster, and the world seems a blur because of it.
Her job, as a mystic and a teacher is to help her students find the answers to questions that spring from divine discomfort.
“Who am I? What am I doing here? What am I supposed to do in this life? Why, sometimes, can I feel so clear, so connected and other times as if I’ve forgotten everything I know? Why are so many people so cruel? Why am I feeling homesick for some place I don’t even know about, but I keep thinking this isn’t how it’s supposed to be?”
In her case, when she was young, she wondered why people were so often so mean to each other.
It was as if she had been born in the wrong world. When she was 18 she found her first spiritual teacher, the famous Maharishi Mahesh Yogi in the 1960s, when she was attracted by a poster to go to a meditation.
She took many years investing in her own enlightenment, and didn’t start teaching until she was in her thirties, famously touring the US with Wayne Dyer and Deepak Chopra. But though they were teachers, she insists that everyone teaches everyone all the time. People are affected by the way you speak to them, people’s lives are moved, “soul shifts” occur.
So, how to make your soul shift to your highest, and for it to stay with you?
The secret is through cultivating a sense of higher consciousness, in which you see everything you need to see about yourself. You dispose with the illusions, and look at yourself, your life and those around you clearly. To live with the fog of your limitation cleared away.
One way to think about this is to use the soul shifts mantra: the key to awakening in each moment.
De Angelis spoke of it like this: “Today I’m going to see what there is to see, to feel what there is to feel and to know what there is to know. Let me explain: How many things will you think about today, as you do this and this and this? Today I’m going to see what there is to see…
“How do we usually think? More like this: Today I’m not going to see anything that upsets me. I’m going to only see things my way.
“No, I’m going to see whatever there is to see, to feel what there is to feel.
“What do we usually say? I don’t want to feel anything that makes me uncomfortable.
I don’t want to feel anything that’s going to challenge or make me have to make choices. You know, I’m feeling something, I’m just going to have a few glasses of wine and I don’t really need to feel it.
Today I’m going to feel whatever there is to feel…
Why?
“Because feelings are maps; they’re guiding you somewhere. And to know what there is to know, because when you see things and you feel enough, knowing this will happen. Wisdom occurs.
“This soul shifts mantra is so powerful. I’ve received tens of thousands of letters and emails and posts about it. It will shift… and you can do it when you’re faced with a situation. I talk about how to do that in more detail in the book.”
De Angelis’ talk included many more insights and words of advice to her audience, and was divided between a morning and afternoon session. Towards the end of the second session she offered a powerful meditation, full of kind advice. Many delegates spoke of how impressed they were.
Afterwards, she signed books for her followers and students, giving them her attention for three hours. It was a powerful and impressive display of wisdom and knowledge, in which her honesty and authenticity shone through.
A powerful event which made many soul shifts occur.
