David’s Journal

NOW I AM THE VOICE
I WILL LEAD, NOT FOLLOW
I WILL BELIEVE, NOT DOUBT
I WILL CREATE, NOT DESTROY
I AM A FORCE FOR GOOD
I AM A LEADER.

DEFY THE ODDS.
SET A NEW STANDARD.
STEP UP! STEP UP! STEP UP!

We all need to be reminded of the Truth now and then.

Myself included.

That mantra above was from the Unleash the Power Within event.  Personally, I’m not normally into mantras or positive-thinking chants.  To me, it’s artificially pumping yourself, temporarily making yourself feel better, but really changing nothing.

It’s like a fat and obese person chanting, “I am thin, I am thin!”  Give me a break.  It might make you feel better in the moment, but the next time you walk past a mirror, reality bites you in the ass.

Your big fat ass.

I believe in seeing things as they are.  Not worse than they are.  But not ignoring the truth about them either.

Right now, our economy sucks.  I am so goddamn tired of hearing about the banking crisis, the credit crisis, the rising unemployment, the crashing stock market…  Oil, war, global warming and pollution, nuclear and terrorist threats…

I came back to Florida to see my friends and family.  I’m staying rent-free with my parents for the moment.  I’m applying for jobs.  Have been for quite a while.  It sucks.  It’s not any fun.  The job listings are slim pickings.  And none of them appeal to me.  I’ve been on one interview so far.  Selling mattresses on commission, like I was in California.  Another 50-hour-a-week job (seriously), including weekends.  Joy.  Rapture.  The most fulfilling and rewarding thing I could possibly be doing with my time.  I’m still waiting to hear back for a second interview.

I don’t want to sell mattresses for the rest of my life.

Aren’t I capable of more?  Isn’t there something more I have to offer the world?

And now, my dad receives news of major and deep layoffs coming up in his company.  They just laid off a bunch of people.  Even more are happening in a few months.  Will my dad be one of them?

He’s a little stressed, needless to say.  As is my mom.  They’re praying and trusting everything will be alright, but underneath it all, I can still see a little worry and uncertainty.  Wouldn’t you?  I know I would.  And with my struggle to find a job, my dad gets a little more worried.  What if he is laid off?  What if I don’t move out at the end of the year?  He’ll have one more person to be responsible for.

So, of course, he nags me all the more to find a job.  As if I’m not trying.  He knows I’m trying.  But he still worries.

Honestly, I’m a little worried too.  Before I left San Diego, all these signs (literally and metaphorically) were pointing me to Hawaii.  But I sensed if I went directly there, it’d be a very long time before I got to see my family again.  We’ve had some relationship trouble in the past, and I wanted to smooth it all out and let them know we’re still okay.  I still love and accept them both.

Meanwhile, I’m doing everything I can.  Looking for work.  Exploring self-employment ideas.  And praying.  A lot.  The most frustrating part is, every time I do pray and ask for guidance, the message is the same: rest.  Rest, rest, rest.  This period of visiting my family is supposed to be a period of rest, a recharging time, an oasis at the end of one journey before beginning a new one.

What’s ahead?

I don’t know.  God won’t tell me.  It has something to do with learning, teaching, sharing, interacting with others.  Helping others.  That’s all he’s telling me.  He says he understands my frustration and impatience, but if I knew what it was now, I’d be too excited and want to start it immediately.  I’d want to get to work on it right away, but right now, I need to be resting.

But how do you rest when the economy and world is the way it is?  How do you rest when you don’t know where you’ll be in 2 months, or how you’ll even afford to leave your parents’ house to do it?  Fortunately, I do have some income.  I’ve been overall consistently making money on the stock market.  Yup.  Even after a really stupid trade where I lost a lot of money, overall, my portfolio is up 20%.  And I won’t be making that same mistake again.  (Every time I lose money, I learn why — and I’m getting better and better with time.)  Even right now, it’s 1:20pm on Tuesday afternoon.  I bought an investment yesterday morning, and at this moment, it’s already over a 10% profitable return.  In under 2 days!  Even with Wall Street’s so-called “meltdown.”

The money I’ve been making from my investments has covered my other bills — cell phone, car, insurance, and going out to eat with friends and things like that.  I’m not earning enough yet to pay rent and full groceries yet.  And believe it or not, I actually want a job right now, so I can get even more money to invest with!

So, anyway, the truth is: right now, my needs are being taken care of.  Staying with my parents, I have food and shelter.  Thanks to my successful trades, my investments are covering my other personal bills.  So right now, in this present moment, I’m okay.

Who knows what tomorrow holds?

I want to do more.  I want to be more.

I’m ready, yearning, aching to Step Up and be more.  To expand.  To stretch out and make a difference.  To change someone’s life for the better.  To turn financial ruin into financial recovery.  To turn broken hearts into healed and hopeful ones.  To inspire relationships, build connections, transform lives, teach, learn, grow, share…  I’m ready.  I’m wanting.

But what’s holding me back?

Spiritually, I’m not guided to go yet.  I’m like a race car, revved up and ready to launch, and I’m waiting for the light to turn green.  All I need is for God to say GO.

I shared this with a friend, an author and spiritual counselor who’s very plugged into the spiritual scene.  She mentioned experiencing the same thing.  That she was being told, for right now, to just keep doing what she’s doing and enjoy life.  Don’t start anything new just yet.  Wait.  Rest.  She mentioned how many of her spiritual friends also found themselves in this same “wait and rest” hold period, as well.

Interesting.  I e-mailed Ann Albers, the angel communicator I did that awesome podcast with several months ago.  I asked her if she had been observing the same thing.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” she told me.  Ever since the summer months, she’s had thousands of people express this.  She, herself, was also getting the same guidance: rest, take it easy, keep doing what you’re doing to support yourself, but wait before starting anything new.

Odd.

I have to wonder why.

If this is indeed happening on a large scale… why?  Is God holding us all back for something?  Is there a major shift or change about to happen?

I can only speculate.

You’ve got the doomsday sayers on one side, saying the world’s gonna end in 2012.  That’s still 4 years away.  I can’t imagine God saying, “Oh well, the world’s almost over anyway, just sit back and relax because there’s no point in starting anything new now.”  That doesn’t make sense.  We’ve still got 4 years.  A lot can happen, a lot can change, in those short 4 years.

On the other side of the spectrum, you’ve got people predicting a new spiritual era and global transformation of some kind.  A revolution, or evolution, or some kind.  Maybe we’re on hold because the old model, the old system, is about to change.  And anything we start now won’t make sense, fit in, or be needed in the world of tomorrow.

I don’t know.

Maybe it’s just been an exciting and exhausting few years, and quite simply, God knows we all need a little break. :)  We in the western world seem to forget about the value and importance of rest.  We somehow don’t feel valuable if we’re not constantly working and producing (and consuming) something.

It’s something to think about.  I’m curious and excited to see how history does unfold in the upcoming years and decades.

Personally, it is not my opinion that the world is coming to an end.  Big changes?  Quite possibly, almost certainly.  And I’m not saying that on faith.  Take a look through history.  All the conditions and timing are right.  We’re ripe for some kind of big change.  How and where we’ll end up on the other side is anyone’s guess at this point, though.

God, I wish I had a time machine. :)

Which actually brings me back to where I started this blog.  Remember how I said I’ve been feeling a little down, discouraged, maybe even a little scared?  How I need to be reminded of the truth every now and then too?

The truth is, I’ve forgotten who I really am.

Yes, I’m a leader.  Yes, I’m a force for good.  Just like that mantra says.  But that’s not what I’m talking about.  I’m talking about my heart, I’m talking about my soul – who David Michaels really is, deep down, on the raw, true to true, on the inside.

You see, when we’re living in fear, we can’t see the truth about ourselves.  If we did, we wouldn’t be in fear.

The truth is, I am powerful.  The truth is, I am free.  The truth is, I am more than capable.

The truth is, I came here to this planet, took human form, for a reason.

A mission.

A purpose.

My purpose.

And I can tell you, it’s more than being a good commissioned salesman selling beds and furniture.  I can do that.  But it’s not why I’m here.

And the truth is, I came prepared.  (We all did.)  Let me repeat that: we all did.  We’re all prepared.  We just forgot, momentarily, the truth about ourselves.  I already have within me everything I need to fulfill my mission.  …But I don’t like how that sentence is worded.  Let me say it a better way.  I will fulfill my mission, because I am me.  It’s not “inside” me — it is me.

It’s how I’m made.  It’s what I’m made of.

I don’t carry the tools.  I am the tool.

The tool for change.  The tool for life.  The tool to do exactly what and why I came here for in the first place.

Everything else in between, when I’m not specifically doing and being my mission, is just fun and experience.  To learn, to grow, to experience, to try out different things, to make connections, to explore…  To be and do all sorts of things, whatever I want, in the spaces and times when I’m not directly “consciously” living my purpose.

Remember, since I am my purpose, I can’t ever not do it.

I do it by default.

I do it, because it is me.

Now, I can “choose” not to be or do something.  We’ve got free will and all that.  But if *I* am freely choosing to be, do, say, or experience one thing or another — or not — isn’t that still being me?  And if the real me is the mission and purpose — how I was designed, the very fabric I’m made of — then even when I deny my mission, I’m still fulfilling it … just in a more creative way. :)

Okay, some of you look really inspired … some of you, your eyes just glazed over.  Don’t worry.  It’s not important.  Be you.  Or don’t be you.  You can’t mess up God.

You’re just not that powerful.

How dare we, mere futile human beings, think and honestly believe we can fuck up God’s plans for our lives and in the world, by what our meek hands and words can do?  Think about it.  One created the entire universe, all the laws of physics, time and space, matter and energy… the whole fucking universe.  Okay?  The other… yeah you… you’re a little walking-talking blob of flesh and bone, living maybe 80 to 100 years, on some little planet, orbiting a rather average star, on the outskirts of one galaxy, in the whole freaking universe.

You’re that powerful to mess up God?

Hah!

See, we do have a sense of humor!

Even with free will, even if we choose to outright reject and resist God — can you, a mere man or woman, stand before the ocean and block a tsunami from hitting the shore?  Can you, a mere human, command a torando not to sweep across the land?  Can you, a simple creature, stop the stars from shining or the rain from falling?

There are forces greater than ourselves.

Much greater.

But don’t worry: we’re a part of them.

A part of nature.  A part of the universe.  A part of God.

That’s why we’re all interconnected.  We all breathe the same air, borrow the same matter and energy, share the same planet and star, share the same connection of the One God.  All creations, extensions, expressions of the same God.  There is only One.  It just appears to be anything but.

But now we’re getting into mystic awareness here.

One step at a time. :)

The truth is, there’s more to me than what I see.  More than what I feel.  More than what I even know.

I can choose to be scared.  Choose to feel depressed.  Or I can choose to feel confident, certain, connected, empowered.  All are within me.  It just depends on what I focus on: the truth, or my fears.

I have much more to say.  But perhaps, for today, this is enough.

Namaste, my friends.

Blessings and power and truth to you and me,

David Michaels

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