John Perkins interview on Democracy Now
Submitted by alicia on Thu, 2010-09-02 09:44
John Perkins is astonishing: a former planner and participant in the crimes of multinational corporations who now calls for global social justice and sustainability as the requirements for corporate charters.
In this 15-minute interview (on 2 YouTubes) with Amy Goodman, John Perkins shares what he learned during his service to the cause of global empire, and how he sees the world since his epiphany.
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A New Life Choice
The other day I saw a friend I hadn’t seen for quite a when. We had a lovely conversation. At a point in our discussion, I commented that after all these years of spiritual work I felt much more equipped to handle with the quick changing energies that are taking place in the world these days.
One week before this conference, I also bumped into an old madame friend whom I hadn’t seen for a very long time, and she said to me: “It is fearful how rejuvenated you look”.
June 2004 was the last time that I held a job in the corporate earth. I wanted so badly to become a director fall but long and I worked very hard to get there. I finally got my goal. It had been an interesting, exciting ride, but ultimately stressful and finally soul-destroying, or at least soul-exhausting. The lessons were invaluable but by June 2004 something clicked: I left the system.
I didn’t have a job for the next few years. It was as if the Universe had concocted a plot to close all doors of abundance. At least my husband did have a job but we did struggle for quite a while, especially when our baby was connate in October 2006.
In July 2005 we moved from the UK to South Africa and I was waiting to receive my permanent residency paperwork. That was a very frustrating time: staying at home, single with the baby, with no friends or family, just a couple of human around, ample to help me stay mentally sane.
But I decided that if the Universe meant for me to stay cut off from the world at that stage in my life, there should be a reason; and so if I couldn’t go out, I would go in.
I had different dream of getting a metaphysics doctorate degree, so I thought this was the perfect opportunity. I looked in the internet and found the perfect organisation for me, so started studying and meditating heavily in order to integrate all the message. Being secluded was the perfect situation for these studies: it wasn’t just a matter of memorizing methodology – these were practical mind-body-spirit experiential ¬studies. And since I had to spend long phases of time with my baby in my weapon and in silence, the one thing I could do was to spend time deepening into my psyche. This kept me centred, focused and muscular during those significant but challenging times.
For the next 3 years, Spirit had but one single sentence that kept repeating to me again and again: drop some balls. I had stopped going out almost at all, especially during the last pair of months of pregnancy and the few months when the baby first arrived. I stopped doing almost everything that would take my focus off my baby and my studies…What other balls could I drop? What did Spirit want from me?
?
There are times in life when we want someone than we don’t have. Then we get it, and don’t want it.
I memorize vividly how I would look through the window and watch people coming in and out of the coffee shop round the corner, taking for granted their freedom, their leisure time, their body shapes (diverse mine, which felt like a big blob). I had never watched myself in a case like this before in my life: me, who secondhand to wear impeccably matching suits, together with my Spanish lovely shoes and handbags, nicely done hair and varnished nails. Now I was lucky if I had time to have a shower every day (a minimum value of self dignity had to remain!).
I cut my nails as short as I could, as otherwise I would scratch my baby when treatment her, and I cut my hair really short as fjust aboutme cause I found hair unbearable in the summer heat, the process of breastfeeding, and the extra weight that I was carrying. Everything that was in the way had to go! Beauty was the last of my cares at that time. I had switched on to survival mode.
The world seemed a strange place to me where all the things I used to do no longer applied, and I would watch people doing those very same things and they felt alien to me; yet I was doing a new set of activities that everyone else were describing as: unbearable, boring, un-stimulating, and other exciting terms such as those. So saying that I felt like an emigrant on globe was maybe not very far from the truth (literally?). I was definitely connecting into a new frequency.
By this time, I had forgotten my old internally pessimistic and externally peerless groomed ego. I felt favor a nun going to a priory, having her hair (brand of beauty) cut off, given uncomplicated and plain raiment to dress and asked to reside in the calm to interlock with God.
I could feel that a huge transformation was catching place inside and I knew that the set of circumstances in which I was inundated, primarily with the birth of the child, was handing me a golden opportunity apt establish the maximum thespian and transformative shift of my life, the interior alchemy that would precipitate a pivotal point in my life, the conversion into a new platform where a complete alteration of values and beliefs was needful. More than that, I could feel that a alteration in the frequency at which my center chakra was vibrating was taking place.
And so I stable into the pain and frustration as snug as I could and arranged to take the ox by the trumpets. In order to do this, I armed myself with lots of spiritual books, lots of colourful materials to knit and crochet (my think in practice) and my metaphysics course matter. My baby’s face, which I used to look at all the time and a huge feeling of gratitude for having received this amazing gift, even although it might have been wrapped as unbearable set of circumstances.
With the help of the way I was learning and the books I was researching, my heart chakra underwent a break, an prologue, which afterward became healing (they do say that a broken heart is a healed heart).
And so I started to reiterate my beliefs about work, about earning a living,karen millen prom dresses
amazon, preoccupying opportunities, manifesting abundance, life intention, life mission, etc, and I realised that up till then I had trusted that ascertaining a nice job was a matter of luck and that part of that luck was that someone would concern to pay me a good wage in commute of my time, expertise, gifts, individuality and energy. But unavoidably, every time this scenario would alter itself into my employers taking my light for their behalf, regarding of its negative effects on me. And since unavoidably, I would end up emotion like a soul-prostitute, selling my integrity for a wage; not wanting to be there, not agreeing to be there, already needing the money but longing for freedom.
I simply lacked personal power.
And now, in this new process of transition and integration of energies, at a new platform of comprehending and awareness, I realised that in fact, what I wanted to manifest was the work that matched my natural gifts, where I could decide how much money to earn, in which circumstances and with what quality of life.
But isn’t this the desire of everyone else? So what was the difference?
The inconsistency is that I was coerced into the transition. Ok, yes. You do create your reality so I was very honoured that I had put myself in this situation to some extent that I couldn’t really go backwards, so I had to keep on going along and finish off what I had started. I had no direction of having to repeat this lesson ever in my life and very much doubted that I would have a become like this again: being in a new country, waiting for my lawful papers, with a new baby and little money.
We couldn’t disburse someone to help me and I wasn’t going to get equitable any job, then get someone to raise my child for me. So the choice was made: we would struggle for at a time we had to until things turned around and a new wheel of profusion was triggered in our lives.
I could have left South Africa and gone to Spain to get my home to help me raise my child, yet I was in the medium of mowing karmic knots with my clan or clan, so I needed the freedom to create a new starting for my child, free of anybody treatment or interference, not stuff how well averaged.
So although it looked like a negate or unhealthy situation, I recognized the opportunity and took it on with both hands, heart and soul: I decided to accept the present or award given to me and dive inside myself to allow myself the alchemy or transformation of negative energies into a likely turnaround which would mean the taking of my freedom and private power.
I studied intensely and logged all my experiences, thoughts and shifts in my spiritual diaries, the source of my books. This was going to be an major transition from the life I had known so far into a life that I was going to fabricate according to my soul’s vocation and deepest desires.
I approved the baby and allowed this opportunity to wreck my heart open, to permit for a new love vibration in my creature that I hadn’t known before: unconditional love, putting somebody else’s needs forward of yours, putting your own absences on hold until the time when the family dynamics would rebalance into a more just share of the resources.
I don’t really suggest this to everyone. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. I am pleased I did it, because it showed me the class of inner strength, equilibrium and grounding that I am learned of, but I do know thatif someone can’t fasten their energies with the unbreakable faith and lucidness of inner guidance that I had, it could discard them completely out off balance; especially a new mama, with all the hormonal changes and emotional rollercoaster that having a first new baby means.
?
4 years passed at and my child went to school. I had some free hours during the day. My body had returned to its incipient fashion. I put a few adverts in the internet and this brought me some customers, to whom I taught personal evolution, crafts and languages from home. It was incredibly cozy as I didn’t have to cost time driving or tensioning in any way. There was no waste of resources (time, money, petrol, energy) and this was certainly a completely assorted picture from the work experience I had had before.
I determined to board on a new adventure and joined the gym (I hadn’t done any exercise for 15 years, since my divorce!) and began to converge on a new field of research: nourishment related to energy, electro-magnetism and astrology, for my next book: The Liberation Diet, a mind-body-spirit system for rejuvenation, re-energizing and body-reshaping. I also got a part time job as a Spanish pedagogue at my daughter’s educate, which was round the corner from home.
My energy levels raised. Everything seemed in order.
But a couple of months before these new year resolutions were put in place, I had 3 dreams. In them, I was doing tests and exams. Spirit told me: you have passed.
It was as whether it didn’t matter whether one passed with flying colours or hardly ever passed. It appeared that the important object was to pass. Then Spirit told me that I had earned Ascended Master Status. And in order to show me this (caption which I very hesitantly accepted since I thought that you had to be die in order to chance an Ascended Master) three asset happened:
Throughout all these years I had appealed, asked, demanded, implored Spirit for a new job. Some money, a new status and the opportunity to reintegrate myself into society once more. I remember looking at the masses of people taking the underground trains when I was living in the UK, hoping I could be one of them, as this would mean that I was employed, that I was a profitable member of society. It didn’t matter that only months before I loathed this very same thing but I suppose it was a very strong solace district.
I also remember that these same people were wearing grey or black coats, just like I used to. Their heads sunk in due to the cold and to the fact that they were doing what they had been doing for many years and they still had many more years to keep doing the same thing. Yet, I felt so isolated and out of the system that wished I could be part of this sad, grey picture, even though I knew that being in the system would demolish me. It no longer was in integrity with whom I was becoming. This was the beginning of the transition.
A transition that opened as a door that took me to a new nation, a new baby, family karmic cleansing challenges, both my husband’s and my own, a reshape of my energies and my body, my mindset, my very soul essence. But deeply inside I was asking why, oh why, was all this taking so long. And why, oh why, me. And what had I done to deserve all this… I am sure you have been there.
?
The bouts of pique were there, the self-pity, the sorrow and many, many, many tears that cleansed my soul many times over were also there; the voids, the loneliness, the doubts… I felt it all and I went through it all. I did not once shirk the pain: I became told with the anguish; I even made friends with the pain: I accepted, worked with, felt and went through the pain, as this is the only way I know to transmute your eclipse into light and reach your potential. I even started to enjoy the pain when I placarded the first shifts and transformations taking place. It was the door to freedom, and I knew it.
I had read in all the self-help books that one should grow through joy, not struggle. I had grown through struggle as yet and I firmly proposed to change this. I was now struggling much more than ever before (what an satire!) but somehow, elsewhere, I knew that this was a good struggle; the last one; the storm before the silence. It. The great transition.
It took years, many years. But the final 5 years I could only describe as completely insane and even inhuman. They tested me to the limits of my strength in all zones. I held it together, but hardly ever! There were moments I didn’t think I could keep it all going. I surely had to drop more balls!
So one good morning in 2010, that couple of months ago, I got an email from a friend of mine who had created an Institute for personal development. He asked me to help him conveying workshops and it seemed a dream come true. It didn’t work out in the end but the important part was that the Universe was starting to send opportunities my way or, looked at in another way, that I was starting to obvious with ingenious intent.
The second offer was to create a Toastmasters (public speaking) team for the advisers of an international union in exchange of sale my business. Again, another offer from paradise.
But my family set up didn’t have the structural integrity to cope with an expansion of that arrange as my child was four years old and I was scampering my life around her timetable. It wasn’t attractive enough for me to get stressed by a job, no matter how exciting. I couldn’t supply to get burnt out again, not with a youth family depending emotionally on me.
The 3rd offer involved creating a Spanish program for a school and its circling areas. Again, this school was quite distant away and working there would involve a lot of driving. I would must find someone to pick my daughter from school and stay with her until I finished work.
Although this job would imply to use all my management, presidency and educating capabilities, as well as public speaking ones, I didn’t want to break the wonderfully secure and elated routine that we had at home. I thought that soon enough she will be grown and then I could use my time in any way that I liked. It was clear: my priorities were remove. My choices had yet been made.
Next, my mother tells me that in the Basque Country they are creating 3000 jobs for teachers to go for the Basque Government for the first time in many years. This had been a dream of bomb all along: the opportunity to return to Spain. But the time wasn’t right for my family now. How frustrating! All these missed opportunities!
Finally, I got a shriek from one international company who needed me for an Spanish surrogate for their fixed. But afresh, I didn’t ambition a full time job so I didn’t even inquire who they were alternatively what they did.
My mind was set. I had struggled so many and survived. Now I could feel that my priorities had shifted: it was not approximately the money at all. It was approximately my family life and the harmony that we had created. Nothing was value breaking that truce and everything new would must fit nigh us, preferably than the additional path round!
Many of you, reading these lines, ambition think: What is wrong with you? You should jump to all these wonderful opportunities no matter what the cost!
Exactly, no matter what the cost is the cost: your own life, your own sanity!
I have learnt to recognise wrong opportunities mantled in wonderfully shine and colourful gift papers; traps of money, position and oneself status that bolt you into a situation where you lose your freedom, self-dignity and honesty for the sake of money. As you realise that you are in difficulty, a void is created, a drag, a tension, deserving to the fact that we are not aligned with our highest path, and so we create unhealthy habits and patterns in order to repay for this. These seemingly big gates usually lead you to dead ends.
However, I have also learnt to recognize excellent opportunities for growth in delight and happiness, which come wrapped in the most unexciting brown, shabby-looking paper; little doors that take you to excellent elevations. Little doors that shift you with the power, passion and love of the Universal energies. And so, like a surfer, I wait for hours if necessary until the wave will arrive, the wag that will take me along faster than the air, overtaking all sorrows, hesitation, doubt and absence of clarity, allowing me an experience of exhilaration and speed. And there are no external signs to these opportunities: just an inner knowing. When the right energies are not there I simply don’t take that obvious opportunity on. But on the same token, I take on any dare that has the right inner signature, that which my inner guidance or my heart recognise as home.
All these superb job attempts were old dreams that had come true after all this time.
They felt out of integrity for me today but it was wonderful to kas long asI had finally I created the inner space to receive what I had asked for all those years ago.
Passing this test was what Spirit had called achieving Ascended Master Status.
However, it was also late because I had become someone different and the comprehension that these old dreams didn’t really excite me was sorrowful and wonderful in the meantime. Sad because it was like saying farewell to an old friend. Wonderful because I could now finally drop these balls and happily move onto a completely new future.
So the little part-time job round the corner in my daughter’s school and my clients at home were perfect for me. The money wasn’t fantastic but I could smell the latent if I took it slowly and allowed the Universe to melodrama its cards from a bigger outlook that I didn’t yet have. I could sense that by having said no to all those other opportunities, by having dropped all the balls, I was allowing a higher level future to come my way.
People ask me: “How do you get so much done? How do you accomplish so many, even in the direst of the situations? “
The reply is that I have learnt to recognise timing and energy; opportunity and situations that are in integrity with whom I am today. And to everything else, I simply say no.
This may also be the reason why, if you haven’t seen me for a while, you may find that I look rejuvenated: I feel that the stress created by not being aligned to our highest path, or highest potential, ages us before time. Being in an energy highway, like I call this fast moving, free streaming path, definitely keeps you younger, entirely living, energized.
So when you feel trapped in life by something that you thought was going to be a great thing (the lad, the job, the holiday, or anything else) and then it turns out that it wasn’t, realise that perhaps the reasons why you took this challenge on were not the real ones. Maybe there was a basis of alarm or a self-doubt secluded there somewhere, so afterward on in the process, this panic would manifest in all its glory to teach you about yourself, to teach you that at some level, you were out of integrity with the challenge and that if you had been frank with yourself, maybe you would not have taken it on at first!
I don’t acquaint you to do what I did, for it took numerous years and one has to eat and live every daytime; occasionally one can’t wait for the absolute opportunity in order to drip always the balls that life has handed to us and which, consciously or unconsciously, we have taken ashore, until we don’t know where to put them, what to do with them or how to reserve them all in the air.
But in a smaller scale,karen millen dresses
amazon, I tell you that if you can say no, if you feel that sometimes you are taking something on because you muse you ought, or because you have to testify something to someone, or because someone is anticipating it from you, or because what would your mommy say, or because you owe it to someone… be true to yourself and mention no. Then wait for the real thing. Close your eyes and feel that it is true for you. Then, take it on, no matter what it looks like. No matter what the price!
Because this could bring an end to ... appropriate the greatest opportunity of your life: a new life alternative.
By Dr Ana Garcia PhD, DTM.
February’ 2011
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