Flexibility

The Ability to Adjust and Adapt

You may feel stuck and reluctant to move forwards if you haven’t explored all the avenues and solutions available to you. Perhaps you feel unable to look beyond the problem, or your mind is locked in a pattern of fear or hopelessness. Either way, your beautiful loyalty is so devoted to a specific outcome with a person or situation that you can’t see another way forward. Be loyal to your soul truth. Flex your empowerment muscles. Return to your center-a neutral, calm place-to free your vision so other ways can come into focus. The yīnyáng symbol is a reminder that life is filled with lights and darks-there is light within the darkness and dark with the light. However, your filters, beliefs and ideas control your experience. Your mind and ego use them to keep you safe, like an overprotective carer might limit the fullness of life to shield a child from pain. When you explore and experience new ways, you will come to know how much you are truly capable of.

Shadow Mastery Class: Go with the Flow

Meditation

Place your hand on the card. Gently close your eyes. Sense your body and concentrate on your breathing. Follow your breath inward. Hold for five seconds and relax. Breathe out and release all tension. Focus on the middle of your chest.

In front of you, a golden staircase descends into the earth. Walk down the ten healing steps to a magical, amethyst crystal cave. As you do so, feel your mind and body soften. Know that nothing has gone wrong, and feel safe to see, experience and approach all that is before you, your past, present and future, in different ways. Step into the amethyst cave and greet your shadow. In front of you is a small round door with “Mind Your Head” written on it. The door opens, and you find you can only enter it by crouching. It is tight, but you manage to shimmy through the door.

You are standing on the bank of a fast-flowing river. A giant yīnyáng symbol hangs in the sky, like a sun radiating all options, good and bad, the good in the bad and the bad in the good. The river represents the flow of your life as it moves and changes. You can choose to stay on the bank. However, as you are here, you can also choose to make the leap and jump in. It will be worth it to join and co-create with life. It doesn’t matter where or when you enter the river of life. The difference comes in deciding to leap in to become a more active participant in your life, ready to work with the currents.

When you are ready to make that leap, say, “I am what I am. I am my truth. I am who I am, and what I seek is seeking me.”

Take a deep breath and dive. Relax and allow yourself to be swept along. You may be tossed and tumbled in the fast-moving currents, but you are safe. Keep breathing, and as you refuse to cling to the old, the river, still moving fast, embraces you with a floating softness. Drift upon your river of life, allowing images, feelings and symbols to come to you. Flow here for as long as you like-at least thirty seconds.

The river winds and weaves until it returns you to the small round door. You gently float into the amethyst cave. Notice the door is now called “Unguard Your Heart.” Walk to the golden staircase. As you ascend, feel your mind and heart reconciling to the possibilities of life. You are united and serene, fully accepting yourself and others. Thank your shadow for helping you flow with reality, even when you didn’t want to. At the top of the stairs, take two deep breaths in and out, open your eyes and go with the flow.

Inspired Insights, Reflections and Actions

Approach a situation like a tree in the wind, ready to bend and bounce back tall and true. With the flexibility and knowing you cannot break, you will want to explore new directions. A flexible mind adapts to changing circumstances. Even when things don’t work out precisely as you desire, you will see opportunities in new situations. Find and focus on joy in your environment. When you can’t find happiness, coast along in neutral until something triggers joy.

Research fixed and growth mindsets. A fixed mindset assumes intelligence and talents are relatively static and can’t be improved. A growth mindset understands that intelligence and skills can be developed and enhanced. You are constantly learning, growing in yourself and finding wonderful ways to respond to your world.

Journal Work

To refresh your experience of life, go into the world with curious eyes. The Buddhists call this “beginner’s mind.” To engage with this approach, try something for the first time, begin something anew or do the same old thing in a completely new way. Look around you and gaze at an object. Allow the name of the thing to fall away. If you didn’t know the object’s name or what it is used for, how would you explain the object? Look at its shape, form, color and texture without judgement or assumptions. When you do this long enough, the object will become strange and unfamiliar, like when you ay a word over and over until it loses its meaning. You will then experience a curious mind that asks, “What is that?” Curiosity opens the beginner’s mind. Write or draw about what you just experienced.