So many of us are experiencing profound alterations in the path that our life is on. We’ve taken a sharp right turn away from what our souls maybe thought they were up to when they first came into the world.
It’s disconcerting because this new path is so different from everything you’ve always known, everything that’s familiar, everything that you know how to do.
- If this is you, you may be experiencing some of these frustrations:
- Where do I grab onto next for support?
- Why is this taking so long? I want it to come already.
- I feel like a failure because I don’t have the money and other markings of success to prove that I’m on the right track.
- I’m feeling my way through the dark, without enough signs or illumination, and I surely don’t know when this is going to end.
- I feel like I have a BIG VISION for where I’m going – but man, oh man does it feel like I’m not getting there! Or not on time, or not in the way I wanted to.
The cosmic energies happening right now are supporting us as we progress with this struggle. This makes it a potent time to do some visioning for 2016 and beyond, which is why I’m offering the 3 visioning exercises below.
We’re in the sun sign of Capricorn right now, which is a good time to be 
thinking about what am I creating, how am I manifesting it out in the world? The Full Moon happening on December 25th at 5:11am CT adds the question, what do I need emotionally and spiritually in order to be nourished sufficiently to go out and offer these things?
Capricorn is the sign of the mountain goat. It’s a very earthy sign, but it’s a plodding energy of keeping your nose to the grindstone as you climb all the way to the top of the mountain. In this way it’s a big, expansive, goal-oriented sign, but extremely practical. The first visioning exercise before, about how you want to show up for the world, taps into this Capricornian energy.
But Cancer, across the astrological wheel from Capricorn, is the crab. Hard protective shell on the outside, mushy and watery on the inside. Cancer’s crab teaches us that we must take care of ourselves. The third visioning exercise below taps into Cancer’s need for emotional support.
Any time we’ve got two signs that are the polar opposites of each other, it’s about the balance between the two. The message of the crab + the mountain goat is that if you’re going to climb a mountain – if you’re going to go forth into the world offering the fruits of what you have to offer – you must be adequately fueled and nourished.
[Tweet “Scale life’s challenges like a mountain goat, but protect yourself like a crab.”]
With the full moon happening on Christmas Day, it’s a wonderful time to spend the first few hours of the morning doing the following meditation and visioning.
Exercise #1:
Be expansive as possible. Look into the big picture of your future, of your life. Be very non-specific, and just look for a general feeling of where you’re going. A feeling of who you will be when you get there. A feeling of how you might be exerting influence and having an impact once you get there.
Before you start working this, my own personal vision that I have had for years and years is a vision of myself speaking onstage. Always, whenever I’ve imagined my future – no matter what business I thought I was in at the time – always was a vision of myself speaking onstage. And always, I was speaking about how I got to where I am. I was telling the story of transformation and helping other people to transform as well. And that was it!
So when I say broad brushstrokes of who you’re going to be, and how you’re going to be, that’s what I’m talking about.
Take a few minutes to feel into that. Maybe take some notes, maybe draw a picture, or maybe just sit and feel. And really let it be non-specific. We aren’t looking for details, we’re looking for broad brushstrokes.
Take several minutes to do this visioning.
Exercise #2:
The purpose of that was to broaden and un-focus your vision. To give you an experience of looking at things not from the details, specifics, or exact plans. But rather to get a big, fuzzy sense of where you think you’re going.
Now I want you to do the same thing for 2016.
But before you begin, imagine that for 2016 you have been granted manna from heaven. And specifically what that means is that everything that you need will be there, exactly when it needs to be – but no more than what you need. I don’t mean scraping the bottom of the barrel, nor do I mean $100,000 watches – but everything that you need will be there.
And I want you to think about your year, who you’re becoming, the work that you are feeling your way into, as distinct from the pressure you may feel to create income. Because for the sake of this visioning, money is there. Money is provided.
After shifting into that knowing and that certainty and that baseline, who do you imagine yourself being this coming year? What is the work that you imagine yourself doing?
Take several minutes to do this visioning.
Exercise #3
Now that you’ve found yourself with some inspiration of who you’d like to be, how you want to be showing up in the world, now I want you to think about the question, If you’re going to show up in the world in that way, where do you need to be supported from? What is your emotional home base? What is the fertile soil that you need to come from?
“Full Moon Effects” by Keren Rainbow
You can approach that from an appreciation & gratitude of what is already in your life, and allow yourself to relax even more into the support that is there; or, you can look at it from the perspective of needing to care for yourself better. What is it that you need to give yourself, in order to feel sustained? What do you really need to give yourself? What are the requirements?
For example, I’ve learned some powerful lessons for myself about my need for sleep. When I’m sleepy, it’s nearly impossible for me to access my best self. So that means that I’ve set up my life in such a way that I get to bed at a reasonable hour, and also that I have a full 8 or 9 hours every night for sleep. When something goes awry and I don’t get the sleep I need at night, I give priority the next day to resting, or even a long afternoon nap.
So what is the fertile soil that your roots need in order to feel nourished, so that you can turn around and offer your fruits to the world in the way you just wrote about?
Take several minutes to do this visioning.
A Final Word About Non-Linear Visioning
The last thing I want to say about visioning is that sometimes when we put for that very specific vision for ourselves, we shoot ourselves in the foot.
Especially for those of us who are non-linear, who are in tune with and responsive to the profound transformations that are happening within us, change doesn’t necessarily unfold the way that we expect it to, or the way that we would want it to. It’s most beneficial when we can allow ourselves to respond to what’s actually happening, as opposed to what we think should be happening. Or what we wish was happening.
For example, I thought that I was publishing my book on October 28th. And up until about a month out, I kept saying that’s what was happening. But eventually I noticed that a book wasn’t what was happening. Instead what I launched on October 28th was my group mastermind program, Revealing YOU!
I accepted that shift, without attachment. If I had been determined that come hell or high water I was going to publish a book, I would have not only had an undoubtedly uphill climb to force a book into existence that didn’t want to be born yet, I would also have failed to create the online mastermind program that’s now such a rich and dynamic part of my work.
What I’m suggesting is that you allow the vision of who you are becoming to unfold the way it wants to unfold. This includes being tolerant, or even accepting, of what might look like detours.
I know from much personal experience that it’s difficult to accept What Is, and let go of What I Wish Was Happening. Difficult to trust that it’s exactly what it needs to be, and to look for the blessings in what’s unfolding in front of you.
It might turn out that those blessings are very different than what you thought you wanted or needed.