Book excerpt: A practical guide to stop searching for meaning by creating meaning from within • Explains how we can only discover who we are by naming what we want to be and taking steps to make it a reality • Offers simple evidence-based methods to generate enthusiasm, creativity, and direct spiritual experience and to co-create with the natural world as our ancestors did • Presents 11 core principles for living life from within, such as how to take full responsibility for motivation and effort, express gratitude, and focus your intention Everyone wants to experience purpose and inspiration in their lives, but the search for meaning often leaves a seeker in the hands of fate. Offering a different approach to self-discovery, one where we create our meaning from within rather than seek it from the outside world, Julie Tallard Johnson shows there is a science behind personal spiritual experiences and creativity. She reveals simple evidence-based methods that can be applied to any situation to generate enthusiasm, inspiration, and direct spiritual experience and transform the inner and outer landscapes of your life. Drawing from the Heart Sutra, the I Ching, indigenous wisdom, and the teachings of the Dalai Lama, Joseph Campbell, and the Kadampa master Atisha, Johnson outlines a practice centered on what she calls the Zero Point Agreement--the realization that you are the zero point of your life, that life’s purpose comes from within. She explains how to discover who you truly are by naming what you want to be and taking steps to make it a reality. Providing 11 core principles for the Zero Point Agreement as well as thought exercises, meditations, and journaling practices, Johnson shows how to break free from negative habitual states, liberate yourself from your attachment to the behaviors of others, take full responsibility for motivation and effort, express gratitude, focus your intention, and learn to co-create with the natural world. She also explores how to transform repressed material and how to apply the Zero Point Agreement to heal both personal and global relationships. Revealing how we can tap in to the creative, creational power that lies within and around each of us, Johnson offers a spiritual technology for self-illumination, creative restructuring of your life, and manifestation of your life’s purpose.