What Lesson Am I Missing or Why Am I Still on this Hamster Wheel

Talking about how there's a lot more to learning something than just "getting it." The true test is in whether or not we can apply what we think we have learned in an interconnected, constantly moving world.

Transcript

What Lesson Am I Missing or Why Am I Still on this Hamster Wheel?

Most religions and much of spirituality focus on the soul as student, as child, embodying in order to learn basic lessons of existence. Somewhat like mathematics, these lessons are seen as needing to be learned in order, and once we learn one, we are graded, rewarded, and can then be assigned a new lesson to learn and so on. As learning and becoming are some of the major purposes of this planet and what the majority of souls are embodying to do, this is in general fairly accurate as far as generalizations go. However, one thing to note is, life is not math, so we don't need to learn one lesson at a time and most people don't, just as we don't learn one and only one thing at a time when we are children. For example: School is where we learn not only academic subjects, but social rules and dynamics, how to interconnect one-on-one with others our own age as well as adults outside our social circle, and that the world is a much bigger place than the universe of "home" which we have come to know. And that's just first grade.

Also, there's a lot more to learning something than just "getting it." The true test is in whether or not we can apply what we think we have learned. For example, in getting a driver's license there is both a written and a practical exam. The intellectual knowing of something doesn't make you a driver and one particular moment in time where you are demonstrating the complex task of driving doesn't mean you are able to demonstrate your ability to deal with every situation required of a driver. Therefore, we must go through both tests to be certified legal to drive. So too in life, once we "know" a lesson, we then must demonstrate we can apply the lesson in an embodied life. This may happen in the same life where we learned the lesson, but most often happens in subsequent lives. If we are struggling with a particular lesson, we may construct a life which causes us to focus specifically on the issue, somewhat like running cattle through a series of ever smaller chutes in order to quickly and safely get them into a corral. Without distraction and with no room to turn around or jump over any obstructions on the sides, they are forced to move forward to the correct destination, which doesn't prevent some determined cows from trying. 

People come to me with the most amazing stories. They want to know what lesson they are missing or what message isn't getting through because they keep praying and trying to manifest things and nothing works out right. Like people who pray earnestly for unconditional love and are inundated with pets of all kinds, these people are getting responses to their requests, literal answers which fulfill the specified parameters, but not what the person actually intended or needed.

Sometimes there is a message which they have been missing, usually when the response is a repeated pattern or a cluster of events, and sometimes they are missing the lesson, not because they don't know it, but because they have been trying to put off acknowledging it. But most of the time when I see this, the problem isn't in a missing message or lesson, it's in how they are putting out the request, how they are implementing the information they are receiving, or how they are using the new skills/insights they have acquired through the lesson.

When a soul is young, when it is in its initial stages of becoming, when it is new to this particular style of embodiment or new to this planet with its lessons, the soul is much like a student in school learning preselected lessons and working through them under the tutelage of a teacher/guide. This can be as macro as taking on a very iconic role in life like the male head of a family, being a peasant woman in a small European village, herding cattle in Africa, working a farm in rural China, etc. etc. etc. It can be as micro as working through a brief role with one other person or be in one small facet of the embodied life. We see it here as well where people take on very iconic roles in their lives and work hard to achieve perfection in them against the odds and find themselves struggling in later life. Or it can look like a businessman who is ruthless and successful because what they are learning about is power or ethics or having a voice. From the outside it's hard to know what lessons are being learned, but soul book after soul book shows people seek our lives to learn things such as commitment, power over others, wealthiness, poverty, jealousy, freedom, need, forgiveness and so much more.

But what happens when you've learned these things?  What happens when you work to manifest things and they still stall out, get stuck, or fail? What can be done when you've done it all right and you're still stuck on the hamster wheel at work, in relationships, in finances, spiritually and more?

We tend to think of the world around us as separate from us, as other and "out there" while we are in here. Therefor the world becomes a chaotic and monolithic energetic system which we can tap into or seek to avoid with practices such as the Law of Attraction or the Law of Assumption. What we fail to notice in all this "Us vs. Them" conceptualization, this notion we are an island, is the second we are born we are intimately integrated into the world on all levels. We are part of the earth's energy, the pool of golden liquid light, which is ever fresh and flowing, the ley lines which are the world's neural network, the waters which act as nourishment and cleansing agent. We are all generating the web of life which is and responds to all life. Our primary purpose, therefore, is to BE. To be here in our unique suchness.

This is not to say if we all get centered and grounded paradise will spring up around our feet, nectar will bubble up from the ground and we can frolic to the playing of lutes and pan flutes. In our Sacral chakra or the energy center between our hip bones, the manifestation process contains not only our most intimate desires, but also our mistakes and fears and lacks. This is also where people don't necessarily want to see who they truly are, so they work to avoid the mirror held up by partners, friends, family and situations at all costs. Our heart chakras can keep us focused on service which becomes unbalanced into sacrifice and codependence. The survival skills we acquired in childhood can armor our 3rd chakra creating an identity where, like Sleeping Beauty, we live behind impenetrable barriers hoping someone will see through them all to find our true selves. Yeah, all of those energies are manifesting in embodied life as well. 

As the saying goes, you can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs. While we aren't completely in control of the process neither are we a helpless victim to it. We are a component of it and the more we engage with it healthily the more we can gain. 

But what if we're doing everything right, going through all the correct motions, setting intentions positively and things still stall out?  Or we finally achieve what we intended only to find ourselves in free fall with no direction and no input from our guides or higher self to direct us?

The most common response is to start searching for what has gone wrong, what we're doing or not doing to cause the "problem" or to make things go awry.  And this could be the case.  If we've done absolutely everything...other than the one thing we absolutely do not want to do or even thing about it...it's probably time to think about it.  It may be what you're doing is right, but you need to include someone or ask for help from someone when you really, REALLY, do not want to. Or you need to confront something which is triggering to you. Or do something scary, distasteful, or heartbreaking in the short term which makes the long term possible. 

Of course, there is also the possibility that nothing is necessarily wrong at all.  Not with what you're doing.  

When I have clients or students who are truly focused on figuring out the issue and feel they are the issue which needs to be corrected, I remind them of all the human beings right now who are in war torn areas.  I can't think of anyone in Ukraine, Sudan, Afghanistan, Syria, let alone the Rohingya, Uyghurs, and Tibetans and say they are not fully focused on manifesting peace, safety, health, and well being for not only themselves but those they love and their people more broadly.  And they aren't failing in their manifesting because this hasn't yet come to pass. 

The reality is manifesting includes more than the intentions and actions of the individual to be successful. We exist in and are fully interconnected with this world and the universe beyond it.  This means part of our manifesting process includes others, free will, and physics.  I break this down into the Four Pillars of Manifesting. Understanding how these work rather than seeing things as just us and the mysterious "Universe" out there, can help us make sense of what's happening and what we can do next.

Pillar 1 – You  

This includes all aspects of the process each of us is bringing to the table including our intentions, energy, willpower, clarity of thought and inspiration, preparation, actions, engagement, and responses. 

Pillar 2 – The Goal to be Manifested

This can be an object, person, place, relationship, job, role, or experience 

Pillar 3 – The Venue

The place and circumstances in which you are working to manifest the goal. These include the area where you live, the resources you have access to, the limitations being placed on you through personal and local circumstances as well as other's opinions, preferences, requirements, and abilities.

These include employers, buildings and building codes, local governments and laws, social norms locally, racism-sexism-assumptions-opinions, and "just how we do it 'round here."

Pillar 4 – The Bigger Picture

The interconnected world which all of these reside in. Think country, state/province, geographically distinct area, continent, and organizations like NATO or the WHO or SEATO. Weather or catastrophic elemental events (lava eruptions, tsunamis, landslides, sink holes, sunspots) can disrupt not only supply chains, but also human connections. The same can be said for wars, political elections, austerity measures, legal actions, corporate takeovers and much more. 

This also includes economic situations like recessions causing companies to do hiring freezes, industry down turns or changes in legislation which can affect small businesses downstream, mass layoffs causing a glut of unemployed people trying to get any job they can find, as well as misinformation causing havoc for entire populations.

Each pillar plays a role or roles in the manifesting process for all of us, and we have varying levels of ability to influence them. The more aware we are of them or are open to learning about them, the more effective our manifesting efforts will be.

While our natural tendency is to start with our own intentions and desires in order to create our goal, working outwards from us like ripples going out from a stone dropped in water, I find the opposite process, while counter intuitive, makes things flow smoother. I therefore start with Pillar 4 and work backwards. 

These are things individuals have little to no ability to influence, but are the foundation any manifesting process will either sit on or have to work around somehow. Life finds a way, as Jurassic Park says, but not necessarily easily or elegantly and in the short term we might need to just work with the situation we're in. 

It's also helpful to remember these things are environmental and not necessarily any type of lesson or challenge being put in front of us specifically. Just because we struggle to climb a mountain doesn't mean the mountain exists in order to make us struggle or to teach us things about climbing.

Pillar 3 is where we can get so hyper focused on where and how we think a thing should happen, we miss out on the fact it can and will if we allow it to show us where it wants to be. Like someone saying they absolutely have to have their apartment in this particular area, but if they look just a ½ mile away they find the exact place at half the cost. Or if they allow themselves to investigate resources in the next town over, they find everything they need exactly the way they want to work with things.

Pillar 2 is something most manifesting processes talk about in terms of being specific about what you want. Which is true. If we aren't clear with ourselves about what we actually want, if we assume aspects of it are just naturally included, or we leave as negotiable things which are to us non-negotiable, then what we manifest won't end up being what we intended, wanted or needed. The famous example is asking for a partner, but neglecting to specify you want them to be a human being and instead ending up with more and more pets.

At the same time, we need to be specific but not overly specific. What is meant by overly specific is by narrowing things down so much we can't actually get a response. We've all seen or experienced this as teenagers when they want one particular person to like them. Even if the answer is no, even if there is not a way this will happen, they will throw practically their entire existence into manifesting this outcome and then suffer true torment when the inevitable finally crashes in on them.

So, with Pillar 2, be clear, but also be open, just like dancing with a partner. Hold on loosely, but don't let go.

Pillar 1 is us and while this is where we have the most information and ability to influence the situation, it is common for people to struggle with either awareness of underlying assumptions/biases or with empowerment. In other words, we often don't know what we're actually attempting to do or why, or we don't give ourselves permission to try for the things we want or the way we actually want to do them. 

This can be as simple as giving ourselves permission to take something we do as a hobby, small projects done in small amounts of time, and let ourselves give them the space/time/energy they deserve. This can also mean giving ourselves permission to throw out all the reasons why, the purposes, plans, and expectations our logic brain attached to what we are manifesting. If we get it done, partially done, or set it in motion and suddenly realize the reason for it wasn't what we thought or we no longer need it, this isn't a failure, but part of unfolding the amazingly complexity of our human self.

Or it could mean we need to stop waiting for it to happen for or to us and instead need to start being proactive, if we haven't been before. Recognizing what is ours to do, what we are capable of doing, and what is beyond us in the moment due to everyone else manifesting can point us to the source(s) of the issue and help us see which direction to step off the hamster wheel onto the next portion of our path.