You’re listening to the Heal With Affirmations Podcast and this is Episode 12: Are We Bound To Society?
Hello and welcome back to the Health With Affirmations Podcast.
I hope you're having a great summer and taking time off for yourself. And hopefully you've been doing some affirmations to see the changes that you want happen in your life.
If you're new to the podcast, I would like to encourage you to also listen to earlier episodes as they build on each other with key concepts that are important for navigating your affirmations journey.
I've also got a free resource for you that you can download right away to get started on this amazing journey.
I want to let you know that I will be taking August off, so the next episode will be in September. But I am available for private sessions and on email.
In today's episode, I want to talk to you about an important topic that many of us think about and experience, and that is the question of how much society impacts our experience.
Can our affirmations free us from the bounds and limitations of the society we live in or any society we might be in?
I appreciate that the extent to which society affects us might be obvious, but from the point of view of doing affirmations, reality can turn out to be a little different. The question has a different dimension that is knowable to those who practice affirmations and who know how far affirmations can go.
When you know firsthand that affirmations can heal physical disease, you can imagine that moving from under the bounds of society is definitely possible.
But this isn't to say that one thing is harder to heal than the other. In fact, when it comes to healing and making changes, the difficulty or ease with which these changes are possible are not comparable from the point of view of spirit.
It seems easier or harder to us, but it is not from the point of view of spirit because the law of attraction, or the sowing and reaping law, operates regardless. So the comparison is essentially void. Every experience of change and healing is unique and has its own sowing and reaping dynamic as it manifests in our world.
So when we feel something is challenging, it is because it affects us deeply and releasing it will probably have far-reaching effects on our life—positive effects, of course, which is all the more reason why you want to do the work to release it.
But back to our topic, for many of us, society can be a major limiting factor in our life, or so it appears. And we can experience these limitations in many different ways, be it through work and economic challenges, relationships, inequality between men and women and other forms of inequality, oppression, and even danger, which many people especially women around the world, experience.
The effects of society on our existence can seem overwhelming because it affects many aspects of our life if not every aspect.
So I want us to look at this area of life from two main angles while staying grounded in affirmations. One angle is to simplify society into the relationships we have and that we can manage in our life. And the other is to look at the big dynamics like politics and economics.
So I invite you to keep an open mind as we explore this important topic and how affirmations can help us free ourselves from the bounds of society.
SIMPLIFYING WHAT SOCIETY MEANS
Let us start by spending a bit of time on what we mean by society, and what it means for you, not the dictionary definition.
What does society represent to you? What does it consist of in your life and in your circumstances? What does it mean to you to be part of this broader environment?
Asking yourself some questions about the society you live in and the role you play in it can be really helpful in making you see a number of things, including your relationships and the quality of your relationships, how you spend your time in your world, how you feel about it, and many other aspects of your life and the quality of your life as you're living it right now.
It will also help you appreciate that you have a lot of say in the way you live your life, and often more than you might realize initially.
For starters, it is very obvious that your society or your social environment includes relationships. Not so much your family and closest relationships, but more distant ones like your network, acquaintances, and people out there.
For the purpose of what we’re covering in this episode, we are not talking about parents, children, and family, and close friends. We are focusing on the ones beyond our inner circle, the ones we associate in the broader community.
As part of your society, you can also include your work life and the broader job or economic market that you are part of.
You can also think of the socio-political environment that you are part of, which can include the government and administrative environment that you operate in as well.
As you examine what you think makes up your society and the bigger environment you are part of, you can get a really interesting picture of your life right now.
What else might you include in your society and your social life?
Once you have a picture of the society you’re in and you’ve immersed your thoughts a little in it, I want to suggest that you simplify this big thing called society as just a bunch of relationships you have.
If you think about it, your environment is essentially made up of relationships and interactions you have with others.
For many of us these relationships can be a big deal, and a lot happens through these relationships.
They can bring us much happiness and support, but they can also be sources of unhappiness and headaches, and indeed it seems to be the case much of the time. And often enough we might feel that we have to have relationships with the people in our communities and be part of this bigger social web.
But what I want to suggest, and the reason why I think it’s a good idea to simplify society into these relationships, is, is it really true that we have to be in these relationships?
And I want to suggest to you that it is not. It is not true that you have to be in every single one of these relationships. It is true for you if you believe you do not have a choice. But you do, and when you do your affirmations, this opens the door to make these realizations.
Appreciating that you have a say in the kinds of relationships you have in your social environment can open up big doors for you. It is an important step toward taking your power back from quote-unquote “society”. And this ties into the question of how much of an impact society has on us.
Do you believe you do not have a choice in whether to have these relationships or not?
Why not sit and think about this a little.
Here are some more questions and exercises to prompt your thinking:
- Can you list out all the people you know? And I mean every single person you know. This is a really interesting exercise to do because it gives you a big picture of your social life and it can bring up interesting things about yourself and your world.
- What kind of relationship do you have with each of these people?
- How do these relationships make you feel?
- How do these relationships affect the rest of your life?
- Are there any relationships that you would like to change?
- Are there any relationships you would like to sever?
- What steps can you take to make these changes happen?
Taking time to reflect on the people in your life can help you better understand your place in society and how you can make positive changes.
You can also categorize these people into the places and environments where you know them from or where you connect with them.
And then ask yourself what kind of relationship you have with them and what it does for you? Do you enjoy this connection or not?
Depending on how social you are, you might have a long list to go through, but I can assure you that this is a very interesting exercise to do because of the 360-degree view you get of your life outside of your inner circle.
And having thought about the quality of these relationships, you might seriously consider downsizing.
Being part of society often brings social clutter. It affects our time and our energy. Both your energy and time are vital for your quality of life.
What we give time and attention to can either make us feel good or bring us down. It is rare that relationships have a completely neutral effect on us.
So, when you take a good look at all the people in your community, with whom you have some kind of involvement, you can get a good sense of where your energy is going and how these people, as well as the places and events you go to to see them, make you feel.
You can then make some decisions about who and what you keep in your life and what you don’t.
The involvements you drop will give you back valuable time that you can use to actually work on your life purpose, which is probably waiting for you to pay attention to it!
Sorting through your relationships can very much be like sorting through your stuff in the sense that you can make sharp decisions like saying yes or no to this or that, and you become in much better control of your time and what makes it into your life.
You decide where you go, whom you see, and what you spend your time on. And so your priorities come into focus.
I encourage you to go back to the recent episode on decluttering so you can start clearing up your space. Soon enough, you will have the sharpness and inner conviction to make bigger decisions about the people in your life.
And remember, we are talking about people and involvements in your broader community, not your inner circle of family and friends. Your inner circle is a different category, and usually much deeper work is needed to deal with or sometimes release these relationships.
So you might ask, what happens exactly when you decide to remove yourself from certain people, places, and involvements in your community and society? Do you just drop a person?
The short answer is yes, but of course, the way you withdraw can be gradual or not, and it all depends on the situation, the people involved, and how you feel about them.
On this note, I want to give you a valuable tip. If you find yourself hiding from someone and not wanting them to see you, you haven't done the work.
If you feel awkward and embarrassed when they show up in front of you with that energy of "where have you been?" then you haven't done the work.
If you feel guilty about not being in touch, then you haven't really released them.
The work is about letting go with awareness and owning up to your decisions.
When you have done the work, you can bump into anyone and be totally at ease with it. You can have a natural conversation and feel good about it all.
I appreciate that you can't become like this overnight, but you can become it, and that’s why you do affirmations, to change your mindset.
Releasing those ties, which is really what decluttering is about, is a practice. You get better at it with time. And the more you practice decluttering, the sharper and more efficient you become. You will get yourself into a flow and be at ease with your decisions.
That's why it's important to start with stuff. Dealing with physical clutter is the easier category. People clutter is more challenging. But if you've decluttered your stuff and become good at it, you will find yourself naturally moving on to decluttering other areas of your life, like people and jobs and other big things in life.
This is because the essence of this work is to take back your power to live more authentically and in alignment with your purpose.
And so it is with our social environment.
When you make these decisions to take your time and power back from people, places, involvements, and events, you make great strides toward your own growth. You will have a stronger sense of self-preservation, an enhanced respect for your time, and a clearer appreciation for what you want to do with your life.
These are big steps, so expect the turnaround to take a bit of time and effort.
Before we move on to talking about politics and the bigger dynamics in our world, I want to mention something that could happen when you withdraw from pockets of your society, and that is that some people might feel envious or resistant.
You don’t have to deal with this at all. You can just observe it and move on.
But, if you're seeing this a lot, then it's likely that you haven't really done the work or shifted to another space. You could still be in transition, so keep doing your affirmations until you shift into the right circumstances, inside and out, and move past envy or any kind of pettiness.
Remember that life is a mirror and you contribute to the kinds of relationships you have in your life. Revisit that episode on Life is a Mirror every step of the way.
I appreciate that some societies can be very challenging to live in. I have a pretty diverse background and I've lived in many different places. But there are very few places and societies where you don't have a say whatsoever about your relationships and involvements.
And if you do find yourself in such an environment, I encourage you to do affirmations. If there is nothing else you can do, do affirmations, and see what happens. You have nothing to lose, and you could be surprised by what you gain.
I will talk more about being in difficult circumstances and share with you a personal experience I have with this in the next part. Let's turn to it now and talk about the bigger dynamics of the world we live in.
POLITICS AND THE BIGGER DYNAMICS
Depending on how much you feel dragged into economic and political issues, this area can take up a big chunk of your attention and your energy, or not.
It is fair to say that recent global events, from covid to other issues that came up and continue to come up, have certainly taken a toll on many of us. These events have been heavy, and many of us became aware of things we weren't aware of before.
I am very well attuned to the political world and its nuances, not only in the West but in other parts of the world as well.
The big question with politics, economics, and the government that we live under is how much they really influence us.
On a basic level, yes, the government, economics, and politics affect us. If the government raises taxes, we will pay more taxes. If the government imposes a lockdown, we will likely be in lockdown. If our country is at war, we will be at risk of a wide range of dangers.
Our environment affects us in obvious ways.
But the issue is not whether it really does or not; we know it does. The issue is whether we are bound to them or not.
If you accept that we always reap what we sow, then we have somehow attracted these events into our experience.
Another good episode to revisit is the one on the law of attraction or the sowing and reaping law, where I talk about the ideas and theory behind how it might all work.
As I said in that episode, many authors who deal in this subject tend to tread carefully around the possibility of us attracting even the biggest disasters in the world. How is that possible when we have zero control over these events?
I appreciate that this can sound unrealistic, if not ridiculous. But my conclusion is not based on how outrageous an idea sounds. These ideas are based on experience and a firsthand observation of the kinds of changes that are possible with affirmations. And I will always encourage you to do your affirmations so you discover firsthand what is possible for you.
They are also based on a rational consideration of the limits of the law of attraction and the fact that it would not be a law if it had exceptions. And if it has exceptions, what would they be? Why these exceptions and not others?
The real purpose of sharing these ideas with you is so that you put them to the test and find out for yourself how far your affirmations can go in helping you create the life you want and avoid situations that you do not want.
Obviously, we did not do affirmations to attract events like war and economic recessions, but some things that we believe can attract them, and on some level we are compatible with them.
Remember that when we do affirmations, we are operating at the level of the law, and are going beyond normal day to day understanding.
Doing the work is about becoming conscious of our beliefs and understanding how we attract experiences and are compatible with them.
And keep in mind that an affirmation attracts its essence. The exact manifestation is unique to you and your circumstances.
This is also why when choosing an affirmation, it is best to keep it general to some extent, avoiding names and numbers and other details. The universe figures out the details of the specific manifest instances, because there are many other factors that come into play and that you do not have control over.
So while we did not affirm to be in a difficult situation - obviously - we might have beliefs whose essence is compatible with this difficult situation.
For example, we do not affirm to be in a difficult economy, but having a consciousness of lack and limitations then we could end up in such an economy or experience the present economy as challenging and find ourselves at the short end of the stick.
We do not ask to be in dangerous situations, but if we believe in being heroic and want to demonstrate our skills in defeating an enemy, then we will attract a dangerous situation where we have an opportunity to show this off. Many men have a hero archetype and as a result their world is filled with dangerous situations.
I will have more to say about archetypes another time. But for the time being, keep in mind that archetypes are just another set of beliefs, and we can change any and all of our beliefs.
These are just a couple of examples. There are many examples of beliefs that could attract challenging circumstances.
So what happens is that on some level you are compatible with the bigger society and environment you are in. And other people who are also compatible with these circumstances find themselves in this environment as well. Together, you create this society or environment.
The gathering of people, or what some call the gathering of souls, in a specific space-time is what we call a vortex.
And it seems like the more people gather in that vortex the greater its pull power and the faster it accelerates. It then attracts more people and people might feel that it is harder to get out of it. This is probably how mass action happens from the point of view of the law.
So what I want to get to, and this is really the most important point I want to make in this episode, is that you are in this vortex because of you. You cannot blame the vortex or other people in the vortex for the fact that you are in it.
You are in this vortex because you have beliefs and ideas that are somehow, on some level, compatible with it and that attract experiences in it.
Becoming aware of the fact that your mind creates your experiences is the first step toward creating change.
If you want to change your experience, you need to release the beliefs and ideas that align with it and you do that by affirming for what you do want.
I appreciate that you might be in total disbelief as you listen to what I'm saying. And I certainly understand that you might have no clue where to begin if you want to figure out what exactly in your consciousness is compatible with these challenging circumstances.
And even more bewildering, how do you dismantle these beliefs and ideas so you find yourself in a different vortex?
This sounds like a lot so let’s break it down.
For starters, you do not "undo" affirmations or beliefs or ideas. Remember how we said you do not switch off the darkness, you just turn on the light?
What you do is affirm for what you do want, and the changes within you and outside of you that need to happen in order to manifest your affirmation, will happen. The beliefs that need to be released in order to manifest your good will also happen.
We affirm for what we want, not for what we do not want.
For example, we do not affirm, “I do not have any negative experiences.” We affirm, “All of my experiences are wonderful.” Or something along those lines.
And another thing is, when you are confronted with highly charged social, political, or economic situations, take a step back and realize that it is not your job to change or save the world.
People who try to change the world fail and cause a train wreck behind them just about every time. Just look at history and look around you. Change always starts with us. And in fact, change only happens when we change.
A big misconception that people have is that they think that other people need to change for them to be happy. They blame their problems on everyone around them.
The poor blaming the rich, men blaming women, women blaming men, grown ups blaming their parents, people blaming the economy, etc etc.
This is false and misguided thinking.
You do not reap what other people sow, and other people do not reap what you sow. You always and only reap what you sow.
And so, what society does is in your experience because you have sowed something that attracts it.
This quote-unquote “what society does” is in fact your experience of what you have sowed, whether you are conscious of it or not.
You need to change your mind if you want your experience of this society to change. When you change the world around you changes.
Change only happens when you change, and your new thought patterns will move you through life in ways you did not know was possible, although you cannot know this ahead of time.
The exact result of your affirmations in the present vortex or circumstances cannot be known when you start doing the work. You affirm for your good, and the essence of your affirmation manifests in a way that is totally unique to you and your situation.
Faith is needed with affirmations, but you don’t need to even worry about that because all you do is repeat a positive statement over and over. Do not complicate the process and do not waste time thinking about how it all works behind the scenes.
Your affirmations can help center you and move your focus away from the world around you and all its problems.
And soon enough, you will find yourself in a different situation. You will either get out of these circumstances altogether or you will experience them in a whole new way.
BEING WILLING TO CHANGE
So knowing that you can change your mind to make deep changes in your life, let us answer our initial question: Are we bound to society?
The short answer is no, we are not.
Not in any way at all?
Nope, not in any way at all. Not with social issues, not with equality issues, not with economic limitations, not with war, not with natural disasters. Not with anything at all. The only limitations are the limitations we believe in, whether we are aware of them or not.
The reason this appears to be an exaggeration and untrue is because of the leap in your consciousness to have the life you want and to be past the present challenges.
From your standpoint right now, it appears impossible to close the gap and live the life that you want. And for many of us when we’re first getting started, we can’t even imagine a different world.
The point is that the source of your present limitations are not outside of you, they are within you. And they manifest as the external obstacles you experience.
And yes, you are not alone in affirming and experiencing these limitations, others are too, which is why you find yourself with them in this vortex.
When you realize that you do not want your present experience, and you want change, it is pretty normal that you feel nervous and uneasy.
What could be happening is that you are becoming subconsciously aware that you will need to change, and that this means letting go of some things, people, and places, and even some aspects of your identity - or what you perceive as your identity.
This can cause us to feel anxious and usually we do not know how to go about making these leaps in consciousness and in life.
Although this can be discouraging, I think there is something good about such realizations, because It's not about waving a magic wand and finding yourself in this wonderful new place without you being part of the process of change.
I think that's partly why people believe in god and pray and hope for divine intervention. It's like they don't want to do the change. They want the change to be done for them, they want it to happen to them, they want to be lifted out of the situation and poof! be in a new one. A miracle has happened.
But the affirmations work is not magical work. It is real work. And healings and miracles do happen, but not in the way that superstitious thinking makes us imagine. Your willingness to change and your awareness are necessary ingredients in making the healings and the miracles happen.
The willingness to change is the willingness to grow up. No genie in a lamp to snap his fingers and make things happen for you. You make change happen for you, and affirmations are one of the easiest ways to manifest change.
The truth is that many feel stuck with this and do not truly want to take charge. They want to be taken care of.
That is totally fine but realize that when you outsource taking care of you, you will fit into other people's plans, not your own.
It is up to you.
Doing affirmations is about taking responsibility for yourself and your life. That's why early on in this podcast I did an episode on the Willingness To Change. Because it is entirely in your hands and no one can be willing to change instead of you. The universe is just there waiting for you to express what you want. Until then, you will bounce around with the currents of the day.
The changes that you make when it comes to the bigger social environment can be big ones, even though the same principles apply to any context.
So you might feel overwhelmed by the prospects of making changes that could remove you from a world that you have been deeply part of. But remember that all you need to do is repeat your affirmations and the transition will happen in a way that is perfect for you.
And you cannot know how exactly your affirmations will manifest for you. You might not be removed from the world you’re in, but your experience will definitely become different once your affirmations take root.
Affirmations often take time because they go deep. Rewiring your mind and your life cannot happen overnight. As we've said many times, these are not shallow changes. They are real. And so you can expect that as the process uproots the old, you will get into the weeds.
And remember that you are not changing the world. You are changing your world.
What appears to be external changes in society are in fact changes that all these individuals in that vortex make together.
You can decide what you are part of. You can make much bigger changes in your life than you ever thought possible, if only you take the first step to affirm what you want.
GETTING OUT OF DANGER
I want to close this episode by sharing with you briefly a personal and recent experience with getting out of a precarious situation.
Being an expat my whole life, and not having a country or a quote-unquote “back home” base in my life, I decided to move to a new place to live and settle ‘for good’ as they say. That was some years ago.
Unfortunately, that place turned out to be pretty problematic, if not an outright disaster. And within a few years it became clear to me that I cannot make a life or build a future there.
The situation kept deteriorating in every way. Things were getting expensive, violence and degeneracy became more and more prevalent and visible, and the economy and the politics were not helping at all. It shouldn't be surprising that in such a place my social life wasn't great either.
I didn't know what to do as I don't have ties to anywhere in the world that I could go back to. I couldn't make any changes because I had no clue what they would be. It was like I was completely starting from scratch.
I started to affirm often for matters to fall into place. And I kept chugging along with everything in my life as normal, whatever normal was by then.
At some point, I was due to travel with family to take care of some things abroad. But as life should have it a family member got into a small accident and our trip had to be postponed until they were feeling better.
This pushed us to travel in February 2020. By then, Covid had started with the initial few cases. And by the time we arrived at our final destination with a couple of stops in between, the world was totally locked down.
A few months after that, it became clear that going back to that place was not going to happen. Things were getting worse by the day and there was no end in sight.
It became clear that I had escaped a dangerously precarious situation, one that would have put me at risk in just about every area of my life, from health to financial security. It is as though my affirmations got life to purge me out of that place at the most opportune time possible.
From there, I focused more on my business, which you might know is Lenormand Reader, and then I began traveling because where I was had limitations that prevented me from operating as effectively as I needed to for my work.
And quite amazingly I ended up traveling more during the lockdowns than I ever did before.
I am still amazed at how my affirmations produced a situation that is the exact opposite of what an entire planet was dealing with.
It is at that point that I really felt I needed to share my affirmations practice with you. The power of this practice cannot be kept a secret.
Today I continue to travel around visiting amazing places while working on Lenormand Reader, which I am very glad I had the wisdom to start back then.
And I keep a tab on that place and continue to shake my head at what is happening. I am often in disbelief and how things continue to deteriorate there by the day.
I don't really know where I will lay my head down to die when time comes, assuming I can plan for it, but I do not foresee myself going back there. I will need to find a new home, or create one. I will choose an appropriate affirmation when I feel it is time.
My life has been anything but normal, but I deeply appreciate how special it is, and I feel blessed to be living almost entirely on my own terms. Gratitude affirmations are a staple in my practice.
I can promise you that your affirmations can move you through life in ways you might have not thought possible.
Before we close, I want to share with you the affirmation that I used and repeated so many times when I felt out of options:
The perfect scenario now comes to pass and I am safe and free.
I love this affirmation especially since I now associate it with that life changing transition that I made to save me from what would have been an impossible situation.
It is now one of my go-to affirmations for when I feel stuck and don’t know what to ask for. It is open-ended and yet affirms so much good.
I also affirm my trust for life. I say,
I trust Life.
Open your arms wide and say, I trust Life.
Okay friend, let us close this episode. And remember that your life is an amazing adventure. Remember this everyday.