Negative | Positive + The Alchemy of Neutrality
What lessons, opportunities and blessings are you being given—through the experience of dis-ease, accidents, illness—that you otherwise wouldn’t?
I recently took a moment to rest, slow down, and do as close to nothing—i.e., getting “work” done…being “productive”…meeting and responding to requests or demands on my time. Did I take this action because I had considered how much work I’d been doing for a few months straight and determined that it would be a good time to take a break? Nope. I did it because I had to: Rona V got me. Yup, after over 3 years of staving it off, apparently it was my time. And if I was to give myself a chance to prevent it from reeking any (or perhaps more) havoc on my body, I needed to listen.
It’s funny, I thought I would have been more devastated when I saw those two dreaded lines on the test strip. While the anxiety of having a “positive” result had somewhat diminished over time—I’ve been getting tested or testing myself on a regular basis since the pandemic was announced—the idea of having COVID still brought up so much. How could it not, given everything we’ve been through as a global family since 2020?
But I looked at the positive result and simply thought, “Ok, here it is.” My own mind is still somewhat surprised by this neutrality given everything I had going on that would possibly need to be tossed out the window, some of it having a price-tag attached—i.e., work opportunities, travel plans, etc. I am really grateful for the serenity that some would judge as insanity. I even see it as a testing of myself around my ability to actually continue living what I often talk about: (1) honoring that the “good” and “bad” come together; (2) using everything, no matter how negative, for a positive benefit; (3) remembering that life happens through me, and not to me; and (4) knowing that nothing can happen without the sanction of my own head/higher self. I thank life everyday for Ifa, Bashar, and all other philosophies, beings, and things that I continue to learn from to maintain a trust that I don’t often understand on a conscious and conditioned level.
For many of us, some of the most negative experiences we can move through revolve around our health. Our decision and thus ability to completely collapse into despair when we receive news around this delicate area of our lives that we judge as devastating is often immediate. Many people stay in the despair—their own and/or that which is projected onto them by others who react to their situations. Then, for many beyond that, it’s usually only after having beat, won the battle against, f*cked, or any other euphemism we have created to express having overcome or mitigated a condition, that we can look back more neutrally or even positively at what moving through the experience showed us.
I decided to do differently.
I decided to be present with this experience.
I decided, in real-time, to ask what I was teaching myself by attracting what I didn’t prefer to myself at this particular moment in my life.
I had a conversation with myself…COVID…myself companioned by COVID.
I made a decision that my relationship with this virus wouldn’t be a sorrow-filed one that kept me in a perpetual state of victimhood at the mercy of emotions I didn’t prefer and that I would potentially allow to do more damage that the virus itself.
I decided that I wouldn’t wait until I could call upon or chalk it up to hindsight to show me what I could be seeing in the now—which would open up the vision of my future self to perceive other things and more deeply and purely.
I don’t even know that I thought much about it (though I definitely thought about other things after it). It happened within seconds, if not instantly, which was the same amount of time it took for that determining red strip to appear. But I’ve come to realize that the rapidity with which I dropped into a greater state of peace around it all was due to my ongoing practice of making the aforementioned decisions for the last few years—in generally with all situations in my life, but also specifically and with a targeted focus on COVID. After all, my belief from close to the beginning is that this virus has and will continue to illuminate the weakest/most vulnerable parts of us—individually and collectively…spiritually and materially…across whatever systems are necessary—until we get it and create a pathway to truly heal it.
While I had my share of fears early on, I also had questioned and stood in the position of neutral witness as the tsunami of negativity—coming from all sides—around COVID, the vaccines, and all things related, was moving through the collective(s). The vitriol, judgement, ridicule and ridiculousness, ideas of conspiracy, lack of transparency, a great deal of unknown and much more was A LOT. All of that on top of what the virus itself was doing…sheesh!
“Something is funny about all of this” I said to my Baba during a personal divination weeks before the pandemic and then quarantine were officially announced. “Mmm…I don’t align with that belief…” I said to a friend who shared some startling ideas about the negative effects of the vaccine on people’s souls. “I can see that your wheels are spinning,” this person said as I sat there and processed the existential implication of what they had said to me…something that led to my own decision to become vaccinated after holding out initially. Call it my own informal wait-and-see policy as the new vaccines were being announced and distributed.
3+ years, a vaccine, a booster, suspicions about the effects of the aforementioned, a virus, and a healing of the virus later, I sit in a place called: what have I learned (and am I still learning) and what opportunities have I been given that I otherwise would not have because of all of it?
I will end with that question as this post took a turn I didn’t quite expect. I suspect there will be another, if not multiple follow-ups to this it (I really do want to share much of what came up while I recovered); either in sequence and with a clearly stated direct relationship to it, or in no particular order and even integrated into the topics of other seemingly unrelated posts.
But really it’s all one thing. It always boils down to and points in one direction: our illumination, growth, and expansion.
I encourage you to point the flashlight inward by asking yourself the bolded question above while consider anything (I literally mean ANYTHING) you have gone through or are still navigating. The more terrible it feels or has been judged to be, the more you can you it as an opportunity to catapult yourself beyond. Ask yourself as many times as you need to. Make a ritual out of it. Speak directly to that circumstance or situation if you doing so is a stronger permission slip. Literally imagine that experience as an entity/person outside of you that paid you a visit in the past or is still by your side. See if you can employ the alchemical skills all of us have been gifted to really identify and take advantage of the positive result being served to you by said experience, no matter how far on the opposite side of the spectrum you or anyone else make it out to be. Make it your friend and watch it transform, disappear, or show you something that blows open your level of awareness and recognition of your power.
Life is quite the magician, trickster, and fool. And we all decided to get on its board by choosing to be here. Let the play(ing) continue. We’re all winners should we choose to see it that way.
PS: I created the below resource in 2021 after realizing I could offer perspectives outside of the norm around the COVID vaccine and more. Note that this is not an endorsement for or against the vaccine, rather some perhaps nuanced ways of thinking to help people shift energy. I always find it interesting that to have a condition or illness is to be “positive,” yet we stay stuck in energies that are far different than that when faced it. Take a read or send it to someone who needs a different outlook. If you or they are dealing with health concerns unrelated to COVID or the vaccine, take a look anyway. You may find a line or two that opens the doors and takes you down an interesting journey that ends in you experiencing more peace, ease, and even understanding around what has showed up or has been a consistent element within your life.
© 2023 by ONYI LOVE ® LLC & Felicia Richards