What's Going on with You?

As the world self-destructs around us, life has a way of getting our attention. How we deal with it makes all the difference.

The Apocalypse is upon us. It’s a time of changes, where disruptions of the status quo abound. Old systems and structures are crumbling. New ones are rising. But nowhere is the impact felt more than in the affairs of our individual lives.

For most of us, that’s where the real action is.

Life is hard. Or it least, it can be for those who aren’t among the chosen elite who garner all the money and power.

The rest of us have to work for it, catching as catch can to build lives for ourselves and our families, and if we have anything left, to contribute to our communities, churches, and local organizations.

Service to Others

For a long while I encouraged people to find their calling and make a difference in their world. For many it meant starting missions to bring messages and comfort to the masses. For others it meant serving the poor, or helping the environment, or following whatever other urge they had to share their energies and gifts to benefit others.

The path of service-to-others (or self) is, after all, an essential choice each soul has to one day make, according to Ra and the Law of One. How that manifests, though, is a deeply personal experience depending on the needs of our souls. The key of course is to act upon the urges of the inner voice, not serving for service sake.

One problem on this path of service became clear. Serving others can take time, energy and attention that does not necessarily serve the needs of self or family.

The solution was both easy and hard. The easy part was simply deciding to refocus on my personal situation, serving my smaller circle of family first. Unfortunately, the inner call to serve was so great that I couldn’t escape its clutches to attend to those needs. As for my service, its monetization seemed beyond reach.

Neglecting one’s needs and desires and redirecting those efforts to serve others can be costly. My business crashed. My family struggled. My health soon followed, deciding the issue of who to serve for me. I had to fight just to survive and pick up whatever pieces of a life gone by that I could.

Sometimes just being alive has to be enough.

Why am I telling you this? You’ve got your own problems, your own unmet desires, your own needs to attend to. And perhaps even those of your family as well.

Perhaps the biggest is one you aren’t even aware of — the need to become more. It’s marked by expanding awareness of greater perspectives and possibilities. And from there, using that consciousness to bring out your best in the choices of your life.

After all, we can’t do much more than choose our path and what we’ll do in the moment. Beyond that it’s really not up to us. We take the step before us, then experience and deal with what’s served up.

Right now, the outer world is filled with riots and protests, wars and pestilence, disruption and oppression. And we’re all being fed a heaping helping of them by our governments and their mouthpiece media to keep us in fear and lack as they struggle to retain control over our minds and affairs.

What matters most, though, has little to do with those situations, as difficult as they may be. At least, unless you’re: 1) caught up in them in one way or another; or 2) answering that inner call to somehow get involved. As you can see, I’m a big believer in letting the inner self (the soul?) make those calls for us.

Perfecting the Art of Service

If you’re like most of us, stuff happens. And when it does, ignoring it is impossible. Your focus and efforts must shift from whatever you were doing to address the needs of the moment. When they arise, they’re hard to ignore, particularly when a loved one is involved.

Rather than being able to concentrate on your own goals, job or family, their needs take precedent. You give what you can and are willing to give. Often it’s not enough,. They need more, setting off a wide range of mental, emotional and relationship issues that complicate the situation and escalate tensions.

Too often I’ve seen people get sucked into missions or even volunteer service that will take everything they’ve got to give and then some. While it can create experiences highly valued by your soul, generally it is better to hold something back when you can, if simply for your own survival.

Service is great for the world, but to avoid being sucked dry, you’ll need to balance that service of others with serving yourself. That includes when serving your God, family or other commitments, too. Because you need to be served. Otherwise, you’ll eventually be drained dry. There’s only so much one person can give before there’s nothing left to give, and often nothing left for oneself, either. (Caveat: We often find reservoirs of strength and other attributes inside when we need them most.)

Such service isn’t only about helping the world. The daily demands of life can be thrust upon us, too, out of necessity when there’s no one left to do the job. Like caring for an elderly parent or relative, or dealing with the illness of a family member and having your (and their) life turned upside down in the process.

All I can say is do your best and give what you can when the inspiration strikes. But you’re already doing that. And doing it well, I’m sure.

Ain’t No Cure for the Summertime Blues

We’re predicted to be heading into a tumultuous summer as the Apocalypse continues to ramp up. Unless dragged in by circumstance, I recommend that you not engage in their games. Remain detached and observe from afar. Unless that’s your mission, don’t get caught up in results. For you are not just a participant in the turmoil; you are also witness to the transformation it brings and the suffering so many must endure to get there.

But the most important transformation that the Apocalypse will bring has little to do with the cultural, economic and political affairs of any nation or even the world as a whole. Instead, IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU and the expansion of consciousness it brings as you better know and grow yourself into what you are going to become.

And that comes not by hours of meditation or listening to channels or readers. That comes from the very experiences your life is bringing you right here and right now, and how you meet them to reflect what you know yourself to be inside. Or don’t, for it is in our “failures” that we get to see our distortions up close and personal.

So focus on your own life. Try to find peace within it, even with the parts of it that aren’t to your liking or the unmet desires that drive you on.

Don’t try to change your world. Change yourself instead.

Changing yourself is great. But in reality, what we really came for is what is happening here and now. And that’s the process of growing ourselves as we go through life.

Life will change you. So let it. Don’t fight it. Go with the flow, and know that what you were before may not be what you are now, nor what you may be in the future if one is granted you.

How do you meet its tests? By accepting that the distortions that make you less than you want to be are there for a reason. So find it. Look at them. Consider their causes. Address them however you want.

But whatever your course, try to bring more peace, love and light into your life.

Make this a summer of your expansion. Bring some different energy, different perspectives and different choices to your affairs.

Like my mom used to say, “Things have a way of working out.” So let the problems of the world (and others) play out as they must. Play your role, if you have one. Otherwise, focus on your situation. Give it your best. Play the hand life deals you.

But when doing so, know that you are special. You are an individualized aspect of the One Infinite Creator that came into this world to do your thing, to see it through your eyes, and to experience itself in the life you’re living now. Know that everything is perfect in its own way, just as you are.

Enjoy your summer. We’ll talk again somewhere down the road.

~ John