'I just want everything to go back to the way it was...'

Teachings of Breath & Time

We’ve all heard this phrase quite often over the last couple of years - either from others or we’ve heard ourselves say it.

In the context of money, we are walking through the opacity of inflation. A few years ago, things were cheaper. That’s all we remember. Our currency units could be exchanged for more things than they can today. So, of course we want to go back.

Maybe we have these ideas in other areas of life too, and on the surface it makes completely sense… assuming you wish to live in this life on the surface only, never really tapping into the intimacy, power, truth and knowing that is your depth.

Tapping in…

Money and wealth is quite personal for me.

Prior to 2020, I lived well. I had a great job, good money, I saved for retirement and I got to travel a couple of times a year. My parents ensured that I graduated from university debt free, something that I’m so deeply grateful for and that I maintained always living within my means.

But underneath this seemingly responsible exterior lay immense fears and insecurities around money. I hated going to the bank, for anything. I would go to great lengths to avoid any dinner table conversation about money and the economy. I tended towards being miserly, I counted pennies and the idea of loosing even a few dollars was intensely terrifying. On the flip side, I had also weak boundaries and would buy things for people so that they liked me.

When the world came to a stand-still in 2020 I witnessed massive job-loss, almost overnight in my neighbourhood and my world.
I had a job, and I could easily work remotely, so I was unaffected on the surface.

In truth, we are always affected by our surroundings, whether we like it or not; whether we admit it, or not.

I was lucky because I maintained an income, but that stood in stark contrast with the knowing that if I had lost my job in 2020, I would have been plagued with shame, wounded pride, anxiety and absolute terror. In this state of fear and vulnerability, I would likely have made all sorts of decisions that may not have been great.

This made me commit to a journey of self-empowerment, as far as money was concerned. In the 13 months that followed, I got to release belief systems, family patterns, ideas of the world that pit us against each other in a world of lack and poverty and get to look at the emotions and stories I carried about money - its comings and goings. Outwardly, I learned about the cycles of currencies, commodities, debt-based economy, markets and what makes all this move. I learned that there exist many different schools of thought of how a nation’s and family’s economic model can run - that it isn’ a one size fits all/ one way to rule for thousands of years.

I blamed others less, and I learned to see abundance and overflow in nature - forests as well as human nature. I got to see my neighbourhood come together and give to each other. I got to know my neighbours and share meals and good times, and I became better at giving without expectation, because I saw how much I was receiving as I opened up. I got to make informed choices about my investments, and where I spent my income in alignment with my values.

Money is a tool of exchange. Everything else around it, is us giving it our personal power along with stories and emotion, making it a perpetrator or desperately coveting it like a prize.
It feels powerful, because each one of us does this individually, and collectively through governments, mints, economic departments and the likes.

Maybe this rings true for you, maybe it doesn’t.

My journey happened to be around wealth. I know many others who got to journey in these past years into their health, their relationships, their own being, their work, their choices and their path and purpose in the world.

For me and for all those people, there is no ‘going back to how things were’. We dove into something, we mined our truth and we returned, we learned something, and so we cannot be the same as before.
There is no going back, because through our learning, we changed. We are not the same.

Neither are you.
If you are someone who is in this place of wanting the past to return. I offer you this:

Close your eyes.
Take a deep breath.
And some more.
Don’t pressure on the exhale; when you are atop your breath, let it gently drift out of you.

On an inhale, take in everything you love, that you have ever loved, breathe it in, slowly sensually, enjoy it fully.

At the top of your breath, hold it.

Everything you love is already within you. You life, your path, your choices, your in/actions, the depth of connection with your loved ones (those who have passed, those yet live, and those who you have not met as yet).
Holding your breath, doesn’t make for more love, not more peace.

It may seem fine for a few seconds, maybe even a minute. But it isn’t life being lived.

So as you exhale, do so fully. Let it go. Let emotions and thoughts that rise, rise to release.

Life is lived when we exchange our inhales with exhales, and exhales with inhales.

This is what our respiratory system teaches us - the great work of nostrils and lungs.

This is the nature of our world - day and night is exchanged, seasons turn into each other, food becomes our cells and energy - and time, by its nature flows.

We can either be distracted by constantly looking behind us at what is gone and tripping in our present, feeling the vacuum of lack, and creating more of it unknowingly.
Or, we can choose to be thankful for what was, what is, and that which comes, and receive it with peace, grace and inner-power.

May you realize the bliss of knowing yourself deeply and always be struck with the wonderment of learning yourself.