 Hi, this is Debbie Daschinger. Welcome to the Dare to Dream podcast, and I'm really excited about today's show. We're going to be talking in this episode about gaining enlightenment through a program called Avatar. This podcast, Dare to Dream, has been nominated for two People's Choice podcast award for a Webby Award, and we were just listed in Welp Magazine. Thank you, Welp, for that great surprise as one of the top one of 20 podcasts to listen to this year. That really is a great honor. I've been doing this 14 years, so at this point I really appreciate the accolades and just the recognition that there are people like you who are along for the ride and the journey, who have questions about creation, self-development, about healing, and this universe and beyond, and that's where my curiosity lies. So talking about enlightenment is definitely on par with our conversation. So thank you to Welp Magazine for that great honor, and thank you for all of you who tune in every week, and thanks for the great remarks and comments that you write. I read all of them, and I do respond. And this show is sponsored by Dr. Dean here in Access Consciousness. We thank them too. They've been with us for this long ride, and they do beautiful work out into the world. If you'd like to become a facilitator, if you'd like to get one of their programs online or in person, when that finally opens up again, go to Dr. Dame here, H-E-E-R dot com, as well as Access Consciousness dot com. And what do I do out in the world? Well, I am a visibility media authority, and I show folks how to write a highly engaging page-turner book. I've got an ongoing bookwriting group that you can join at Debbie dashinger.com slash visible visionaries, as well as a few spots for private sessions. So you can write your book. I also take your book to a guaranteed international bestseller. And the final leg of what I do around visibility is showing you how to get booked on radio and podcasts and get massive results. I show you the entire system. If you'd like a gift so that you too can start to gain visibility, because as I say, visibility begets visibility. And for all of us lightworkers, it truly is an essential piece to have in your toolbox. When you're an entrepreneur, you must let people know that you exist and what you do and offer because your community and tribe is waiting for you. So go to Debbie dashinger dot com slash gift and receive an entire template about how you can start to put yourself out there and gain really great results, Debbie dashinger dot com slash gift. So enlightenment. Well, my guest today is Laurie Brankman, who is a licensed professional avatar master. Laurie's been delivering avatar for 30 years and teaches avatar courses worldwide. Laurie's married for 37 years to her soulmate, who is also an avatar master and trainer. And together they reside in San Diego with their rescued border collie and two precocious cats. And Laurie has a beautiful offer for you today. I'm going to give it out now, but we'll also discuss it later because you can schedule a free call with her at planet avatar.com slash schedule. And with that, I welcome Laurie Brankman to the Dare to Dream show. It is so great to have you. Thank you, Debbie. It's so great to be doing this with you. I so appreciate it. Yeah, I'm excited. And knowing you were coming on the show, I have to say there's a couple of memories that popped for me. And most of my memories were around, Oh, my life looks like this because of avatar. And I mean that in a very positive way. So for people who have heard the word and heard about the course, but haven't investigated or maybe they haven't heard it all, let's start there. What exactly is avatar? Good question. Okay, so avatar is an experiential self development course that teaches people a set of tools for unlocking their greatest potential. Students on the course learn how to create and discreet beliefs so that their life turns out the way they want it to. They're the tools that they learn are actually like a combination. Harry says a combination that unlocks the secrets that are contained in their own consciousness. So a student can once unlock, they can get in there and change and rearrange the contents any way they'd like. These are the contents that are responsible for your happiness, your sadness, your successes, your failures, all of it. It's pre programmed by the contents of your mind. So a student can actually have student of avatar can actually restructure their consciousness according to what they'd like to experience next. We call it the art of living deliberately. Some people call it a belief management technology. Some people call it a spiritual journey. But whatever you call it, there's always like an awakening that happens and a positive impact not only on the person who's taking the course, but also on the people around the person taking the course and on the collected consciousness that we're all a part of. I know that it was an in person course, but we're living in very interesting times. So how is Star's Edge, which runs the avatar and the other courses, how are they managing the folks who are worldwide? Because this is definitely a global community. Absolutely. Actually, since the pandemic, it's even been easier to reach everyone, because we do it just like you're doing it right now. We do it on Zoom now. We discovered a way to offer the course on Zoom worldwide, sometimes with students on opposite sides of the planet in the same Zoom room. And it has all of the care and personal attention that you would receive if we were together physically, but we're together virtually. And we do the exact same course that we've always done in person, same amount of time, same amount of number of hours. We're just face to face like you and I are here. So are you saying that you can gather, because I know some of the courses were really large, can you gather, I understand the Zoom capacity, but what I'm saying is how to teach online. You can get 50, 100 or more folks going at the same time, or do you break it up? No, we have everybody comes together at the beginning of the course online, and we may have several pages on Zoom, you know, 50 people per page. But then we break up into small one-on-one, or even smaller little small groups in the breakout rooms. And so some of the course is done in the big setting. Some of it's done in a breakout room with maybe five or 10 people together. And then some of it's done in smaller breakout rooms where there's one-on-one, a master and a student working very personally, very connectedly, just as if we were sitting across from each other in a room. But you know, we'll have people from Israel and people from South America and people from Japan and all over Europe and all over the United States, all in that same nine-day block of time on that same Zoom course. That's really extraordinary. Yeah, it's amazing how we can adapt with technology. It's actually this great assist during these times. And I'm curious because I know that Harry Palmer created these first self-development programs in 1986. So the program's really been around sustainably, consistently for a very long time. How did he create the course? What happened to him pre-1986 that brought about the enlightenment of Avatar? Well, I didn't know Harry before 1986. What I've read and what I've heard is that Harry has always been an educator. He was involved with exceptional children, wanting to create programs for kids in the New York City system, I believe it was. And he was always an explorer of consciousness. So he was looking for ways to give people tools that would help them in their lives. And through his own enlightened experiences, he realized that all of the answers that everybody's looking for are actually contained in their own consciousness. We just need a way to access them. So as he started to work with people back then, back in 86, 87, when he first developed Avatar, he started working with people and he was counseling people. And he developed a technique and that became the basis really for the Avatar training. And the technique was a way to, for a person to explore their own consciousness. And so over the years, the course developed so that we could, many, many people could do the same thing that Harry was doing with individuals. He taught people like myself, and I know you've also been through the training, how to actually deliver Avatar. We say deliver instead of teach it, how to deliver Avatar in a pure fashion so that people can have the enlightenment that they're looking for. And so here we are all these years later. What is the mission? I don't know if the mission has changed over the years, but what would you say today is the mission of Avatar? It has not changed. It's been the same since it began. The mission of Avatar in the world is to catalyze the integration of belief systems. When we perceive that the only difference between us is our beliefs and that beliefs can be created or created with ease, the right and wrong game will wind down. A co-create game will unfold and world peace will ensue. Yeah, we need this now more than ever. We're at such a crucial time on the planet. Yeah, I really appreciate that mission so much. I have a quote from Harry Palmer, which is, the Avatar course was designed to honor the uncharted way. People are attracted to it by an intuitive knowing rather than driven by need. Avatar teaches the use of proven navigational tools that can be used in harmony with your own integrity to pass safely across the uncharted turbulence of the mind into the region of the soul. Avatar is to know thyself. Powerful. I love that. And I also want to show you that this is the book, the very first book that Harry wrote called Living Deliberately. And in it, you asked how he developed Avatar. In it, he said that Chance favored a prepared mind. So that's how he experiences the information coming in and then going back out for all of us. And you can read all about how we developed the course in the first two chapters of this book. It's a fascinating read for anyone who likes to explore consciousness. How about you? I don't think I have ever heard your journey. And I would be really curious, how did you come to Avatar? I assume you first got there as a student before this 30-year journey you've been on. But what were you like before, Laurie? Inquiring minds want to know. And what happened that caused you to join and stay? Yeah. Well, let me first say that I have an amazing life. I am married to a wonderful man who is my soulmate, as you said. And he's perfect for me. He's also an Avatar and master and trainer. And I love that. We live in our dream home a mile from the beach. We are both doing what we love to make a living. And I feel like I'm fulfilling my life purpose. But that was not always the case. 30 years ago, before I heard about Avatar, I was in a painfully confused place. I had a lot of questions about who I was and what I was supposed to be doing with my life and really how to make it all work. I had been married, divorced, and then remarried. And I was afraid that my second marriage was going in the same direction. And I didn't know why and I didn't know what to do about it. So when my husband came home one day, he said, I'm going to go away for a week to Vermont to take a course called the Avatar course. I didn't even know what that was, but I just crossed my fingers and I hope that this was an answer. And a very interesting thing happened. When he came home, I felt different. The best way I can describe it is like there was this space around him in which I could just be myself. I had never felt that before. I had always felt like I was walking on eggshells. And that feeling was gone. It was amazing and wonderful and startlingly palpable. Of course, I wanted to know how did that happen? And next thing I knew, I was on the next Avatar course. And that was fast forward. It's been 37 years now that we've been married, which is truly an Avatar miracle. And the tools not only are saving my marriage every day that I continue to use them, but they give me the ability to create my life deliberately. I mean to really decide for myself what I want to believe and who I want to be. And it's not based on any indoctrinated ideas from any other source. And so anyway, after six months of having done the Avatar course, I decided to get trained and licensed to teach it. And I've been doing that ever since. Wow. Talk about longevity. What are some of the tools? I know you can't go deeply into them because someone really needs to take the course. And I think architecturally, how Avatar is designed is genius. You don't just get thrown in the deep water with a lot of information. There is a really methodical way that you're brought in and given pieces that create this beautiful platform and then things are built from. So my question is what for you personally are things that you've used? For instance, have you found the way to forgiveness using Avatar tools or what kind of issues do you personally use the tools for? Well, as I just revealed, very tentatively, yeah, I was really all about relationship for me in the beginning. I mean, I really didn't know how to make it work. And I didn't understand that the problem was me, not him. Didn't understand that I could actually restructure the way I was thinking to have a different outcome. So I in the beginning mostly used the Avatar tools to recreate our relationship in the way that I would like it to be. But Richard also and I, we were in a business together. We were in a music company together when we first did Avatar. And we had a music studio in New York City and we were doing music for advertising. It was a very successful business. And we decided, let's use the Avatar tools to increase our market share, to get more music on the air, to get more hits. It was like really success driven and very, very practical. And we did that. And we were very successful doing that. So the relationship started to work and the business was doing really, really great. And that's really where I focused in the beginning. But after we started delivering Avatar helping to awaken other people, I became much more interested in service to others. And how I could be, you know, how I could enter that arena without a lot of ego and without getting myself in the way of other people's processes, you know, without bringing my beliefs into their journey. So my, I've been using the tools really to help me to connect better with people, to be more real, to be more honest, and to clean up, well, you mentioned the forgiveness option. That's one of Harry's tools is how to clean up relationships where you feel like you've just done stuff that you don't feel good about. And, you know, and, or if you feel like the other side of it where you feel like something has been done to you and you don't, you can't let it go. I've used the tools a lot in that area too, to clean the slate and take responsibility for, you know, things that have happened. That just reminds me of an experience I had when I was very new to Avatar. And I at the time was also concurrently in a 12-step program, which I'm not anymore, but thank you to that piece of my life. And I remember working with one of the Avatar masters and we got to a point about cleaning up life. And I'm like, oh, I'm in a 12-step program. I mean, I've made a lot of amends. I'm pretty clean. And she was like, you know, we might want to, she was working, she was so diligent and patient with me because I didn't get it. It took so long for me to get it. And I will say again, architecturally, because of the way the program is laid out, when I got to that piece, and I can say now, looking back, oh, thank God, thank God, like the energetic crap I had been carrying around and unaware of most of it until I really sat in some piece and could really mindfully look at my life and say, hmm, that's not a good situation. That's unresolved. And I am the common denominator in the party. So there were a lot of people who heard from me. A lot of stuff I cleaned up. And that so much grace, so much peace, so much mercy. That's beautiful. But you know, I also want to say there's something very different about Avatar than a lot of other programs that people may have been exposed to or may have taken. What I've observed in many programs and many courses is that the program itself has a lot of beliefs that you have to subscribe to or that you have to adopt in order to get the benefits of them. For example, in this program, we don't eat this kind of food or in this program, you have to, this is the color that you should wear or in this system, this is how to market yourself to be successful. Or in this practice, the list goes on and on. And for anyone who's been a workshop junkie like I was, you know that there are a lot of rules. But what's different about Avatar is that it doesn't have a set of rules or beliefs that you have to adopt in order for it to be successful. So you're really exploring yourself. It's very refreshing because it's a course about beliefs, but it's not a course that has a set of beliefs of its own. It's a course about beliefs and how to believe, but not what to believe. Yeah, so I want to talk about that a little bit because earlier you also referred to this and you said this gives you some tools so that you can profoundly see where your beliefs are, what they're creating, and how to discreate them, and how you can create what you prefer. So let's start with, are we really creating? Is this all a massive projection and we are the writer, director, and actor? Well, if we aren't, who is, that to me is a little, that to me is a scarier proposition. You know, if we're not creating it, oh my god, then now we're entering the matrix. But really, I think it really comes down to what do you believe about that? Because if you believe that you're just unlucky, or that it's all random, or that someone's out to get you, or that it's your karma, then that's what you'll experience, and that will be your truth. And if you, and you would be able to point a lot of evidence in your life to prove that if you're looking through that idea. But on the other hand, if you have the idea that you're creating your life, and that then that's what you'll experience as your truth. And it really is your choice. Now, you might be thinking, well, how do I know if it's really true? You know, how, how I'm choosing to see it? How do I know if that's the truth? Am I fooling myself? But I don't know. But what I do know is that if you believe certain things, they tend to make you feel better. And if you believe certain other things, they tend to make you feel worse. I know if I believe certain things, I can feel happy. And if I believe something else, I can be miserable. And who's to say? So just as an experiment, just for this moment, just feel the difference between holding the belief, something bad is going to happen. And then compare that feeling to the holding the belief. Everything always works out for me. I mean, we're both cases, we're sitting right here in the present moment, looking forward into the future with an expectation, which reality do you want to create? I really think it's up to us. And that's really what the Avatar course teaches you how to do, how to create a belief with enough certainty that the experience actually arrives. Can you give an example? Is there a student story that you can share of a participant who made this, I am a creator of my own life, huge ah-ha discovery and how they implemented this realization and changed their life? Yes, there are many stories. I can think, I'm just thinking about one gal who wasn't that huge ah-ha that you're talking about, but I can give you an example of how a belief can really affect a person. So this was a student I had a number of years ago. She was working on her archaeology dissertation for her doctorate in grad school. And she had been working on it for a very long time. And she was trying to do her research, but she had severe neck pain and it was impeding her ability to complete her work. So on the second day of the Avatar course, she had the discovery. She realized that she is having the belief and had had the belief for a long time that getting her doctorate was going to be a long and painful process. Guess what? With that realization, with that belief it was turning out to be a long and painful process. But with the realization, the instant realization that oh my god that's the belief I've been holding, that's the expectation I was having, the neck pain disappeared and she was able to complete her research and get her doctorate in a very short period of time. So it's like that's the enlightenment that can happen just in an instant. Yeah, the power of a belief. I always see it as like something that has tentacles that comes out and impacts all these different factions of your life. There are belief fractals upon fractals and we may feel like it's this really unique independent belief. But the truth is I know because I've experienced this where I've discreated something and it seems like it's germane to a particular situation and yet it appears everywhere this freedom and relief from living underneath that anymore. So yeah, let's talk about the power of beliefs and how can people who are listening get in touch with their own limiting beliefs? Well, it's easy. It's actually a lot easier than you might think. It's really not a mystery. On the second day of the course, we have an exercise. It's called the Transparent Belief Exercise and this is an exercise that helps a person make the connection between what they're experiencing in their life and the belief that they hold that's creating that experience. And like you said, some beliefs have like long roots and they kind of touch many areas of your life. But if you can take just any limiting experience that you're having, you can work backwards and pretty much deduce what the belief is that's creating it because it's exactly what you're experiencing. If you're experiencing unhappiness, you can be pretty certain that you've got a belief there that you were going to be unhappy. You're experiencing difficulty in relationships and I can speak from experience. You can be really sure you have a belief like relationships are hard. You're having difficult time in your business getting it to work. There might be a belief they're like, I'll never make it. It's really almost a mirror image. But we don't get at it by running it through your mind and trying to figure it out. The processes in avatar are all in feel. And when you put yourself into the process, the answers just reveal themselves. The answers are there. It's interesting because this is not a course where you can rely on someone else telling you something. It's not a course where you can rely on somebody else's answers. No matter how entertaining or how wise their answers might be, you have to find your own answers and the tools navigate you through your consciousness so that you can do that. That's the very thing I was thinking of as you were sharing that, Lori, is it sounds like tools for inner world navigation. It's not out of world telling you what it is, which is great. I mean, everybody always says, right, all of us metaphysicians, the answers are already within you. But this sounds like it's a real experience of that. The wisdom of what's not working, what you prefer, all of that is actually already there. It's just about the tools to access that. Right. Yeah. This is not a course where you can parrot someone else's philosophy or model someone else's behavior. There's no charismatic leader at the front of the room who's motivating you with their stories about how to be powerful and successful. Sorry if you're looking for that, but this is not that. Someone else's answers, like I said, might be very interesting, but they're not yours. The truth is the most precious secrets of life are your own answers. No one can give you that. Making this journey, like you call it a navigational journey through your consciousness, making this journey and committing to it is one of the most important decisions a person will ever make. You can follow other people's paths, but then you end up living their life instead of yours. So you're talking about consciousness. Is there a blueprint for that? What kind of blueprint for consciousness is offered here? Well, the blueprint isn't offered. You are the blueprint. It's you. Say more. Yeah. Your blueprint is like, that's your map of consciousness is a collection of all the beliefs that you have, the beliefs that you decided to believe, beliefs that were indoctrinated into you, beliefs that are transparent to you or hidden from you. It's like your tapestry. This is the collection from, I don't know when the beginning is, whenever you believe the beginning is. This is your collection of beliefs. And as you go through the training, your awareness increases and these beliefs, this tapestry, this blueprint comes to life. You actually see it. Okay. So folks are figuring out limiting beliefs. They're looking at the blueprint of their consciousness and saying, oh, okay, I can deduce, like you said, I can deduce if I'm having this experience probably at the basis of this is pretty much that belief that is generating this experience. So what about people are saying, you know, I could really use some new beliefs. That would be a great thing to have right about now. How can avatar help them to even discover what a positive permanent new belief would be and then how to implement that? Well, that's day five of the avatar course. So day five, we have an exercise that's been called the most challenging exercise that you'll ever laugh your way through. What is that called? Well, it's the technique that Harry Palmer created for creating new beliefs. How to install a belief, as I said before, with enough certainty that this experience actually shows up. It's not affirmations. It's not visualization. It is a technique that's unique to avatar. It is fun. It is easy to learn. And it works. So I can't really tell you how to do it because you really, that's the whole point of the course being about nine, 10 days long is you work your way up to organically learning how to do these techniques. And when you arrive to day five, it's just a natural thing to do. Okay, I'll task you with people who are having, you know, this is an interesting one because it is so interesting right now. I know somebody who's got a really interesting experience around time and time management. And I sit back and watch it because I don't have that at all. So I definitely watch it as a creation, a very solid one. And then there are folks out there who have money problems. And then I'll throw this into the mix because of what's been going on with the lockdown and the variants. And there are folks who may have health issues more prevalently. I think there are folks who are really anxious and concerned about health issues. So can you help them if they have this limiting belief that is really not assisting their experience in humanity? Well, I mean, that's really what the avatar course, the totality of the course is for. Of course, of course, people can discover their limiting beliefs and they can discreet them. But even before learning how to discreet, which is something that happens on day seven of the avatar course, we're getting a little further into it, you know, just real, sometimes there's just a moment when you wake up and realize, oh, this is a belief that I have. And just realizing that it can be enough to shift things. It's like, if you were wearing sunglasses all the time, and everything looked orange. And then one day you realized, oh my God, I'm wearing amber colored sunglasses. Oh, and everything clears up. Not because you had to do anything, but you just realize, oh, I've been looking through this filter this whole time. Let me give you an example. There's some, this reminds me of a man who I met at a Chamber of Commerce event a number of years ago in San Diego. And he was, he came by my table and he was intrigued about avatar. But when I told him that it was a nine or 10 day course, he said, oh, well, forget that. I could never ever do that. He said, I haven't taken off more than a weekend from my business ever. It wouldn't survive without me. So this is, you know, to me, this is a classic no time belief, right? And so I smiled and we chatted some more. And then he just, he said, you know what, I could probably do the weekend, you know, because that that much I could do. I can, I can bite off that much, I can take off that much time. So he came to do the first two days of the course, which is called the resurfacing weekend. And on the second day, he had an epiphany. And the epiphany was that he had been living with the unexpected, indoctrinated work ethic of his father. And just with that awareness, he's like, Oh, gosh, I'm living with I'm living as my dad here. So he decided to do the whole course, he jumped in, he did the whole course, and did his business fall apart? Absolutely not. He told me he wrote me about six months later, and he said that his business had doubled in size in revenue. He was able to hire more people to come work for him. He was able to empower and train the people that were already working for him to bring in more business. And he even sent one of his commission based sales people to to the course. And her apparently her income had been stagnant for about 24 months. And he said after the course, her income rose 173% compared to what it had been. And he even he sent his sent his mother, his father, his brother, his sister, his sister in law, and his wife all came to do the course. And he wrote me a note just recently. And he said, you know, this, I continue to use the tools every day. And it's still among if not the best thing I've ever done. Thank you so much. So I would just say to anyone who's feeling like a limitation around money or time or anything, just do what you can get started. Take a step. Just take a step. And then the next step will reveal itself. Because he trusted and he did and it did. Yeah, I love that three days and now he's a lifetimer. Yeah. Yeah. And really, it was just like a moment of popping out of that idea, which had been so solid. But beliefs are not solid, you know, they're their ideas. And then, you know, I like that story too, because that's sometimes all it takes in life. It's like, he didn't believe, right? He still came with a lot of limiting beliefs. But he was open enough to be able to say, I'll try a weekend. That's all I'll give you. You got a weekend. But because he showed up, right? Yeah. You have to show up for the miracle to happen for the magic to take place. Absolutely. And it really is like a step at a time. One step reveals the next step reveals the next step. Before you know it, your awareness is increasing and you're feeling more powerful and you, you now can create your life. I get the stars edge. That's the name of the company. I get their newsletters. And they're wonderful because they've got wisdom, usually this really brief wisdom that is really useful. And so the latest one that came out from Harry Palmer and from stars edge in this simple newsletter with a great reminder fodder for thought, it was entitled change your attitude, change your life. And the next words were deliberately create your attitude deliberately created attitudes are what make unprobable goals achievable. So I love, I know you're not Harry, you didn't write this and you're not stars edge, but still as someone who's also impacted as a person who delivers as well as lives their life by virtue of these tools. What's your understanding of that? Because people may be wondering if I create my attitude, aren't I creating over an attitude or over a feeling that's already there and may remain underlying? How do we deliberately create an attitude and make unprobable goals achievable? Again, this is the purpose or the intention, the expected result of the avatar course is how to restructure your consciousness so that the beliefs that you hold are the ones that you would like to be having and the ones that will lead to the experiences that you want to have. And it's not a one step process. So first you need to discover what it is that you're currently believing. And then you need to decide what it is you'd like to believe. And then you need to learn how to turn off the brief the belief that was a limitation. And then how to install the new belief. So there's, you know, there's a few steps to it. But you know, just like I showed you before, there's a very different feeling when you adopted belief like everything's going to work out for me versus something's going to go wrong. So you have the ability just in this moment to adopt any of those attitudes. But if you really want to clean up on your consciousness and be count onable of what you're creating, then you've got to go through the process, the process of owning what you do believe, turning off what you don't want to believe, and then replacing it with what you do want to believe. And these are all skills that are taught in the course. So what can one person do? One person, how can they make a difference? Let me tell you a story. This is one of my favorite stories about making a difference. Okay. And some of your listeners may have heard this story before. Some time ago, a writer with a long and successful career built a magnificent home on the coast of Oregon. It was his ritual every morning to rise before the sun and climb the winding staircase to his studio overlooking the beach. And there he would sit, gazing out of a huge picture window, silently drawing inspiration from the ever changing wonder of the sunrise. Enriched by the beauty and the serenity he would begin to write. And then one morning he woke as usual and climbed the staircase to start his quiet meditation. The sun was just coming up and there was a soft haze that hung over the shore. And as he gazed out of the window down at the beach, he was transfixed by what appeared to be a mystical dance far in the distance. Soon he became completely fascinated as he tried to make out what it was. He could think of nothing else. He just had to know. So he put on his coat and he went down the stairs down to the beach to get a closer look at his mystical dancer. And as he got closer, he saw that his dancer was in fact a young girl, maybe 10 or 11 years old. Again and again, she would bend down and pick up something from the sand and then throw it out into the waves. And he got very close and he realized what she was doing. One by one, she was throwing starfish into the sea. Now the writer looked around and he saw that there were thousands of these starfish all along the shore that had been washed up by the beach. And he approached the young girl and he said, good morning. And she quietly returned his greeting. And then he said to her, what are you doing? And she pointed to the sunrise and she said, the sun is coming up and the tide is going out. And if I don't put these starfish in the water, they'll die. And then in his wisdom, the old man looked out at the girl and shook his head as she reached for another starfish. A young lady, he said, there are thousands of starfish and there's only one of you. You can't possibly make a difference. And with that, she briefly looked into his eyes and bent over and picked up another starfish and flung it into the sea. And as she passed him on her way back up the beach, she stopped for just a moment and she looked at him and she said, I made a difference to that one. The best part of the story was the next morning. As the sun was coming up, there were two people on the beach throwing starfish into the sea. The old man and the young girl together. Every belief that a person integrates, and I truly believe this, every belief that a person integrates makes a difference. It makes a difference not just for that person, but for the collective consciousness that we all share. Let me read you something that Harry wrote in his book, Living Deliberately, about this. It's one of my favorite passages. The events that make up world reality result from a belief blueprint that is continuously redrawn from the vectoring sum of every belief held by every individual. The collective reality is the average of all intention. Just as adding a single drop to the ocean causes microscopic changes in the volume, the temperature, and the currents. Every time an individual changes his or her belief, the blueprint by which the collective reality unfolds changes. Even for the most isolated individual, every moment of happiness, every moment of sadness, every kindness, every critical thought adds its consequence to the blueprint for the events of the world. Tomorrow unfolds in accordance with the intention of your collective beliefs. There will always be as much conflict and suffering in the world as there is ignorance in the intolerance of consciousness and humanity. The mission of the avatar in the world is to catalyze the integration of belief systems. And when you perceive that the only difference between any of us is our beliefs and that beliefs can be created or discreated with ease, the right and wrong game will wind down and world peace will ensue. So that's why we do this work. Every integrative belief makes a difference. Deb, I've lost your sound. Right. You have an exercise that you so kindly offered to take us through and I think on the heels of listening to that really beautiful quote, it would be perfect right now. Okay. This is an exercise called the compassion exercise from the second day of the course and it's a way for us to put more compassion in the world. It's very simple, takes just a couple minutes and the intended result is that you will experience a personal sense of peace by doing it. It's nonverbal, so you just do it quietly in your own space and all you have to do is follow the five steps as I read them. Eyes closed, open as you like. Okay. All right. And you can do this silently or out loud as you like. Okay. So select someone in your life that you would like to extend some compassion to. Step one, with attention on the person, repeat to yourself, just like me, this person is seeking some happiness for his or her life. Just like me, this person is seeking some happiness for his or her life. With attention on the person, repeat to yourself, just like me, this person is trying to avoid suffering in his or her life. Just like me, this person is trying to avoid suffering in his or her life. With attention on the person, repeat to yourself, just like me, this person has known sadness, loneliness and despair. Just like me, this person is known sadness, loneliness and despair. With attention on the person, repeat to yourself, just like me, this person is seeking to fulfill his or her needs. Just like me, this person is seeking to fulfill his or her needs. And with attention on the person, repeat to yourself, just like me, this person is learning about life. Just like me, this person is learning about life. That's it. Beautiful. We're going to get this exercise. Yeah, send me an email. I'm going to ask your listeners to just shoot me an email to avatar at planet avatar.com and I will send you a digital copy as well as if you give me your mailing address. I'll send you the actual avatar card exercise on this beautiful folded card that you can keep in your pocket. And I'll also, if you mentioned the podcast, I'll also send you a link to a talk that Harry Palmer gave that describes the avatar course in great detail. And if you want it on CD, don't delay because I have a couple copies of those. I could send you that instead. Okay, avatar at planet avatar.com. That's the angry. Yeah. Beautiful. And I think you already told them that my website is planet avatar.com. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So what people don't know, and this was a reflection, knowing that you are coming on the show, there wouldn't be a Dare to Dream podcast if it was not for Harry Palmer. Period. Mic drop. It really is true because many years ago, so this show's been around over 14 years. And I did previous to 14 years ago, I did what was then a little booklet. And this one was about belief management and it was about goals, specifically creating goals. And you know, boy, did it look simple, but I will say the effect it had on my life revolutionized everything. I did that in earnest, really sat down with that booklet. And the first thing that was amazing to me for somebody who had been doing the course and had been creating, I thought a lot. The first thing that was so outstanding was, oh my goodness, I have so many dreams. I have never made come true. I never believed in myself or in the dreams. And I sat down and just wrote a list, whitewater rafting. I want to go to Costa Rica. I want to run a marathon. I mean, it seemed like crazy outlandish things, but I let it rip. And then this booklet taught us exactly how to create the goal one step at a time. And I did, I took on the first one and each step literally sat back and watched while the light started to come on and something started to create that I thought was unattainable. And it became a thing for me like the year of saying yes to myself and my dreams were one after another. I was traveling, I was having adventures. I not only completed one marathon, the next year is like, let's take on a bigger dream. And I wanted to take 30 minutes off of my time, use the tools. I took an hour off, which if you know marathons, it is almost physically impossible and yet it happened. And the point is that I became so on fire about my life and the possibilities that I felt like I want to impart this to people in my way. And I started this crazy radio show, Dare to Dream, right 14 years ago, because here's how you can transform. And here we are. And I'm still doing it because this is the greatest place I could be every week. And so, you know, with a heartfelt gratitude, humble, humble, like thank you for being here and for anyone who derives from the show. Thank you to Harry Palmer. And that exercise, which I understand now, I don't know that you could get these fabulous booklets that we used to get. I believe that now these exercises are in the seven pillars of enlightenment. Is that correct? Yeah, that's right. They're all one spiral bound notebook with the seven mini courses in it. And that was one of the seven. Yeah. Yeah, just imagine if that changed my life to take on all seven. So, you know, I'm just saying. Here we all are. And really it is to have had an experience like that, that just opened me up so much. It really was like the greatest year. I could probably say that about every year, but it was so great in the sense that I didn't realize how oppressed I had been, how self oppressed I had been to have all this stuff percolating in me. And yet there was always a no, you know, you can't, how would you ever do that? And then it became a, well, this is how. And what I loved about it too, it wasn't, it literally laid out a technique in the way that it was like absolutely doable. And once I realized that, I just implemented it over and over and over again. Yeah, I think that that is so amazing. Because when you start, when you know the technique and you know how to do it, not only do you get what you want, what you set out for, but you get this amazing confidence and courage that that you can do anything because you did it. You know, you, it's not some practitioner working on you or some guru doing something to you, it's you doing it. The tools are in your hands and you learn how you're unstoppable. And that's a great, I loved hearing that story. That's wonderful. Yeah. Wonderful. I love living the story. So I'm so grateful to be here. And it came at a great time because it was also during Avatar where I had been a professional actress and singer and that's all I'd known since I was that big. And something else happened, something else presented and I had no idea what to do with it, but it was clear inside of me, I was no longer to follow that path. And it was a big year for me, biggest getting cast in films and big theater and so forth. And it wasn't going on inside of me. And I had to honor and surrender. And so the timing of that dream creation when I was at such a crossroads, it was really was grace, you know, as a consent. Yeah. Yeah, grace. That's, that's the experience that many of us have and how we found Avatar by grace. Absolutely. So what are you next dear to dream? This is dear to dream. What are your future dreams and goals, Laurie? Oh my goodness. I haven't been thinking about that. So during the pandemic, you know, I've been home enjoying being home and enjoying my being close to the beach and enjoying my furry animals and showing just really relaxing with my husband here at home. So it's been really, it's been more of a reflective time, contemplative time than it has been a creating time for me. Sure that I'm quite ready to set a new big goal. I'm enjoying where I am right now. And what do you want to say here at the end to the listeners? Well, I want you to know that there is hope because this course does exist. It's easy to step into. So matter of fact, we're doing another one starting the end of October, October 29 on Zoom. So if anyone is at all inspired by anything that I've said today, and you want to get your toe wet, just it's easy to step into just give me a shout and I'll show you how we can get you started right away. But yeah, come. It's easy. And I just want to give folks the links again. You said they can email you avatar at planet avatar.com. That's lovely of you to give out. And then you've got an offer to offer is actually very generous. The first one is that they can receive this free digital information packet, including the compassion exercise that you just took us through. Also a link to a talk given by Harry Palmer. And you do have for folks who still still use this old technology called a CD and may want one, you have just a few left so they can email you. And then there's also having this free 45 minute session with you. And that is planet avatar.com slash schedule. That's right. That's right. We'll spend some time on zoom like you and I are right now exploring, starting to explore your consciousness. See what's working. See what's not working and see if this path feels right to you. Thank you so much for coming on the show today. This was fun. Thank you so much Debbie. I end today's show with this quote from Tom Kenyon and the name of the book, the Magdalene manuscript from the vantage point of illuminated consciousness. We are all in various degrees of sleep. We think we are awake, but we are actually dreaming through the power of bodhisitta literally Buddha mind. We awaken from the dream and see that we are creating our reactions to all that we survey. This power to recognize life as a dream and to awaken from it is an inherent power of bodhisitta. Now it is important to understand that we all possess bodhisitta or Buddha mind, but some of us are more removed from our blissful and compassionate nature than others. And this is precisely the reason for engaging in powerful practices to remove the obstacles to our essential natures. Subscribe to the Dare to Dream podcast so you can hear this weekly number one transformation conversation. My guest next week is Leslie Mitchell Clark, hailing from Canada, and she's a truly gifted hypnotist and intuitive who shares unbelievable and real stories about past life regressions and extraterrestrial contact. If you are enjoying this show and you love listening to the podcast and you'd like to see myself and the guest, I highly recommend you do go to youtube.com slash debbie dashinger and you'll get to see the shows there and subscribe as well. Thank you for joining us on this journey. Thank you for daring to dream. And if you would like to create all your dreams, remember there is a program out there that can help you get to what really lights you up inside and it's called Avatar. Thanks for joining us today.