Are you a seeker? Have you always known there had to be more?

I tried lots of different modalities before coming across Access Consciousness®. Over the years I’ve done Eastern and Western religions, followed a guru in India, was a very good astrologer, practiced every major form of meditation, and spent many years in 12 steps. In addition, I’ve been a psychotherapist for over 22 years and have done countless types of therapy and training.

Access Consciousness is not like anything I have ever done. It is in a class by itself. It is not spiritual or metaphysical, or religious. Why? Because it does not have a structure or dogma or set of beliefs that you must accept or fit yourself into. It took me awhile to register the impact of that. We all look for similarities between the new and that which is familiar to us. You can’t do that with Access Consciousness. It is unlike anything else out there!

Access Consciousness is about facilitating you to be your own expert, rather than relying on someone else’s “truths”.

Everything I’ve ever tried or heard of is based on some set of beliefs – in the stars, in gods, in a theory of human behavior, not to mention assumed truths about man, this reality, and what was possible and not possible. Each modality was essentially an answer – a fixed set of conclusions that you were supposed to accept as the basis for making decisions and knowing who you were, what was possible and not possible, how to act and what to do and not do. Each modality gave a person some definition of themselves to work from. There was nowhere to go except within the confines of the given paradigm. It was a box, and you had to stay in the box or suffer the consequences of the group.

Consciousness includes everything and judges nothing. How different would your life be without judgment?

Access has no dogma, no belief system and no paradigm for you to believe in or accept as truth. No boundaries or limits are put on you. This is one of the first qualities that makes it so very different. Think about it – have you ever known or been involved with anything that did not start with some definition of you and a basket of “truths”?

Access Consciousness is about empowering each person to know what they know. Not in a context or set structure, but as an infinite being who is capable of knowing everything. Access Consciousness is about facilitating you to be your own expert, rather than rely on someone else’s “truths”. Access will never define you or limit you. You can be, do, create or generate anything you like. Wow! I’ve never known anything to be so liberating, if a bit scary at first!

There are many other ways that set Access apart. While it was not obvious to me at first, I soon realized that every other modality I had tried was based on judgment. There was always a given about what was right, what was wrong, what was good and what was bad. These judgments were assumed to be truths, rather than what they were – someone’s arbitrary point of view. Not only that, but anything based on judgment sticks us in polarity. It’s essentially a binary system that can’t be overcome. Access operates from a space of no judgment. It’s about consciousness.

I’ve noticed that in the past few years, many of the popular self help and spiritual gurus are now talking about consciousness instead of love. It’s the current “in thing”. Gary Douglas, the founder of Access Consciousness, has been talking about consciousness for over 25 years, and as far as I know he is the only one who actually gives a definition for it. In his words : “Consciousness includes everything and judges nothing.” How different would your life be without judgment? What if you didn’t have to be ruled from some fixed external set of what’s right and what’s wrong for you. What if you had the tools to learn to not judge yourself? Might your life open up in almost unimaginable ways? Mine certainly did!

The emphasis on effective tools and techniques is another thing that sets Access apart. While some modalities offer a few techniques, there is nothing out there that I’ve seen that has so many powerful and effective tools and techniques. These are not given with any specific expectations of what one is supposed to achieve by using them. There is just the awareness that the tools will assist people in clearing away what has been limiting them. Each person is encouraged to use the ones that work for them best, and to create the targets that resonate with what they would like to achieve.

In Access, question and choice replace answer and prescribed ways of acting and interpreting the world. I never realized the power of asking and being in the question until I began using it everywhere in my life. Instead of “ Wow I’m sad”, (and “I’m sad” is a conclusion – a form of judgment), I can ask: What’s going on here? And: Who’s sadness am I picking up? And: What can I be or do that would shift this? And a thousand other questions that take me out of judgment and into possibilities.

This alone has created huge changes in my psychotherapy practice. Because of question, which means that nothing is taken at face value, my clients have many more options and possibilities available to them. Also – we’re not trying to solve a “problem” that may not be what it seems to be, or may not even belong to the client in the first place! Asking questions also allows for the client to begin to trust in themselves – to know that they know what’s true for them. It’s very different from having the therapist telling them what’s going on with them, as in – “Of course you’re sad – you just got a divorce”. Questions empower while answers disempower, and reinforce the “power and authority” of the so called expert.

Choice is a concept I didn’t really understand until I began using the Access tools and techniques. I always thought that choice was something like I got to choose between chocolate or vanilla ice cream. I could make a choice to date an Aries, but because my birth sign is Cancer it wouldn’t work out. I could choose to have sex with two different people within a week, but I would have to know that I was morally wrong or at least know that I had done something bad.

Real choice has nothing to do with that kind of limitation. Those are choices based on judgment. Real choice is unlimited choice without judgment. It’s also about awareness, because, in the words of Dr. Dain Heer – “Choice creates awareness, awareness doesn’t create choice.” I used to try to make the “right” choice by carefully figuring everything out, and then think I had to stick with that choice. Have you ever chosen a job or a relationship that you knew from the first day wasn’t going to work out but you stayed with it anyway because you had made “your choice”? Now I know that I can choose, and choose again, and each choice will generate more awareness to the extent that I am open to it. Every choice creates more possibilities for me to choose and ask questions about and explore!

Access Consciousness is about being more and about creating a life that is ever expanding.

I also appreciate that Gary Douglas and his business partner, Dr. Dain Heer, have no interest in setting themselves up as gurus or experts who want followers. There is no hierarchy in Access Consciousness, in fact you can’t even join it! I recently texted a thank you to Dain for some facilitation and he responded with: “I’m so happy for you to have more of you!” Never, in my life before Access, has anyone been truly happy for me to have more of me! Why? It might interfere with who they want me to be for them or what plans they have for me, or it might contradict the rules and beliefs of their particular paradigm. Access Consciousness is about being more and about creating a life that is ever expanding. In order to conform to the beliefs of other modalities I tried, I always had to contract myself and be less.

Access is the only thing I know that encourages and facilitates you to go beyond all contexts in creating who you are. It’s about creating you – not finding you. As infinite beings, we can be, do and choose to be anything. Not as a democrat or a Buddhist or a scientist or a husband or a female, but as one beyond definition. Yes, you may choose to play a certain role, but there is an awareness that the role is not you, it’s just something you’re choosing for the moment. I’ve often met people who believe that they are empowered by a paradigm or a role. “Now that I know I’m an alcoholic and that God has removed my addiction, I’m free to be me.” Actually – no you are not! (Been there, done that one). What I mistook as freedom was actually defining myself by the paradigm’s myths and beliefs and definitions. None of that had anything to do with the infinite beings that we all are!

With Access Consciousness, I’ve learned to function from Being rather than Doing, which is where most people in this reality function from. What’s the difference? Functioning from Being brings an awareness of the energy I am being in any moment and how that plays a huge part in what shows up, and what I can create in my life. Functioning from being opens up choices and possibilities. Functioning from doing is always about some solidified decision I’ve made. I used to try to “do” all of the right things so that I could be successful, (according to someone else’s standards), or prove that I was a “good” person, (notice the judgment). It was doing in order to prove that I was being something. Now I don’t need to prove anything! How does it get any better than that?

I’m grateful everyday, for the tools and techniques and information I’ve received and continue to receive, (Access is always changing, as each person who participates in classes contributes their unique gifts), from Access Consciousness. If you are interested in a more expansive life, in being empowered to create the life you’ve always desired, without following anyone else’s path, this may be for you.

By Marilyn Bradford