Not All Signs Are Destinations
Discerning Indication vs. Instigation
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The notion that we create our reality usually starts out as a cute idea you read in a manifestation book. It’s fun and exciting until you start to have uncomfortable thoughts and then see them show up in the world around you.
In the beginning these are easy to brush off.
But as you deepen your consciousness journey, the coherence between your inner world and outer world becomes obvious. You realize you are, and always have been, creating your experience on a much deeper level than just the actions you take each day.
Recognizing the power of your consciousness and its reflective nature is simultaneously thrilling and scary as shit.
The thrilling part is what this means for your growth and agency. Using consciousness to take more authorship of your experience is much more exciting than when reality was perceived as a soup of randomness you had to wade through.
The scary parts are the level of personal power this insinuates and how our minds can interpret the mirror.
If your consciousness is creating your experience, what happens if you have a bunch of scary thoughts? Will you manifest them?
When you start to see things related to your fears in the outside world, does this mean you’re on the path to creating them and that they will happen?
There have been many times when this idea scared the crap out of me.
Let me give you an example.
I once had a fear that something really crippling was going to happen to me. This thought came out of nowhere and my mind latched on to it. It started cycling no matter how I tried to relate to it. Then I started to encounter things in the real world related to this fear everywhere. I went from never noticing this condition, to seeing it constantly.
Was this a sign?
Was I on the path to manifesting this fate and life was now reflecting it back to me? This scared the crap out of me and put me at war with my thoughts. I tried to heal whatever this was quickly, before something irreversible happened!
Sound familiar?
Indication vs. Instigation
When working with reality as a mirror, I now realize there’s a difference between indication and instigation (for healing).
Indication is when life shows you a direction that’s in service of your highest good. You can think of these as signs or directional flows that guide you towards something.
In this context, instigation is when life unfolds in a way to direct you inwards for healing. It does this through delivering the circumstances required for you to face and transform something that is no longer aligned with your highest good. This is a benevolent act, but when we mistake it for indication, it can be scary as hell.
In the example of my fear around attracting or creating some crippling catastrophe, life was delivering me reflective experiences so that I could resolve the fear. Without the mirror provided by life itself, there simply would be no way for me to become aware of and transform this part of my consciousness that was now ready to be healed.
When I finally started to use these scenarios for transformation, the fear resolved and my reality started to shift. I no longer needed to consistently encounter these experiences, and if I did, it was no longer a big deal.
How do you know whether life is reflecting back to you an indication or instigation for healing?
You only gain this discernment through experience.
You have to go through the merry go round of scary experience -> healing event -> life getting better, to recognize the universe is benevolent and loves you.
As this realization settles, you start to relate to life different. Encountering your fears, or any triggering event for that matter, becomes like little gifts. More recently, I feel like I’ve been having lots of little gifts of life giving me situations to stir up old anger that’s ready to be cleared. Most of the time, I’m able to see it, but sometimes I still get entangled in it and forget that this is happening for me. Each time you remember, you get a bit better at recognizing what’s really going on.
As this recognition settles, fear and other triggering events are increasingly perceived instigations. The world isn’t out to get you. It’s there to heal you.
I find indications much more discernible through friction (or lack thereof), synchronicity, and flow. When you’re being guided towards something, it feels easeful and natural. It isn’t some scary foreshadowing - though the ego will have you believe differently.
Learning to titrate between the two only comes through the wisdom of experience. So just keep going and using what life is giving you.
If you enjoyed this little riff, here’s some more posts and podcasts you might enjoy on the reflective nature of reality:
I used to think manifesting was bullshit. Here’s what I think now
Leave It To A Honey Mama’s Bar To Illuminate The Universe’s Feedback Loop
The Reality Algorithm & Predictable Magic of Alignment with Mark Krassner (podcast)
Understanding the Earth School and Karma With Hans Wilhelm (podcast)
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A great breakdown of this process, around which, as you say, there are no shortcuts.
There's only experience and discernment....and experience and discernment...
I had to read this article more than once. Lots of good nuggets in here!