Life is truly magical.
Merriam Webster defines magic as an extraordinary power or influence seemingly from a supernatural source.
Supernatural (n): of or relating to an order of existence beyond the visible observable universe.
If life is magical, sourced from an extraordinary power beyond the visible, how do create from this place of magic?
We’ve all had the experience at some level of watching life unfold in a series of occurrences that could not have possibly been orchestrated by us consciously, yet seemed to be lining up for our highest good. As if by magic!
These may seem few and far between. Yet I’ve noticed with each of my clients they indeed know they have experienced this magic, and they want more.
It FEELS SO GOOD when we can experience the deep inner knowing that Universe is lining up for us! It’s so fun and joyful to discover a new sign or clue (like three people talking about an island in Hawaii you’ve never been to in one week) that you know is clearly pointing the way for you.
What if you could experience this joy on the regular? Even more often than you do today? There are two reasons we don’t already:
- It’s always happening – we just aren’t noticing it because we’re too busy to catch the experience.
- We believe this magic always has to involve “good things” happening.
If we weren’t too busy to see the signals, and if we were open to the idea that these magical signals could look like things that are ‘messy’ or not working, we would be a flood with magic all the time.
Sometimes the “Bad” is the Magical
When we operate at high levels of energy, we transcend right and wrong or good or bad. Everything just ‘is’ without a meaning assigned to it.
We may know this intellectually, yet when the rubber meets the road it can be easy to forget this knowing. Like when someone dies, we lose a job, or a plan ‘fails.’ It feels that surely this isn’t what life looks like when it’s magical!
Failing at my first marriage was the greatest gift ever. It looked pretty darn messy at the time. From another perspective, I could see that it was pure magic. The way I called in the exact right people and circumstances to collaborate on an experience for my own growth… wow! A divine orchestra!
The Universe gave me an exact recreation of a past experience from my history and ancestry and gave me the opportunity to respond to it differently, healing all manner of old wounds in the process.
My desire to look good and do life right was threatened in a big way. But my soul was grateful for the profound mirror that helped me to claim my own growth.
How often do we forget to look for the magical in our ‘bad’ experiences? And how often do others in our life want to paint us the victim when we know we are the Phoenix?
Yet from the right perspective, the magic is unmistakable! Can you see the magic in both good and bad experiences that unfold FOR you?
The Space Between
Not only do we miss the magic because it’s not packaged the way we like, we miss it because we just plain miss it. We’ve gotten too busy striving for the next thing to allow space for that magic.
Magic requires a pause, in time, in which we release all of our attachment to moving life forward in the old way and allow ourselves to simply stop and be with what is with no agenda.
In the Anatomy of a Transformation that I teach to my retreat leaders, this is the step of Surrender.
It’s only in the place of surrender that we become open to seeing and receiving the truth that we couldn’t previously see. Once we see and validate that new truth, we naturally know what to do. Our intuition comes alive with possibility. We create our own magic.
But before this time, we are an energetic mismatch for that truth.
Or said another way, the energy we’re in, in all of our busyness to move to the next thing, to avoid being still for fear of losing out on something, we cannot actually receive our truth.
And we do this because of our fear of the space between.
There is a space between the time we recognize what we absolutely must release and no longer be available for in our life, and the time the new direction appears.
Any attempt to bypass this space will simply wind up with us recreating another version of the same circumstance that we will eventually need a pause from.
We must be willing to let go of the sight of land in order to discover the distant shore. Our ego becomes very afraid at this prospect.
Our ego likes to stay safe and remain in control and avoid being wrong at all costs. Which is why it can be so hard to create something new. We want to hold onto the old until the net appears, and it is energetically impossible.
The new thing resides at a whole different frequency. In the old you cannot see the new.
Creating the Active Pause
It makes total sense that letting go of the old energy without the new thing feeling clear would trigger all sorts of internal fear. Like the child who cries when they hurt themselves because they don’t know that the pain is going to stop, we are afraid to shake up our life when we don’t know how and when it is going to be put back together.
So we wait for magic without creating space for magic.
For example, if I am a business owner who has a pattern of working very “hard” to create success because that is how I learned that success is created, and I become aware that this old pattern is completely not working any longer, e.g.:
- I am experiencing physical symptoms as a result of ongoing stress and lack of self-care.
- I am resenting my clients because they get the best of me and there is nothing left for myself.
- I am systematically undercharging because that helps perpetuate the busy pattern – have to make more sales today.
- Even when I have a big win, I don’t let myself celebrate and enjoy it, so there’s no juice in winning.
- Etc., etc.
And I begin to recognize this absolutely must end. Yet, because I am too busy to pause and reflect and create an alternative, I don’t know what I am trading all this in for. And that seems risky. So I continue the pattern of overworking, while I add in some other thing to do like “build a new business” or “attract different clients.”
How likely is it that this new thing will work? It won’t. It’s steeped in the old energy so it’s misaligned.
Yet to this specific person (and insert your version of this here), the idea of NOT being busy is beyond terrifying! Who will I be without that? We want to know, yet putting in place of stopping something without knowing how long it will be until you can start the new thing… phew, can you feel your pulse quicken at the thought?
The solution to this fear is an Active Pause.
What is an Active Pause?
An Active Pause has a container built into the pause. We use our conscious mind to create a container for this pause that is (or feels) finite. This allows our ego to stop freaking out long enough for us to actively pause. It’s an Active Pause because we have put it into place as an action plan and we’re requesting the magic to show up in that space.
I have a client who is leaving her job of 11 years to follow her dream. The pattern would be to jump right back into another job and maintain the same identity of giving to others and keeping busy. (I almost did this too when I left corporate). Doing that would be so detrimental to her well being! So we created an active pause of a finite space of NO AGENDA – literally freedom to accomplish nothing. This will allow her to reset her system and integrate a new energy.
To assuage her ego mind, she set up a schedule for her first day “back” so that she’s creating a finite container for her pause. Knowing this lets her feel safe to just be. In that active pause, she’s embracing the space between and actually setting up a space for her to hear her own magic.
A Retreat is an Active Pause
A well-run retreat creates an Active Pause – a space for you to release the old way and hear the voice of the new way in a safe container that has a finite timing. We know at the end of the retreat we will get to choose how much of the new truth we heard that we actually want to embrace and implement. This helps our ego mind to relax and surrender, knowing we can pick our control back up at the door.
When we experience the new way of being at the retreat and we don’t die, we now have a new faith that we can go BE this out in the world, often allowing us to shorten the time we spend in the dark or unknown.
Of course, there’s no need to be in a rush, divine timing is always perfect, and often we realize that this relaxed pause is exactly what we want to carry forward into life. Yet it’s such a sigh of relief to know you can feel empowered in your transformation at any time by stepping into the active pause of the retreat, don’t you think?
(Thus my passion for training badass retreat leaders and loving space holders).
Speaking of retreat – join me in Mexico? It’s a powerful 5-night Active Pause experience, expertly crafted to lovingly gather all the juice from your active pause. That which must be released, and that which has been wanting to show up in your life.
Learn more and apply here. There are just a few spots available so don’t delay!