We are hypnotized. And most of us are not even aware. We walk through life under the hypnosis of lack and being less than.
It’s crazy. It’s crazy because we do not realize the depth of this hypnosis and its impact on all areas of life. It’s crazy because we accept it. I say, no more. Who’s with me?
Most people try really hard to find love, satisfaction, acceptance, and belonging from relationships – relationships with their life partners, with their parents, friends, animals, support group, and their community. They look for their tribe. And yet, the most important relationship is often neglected.
Most people look to the external world for their identity – as mother/father, boss, healer, author, spiritual teacher, the party guy, the Goddess, the giver, the funny one, the smart one, the dog mommy, etc and use society’s metrics to measure success, failure, worth, happiness, and a whole range of parameters of a life “well-lived”. And yet, the most important person in this formula is often bypassed and ignored.
It is so easy to be swept away by the latest trends and research in health, financial investment, education, and lifestyle. Let’s take a moment and pause here – who hasn’t chased that bright shiny ball? And tried this, then that?
The sheer volume of information is simply staggering. It is exhausting. It is draining.
The secret is – it’s much simpler than we think it is. Perhaps we overcomplicate things because we have lost our connection to a deeper truth and wisdom. Perhaps we look outside because our left brain has been over activated by media geared at A=440Hz. Is it the disconnection from our head-heart-gut brain that has left us without access to discernment, vulnerable to suggestion? Or has personal and collective trauma left all of us a little less resilient and a little more frayed at the edges?
Getting Back to the Basics
Take a few minutes now and close your eyes. Take a few breaths and feel them moving in an out of your heart. Place a finger or a palm on your chest if it helps focus your attention on this area. Gently extend each inhale and each exhale. Bring in a feeling of gratitude, compassion, care, or appreciation. Stay with this for a few more breaths.
⥤ Now ask yourself, what area of your life you would enjoy more harmony, joy, and ease?
There is a 80/20 rule. This is the Pareto Principle or the Law of the Vital Few (according to Wikipedia). The 80/20 rule is about how approximately 80% of what happens comes from 20% of cause/action. It’s been applied across industries and disciplines, and known to occur in nature. And we can apply to our habits and our efforts.
What can we slow down and anchor more deeply? How can we make the intellectual practical in our lives this year? How can we live more effortlessly?
How will your life be if more ease and energy were present in just one area in your life?
Again let’s take a few more breaths here, like we did before. Close your eyes, place your focus on your heart, and breathe more deeply. Perhaps extending each inhale and exhale to five seconds and pausing in between. So breathe in for five seconds, pause, breathe out for five seconds, pause. Do this a few more times. Then bring in one of these four emotions – compassion, care, appreciation, or gratitude. Feel it permeate throughout your whole body as you breathe through your heart space with this emotion.
⥤ Now, ask your heart brain – what are three practices I can focus on this year that will bring me greater joy and ease in the area of the life I desire?
How will your life be if you concentrated on these practices and went really deep with them? Implement them to such a degree that a seriously stable and strong foundation is created.
What ideas popped up for you when you did the coherence breathing just now?
These practices do not have to be earth-shatteringly big. Simple ones can be potent – like getting to sleep by 10pm every night, drinking X amount of water, doing the Loving Kindness meditation (or the coherence breathing we just did) or walking 45 minutes three times a week. What about a weekly date with yourself?
Focus on what you can do, rather than what not to do. So this means focus on drinking more water rather than cutting down your coffee, which is likely going to happen over time.
For any change to be sustainable and meaningful, the most important person to focus on is ourselves. Change begins with us. It’s not about waiting for legislation to change, for fracking to stop, for the big corporations to be shamed into stopping their animal testing or general poisoning. We cannot wait for the fields to level out through legal change.
We have to change. Inside out.
We have to snap ourselves out of this hypnotic state.
Sure we continue with our community work, grassroots initiatives, global gatherings … alongside we do self-work. It is time to take responsibility and be accountable. Be impeccable and observe good energetic hygiene. It is amazing what can be created and accomplished when we are aligned.
I invite you to lay down the masks you have been wearing, the smile you put on for others, the drive for accomplishment that lacks meaning for you … I invite you to step out of all the drama that weighs you down and break up with the person who is pretending to be you.
The most important person is you and the most important relationship is with yourself. When we can show up as ourselves, in the full glorious spectrum of who we are, we are untying many self-made ties of bondage. We no longer have the subconscious need to project our insecurities onto others. How wonderful it would be to be in a space of possibility, unlimited by judgment of self and others? How will the world look then?
