decisions
Just Existing, Not Living?
Do you ever feel like you’re existing and not actually living? Well, guess what? You’re not alone. I think at some point in our lives we all do, especially after everything we have endured over the past two years.
In these difficult times, we worry about our health and safety, money, career paths and choices, the perfect house, the perfect partner or spouse.
Our children. Have we raised them right? Or, have we spoiled them? If you don’t know yet…two year olds grow up and teenagers grow out of it!
All of the above are legitimate concerns. But at some point we need to remember to worry only about the things we can control.
Stop focusing so much time and energy on the things you cannot control. All it brings us are toxic thought patterns, an anxious heart and a restless soul. Once we have learned to give all of that up, life seems a tiny bit easier.
There is a famous saying: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” How very true. You can fixate on all the frustrations, promise yourself that you’ll do this and that, or feel better once you get to wherever – but it doesn’t necessarily work that way. Because it’s easier to think about what you’d rather do, than to just going out and doing it.
Making A Meaningful Change
Most of us have been struggling with stress, anxiety and depression over the past two years. Whatever your personal struggles are, they are real and valid. The pandemic has been affecting everyone differently.
It is important to acknowledge your feelings and deal with it. Ignoring your struggles will only allow it to become bigger issues. Stress and trauma takes its toll on all of us, especially if left unattended. The best thing you can do for yourself and the people around you is to process it and work towards healing.
It is also vital to understand that your joy and happiness is not dependent on other people, material things, or external circumstances. It can only be found within yourself. And often the only way to access this happiness and joy within is to make some real, meaningful changes in your life.
Many people never find their joy and happiness, because they do not know what brings them joy and makes them truly happy. This is the big question. Look within and find makes you happiest. Then concentrate on that. Make a plan and start working towards it. It may sound simplistic, but it will soon begin to manifest in your life if you believe it.
For example, if you want to be in a happy, healthy relationship and you are tired of the bad relationship you are currently in, decide to make the change. Simply choose to be happy. You deserve to be happy and to be loved. Decide that you want to make it happen. It really is as simple as that.
Learning To Check In With Spirit
It is likely you have a friend, co-worker or relative that is in an unhealthy or even abusive relationship. We all know people who are kind, sweet, giving, and thoughtful, who become involved with emotionally absent, dysfunctional, abusive partners.
I know someone who is currently in such a situation. Her loving nature and generosity far exceeds anything I have ever experienced in another person, and I count myself exceptionally lucky to have her as my friend.
We have known each other for many years, but have only recently developed a much closer relationship, because we have both experienced a deep loss in recent years. Grief and bereavement becomes somewhat more tolerable if one has a close friendship in which you can safely express and share your sorrow.
Judging by my friend’s gentle, kind nature one might expect she would be with a life partner who has similar traits and appreciates her, but shockingly she is in one of the most toxic relationships I have ever encountered. She is not being physically assaulted, but she is subjected to unbearable verbal and emotional abuse.
It has been going on for a very long time. I continue to offer her my unconditional love and support but feel at a loss beyond that. I have asked her why she is still in that situation with so very little to indicate there will ever be any miraculous changes? But she has always evaded these questions.
Recently, she finally confessed her reason for staying with him: she is worried about what people might think and say if she leaves him! I asked her what people? She replied, her friends and family. They might find fault with her for breaking up the family.
To Hate Is A Self-Destructive Choice
When I was in middle school, around the age of 13 or so, I remember an older, more popular girl used to constantly bully me. I also remember coming home from school and telling my mother about it. I told my mother that I hated that girl, but she very sternly said, “Oh no, you don’t hate anyone!”
I defiantly replied, “Oh yes, I do!”
My mother then patiently replied, “Okay, well if you are going to insist on hating her, please go and do it somewhere else, young lady. I do not want to hear about it anymore!”
She never explained to me why she felt it was inappropriate for me to hate anyone. I didn’t figure this out until much later in my life.
My own daughter is now also a teenager and she sometimes comes home from school with similar complaints. A girl at school has been spreading false rumors about her. Just like I did all those years ago, my daughter also told me how she hated this girl. And I replied the same way my mother did, except I also explained that hate only breeds more hate.
To hate someone or something only hurts you, no one else. My daughter hating this person she feels has wronged her, will only cause her to hurt herself more with negative emotion, every time she thinks about this person. Every time she tells a friend or family member about this girl, she will be refueling her own negative fire. Thus, she will only end up hurting herself more.
The other girl does not feel every occasion my daughter is upset, or reliving the hurtful situation that occurred. In reality, my daughter is punishing herself every time she thinks about how this person wronged her. This is what we all tend to do, when we find ourselves in similar or hurtful situations.
Surrendering Your Free Will To Divine Intervention
To have free will means to have choices, to act at your own discretion. Choices in what? Well, in everything. From eating ice cream for breakfast, to establishing a humanitarian mission to support the homeless.
The ice cream is a simple choice, while the non-profit requires significant planning, a vision, a passion and purpose, as well as personal sacrifices, effort and action.
But both will have consequences. Eating deserts for breakfast may lead to weight gain and even long-term health problems. Helping the homeless will make the world a better, safer and happier place.
Between these two extreme examples, there are a myriad of life paths, choices, decisions, options, and potential experiences. It is what we call life and relationships. In all these possibilities the power of free will always exists.
You also have the free will choice in life of taking things too personally, being too controlling or demanding, being lazy or discontented, playing the victim…or living your life with courage, joy and gratitude.
One of the most prevalent challenges many people is their unwillingness to accept the principles of co-creation. To live a happier, more peaceful life we have to accept that just because we have free will in our own life choices, the world we live in is a co-creation. We do not only choose for ourselves, but we also choose everyday along with others. Every day is an act of co-creation. And not everyone always chooses the same things. We must learn to accept this.
Go with the flow? Never, you might say, I need to be always in control. I call the shots! The paradigm shift of realizing that I am spirit in a physical body is what changed it for me. Consider what your life might look like today had you more often simply trusted the Divine, Universe, God, Creator, Spirit, Source to let things unfold for the greater good, at the right time and in the right way? Well, it’s never too late to try. The results just might surprise you.
Do You Follow Your Head, Or Your Heart?
As a practicing astrologer, I often assist clients who are facing the head versus heart dilemma. Should they go with what their head is telling them, or should they follow their heart?
“My head tells me he’s so perfect for me. He is my dream guy on paper, ticks every box. He has a successful career, earns a solid income. He is someone my kids would love, the male role-model they so desperately need,” a client recently explained.
“But my heart feels so hesitant, like its beating for someone else I haven’t met yet. He is a great guy, but there no butterflies. It doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand why my heart is yearning for someone different?” she lamented.
“I can’t afford to be picky and my friends and family tell me I’m crazy to even question this incredible guy who seems to tick all the right boxes, but doesn’t put a flutter in my heart!”
The question is indeed, why would one trust an illogical feeling that can’t be quantified and measured using the neat little pros and cons list of the mind? In my Astrology practice, I have see this conundrum play out many times.
Interestingly, I find this vexing situation is often related to a Mercury Square Moon aspect in someone’s chart. Such a person will often take one side over the other, usually the head over the heart, and this habitual battle can result in a lifelong pattern of bad choices.
Culturally we’ve also been conditioned to always choose reason over feelings. And what others think often also factors too highly in a personal choice that’s best made selfishly. In my opinion, relationships are one of the few areas in life where we get to be selfish, because if we choose someone who will not make us happy, everyone will suffer in the end.
We are often told ‘trust our gut’ for good reason. Your intuition or inner guidance system knows far more than you do! But like a muscle, we must build it up, we must work it, flex it, to clearly register the signals it’s sending us.
Making The Most Of This Life, In This World!
I remember watching with fascination Sliding Doors starring Gwyneth Paltrow. In this film she finds herself in two parallel worlds with two very different realities that result from her choices and decisions.
Seeing this film prompted me to explore the fascinating subject of parallel worlds. According to physics, the existence of parallel worlds or a multiverse is a genuine possibility.
A parallel world is believed to be another world that exists alongside this one, yet it is undetectable to and independent of this world. It has also been suggested that another version of you could exist in one of these alternate realities, while there may other parallel worlds where you do not exist at all.
Could it be that each choice or decision we make in this world creates a very different reality in another world? For example, in another world, instead of going to your high school prom back in 1980, where you fell in love with Frank and later married him; you didn’t go to the prom that night, Frank never existed, and you ended up never getting married.
There are various schools of thought that this Universe is not singular – but one of many. One theory is that the Universe in which we live is infinite. However, matter can only rearrange itself up to a finite point and then it has to start repeating itself, thus creating Universe after Universe.
Another viewpoint is that there are multiple universes that all contain a planet Earth and more doppelgänger replicas of you! Furthermore, in these other worlds, you have to make different decisions – just like Gwyneth Paltrow has to decide in Sliding Doors if she is going to get on the train, or not, leading to different outcomes in each parallel life.
Some physicists theorize that the Big Bang, which may have given rise to the birth of the Universe, was not a one-off event. It may have prompted other Big Bangs giving birth to other Universes.