Why does ‘the shift’ feel so sh*t?
People are talking about a global shift in consciousness, but when we look at the world and at our personal lives there seems to be a fair amount of challenge and disruption going on. I know some people are having a great time, but many feel they are losing their way and that things are happening that shouldn’t be.
My interpretation of the shift is that it is challenging us to look at where we’ve placed the source of our good outside of ourselves. What do we think we need in order to be happy? Most of us are attached to our jobs, our bank balances, our relationships, our achievements – even to our spiritual achievements. And when these go wrong we assume we are doing something wrong or that the world is failing us.
But what if it was meant to fail us so that we could wake up to the fact we’ve been buying into an illusion? The illusion is that there is something in the world or in another person that we need in order to be complete.
‘The Kingdom of Heaven is Within You’
The ‘shift’ is trying to shift us into the perspective that what we seek is already within us.
This is an ancient wisdom that is so easily forgotten when things are going well and the world is beaming affirmation at us. But when the affirmation stops, we can get seriously depressed – or we can go into liberation.
Liberation is discovering that there is nothing we have to do or get in order to experience joy, peace and abundance.
I know it’s not easy doing this, and I am not immune to my own feelings of hopelessness and frustration. However, I know that when these feelings arise they are calling me to examine some part of my life where I have become attached to an outcome. The cure is simple, though it does require an act of will:
- Recognise you’re attached to an outcome and stop trying to force it to come right.
- Turn away from the problem and focus attention in your heart.
- Take slow, deep breaths while focusing all your attention on the heart.
- Notice subtle sensations of wellbeing that start to appear in your awareness
The breath and the focused attention will take you out of the obsession with trying to get things to go your way and you will discover that you can experience joy and peace exactly where you are.
Now, from this innate wellbeing, you can look at your life and ask a simple question: What wants to happen?
Then follow where this leads.
The shift feels painful when we expect the old ways to carry on working and they don’t. It feels painful when we want a complete roadmap rather than trusting in the heart to lead us one step at a time.
So right now, if things don’t seem to be going your way, consider how this might be something good – a call to rediscover a deeper part of yourself, a part that is already whole, free, and capable of great joy.
