The Power of Redirection
Redirection can take many forms:
Rejection by a love interest is classic. Heartbroken initially, only to find your true match is far beyond anything you could have anticipated, and your heart swells with gratitude knowing this is with whom you were meant to end up.
A denied house application, or roommate disaster, led you to find the perfect temporary home that matches your lifestyle completely.
Being fired or not hired, now looking around at the coworkers you call your closest friends.
Friends cancelling last minute, leading you to spend quality time with someone you value, deepening your connection.
An opportunity that you once held on a pedestal would have created a whole different chain of events leading you so far away from where you are today, it would quite literally be a parallel universe. But you like this universe, now.
I find now that I am more in-tune with my intuition and the messages of my body, the redirections aren’t as large or obvious, but they’re still there.
The key is each of these examples are derived from recognition and gratitude, you cannot see or behold the divine intervention if you are not willing to take a moment to sit in positivity. For me, it began when one day I just decided the best way to cope with my feelings of shame, embarrassment, and anxiety was to find the ways it all worked out for the best; I got punched in the face? Great I needed the wake up call to stop being an obnoxious asshole. I got made redundant? Thank god, I would have stayed there and honestly thought that’s where I was meant to be - spoiler alert, I wasn’t, it was my ego talking. I just over-asserted myself and now I have a vulnerability hangover? Perfect, it showed them I’m a multifaceted human being, and now I know I still have people pleasing tendencies to work on.
I got kinda lucky with my coping mechanisms, because now I have 10 years worth of examples proving to me that life always, always, always works out for the better. By the way, this is what they mean about your perception controlling your reality. If I kept wallowing in shame and self pity, it probably would have been my villain origin story, I had enough anger and resentment for it to go that way, trust me. As you begin to recognise and trust, you must now gather the patience to allow the answers to flow into your field of awareness. Be open, so they know they are welcome to come.
My most recent experience of redirection happened over the last three months, around my 28th birthday. And it wasn’t big in terms of a particular life event, but it was big in changing my inner-most motivations, ending what was likely a 9 year cycle of personal future-based stress, high cortisol, and fear-based living. For the last say three years I have chipped away at ‘building my own business’, where I could meet my ultimate goal of being my own boss, achieving financial freedom, and living an expectation free, creative life.. and get paid while doing it. I could feel my future, my house, the weight off my chest, blissfully unaware that for as long as this projection of my future had been alive, I was affirming to myself; “I will be happy when”. Yuck. I was also essentially escaping in to a dissociative fantasy.
It was a big and grand realisation for someone who is always reflecting. I’m essentially obsessive and neurotic about ‘growth’ (which I’m consciously adjusting). This was another humbling ah-ha moment, reminding me nothing will be revealed until it is time. And you can keep self-generating the mysteries of life and consciousness, or you can relax, remain open, and wait for the lessons to come - more on this in future posts.
It served me to spend the last three years working on myself gradually in slow pursuit of this goal; adjusting belief systems, tuning into my energetic body, trying new things, setting deadlines, not meeting most, feeling frustration, and just generally observing what came up as I chased this very tightly wound dream, with a very tightly wound body. And now, as the seeds of the universe land in the form of health flags, gut issues, mental health, and some harsh truths, I slowly began to unclench. I took a deep breath, and finally saw that the pressure I place on myself is taking a toll. A big fucking toll. So I loosened my jaw, and faced what I had feared to ask, “what if the happiest version of myself, doesn't have or want ‘financial freedom’.” Vomit. Immediately - and I mean immediately - the monster chasing me dissipated, I audibly sighed, and began to tear up. I was afraid to admit it - what if then I will never get it. What if I had known all along that my life would be a lot more quaint and simpler than my grandiose expectations allowed, I had learnt to not doubt myself and to hold the vision, but the vision was crushing me, along with the parts that needed to be seen and witnessed. Fear kept me diligent, like a good little soldier, brain-washed into a ‘necessary’ war against the mind, body, and spirit. In allowing myself to let go a little, to feel into the denial, to go that little bit deeper, the true desires of my heart were held at last.
I just want to feel safe.
Ha.. That’s big. And what’s funny is I’ve heard it a million times before - there is fear beneath attachment. There are beliefs beneath fear and attachment. Heck, I would bet that I’ve even journaled about the correlation between my need for financial freedom and my desire for safety and comfort. But it was not time. The epiphany was not ready to land. I can see now that at any earlier point, there wouldn’t be an opportunity or place for me to go with this new found freedom. Only now, circumstantially, does it make sense. And so the divinity of timing took place, redirecting me toward a very important change in direction.
The career I had been working toward deflated, and excitement toward areas I was sure meant nothing to me began to rise. I could see all these new avenues of inspiration. I had opened myself to the realm of possibilities, where I once saw one path, one corridor to walk down. Life felt yummy and fun again. New visions struck.
I began to rattle off realisations over and over again, ones I’ve told myself before but never quite felt true enough, because it didn’t come from a place of complete self acknowledgement and acceptance. You cannot embody, integrate, and emanate a truth until it can reach all parts of you. Avoiding harsh truths will do that, it will shut you off from yourself.
Wait so you mean I could actually enjoy working under someone and learning from them? I CAN spend my days exploring my creativity instead of forcing (yucky word!) myself to be ‘productive’? That dream I held so tightly might not actually be what would bring me the most happiness? I was blind to what I truly desired all along? You mean the missing piece was actually just letting go of the attachment? Im actually closer to the manifestation of my dreams by letting them go, truly and completely? It makes more sense to just live my life then the desires will come? Wait, i’m actually more magnetic this way, this is an embodied women, one who does not waste away at the yearning of what they do not have, but rather trusts that all she desires is hers, and lives in pleasured devotion in the mean time. This. Makes. Sense.
And guess what, as soon as I truly believed this, as soon as I told the universe “you know what, I trust you, I am going to let you show me what my purpose is. What I’m here to do” Which I did multiple times, out loud, with my hand on my chest considering what i’m asking for and doubling down on my surrender and trust for the unknown. Within weeks, an opportunity arose. It is really, that simple. I had cut myself off from the wonders before, from all the ways gifts and blessings could come my way. I was headstrong about the vision I held, but visions aren’t meant to be that tight. They can be specific, they can be grand, but in order for them to be of divine connection, they need to be fluid. You can say what, but you can rarely say how, that part isn’t up to you, and where a lot of us have a hard time is in releasing this control - something I know a lot about.
In realising this, in allowing the flow of life to veer me in a new direction, I feel lighter. I have removed my attachment to financial freedom, and the dream house that supposedly equalled my happiness, and instead remind myself daily that if life looks the way it does right now, forever, I’d be pretty fucking happy. What doesn’t make me happy is daydreaming about a made up life, attaching it to my joy, then returning to the present only to be followed by a ‘fear’ that I’m not doing ‘enough’, to get ‘it’.
I finally understand that enjoying life right now for what it is, is my only true source of elation. If I’m worrying about the future, holding myself to goals created from an attachment, driven by fear, I am creating a life that is directed by unconscious fear-based beliefs. And that actually sucks, and eats away at my psyche, then health. I’d prefer to enjoy right now. I’d prefer to focus on the most important thing - logically and spiritually - that ripples out in to every part of my life, and that is peeling away these unconscious beliefs and old habits that tell me there is always more to do. Like shut up.
Why is there more to do? Because what if we don’t get that thing? What thing? Why do I need that thing? Is that thing more important than my happiness right now? Why cant I trust that my daily recognition and appreciation for life will get me to where I need to go? Why do I believe I must ‘work’ to get what I deserve? Aren’t I inherently deserving? Doesn’t the universe send me what I attract? So if I truly trust in the divine protection and guidance of my life, wont that also mean I can trust in the path laid out before me? Why must I go searching for it? And if you now think ‘yeah but you can’t just do nothing and expect it all to come to you - I would say a) why not? And b) why do you assume this must mean to slob around with expectation? Why would you not assume it means following your flow which innately brings sunlight, friendship, projects, creativity, challenges, helping others, rest, play, writing, making? Perhaps you don’t need to pick holes in everything, perhaps you need more trust, and hope, and joy. Perhaps you need to ask yourself where you learnt this from and how it serves you. Is it about safety? If you do not have desires you do not risk being let down. Is that it? But if you do not hold desire, you have lost your Eros for life, for Eroticism and Eros is the energy we create with. Are you in co-creation with life, or do you feel life is happening to you?
Letting go of an attachment this big alleviates pressure on my health, my relationship, my dynamic with daily life, my creativity. It is a full circle moment. A missing piece to a lot of the questions and ongoing problems I continued to face and will continue to face ~ let’s not get that twisted, I am not ‘cured’ from my attachments, but I have expanded my vision. I am now aware. I have the ability to remind myself and eventually deeply remove an ingrained pillar of turmoil and motivation I’ve held for most of my life.
My last point is this; ask and you shall receive (a great book by the way), and the universe is like a veil, if you do not lift the haze of humanity and societal conditioning to see what sits beneath and beyond the naked eye or deluded eye rather, you will miss the magic you are blessed with. If I did not tune in regularly, if I did not listen, or have trust and gratitude for this beautiful life, I would not have caught this message at the right time. I would have pushed through, and continued on my stubborn trajectory only to hit the wall harder, with much greater consequence.
You can’t fake life. Everything you do no matter which way you try to go, will always be a choice, guided by the ways that you feel and the beliefs that you have. And so your own world projects out before you, a self regenerating path, completely reflective of your will. That’s kind of terrifying in one way, but in another it just affirms your life is yours. If we have the will to be full of life and hope, that will, reflects out. Life is quite literally what you make it, so you can stand around waiting for the days to pass, chasing a feeling, or you can zero in on right now, free of inhibitions, and choose to bask in the infinite love and safety that is existence as you continue to create.