What do you want most right now?
As greater and greater demands are placed upon us by our modern world and highly competitive lifestyles, we are given every reason to worry and allow our minds to linger on fearful thoughts and visions. The question is, “Is this how you want to live?”
There is a channel of guidance, wisdom and information being offered to you every single day in the form of symbolic language. This level of communication is most interested in you living your Inspired Life, fearlessly pursuing what it is that lights you up!
Although we are the most visual of all animals on this planet, and we perceive much of our reality through this sense, we are just now re-learning this symbolic language. We can teach our children from a young age to be aware of and sensitive to the symbols that appear to follow us around.
In the spirit of Carl Jung, symbols hold powerful collective energy and information. They are a bridge from our conscious, thinking mind to our unconscious, intuitive mind. So when you are “seeing _____ everywhere,” or when you notice that the consumer realms are plastering retail shelves with certain symbols or images, there is a message, or guidance, that we are being offered.
This symbolic communication is not “logical,” the realm of the conscious, thinking, mind. This visual language is subtle and speaks to our unconscious, intuitive mind. Symbols need no translation and communicate to YOU exactly what you need in this given moment.
Let’s explore three symbols that are “popular” in the collective conscious these days because they want to inspire you.
- The Owl. Owls are on t-shirts, coffee mugs, displayed in high-end interior design arrangements, and generally celebrated or collected by enough of the population that their “market value” is heavily exploited. This is not a bad thing. “Owl medicine” is such that owl wants to lend us her extraordinary vision. Owls can see things “in the dark” that no other creature on this planet can see.
“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” ~Joseph Campbell
The symbol of the owl, or the owl “totem,” is encouraging us to be fearless, to free ourselves from limiting beliefs that keep us standing “outside the cave.”
Owl wants to illuminate your highest path, the one that is most in alignment with your authentic, liberated self, rather than follow the path prescribed by society or any roles or labels you might have been given up until now.
If Owl is catching your eye these days, simply ask it to illuminate what it wants you to see. Ask for it to lend you its fearless personality so you can “swoop in” on whatever it is your heart desires and claim it for your own!
- The Mandala. Mandala designs have been found in every single society or culture since the beginning of time. The word comes from the Sanskrit word meaning center or circle. The circle is a sacred symbol for wholeness.
Traditional mandalas are geometric designs that start from a point in the center of a circle and radiate out from that point. If you love mandalas, or have been seeing them everywhere, ask yourself if you are feeling centered, grounded, or at peace with yourself these days.
If this prompt sparks any feelings to the contrary, never fear. This is why mandalas are here, there and everywhere. We are all being reminded to reconnect to our “center.”
This can mean your heart, your authentic self, your truth….
Try this simple meditation next time life feels hectic.
Close your eyes and breathe into your heart. Connect to how you feel—stressed? Worried? Anxious? Choose to perceive the elements of your life like shapes swirling around you. Do those elements feel disjointed, lacking in harmony, or jumbled? Now breathe into your heart again. Imagine all those tasks, relationships, responsibilities, bills, emails…begin to organize themselves in concentric circles with you at the center. The jumbled mess glides into a beautiful design, dancing, rotating around you.
Now breathe this sense of union, peace, and calm into your heart. Open your eyes.
This is the “medicine” of the mandala, bringing you back to your center, inspired and free.
- The Lotus. Lotus blossoms are most widely recognized throughout history as a symbol of enlightenment, self-realization and pure joy. The message you are being offered from the Lotus, is that your most beautiful “bloom” can only grow to fruition because of your thick, long roots that are sunk into life’s muckiest muck.
Lotus flowers want to help us to transcend life’s challenges, pain and heartbreak into energy to help us to grow and bloom. Not only does Lotus help you to transcend these undesirable experiences, it wants you to be grateful for them. Why? It is only because of life’s “mucky” experiences that we are able to discover our greatest treasures.
Lotus wants to ask you to look down at what is bringing you down and allow it to inspire you? How is this situation teaching you about what you want? Historically, in your life, how have the doors that got slammed in your face ultimately led to greater adventures, love and opportunity? Allow Lotus to transmute the negative in your life into the positive.
Pick the symbol above that speaks to you the most. Allow it to speak to you over the next several days. Notice what shifts.
Whitney Freya is an expert in Inspired Living, providing practical tools & practices that free your mind from limitations and scarcity to create more in your life that lights you up from the inside out. Her newest book, 30 Days to Unstoppable: Be the Dream Made Visible is available on Amazon. Learn more about her art programs at www.WhitneyFreya.com
