Why would Part X want to convince you that you can eradicate all traces of evil within you? Because if you keep trying and failing, eventually you’ll tell yourself you’ve succeeded even though you haven’t: “I’ve gotten rid of the evil inside me. I am pure.”

I had always thought my best sessions were the ones where I explained things clearly. It turned out my patients liked the ones where I was passionate about change. It mattered less to them what I said than what they sensed stirring in my soul.

Think about a bad habit of yours that mars your relationship with the world or hurts the people around you.

Learning to use tools requires doing, not thinking. Don’t analyze whether you’ve gotten them right or even if they’re working. It might not feel like they’re doing anything at first. If you simply use them—again and again—they’ll connect you to your Life Force and expand your world in ways you never thought possible.

The most universal practice for tapping into the Life Force is really a number of practices—meditation, prayer, reading, journal writing, exercise—that make up the morning rituals that so many people swear by. Rather than preparing you for a single event, like a game, a play, or a public address, the rituals prepare you for the entire day to come.

The most obvious time to use the Vortex is in those moments when you’re paralyzed by exhaustion. Your physical body feels too heavy to move, and it seems impossible to get up off the couch or out of bed. You feel used up, your energy stores depleted.

DEMORALIZATION: Part X wants to convert normal discouragement into hopelessness so you’ll quit trying and give up on the things that are most important to you.

This creates another use for the Vortex, maybe its most important use: the tool gives you the energy to overcome your inertia and to keep moving through the endless transitions life demands. Most people focus on the bigger, more challenging events in life, but the forces that drive the universe function on a much smaller level. We call this the wor

THE MOTHER TURN YOUR NEGATIVE THOUGHTS INTO A TOXIC SUBSTANCE: Feel the sense of demoralization as intensely as you can. Focus on its heaviness, as if it’s an oppressive substance weighing you down. Visualize that substance so vividly that the demoralized thoughts and feelings are no longer in your head. THE MOTHER APPEARS: See the Mother hovering