Chapter 7

WE WORK TO MASTER twelve primary life attributes in our experience as humans. With each lifetime we choose one primary life lesson to work with, and continue to work on it in consecutive lives until we achieve mastery of that particular attribute. Then we move on to choose another primary life lesson to work with in the following incarnation.

In the past, we generally only worked with one primary life lesson at a time. There are certain instances, however, where we may work with two or more, but most of the time we have confined ourselves to only one. For instance, if a person comes very close to mastering a life lesson at the end of a lifetime and, therefore, don’t quite achieve full mastery, they may choose to continue working on it as a secondary life lesson in their next incarnation.

When a facilitator is assisting a client to identify their primary life lesson, it is important to know that there are no hard and fast rules. For example, a woman who grew up with sexual abuse as a child will not always be working with a life lesson of Trust, even though this form of abuse provides a perfect foundation for learning Trust. She may, in fact, be working with a life lesson of Acceptance, or Definition, or even Love.

Similarly, an individual’s persona and behavior will change dramatically with each step they take towards achieving mastery of their life lesson. For example, a person working with a life lesson of Charity is generally very sensitive but in order to protect themselves they often unconsciously disconnect from others. This will make them appear as if they are extremely selfish and interested only in themselves. Yet, once they begin to reach a higher level of mastery they will become more comfortable with displaying their sensitivity towards others. People will think they have changed but all that has really happened is that they have evolved as a result of the work they have done. An interesting side note here is that in such cases the person themselves will not recognize that they have changed.

Because there are no hard and fast rules I have included a number of case studies from my own files as templates to help illustrate how differently the patterns associated with each life lesson may be played out. I have found these templates very useful when helping clients understand why they are a certain way, or why they keep repeating the same ‘mistakes’ over and over again. This gives the client a good overview of their entire life experience that helps them make more effective choices. Once a person learns that they have a blind spot (which they themselves set up to help facilitate this life lesson) they can take steps to compensate for this when similar circumstances present themselves in the future.

Human Evolution
There is no doubt that humanity is evolving at an astounding rate. The Group suggests that most of us have advanced as souls more in the last six years than we have in the last six lifetimes. To differentiate between these different levels of evolution I use the terms higher and lower vibration. It’s important to note that this is not actually a vibration that can be physically measured in the body, but rather, could be best described as a state of mind. When a person becomes interested in seeking a deeper meaning to life, they are actually raising their overall state of awareness. This is what I mean when I refer to raising their vibrational level. Here again, however, it is important to bear in mind that one vibrational level is not better than another, they are merely different. In the same way that the sixth grade is not better than the third grade, so too is a ‘higher vibration’ is not better than a ‘lower vibration’.

So, if we are advancing this rapidly what effect does this have on the Twelve Primary Life Lessons? Actually the Twelve Primary Life Lessons have been around as long as we have. But whereas we used to take anything between sixty and one hundred lifetimes to master a single life lesson, our rapid evolution has now made it possible for us to accomplish this in as little as a single lifetime. But we can only do so if we are aware of the higher purpose of this game that we have chosen to play.

Warning
With this in mind, let us never forget that even those life lessons that may look particularly disgusting to some of us, have a purpose that ultimately benefits us all. The person panhandling on a street corner, the homeless person rifling through a trash can for food, even the lowly thief or murderer that repels us may, in fact, already have achieved mastery of many more life lessons than we have.

This helps us to remember that with our limited vision none of us have the overall perspective to judge another soul on their path. The person we may be looking at with such abhorrence may be a master who has returned to start working on their final life lesson. The reality is, if you see something or someone that is particularly repellent to you, this generally means that they are working on a primary life lesson that you have already mastered. Thus, there is a natural intolerance and even a sensitivity to these attributes.

Young Adults and Children
I have used this information about the Twelve Primary Life Lessons with children on several occasions with interesting results. Many parents book sessions with me solely to gain greater insights into their children. Some can’t understand why their children don’t respond in typical ways. In many instances, I’ve then been asked to have a session with their child in the hope that this information will benefit them too. Interestingly, I found that my sessions with teenagers and younger children were generally substantially shorter than the sessions I have with most adults.

I have found that a 45-minute session is usually ample for me to explain the overview of a person’s life and plant the necessary seeds. With young people, however, this can usually be accomplished in around twenty minutes or so. Part of the reason is that a young person’s life experience is obviously much shorter and, therefore, they’ve had less time to develop the behavioral patterns associated with their life lessons. Also, children born in the last thirty years are more advanced and, therefore, process in entirely different ways and at an entirely different rate than previous generations. These children, who have been labeled Indigo and the Crystal children, are much quicker and more direct than most adults are. In order to catch their attention, information must be honed down to its very essence.

In recent years we have been seeing a vast increase in the number of children with learning challenges, such as ADD and ADHD. In my experience, many of these conditions are simply the result of children being born with advanced attributes in a society that is not ready for them. Even though many of these children may appear to have difficulty at school, they are actually very bright. In fact, the biggest challenge for these advanced humans is boredom.

When it comes to the Twelve Primary Life Lessons, I have found that most young people intuitively understand what I am saying. Even though they may not yet have had the chance to see the underlying patterns of their actions, they are generally aware of their weak points or blind spots. They simply need someone who can help them understand why they don’t fit in. I have found that I don’t need to spend much time explaining their patterns and contracts. Instead, I tend to talk more about their blind spots and introduce ideas for how to deal with issues that will most likely crop up in the near future.

About Responsibility
One human attribute that is not listed here is responsibility. That’s because responsibility is actually the result of an action, rather than an attribute in itself. It is the resulting action of mastering, or not mastering, as the case may be, life lessons. In other words, one either takes responsibility for working on one’s life lesson, or one doesn’t. The action of responsibility generally shows up in the life lessons of Be-ing, Creation, Trust, and, most common of all, Truth.

Collective Life Lessons
Life lessons are always personal in that they are always focused on the individual. However, many life lessons have also been facilitated by groups of people who have contracted to master the lesson collectively. For instance, certain socioeconomic or religious groups have created specific conditions purely in order to facilitate a particular life lesson. Let’s say that you wanted to work with a life lesson of Acceptance. This could be facilitated much more easily if you were to place yourself in a black community in Alabama in the 1960’s when racial discrimination was at its height in the United States. Likewise being born into any poor family would provide the perfect conditions for mastering the life lessons of Trust, Creation or Adaptation.

In all instances we not only choose the best circumstances to facilitate each life lesson, we also place ourselves in precisely the most appropriate era. Let me explain. When we are in the first stage of life, i.e., when we are planning our life contracts and set-ups, we have the ability to see the direction in which things are heading, and thus can place ourselves in exactly the right point in the timeline that will provide us with the best conditions to work on a specific life lesson. As an example, in the early 1920’s, the most common life lesson was that of Charity, which concerns learning about our connection to other people. We chose to work on this lesson at that time because we saw that the great depression that lay ahead offered us the best opportunity to strengthen our connections to each other by helping one another through those difficult times. In the 1960’s we collectively worked on the two life lessons of Communication and Love. Today, there are many diverse groups working as collectives on different life lessons. Because the way we typically advance is to act like a pendulum, swinging from one extreme to another, we have swung from working collectively on the life lesson of Charity, to working collectively on the life lesson of Definition. The reason for this is because working on Charity not only taught us to recognize and honor our connection to each other, but also to think of others before we thought of ourselves. Now the pendulum is swinging in the other direction, we are finding that we have become so wrapped up in taking care of others that we have forgotten to think of ourselves. Thus, the collective life lesson of Definition is necessary right now to help us learn to place ourselves first.

It is also common for a family blood line to have a general attraction to specific life lessons. You will find that some families seem to pass down life lessons through generations almost as if it were genetic. This is known as linage intent. Many times in the first stage of life we place ourselves in a specific blood line because of the linage intent as it will help us facilitate a lesson we are working on.

Definition is often a product of linage intent and most common among healers. In many ways it can be like being born into a family of healers. It is the tremendous sensitivity that is an attribute of this life lesson that makes it possible for healers to facilitate healing for others. It is only when a person begins to master this life lesson by learning to place themselves first, and defining where their energy ends and another’s begins, that they can fully step into their healing work.

In the old paradigm when we were taking between sixty and one hundred lifetimes to master one life lesson, we had no use for knowledge of the Twelve Primary Life Lessons. Now that we have started to advance very rapidly, however, this knowledge is becoming extremely helpful to the evolution of our species.

Relationships and the Twelve Primary Life Lessons
Relationships can be the most challenging of all human experiences. To hold someone so close that you can see every detail of your own reflection is both extremely rewarding as well as extremely difficult.

In this section I will not attempt to deal with relationships in general, as that is the topic of a future book. Instead, we will look at the ways in which the Twelve Primary Life Lessons affect the establishment and growth of our relationships.

As previously stated, the general appearance of a person has a lot to do with where they are at in the mastery process of their primary life lesson. For instance, a person working with a life lesson of Trust will appear shy and reserved in the early stages. Once they start to attain mastery, however, this person’s demeanor will appear to be quite confident. The same rule applies to relationships. If two people are both working on their individual life lessons simultaneously, they will have a tendency to grow together. But if they are working on their primary life lessons at different rates they will more than likely grow apart. That said, the gaps that often occur during these difficult times could be bridged if the couple can communicate openly with one another.

Certain life lessons usually tend to attract counterparts inside relationships. For instance, I have seen the life lessons of Definition and Communication being worked on by many couples.

The real challenge in relationships occurs when one partner starts advancing rapidly in their life lesson and the other person makes no forward movement at all, or, worse, resents their partner’s growth. Even though all other areas of such a relationship may be healthy, the differences in advancement will place these two people at vastly different vibrational levels. This will almost certainly cause great strain on the relationship, and quite often will lead to the breakdown of the relationship altogether. Even where both partner’s commitment is strong enough to hold the relationship together, outside forces will often conspire to push them apart if they continue to remain at different vibrational levels for a prolonged period. This is the origin of the ‘Bump’ contract described in the chapter on The Nature of Contracts.

The reality is that not all successful relationships are meant to be for the long term. This is just as true of some successful relationships as it is of many difficult ones. I have seen many relationships that have just run their course and were complete, but neither party was willing to walk away from what was familiar to them and face the unknown. Take the case of Vera, for example.

When Vera had her first sessions with me, she told me she had been married for 41 years. “Congratulations,” I said.

“No. Don’t congratulate me,” she said, “41 years is about twenty years too long.”

According to Vera, the sex had stopped about twenty years before. The emotional intimacy had ceased even earlier than that, right around the time Vera had given birth to her youngest daughter, who was now thirty years old. Vera’s children had been encouraging her to leave the relationship for some time before she decided to consult me.

Vera was working with a primary life lesson of Trust and a secondary life lesson of Definition. This meant that the hardest thing for her to do was to put herself first, and the most difficult word for her to say was ‘no’. Vera knew where she was going, and what she would do when she got there. Nonetheless, she found that taking that first step and confronting her husband with the fact was unthinkable.

Eight months and another two sessions later, Vera finally left her husband and her house. At first she was terrified. But the support she received from those around her almost overwhelmed her with joy. Three weeks later her husband even called her to congratulate her on speaking her truth. One month after that, another interesting and significant event occurred.

One day, when Vera’s husband was at his office, she returned to the marital home to collect some of her clothes. Without warning, she came face to face with her husband. After several minutes of chit-chat, Vera built up her courage, took a deep breath, and, in as nice a manner as she could, told him how strong and empowered she was feeling now that she was finally learning how to stand on her own two feet and put her own needs first. For the first time in her life, Vera stood completely in her truth and spoke from her heart. She no longer cared what others might think. This was her life, and she was going to live it for herself in the best and most productive way she knew how. Interestingly, by taking her own power and standing firm in her new sense of self, Vera had suddenly become extremely attractive to her ex-husband and they made love that day. It was unlike any lovemaking they had ever known before; for the first time in a long while their souls connected in a totally unhampered manner.

Vera never did return to her husband. As far as she was concerned, their contract was complete, and it was now time to move on. Even today, when people ask Vera about her ex-husband, she smiles mysteriously.

The Twelve Primary Life Lessons

1. Acceptance
2. Adaptation
3. Be-ing (Wholeness)
4. Charity
5. Communication (From the Heart)
6. Creation (Holding Power)
7. Definition (Centering your own Energy)
8. Integrity
9. Love
10. Trust
11. Truth (Self)
12. Grace

As you read through the above list you may have felt a tug at one or more of the attributes listed. These tugs generally indicate areas that you are working on in this lifetime. Until recently we have only worked on one primary life lesson at a time, sometimes working on that one lesson up to one hundred lifetimes without mastering it. Because of our recent advancement, however, it is now possible to master a primary life lesson the first time round. In fact, it is now becoming quite common for us to combine life lessons and work on two or more, primary life lessons in a single lifetime. This is somewhat akin to a student at college choosing one subject to ‘major’ in as the focus of their degree and possible future career, and also selecting another subject as a secondary focus of their studies. With life lessons, many of us are now choosing to concentrate most of our energies on mastering one primary life lesson, while at the same time focusing a lesser amount of energy on working on a secondary life lesson. In most cases, however, the secondary, or ‘minor’, life lesson will rarely be completed in its entirety during one lifetime.

As you read on, you may become aware of a deep sense of familiarity with or recognition of some of the attributes described below. These are life lessons that you have mastered in this or previous lifetimes. Rarely do we feel as though we have mastered all twelve life lessons. Moreover, because we have total free choice in all matters, it is possible that we may sometimes even regress on some items that we have previously mastered, in which case we would need to re-master that particular attribute again. However, since this would be done as a secondary life lesson, it would be facilitated a lot more speedily than it was the first time around.

At this point I should also caution you that you will almost certainly see yourself in several, and possibly even all, of the primary life lessons. It’s important to keep in mind here that when we are working on these life lessons, they are naturally so personal to us that it’s virtually impossible for us to be objective about our own experience. We have a built in blind spot when it comes to our own life lesson. For this reason, it is often helpful to have an objective outsider or facilitator to assist you in identifying your own primary life lesson. Once identified, it becomes much easier to see how all the major events in your life lead back to this one, or sometimes two, blind spots.

What follows [in the next chapters] is a description of the Twelve Primary Life Lessons, each of which is accompanied by one or two examples, based on real life cases from my client files, to help provide you with an illustration of the different ways these life lessons can play out.*

If any of these twelve attributes seems to be a recurring challenge in your own life, be aware that there is a good possibility that it is a Life Lesson that you are currently mastering.

The key to mastering each of the twelve Life attributes lies in discovering its higher purpose. As you read through each of the life lessons described below, first determine whether this feels like an energy matrix or an energy stamp. If it is an energy stamp, the key to healing and releasing it will be found within the life experience that created the stamp. If it is an energy matrix, remember, this is an attribute that can never be healed; it can only be mastered.

Throughout the following descriptions, I shall contrast the sexes in order to illustrate polarity.

We have all played roles as both male and female. The gender we choose for each incarnation is dictated by a number of factors, not the least of which are the life attributes we wish to master. There are many women who carry more male energy than most men, and vice versa. In the future, we will see more of a blending of these energies; the more we move toward unity consciousness, the more the energy gap between the sexes will begin to close.

*In the interests of client confidentiality, I have, of course, used pseudonyms to protect the identities of the people concerned.

© Steve Rother, 2004
This book can be purchased by visiting here.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Steve Rother was comfortably settled into life as a General Building Contractor in the San Diego area when, through a synchronistic series of events, he was placed firmly in the middle of his life contract. Steve and his wife Barbara began shifting their focus on life and living on New Year’s morning, 1995, when they found themselves unexpectedly expressing their intent for the coming year during a ceremony that took place as the sun rose over a California beach. Steve began receiving divinely inspired messages about human evolution and how we can all experience an empowered life style. From that day forward, their lives were never to be the same.

Today the source of this divinely inspired information is known simply as the Group. They offer practical information on leading empowered lives as evolving humans. This divine information has filled four books with three more being compiled. The monthly messages distributed over the internet, along with the books are translated into 18 languages each month. Steve and Barbara travel extensively presenting seminars on a global basis and are five time presenters to charters of the United Nations
on two continents.

Steve and Barbara make their base in San Diego, California, where they have formed the nonprofit corporation of Lightworker. Together with the volunteers and staff of the Lightworker organization they plant seeds of Light through personal empowerment on a global basis. More information about Lightworker, Steve, Barbara and the Group, including their seminar schedule, can be found at the Lightworker web site:http://www.lightworker.com