I’m getting over a cold and every day my head is getting a little more clear. I’ve also been releasing old programming during this Mercury retrograde and feeling layers of emotional weight drop.  I am feeling free and clear. The thing about feeling free and clear is that it’s easy when you’re clear to review the past objectively and learn from it. I’d been living in my small contained world, happily isolated for many years.  I  attracted a situation which tested my ability to maintain composure under pressure. It showed me who I am when I feel pushed to the limit and I learned a lot by studying my emotions and reactions. At the time, I’d had several clients going through the same scenario in their life and I’d asked  “how does someone get in a situation like *X* and not realize it? Why is it such a surprise upon realization?” The Universe answered for me in a way that threw me into their scenario and let me learn from it firsthand. Ah, I see. I now have greater compassion and understanding that I could not have book-learned. Instant upgrade!

But an upgrade doesn’t always feel like an upgrade at first. It feels awkward because it’s not the practiced vibration. You’re doing a different sequence of key strokes, different body motions, forming different mental patterns. Until you settle into the new routine,  it doesn’t feel like an upgrade.  Then one day you sit down at the computer and it all starts to flow. Everything is easier, everything moves faster, it becomes fun to be more productive. It no longer feels like work.

It’s my nightly habit to be outside walking or bike riding under the stars.  I don’t go far, I keep to my little corner of the block.  Earlier this year it became uncomfortable to travel my regular route. It no longer felt safe. I changed my route to avoid walking past a place of discord, but that had me walking past many houses, under streetlights and awakening barking dogs in the wee hours.  I’d often opt instead to walk my own grounds.

But I missed my old route.  I missed being free to walk or ride past a grumpy neighbor’s house without a thought about it. I’d alternately kick myself for allowing my thoughts to trap me this way. I’d tell anyone else to go about their business and don’t give a thought to what anyone else thinks about it.  But now there were new routines in that household and someone may not take kindly to me traipsing up and down in front of their home all night, even though I’ve done it for 30 years.

I allowed my own thoughts to send me on an avoidance pattern, which only amplified why I was, after 30 years, changing my comfortable route to one that didn’t serve my purpose. The purpose was to ride around in the dark and the quiet, alone with my thoughts, a moving meditation. If I walk one way, I get a mile of dark streets. If I walk the other way, I get houses, street lights, barking dogs.  And that is what I chose until a month ago when I thought, “forget this, I’m doing what I want,” and resumed my old route.

Knowing the neighbor was unhappy here, I held the vision they would find the perfect place soon. When they arrived, they said they wouldn’t be here long. I added them to the daily prayers and visualizations, as I would anyone else.  I used them as the topic of an experiment I did last week.  Two days later, I felt it. They were gone.  I could no longer feel their presence as I passed.  I immediately felt the upgrade. I felt giddy with joy to be free and clear of it. I didn’t realize how unfree I’d allowed myself to become, how I’d let my thoughts trap me into a small world of my own making.

I had to laugh at myself there as well, I was doing exactly what I tell friends NOT to do! The laughter shook me back to who I am, who I was before I bound and restricted myself.  Then, just as my sinuses were doing, it all started to flow again.  I could tell we’d been upgraded! Everything became easy and effortless, the energy began moving faster, it became fun again passing by the property. It felt comfortable again. I woke up wanting to mow her lawn for her, so I did. Once again, one big happy family.

Everything feels different now, feels back to our normal, serene Disney-movie life, with an upgrade. It was fun having a big shake up for a year and it’s fun having everything back to serene again.  Without the shake up, we wouldn’t have gotten the upgrade.  And, as usual, nothing ever had to change but my perception. Oh, the movies I make myself run until I convince myself of my own power …