Interview with a Visionary:
A Conversation with Shakti Gawain

By Peter Fenderson

Shakti Gawain is a pioneer in the field of personal growth and consciousness. Her many best-selling books, including Creative Visualization, Living In The Light, The Path of Transformation, The Four Levels of Healing, Creating True Prosperity and Developing Intuition, have sold more than six million copies in thirty languages worldwide. For over twenty years, Shakti has led workshops internationally, and has facilitated thousands of individuals in developing greater awareness, balance, and wholeness in their lives. She and her husband, Jim Burns, live in Mill Valley, California, and on the island of Kauai in Hawaii.

For more information or to be on her mailing list, contact:
Shakti Gawain
P.O. Box 377
Mill Valley, CA 94942;
Telephone: (415) 388-7140;
or visit www.shaktigawain.com.

HGJ: Shakti, when did your spiritual journey first begin?

SG: Well, lets see, I suppose when I was conceived (laughs). You mean, when did I consciously embark on a spiritual growth path?

HGJ: Yes.

SG: From the time I was a child I was always very curious about life and why we are here, what this is all about, and what was the purpose and meaning of my life. I wasn’t brought up in any particular religion, in fact, my parents were more or less agnostic or atheist when I was a child. So I didn’t have any kind of spiritual teaching in that way which, on the one hand, is great and, on the other hand doesn’t give you any answers. If you have dogma you have a lot of answers to your questions. So, in that way, I think I was left with a lot of the questions which is kind of good because it left me more interested in that kind of thing. So I would say in my late teens and early twenties I was reading a lot of books on psychology and philosophy. I actually traveled around the world after I got out of college. I was bumming around Europe for a while and I ended up traveling over land to India and eventually ended up going all the way around the world on a shoe string, and that really opened my eyes, particularly being in India and learning more about eastern religions and philosophy. I had already been practicing yoga, so those things influenced me. Then when I got back to this country, I was more or less fascinated with the whole personal growth process. I went to live in a community where we were putting on workshops and people were into their personal growth and it just kind of developed from there, but it wasn’t any one clear cut point; its been an ongoing process for me.

HGJ: Mental imagery and affirmations seem to be something that some people use naturally and others need to be taught. How do creativity and spirituality tie in together?

SG: I believe that we all use it all the time—it’s just that we do it unconsciously. Often we are thinking about and imagining that the worst might happen: ‘Oh my boss is going to kill me, I didn’t get this thing done.’ Those are examples of images and affirmations that are negative. You’re afraid this thing is going to happen and you’re sort of affirming it to happen. We all do that. So we already know how to visualize and how to affirm, we just have to make it more conscious—to visualize and affirm what we DO want instead a lot of the things that we DON’T want. That doesn’t mean it’s terrible to have a negative thought; we are humans and we do have negative thoughts and fears, and that’s all part of the process. It’s not like we are trying to do away with those things; it’s that we just begin to notice more, and become more conscious of what we are imagining and affirming. And, if you spend even five minutes a day imagining and affirming what you do want in your life, it counterbalances hours and hours of the opposite. It’s very powerful because it’s used with intention.

HGJ: Then do negative thoughts attract negative situations and positive thoughts, positive situations?

SG: It’s not that simple. That’s why positive thinking is a bit too superficial. If you’re just trying to get rid of your negative thoughts, that’s actually psychologically dangerous because you don’t really get rid of anything, you just shove it down and repress it, and eventually it comes forth. So my path is very much about paying attention to everything that is going on inside of us and honoring all of it, including what might seem like our fears, our doubts, and our negative feelings.

HGJ: In Creative Visualization you talk about desire, belief and acceptance. How have these three elements helped you visualize and create success in your own life?

SG: Those three words are ways of looking at the process. Do you truly desire something? That’s a question to ask yourself if there’s something you think you want. Do you believe it could be possible? And are you willing to accept it? If you look at those questions, they will bring up some interesting reactions like, ‘No, I really don’t believe this is possible for me,’ or ‘Could I really accept having something this good happen to me?’ It’s a way of looking into the deeper levels of your own attitudes and beliefs because if there is something that is truly right for us and we truly desire it, very often it happens. But if we’re feeling blocked, it may be because we don’t really believe it’s possible. It’s just looking more deeply. The whole process of creative visualization helps us look at what core beliefs we may have that aren’t allowing us to have what we want and that’s a big part of the process, getting conscious of all that.

HGJ: Shakti, what does ‘healing’ mean to you?

SG: To me it’s equivalent to growing and developing. We’re all in an evolutionary process, each of us as individuals and humanity as a whole. I use the word ‘healing‚’ in the sense that very often in that process we’ve been somewhat wounded on the emotional level and spiritual levels so we need to be in touch with those places in us that may feel wounded, learn how to heal and nurture them, learn how to express as many aspects of ourselves as we can including, the more vulnerable part of ourselves. This is basically the process of learning and growing and becoming more whole and more of who we are.

HGJ: What is the most important thing in your life? What inspires you?

SG: The most important things in my life are being very true to myself, being honest with myself and others, embracing and accepting all aspects of myself, and discovering more and more of those aspects.

What inspires me? I believe we all develop certain aspects of ourselves and then there other aspects that we’ve neglected or that we haven’t had a chance to develop yet. We are always in this balancing process. If we’ve developed one thing we have to look at the opposite polarity and work with that as well. I have been a person who has been very passionate about my work, very much of a workaholic; traveling, giving workshops, writing books. It’s been wonderful and it’s time for me to be quieter, stay home more and just have more time for my own personal life. I’m paying attention to myself and what I need, and that’s wonderful for me and very inspiring at the moment.

HGJ: I have to say you’ve been very busy for a while!

SG: I have been very busy for a very long time (laughs).

Peter Fenderson, MA, is a writer living and working in the Detroit area. He can be reached at 1-800-351-8337 or via e-mail at pfenderson@att.net.