My name is Patrice Kaufman, and I have a Promise for the World.

By 2038, I promise a world of One Loving Global Family. All people live their dreams with passion and purpose, together creating a world that works for everyone.

This promise was born with me, it's in my DNA, in my genes. It's shaped my life, it's given me my life, it is my life.

I'm 54 years old. When I look back over the decades of my life, I can see how my Promise has led me, step by step, into my life mission of being it's Ambassador to the people of Earth.

It all started one day in 1975. I was 22 years old, in the Air Force, on my big adventure of leaving home and forging my way in the world. I'd just arrived in Las Vegas for a 2-year assignment at Nellis Air Force Base.

Back then, I was an avid reader. Mystery, suspense, drama...reading was my favorite hobby. But it was always FICTION. I'd never voluntarily read a non-fiction book, or gone anywhere near the non-fiction section of a library, other than for a school project. 

That day, I went into the North Las Vegas Public Library intending to stock up on novels. Instead, I left carrying every book from their shelves on the subject of food additives.

Food additives??

I clearly recall saying to my 22-year-old self, what the heck is going on?

I ended up reading those books, and many more after that, covering a vast kaleidoscope of subjects. I felt like Alice, falling through the looking glass. Something had been opened up in me, I was on the hunt. For what, I wasn't sure. But it was thrilling, compelling. I felt alive, excited, amazed.

I didn't know it then, but my Promise had come knocking.

Another event that stands out as one of the markers on the wild ride my Promise was taking me on occurred in 1980, during my undergraduate studies in political science at Wayne State University. Lech Walesa had led thousands of workers to take over the Gdansk shipyard in Poland, and the Solidarnosc movement erupted on the world stage. I was electrified.

For weeks, I vicariously lived the drama of the common man throwing down the gauntlet to the powers that be. A passion for all people to have the opportunity to live their dreams and unfold their destiny came alive within me.

I was possessed with purpose, as my Promise continued to unfold my mission from within.

By the mid 80s, I knew I was being guided. I watched events unfold with fascination. In an undergraduate speech course 25 years ago I addressed this, as I am today, opening with a statement about the Angel that tapped me on the shoulder in the Las Vegas library.

In 1988 I experienced the best event my Promise ever staged for me. I was actively involved in leading the Detroit branch of the Summit Lighthouse, a non-profit organization that enrolled people into world service. I was 34, on fire for life, defining my purpose as leadership in the planetary project of creating a world that works for everyone.

I'll never forget it. Over the file cabinet, I saw this guy I'd never seen before, and I stopped dead in my tracks. I KNEW he was the one for me. It was unmistakable. He was my Life Partner, my soul mate, my destiny. My Promise was telling me so, loud and clear, with that electric ZAPP!

Four months later, we were married. He didn't stand a chance. My Promise brought us together, it was a done deal.

Fast forward 12 years, to October 2000, at a health food store in Bozeman, Montana. I was scouring the bulletin board, as usual, on the hunt for clues to my next unfolding step.

Suddenly, there it was, that familiar electric current, a cosmic message from my Promise. The words "Learn the Art of Conscious Creation" jumped off the board at me. I registered for that class immediately, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Since then, with my husband and a team of fabulous staff, I've created American Medical Careers, a million-plus business giving new careers and new lives to thousands of people. I'm creating my new business Cause Your Life LLC. The vanity license plate on my car declares "CAUZIT."  I relentlessly pursue my magnificent obsession, mastering the miracles and magic of Conscious Creation.

Who I am is a walking billboard for the message that We the People of Planet Earth are destined to come together as One Loving Global Family.  

We each have the power to cause the life of our dreams, to live with passion and purpose, and together create a world that works for everyone.

My job as Ambassador of My Promise for the World continues to give me the life of my dreams.

I've been in a deep inquiry about the Global Consciousness Shift. I just found out about a new transformational film that is being created, called "The SHIFT Movie". As the producers of this film explain,

"A massive worldwide phenomenon is in progress, sowing seeds of great hope for our collective future. Millions of individuals and hundreds of organizations are waking up and embracing a new outlook with an emphasis on their personal responsibility to contribute positively to our collective future. We are in the midst of the biggest social transformation in human history, The SHIFT.

"At this critical point in our evolution, it is imperative that the masses quickly become aware of this global movement. The most visible face of The SHIFT is the global environmental movement. However, this evolutionary phenomenon is broader and deeper. It involves our very understanding of who we are as human beings, and our responsibility to the world and to life itself. 

"The SHIFT is the first feature film to reveal the proactive role we are now playing in the evolutionary shift of our collective consciousness. As it chronicles the faces, the stories, and the leaders assisting in this social transformation, the film reveals the phenomenon's emergence and profound meaning."

I recently read a new book by visionary futurist Ervin Laszlo, The Chaos Point. In it, he postulates that the present world situation is leading us toward a critical tipping point, which he calls the Chaos Point. When we reach that point in time, world civilization will either go into Breakthrough, evolving to a safer, more sustainable world - or a Breakdown of the social, economic, and ecological systems that frame our life will occur. Laszlo claims that this critical Chaos Point corresponds to the Mayan calendar's 2012 date we are all so familiar with.

What I think about constantly and deeply is, how can we insure that when we reach the Chaos Point, we will tip the balance toward Breakthrough?

This is on the hearts and minds of many of us on Earth today. While as stated above "Millions of individuals and hundreds of organizations are waking up and embracing a new outlook", in large part the controls and levers of "Spaceship Earth"-- a term coined by Buckminster Fuller--are still being manned by those who are firmly entrenched in old-paradigm ways of thinking.

In his book Theory U: Leading From the Future as it Emerges, Otto Scharmer explains that "The crisis of our time isn't just a crisis of a single leader, organization, country or conflict. The crisis of our time reveals the dying of an old social structure and way of thinking, an old way of institutionalizing and enacting collective social forms."

The world's current social structures, the infrastructure of civilization and society, are built on what Scharmer terms "the premodern traditional and the modern industrial structures or forms of thinking and operating". These traditional and modern forms, or paradigms, were successful in the past, but are no longer a valid working model. As our world has moved from the old nation-state model to an integrated global model, the old infrastructure is crumbling under the weight of the new system that the old forms can't support.

The Global Consciousness Shift that is needed involves more than simply millions of people on Spaceship Earth having a mind/consciousness Shift. Just as importantly, the result we need is to have people at the helm of the Ship who have themselves undergone the Shift.

My main inquiry, that which I think about all the time, is the following:

How will we steer Spaceship Earth to the point where the people at the helm -- those who are enacting legislation, determining environmental sustainability standards, collecting and spending tax dollars, dictating the content of our media, formulating international law, running countries, directing global financial markets, responding (or not) to global crises - are people who have undergone the Shift?

There is a conversation about organically finding our way to that point as more and more people wake up and experience the Shift individually. This is the "hundredth monkey" concept, the idea expressed in Malcolm Gladwell's books The Tipping Point and Blink. Marianne Williamson also spoke to this recently in her "One-Minute Shift" video, in which she said that the tipping point will be reached when 11% of the population experience the Shift.

I am energized by that conversation and agree with its basic thesis. I also feel called to the inquiry of how the people at the helm will either experience the shift themselves or be replaced by those who have. I believe this is a key component of the equation of Breakthrough to a New Earth.      

 I'm writing this in response to the Zaadz Question and Reflection of the Day, "Who Have You Told About Your Dream?"

That question absolutely resonates with me. I have a Dream that forms the core of my life. The question who have I told about my Dream pierces to the heart of my current life experience.

My entire life has been a process of giving birth to a Dream that emerged into my awareness in early 2007. Since the Dream surfaced, I've been actively inquiring into how I can bring it into manifestation. Everything I was doing in my life prior to the spring of 2007 was to birth the Dream in consciousness. Everything I've done since then is to birth the Dream in reality.

Let me tell you about it, so that I can add you to the list of people who know about my Dream.

I have a Dream to create an organization to train and to channel the creative energies of people who are called to devote their lives to birthing the Emerging New Culture and New Civilization of the New Earth. I call these people professional Transformational Activists. I call the organization The Institute for Transformational Activism.

This Dream was 32 years in gestation. In 1975, at age 22, I awakened to the awareness that Humanity is a family, that Spirit is our Source, and that Life is a miracle and an adventure.

From the moment of my awakening, I've known that Earth is destined to be a world of One Loving Global Family. I've known that all people can live their dreams with passion and purpose, and that together, we can create a world that works for everyone. This Knowing has nurtured my Dream.

From 1975 to 2007, my Dream evolved from Conception in the heart of my Inner Being to Birth into my outer conscious awareness. My life has been spent in a deep exploration of the many problems and issues existing locally, nationally, and globally on our planet. Side by side with this has been my quest for Self-Actualization, to reach the highest levels of my human potential and give the gift I'm here on earth to give to Humanity.

In this process, I developed a deep burning desire to find others who are similarly empassioned, and together explore ways and means to deepen the actualization of our potential in service of the transformation of our planet.

In 2004, I participated in a 3-month coaching program with the Steven Covey company. In that program I composed a document called "My Goals." One of my goals was recorded as the following:

Become a Transformational Activist. Actively join the network of Transformational Activists. Create a stand for the solution to earth's problems and the birth of a transformed planet. Facilitate partnership of Transformational Activists with experts in areas of planetary crises, to "channel" solutions.

From 2004 when I wrote this statement, to early 2007 when I became fully aware of my Dream to create The Institute for Transformational Activism, I was deeply involved in intentional Creative Visualization work. My husband and I began using a process taught by author and publisher Marc Allen.

In several of his books, Marc teaches a process of envisioning your future life, as you'd love to have it look five years from now. He says to let your imagination run totally free, not letting that critical inner voice with it's doubts and fears get in the way. Imagine your life five years in the future. If things went beyond your wildest dreams, what would your life look like by then?

I engaged full-out with this process beginning in 2004. I allowed myself to dream deeply about what I wanted to have happen in my life. I began to go further into the exploration of what it was I really wanted in my life. Several times between 2004 and 2007, I wrote deeper cuts of my vision. I lived with it, grappled with it, wrestled it forth from deep within myself.

Suddenly, in early 2007, the Dream began to shape into a crystallized format. I felt like I was playing the old "Concentration" game show from TV, where matching squares on a gameboard would reveal parts of a pictograph hidden underneath, and at a certain point the puzzle could be figured out and solved. My Dream segments began to flash into my mind with increasing frequency, until I finally got the whole thing, and could see the vision of the Institute for Transformational Activism.

Once I fully saw my Dream was when, as Marc Allen said would happen, my doubts and fears became quite "vocal" in my head. Most of all, that voice told me things like, "oh, sure, the Institute for Transformational Activism. Just who the heck do you think you are? How are little YOU going to create something so BIG? You don't have any money, you don't have any connections, who's going to listen to YOU anyway?"

At the time, early 2007, I was building American Medical Careers, the company I co-own with my husband. We were deep into an aggressive strategic growth plan, which carried with it a certain amount of intensity. We had started the company in 2002 with the intention of achieving financial independence and the freedom to pursue our transformational dreams. At the beginning of 2007, we weren't there yet. Far from it, we were quite in the thick of things with the business!

I felt very much that I had one foot on one shore-building American Medical Careers-and one foot on the other shore-my Dream to throw myself full time into my career as a Transformational Activist and build the Institute. I had little time to devote to my Dream, couldn't figure out where to start with it, and was burdened by that voice in my head telling me I was crazy each time I thought about it.

Once I had distinguished my Dream of the Institute for Transformational Activism, the intensity of determination to manifest it began to build within me. A passion took hold of me for its creation. The main thought that took shape was to find another human being who, when they heard about the Institute, would be as impassioned as me to see it become manifest. I needed a Partner.

This thought drove me for the first half of 2007. I was busy with American Medical Careers, and didn't have a lot of time to put into this Quest. Yet it consumed my thinking. All of my spare time went into this passion.

I began to write about it in emails to various transformational friends. I also held monthly Gatherings of transformational friends at my home, where I spoke about this idea. It was the only step I could see to take at that stage.

Looking back at the course of events as they unfolded, the first breakthrough that happened was when a friend told me about an amazing discovery she'd made. This cool guy from Australia, Malcolm Cohen, was teaching a process over the Internet for creating Vision Videos. These were short 1-3 minute video podcasts comprised of slide images, music, and text. You created a Vision Poem which spoke your Vision for Humanity, broke it into short 3-5 word chunks, illustrated it with images and set it to music. Then you posted it on YouTube, and you were launched!

The coolest thing, Gaile told me, was that Malcolm said your Vision Video would attract your Tribe, that group of people destined to be your team in fulfilling your mission on earth. How cool was that! It was exactly what I needed!

I took her up on her recommendation, and began to look into Malcolm's online tutorials for creating your own Vision Videos. The next thing I knew, Gaile called and told me she'd sent her Video to Malcolm, he loved it, and had invited her to attend his Rocket Ship seminar in Minneapolis June 12, where he would teach the Vision Video process. I registered for the seminar immediately.

In registering, I was jolted by a stunning "coincidence". In my plea to the Universe to help me manifest the Institute, I searched the Internet for coaches. I'd found a website of a coaching company, Entrevis, led by George Johnson, that so resonated with me. This company had a series of free online coaching lessons, which I subscribed to.

When I went to register for the rocket Ship Vision Video Seminar, lo and behold, Entrevis was the sponsor. George Johnson would be participating in the seminar. I knew this was no coincidence. I was determined to meet with George, and set up an appointment in advance of the seminar.

Just before flying to Minneapolis, I got a copy of Joseph Jaworski's book Synchronicity, and read it cover to cover on the spot. This book totally changed my life.

This book is Jaworski's incredible story of receiving a vision to create the American Leadership Forum, a non-governmental agency responsible for developing collaborative leadership. The book is the record of his journey through his life up to the point of receiving the vision, through his resistance to it, to his point of surrender to the assignment, to the fulfillment of the manifestation.

He describes in intimate detail the entire process, his emotions, his inner path of personal growth and development. Most particularly, the title of the book, "Synchronicity", illustrates his core message that once he'd surrendered to making the vision a reality, the world "rolled at his feet" as the most amazing miracles occurred to make it happen.

As I read the book, I got chills. I was totally clear it was no accident this book had arrived in my hands when it had.

At the Rocket Ship Seminar, I was blown away. I worked privately with Malcolm Cohen after the seminar, and with his expert assistance crafted my Vision Poem. This was one of the most awesome experiences of my life. I felt so attuned to the soul of this individual, Malcolm so got my Vision for Humanity, so got me as a person with a passionate mission to participate in the Birth of the New Earth, so shared my deep passion to see the New Earth come into manifestation, that I felt I had died and gone to heaven. It was my first deep experience of direct contact with a similarly attuned soul. I was in total bliss.

The next part of my miracle was my initial meeting with George Johnson. Though the voice of the Inner Critic raged furiously in my head, I spoke with him about my vision for the Institute for Transformational Activism. I know that I sounded hesitant and unsure of myself, but George "got me" just like Malcolm had. He told me that his calling was to coach Women Visionaries, and he would love to work with me. I was ecstatic.

When I returned home from Minneapolis I got to work immediately on creating my Vision Video, and experienced the thrill of getting it posted on YouTube on July 8.

I also started my active coaching relationship with George, and began the process of getting my Vision into a written and spoken format that I could begin to communicate. I was getting seriously about beaming my message out into the world, to attract my Tribe.

     

I recently came upon a document I wrote on July 8, 2007, entitled "My Next Steps for the Institute for Transformational Activism". Here is the text of that document:

Find partners with whom to create the Institute

• Distinguish my message about the Institute
• Create packaged messages to disseminate to the world
  • Website
  • Podcasts
  • Visions for Humanity
  • E-Book
  • Build an e-mail list, create a newsletter to distribute
• Find my Tribe

Determine what to do first, right now

• Write my Vision Story
• Create a Podcast about my Vision Story, post on YouTube
• Put up rudimentary website, with links to Vision Statements, and my Vision Story
• Create Business Cards with website address

Assessing my progress in fulfilling my list of goals has given me a great thrill. I realize that I actually did fulfill on several of the tasks I'd set for myself.

With George Johnson's expert coaching, I created a set of documents outlining my Vision. These documents were fully crafted by July 26, 2007 and are entitled:

1. The Planetary Transformation Project -Institute for Transformational Activism
2. Council for Planetary Transformation
3. Cause Your Life Transformational Centers
4. EcoVillages

This fulfilled my task entitled "Write my Vision Story".

On November 23, I created my Profile on Zaadz.com, which is a "MySpace" type site for people out to transform the world. (Zaadz has since become the Gaia Community, powered by Zaadz.) I posted my Vision Statements in my Zaadz blog. I linked my Vision Video to my profile page. I then revised my business card, so that it listed my zaadz address: http://causeyourlife.zaadz.com/.

I am thrilled that I fulfilled several of the tasks I had assigned myself. Most importantly, I now have a web presence with my Vision for the Institute beaming out to the Universe across cyberspace, Humanity's new collective neural net.

At the end of 2007, I crafted my intentions for 2008. The main task that I have set for myself is to Be a Channel for Source Energy, a Channel for My Promise for the World:

• It is my deepest Intention to Connect with Source, and to Be that Energy in the Earth
  
• By 2038, I promise a world of One Loving Global Family. All people live their dreams with passion and purpose, together creating a world that works for everyone

I have become a member of Toastmasters International, and am scheduled to deliver my first speech this Friday, February 8. It is my Ice Breaker speech, 4-6 minutes long, crafted to tell a little bit about me through telling an interesting story. My Ice Breaker will tell people that I have a Promise for the World, and how my Promise has determined the course of my life. I'll package my speech as a blog posting, and also create it as a YouTube podcast linked to my Zaadz site.

I'm intending to master the Art and Science of delivering my message about the heroic reconstruction of the earth, and Humanity together bringing in the New Day, in a language that enrolls people and makes them understanding the Time We're In On Earth.

Another cool unfolding event has opened up for me recently.  My Management staff at American Medical Careers has informed me that they want to run the company, and they respectfully request that I stay home and "do that thing I really want to do with Transformation."

Oh my God.

Joseph Jaworski, here I come, following in your Synchronicitous footsteps.

Another amazing update. Over the holiday season, I was inspired to return to graduate school, and enroll in a program designed for people committed to planetary transformation. I discovered Wisdom University, saw that they have a graduate degree in Wisdom Spirituality, there is a 5-day course Intensive in March entitled "The Emerging Wisdom Culture" taught by Paul Ray, author of the book The Cultural Creatives. I've been asking the Universe for months, how to take a course with Paul Ray.

Then, in a pre-enrollement conversation with Jim Garrison, President of Wisdom University, in which I profess my passion for the work of Paul Ray, Mr. Garrison tells me that they are preparing to conduct a new study of the Cultural Creatives, and Paul Ray is looking for graduate assistants to be on his team. Mr. Garrison states that I sound "perfect" for the team.

Can it be that my dreams are all coming true? Has the ripcord been pulled?

To be continued...

I have felt called to write about my thoughts, my experience, my path and journey for some time. In 1996 and 1998, I wrote and self published books. Since then, I started a business and have been consumed with growing it and with learning business development. I haven't written anything more than my private journaling for years.

I've been called to create myself anew as a Transformational Activist. To devote my life energies fully and consciously to the work of personal and planetary transformation. I've known that a large part of this for me is writing. In January 2007, I crafted my intentions for that year, which included launching a web presence to blog and post my writings. I knew that once I had that platform, it would call me into Being as a writer.

That intention had me find Zaadz.com, and in November, I created my profile. I had a number of essays I'd written about my vision for global transformation, which I immediately posted on my new blog site. My next step was to add my Zaadz address link to the signature line of my email address, and to get my http://causeyourlife.zaadz.com addess imprinted on my business cards. I was launched!

Joining Zaadz has been a watershed for me. Since November 23, 2007 when I created my profile, my world has opened up. I've tuned into my connection with Source more deeply. My intuition has opened more fully. I received guidance to return to graduate school, and found Wisdom University. My management team in my company told me to "go do that transformational thing I do," they would run the company fine without me. I've begun to write prolifically, unleashed by the opening Zaadz rprovided me. I've joined Toastmasters International to develop my ability to physically present the transformational message that is flowing out of me in the written word.

This year, 2008, I took on the Intention of writing 12 blog posts per month. I also took on creating a minimum of one YouTube podcast per month and linking that to my profile. These goals call me into Being each day, pulling me forward.  

I love Zaadz (now Gaia!). I am grateful for the team of people that envisioned this beautiful possibility, and moved themselves into action to bring it into being. I am sure that this amazing community will be instrumental in causing the global transformation that we all so deeply pray for. 

A new shared worldview is striving to be born on earth. Many of us see the possibility of humanity becoming one loving global family. We know that the era of the rugged individual is over. It's time for the partnership model, for humanity to work together as a team to transform our planet and create a world that works for everyone.

We don't see exactly how to do it. We know that the way exists, is out there, pushing in on the field of awareness of those reaching out to hear it. We also know we don't have unlimited time to bring it forth. As Ervin Laszlo said, the shift must happen within the span of the generations now living. "How it could be accomplished merits further thought," he pointed out. (Kosmos Vol. 5 #2, p.13)

I have a vision of how this could happen. I see a big team assembled to play the game of creating a new culture and a new civilization. Part of this team is in the physical world, in time and space, on the playing field of earth, suited up and ready for the game. Part of the team is in the inner world, unseen by us with our physical eyesight, yet a very tangible presence. They have a much wider perspective on the game than we do. From inner levels they see from a perspective high above the ground, similar to viewing earth from space.

In my vision, important players are on that inner team. Luminaries such as Willis Harman, Abraham Maslow, Buddha, Jesus, Richard Maurice Bucke, Francisco Varela, Buckminster Fuller, Henry David Thoreau, among many others. Amazing individuals who've "merited further thought" about all this for a long time. They know exactly what we need to do to make it happen, and stand ready to deliver their full playbook of moves to those of us in embodiment.

I believe we can receive their playbook from inner dimensions of consciousness. People are being called to the process of receiving the intimations of the emerging future, the guidance and direction needed to navigate humanity through the rough waters ahead.

Andrew Cohen and Otto Scharmer are among those experimenting with group processes designed to hear the emerging future. These processes create collective fields of awareness into which intuitive thought can be received. We in the dimensions of time and space can create a synergy of minds to receive the Collective Intelligence of inner wisdom.

I assert that the collective breakthrough to higher dimensions of consciousness, combined with the purposeful intention to intuit the way through to Breakthrough, is our pathway for success in this undertaking. Let's fully utilize the expertise of all members of the team, connect with those we can't perceive with our physical senses, and change the world together!

Yesterday I attended an all-day silent mindfulness meditation retreat. We practiced various forms of meditation over a 7-hour period. I've been practicing mindfulness meditation for about two years. It's an extraordinary experience to be in this exploration of inner space.

Yesterday I got a deeper knowing that all my answers lie within. It sounds so trite and unremarkable, but the experience for me was profound. Several areas that I've been grappling with have been causing anxiety in the uncertainty of their outcome. Areas that I've felt powerless to impact, having to do with loved ones and external situations that seem beyond my control.

I have ringing in my ears, and it's been interesting that in going within, I directly confront this sound. Often I find myself wishing that it would just "go away". Yesterday the ringing occurred differently for me. I approached it with curiousity, with friendliness. I was deeply present to it in a new way. I saw that there is something for me to understand and realize about myself. Perhaps a message, a communication. And that the answers lie within.

I have been coming up against a teaching everywhere I turn lately, the message to "choose your life, all of it, just the way it is and just the way it isn't." This is expressed in Byron Katie's book "Loving What Is". It's the central theme of Eckhart Tolle's teaching on non-resistance. As Rainer Maria Rilke said,

"What is required of us is that we love the difficult and learn to deal with it. In the difficult are the friendly forces, that hands that work on us. Right in the difficult we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams: there against the depth of this background, they stand out, there for the first time we see how beautiful they are."

Yesterday I experienced my capacity to context the difficult as beautiful. It was a gift!