Dear AMA:
I’d love to know if you feel like you could have accessed your clarity without your car accident? I’ve experienced challenges in my life, and while I get glimpses of this feeling, it’s very short lived and usually only in meditation. The ‘fear part’ of me is still very much alive and has not been destroyed by my low-points.
First off, I want to acknowledge that if you are struggling right now - I am deeply empathetic for anything that you are experiencing in your life that is challenging. One of the things that I feel very strongly about is that I would never tell anybody who is struggling to, ‘just be happy’. In fact, it’s probably even hard to hear somebody like me saying a phrase like, ‘someday this will make sense’ … because in the moment, it sure doesn’t feel like that. When I was at my lowest low, I would not have been receptive to comments like that - so if you identify with that level of discomfort right now, please know that I’m sending you a lot of love on your journey. I also do believe that it can and will get better - and if you don’t quite believe that yet, I hope that you can borrow some of my belief and perhaps find some inspiration and hope through my words.
One very important note regarding mental and physical health: The content of this page is not intended to be a substitute for professional advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your mental health professional or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding your specific condition.
The chasm and the ladder.
While on some level, a transformation is a shift in energy… we need to think of it as climbing a ladder, rather than jumping over an impossibly vast chasm. For instance - if you are feeling deep despair or frustration, it would be ludicrous for me to suggest that you should, ‘focus on something positive’ - because you might be unable to see anything positive to focus on. Similarly, if you are feeling a lack of clarity about your life, it would be irresponsible for me to suggest that you need to quit your job and just, ‘go for it’, when you don’t even know what ‘it’ is.
Asking you to jump a chasm from where you are to where you want to be is too big of a leap, and it will cause too much pain and distress because your focus won’t be on where you want to go - because too much of your attention will be placed on where you aren’t (namely, the gap between the chasm).
But, if you can think about transformation as ladder, then each step in the direction of where you want to go is visible from where you are right now. You don’t have to make giant leaps - you just have to find the slightly next best feeling thing:
Think of transformation as a gentle massage in a ‘forward’ direction. When I did coaching work a few years ago, I actually started using the term, ‘forward focus’ rather than ‘positive focus’ - because positive focus sounded like I was just telling people to ‘get over it and be happy’. Let me make this very clear: I am definitely not saying that.
When I was a kid, my dad had a habit of telling us to, ‘Buck up!’, when we were feeling any emotions whatsoever. I was raised in an era when I was not allowed to be anything other than happy. If I had strong emotions or experienced things like anger or fear - I was in trouble, so I learned to hide and suppress those emotions, which were then stored in my body and the unhealthy coping skills for those emotions were imprinted into my neural pathways - only to crop up later on in life. The same is likely true for you too (or at least for a significant portion of the folks reading this newsletter). This was through no fault of anybody - because I genuinely believe that most of our caretakers were doing the best they could at the level of consciousness they were at - however, the effects were damaging.
The formula… and the very good news.
All of this to say - you do not need to have a near death incident in order to experience an ‘awakening’ - however, suffering is a very powerful catalyst for transformation. Why? I’m going to give you a formula for creation right now - and it will help to explain WHY something like a near death experience can have such undeniable potency:
When I had my near death experience, the experience itself was very upsetting (I actually had to go through quite a bit of therapy before I was able to drive comfortably again), but the aftermath stimulated a massive heart-opening and a profoundly potent outpouring of gratitude - on a level that I had never experienced before. Due to the fact that I already had a strong desire to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, the answers started arriving at an alarming rate. At the time of the incident, I could not have articulated any of this for you - but now, looking back on it, I can see exactly what was happening and why it was so powerful almost immediately.
The really good news is that you absolutely do not have to have a near death experience to find clarity at all. In fact, I sincerely hope that you don’t, because there is a much better way. Knowing the formula (Gratitude/Elevated Emotions + a Visualization of What You Want to Create For Yourself) is the key to discovering clarity in your life.
If you aren’t experiencing clarity - it isn’t because the answers aren’t out there or because there is ‘nothing’ out there for you - it’s because you are likely focusing on and noticing the lack of clarity in your life. I’ll get into this a bit more over the next few weeks, but I’d like for you to imagine that you are a satellite beacon that is constantly sending out a signal into the world that says, “SHOW ME MORE OF THIS”. This signal is inclusive, not exclusive. Which means that if you are focused on a lack of clarity about what you should do with your life, you are essentially (unintentionally) hitting the ‘repeat’ button on a lack of clarity - and, thus, the answers continue to elude you and you feel like you ‘don’t know’ what you should do next.
Here’s the REALLY exciting part: you can change it… easily. When you start to feel yourself sinking into familiar patterns of ‘not knowing’ or 'feeling fearful’ or ‘feeling doubtful’ … see if you can catch yourself. It might take a few times to notice when you do it - but all you need to do is to create a tiny little gap between YOU and the THOUGHT. You are not the thought. Your fearful thoughts are real (i.e. as in they exist in your mind), however they are not necessarily true. I like to think of my fearful thoughts and limiting beliefs as an ‘old computer program’ that was originally installed to help me out - but now, doesn’t really serve a purpose anymore. The exception to this would be our survival-based fear - which is extremely important if, for example, you need to escape a dangerous situation. Fear does have an important purpose - unfortunately, it’s gotten a bit carried away and it causes most people to feel ‘stuck in place’. So, if you notice fear or limiting beliefs surfacing… what can you do? Sometimes it’s helpful to take a deep breath and find a small mantra or phrase that you can say that will serve to disrupt the pattern of focusing on what you don’t want.
For instance: “I might not know what I want to do right now, but I know that it’s out there and I’m excited to see what it is.” or “I’ve seen other people discover their path, and I’m excited to see what mine is,” or, “I can feel something coming and I don’t know all the details, but I’m open to receiving it.” Doesn’t that feel a lot better than, “I don’t know what it is.” A statement like, “I don’t know what it is” is a terminating statement that doesn’t offer any opening for something unexpected and beautiful to arrive. The second that you can shift to, “I’m open to receive the unexpected”… things are going to start to shift and change because your signal has changed.
One thing I started doing a few years ago is reciting a small poem when I caught myself sinking into an unhelpful thought pattern. I call these my, ‘disruptor poems’ - and I have written them for almost every situation in my life where fear, doubt or unhelpful repetitive thoughts seem to surface. The one that I would use in this particular situation is this one:
A word on fear.
Finally, I also want to add that fear never entirely goes away - but I eventually learned not get ‘stuck’ in the what-ifs of an imaginary future that hasn’t happened yet. For instance: most of my life, I didn’t do things or try things because I was so worried about, ‘what could happen’. These thoughts felt very reasonable and real to me - and I lived most of my life paralyzed by them. As you begin the process of consciously and intentionally creating your life, you will discover an inner strength and trust that goes far beyond this fear.
You will not be asked to take the giant leaps that you think you need to take - rather, you are only ever taking small steps. If you find yourself paralyzed by non-movement… look around you and see if there is a tiny step you can take forward, without overwhelming yourself with trying to know all the answers to a a future that hasn’t happened yet. Trust yourself that in the moment you will know what to do.
My weekly message on Sunday will have an exercise that will pair perfectly with this AMA question - so make sure to keep your eyes peeled for that one. Keep doing a daily gratitude meditation, if it feels good to you - and if it also feels good to you, start letting yourself feel slightly open to receiving something new. You don’t need to know what it is - just being open is how you need to start.
I will end by saying that about 7 years ago, two years before I started Kula Cloth, I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do. I had no clarity about any of this. I was one of those people who did not believe that this was possible. It wasn’t until I changed my belief and became open to the possibilities, that the answers started to arrive. The more that I focused on gratitude, and the more that I stayed open, and the more that I started to follow my tiny little moments of inspiration and impulse… the more that the clarity started to arrive.
I am sending you all so much love today - I hope this is helpful and hopeful for those of you out there who might be feeling stuck in the ‘what’ and ‘how’. Your ideas and dreams are worthy and brilliant - and you are worthy and brilliant. Trust yourself and listen to your heart - it does indeed know the answers.
If you’d like to submit a question for a future AMA column, you can e-mail them directly to anastasia@kulacloth.com or submit them anonymously using this Google form.
Love,
Anastasia