A. My life hasn't worked that way. I haven't been real good at looking around and saying, "Oh, I need to change." My pattern has been more one in which I have ignored that need, pressing on despite the fact that something wasn't working, and allowing a lot of chaos to get generated before I said, "Enough." If you ignore what you know to be true when God has whispered it in your ear, then the universe will ultimately start screaming at you until you get it. That's been my way, more often than not. I'm one of those "contentious" people they talk about in the Bible! Hard-headed girl.

Q. How did you shift your life? Do you meditate daily?

A. I do the Workbook in "A COURSE IN MIRACLES", and I'm also a student of Transcendental Meditation.

Q. "The Gift of Change" is your ninth book, following a string of best sellers including "A Return to Love," "A Woman's Worth," and "Illuminata". How has your thinking changed through the years, what new insights have you found?

A. I began lecturing in l983. "Return to Love" was published 12 years ago, and it took four years before that to write it. So I've lived a few chapters of my life during all that time, and hopefully my insights have deepened. In A RETURN TO LOVE, my example of how cruel the ego can be was someone standing me up for a date to the Olympics! Was life different then, or what?! I couldn't even imagine writing that now.

Life has gotten a lot more serious for a lot of us over the last several years. Kids, marriages, age, terrorism…sooner or later, you start to mature. And when you look at the world from a more mature perspective, you have a greater desire to be a positive influence on it yourself.

Q. Would you say many of the people you meet on lecture tours have romantic delusions that trigger more emotional pain, less satisfaction?

A. Clearly the answer is yes. But not always. And I love that "always."

Q. Should more of us be concentrating on doing our Father's business? How does this enter our daily lives?

A. God's business is the activity of love. To say, "I'm about my Father's business," means, "I'm here to love." Making love our goal, our real bottom line, is a decidedly different orientation to life than most of us have been taught. It's certainly counter to the cut-throat ethos that dominates so much of the world today. But therein holds the transformation -- of our own lives, and of the planet.

Q. What is the writing process? Is there a time of day you reserve for journaling? Do you keep a notebook handy where you record thoughts or conversations that strike a chord?

A. I've always been told that writers should write every day, but I don't. I write in spurts, whenever the spirit moves me. And of course, sometimes that spirit is the spirit of a deadline!

Q. Why do people today seem to suffer so much pain? You've talked in lectures about the dangerous number of women taking antidepressants. Can we individually and collectively create a shift?

A. I don't think we're in more pain than usual; I just think we're more aware of it. And we're in pain because the world is out of sync with God, with love, with natural and righteous living -- whatever you want to call it. Most people know that. And we make a shift by correcting the thoughts and attitudes that create the pain. But the shift is a gradual process that never stops; there are no silver bullets in the spiritual realm. We have to be continually devoted -through religion, spirituality, whatever practice or healing modality works for us. We're seeking to penetrate veils of illusion that have literally taken ages to accumulate. But we can do it. And the bottom line is always forgiveness and love. Until there's that insight, the pain continues.

Q. How do we dig deep, arise from wallowing in the negative?

Every day, we have a chance to live from lower energies or higher ones. We can blame or we can bless; we can judge or we can forgive; we can complain or we can contribute. Those choices determine who we are in the world, and what kind of world we're creating for ourselves and those around us.

Most of us know what to do, we're just too lazy sometimes to do it. Whether it's reading A COURSE IN MIRACES every day, or going to the gym, the issue is usually our need to resist the little voice that says, "Hey, why bother." When we don't give in to our littleness, and make a stand for our spiritual magnitude, things change.

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