Today was a weird day.

Just me?

Image: Lummi - Mariana Pedroza

Lately I have found myself listening to Joe Dispenza. His videos kept popping up even though I was there searching for “how to” videos for my business. The algorithm knows I am interested in Joe, but it’s been sometime since it felt like he was inviting me to his table.

Last night I watched two different episodes, the most recent and one a few years old of Oprah speaking with Eckart Tolle regarding his book “A New Earth.” Oprah, for the first time chose to repeat a book for her book club, and she gathered people and hosted a live discussion as part of her new podcast.

In 2008, Oprah and Eckart lead ten weekly webinars reading and discussing his book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose, with an international audience. Remember Skype? Yep. Back in that day.

I remember this and it wasn’t unlike Ms. Winfrey to be offering us ways to wake up, to grow, and to learn. She has been a significant wayshower of our time, bringing to the world innumerable insights, thought leaders, spiritual teachers, and on and on. I could go on and on about her, but this post isn’t about Oprah.

Joe and Eckart are spiritual teachers of our time. Although they are speaking about it in different ways, their offering isn’t too far off from the other.

Joe, through his repetitive spoken word is educating us with science and quantum physics how our thoughts have created our reality. His talks are prolific and they are all encouraging and attempting to offer an alternative path, to take a different road. The one less travelled, for most us.

Eckart is helping us become aware of ourselves as consciousness. He teaches us that we are not our thoughts. Rather we are the awareness of our thoughts. When we are in the awareness, a neutral presence observing the what is ness of right now, we are consciousness.

Can you imagine?

Both gentlemen also help us to understand better what the ego is and how it functions - mostly keeping us in a state of suffering.

For clarity, suffering is essentially rejecting whatever is happening. Not the physical rejection and any action we take to reject whatever is happening - although that can create more suffering. The initial suffering is inspired by the thoughts that are rejecting whatever is happening. The suffering in essence begins and ends in the mind.

This brings me to today.

For the past few years, on MLK Day, I spend the day going inward. I offer it as an opportunity to meditate, read, and reconnect with my spiritual studies. It is my way of honoring Dr. King by intentionally investing in my heart, reconnecting to my values, and my understanding of the purpose of my life.

I did that for several hours this morning. No devices. Just reading, meditating, visualizing, and praying.

Then around 11am, I got a phone call and there began the reality check of it also being inauguration day. I caught a glimpse of a live youtube when the richest man in the world, a business man, not a public servant, was addressing the world on behalf of the new POTUS. I couldn’t. So I didn’t.

From that point on a subtle feeling of anxiety started to build.

I am familiar with anxiety. It is a way my mind processes fear, worry, judgment…you know all the things that are rejecting whatever is happening, i.e., the next four years.

I entered the suffering state.

I am still there. If I am being honest. And I am honest. Ask my friends.

We are approaching some interesting times, to put it mildly. This new administration and all that it represents and speaks of threatens many people, groups of people. This creates dis-ease inside of me.

Yet, I know, it is my thoughts about this that is creating the dis-ease. I have choice points here and there are many ahead.

One of the most powerful ways I learned about this choice of ours, - and how it is the most consequential piece of the quality of our living was through the writings of Dr. Victor Frankl, in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning.

Dr. Frankl, a renowned psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, shared profound insights from his experiences in Nazi concentration camps, illuminating the resilience of the human spirit. He taught that the search for meaning is our most powerful driving force, and the profound impact our choices make—especially in how we respond to life’s greatest challenges.

He said,

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Dr. Frankl’s work was significant in its teaching that we all have the freedom to choose our response to anything and everything that is happening near and to us. It’s a powerful idea and personally I have tested it many times. It’s not an easy thing to do. Because it is not a skill or idea we are actually taught when we are growing up through adolescents.

Most of us grow up thinking people and things happening outside of us are “making” us feel a certain way, when that is simply not true. We are the master of our mind. Just many of us are not aware, skilled, and practiced at mastering consciously.

It’s not a coincidence that Joe Dispenza and Eckhart Tolle are being presented to me. I don’t believe in coincidences at all. I practice paying attention to the help being offered to me all the time. Oprah, for example, has been a significant “helper” on my journey of life. I have learned and experienced so many different things from and through her platform.

I know I am being reminded of the leadership I have over my mind and what and where I allow my thoughts to go.

I know that my feelings about the next four years are related to so many internal things - how I relate to myself as a human, and how I have learned and been taught to relate to others and the world. All those patterns of fear, control, codependency, over-responsibilty; they are all ego constructs, that I also know are not my truth.

First and foremost, I know I am a Soul having a human experience. I know I came here with nothing and I will leave here with nothing. That doesn’t mean I don’t care about anything or have human thoughts, wants, and needs. What it does mean is that I know these next four years do not define me or control me or my life.

However, I do know that how I think about it will have a big impact on me and I get to decide what and where I place my energy and thoughts. This will likely be a challenge as we move ahead, and I also see it as a powerful way to strengthen the muscle of becoming more clear, aligned, attuned, and taking action with my life’s purpose, my body of work.

Dr. King was significant for many things, his transformative and unifying leadership, his purpose driven and courageous activism, his charismatic and inspirational oration, to name a few. What he represents to me mostly is that he did not sit idle.

He was not an observer, follower, or lurker. He led. He used the gift of his life. He honored the message coming through him and he never relented.

This is the guidebook I am taking my cues from.

Using our life fully and completely is what is available to all of us.

We get to choose.

Rather than be swallowed by my own judgments of what’s happening. I choose to clear my mind, BE in the present and focus on what plan God has for my life.

Here are some reflective journal prompts to support your inner awareness, healing, and choosing where you place your energy.

1. What specific emotions am I feeling about the next four years? What do these feelings reveal about my deeper fears or desires?

2. How can I honor my concerns while shifting my focus to what is within my control?

3. When I think about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s life and legacy, how does that inspire me to take responsibility for my own work and calling?

4. What is the bigger picture that I sense God is unfolding in my life right now? How can I trust that plan more deeply?

5. What does it mean for me to "take dominion" over my thoughts today? How can I intentionally align my thoughts with my faith and higher purpose?

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