Hi Joshua,

The pain in my back subsided very quickly. It was gone after one day.

I thought about what you recommended I look into regarding the correlation between the “back pain” and the “pain of going back”. I realise I am a different version of myself when living on my own from when I am back at the family home, so, in that respect, I am being a less authentic version of myself with my parents. When I am going back home I also feel like I am going back into an environment where fears lead to judgment, and controlling conditions is the norm.

With eight family members covering four generations gathered under the same roof for a few days over Christmas, there was a lot of love that was shared, but there were also moments of conflicts which brought me out of alignment. The tension was especially between my mum and my oldest nephew who is 24. They are perfect mirror for each other in the sense that they say things quite bluntly as they see it (usually based on their own judgments, and therefore fears), so they have a tendency to push the wrong buttons with each other. The perspective that I adopted was to look at this as a great teaching opportunity. Whereas in previous years, I was always trying to share a different perspective in those moments to appease conflicts, or to make me feel better, this year I refrained from doing that. I was always an observer of the conflicts, and I was never directly involved. I let the situation flow and did the soothing work internally to regain my alignment first. I seized opportunities later to share a different and more empowering perspectives when others had regained their alignment also.

This brings to me an incident that I witnessed in a parking lot on New Year’s eve. I had driven my mum to the supermarket in the morning to do a last bit of shopping. As we got off the car, there were two couples nearby who were arguing quite vehemently with one another. I don’t know what the argument was about, probably something really mundane like a parking space, but they were shouting and exchanging insults. Both my mum and I walked past and then exchanged smiles. We were mildly amused by it. However, I did think that, since this was in my experience, I must have been a match to it, even though I wasn’t directly involved with the altercation. I was wondering whether this was a reflection of the notion of conflict that I had observed back home, and whether there was a lesson to learn from this experience, in the sense that I was able to maintain my alignment easily walking past this incident, and quite frankly forget about it quite quickly, merely because I didn’t know the people involved and therefor didn’t have any attachment to them.

Our family, or the people we care for in general, are usually our best teachers. They have a knack for triggering manifestation events. I often wonder to which degree I can be my “authentic self” with them, and how much of what I choose to share or not share with them is led by fear, rather than inspiration.

With love,
Arnaud

Dear Arnaud,

It is important to remember that a manifestation event occurs whenever you experience an emotion based on some event in your reality. The condition triggers your emotion, either positive or negative, and the emotion/reaction is based on your current set of beliefs. If the emotion is positive, it is a beneficial belief. If the emotion is negative, then you have uncovered a limiting belief. The intensity of the emotion relates to the intensity of the belief. When something happens in your reality and you feel emotion, it is a message and there is something for you to understand about your beliefs and therefore about the vibration you are offering.

As you described your interaction with your family this Christmas, we are delighted to see that you took on the stance of the observer. This allows you to distance yourself from the actions and dramas of the normal family encounters so that you can observe what is really happening. In situations like these, you can see the interplay between love and fear. You can watch how others operate as they go through their own manifestation events. There’s quite a lot to learn as the observer. As the participant in the manifestation event, the message can be quite hard to take in as you are usually out of alignment and wrapped up in the dynamics and illusions caused by fear.

Here you are as an observer for the first time watching how your family relates to one another. You feel less attachment because you now understand that everything is working out for all of them perfectly. Because you consciously choose to be the observer, rather than the participant, you found it easier to maintain your alignment and then receive inspiration at the proper times. Very good. When you came across the couples fighting in the parking lot, again, you adopted the stance of observer and you noticed how it is a choice of perspective. The same fights were happening, but because you are not attached to the people involved, you feel less fear. It is the attachment to some idea that you think is good that really traps you in fear. Without that attachment, fear has a much harder time interfering with your alignment.

You have no fear when observing the unrelated couples fight. It means nothing to you. You have no possibility for loss and so there is no fear. However, if you were attached to those four people, you might choose a perspective that would trigger a limiting belief. The attachment to something causes you to fear the loss of that thing. When the conditions arise that seem to threaten that thing, your limiting beliefs are triggered and you feel fear. At this point you can be consumed by the fear and receive urges to change the conditions or you could do something much more beneficial and empowering. The empowering choice is to change your perspective or process your fears.

Imagine now that you return home with your mum and a fight has erupted between two of your family members. Here you are attached to these people and you feel fear. What is the fear? That your relationship with them could be lost or at least the dynamics of the family bonds might be altered. You want things to stay the way they are. You want harmony because it allows you to feel good. Everything you are attached to boils down to one thing; you want to feel good and you believe if the conditions are bad, you can’t feel good. Of course, this is a limiting belief.

Now, if you knew that you could feel good no matter what the situation, you would lessen your attachment to whatever it is. The only reason you are attached is because you want to feel a certain way. If you could feel good no matter what was happening in the conditions, then you would not be so attached. Does that make sense?

You might assume that it is good and right for you to be attached to the idea of family harmony. That is a false assumption. One need not be attached to anything and in this form of non-attachment, one steps into the ultimate power gained through alignment. It really does not matter what happens within your family in this lifetime, because you are eternally linked to them. They are exploring reality just as you are. Would you ask them to suspend their exploration in order for you to feel good? Of course not. That is not their job. It is up to you to find a way to feel good no matter what is happening in your reality. If you can do that, the world is yours to do with as you please. Fear can only arise out of the attachment to something which might be lost. Without the attachment, there can be no loss and therefore no fear.

With our love,
We are Joshua