We’re on the last day of the year, about to turn the page to 2018. Gosh! 2018. It’s like only yesterday that we turned the page to 2017. Or 2016. What’s this saying? Even time seems to have played with us, as it allowed the days of this year to speed through as though they were on steroids. It has been a shocking 2016, a topsy-turvy 2017, and friends ask me imploringly — what do I see for 2018 and please, can the chaotic energies begin to change for the better?
I was looking through my old files for past articles so I could write something different this year. I noticed that the messages of year-end and first-of-year articles all have a similar track. The articles were all about change. I’ve begun to sound like a broken record through the years by saying the same things: the need to change our lifestyles, our mindsets, our choices, because the path we have been on is totally unsustainable.
I have been writing like this for a decade and again, I feel like I am merely reflecting a lot of things that people already know (or many are being forced to accept consciously). We are in times of “intense change.” We can’t just brush it off anymore.
These events and situations are screaming at us head on, as seen in global events. We see it in world and local leaders and their choice of actions; the struggle of poverty-stricken, landless peoples; the prevalence of misogyny, sexual abuse and diseases. There is also the imbalance of wealth that continues to pollute a dirty world — running amuck, spewing out the shadows, the hidden, the dirty linen as ego leads the way.
Climate change chimes in with intense weather disturbances that are literally changing the face of the planet, and offers a natural answer to overpopulation! We are in a wild, wild world within an expanding universe. Many forms of life are dying. New ones are emerging. We are bridging time between an old world dying and a new one being born.
Yet many will not connect world events to their own thoughts. But all these are interconnected. Quantum physics shows that everything is energy at the subatomic level, and that vibrational fields emanate from the smallest of all particles in our multi-universe. Yet, we still move through our everyday lives thinking that what we see in this physical world is all there is — and we, like puppets, live our lives asleep.
I can’t mince words now. Do we have to wait for even more drastic changes to wake up? Do we need to get sick before we choose health? Do we need to feel that aching existential emptiness before we choose to step into service?
As we bridge the two years, let’s just stop to do a quick reflection: we need to wake up and ponder the way we live. What is the intention of our lives? The purpose? Are we open enough to create a deeper, inner space and work on our spiritual growth? I don’t think it is that easy to just drift along and let outside influences — people, religions, societal traditions — dictate our way of life if we cannot connect them to something deeper and authentic within us.
How do we love? Are our relationships holistic and co-creating to support our self-actualizing growth? If not, take a step back from those people who drag you down. Define the fears that create borders around your hearts and minds. Define them and process them!
How about our spaces? Are our homes and workspaces flowing with lightness? Are they free of clutter, and occupied only by objects that really work and mean something for us? Why do we go to work? Is it for the passion we feel to do something that is aligned to our very being? Or merely for money or our vanities? Can we find a sense of balance as we create the money to put food on the table for our loved ones? Wouldn’t it be great to wake up in the morning and feel excited for work, because it brings us closer to people who share our mission in life? Wouldn’t it be wonderful to seek passions that enhance the wholeness of our being? There would be no such things as retirement if we all love what we are doing and if we are constantly thinking of creativity and growth in our lives.
Do we really need all that “stuff?” Can we bring more awareness whenever we buy anything new? What aspects of our life turn us into control freaks? Why so? There is much to learn about oneself when releasing control and allowing a natural flow driven by insights to direct one’s life. This “ideal” life — painted by media, branded by products, driven by social media shares — is brought into focus by a status quo totally in illusion.
What do we term as healthy? Our supply chain systems cater to choosing processes and ingredients that are cheaper in cost (but harm the planet and make us unhealthy) so they can compete and make more profit. In our world today, we are driven by 100-percent fear and protectionism, both of which do not promote growth. We just cannot survive this way.
Is that belief truly mine? Religion forces protectionism and unless the individual finds the real essence of spirituality within the faith traditions, religion remains ritual for community. Science is creating breakthroughs where moral and ethical issues are forced to come to the surface to be addressed vis-à-vis our levels of consciousness. At what level of consciousness can we accept these new breakthroughs? How will I define my relationship with technology? We are still trying to tame technology’s driving power as we move high speed into the information age. It is no wonder that the mind is buckling down and mental illness rises as the top medical issue in the world. How deep do we move into our hearts and bodies to read the messages that can take us away from deepening existential isolation and loneliness?
What is essential for us to survive healthily? First, a positive mindset of abundance and gratitude. I begin with the mindset because everything begins from a thought impacted by the energy of desire. It is from this root (our thoughts) that change must begin, so we can then power it with our desire. Everything that manifests into the physical world begins from the invisible realm of spirit. That intangible world is where inspiration moves down into vision, into mental thoughts that create ideas. These ideas are what we fuel to create our reality, our kind of world. Thus, the changes now must be done consciously individually, then as a group collectively. This collective evolution is what we must wake up to. Change begins with the individual but powered by the group in shared focus and collaboration.
At the bridge between one year fading and one about to be born, let us focus on our thoughts, turn them around to the positive, lift them up higher, move them to a space of lightness, bridge them to like-minded people doing exactly the same.
Bridging the years, I will borrow from two authors whose writings I enjoy. Let’s end the year as Rollo May, in his book Courage to Create, challenges us to “go roaring, roaring at the close of day.” While the poetic writer Milan Kundera whispers the seduction of the “unbearable lightness of being.”
Let us leave 2017 with the courage and passion to move forward, impulse our personal talents and skills, to collectively connect our shining personal powers, and live 2018 towards the light!