How's the waning moon of late January treating you? Are you feeling S.A.D. -- Season Affective Disorder -- stuck, low-energy, riddled with petty anxieties, or just generally disappointed with all the grand intentions you set a month ago that don't seem to be blasting off as you'd hoped?
You're not alone in feeling this way -- it's not just you. Last week we hit the day of the year that statistically has the highest suicide rate. We've also entered the New Year's Resolution Crash Phase (where all the big plans you launched with great energy and fanfare first show signs of losing steam). I can't help but note that this corresponded with the first Full Moon of the New Year, as well.
It seems like everyone I've talked to this week has complained of some kind of ennui -- the high energy of the Holidays has passed; it's winter, it's cold, it's January.
Creative entrepreneurs talk about manifesting ambitious projects for the New Year and their intentions coming home to roost.
Students are back in school with a new course load -- papers are already due; they're already cramming for tests again...
My most recent clients have requested readings with questions focused on "feeling stuck." A lot of you are telling me your Prologue was promising, your First Chapter set the tone for a real Page-turner. Your spirit guides introduced you to a First Step -- you eagerly responded and engaged…
Now what? How to get to Chapter Two? How do push toward the Next Step? How do you keep the momentum going? Well, you might choose to stop pushing; but also consider taking an action slightly more subtle than surrender.
Say Yes to What Is
You're looking for a new job. You're ready to work. You're eager for the next wave of clients. What do you do when the opportunities aren't flooding in yet?
A lack of work = an abundance of time.
You know that a lack of gratitude for your current situation will kill your power to manifest. You know that focusing on what you lack will only attract more of it.
Instead of saying No to the fear of what's missing, say Yes to what is. When you're frantic and manically engaged, you have a list of things you can't get to because you're too busy. When it's all you can do to just maintain and manage your "normal" schedule, you dream of the extra time to work on new projects. Or you tell yourself you'll get to that tax preparation or end of the year paperwork when things calm down.
Now is when things tend to calm down.
When you set intentions, make big plans, hire the Muses left and right, and send Invoices to the Universe for big ticket items it's highly probable that the first thing you'll get is a Work Order. When you pray for starting a grand new project or ask to discover a new course along your path, you're asking for work. If you're busy, bless it...
You do get what you wish for. I did a reading for a client who has recently discovered her path and purpose as a healer. At the New Year, she asked her guides for new learning opportunities. She was rewarded with an invitation from a friend to attend a Reiki course; she was blown away by her natural ability in this field. Books that really resonated with her and the new journey she's begun seemed to tumble off the shelves at her feet.
Her New Year's energies launched like a rocket and then seemed to level off. She had the expectation that this pace would continue and felt a little panicked when the activity seemed to quickly die away. The wind left her sails. She felt that her guides were insisting that she learn something here and now before she could continue. That she had been placed in a kind of "holding pattern." She even felt physically ill.
Her expectations were to receive an outline of future courses of study; but what she found herself in was a moment with a huge amount of stuff to unravel and absorb first. She just came home with arm-loads of promising information, an introduction to a healing modality that shows a lot of promise, and a new group of people to assist her, to participate with her, to teach her.
Her communication with her spirit guides was successful -- they totally delivered. They didn't deliver her to the Finish Line of her future, they delivered her to Square One. When she didn't hear what Step Two and Step Three are going to be, she responded in fear -- she said No to the lack of forward motion.
She realized what she most needed to do was say Yes to the holding pattern -- the opportunity, the information, and most importantly the time and space to process and work through this first enormous package of possibility.
The moon doesn't wax indefinitely. The motions of the ocean waves doesn't create a beach by perpetual forward advancement.
Actions are most effective in the context of cycle and flow. More subtle than surrender is the simple need to pull back. Rest.
Sickness. Lack of energy. The doldrums on the river. If you don't make the conscious decision to rest, to maintain, to process, your physical body will decide for you.
If you feel grounded, if you find yourself in a holding pattern, there's probably a very good reason why you aren't meant to fly right now. Instead of saying "No! Why can't I be cleared for take off?" Say yes to refueling and preparation.
Pausing is not necessarily a block or a dead end.
Sometimes Going with the Flow means moving backwards or swirling in an eddy or going round a bend or taking a detour.
Cruise control is not about acceleration and getting there faster, it's about moving forward with conserved energy. Say Yes to maintaining.
If you set out on a steep hike and hit a plateau, say yes to walking for awhile -- climbing right now is not required.
What can you simply maintain that would normally be set aside to make way for great change? Aren't there plenty of things that need your attention that don't need great creativity, that don't require a revolution? Sometimes, indeed, the best course of action is doing nothing; but more often times than not, the best course of action is just doing a little less.
- Give your Muse the day off while you catch up on laundry.
- Put away Chapter Two of that book you started writing and work on your taxes.
- While you're waiting for the phone to ring, say yes to the quiet.
- If you're single right now, say yes to being alone and schedule a date with your inner artist.
- If you feel a little sick right now, say yes to spending the day on the couch with the remote control.
Say yes to resting, to waiting, to pausing, to processing, to preparing, to playing. Say yes to feeling sad, say yes to goodbyes.
Say yes to tomorrow instead of saying no to this low day.
When the day tells you it doesn't want to be seized, grab a pillow and put on your sweat pants and be with what is. Planting seeds is Step One -- Step Two is not Harvest time... You are eminently worth; all things pass.
All is as it should be. It's OK.
