You are meant to... (The Power)

An activation.

Five weeks ago, I borrowed The Power from my local library. I’m not sure why, except that I had been feeling close to a precipice or tipping point. I had just finished taking out a book for my little girl, and instead of turning left to exit, I found myself turning right and going up the escalator to the Adult library.

I was leisurely browsing the shelves and curiosity eventually led me to the psychology section. Perhaps I was looking for something that might help tip me over but I ended up taking out three books that day, one of which was The Power.

For those who might not know, this is the second book after The Secret. Truth be told, I’ve never read The Secret, and I’ve never even watched the film/documentary. All my knowledge of it and the Law of Attraction has been second-hand information passed down from spiritual and personal development gurus and coaches talking about manifestation. I’ve never been much of a fan.

Nevertheless, as I saw it on the bookshelf, something drew me to pick it up. As I hadn’t been to the library on my behalf for years, and had no idea where my library card was, I faced extra obstacles. Was I still registered? And if not, did I have the necessary documentation to register again? I had plenty of reasons to walk out that day but I didn’t.

I withdrew the books but guess what? Since that day, I haven’t picked up any of the books, not even once.

All three books have been in a bag at the back of my wardrobe, I only pulled them out today because they are overdue and need to be returned.

So no, this isn’t going to be a post on how The Power changed my life but there is something I do want to share.

The truth is, I have not been invested in reading them. Life has been too busy and hectic and the thought of reading another self-help book felt like another chore.

But as the unceasing blanket of rain streamed down the window, I had to choose whether I was going to drag both myself and my little girl out into the rain to return the books or whether to renew them over the phone.

Obvs, I chose to renew them and because I did, I thought to myself:

“Oh well, I might as well flip it open now and see what it has to say for itself.”

You are meant to…

These are the words which greeted me when I first opened the book.

You are meant to have an amazing life.

You are meant to have everything you love and desire.

You are meant to have all the money you need to live a full, wonderful life.

You are meant to be living your dreams — all of them!

You are meant to be laughing and full of joy.

You are meant to feel strong and safe.

You are meant to feel good about yourself and know you are invaluable.

Before I continue, I invite you to check in with yourself to see how you received the above statements.

A year or more ago, I would have been so triggered by these words. Today I wasn’t, today when I read these words, something inside said “Yes!”

I hadn’t gotten any further in the book. I had no idea whether I would feel the same visceral knowing or not if I continued to read on, but those words I knew and believed to the core.

Don’t get me wrong, I could also feel resistance - the rational part of my mind that pointed out all the flaws with this premise yet above that doubt I still felt them to be true.

I felt them stirring something within me.

An activation.

Another layer of remembering and connecting.

I put down the book, my soul singing, my mind racing with thoughts and words, my hands itching to get it all down.

I pull open my laptop and decide to write and share it here.

“You are meant to…”

These words are potentially problematic.

They can be triggering.

They can feel preachy or dictatorial.

I understand but let me share what I see.

To me, they are statements of truth.

Many times in my life I have suffered and asked myself and God why, this has been a huge reason for my deconstruction. I have wrestled with God and laboured as I’ve asked big existential life questions such as what is my purpose, the meaning and purpose of life and the nature of God.

Through the labouring I have arrived at a place of standing firmly, even with all the pain and difficulties, I recognise/know/believe that Life (what others might call Spirit, God, Source, Universe, The Power) has created all of life to strive for and reach its highest potential.

This is what I understand as “meant to”, it’s an awareness that we really do not exist to make do or get by.

We are not created to suffer or survive but find a way to flourish and thrive.

You have likely heard it said that there isn’t an instruction manual or blueprint for life, but I disagree, I believe there is.

We are it.

Maybe you have also heard it said that we live on a floating rock rotating around a giant ball of fire at just the right speed, distance etc to sustain and nurture life.

According to the Drake equation, only one in a million million planets have the right combination of chemicals, temperature, water, days and nights to support life as we know it.

Whether you believe in a sentient life force or Universal evolutionary energy, it points towards the same thing - where the ability to create and sustain Life exists, it is driven by an instinct to flourish and thrive.

It reminds me of a scripture verse:

I am fearfully and wonderfully made and this my soul knows very well.

There is a part in the Genesis creation story that is translated as God saying everything is good. The real meaning of the word is obscured by this English translation, te real meaning of the word is closer to functional or fit for purpose. What this is really saying isn’t that the sun is good, or the trees are good, or anything else is good but that it is has everything it needs to fulfill its purpose and function.

Reconnecting

So that’s how I view creation, already housing within itself the blueprint of how to fulfill its function and purpose.

And because we too are a part of creation, I also believe that buried underneath all the programming, imprinting and conditioning we have an instinctual blueprint or instruction manual if you will.

We have lost our connection to it because we have lost our connection to Life. Indigenous peoples still remember and live in relationship with it, animals, even plants still live in relationship with it but the more “modern” and civilised we become the more disconnected and disembodied we are. The greatest tragedy isn’t that we have forgotten how to connect back to Life, the greatest tragedy is that we do not even believe it is possible!

So if you felt resistance to the initial statements, I put to you that the resistance stems from the part of us which looks around at the state of the world and sees this as the evidence that this is the brutal order of things.

We see the effects of our disconnect from Life and use it to form beliefs about why we must live a life of hardship and struggle.

We think that this is just the way life is, how it was, and always will be and therefore life MUST be this way.

But I don’t believe it is or HAS to be this way.

Our experiences of struggle and suffering are a symptom of our disconnect from Life rather than the cause of it.

As long as we continue to believe and act like anything better is a fool’s dream, suffering and struggles remains the only reality we will allow for ourselves.

If everything has a purpose and everything has a function, and if we can see that the desire of Life untainted by the hand of humanity desires to grow towards its potential then why not humans too?

It is not fantastical thinking but a statement of truth.

If the Universe has created life in such a way that it always seeks to flourish and thrive and finds ways to do so even in the harshest of environments then why should human beings be any different?

Surely the only thing that makes us different is that we have forgotten it and we do not believe in it.

This is why when I read those words today, instinctually, I knew them to be true.

I am meant to not because it is owed to me, not because I am special, not even because I am powerful and a god in my own right but because it is part of a natural universal law that says Life desires to Live and live Life to its fullest capacity.

We experience pain and suffering as we do because we are working against the natural order of life which is towards growth, expansion and fullest expression of potential.

A fatal misconception especially for those who adhere to tenets of The Secret or Law of Attraction is the belief that you are meant to means that it MUST or WILL happen.

This is not what I am saying, neither is it what I believe.

Darwin believed that adaptation is the key to survival, and in a way he was right. Eventually humanity will cease to be if it continues on just as it is because of our failure to abide by the Universal laws of Life. It becomes inevitable that we will either kill ourselves off through continual war and depletion of the earth’s natural resources or we must learn to adapt, grow and evolve into a life form that can create and sustain life.

The words “You are meant to” offer a picture of where we can reach and the desire of the Universe for us given the right circumstances. 

Rather than seeing it as either or, that you are, either living life to your fullest expression and potential or not, it is better to see it as a continuum. On one side of the continuum, you have the consistent experience of surviving life, suffering, struggling and making do. On the other side of the continuum, the consistent experience of life is full, rich, abundant, nourishing, expansive, enlivening, joyful and awe-filled.

There are many spots within the continuum where we can find ourselves. It is not about reaching the other end, it is about movement in the direction of or towards that version of life.

That is why I changed the name of this publication to Towards Embodied Living.

This movement can only come through our internal awakening and rising, through learning to live connected to Life through our own reconnection to Self.

So yes, you are meant to live fully expressed lives, and I am meant to do the same but whether we do or do not is really down to a number of factors. Collectively of course, what is happening within humanity but also whether we allow ourselves to continually move up on the continuum.

But knowing and holding this as truth means you already moving towards embodied living and towards Life.

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Thank you for reading feel free to share, comment or like this post.

You may also be interested in the following posts which I have touched upon in this post.