What if 2023 doesn’t get any better? I was sitting in my office feeling guilty about being “late” with the Pick-A-Card reading for January (contemplating skipping it all together, in a very defeatist sort of way) and that question popped into my head. What if 2023 rolls just like 2022, 2021, 2020–what am I going to do?
And the answer that popped into my head was, “Well, you’re just going to meet yourself where you are at.” and I was like, oh. Ok. So what does meeting myself where I am at really mean? Because in past years it would be to give up what I had planned and just not do it at all, but the feeling that came with the answer of “meeting myself where I’m at” was not one of giving up. It was one of adjusting my expectations and demands of myself AND still do some form of what I had planned– releasing my expectations of what I thought it was supposed to be andjust to do it as is, where I’m at.
This made me chuckle because release was my word for 2022 and before that I would never have released anything I had planned, but now I know better. Look! I learned something LOL yay word of the year!
So spirit brought me back around to my original question. What would happen–I mean really happen if 2023 was the same as 2022? What if no matter what I did, things were still challenging and out of my control? And that became the answer to January’s P-A-C which, for this month at least, will be January’s Spirit Guidance on 2023 for the collective.
This isn’t a predictive channeling–I’m not going to tell you what the energy is for the year or what will happen. I’m posing the question to Spirit and seeing what their response is. Curious as to what they will say to the question, “What if nothing changes this year? Then what?” So, here we go….
First, we have to remember that “years” are a construct that we’ve created. Nothing really happens from the 31st to the 1st except that the numbers change. That’s it. We’ve given those numbers meaning and energy and power, but they don’t inherently have it–and apparently the “new year” is a relatively new construct in the grand scheme of things. Shifts in energy were traditionally celebrated throughout the year–there was never this pressure to make it all happen at the same time. SO we need to let go of this idea that the new year defines who we are and how we are doing.
They’re posing a question–they love to do this to me, no answer just another question–what if the new year was just another day? What if it was just another Sunday and we adjusted our expectations accordingly? What if we didn’t expect things to suddenly transform but believed them to just continue the slow build they’ve been on? Would we feel more successful? Would we be less critical? Less stressed? Less judgemental?
I mean these are great questions worth pondering–I’ll have to come back to them myself. I’m guessing that it would definitely give us more room to breathe. So they’re first bit of advice is to just change our perspective of 2023 and how we move into it. Ha! I’m seeing the Hanged Man from the tarot–gotta love it when they bring the cards with them. Ok, got it. The hanged man definitely has a shift of perspective from being dangled upside down–and honestly it can’t be terribly comfortable, but they don’t look in pain and it sort of seems they’ve put themselves in that position….which leads me to think that a shift in perspective is our choice. We can do it or not do it and it most likely will feel weird, but it will pay off in the long run. Got it. Ok.
Next they want us to know, that we’ve been looking at it all wrong–the 2020-2022 years. It’s not about being so challenging that we break. That’s not the intent. It’s about being broken open, so we can become more expansive and see more of what is really going on. It’s like a total shift of reality. And they want to be clear, the message “you did it to yourselves” comes through. So like, I get that. A lot of what is in the collective right now–what’s happening is because of our past choices and decisions, actions and non-actions, and the energy finally coalesced into what we have today. Basically the message of “you made your bed now you have to sleep it in.” Awesome. But I get that. Now remember they’re speaking of the collective–not of our personal struggles, but they promise we will get to that. Back to the collective. Ok, we made the bed and now we are sleeping in it. What does this mean? It means that if we want the future bed to be more comfortable we need to make it different in the present. Right now in 2023. This means we’re going to have to reflect hard about what’s happening and decide individually about how we’re going to change it.
2023 is the year to be an active part of the collective and make a difference.
Ugh. That sounds like a lot of work–But i totally get it. They say it isn’t about us as individuals trying to change all the things. It’s about selecting one area for a season and educating ourselves about what is really happening in that area, and then deciding how we want to contribute to the collective effort to evolve that area. How will you help remake the bed? So it may mean focusing on the environment or DEI or mental health for your community—whatever pulls you at a soul level to help. They’re pausing me. They’re saying that it’s not about what you feel you “ should do”--it’s about really tapping into what that soul calling is for yourself. What calls to your heart? What pulls you in in a good way? That’s where you need to start. And I want to draw your attention back to this idea of educating yourself first–and they aren’t talking about classes, they’re talking about research and observation. You cannot help something evolve, if you do not understand what’s happening–don’t think you can jump it and action vomit all over the place (thats me not them lol). You have to have perspective first to know how you can help–and it comes through research and observation. It’s about listening to the experts that already exist in that field and seeing the work they’ve put in and then asking yourself, “How can I continue to support that work? How can I help give momentum to what is already in motion?” I hope that makes sense.
What about our personal struggles and challenges that have been happening? I know I want to know about that…they’re saying that the key there is that it’s just happening. It’s not happening to us–it just is. (I’ve heard this before in other intense situations, as well.) So the key then is to understand and get clarity not on the why of it but on how we choose to meet it. How will we respond to what’s going on around us–especially when we feel we don’t have control over it? 2023 will call on us to slow down and to become more aware.
So–Something happens. It feels like it’s happening to us and we have no control over it. The next step is to pause and take a deep breath. They’re saying we often hold our breath when we are under duress. Take a breath and give yourself space to just be. Don’t rush into trying to change or fix anything. Just let it be for however long it needs to be. The next step is to figure out what you can control about this situation and what you can’t.
For me this would show up as a list–things I can control, things I can’t. I'm a visual learner so I have to write things down, but you do you.
Based on what you find you can approach this in many different ways. One is look at the things you can control and shift what you can. Also, looking at the things you can’t control and shifting your perspective on that. For example, you can’t control someone else’s anger, but you can control how you respond–walk away, put up boundaries around it, control your emotional response back, have a conversation about it etc. I can’t control the fact my husband has brain cancer, but I can control my response to it. I can choose to give up, fall into a pit of emotions and become non-functioning OR I can meet one day at a time, relish in the amazing friends and support I have, be grateful for our time together and continue to plan for future joy with hope and an openness to possibility. This is what they’re talking about. It doesn’t mean it isn’t going to totally suck at times. It doesn’t mean you bypass what you feel. It means you give yourself a moment and then decide how you want to move forward from a point that you can’t change.
I feel like this needs more unpacking, but also that I need to let it sit as is. So, maybe we will come back to that at some point. Anyway, it appears that perspective is the key for 2023 and also, discernment–being discerning with how we show up in the collective and in our pwn personal journeys.
One last spirit message. You are loved. At the end of the day, when it’s all said and down no matter how we navigate this years or the years past or forward, when we cross over into a different stage of being one thing will remain true through it all–that we are loved. Unconditionally. No matter how “successful” we are in this life time we are still loved.
So let go of the need to make it all happen and embrace the idea of flowing into a loving state of awareness and creating change from there. Happy new year. May your days be filled with blessings, love, and support.