This brief essay, originally published in December of 2019, still resonates and speaks even louder to me today. May it comfort all who read it with the knowledge and awareness that our present challenges are merely a preparation for better times ahead. Mayra

Much like millions of others, my 2019 was hallmarked by a number of dramatic shifts leaving abundant space for contemplating the deeper meaning of it all. Something is different this year, though, and I think it’s definitely me.

Before I was fully aware, my life was rather mechanistic and duty-bound. I was operating from a fear-based mentality; our default human software. Not all, but many of the decisions I made up until now were based on “the fear I wanted to avoid” versus “what lit me up like a Christmas tree”.

In this last decade in particular, because so many of my/our greatest fears have actually come true (e.g. mass economic instability, job losses, chronic illnesses, suffering) there’s millions of people world-wide who have been forced to operate from their higher faculties (e.g. heart-intelligence/wisdom, intuition, perception, will, reason, and imagination), and this is actually a good thing. Although it is excruciatingly painful to be broken-open by life, it is actually a gift, too. It’s like getting a software upgrade, just when you thought you were about to die.

The greatest riddle and paradox of our shared humanity is the ability to transcend the binary (“right-and-wrong”) and fault-finding stance to embrace the fact that it is merely a step, or stage in our evolving consciousness. However, to be able to see this does require a quantum leap in our understanding, and thankfully, it is one that is attainable for each and every one of us!

The changes afoot may seem weird, “crazy”, or radical, but fundamentally they are not; they are about the essence of what it means to be a human being and about the world we wish to co-create, inhabit, and love.