Dec 17, 2021
Dear listener.. who is scared.
Stifled by walls built by you, based on other people's expectations.
Or what you believe to be others' expectations of you.
Agreements you have made about who “you should be” or had to be based on perceived pressures.
Dear listener, how do I know this about you? Because I used to be you.
For example, I went to law school not because I really wanted to be a lawyer but because writers and artists, and people with philosophy degrees were perceived as destined to be starving and without financial options. I really wanted to be a poet (the hungriest of writers of them all) and a writer, and at that very moment in college, I wanted to be a radio DJ. I’m laughing at myself now because it took me literally almost 25 years to cycle back around to be a writer and now a podcast host. My radio voice was destined to find a home.
But I had to be a lawyer first. A very miserable lawyer, I might add. A lawyer with a drinking problem to numb the feeling of an amputated soul in the transactional lack filled and adversarial environment of law firms. I got to write a lot of legal briefs and contracts but it wasn’t helping people. It definitely wasn’t helping me become abundant or joyful. It quashed my creativity which is why I drank, it made me feel dead inside because it was a suppression of myself to put myself in this box, this mask of a lawyer. And other lawyers were always telling me I was doing it wrong anyway. I laughed too much, I tried to solve problems versus giving people things they didn’t need.
And how did I get there/here? My mom, my fiance, societal beliefs about artists, econ majors at my school, all “shoulded” on me. And I internalized that on top of all my baggage about self-worth and needing to be useful that I chose the SAFE route and went to law school. I saddled myself with massive student loan debt and a bunch of matrix programming about fixing systems from within the system. I built a really good “duck suit” that I thought would let all of the negativity roll off. You know how water just rolls off a duck's feathers.
My duck suit was armor - so I could keep smiling in the face of the projected onslaught of people’s problems or dramas - so I could keep on, keeping on when I left law school doomed to continue - I literally couldn’t afford to not be an attorney because I had so much debt and no other viable skills besides being an attorney (again I never looked at being a writer as an abundance producing skill).
In fact, I never even thought I could publish my words, who would want them? And definitely, no one was ever going to give me money for them. I built an entire miserable and safe reality around the identity of a lawyer so that by age 26 I had chronic fatigue, a drinking problem, intimacy issues, seriously low self-esteem, digestion, and other health issues. The only joy I found was in parties and live music because I could drown out the sadness, with the noise.
I had no idea that none of this was real and that my prison of agreement about who and what I was, was all me making it up.
Ok Angel, nice bummer parade you are sharing - what is your point? Where is the law of abundance here? This one is hard for me to articulate in a sound bite, so let me try to unpack it.
- The safe route is a prison and a lie you tell yourself
- So much of “who we think we are '' is a story built on fictions of what we believe are other people's expectations and judgments of us. Those “shoulds” I mentioned. Those shoulds are agreements we make. ARE YOU BEING “SHOULDED” ON?
- What agreement do you need to be yourself?
- If you could live completely free of these agreements you believe others have put on you - what life would you choose?
- Who are you really? And what is it you truly want to do? What brings you joy?
How do we know what is actually our reliable reality? How do we figure out, like the old me in my story, that I am living in a self-constructed prison? Where do I find the key to walking out of the door that isn’t locked and does not even exist? How do I blow down the imaginary walls?
First, we must get help in sorting - what is real and unreal. I’m going to tell you that shockingly 95% to 99% of your life’s reality is actually bullshit.
Really stinky dog poop stories your negative ego has made up to keep you stuck and not progressing on your path to your purpose and true self.
Our negative ego is so sneaky that it actually convinces us that we need to do more of the things that keep us stuck so we can bargain with our fears and get moving in the right direction. It is always a lie. We just dig ourselves into a deeper deep hole.
This is why we need a lifeline. Phone a friend. A path. A tool. HELP!! To get us out of our funhouse of unreality and start to figure out how to know what is real. And what is story.
What is agreement and what is False Experience Appearing Real? Aka FEAR. This help can be in the form of listening to Jordan Peterson lectures, therapy, reading Brene Brown, getting initiated into a mystery school tradition, doing Kabbalah, finding Buddhism, and chanting nam myoho renge kyo. It could be stepping into the Landmark Forum. But you need discipline and a path that teaches you and gives you a gauge. I personally recommend a path based on hermetical principles and leads you to be able to talk with and know your higher self. Hermes Trismegistus, in The Hermetica, defined the two greatest evils as Mere Opinion and Godlessness. Evil being defined as that which stops the path of progression of another human being. (progression being forward momentum to your purpose and true self).
So mere opinion is all of that story out there, all of that “shoulding.” You should do this, you should do that, we eat, breathe and steep in a soup of mere opinion. So much so that we can't see it. And then we don’t believe in our god-ness. We don’t believe we are creating, our reality multiple thoughts at a time, literally trapping ourselves in prisons of lack and joylessness because it's safe inside there. Yuck.
You know just because you don’t believe you can create your reality, it doesn’t mean are not actually creating your reality. The fruits of your thoughts words and acts are still running your life, albeit unconsciously. The truth is we are ALWAYS creating. We are creator gods making beautifully complex woven stories draping these motifs all over our concrete walls and pretending our box of small self is the best place to be. Fear can’t get me here!! These distractions are so pretty and fulfilling, if I just do more of them this tiny box will feel bigger…. You see where I am going with this? Idea, thought, plan, action equals results! Equals causes and effects in our life based on the seeds we plant - conscious or unconscious it's still happening.
So my dear ones. What do you actually want for your life? What is your true purpose? Where is your joy? What agreements are you currently living by? Are they your shoulds? Your grandmother’s shoulds? Your husband’s shoulds? Hell, I used to have a should that by my age I should have had a husband by now and this impacted my self-worth. I’ve let that one go, for sure.
Take a look at your life - what safety box have you built? Where are there walls or fences? DO NOT PASS lines because of beliefs you have constructed based on other's expectations or your perceived beliefs in their judgment or expectations.
How does this impact your boundaries? How does this impact your ability to enjoy your life? What would you be doing if no one but you had a say in what that was? How would you spend your time? What might your profession be? Would you do more things - fail a lot more, but also feel joy a lot more? Would you get into the driver's seat instead of being the really annoying backseat driver of your own life?.
This law of abundance is to allow yourself to see - start telling yourself the truth and if you don’t know-how, go get help to learn!
I needed A LOT of help. It took me 25 years of Buddhism, 4 plus years as a Kabbalist, multiple levels of initiations on a mystery school tradition, thousands of dollars and hours in healings, travel, and therapy and I’m still peeling back the lawyers of my own personal onion. But I am definitely grateful that I know how to tell myself the truth and that I know that I build my reality. And I actually know my higher self, and I know I am on the path to my purpose. But I got here with a lot of help. With people routing for me all the way. I did - the doing.
I hold gratitude and experience joy daily because I’m actively working within a discipline to keep from rebuilding a prison for myself. In fact every day I work to build my will, my light, to plant conscious seeds that result in my light and love for myself and others on this planet.
I’m getting out of my own way. Jesus said “I can of my own self, do nothing.” things.” This is the act of surrender to our own destiny and purpose. Think of it this way. As humans we are not doing love, when we love another, love (the force) loves through us. If you stand there trying to do all of it instead of just being the vessel and letting the force of love through you - then you are in your own way. So choose the will of higher power to flow through you, independent of your mind. Do without doing. Become the vessel. One way to say this is “I will, thy will.” that will you forgot you had when you came into the physical, So now I will, they will. The will I set in motion when I chose to come to this planet right here, right now. The purpose I set in motion and then forgot about when I entered physicality. I will, that will. Translation. I get out of my own way so my purpose and love can live through me.
And from personal experience, the more I get out of my own way, the more I do without doing, the more I will only the will of my highest self and purpose, the moreAnd this fills me with joy.
If you cannot even begin to fathom what I’m talking about, cannot see a way out of your prison of stories, please reach out. I’ve got tools that will help you. I can help with that!
Start unlocking who you are truly meant to be and do. You do not have to do this alone. Alchemy works. Looking at this works. Getting help works.
Need a baby step? Join my Facebook group Building Joy - a public gratitude practice.
You got this. I may not know you personally, but energetically - I know you. I love you and the world is a better place because you are in it. Let’s get you on the path to enjoying this life. NOW is the time to stop allowing others to “should” on you. Walk out of your own box, because it does not exist.