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Your Ultimate Guide to Navigating Turbulent Skies
"Ladies and Gentleman, we are experiencing turbulence. Please fasten your seatbelts."
Land Your Plane
The Fictional Catastrophe
You look out the window and see what looks like the portals of heaven opening up. The plane starts to jump, drop, dip and dance all over the sky. Suddenly your precious human life becomes the forefront of what you value. Remaining optimistic while obsessively chewing on the pretzels and talking incessantly to your seat neighbor to ignore reality. The oxygen masks drops, your stomach elevates into your throat, "Mayday, Mayday, Mayday" is this really happening? The pilot drops the landing gear and you see it blow by in the window seat you had to have upon boarding. It knocks part of the wing off. You look out the window with wide eyes in complete dismay, can this get worse? No, don't ask that question. Wrong question. The person several rows back lights up a cigarette in attempt to calm the nerves, now there is a cabin fire. At some point, you just have to surrender.
The pilot maintains composure, with full site of the sky, this is not her first flight. She takes a moment to breathe and see the outcome she intends. She asks for guidance and makes a request to Great Spirit. "Please guide, please protect. Thank you for this precious life. We are grateful. We are safe!" " She listens to air traffic control guide her. The co-pilot says to the crew, breathe, we got this. Let's see ourselves landing safely together and guides a breathing meditation. The cabin pressure stabilizes and collectively they all focus on their beautiful life in gratitude and feeling their feet on the ground.
After what feels like an eternity all happening in slow motion, the plane glides into a field the momentum of speed slowed by the trees. Everyone walks off the plane alive. A few bumps and bruises, a broken toe, a ruptured Achilles tendon, lost luggage, but overall, nothing that won't heal. Everyone kneels touches the earth in reverence for their life. It is a miracle. Or, was it a collective effort? Perhaps both.
DOES ANY ASPECT OF YOUR LIFE resonate with this story?
I recently took a crew of performers for a run of 14 fire shows over 21 days. Two days before leaving, I broke my toe. The process leading up to the actual adventure, the adventure itself, and the return felt like this. In fact, life over the last three years has felt like turbulence and a series of drops, falls, unexpected sudden cabin pressure changes, bits and pieces falling away, cabin fires, panic, fear, praying, pleading, and wondering how to get through this intact.
First, BREATHE!
If you have been ignoring your internal guidance, turbulence may be attempting to course correct you.
This is a tool for transformation.
How did you get to this moment?
Have you been merely surviving the circumstances of life?
Have you stopped long enough to recognize where you are at, or are you flying through the motions at 580 MPH?
Land Your Plane!
My ex used to say to me, "land your plane" referring to directionless conversations. As annoying as that was, I also appreciated the reminder. At some point you have to land. If you feel like your life is on a crash course, the first thing to do is commit to come out alive, healthy, happy, and intact. Ask for help from air traffic control, if you have a crew with you, get them all on board with a safe landing, then land your plane. You may have some bumps and bruises, you may lose some luggage, trust however that whatever is lost is ok to let go of. Here now, feel your feet on the ground. Look around you and stand in gratitude for your life.
Stop, Drop, Rock and Roll!
Once you are on what feels like relatively safe ground, Stop! Assess the circumstances. Where are you at? What are your thoughts? How is your body? How are you feeling? Check in. When you have caught alight, the first action is STOP!
Awareness Check: If you bypass stopping and checking in, take note. What is the reason you are avoiding checking in with yourself? Is there something that you are avoiding? Or not wanting to look at? This is KEY information. In fact, it may what brought you to a crash landing in the first place. It may be worthy consideration if you truly want to get out of the cycle you are in. Sometimes in stopping, you think, I don't want to do this, why am I doing this, I wanted this to give me the answers, I don't want to do the work, I am tired of working, I just want to have it done for me, why do I have to do this, I don't wanna. All of this is important information. Of course, if you abandon here, you will miss out on the next step and likely find yourself repeating and repeating until one day you decide to stop long enough with a willingness to dive in and look a little deeper.
Next: DROP into ACCEPTANCE. Acceptance is NOT complacency.
Accept the current circumstances of life. Acceptance is an alignment tool that establishes a foundation for alignment. It drops you into the present reality and opens the door to possibilities and potentials. Being in resistance to the present moment, blocks potentials and creates barriers to change.
Let go of the resistance and arrive in acceptance. It is time to face the truth, step fully into present reality, and drop into acceptance in order to find your alignment.
It's Time to Shake, Rattle, and Roll!
Let's Rock!
Even if you are not a rock 'n' roll fan, bear with me. In the wild, after an animal is chased by prey and survives, it shakes to reset the nervous system and then goes back to peaceful grazing. It's time to shake off what has happened. The Gazelle, of course, doesn't need a good tune to shake to. Us humans, however may appreciate some kind of frequency shift to assist and inspire this action. Put on some good energy music, dance, shake like a gazelle, go outside in the sun or the rain and take a walk, do jumping jacks, take a cold bath/shower and sing while doing so, do yoga. The key here is to do something that is healthy and CONSCIOUSLY GOOD for you that includes moving the body in order to calm the nerves and changes your frequency.
Awareness Check: If you smoke cigarettes regularly, drink alcohol, soothe with sweets, salt, chips, veg out on TV, or whatever UNHEALTHY NEGATIVE habits that you usually use to CHECK OUT and avoid, this is NOT the place to do that. It IS the place to change your frequency and do something DIFFERENT that includes MOVING the body. Swim in the local river, visit the ocean, sing or hum a song, make a piece of art, doodle, or go for a walk. This is the ACTION of changing your frequency.
Involve the body, roll on the ground, crawl, and literally shake it off.
Once you have landed your plane, stopped to assess, dropped into acceptance and shaked off to reset the nerves, you arrive in the moment of CHOICE! Here consciously INTEND to make the shift from surviving to THRIVING!
You Have to WANT It!
It is going to test you. There will be challenges. There will be set backs. It is not going to be all flowers and roses. It will require taking accountability. Therefore, set an intention to learn what it feels like to be in a thriving mindset.
What does it mean to thrive?
According to Psychology Today, thriving is "thinking abundantly". It is a positive mindset connected to growth, learning, and hope. There is space and inspiration in a thriving mindset. There is grace in a thriving life. It is not based on the circumstances of life; it is a mindset.
Awareness Check: When life is in the dumps and everything is crashing down, it is going to take digging deep and committing to a regular practice of REMEMBERING to move into a thriving mindset. In these moments, you may not want to do the work. You may even forget to do the work. You may want to wallow in suffering. This is where it will challenge you. It is going to mean doing what you DO NOT feel like doing to dig yourself out of your humpty dumpty feeling. This is why you have to want it.
The WORK!
This is where the work begins. It takes time. It can't be rushed. There are phases.
The First phase: Be open and willing to learn. This in itself requires recognizing when you are NOT open to learn and when you are. Most say, "yes, of course I am open to learn" while continuing to repeat the same habits and patterns. How do you know when you are actually open to learn and when you are not? Know yourself.
The Second phase: Take an honest look at your life. This is an accountability check. Notice reflections. What are the people and life circumstances around you reflecting? What you see in others, is a reflection of your projection. To see truth, allow others to hold a mirror up and learn to recognize reflections as your projections. This will show you what you need to see.
Awareness Check: This can feel harsh. It requires unconditional self-love, a willingness to be vulnerable, and perseverance. It takes courage to continue. Many will abandon this practice here. Remember, you CONSCIOUSLY CHOSE to do the work. This is the pathway through. You got this. Do NOT give up!
The point of doing this? Learn what it feels like be in survival verses a thriving mindset. Learn to know both well in order to shift from one to the other. Know what triggers survival mode and how to recognize all of the signs you are in it. When you know both well and how to recognize you are in survival, you will know how to consciously shift.
Deeper IN
If you recall, what brought you here was life feeling like turbulent skies as a result of ignoring a shift that was upon you. To look beyond this level, REQUIRES that you learn how to shift your frequency and get into a thriving mindset. You can't look at the previous wreckage of your life from the same mindset that got you into the wreckage. This is WHY it has been necessary to learn how to get into a new mindset from which to see the new course of life.
Thriving is a mindset and a way of life unique to each person. It is necessary to assess the circumstances of life to see what life is asking without judgement while IN a thriving mindset.
What is life asking of you?
How are you being called to shift?
What do you need to let go of or change that is just not serving you any longer?
What have you outgrown?
What are you trying to hold onto out of attachment or fear of letting go?
What is out of balance in your life?
Whatever change is upon you may feel like taking a GIANT LEAP OF FAITH into the unknown and it may be the most uncomfortable, frightening, unnerving part of the journey. The difference from where you began, however, is NOW you are ready to take it. From a thriving mindset rather than frozen in fear of the unknown, in a perpetual crash landing, thrown about by turbulence. It is a CONSCIOUS CHOICE and this makes all the difference.
Seek Support
It may be helpful to have a support team or mentor. It's like training wheels. You do not have to go at this alone spending hours, days, years drowning in misery. What and who is your support network? Who can you rely on to help you through the thicket? Eventually you will become self-reliant and learn to do it yourself. In the beginning it is ok to keep the training wheels on. You will know when the time is right to kick them off.
Awareness Check: Be mindful of who you employ to support you. Misery loves company. When you begin to elevate into living a thriving life, some trusted companions who are not ready will have a subconscious energetic tug to keep you down. Sometimes it is best to find a coach, therapist, spiritual guide, community, or someone NOT connected to the present circumstances of your life so you actually have a chance to grow.
Here at Luminous Life Journey, we offer coaching and spiritual guidance to support you in finding your way from turbulent skies into a thriving life. The Medicine Spiral Journey is a virtual program of self discovery and a good place to start, or you may reach out for individual coaching sessions.
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