Another Spiral Around the Sun

Long ago I took a sociology class, and my professor would say that the “Circle of Life” was more like a spiral – whether we head upward or downward, when we complete a revolution we are in a slightly different position vertically. As I recently celebrated a birthday, and I am one of those folks who refer to it as a “journey around the sun,” I am again reminded of this spiral nature. The sun is on the move within an arm of the Milky Way, within the expansion of the known universe, so as I complete this latest orbital cycle I am very much in a different place than when this orbit began!

I am still a fan of the “Law of Attraction.” Although I am not deeply religious, I consider myself deeply spiritual, and I find evidence of LOA within the words of the bible itself.

In the bible the focus is on bread and fish, but I think this goes much deeper. The bible is saying if a child asks for a fish, a parent doesn’t bring them a scorpion – the child gets some fish, or bread, or that which they have requested. The bible goes on to say, if that’s what a parent can do for a child, imagine what God can do for a believer. There it is, expressed in Christian terminology, but that is pure LOA. And I know some people might disagree, but in my belief system it is semantics because God and The Known Universe are basically synonyms – one is personified to make the concept more approachable, the other is more “sciencey” to cast an umbrella broad enough for agnostics and atheists to contemplate. And as such, based on that train of thought from Luke 11, if a person seeks reasons to be happy, they find them. If they seek reasons to be angry, they find them. If they seek reasons to forgive, they find them. If they seek reasons to hold a grudge, they find them. In sacred terms: God delivers that which we seek. In secular terms: The universe delivers that which we seek.

It’s right back to the age old parable about perception and projection:

Basically, we tend to project the energy we carry with us on to those around us, and receive back that same energy. If we desire something different from our lives, the first step is to see our lives and those around us differently. To seek, with faith over fear, that which we desire in life.

Another concept I’ve revisited countless times (and continue to revisit, as it is the gift that gives continuously) is the shedding of victim energy. This stems from the infamous Triangle of Disempowerment which traps everyone in a never-ending loop of “Aggressor-Victim-Hero” complex. Sometimes we exist in each of these roles multiple times a day, and all three of them are driven by my very best friend: Ego.

People will say, “But if I don’t stand up for myself, then I become a door mat and people will walk all over me!” But that’s just a clever way of saying, “If I am not the hero, the aggressors will treat me like a victim.” None of those roles are necessary. We should feel free to try them on and experience them, but we shouldn’t limit ourselves to those three states of being.

Over the course of this year, my energy continued toward something akin to Zen, I think. I cast my LOA net out into the universe, I set my intention and vision, and then I let it reel itself in through faith and inspired action. It’s been fun to tease inspiration from desperation, to act on faith over fear. Sometimes I will feel inspired, and then I will pause to see if it is truly inspiration or if underneath that excitement is actually a layer of fear or desperation. Tricky stuff!

However, I have realized the most amazing results in my life when I have gotten out of my own way and let the cosmic fishing rod reel in the catch. This doesn’t mean I sit on my butt and wait, it simply means knowing when an action is coming from faith and inspiration. Those are the actions which bring me closer to my vision. Fear, desperation, or feeling that we are not achieving what we expected – that energy will push things away.

That’s why shedding the inner victim, shedding excess fear and shedding excess ego is so important.

If you haven’t read the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, well, then. <– Yes, this is where that sentence intentionally ends. It is grammatically incorrect. Thank you for calling it out, I know you have my best interest at heart, and I fix other errors all the time based on folks writing to me. This just happens to be one of the very few times I have erred with intention.

I read another book, I think it was by Dr. Joe Dispenza, and one of the beautiful through lines was about leaving room for the unknown in our lives. It seems counter-intuitive, when the construct of our brains is to build patterns and subsequently lean on this pattern recognition to generate predictability. However, as the reasoning goes:

• First, I established that the most amazing things which have transpired in my life were the results of cosmic forces well beyond what any human can plan directly.
  
• Next, if we fill our lives with predictability, then, in order to experience something beyond the day-to-day grind, we must let go of some of those patterns, let go of some of that ego, let go of the roles we use to define us, to create room for the unknown to act as our co-conspirator in generating something more amazing than that which we can attract otherwise.
  

When I was younger, my mother used to say that we cannot know happiness without also knowing sadness, that we could not appreciate joy without suffering. I was annoyed by this, I didn’t feel that these bi-pols should be needed in a properly construct reality. What kind of universe was this?!

And mayhaps, as we evolve, we might find a way to balance out or reduce the amount of suffering needed to create appreciation, I would be OK with that. Until then, all I can say is the age old thing: I should have listened more to my parents. LOL. There was a lot of wisdom I discarded for decades which I believe could have served me well, but as they say: information can be taught, intelligence and wisdom are earned (until new biotech bridges that gap, but then we become the Borg. . .do I hear eerie 50s sci-fi sounds created a with a saw?)

I fall back on some of my favorite lyrics from what I believe is a drug-induced electronica track: The artist employed a spoken word sound bite about how they weren’t just here for the “happy parts”, that they were here to experience the whole of life, including joy, sadness — the full spectrum of available emotions. Ironically, I feel, in this same modern society, people avoid conflict because they do not know how to disagree in a healthy way, and they avoid suffering because pain and failure are perceived as things to be avoided.

Where I have landed this far is that we should neither seek nor avoid suffering, conflict and other situations of similar energy, because on the journey to what we are seeking in life, there may be lessons, there may be valleys to cross, which are part of achieving our desires.

Because suffering, ego, conflict and the like are part of our human existence, I feel like it is that much more important to foster empathy and forgiveness. Each of us is on a journey to experience our lives. During this journey, we are bound to meet people who act in ways we do not understand. People close to us might hurt us by not making the decisions we believe they should make: maybe they will attempt to block our progress, maybe they will not treat us they way we wish to be treated, maybe they will not be a fan of vaccines or vote for different political figures, maybe they will believe in abortion or right-to-life, maybe they will prioritize other events in their lives over the ones we believe they should honor, maybe they will be biased, flawed and imperfect.

For that, I can cite another Christian sentiment: “Let those among us who are free from sin cast the first stone.” I won’t go into the details of the story, but the bottom line is one of acceptance. Accepting that we are all flawed, and therefore our judgement of others is flawed. As of today, the best path forward I have discovered is through empathy and forgiveness. It can be very difficult, because true empathy and true forgiveness recognizes that a person who we disagree with, sometimes very strongly, is not going to change for us. If we extend empathy, then we will truly understand how they arrived at their behavior. We might still not agree with it, but it is on us to make peace with that and then forgive them.

Now, of course, the whole ego, door mat, “what if the person is exploiting my forgiveness” diatribe has a couple cards to play on this table. There may indeed be times when empathy gets over extended and forgiveness has been overplayed. Those are challenging scenarios, but similar to teasing fear from faith and inspiration from desperation, if our going-in position is one of empathy and forgiveness, then we can take things one situation at a time and determine where a surgical application of ego might indeed be needed. The goal is simply to “flip the dog”: I aim to surgically apply ego to specific situations instead of leading with ego and then surgically applying empathy and forgiveness!

I will close with another quote that my mother shared: Anger is always righteous.

If I kept writing, the next section would be from “The Four Insights”, about eagle state and using that to rise above our anger, and expand our self awareness though third party self-observation. But knowing when to wrap-up is hard-won skill. Let’s be doing of that and save “The Four Insights” for another day.

The point of this post was to share some of the key themes which I observed and attempted to practice over the last year. What has emerged is my happiness playbook – A simple way to observe and engage my life which tends to highlight joy, keep dreams alive, and manage negativity in more holistic ways. May sharing it serve you well.

While the images in this post were derived from artificial intelligence, the text of this post was 100% human-generated.