There is a conversation that I have had with so many people about doing the advanced training, taking the big steps, doing the hard stuff.
Most people don’t think they’re smart enough, or good enough, or talented enough to take what they’re doing to a higher level. They’re content, or they claim to be, staying on the surface, doing the easy. I can only speculate, because I honestly don’t know why. Diving in headfirst up to the toes has never been a problem for me. In fact, it’s kind of my default state. Some people call this “biting off more than can be chewed.” And sometimes that’s not entirely wrong.
So it baffles me that people tend to flinch when the subject of advanced training comes up. Is it fear? Are they afraid they’ll get in over their heads and inadvertently invoke a demon or get somebody turned inside out? Are they afraid of the responsibility, like people are going to start looking up to them and expecting them to know stuff, and they believe they don’t know anything? Are they afraid that they’ll discover the limits of their natural abilities a little sooner than they’d hoped for and be all kinds of sad and disappointed with themselves?
Recently, I had this conversation with a woman who is taking the same breathwork training I am. It’s not for the faint-hearted stuff. Extremely challenging. Crazy cool when you get the hang of it, and there are so many levels and ways to go deeper and deeper. Her friends, she explained, were really freaking out about what she’s doing, saying it’s too dangerous, it’s not safe, that it will cause her harm or make her crazy. We both know it’s not going to do any of that, but I get it, because I could imagine telling some of the people in my life what I am doing and getting the same reactions. (And this is why I keep a lot of stuff really close to the vest, because I am a grown-ass adult who has trained mentally and psychically and spiritually for years and I don’t need somebody who doesn’t have a clue about it telling me I can’t do something that is well within my capabilities and right in my wheelhouse.)
Change is hard – yes, for the change-maker, certainly, but it’s even harder for the change-witnesser. Those frightened busy-bodies who keep themselves safely on the sidelines and never, ever venture out of their comfort zones, and will use every tactic including guilt and shame and emotional blackmail to try to keep everyone around them small. To them, change is unthinkable.
But for some of us, change is all we think about.
What’s the next thing? How can I reinvent myself? What can I do with this one thing that takes it that extra step that nobody ever really intended but makes it cooler than ever? How far and hard can I push this envelope?
Because jeeze, people, life is The Big School where we advance as souls, and we owe it to ourselves to bite off more than we can chew on a regular basis because what else is there, really?
We can play it small and safe like most everybody else, and never push ourselves to learn the Hard Stuff so people don’t expect anything of us; or we can throw caution hard into the wind and grow like the amazing creatures we are meant to be. We can become whatever we choose. You can take what’s handed to you and be content, or you can go your own way and live an extraordinary life.
I’m not talking about the trappings of money and power (and boy, trappings is an interesting word in this context); I’m talking about the living magic of making powerful connections to real people, and learning to see the ordinary as miraculous, and believing with all your heart that you are the most gloriously blessed and lucky human ever to walk on Planet Gaia. Because that seems like a much more interesting and fulfilling life to me than obsessing about your investments or shopping for yet another yacht or buying the newest slime-ball politician for your collection.
Leave the boxes to the cats. Think outside. Think beyond. Forget lines and edges and limits. What do you want? What do you love? We’ve just crossed an imaginary milestone into a new orbit around an ever-changing Sun. Last year was largely awful, and we allowed our collective consciousness to get pretty nasty. Most people are dependent on outside stimulus to shift their consciousness. Like a sane person winning the presidential election, just as an example. But we know, we lucky few, that we have the power to shift it all on our own, not only for us, but for everybody around us. We know how to be a positive contagion. And we have worked hard, and trained hard, and devoured every book and website and resource we could get our hands on to learn how to shift these things, and we are no longer afraid of change. Or the dark. Or of pissing people off (in fact, we keep a good stash of popcorn on hand for just such occasions). We few, we lucky few, we have our arms and our hearts wide open. Let’s tackle some hard shit and rock some yachts. Are you in?
