The Art and Entertainment of Life in the Flow
by Penney Peirce
I tuned in to the energy under the surface of my reality and noticed that my body felt both calm and excited at the same time. I always check my body first, as I’ve learned it is a microcosmic representation of the larger environment, and gives me an accurate read of whatever I include inside my “personal bubble,” be it the physical environment or a larger bubble of time and dimensions. Today I sensed a quality of solidity, like “I’m prepared now, and ready for whatever may come,” as well as a stirring of spring fever about a new level of creativity, a new kind of involvement with life, that seemed likely to emerge in spite of any big dramas in the world.
I was excited because it seemed that “real movement” was at hand, like “the real part” of life was now beginning. Yet I had no concrete conception of what I meant, just a feeling that my “training period” was over and an experience I’ve known but can only refer to now in these quote-unquote phrases, was about to occur. Certainly we’ve all been living, learning, growing, creating, and expressing our soul’s purpose all along, but it’s as though there’s been a filmy coating over our view, and we’ve been cleaning the lens for the whole of our life thus far. In the past I have tried to catalyze change in my own life but my will power just banged up against an invisible wall. I could see that my life had been moving at a pace independent of my mind.
In retrospect, I can feel there has been a reorganization going on in my deeper self, perhaps in the circuitry of my subtle bodies. There has been much time without distracting hyperactivity, in which I was drawn to do smaller, more invisible things, like dissolving ideas that were like wet-blanket overlays or ones I was unconsciously holding and patterning myself with. These were ideas and pronouncements from people I had defined as authority figures, opinions I had internalized that weren’t actually mine, or even more subtle decisions, “vows,” and “contracts” that limited my range of behavior and life experience.
I dissolved, dissolved, dissolved, and faced the blank space that appeared in the absence of my busy thought habits. I practiced converting the emptiness to an experience of pleasurable open space with room to move and breathe and rest. I allowed the possibility that nothing might ever fill me up again, and practiced not going into grief over this thought.
So as I turned my inner eye hopefully toward what might be coming, my inner voice said, “NO! Don’t look for it. Don’t project ahead. Don’t plan.” Don’t plan??? Are you nuts? “Just engage with what presents itself to you from the unified field. Everything you need will come.” Arrrrgh! “A thought about creating an event may present itself to you, or someone may call, inviting you to do some work. It doesn’t matter whether the source is internal or external, the ideas are all coming from the soul, from the Us. Engage with what comes. And next, keep your attitude and energy field at a frequency that makes you feel the most content, cheerful, enthusiastic, generous, and cooperative.” That’s all? “That’s all. Build faith in this new way of living.”
So I practiced keeping my worry, even my good-natured grumbling, to a minimum, while keeping my mind firmly in the moment. I noticed the details of what was within arm’s reach. I took myself up on all my good ideas, and responded positively to phone calls. And indeed, there were a higher than average number of unsolicited offers to do talks and network with new groups. I was witnessing the magic of synchronicity.
This magical connectedness penetrated into more subtle realms as well. In a meditation or dream I’d have an insight about my process of growth; the next day a person would visit, speaking about the same themes, mouthing the same phrases, and presenting clues for my next step. I’d be frustrated doing a task at my computer and within hours someone would suggest the solution or a new kind of software that eclipsed my antiquated way of working. I was learning to notice the synchro-mesh way that life functions when you don’t get in the way with immobilizing thoughts. I was honing the skills of living in the moment and sharing responsibility for the direction of my life with the collective consciousness — which arises from each particle of light, in each atom of the physical plane, in each moment.
So far, my instructions went like this:
- Stay in the moment, don’t project into the future.
- Engage with what comes; everything you need will be provided by the unified field.
- What comes will either look like a thought in your head or an event coming from the world; do what produces the greatest happiness.
- Monitor your moods, your internal state; prefer a level of awareness that is closest to your soul frequency and thus allows guidance from your soul to flow to you. Enthusiasm, even mild enthusiasm, cheerfulness, sincerity, innocence, and curiosity work best.
After several months of living this way, without much increase in the flow of income, I sat back down to have a talk with my inner voice. Was I missing something? I’d been following instructions faithfully. “The opportunities you receive are filtered through your ‘state,’” my voice informed me.”The first step in improving your state has been to eliminate negative thinking, raise the frequency of your personal energy, and maintain the consistency of higher thoughts. So far, so good. Now you must be able to distinguish between what your mind has been programmed to want and what you-the-soul really want.
“By your state, which is the quality of energy in your personal field, you are giving the greater unified field — which is the collective consciousness of all souls — instructions. You may think you’re asking for opportunities, but actually you are telling the Field what you want and will accept. To know what instructions you’ve been giving to the Field, look at what you already have. So the next step in your practice is:
- Appreciate and use what you have right now; digest it and get all the food value; this is what you told Us you wanted and needed. Nothing new can come until you use what you have.”
I realized how often I was glossing over the gratitude others offered me or the kind things people did for me, how I wasn’t really stopping to register the successful completions of projects or the underlying usefulness of periods of high intensity busyness or relaxing downtime. I’d create a new experience, manifest a new bauble, then be on to the next thing, not taking the time to sink into the experience that the beautiful necklace or the talk to women entrepreneurs had facilitated for me. I realized pleasure was a big part of the soul’s motive.
I’d complain that I wasn’t busy enough, then I’d remember that the previous week I’d wished fervently for some time to myself. Obediently, the Field had brought me a string of emptyish days. Instead of treasuring them and using them to deepen my connection with life, my mind would jump ahead and worry that if this continued, I wouldn’t be able to pay the rent. Then the projected lack of money became the new set of instructions I was giving to the Field. And it obediently brought me more scarcity. When I sank into the experience of emptiness and lack of financial flow, and asked what the gift in this was, I understood it did not relate to my self worth at all, nor to the foundering economy. I was showing myself what it felt like to squeeze off the flow, how harboring complaints and anxieties left no room for creativity. I was also showing myself how important it is to allow a “lying fallow time” at the end of long periods of productivity.
So I developed the habit of asking “Why did I, the soul, bring this moment together in just this way?” And I was able to glimpse my greater intent. Sometimes it was the desire to remove judgments and ossified thoughts by bringing them to light. Sometimes it was to direct me into silence, or into my senses or cellular awareness. My inner voice had more to say, however.
- Learn to be extremely quiet and deeply attentive on a regular basis and often during the day, to listen for the soul’s urges. How do they differ from the mind’s shoulds? Hint: Listen for a difference in tone; notice if there’s tightness — if there is, the idea probably originates with the mind.
So, on to the next step; learning to discriminate some of these subtle states of being. But actually, all we are asked to do is stay connected, have faith, be clear about what we want, and practice this new formula for living in the present moment. The Flow takes care of the rest.
