Awesome Dudette’s Burning Question: “Some days I feel like Arthur Dent when he gets a fly-swatter to the nose while visiting a prison planet, trying to rescue his girlfriend. It just plain frustrates me when I’m going along admiring beautiful pictures of hummingbirds, and then a picture of a smuggler (with hummingbirds hidden in his pants) comes up, ruining the good moment. Not to mention when I’m trying to get to a class that is 45 minutes away, and just happen to be caught in a traffic jam and then get behind the slowest car in town. My question, therefore, is what can be done when you are trying to make your reality better, but then a bunch of random (seemingly unrelated) negative things come into your sphere? How do you determine what they mean or why they’re there? They also seem to come in waves, usually leaving me overwhelmed and discouraged.”

Dear Awesome Dudette,

Nothing is unrelated. Nothing is a coincidence. Your reality, which is just a hologram projected by you, is never random. It all means something. So your question, “How can we determine what stuff means?” is a really relevant one and something that pretty much everyone struggles with.

The Universe is not a super villain

The first thing that most people do “wrong” when trying to interpret the mysteries of their unwanted manifestations is to think that something is actively trying to keep them from what they want. So there you are, looking at hummingbirds, feeling joy, and you see an image that disturbs you. I just want to make one thing very, very clear: this is NOT the Universe messing with you. The big U. is not sitting there, on its proverbial quantum cloud, watching you enjoy looking at gifs of small, winged creatures, thinking to itself, “Let’s give her hummingbirds. But in the most messed up way possible. Buwahahahahaha!” It’s not like there’s an invisible super villain gleefully following you around, sending its little minions out to make sure you get stuck in traffic behind the slowest car when you’re late.

In fact, whatever happens to you is always happening to support you, to make you aware of something that you need to be paying attention to, and to ultimately help you get everything you’ve ever wanted. So, when you see the dude with the hummingbirds in his pants (seriously?? Is that a thing now?), it MUST be for a reason, and not just any reason, but a good one; a helpful one; something that will bring you closer to what you want.

Start with the right premise

If you want to interpret the meaning of your manifestations more accurately, make sure you’re starting from the right premise. Instead of asking “Why do people do bad things?”, or “Why is this happening to me?” ask “Why does this bother me?” The answers to these questions will be vastly different.

When you ask why people do bad things, you have to take a look at their beliefs, which stem from their culture, life experience and personal perspective. And, although, you can never completely understand another’s perspective, you can certainly gain a high level of understanding of people’s motivations, especially if you’re willing to forgo judgment (i.e. if you don’t condemn their actions, you’ll gain a much deeper level of understanding). I know, this is easier said than done, but this post isn’t about understanding people with birds in their undies, it’s about helping you understand you, which is precisely why this question isn’t productive in this case.

When you ask why this thing is happening to you, or why you manifested it, it’s often a thinly veiled way of asking “What’s wrong with me that I manifested this??” And that’s decidedly unhelpful. Blaming yourself is pretty much the worst thing you can do in terms of feeling better.

But, when you ask why this event or person or thing bothers you so much, you begin to make some headway. So, in the case of the hummingbird smugglers, why did that image cause you so much distress? Well, it probably brought up thoughts of helpless little birds being needlessly tortured, of unethical and cruel people willing to do anything for a buck, and of the general unfairness in the world.

Helpless

Needless torture

Cruelty

Unfairness

Do you see a pattern here? If you do a little bit of soul searching, I’ll bet my (as of yet non-physical) private jet that these are thoughts you have fairly often. The world is full of cruel people, torturing the helpless. It’s just so unfair! You have practiced thoughts (beliefs) of powerlessness, which you keep activating throughout the day. And these beliefs directly contradict your pure appreciation of the Hummingbirds. As you focused on their beauty, your belief that they and all small, vulnerable beings like them are not safe popped right up. It didn’t pop up to ruin your day, however. It popped up so that you could release it and move even more into pure appreciation.

Be part of the solution

But how do you stop caring about little hummingbirds? How do you not rant and rave against those who are hurting defenseless little creatures? Am I just advising you to be heartless and uncaring and selfish? Yes, that’s exactly what I’m doing. That’s my new thing: telling people to be heartless. In case you missed it, that last part was pure sarcasm. I couldn’t help myself.

Of course that’s NOT what I’m saying! You don’t have to stop caring about little hummingbirds or any other creatures, not that you could even if you tried. But you can stop focusing on something that represents a world you don’t like. Do you want more animal abuse? I’m guessing no. Let me ask you this: How does focusing on people abusing birds help the birds? How does your pain make the world a better place? I know this is hard for some people to hear, but it doesn’t. You cannot find a solution to a problem by focusing on it. You can define a solution by defining the problem, but once you’ve done that, you have to get off the issue and focus on what you want.

For example: the idea of animal abuse makes you want to hurl. Fair enough. So, what is this causing you to want instead? Well, I’m guessing you want to live in a world where no one feels compelled to hurt animals for any reason, meaning a world where people are secure and happy and peaceful and prosperous and understand that they can have all the abundance they want without anyone or anything having to suffer for it. You want to live in a world where everyone understands that we are all one, and that nothing is ever truly gained or resolved by hurting someone or something else. Now, as you focus on that vision, doesn’t it feel better?

Here’s the thing: as you focus on the vision of what you want, you will be aligning yourself with that reality, and everything you need to get you there will be brought to you. If you’re a match to being part of the solution (because you want to be, not because you have to be), you will be led to those steps. And if you’re not a match to actually being involved in the solution, you’ll simply be adding to the energy of that new reality and will be moving there as quickly as you can allow. Others, whom you may or may not be aware of, will be inspired to do the actual work. Your worry, your focus on the suffering, does nothing to support this work.

Traffic as a metaphor for life

Now, let’s take a look at the traffic example. There you are, sitting in traffic, already all frustrated and stressed about being late. And what does the Law of Attraction bring you? More stuff that makes you feel frustrated and late! Why the hell would it do that? It’s like it’s bringing you more of what you focus on! Oh… wait… I think I’ve made my point.

But how is the traffic jam serving you, other than to just mirror back how you’ve been feeling? Why does getting stuck in traffic bother you so much? Well, in this case, you may have been focused on that damn slow driver in front of you. Perhaps you’ve been feeling rather inconvenienced by others lately. This is another form of powerlessness, albeit a more subtle one. Maybe other people have been getting in your way lately. Maybe you’ve been feeling like they have the power to keep you from going where you want to go. The Universe simple brought your vibration to life with the perfect representation.

What does the slow driver in front of you cause you to want, instead? Well, you might want things to flow more easily. You want things to come together without so much effort on your part. You want to feel relaxed, and know that everything will work out fine. You want to feel supported and secure. You want your days to be easy. You want flow. Flowing traffic. Flowing work. Flowing energy. Ahhhhh. Now, doesn’t that feel better?

The traffic jam is actually an opportunity for you to react differently to a representation of what’s been going on in your reality for some time. You can sit there and get angrier and angrier, feeling like you’re trapped and there’s nothing you can do about it. Or, you can decide to let go, to relax, to acknowledge that there’s nothing you can do to make traffic move faster right now, but there’s definitely something you can do about the way you feel.

Of course, as you shift your perspective and energy and begin to feel better, you’ll soon find that your life is flowing more easily. If you want ease and flow, you have to be willing to choose ease and flow.

Bottom line

Nothing ever happens randomly. As you focus more on what you want, the obstacles – the contradictory beliefs that are blocking this thing you want, pop up. This doesn’t mean that you’ve done anything wrong. It means you’ve successfully moved toward what you want! Recognize that the stuff that bothers you doesn’t have to bother you. It’s a choice. Always. Figure out why you feel the way you do and what’s behind those feelings. Figure out what you’d like instead. Shift the energy.  The Universe is always supporting you in getting what you want. It will continuously present you with opportunities to figure out what that is and help you to release any contradictory beliefs, so you can become more and more of a match to what you want. You’ll never look at a traffic jam the same way again.