In the last few decades, partners have spent countless hours trying to "work out problems." Yet frequently they come up against a major roadblock: they just don't see things the same way. No matter how long they talk and how hard they try, neither ends up feeling heard and understood.
If you have, you know you have to slow way down and carefully navigate around those holes or gaps in the road.
What perhaps is new news…your body is the same. It’s a highway of energy that wants to flow freely at the designated speed. However, if we have unresolved emotions, to avoid those emotions we don’t want to feel, the energy is forced to slow down and move around the emotion, similar to navigating a potholed road.
Are you now at a point where you have broken free of the prison of the personality? If so, you are swimming in this ocean of potential and possibilities and from this place the highest manifestation of your life.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve heard spiritual prophecy in my life and I believe we are actually alive at that pinnacle point of prophecy, that time on the planet where individuals like you and I, will once again return to our natural state of being. And in doing so, we shift the course of our collective history as a planet.
One of my favorite times of the year is headed our way and impossible to miss. We are about to experience a pause that highlights a line drawn in the cosmic landscape of time. It is the ending of 2021 and the beginning of 2022. Keep reading and discover how you can manifest your best life with the powerful energy of the collective spiritual evolution found in 2022.
The simplest way to understand the overarching energy of 2022, is to imagine a sacred vessel holding the catalyst for karmic healing, self-love and personal empowerment.
2022 is designed in a way that makes it almost impossible to move laterally in life. The upward expansion is limitless, the lateral moves are restricted. It is also difficult to travel in a downward spiral, in other words don’t worry about losing ground in your spiritual evolution.
Sacred Earth Journeys is leading the way in 2022 pilgrimages for the post COVID world. According to a recent article by National Geographic, “More travelers than ever are embarking on pilgrimages, a trend that may boom in a post-COVID world, as people move away from short-haul city breaks toward fewer flights and longer trips with a sense of purpose.”
Enter Phil Cousineau. Working with Phil for over a decade has imbued our mission as promoters of pilgrimage with insight and magic.
Our participants who decide to travel with Phil always come away with a deeper sense of themselves as wanderers, artists, and mythopoetic journeyers through life at large.
One writer, Victoria Coen, had this to say after traveling with us and Phil on a writer’s retreat in Greece:
“Phil is an exceptional leader, teacher, writer, storyteller. . .I enjoyed his immense knowledge of Greek history and his incredible way of conveying it in engaging storytelling format which made the learning more intellectually stimulating as well as emotionally captivating.”
Because everyone has self-awareness, human beings know what it means to be happy or unhappy. This feeling is so basic that seeking happiness comes naturally. Yet for some reason happiness proves elusive, and feeling that you can find permanent happiness can seem futile.
If we look closely, however, there are three ways to be happy. The first two arise in everyone’s life; the third is rare. But the third way is the only one, after centuries of seeking, that has stood the test of time. Every age is challenged to rediscover the third way, including our own time.
The first way to be happy is to follow your impulses without judging them, taking life as it comes from moment to moment. This is the way of babies and small children. They are motivated by the next thing that occurs to them, and they have little ability to predict what will turn out to be a sad or glad experience. Impulsiveness lingers in many people after they become adults, but the vast majority of people move on to the second way of being happy.
In Disney’s rendition of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, the dwarves whistled while they worked. They had a magical way of bringing lightness and joy to their workday.
We live in stressful times. For many people, work is serious and stressful. What if we made it more fun? What if we added joy and pleasure?
What is Pleasure?
According to the dictionary, pleasure is “a feeling of happy satisfaction and enjoyment.” Imagine bringing happy satisfaction and enjoyment to your work. How much more energized, happy, and healthy would you feel?
There are 3 types of pleasure: everyday pleasure (like enjoying a beautiful sunset or a funny video), sensual pleasure (like enjoying a relaxing massage), and sexual pleasure.
Pleasure Increases Productivity
Our society values productivity over pleasure. However, pleasure leads to improved productivity!
Pleasure is just as important as hard work, because it raises your vibration, boosts your energy, relieves stress, improves your health and happiness, boosts your creativity, and opens your intuition. When your intuition is flowing with creative ideas, you can accomplish more in less time with less effort.
Pleasure also brings you into the present moment and away from your stressful worries about the future or regrets of the past.
Have you ever noticed after going on a pleasurable vacation how much more refreshed and energized you feel the first day back at work? This is called the Pleasure Effect. Building pleasure into your workday allows you to experience the Pleasure Effect every day.
If you are overworked and under-pleasured, you will love these 11 tips to add pleasure and joy to your workday, whether you work from home, in an office, or anywhere else.
11 Pleasure Practices to Add Joy to Your Workday
It is not uncommon for people to be scared of their purpose. They think about the problems that would come their way. They believe they would not be able to overcome the challenges. This overthinking leads to wasting a lot of time and demotivation. Quite often, people waste their time trying to find a purpose that would seem good enough. They are terrified of the idea they would spend their lives feeling useless, not achieving anything significant.
It is common to experience such fears. When you find a purpose in life, you are weighed down with expectations that can leave you crippled. So what should you do when you have a goal but don't have the courage to work towards it? How should you ensure that you don't waste any more time and get down to business?
The first thing you need to realize is that overthinking is your worst enemy. You keep judging your abilities and pulling yourself down, and this increases the fear in you. Therefore, if you want to stop wasting time and not feel scared of your purpose, you need to gain control of your thoughts.
I thought after death had its way with us, you would have stopped trying to get somewhere. You would have stopped making up conclusions. But you still take what you go through and force it on others, making the world into a silhouette of your pain. Yet this never frees us. We just keep praying to what is missing. I know. For I painted the strangers I met while lost with the colors of my sadness, wondering if anything mattered. Then, just as I was about to give up, something gave way, including my want to make everything like me. Sure, it was frightening. But when the Mystery of Oneness washed over me, experience dropped me into the common well below our names, where what happens to one of us happens to all of us. And then, the way a boulder tired of holding on slips into the sea scattering the fish into a glimmering pool of light, I began to cascade anonymously. Now, I can only say that though what pains us may be different, where it hurts is always the same.
This is how we find each other.
You know what it means to get in your own way, don't you? It is a true phenomenon.
Try to picture this: I'm walking down the street and then I run into myself… how can I run into myself unless I'm divided in such a way that in any given moment I’m on my way to do what something in me says is going to make the moment right, then I run into what the moment says will make it right… and I have a crash?
Here’s a little story to illustrate this idea of getting in our own way:
Have you heard the research from the universities of Chicago and Munich? If you have a regional accent, then it’s likely you could be earning a fifth less than your colleagues with neutral accents. This is huge news for anyone who cares about their financial potential!
The way you speak has a direct effect on your current finances and your earning potential… but wait. I recommend taking this a step farther than just polishing your accent and really dive deep into how you speak.
Have you ever paid attention to the way you speak? Maybe you take time to think about what you say before you say it in a business meeting or job interview, making sure you select the right words so you communicate clearly and effectively, but have you thought about it any deeper than that? Obviously you understand that the way you communicate in certain situations can have an impact on the outcome of that situation, but what else can your words impact?
I never used to think overly much about how I spoke. I didn’t ask myself if the way I was speaking was genuine for me rather than how I’d been raised and convinced to speak. I didn’t examine my words to see if they built me up or tore me down. I didn’t really take the time to think if I was speaking like me, presenting myself accurately, or inviting what I really wanted through my words.
I didn’t yet understand what a huge impact my words have on my life.
At the beginning of every year, there’s an energy that’s palpable where you feel such huge promise for newness, in every way. Yes, we all get to start again! YAY. Yoga, Pilates, promises to yourself to change your diet, let go of the old habits that messed you up the year before, start a prayer and meditation practice and quit sugar/alcohol/(fill in blank) for real this time, take some interesting classes you’ve always wanted to do. Everyone is raring to go. Success by design is inherent just in the words “new year”. The failures of yesterday can be erased on Jan 1. That is a big fat promise.
But not so fast. These are all worthy intentions but what if your old self, the one you’re trying to change is not willing to do the list in your hand. What if your old self is so invested in your identity of feeling shitty, lonely, hard done by, angry, etc. that it thinks your new ideas are just phooey and is determined to prove it to you?
