The 9 Levels of True Transformation

Intro

Let There Be Light!

     The standard definition of TRANSFORMATION is:

The change in form/condition, appearance, nature, or character; convert.

To TRANSFORM, one must seek to change, whether it is their condition (i.e. social status, economics), appearance (i.e. weight, shape), nature (i.e. pessimistic, overly negative), or character (i.e. dishonest, unreliable).

The question most ask when hearing or reading this is…

HOW?

What is the most effective and efficient way to achieve this TRANSFORMATION?

For those that are not aware, a holistic lifestyle is based on the concept of mind, body and soul.   It is taught and understood that you cannot help heal an individual unless you do so in all planes of that individual’s existence.  With that, the mind is considered to be the switchboard between the spirit and the body.  You have to make sure that there is a healthy mental state present if you plan on correcting anything in the body, and there has to be a healthy spirit on the other side to achieve a balance.

Within this concept, I can’t really go up to a person and say, "You need to change your lifestyle and live a happy, healthier life", because they may have too many other worries in their lives; primarily bills.  A lot of people don’t recognize that they’re not working to be free, they're working to be enslaved by the very bills they have to chase after every month, and I know what that feels like.  I’ve been in and out of different situations in my lifetime.

I was raised by a single mother.  My mother started raising me by herself when I was 1 year old.  Following her divorce from my father, she had to get on public assistance.  I know what it feels like to go through times when the lights get cut off; having to take paper food stamps and shamefully walk to the store, feeling embarrassed while some people handed over real cash.  I know what it’s like to be on section 8.  I’ve lived in poor environments, but on the other side, I was blessed to have grandparents and family members who lived in the middle-class areas. My grandparents were the first black family to move on their street in a middle-to-upper class suburb outside of Cleveland, Ohio.  On the weekends, I would stay over there and play with my suburban friends, then I would go back to the hood on the weekdays.

My father passed away when I was 10 years old.  After he passed, we started getting social security checks and my mother was approved for section 8 vouchers in Warrensville Heights, which is a suburb of Cleveland Ohio.  It just so happened at that time, Warrensville Heights was going through the effects of gentrification, which is when the slum areas of a city are renovated and the poor residents are pushed towards the inner suburbs.  Those who can afford it, buy all of the inner-city areas to rebuild in an attempt to keep downtown workers towards the downtown areas.  That’s what was happening in Cleveland during the time we moved.

Right when we moved, there was the first wave of people moving up from the inner-city to the inner suburbs; things changed.  As I got older, I got into hustling and working jobs.  I had a little bit more money, but I wasn’t anywhere near comfortable.  As a young adult, through legal means, I inherited a lot of money.  I knew what it felt like to live an upper-middle class lifestyle.

Through those experiences, I learned a lot.  I studied a lot.  In my young years, I made some mistakes and I had to pay some debts to society.  During that time, I allowed myself to be educated, and when I say educated, I don’t mean strictly in the "formal/traditional sense".  A lot of self-education was necessary: reading a lot on my own, talking to people from various backgrounds (learning from their mistakes & successes), and observing a lot.