If you’re hitting that point in the new year where your excitement and drive around your intentions are starting to wane a little bit, this message is for you.
A do-over, a re-do, a take two ... a reboot whenever you need it.
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3x3 Project with Diana Frajman
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TRANSCRIPT
It is January 16, 2019 as I record this segment. If you’re listening in real time, when this episode first goes live in your podcast, it’s probably around January 29, 2019, so right at the end of January beginning of February. You’re probably hitting that point in the new year where your excitement and drive around your intentions are starting to wane a little bit.
Fun fact about my practice as an intuitive - over the years, I've noticed that even though a lot of people want to get readings, have sessions, and start course work that's in my tutorials, or do Automatic Intuition. Those all seem like things you want to start in the new year. But I've noticed that it’s not so much about January. There's this wave of people who actually start things in February.
And I have a theory about why that is, and I think it's because you pretty much start out the new year under your own guns, with a lot of energy and gonna do it on your own. And then you find out that you're not making as much progress as you want. And so you do reach for help or structure or somebody else's perspective. OR, maybe you just didn't get around to it. Like, the gun went off and you weren't ready to start yet. And so you are kind of getting it together during January.
January is a horrible time of year in the northern hemisphere to get things together and start things and all of that, just for the record. So if you're one of those seasonal people who gets a little S.A.D., don't worry about it. It's cool. We're going to de-bunk a lot of that. And I purposefully did NOT record this at the end of December or for the New Year’s Day episode.
Because it's not about New Years. It’s not about one specific day on a calendar.
So don’t turn this off because you think it’s a new years thing that you missed … This is an Evergreen diatribe. And whenever you hear it, is when you were supposed to hear it.
I want to drill down into all of that some… Maybe you never quite got out of first gear this year. I kind of feel that way. And I think it's because this New Year started off weird…
We had a New Moon come in January 7th, I believe, so a week into it is when you get that nature cycle of newness. So the new moon, I do believe that we're very much in sync with the moon cycles, even if you don't believe in any other part of astrology, we can all kind of agree that the moon cycles have a definite impact on living things on this planet.
So having that come a week in kind of made it like a weird slow start. It was at the end of a lunar cycle, while you're psychologically, intellectually telling yourself you're supposed to be experiencing something new. And then when we finally get to that new moon, it was eclipsed, so that's kind of weird.
And then we're in between eclipses for most of January, with another one happening on the full moon. As I record this, I'm sitting here right in between those two things and so... I don't know. We might need an astrologer to explain all that a little bit more in-depth, but it just feels kind of like an "off" time for a lot of people.
Not only am I processing my personal feelings for you, I'm kind of collating what other people that I've spoken to are expressing that they're feeling. And this is the pattern that I've identified.
Over the years I’ve tried really hard to create alternatives to the new years resolution thing. I mean, for over a decade, I've blogged at this time of year starting out way back in, say 2007 or something like that, I got really nerded out into the linguistics of the word 'resolution', which is kind of associated with endings and started talking about reframing our language and getting into intentions.
And over the last 10 years, intentions has become more of a popular buzzword and so as that became more spread throughout everybody's consciousness, I was trying to work with alternatives to intentions and make that not such a big scary word and I think for awhile there I was making interesting lists of things and I would try to come up with these recipes each year that seemed really simple, like, Do three things.
It just kept getting more and more simple, and I kept minimizing it and I think the last time I ever did something like this, it was like the ONE thing that you need to do. And it was just this ONE sort of mindset shift or something that you were meant to practice.
Now... and maybe I've contributed to this. It seems like we've almost developed this trend for not doing resolutions or setting intentions. You see a lot of people posting all their resolutions and intentions and key words. And then you see this good third of the people on social media posting about how they're not doing them and kind of embracing the lack of doing it.
And for those of us who are a little bit too cool, we've gotten a little over the new age tools of the past because we've been around for awhile and been using them, and we've become a little bit too cool for school, you know what I mean?
Like, vision boards, yawn. The law of attraction, ugh, the Secret wore everybody out. There was so much missing from it too. They didn't even get it right. And then you know, the whole word of the year thing, eyeroll right?
I actually do have a word of the year though. It's really hard for me to see someone post, What's your word of the year? And me not think of it. So even though I didn't make a big announcement about my word of the year, or make an infographic or a meme or something.
I do have one.
And it was already there as a theme of something that I was preparing myself for. And my word is SCALE. So you can contemplate that. More the verb form than anything. The verb form of scale.
It's about working with what I already have and making more out of it without increasing time necessarily, because one of my big issues is, I don't have any more time. I don't have any time to add anything else in, so I need to work smarter, not harder, as they say. But I also need for things to be scaleable.
For instance, this podcast is a perfect example of one of the most scaleable things in my whole business. Because it is the exact same amount of work whether two of you listen to it or 2,000 or 200,000, right? It's the same amount of work.
Those are the kinds of things that make sense to put more energy into. I can go all in with the podcast and with growing the audience for the podcast because it's not more work. But it will deliver more impact. It will deliver more income. All those kinds of things. So that's my kind of theme for the year.
But I think you can think of scale in multiple directions. Like, what can you scale back? What can you make smaller that's too big and too complicated? I'm always looking to minimize things. Not only concepts like new years resolutions, but minimizing things in my visual space. The crap sitting around in my office. The number of images on the wall.
I want minimalism. It brings me peace.
So that's another type of scale and there's a lot of places as I look around my life where I can scale up or down. And it's not about bringing in anything new. It's not really about getting rid of things completely. It's just about finding the right size.
It's like a Goldilocks fable or something. It's just hard not to think about that stuff when you see people posting it.
So, in a way, whether we publicly share it or not, we do have goals, we have themes, we have dreams, we have hopes and we have wishes for changes that we want to make. And I think a lot of us have taken "the fewer hearts and flowers angle" to this cynical, jaded place. Especially in the way we put ourselves out there publicly.
And maybe we’re jaded for a good reason — we’ve tried everything.
But there are people for whom these tools and concepts that we've been practicing forever are really impactful. They're new to them. Maybe they're just discovering them. Or maybe they're re-discovering them with a newfound ability to make them work for them finally. They may be at that place in their life where it suddenly occurs to them that a vision board is an amazing tool for them.
So my iteration of the whole new year's concept now, after I've minimized it down and made it as simple as I possibly can, and I can't do that anymore, my new angle or take on this whole concept is just about the evergreen. About, what is it when we strip it all away? What's the core of this that we take into our lives on a daily basis?
I am obsessed with where does all the woo woo meet the ground?
It doesn't matter to me if you have all these elaborate spiritual modalities and techniques and all this stuff that you're really well-versed in, if it doesn't have a practical, useful tool in your every day life, if it doesn't work for you in some way, then I don't really see the point.
So it doesn't matter whether you set intentions, or when you choose to change your life. It doesn't matter not whether you do it, but it doesn't matter... Actually it doesn't matter whether you do it or not. It really doesn't.
You can be at peace.
There's a whole thing that I just realized I didn't put into this speech today, which is, you know what? It's okay just to BE. It's okay just to live your life and to not be aspirational. I did that whole episode about, can you be happy without doing something amazing? Can you be? Can you just do your thing?
So it doesn't matter whether you set your intentions or not. Or whether you choose to change anything. But it really doesn't matter when you choose to do it. That's the main point of my speech today.
And it doesn’t matter if you “blow it” because you can always do it again. Or try another way.
These "holidays", these milestones, they're arbitrary dates ... I don't really celebrate New Year, because every day I have goals. I have a chance to fuck it up, and a chance to start again. Some days I rock, some days I suck, and the calendar doesn't really have much to do with that, you know? Let's be honest.
Maybe the seasons? And the natural cycles. And the moon phases. Maybe that does impact us a little bit. I do believe that.
But the CALENDAR, you know? Oh, your birthday was on a Wednesday and it was blah. But maybe that Friday is a great time to celebrate and do something. Or maybe it's the weekend before. We'll practice at making these adjustments.
So I think we need to give ourselves permission to just do stuff when we want to do it. And not when we're TOLD we have to do it, or, Well, you missed your new years launch, so you're screwed! I guess you'll just have to wait 12 months. It's ridiculous.
I don't care whether you acknowledge New Year's or not.
I don't care whether you make resolutions or set intentions or do vision boards or have theme words.
But I also don’t want you to think I think I’m better than you because I don’t do those things.
Our lives are random and timing is a bitch and shit happens to good people, and everybody gets a little lucky here and there.
And if you’re listening to this, then you’re trying, and I think that’s all that matters.
Beyond that, whatever gets you through. Do whatever works for you.
But keep this in mind — one of my biggest life lessons last year, this past year, was realizing how much easier and more powerful it is if you focus on manifesting PEOPLE rather than places or things.
The people know the places and they have the things.
So, reach out to new people in your world, even the ones who come and go in a matter of minutes. They can make all the difference.
But while I have you here, if you want to do a Thing, for new years, for next week, for your birthday, for tomorrow..
A year ago, I talked about how to reboot your energy — I’ll link to that, because I probably went way more in depth on that episode than I’m about to here. It started out as just something that I noticed as a theme in the advice I was giving out to people who were coming in for readings. And I was getting complaints of sort of low level depression. You know when we say we're depressed but it's not like a clinical depression. It's more like, "eh". We've kind of lost our mojo, and we're not feeling motivated. We've lost our energy.
We're intellectually aware that we're trying these things but then the visceral magic is just not popping off. And you're just feeling kind of not comfortable in your own body. So you're not necessarily in need of medication. And all the mindset shifts are not working. You're taking them in and they're kind of going in one ear and out the other. And then you're beating yourself up about it.
So all of that kind of ennui, that existential angst.
I was giving out this advice that had a pattern to it or theme. I started to sort of refer to it as the Energy Reboot. Because it was about, you know, just rebooting. Rebooting your life. Rebooting your spirit and your body and your soul and your emotions. Just reboot everything.
It’s based on the principal that if you're feeling all the things that I just described, what you’re most likely missing is a 2-pronged connection to your creative, intuitive channel combined with a need to really be fully grounded in your body.
This combination is particularly powerful. If you want to hear your guides, connect with your intuition, get your creativity flowing.
But more than anything, if none of that feels like it's working, it's because it's not grounded.
So the reason why you need to reboot is... Think about, you know how the WiFi router in your house, it says it's putting out a signal but it's been working too many times or too many devices connected to it. It's filled up and it's putting out a signal but it's really slow or it's just, your computer isn't able to connect to it. So you know, you go, unplug it, count to ten, plug it back in.
My routers usually have these little lights that always remind me of the chakras of the spine or something. And they light up from the bottom back to the top. Unplugging, count to ten, plugging things back in is kind of like one of the most universal ways to fix machines that we have. You know, it's the first troubleshooting step.
The cool thing is it works for us as well as for devices. We are a very complex machine but the same principle kind of applies.
What's going on with those of you who are trying so hard, those of us who are trying and reaching and studying and practicing and wanting and hoping and willing and setting intentions. We are so up in the upper chakras. We're up in the third eye. We're up in the divine crown. We're constantly trying to project out of our heads.
If you could see me now, I'm sort of waving my arms because it's like a plate-spinning thing. We're shaped like a tree and we're very top-heavy. We've got all this stuff going on and we're just always looking up, reaching up. You know how tiring it is, right? To roll your eyes up and reach your arms up. Everything gets heavy and it's almost like a coat rack that's got too many things on top of it. It's very precarious.
Because we're so focused on everything from the heart chakra to the throat chakra to the third eye to the crown, it's like we're living in the upper half of our energy body and ignoring everything that takes place down below the root chakra, the sacral chakra, the centre of our guts and our sexual selves and our animal selves and the base of our foundation of strength.
And so it seems to be a chronic thing that people who come in who are spinning out in the upper chakras, the reason why all that's not working, that signal is not connecting, is because you're not grounded.
You need to unplug, go all the way back down to the bottom and work your way back up again.
I prescribe that you do this reboot for 90 days, not just a month. Don't do things for a week or a month. Too many things can change from one day to the next. It's like watching the stock market too closely. Don't check your stocks too much because then you're just riding a roller coaster.
Look at longer periods of time. I like quarters because I like to plan my business around quarters, and it also applies to your personal life and some of the personal development things that you want to do.
And I think quarters, 3-month periods, are perfect goal chunk time periods. Because, you know, the first month you're like, Ooo ooo! You're really pumped. You've got a lot of energy going in. And you think, ah, you can do anything for a month. And you're supposed to do things for 30 days and then it becomes a habit or something.
And then the 2nd month hits you and you suck. You fall off the wagon. You're not as motivated. You start missing. Beat yourself up about it. But if you're really committed, you've got another month to kind of bring it back home. And it all kind of comes in under the wire or comes out in the wash as they say.
So rather than really focusing on the up and down wave, just zoom out a little bit and give yourself a 90 day period to go through those phases, knowing that there's gonna be a dip, but you can still come back up from the dip.
The Energy Reboot itself is essentially a 90 day period of walking meditation combined with free associative writing. If you've heard of Morning Pages, as in The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, or you've heard of gratitude journalling. The technical, intellectual term is proprioceptive writing. It's just writing. It's just, like, free associative writing, whatever you want to say. It's just babbling on the page.
You can do it by hand in a journal. You can type if you type really fast and feel more comfortable doing that. That's the channel, that's the creativity part, that's the Higher Self. That's the voice of your guides. That's your cool flashes of inspiration and ideas coming through. It's you brainstorming with yourself.
The walking meditation, yes I know there are some of you that can't walk, and that walking is truly a limitation that's beyond you. And if that's the case, write to me and I will give you some alternatives based on what your situation is. Something that you can use to re-ground the body that doesn't involve that kind of exercise.
But for those of you who don't think about it when you get up and just walk across the room to go to the bathroom, or get up and grab your purse and go to your car and go somewhere, then you are fully capable of doing this. And it's walking every day.
And the reason why I want you to walk is because jogging is hard and running is something that you have to work up to. And if you're not into the whole running thing, it sucks. But if you will think of a walking meditation as an opportunity to be outside, be in nature, clear your head, still get some of those endorphins going, the runner's high.
The cool thing is, at least according to my FitBit and Apple watch, I burn almost the same amount of calories jogging because I run really slow as I do walking at a good pace. And if you jog for 30 minutes versus walk for 45 minutes, it's really close in terms of the calories that you burn. So the benefits fitness-wise are there for walking.
And you don't need to go buy a new outfit, you don't need to drop a bunch at Lululemon, you don't need new shoes.
Just go walk. Don't even think about it.
And it's not going to change your life the very first second that you do it. The first few days you'll think, well I feel like a dork, waiting for the change to happen.
Just do it. Just go on auto-pilot.
I think if you can just walk and maybe kind of listen to some music, you can allow yourself to be with your thoughts. That's amazing. See some trees. See some other people. I know it's winter so go to a mall and do it. Or go to an indoor track, or wherever you can make it happen.
But if you can walk, then do it. Do it every night after supper. Go for a 30 minute, 45 minute walk.
I won't go into it again. I'm going to link to the other episode where it talks about the mechanics of how these two things work together. How these two activities, the walking meditation and the free associative writing. But if you do them for 90 days, it will reboot your energy.
It will recharge your body and your spirit. It will reconnect you to your creativity, to your intuition, your motivation will change, your mood will change. Ideas will start to download.
I promise you. It's just that simple.
And all that other complex stuff, you can still do it if you have time for it. Or you can put it away and say, you know what, I'm just gonna do this one little simple thing for 90 days.
Modify it wherever you wish. If you like to mind map and draw in a sketch book and do that kind of mind-to-hand-to-paper sort of thinking on paper, as opposed to maybe the free associative writing, do that! Just set a time limit for it. Set a timer for 15 or 20 minutes and do that some. Make a space for that.
Part of the reason why I call it walking meditation is because yes, meditation is amazing and there are a lot of benefits associated with it. But that does not mean that you have to formally sit in a lotus position and clear your mind and chant and listen to a water fountain in the corner of your room. You don't have to do that. If anything, that sounds really boring to me and I don't think I could keep that up for half an hour.
But I can go walk somewhere scenic and cool and see people and things, and dogs and nature. Ooo a feather on the ground! All kinds of cool things happen when you're walking. Walking IS a meditation if you do it with that intention.
As far as other modifications, if daily is too much for you, I will say this: You could get really Shift Your Spirits meta and modify this with a 3x3 strategy, which also works on a 90 day time period. Also a quarter concept that I use.
So again, I'll link to episodes where we've talked about the 3x3 project with Diana Frajman. What the 3x3 strategy is and how I use it.
But basically it's 3 actions, 3 times a week, for 3 months. Do 3 things a week for 3 months. 3x3.
So if you can't make a daily walking meditation/journalling happen, then do it 3 times a week for 90 days. And we'll say that that's the modified minimal version of this exercise.
Anyway, I talked about all this stuff last year. I was just sharing it as a pattern of advice that I was giving out. And some of you decided to actually take it on as a challenge without my asking. And to do it and to try it and write me about it and say, Hey, I'm doing that.
And you kind of made it a Thing.
So now I'm putting it back out there as a Thing. Make the Energy Reboot your Thing that you're gonna do. And let me know that you're doing it. Post about it in the SYS community. Hashtag #REBOOT. Or put keywords at the beginning of your posts. Energy Reboot. Invite people to do it with you. Share your progress or your observations along the way.
You can also contact me personally if you want to have some accountability. Email me halfway through and let me know what's different.
At the end of the 90 days, write me again and tell me how things have changed.