I’m so great at anticipating, I told the nurse who was about to jab me with a needle, that if there were an award for the skill of anticipation, I’d have it. In fact, I’d worked myself up into such a state of feverish anticipation over the prospect of seeing my own blood and the possibility of passing out (it’s happened before), that I actually gave myself a slight fever.
I’m an amazing manifester.
Anticipating, creating emotional expectation and excitation about the future, is central to manifesting. Using the energy of excitement, you can create a story about what you most want to happen, anticipating an outcome that- through focused energy, inner alignment, law of attraction and Grace- happens. So, yes, I’m amazing at anticipating/manifesting. I may have even reached a point where I have nothing left I want to manifest -other than enlightenment!
Yet as my own humbling example illustrates, much of the time we use our minds to make fearful and negative predictions about the future, or our self. Or, if not fearful and negative, wishy-washy, dubious, doubtful, worried and muddled states of consciousness that create unease and stuck-ness.
It’s not our fault. Neuroscience says we have a natural negativity bias oriented toward keeping us constantly looking for problems and threats. We are so used to thinking in terms of problems that we even tend to overlook positive experiences and place much greater emphasis on negative ones. Learning to overcome negativity bias hardwiring is part of being human.
I experience this myself, and I encounter this with clients. In the middle of an uplifting and momentous life change that will require incredible courage to simply begin, a client will ask me, “Okay that all sounds great- but tell me about the challenges?” Or, “Tell me about my shadow…” (ironically, often when I’ve been speaking to the shadow all along).
How does looking for a problem ever help? When a real problem arrives, it readily announces itself: House on fire. Job terminated. Then, the next steps are obvious ones. Most “problems” aren’t real. They are passing energies, and false perceptions. The truth of problems is that you will always find a problem if you go and look for one.
Yet if you’ve experienced trauma, or even a long stretch of difficulty, you’ve gathered enough past evidence to anticipate and predict, look for problems. When the house is no longer on fire, how do we leave the trauma and drama behind? We must mentally re-train our mind to stop looking for problems, and instead really sink into and absorb the good. To spend more time in THAT energy. Not in a naïve positive thinking way, but in a let’s-get-back-to-the-truth-of-who-we-are way.
A friend recently sent me an email that closed with, “You are a good person, Jessica. I hope you know that.” Perhaps because I’d been thinking about the negativity bias of my own mind, I took a few minutes to let the truth, that I am a good person, really wash over me. I steeped in this truth, like a good tea that I wanted to make stronger inside me. This fact of being a good person was more truthful and more essential than my temporary drama of the moment.
A few days later, watching this video (linked) my perception was reinforced. By absorbing, steeping in, and focusing on a positive experience I was creating new neural pathways. Pathways that would help me anticipate even more good, and these pathways would help me be more flexible and centered when I encountered real problems.
Many of us are working on evolving toward a better, more content, easeful state of being. We can use our ability to anticipate/manifest a future, one in alignment with what we truly want, by asking different questions.
Leo-Aquarius Full Moon Intuitive Energy Practice: What If?
Remember, as a kid, when the world was pure possibility and potential? What if I combined yellow and blue? What if I move to Australia? What if I become a ballerina? Leo. Leo is the Divine Child in all of us who remembers the pristine state of Light that we are. Light can do and be anything. It is everywhere, and nowhere. It is creative potential itself.
Then we “grow up” and our “what if?” takes on a different tone and energy. “What if I could do or be anything I want …?” becomes “What if… (insert complex disaster scenario based on all of my negative past experiences and my unexamined beliefs and conditioning, here)? The mind might be the only obstacle to having the life we desire and deserve.
One powerful way I’ve learned to break up my mind’s negativity bias is by intuitively playing with “what if?” I do this with clients, too. Here’s an example. My client is being bullied at work and thinks she has boundary issues. I ask, “What if the problem isn’t boundaries, but that you are in the wrong place, and with the wrong people, for your gifts to express and they sense that?” She says, you make it (this complex problem) sound so easy. “What if it is that easy?”
Then I pause for some seconds to let it sink in. This pausing, and allowing the Ego to connect with Truth, is key.
Insert “mind-blown” emoji here. I could feel her neural circuitry being challenged in a positive way.
Meeting your “what if?” with more curiosity can transform everything that you thought was true… into Truth.
The practice: In a calm state, think of a future something that fills you with a sort of anticipatory dread. Notice your “what ifs?” – the story you’re attaching to the neutral physiological energy of excitement, how you’re using it to predict a future.
Now, change the energy of the question (or change a statement to a question). An idea that “this will never work” or “what if it doesn’t work out?” becomes “what if this actually works?”
What if it’s so hard? … What if it’s surprisingly easy?
What if I don’t have a good time?… What if I have an amazing time?
What if I get sick on my vacation? …What if I’m still good – no matter what happens?
Allow the energy of the new “what if?” to drop into your belly and energy body. Remember, this isn’t a mental exercise, it is an energy practice. You want to feel that energy of anticipatory dread shift into the anticipatory energy of openness to another possibility. Wait for it to shift. Invite it to happen. Don’t push yourself into believing anything you don’t want to believe. Just be open and curious, allowing yourself to be shown whether this other “what if?” could be as true or truer.
Then, with practice, you can take it to the next level.
What if this relationship doesn’t work out?… What if I’m amazing and awesome as I am?
What if the next shoe is about to drop? … What if no shoes drop, only more chocolate comes my way?
What if I never heal this thing I’ve tried my whole life to heal?… What if there’s nothing wrong with me, and never was, and all I need to do is bask in the glorious light of my whole and complete perfection?
What if that person is a better healer than me?…What if I am the powerful healer?
Really, you can “what if?” anything in yourself right back into alignment with Truth.
This is so much more effective than using affirmations. The curious nature of a question will always invite you to feel into your personal connection to Truth by asking whether it is true for you, or by asking whether it might/could be true?… while affirmations/statements require only your compliance, which can sometimes feel rigid and untrue.
Aquarius is the archetype of innovation, of using our mental intelligence, our brilliance, to have a better future. It’s time to use the energy and excitement of anticipation, of “what if?” to play with the possibility of living at your highest vibration. What if it were possible? What if you can have everything you’d ever dreamt of having? If you are able to anticipate the worst, take it from me, you are fully and capably equipped to anticipate – and manifest- the most amazing outcomes you can imagine for yourself. You can use the energy and excitement of anticipation to either experience dread -or- all kinds of wonder and possibility.
this is going in your new book, right? what an amazing cheerup….
i been noticing that = the universe showing me flip sides of what i thought impossible – that they were not only possible, but easy!… talk about being blown out of the water… realizing when something feels like crap… now i look and go, wait, maybe this isn’t what I think it is… just my warped perception at the moment.. definitelly, you gotta put this into a book xoxoxoxoxo 🙂
thank you
I deeply appreciate this mega-dose of wisdom/truth and the invaluable practice that goes along with it. Thank you!
Thanks for this Jessica. Helpful. I almost gave up on something during that full moon. I lay in bed all day because the electric heating had broken down on the 15th in the middle of freezing temperatures, and four different strangers misdialled and left messages on my cell phone. Something was trying to communicate with me eh? A wise friend said just wait until this passes and don’t make any decisions while you feel disheartened. The ‘What if?’ Fits the situation well. As you said, better than affirmations. I’ll use it.
Thank you. This really appeals to my natal Aquarius moon. I can now understand why a whole lot of fear and dread has been coming up last couple of days. What ifs did too. This gives me a positive way forward, a direction in which to flip the dread when it shows up. I love working with the flip side. I guess that is my sun in Gemini.
Oh Jessica, this is exactly what I needed right now. I have been flooded with negativity recently and was looking for a way to release my fears without just ignoring them. This balancing the negative possibilities with positive possibilities feels just right. Thank you for these valuable insights!
I love it! Thanks for the encouragement, Helen! I am almost to the point where I will have a collection of practices for all 24 lunations 🙂 ~Jessica
What a gift Jessica!!!!! …and this comes from a child/adult/senior with a great imagination who has spent many years imagining that “bad” thing that might happen. Thank you so much for sharing your insights with a simplicity that is easy to grasp and for offering others a tool to change our lives for the better.
With respect & gratitude,
Chris