Wednesday, December 22, 2021

LINKING TO THE SELF-ACTUALIZED JOURNEY

 

 


We end 2021 with a sigh of exhaustive surrender at the same time we continue our uphill fighting trek in both virtual and tangible Mt. Everest feats with the on-going pandemic’s domino effect on everyone.

This truth is not all what we expected; nor was it what we imagined and yet the opposite is also true depending on which day you watch the news, and whether or not you’ve had enough caffeine to zap you out of your zombie-like state of being.

As you ask yourself what has happened in the last two years in order to be fully prepared to help someone with amnesia you meet out of a rom-com to ‘catch them up’ on what happened since 2020 – you too, may wonder what has happened to your journey and wonder where you go from here.

Like a roller coaster, a yo-yo, a maze, a puzzle – whatever you want to compare it to, this is alternate timeline, and the reality is humanity's concept of such is teeter-tottering both similarly and differently.  While we witness some handling this proactively taking action, others are dazed and confused to be left to their own devices in being reactionary. The truth is we are in a universal classroom that has a syllabus consisting of:

  • ·       health and pandemics
  • ·       natural disasters
  • ·       homelessness crisis
  • ·      healthcare communications (finding clarity in facts)
  • ·       economics and the supply chain
  • ·       global warming and the environment
  • ·       empathy and compassion
  • ·       corporate responsibility; the WFH vs. hybrid vs. safety protocol work place
  • ·       manners and etiquette
  • ·       violence/theft prevention
  • ·       cross cultural diversity and inclusion, combating racism
  • ·       funeral planning
  • ·       faith studies – dealing with all of the above as humanity steps into questioning the true meaning of life in the present-day

And SO MUCH MORE! 

Amid all of this – humanity is seeking answers, truths, a mojo reboot, also wondering when lunch and recess happens. The curriculum is hefty on top of everything else we all have to do with adulting, caretaking, and getting through what we’re presented as curve-balls.

As we dared to look at the world with our super sleuth selves in search to find ‘something good’ in the world, perhaps we would find cheap smiles of the day watching an animal acting like a human giving us hope. 

However, the next day we would see the dreaded human acting like an animal sending us back to gloom, doom and altered life paradigm discussion while sometimes being ghosted on Zoom.

The world is not the same and neither are we, the collective “chaos” is unorganized and wandering aimlessly to find deeper meaning.

We’re in this constant tug-o-war of John Mayer’s “Waiting for the World to Change” and the Michael Jackson’s reflective “Man in the Mirror” inventory.  We pay attention to Nas’ “I Can” as a way to pave hope for what we can still do with the time we have on this planet, trying to "Imagine" what John Lennon lyrically painted in a song all in the same breath.   

We look to the future in baby steps where we know we’re empowered to create change ourselves.  Still, we sit inspired by the random glimpses of miracles blowing by like unexpected glittery bits of pixie-dust after we pull ourselves from the wreckage of ________ (fill in the blank – or add ten pages).

Another year under our belt amid this pandemic fits the opposing thoughts of mind from “Wow, I’m still here and have survived so much” in gratitude to the next tired breath of “Wow, I’m still here and how much more must I endure.”

This is everyone’s #Truth – whether we’re talking about it openly or not.

So I decided to disrupt the silence and speak about it anyway – to say what many of you are thinking but won’t publicly verbalize.

Perhaps you just simply don't have long-form energy to articulate in verbosity what many of you muster up the little energy to post inside of angry, sad, frustrated/confused, lost/crying and shoulder-shrugging memes to convey what I am exorcising from my soul in vomiting-in-need-of-an-editor-stat mode.

I join the rest of humanity in the duality of grief and hope, sweet and sour, dark and light and walk, no paper, no plastic, reusable bag through the fire of immense loss on the earthly plane and much gained in the spiritual one.  

As we grapple with reality, dreams and fantasy may struggle in their own right to appear to be a distant memory of youthful innocence even for the young and young at heart.  Here, hope tries to find its way through whatever is going on to remind us once more why we are here.

We plow on – continuing to wake up each day almost amazed to declare “I’m still here’ in the wake of what appears to be a world sleeping through many nightmare-like moments seeing things we have never seen before in our lifetime in what both the pandemic simultaneously with global warming continue to brings forth. With the two steps forward, three or ten steps back, the Universe is forcing many us to be challenged to rebuild and rebuild again like some phoenix rising on repeat autopilot.  While it’s amusing, and indeed character-building, it is also exhausting for the soul.

The mass loss of human lives seem to be happening at a rapid rate even more now like failing at some video game round. It is here where our hands keep pressing buttons to hold or find agility to navigate the terrain, but we appear with more to resolve and conquer.  With all we are trying to do, we see despite the game controllers in our hands, so much is actually out of them in ways we cannot explain via words or attempts.  We're learning as we go - we see a world flying by the seat of its own pants. For most, this is far from amusing; for some, entertaining; and others pathetic and cringe-worthy only because all of our higher-selves know we all have the potential to do better. 

Numbers keep escalating despite all of the pro-active efforts put forth in good faith and intent.  Most of it appears to feel like some betrayal of energy of losses continuing to devastate one’s belief system that if you do everything right you get the results.  For the world, it may feel as if efforts have been for nothing, however – we are also being asked to see our efforts another way.

It is here the Universe asks us once more as we deal with the idea to keep going, dare to keep trying, and urged not to give up. We are asked to trust and know in our hearts that nothing is wasted.  No calculated amount of time, positive energy, pure heart intent, and good will are wasted. Ultimately, it is ideally part of that curriculum, too. Here we must focus on what we all can do better rather than repeating mistakes from lessons learned. 

This part is somehow considered by some to be ‘extra credit” learning.  Rest assured, it is not and if we miss it – we’ve essentially missed the point.

Make no mistake – this is not game over until it is over and we must continue to fight amid what appears to be never ending.  The secret?  The annoying reminder to live in the present moment to do what we can, with what we have, with where we are and to focus on the tasks at hand.

The tasks are an interesting mix of physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, agenda added as part of said curriculum.  Here we begin to 'understand' something deeper than ourselves if we dare to learn more from the sum of all of the fragmented parts of the last two years. 

Perhaps this is the first time most of humanity understands “be present” – because it is hard to look ahead, dream and to plan for a future in the current circumstances. Maybe is by universal design of the divine, that is the way it is for now.  We cannot see around said blind curve, for reasons we may not yet be able to understand, but here is where our faith and trust is tested once again to stay on the road anyway, even if it is disappearing and disintegrating, falling into the ocean of broken dreams.

Here we are reminded by the Back to the Future mindset of flying cars, having to fly on planet Earth because there is no road and the meaning is actually in the context of the spiritual realm and not the earthly tangible one, we imagined.  In other words – and in rambling blogsplain – that means REIMAGINE and REBUILD and DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY THAN BEFORE.

Can we remember a time when our carefree humans simply looked at life through the lens of surface-level simple joys with the only ‘growth’ being to appreciate them as we have them? 

Have we as humanity learned that lesson amid our mass losses?

Here did we learn to appreciate/and have gratitude for things taken for granted?

Do we understand how we grow in every moment and learn something as we go and it is up to us to apply what we’ve learned to do more?

On a small level, the reality check for most may appear simple, but after what all of us have been through the last two years, we all know we were asked to dig much deeper than that cliché’d “life is short.”

Instead, life has been turned on its head as a Tsunami wave of emotions have been boiled down to a culinary reduction of rich, thick, condensed viscosity unintended gloppier consistency, we are being asked to muddle through in a way we have not explored before even on days we had 24/7 introspection pre-pandemic.

If you are feeling like questioning yourself beyond the words that usually help you organize the WHO, WHAT, WHERE, WHEN AND WHY – now is the time to be reminded once more by what is possible for you to imagine. 

It is here you can still visualize and actualize the reality of sitting within your authentic journey as you know it to be realizing with each breath (!) that you are still here.  But that’s not all – it is here you have the opportunity to apply what you’ve learned about life in the last two years to re-evaluate whether or not your “idealized’ previous journey was all smoke and mirrors, or rather a version of your former self.   Yes, former self.  Today, right in front of you is a new person – one you discovered as you went through the tough stuff, the worry, the pain, the anxiety, the fear, the death and the losses and even rediscovered parts of your lost-self.  You also see life differently through new different eyes than you did before – as if a new person was born between all your pandemic Googling, fact-checking, massive OCD sanitizing and random binge-watching.  

Read. That. Again.  It’ll be worth the ‘ah ha’ moment as you see a new person than you did before behind the literal and figurative mask.

It is here you can try to find the gratitude and the beauty wherever you can and celebrate that in the way you can, however you are able to do so.

That in itself IS a gift, one most of humanity has taken for granted always assuming there is another day, rather than just appreciating that there is one now..

This is where we find our authentic journey, the one made from the reality that has shaped (and will continue to shape us) – to be who we are and still strive to grow into becoming better at what it is we say and do, think and feel, experience and share, evolve and resolve and say Thank You as often as we can along the way.

Leaving behind whatever positivity we can muster up is not lost on those who truly need it.  Those of us who expend it learn how to regroup, refocus and refuel in order to keep going just as much as the recipients who hopefully continue to pay it forward to someone else in need.

That’s the bigger picture we’ve encountered and experienced, but it is in those finite details we cannot miss the broader message we are to take forward into our tomorrows past today.

It is with this and much gratitude I say thank you for yesterday and today and hope to be fortunate enough to see you tomorrow.

May New Year blessings find you, wherever you are - Keep going!

Namaste.

Stacey Kumagai

www.linkronicity.com

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Saturday, November 6, 2021

LINKING TO A NEW STATE OF MIND IN PERPETUAL MOTION

 



 

The crisp autumn air slowly bleeds into a winter chill.  The falling leaves, fade away into bare branches on the trees creating their own silhouette within the backdrop of the grey light.   

The changing landscape with rain, wind and snow reminds us once more that Mother Nature is with us again and again doing what nature does…. Change.

This is not strange terrain, rather it is what we anticipate and expect, adjust, adapt and embrace no different than changing clocks twice a year and adjusting to the fact that consumer promotions are happening earlier and earlier every year.

Pre-pandemic, we were seeing Christmas promoted before Halloween and we eventually accepted this as 'normal.'   As of this week, we saw Black Friday happening on Wednesday weeks ahead of time due to the shipping backlog supply chain woes. We read in the headlines that “There is a color blue dye shortage…” --- which in essence also means there is a green and purple shortage for they cannot be created without blue.

We are watching this year unfold into a wave of unexpected change and we as humanity are expected to adapt to the new state of mind adjusting to said changes.

It is a test....Not one of the emergency broadcast system, but one of the ‘collective’ asking….

“So what are you going to do now?”

Humanity often begrudgingly says in true affirmative mantra fashion, “Go with the flow.” 

Yeah, it sounds good, but with transparency, vulnerability and honesty, it’s not so easy to do and we see a domino effect of things happen causing the ‘reactionary’ survival knee-jerk as well as human tantrums driven by ego that cannot adapt to change.

It’s amusing to think that we as a collective consciousness have been tested and tested again with giant things like this pandemic, global warming and so forth, but many of our “smaller changes in creature comforts” almost appear ‘insult to injury’ at a time when most are looking for something to ‘stay the same’ or ‘to be stable’ or at least familiar.

Then here comes Windows 11. Hehe…

With every thought we think, word we speak, action we do and feeling we have….we are shaping ourselves into a new state of mind…. And yes, dear humanity, I see and hear you as you scream…

“Does everything have to happen at once? What happened when it was a long period of silence/crickets and things were good and status quo?”

It is “human” to feel and think that.

This is when I hear my late mother's voice singing loudly, doing her very best Doris Day impression... "Que sera, sera.. whatever will be, will be... the future is not ours to see... que sera, sera...!"  

This came from my mother, a woman who saw so much change in her life from experiencing the U.S. Japanese Internment Camps to breast cancer and Alzheimer's and the list goes on.

I often wondered if it was a Zen practice to live in that Doris Day default of hers to not fight against said grain.  But I also wondered at what point 'adaptation' came as a way of acceptance or if the dog in the fight had surrendered to a higher consciousness level of comprehension to let fate and destiny drive as she sat in the passenger seat.

My 'higher self' questioned if the surrendering was to not deliberately cause greater suffering or if in fact it was itself "divine intervention" to allow peace to flourish in the only way that it could with truly taking things day by day and as things would come.  

This is where WE get to get REAL with OURSELVES and ponder the same question/thought.

Our soul selves and higher minds “understand” intellectually that change is a constant and nothing is temporary nor permanent – change is perpetual motion in every micro-second.

Whoa, what?  

You heard me as you read what you just read… and you were ‘truly listening if you FELT what I just wrote’… meaning that YOU KNOW you “understand” – but it is the human ego vs. the higher mind soul consciousness that ASKS “WHY?” and chooses somehow to resist or battle change as if change is some war enemy to the cozy comfort zones and well-being.

So while we’re on this subject, let’s talk about disruption. 

For most, daily consciousness is about getting through the day… and that is key to the problem of most struggles we have collectively with energy as humanity tries to push through both real tangible problems just as much as the also ‘perceived obstacles’ based on the current state of mind.

If we allow ourselves to tap into a higher state of mind consciousness, it is through our struggles (big, global monumental and even petty, benign and laughably small) we find solutions by shedding light onto the darkness of what exists.

Here, we can gain clarity about what is happening in our current state of mind to see what needs to be worked on AND worked through. 

Believe it or not, negative energy, problems, and obstacles are a gift.

No, they are not always fun and sometimes they really blow chunks in suckyland, (it's an industry term! 😏)  but it is here we actually ‘suck it up’ and tend to the change at hand that sometimes is not even by our own hand.

It is only when we bury, hide, ignore, escape, or dismiss the work that still needs to be done, do we as a collective consciousness find ourselves in stalemate energy, which is very hard to sit with as we go through evolutionary cycles all around us asking us the big life questions.

In the small, mundane and petty, that looks like small behavioral changes…. Like say a company no longer makes a product you love.

In the medium scale of life, changes could be forcing you out of the habitual… for instance maybe a company you do business with has changed things in HOW they do business and so you as a consumer or customer have to adapt to how you interact with them.

In the larger, grander, more global things, we can look at what the pandemic is forcing us to see thought change as in major lifestyle habits, changes, behaviors and approaches to daily living – how we work, engage, interact, and operate in society as a structure.  This has changed how we ‘deal’ with life changing in a nanosecond.  One day we hear this; the other day we hear that.  One day we’re open; the next day we’re closed… and one day you can only do XYZ if you XYZ and adhere to XYZ.

It’s a lot for humans who are naturally ‘creatures of habit’ to adjust and readjust.

These past two years have forced humanity to take a hard look at itself…. Emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually and globally on a human rights level in all facets of our identities.

Humanity was desperate to find fast fixes and solutions amid the survival mode of hanging in and hanging on.  But it is in this slow-burn process of working through all of the world’s problems we are discovering the real answers in how to overcome what is in our pathway.

What did YOU SEE amid the “perceived” joys and struggles of your personal and professional lens of “Heaven vs. Hell scenario” in the context of truth, reality, unthinkable, inevitable and the higher call for everyone to get real with changes we were all asked to be part of to create to move humanity to a better place?  

Perhaps you are still, like most people a work in progress in said process, navigating the day-to-day reality as other humans change goal posts on you once you've adapted.

This is natural.... everyone is make-shifting in their new timeline, perceived realities and actual daily adjustments as a 'we'll cross that bridge when we come to it" mindset.

We, as the world saw some things we never thought we would see in our lifetime and are seeing for the first time in our lifetime.  For others, they are seeing it repeat, but in just a different level of awareness and consciousness in a new shape/form. 

We saw fire and rain, blood and tears, hope and joy, new start innovation, grief and closure doing a funky retrospective evolution of life dances encapsulated amid a pandemic.

What was this exactly?

It was our life force push toward the necessary progress that humanity procrastinated in committing to actually doing for years. 

Suddenly, it became glaring as preparation wasn’t quite prepared enough to step into opportunities being presented unexpectedly, much like a natural disaster preparedness echo chamber of human behavioral, ethical, moral and purposeful being in this “altered paradigm timeline.”

The reality is this is a higher consciousness collective call to invite all of humanity to embracing self-compassion and compassion externally toward others in our own adaptation with patience to the changes that are at hand.

In the past, one year may have looked similarly to the next and change only occurred when we ourselves decided to shake things up, by our own hand.

In the past two years, we’ve discovered as a collective consciousness that the disruption to that ‘norm’ is happening to us, but in essence happening for us in the mindset of the way we CHOOSE TO LINK TO A NEW STATE OF MIND IN PERPETUAL MOTION, simultaneously as we ourselves change THROUGH this perpetual motion.

Our season of change is all season long in the human context of our existing physical environments.  But the real change happens when we allow ourselves to change our state of mind in how we perceive said change in order to adapt, adjust, accept and embrace said change.

So the bigger ‘life’ question is….

How DO YOU see your own new state of mind in perpetual motion?

How are you living in the present moment?

How are you reflecting on your past as you reconcile said change in your present moment?

How are you reflecting on your present moment to adapt to your future that you craft and create?

These common-ground human-levels of thought are a natural process for all of us as we look at where we are now, from where we once were and look ahead to what we SEE as our new state of mind collective consciousness to move into our crafted tomorrows sitting where we are today.

My pure heart-felt hope is that you are giving yourself enough self-compassion as you personally and professionally adjust to the on-going changes that life is bringing and finding your way through the journey of appreciating the things that change for the better, and the constants that only improve amid the changes in perpetual motion.

Sending healing light, blessings, strength and comfort in finding peace as you step forward into this light.

Namaste,

Stacey Kumagai

www.linkronicity.com

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