Choose Your Timeline

When I was at my sickest, I found everything I could to hold on. One night it was my dog, Riley.

Some days it was a book I wanted to finish writing, a legacy I wanted to make sure I left behind.

Most days, it was remembering the people I love.

But sometimes the darkness screams louder than the light, the shadows encroaching on every corner of the heart and mind so that’s all there is—all you see and all you feel.

Through my own individual work over the years, I’ve learned how to heal the mind. It hasn’t been easy to silence the gremlins. It hasn’t been easy shining light on the darkness when that light feels like only a flicker.

But one spark can start a blaze.

You are more in control of your mind and your thoughts than you know.

Yes, we have brain chemistry. But our brains include something called neuroplasticity. If our negative experiences can reshape the brain to create a feedback loop of pain and trauma, what happens when we focus on positive elements like gratitude, affirmations, joy?

What if we shift our perspectives around the stories we tell ourselves to view it from all angles versus the reactive pain center of the moment?

What if we expanded our minds to consider that every truth could be valid?

What if we started writing a new story instead of rewinding and watching the old?

You have that power.

I recently channeled a message to a client that stuck with me. Instead of feeding ourselves a thousand what-ifs and negative stories of potential rejection, abandonment, and neglect which are root causes of trauma and heartbreak, what if we began imagining stories of potential love, joy, and happiness?

If perspective has the ability to change how we view a situation, which can change how we feel about a situation, why do we continue down the trajectory of negative potentials when we can consciously be choosing positive ones.

AND. If our minds have the ability to create our reality, which has been scientifically proven, then why are we focusing on less-than-desirable potentials and perspectives when it takes just as much energy and effort to focus on the positive?

This isn’t about bypassing. We’ve experienced traumatic situations. We’re going to face challenges and obstacles. It’s important to acknowledge those emotions and allow ourselves to feel and process them.

But we cannot hold onto the stories our mind likes to create around them. Perspective matters. Awareness of your thoughts matter. And what you choose to do with that awareness—the patterns that you repeat or change—matters most.

Every single day is a new day, a new chance.

We're currently jumping timelines, in between potentials. This is why things may feel calm one moment and chaotic the next. Once you choose ("do I want a timeline of continued suffering and struggle or one of joy and peace?"), you anchor that in and begin to ground it into your reality.

What are you choosing?

COMPANION CHANNELING

(This essay was originally published June 19, 2021 by Susan Dawn)