Alignment (Part 3): Circumstances
Bartender's wisdom... Or is it?
My dear beloved customers,
A few weeks ago, Taylor Dean-Lipson asked me to write about alignment on his Daily Spark.
As Taylor’s posts are formated to be short and straight to the point, I really wanted to dwell a little more on the subjet in a few posts of mine, exploring further each part of my argument: after gratitude and self-love, I’m embarking today upon the circumstances issue.
A little recap before we start…
What is alignment?
Alignment is a way of being that allows us to live in peace with ourselves and others and to flow with the energies of life, whatever they are. This state is devoided of unnecessary fears and filled with peace, love and joy.
Circumstances
Though we often hear that all the solutions to our problems are within us, we are trained to seek them outside of us, reaching out for help for the most humble of us and blaming and cursing ourselves, God and every other human beings who cross our path when we are not able to find anything to heal our misery. And would someone hand us please a goddamn map which points solution town in our inner landscape?!
Indeed, life is a quest, something between a human experimentation and a joyful role game. If we accept the spiritual paradigm, human beings are amnesic creatures searching for themselves and the meaning of life. The journey is supposed to be as playful as possible, though tragic events are part of the deal. But each piece of the jigsaw puzzle is a new riddle to be deciphered in order to understand or remember who we truly are.
As I wrote in another post a few weeks ago, life events are not personal but what we make of it, the way we relate to it is. Circumstances don’t define who we are, we define ourselves by how we respond to them, the story we tell around them.
We are the hero of our own life and each action we take tells a story about us. Each life is a story to be told, a live action movie with a hero trying to find his way to… Love.
Whether it is love in the form of romance, money, power, we are all trying to find our way to retrieve the unconditional love we once lost, the one from God we lost when we were born in the physical world for the more spiritual ones or the love from our parents/childhood we either never experienced or left behind when we grew up.
Hence, if we don’t like our circumstances, we just have to start changing the ones we can. Of course, unfortunately, there are some we just can’t change. Nevertheless, we can change the way we want to relate to them: ask ourselves why they make us angry and miserable and find another perspective to look at them with a positive emotion. Note that sometimes the best way to respond to something you can’t change is indifference.
One of the most difficult circumstances we have to live through is grief. Sadness and anger are part of the grieving process, but not getting stuck in them is a choice. When we grieve someone we loved who past away, if we achieve transcending the mere physical lack of them, our love for them never dies and every memory of them eventually reset itself into the joy of having been fortunate enough to have encountered them and been blessed with their light.
This is why I smile every time I think about my grandpa and grandma because the idea of them bring love and joy to my heart. At one point in my life, I chose to believe they were still with me, loving me and watching over me. Life is always a matter of perspectives and choices: we can choose the ones that bring us joy or the ones that bring us sorrow but we are always the ones to decide, consciously or not. We are the hero of the story and, as such, we get to choose what kind of experiences we want to bring with it.
“GOD grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”
Anonymous Alcoholic Serenity Prayer
If the way events unfold is beyond our control, we are not victims of our life: Life doesn’t happen to us, it happens for us, through us and what we make out of it is up to us. Being a victim is as much of a choice as being a hero, though we are primarily taught to be victims because when we are, we submit, we are resigned and it is so much easier to govern a crowd of victims than a crowd of heroes. Heroes don’t fear their circumstances because they know they can handle them, one way or another, alone or with their fellow travellers.
We don’t live in a psychopathic Universe persecuting its inhabitants to torture them and make them suffer. Once again, unlike the stories the medias tell us all day long and the unique perspective on life they offer, the events we encounter are neither to be feared nor personal, they are not another personal attack on our well-being unless we see them that way. They are just events, beautiful surprises and minor setbacks to help us grow as human beings, to help us remember who we are, who we want to be in the face of the world and the people we love.
The Universe won’t serve any of us with something we can’t handle - And, believe me, we can handle anything coming our way! - it is thus very important for us to have as much faith in us as the Universe does. Because that’s how we can live in joy, without any unnecessary fear, and allow ourselves to dream big. The Universe will get you anything you can handle and you can definitely handle the greatest dreams!
Another very important things about circumstances, you mustn’t wait for them to change to walk towards your life dreams. Indeed, we often say sentences such as “I’ll do this when…” but the secret is the “when” will come as soon as you’ll have done the thing you wait the “when” for! Never wait for any outside circumstances to do what brings you joy or what will take you a little further on your journey towards achieving your dreams. Just do it when you feel doing it without thinking of the outcomes beyond your control.
On my part, after I wrote my first novel almost 18 months ago, I could have waited to find a publisher to write the second one, it would have been logical but I didn’t. Despite the fact that I was sure my first novel would be released into the world one way or another, I wanted to write that second novel - as it is the sequel of the first one it cannot even be published apart from it - so I just did it, telling myself that if a publisher would come along the way, they would have two novels for the price of one, figuratively speaking of course!
My secret in the matter is, whatever our circumstances are, always follow the joy in everything you do.
Alignment, apart from love, is about the joy we experience during our life journey, the one we feel with each action we take. The more joy we experience, the more aligned we are.
For those who would like further guidance to their own alignment, remember that I am not only a Bartender but also a Life Coach who can help you with tools to achieve this kind of peaceful state of life.
So don’t hesitate to DM me on Substack or on my website G-Spotlight to schedule a session and assess your needs.
Bartenderly yours,
Geay
PS: If you like her stories but are not ready to subscribe yet, you can always tip the Bartender.
Is what happens to you in life personal?
Results, outcome & Samantha Fox
Yes! It is all a choice of perspective and we ARE the heroes of our own quest.
It seems like circumstances are the name of the game these days! You're right, it's up to us to embrace them and not get consumed by them. Hard but necessary. And the greatest form of love! Sending mine to you!