Spring Forward

Spring will come and so will happiness. Hold on. Life will get warmer -Anita Krizzan

        In ancient times before what many would consider “civilization,” spring was the beginning of the year. Spring signifies renewal, regeneration, and rebirth. Trees that seem dead suddenly bloom new leaves and awaken from their slumber. From a seasonal standpoint, having the beginning of the year be smack dab in the middle of winter doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. This is why Aries is the first sign of the Zodiac calendar being that Aries begins on March 21^st which is the spring solstice or the beginning of spring.

         I know what you are thinking, “What does this have to do with money or financial belief systems?” I’ll get there, don’t worry. When you are in the middle of a brutally cold bitter winter, it can be like torture to think about spring because it is so far away. When you are starving it can be like torture to imagine eating especially if you do not have access to food. When you are broke or temporarily out of money, it can be like torture to think about money in any way. It can even be torture to think about vacations, meeting friends for a nice meal, or even having fun because you are reminded that you are simply fantasizing the minute you remember your financial situation won’t allow you to do those things at present.

         The feeling of being tortured comes from the constant reminder that what you are imagining is not what is happening in real life. So you have a contrasting dichotomy or a war between actual reality and the imagined reality happening in your mind. This war is what makes you feel tortured because you are focusing on the gap between where you are and where you want to be. Focusing on the gap makes you feel not good enough. It makes you feel like something is wrong with this Universe, wrong with your life, or something is just simply wrong with you. I can assure nothing is wrong and everything is exactly what is meant to be.

         You see when times are tough you naturally want to give yourself relief from those times. Relief comes in the form of better-feeling emotions. Basically, if you are feeling down, depressed, or negative about your life situation then you want to feel upbeat, happy, or positive instead in order to soothe yourself. Many people do this by escaping into their imagination of a better life. When you imagine a better life for long enough the negative feelings can relax and the positive feelings can flow. You are simply trying to cope with a difficult time in life but instead of using a coping mechanism like a drink or a drug, you are using your imagination.

         The problem with this, besides the one we touched on of focusing on the gap and feeling worse, is that imagining a better tomorrow will not help you learn the lessons needed here and now. The reason the difficult situation is showing up in your life at this time needs to be understood by you before it is allowed to leave. Essentially, if you are not paying attention in class because you are daydreaming, then you will fail the test. This kind of escaping into the imagination also doesn’t help you shift your perspective of what is happening and process the negative emotions you are feeling. That makes imagining a better future a temporary fix that blocks, withholds, or keeps from you an actual solution. This is no different than a drug. The drug of escapism.

Escapism

         Escapism easily leads to denial because focusing on your current predicament makes you feel bad. But focusing on the future life of your dreams makes you feel good. You can become addicted to those good feelings all the way to the point where if anyone mentions your current challenges then it pops the bubble and brings you crashing down to reality. Can’t have that, much better to stay only thinking positive thoughts and not talk to people who have a tendency to point out our blind spots right?

         I have witnessed firsthand the disastrous ramifications of having only “yes men” around you. There is a reason the fable of the Emperor’s New Clothes is taught to young children and has been handed down through the ages. It is because not getting accurate feedback will leave us in our dreamland within the imagination. Staying in denial will ensure that the Universe is the only one left to burst the bubble. And when that happens it is never gentle. Gentle warnings that you are being delusional about your blind spots are attempting to be presented to you every hour of every day but because it hurts to focus on your problems, deficiencies, or blind spots, many people choose to ignore them so they can stay flooded with only positive emotions that come from fantasizing about all they want in the future.

         Being afraid of the darkness or negative emotions will only ensure they get stronger. The Universe will get louder and prouder until you pay attention. No different than a teacher who notices you not paying attention in class may smack a ruler on the desk or throw a piece of chalk at you to get your attention when gently calling your name is not working. Denial ensures you don’t grow because you cannot see the reason why the challenge has shown up in your life. Everything has a reason for being there, even if we have no idea what the reason is.

         Many people believe that the way to get to the life of their dreams is to envision it in their imagination and move toward it. They believe that this is what it means to manifest or create their own life or carve their own path. I wholeheartedly disagree. Your imagination is a tool to help bring about the instructions of the heart. If you were given a task you had never done before, you could imagine effective ways of doing that task. Essentially, you envision the various ways to accomplish a task before setting out to begin to see which one works best for the situation with the skills you have within your mind first, before taking action. However, your life path is not a task or a puzzle to be solved.

         Have you ever heard the phrase, “They are in their own world?” This phrase points directly to the fact that so many people spend massive amounts of time in their imagined version of reality not reality. They do this because it feels better to do so. No different than a drug addict will tell you that it feels better to be high than sober. The degree to which someone spends time in their fantasies versus reality can always be seen in their reactions to things. The more someone reacts, gets triggered, or erupts with upset, the more they are living in a fantasy world. This is due to the fact that most people become upset when their bubble gets burst and they are forced to accept reality as it is or attempt to fix it to match the one they dream about.

         Negative reactions expose escapism. The more negative reactions someone has, the more they are lost in fantasy and have convinced themselves that if they were running the Universe they could do a better job. This is because no one intentionally wants painful things in their lives. So when painful things come they say to themselves, “Why is this here? If God were indeed loving this wouldn’t be here. If I could write my own story there is no way I would choose for this to happen.” This is what resistance sounds like. You resist reality when you are attached to fantasy.

         How much time do you spend in your imagination do you think? How much do you think about the future? How often do you use the word “should?” As in, “Everyone should be nice to each other and this world would be a utopia.” Or “I shouldn’t have said my lover’s parents were assholes.” Or maybe even, “I should have taken that course on internet marketing years ago because now my life is suffering because I didn’t.” The word should is a great indicator that you are attempting to force your fantasy version of reality onto actual reality. When you believe your life should be different or the circumstances of the situation you are facing should be different, upset is sure to follow. Upset in this case is like the escapism addict going through withdrawals.

Escapism isn’t good or bad in itself. What is important is what you are escaping from and where you are escaping to -Terry Pratchett

The Ego’s Domain

         What many people don’t know is that the imagination is the ego’s domain. The here and now belongs to the heart and the conscious awareness that is you. However, the future and the past belong to the ego. The way most people are manipulated by their ego is with the carrot and the stick. When you are in the winter portion of your life or your year and things are bleak you will naturally escape to your imagination to think about spring so the good feelings return and relief is experienced. However, your ego will say to you, if you want to get to that life you need to work hard and hustle for it. For instance, let’s say you are feeling a little overweight from the holidays and do not like yourself when you look in the mirror so when away from the mirror you imagine yourself fit and healthy. Then your ego will tell you if you want that body you imagine you have to get off your ass and hit the gym, start lifting weights, join a CrossFit group, eat more salads, etc. Instead of you feeling good about the future self you envision that is lean, the ego comes in and ruins your fantasy by focusing on the gap or telling you what you need to do with physical action to receive that body you imagine.  

         This is how your imagination is corrupted. Whatever you fantasize about in the future to feel good about yourself, your ego then cannibalizes it and uses it as a carrot on a string for you to chase around. All the while telling you that you are not good enough to reach it. However, if you simply accepted your body as perfect now then the carrot would have no power to make you take action and the ego would lose power over your decision-making. Acceptance of the way things are regains your power by bringing you back to the only place your power exists, the here and now. Resistance or non-acceptance takes away your power and gives it to the future fantasy that is so much better than this current reality.

         Many people believe they are motivating themselves by imagining what they want and making goals to reach them. However, motivation requires you to not accept what reality you are in now. Evolution, by contrast, fully accepts what is here now and knows that it will be even better tomorrow without being attached that tomorrow will ever come. Motivation requires non-acceptance while evolution requires acceptance of what is. Said differently, how do you expect to evolve if you are not accepting and therefore, not paying attention to the lesson that has been presented to you here and now in actual reality?

         Can you accept that there are never any mistakes? Because the alternative is to believe that the Universe makes mistakes and that if you were in charge, you would do a better job running the show. What if there were never any mistakes but there was an ego inside of you that would die if you fully accepted that truth? So then it pipes up and attempts to persuade you with the perception that it knows better than the Universe? Have you ever thought that the Universe was broken, or the world, or humanity? Have you ever thought that if you were given more power or more money you could fix the world? That is your ego talking because all of those perceptions are based in non-acceptance of what is.

         It can be extremely difficult to believe that the winter you are experiencing, like a lack of money, is actually happening to help you evolve. It can be difficult to believe that your lover leaving you is the best thing for you and for them, especially while in the middle of them moving their stuff out of your place, for example. While you are going through extremely difficult challenges the last thing you want to hear from a shaman like me is, “Everything is happening FOR you not TO you. Everything shows up right on time to further your evolution, if you don’t resist it of course.” I believe coping mechanisms exist in this reality in order to give yourself mercy from the pain and suffering when life gets to be overwhelming. That said when the difficult time passes, and it will always pass, you must know when to put down the coping mechanism and learn the lesson that the challenge was put there to help you learn.

The only place that is not imaginary is the here and now -The Lucky One

Spring Always Comes

         How many winters do you need to experience to remember that spring always comes? When you are in extremely difficult times there is a tendency to slip down the dark rabbit hole and believe that things will always be that way. As in, “Every time I fall in love the person leaves me.” Or “I’m always broke. No matter how much money I make I always end up back to a paycheck-to-paycheck existence.” Change is a law of physical reality. Everything changes except the five laws. Now there can be repeating patterns and there is obviously stagnation when people resist evolution, but change always comes, no matter what.

         How many times have you been broke and how many times have you found a way through it? I’m guessing every single time otherwise, you wouldn’t be alive to read these words. I have been broke, or as I like to call it temporarily out of money, more times than I can count on both hands and feet. Truth be told I don’t even remember how many times I’ve been broke because I grew up dirt poor. For most of my life being broke was more familiar than being up or being successful. The most important lesson that I have taken away from all of those times is that spring always comes, every single time.

         There is a part of me that wants to tattoo this lesson somewhere visible for the next time. Maybe simply writing this will remove the need to do anything that drastic. More money always comes. It tends to come in waves like the ocean. More money comes into my experience to then be spent on things I need or whatever, and that’s how it goes out. It comes in and then it goes out. Then it comes back in again. What would it take for you to shift your perspective on money to see it this way? How many cycles does it take to believe that when there is very little it means more is just around the corner? Money moves in cycles like this. It is a cyclical type of energy, no different than the seasons. The abundance frequency itself is a guidance type of energy. When you follow that energy, it will move you through the labyrinth of life while evolving you into a master.

         Hope is dangerous. I don’t believe in hope. Hope is escapism in my opinion. Far better to trust in evolution and focus on learning whatever is needed in the here and now. When you are aligned with evolution you don’t need hope because you watch progress happen every day. When you see yourself or your life evolve even in the smallest of ways, then you know for sure that you will become the best version of yourself at some point. Stagnation should not be feared, but it should also not be ignored either.

         Every living creature on this planet that you will ever encounter has been taken care of since the moment of its conception to now. What is it that makes you believe you won’t be taken care of or that spring won’t come this time? What makes this difficult time different than all the others that lie in your wake? Do you realize that every single challenge that you have faced you have overcome? You have a one hundred percent success rate for all the dark times in your past. What makes this one any different? I promise you that spring will always come, but only every time.

When all hope is lost, just move forward without it -The Lucky One