Stranger angels, synchronicity, manifesting and medical intuition.
I know the title may be throwing you. It’ll make sense once you hear this story. This is actually an episode about stranger angels and manifesting, health scares and synchronicity ...
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Synchronicity really never ceases to amaze me.
About a year ago, a year and a half ago, I listened to a really cool podcast about synchronicity on the Future Thinker’s podcast I believe it's called. I’m going to find the link for the show notes so you can go check that out. Because I’ve actually never heard a better, more practical, scientific explanation for the phenomenon of synchronicity, like what's actually happening in our brains, why we experience it the way that we do.
But even though I was comforted by the explanation of the scientist who had researched this and who had written a book and was being interviewed on the show, I still receive and process synchronicity through my Magical world view. It's really hard for me to not interpret synchronicity as some kind of message or sign, some way in which the Universe communicates with me or the Divine sort of leaves me these scavenger hunt clues.
I remember one time having a conversation with one of my really super non-New Age super Muggle friends, and we were talking about synchronicity and she commented on the fact that synchronicity is actually the one thing, the one kind of paranormal phenomenon that absolutely everyone experiences regardless of their believe system.
Ever since she said that, I've often wondered what agnostics and atheists have to say about synchronicity. I want to stop people on the street and interview them, but if you know someone, I'd love to have a conversation with them about it. Maybe we can get them on the show.
Alright so I'm going somewhere with the synchronicity thing, I promise.
I have recently had an injured foot, just to put it really simply. For six weeks, I was having pain in my foot. It started out, if you follow me online, if you are friends with me on Facebook, you will notice that about a month ago, I changed my Facebook profile. It's this pretty outdoor sunny leaves and light kind of background. It was shot in a park.
That actual day was the first day this season that I wore my chacos, which are the really heavy strappy sandals that a lot of people wear. It was the first kind of warmish day where I thought, you know what? I'm going to be walking around outside. My feet aren't going to be in the pictures. I'm just going to wear my chacos.
The strap cut into the tendon along the top of my foot, that runs to your big toe. I sort of stripped it out, felt like I bruised the tendon walking around taking pictures, and the pain just never went away.
So then I'm like, in my high intensity interval training class, pulling the medical people that I know in the class, we have a couple doctors, a few nurse practitioners, some nurses, and I keep asking them questions about it, showing them my foot. I was like, is it possible to just bruise this tendon where it just hurts for a long time? They were kind of like, really dude? We're going to do this middle of class?
Anyway, so it went on and on though, to the point where, about a month in, I was in the middle of class and we were doing some warm ups. We were skipping rope and you're really jumping up and down on your toes when you're skipping rope. I thought, you know what? I can't do this today. I've got to leave. It's really hurting that bad.
So it turns out that my trainer, the person who leads all these classes, my fitness instructor, had a stress fracture in her left foot about two years ago. Same thing. She had to wear this boot for 10 weeks and it just so happens that I am friends with her partner. We went to high school together so sometimes I'll do things with them socially outside the context of the fitness classes.
We went to see Rocket Man, the Elton John movie together. We were having cocktails afterwards. She was like, where have you been? I told her what was happening with my foot and she said, you know, I was really in denial about the fact that I actually had a stress fracture and I did not want it to be that. But you need to go and get it checked out because something's obviously wrong. Six weeks is way too long for something to just not get better. At all.
So she referred me to the person she'd seen and she talked me into going to see an orthopedist foot and ankle person. I was like, okay. I can't wander around possibly hurting myself worse. I need to go and just bite the bullet, deal with this. I'm getting ready to go on this trip to Dallas but maybe I can, like, wear the boot when I get back from my trip. It's been six weeks. What's seven?
So I go in there really expecting to have this stress fracture diagnosed, have to wear this boot on my foot for 10 weeks. I mean, that's just my mindset. I was prepared for that. So they did x-rays. Of course, a stress fracture's so small it actually isn't visible in an x-ray, so to diagnose the stress fracture, they use a tuning fork, which is really kind of amazing.
They hit the tuning fork on the desk, and then they hold the end of it up to all the different bones in your feet. You feel a vibration. It's not uncomfortable or anything like that, but if the bone is broken, basically you will scream and then that will be the diagnosis that yes, that one is broken.
So she did the tuning fork. She tested every spot on my foot you can imagine and nothing really set it off. So she talked to me a little bit more, had me describe what I was experiencing, where I was experiencing it when I do different types of motion and all this kind of stuff. She was like, okay, I know what's going on.
So then she whips out the x-rays and she shows me the spaces in between the joints on all my toes - all of my smaller toes versus the space in the joints of my big toe. She said, I was expecting you to complain about both your feet hurting. And I said, that's weird because I said to my mom, the weirdest thing is happening. I'm starting to experience a phantom pain in my right foot that perfectly mirrors the one in my left. And my mom said, maybe you're compensating for the pain in your left foot and you're putting more stress in your right foot. So not you're getting a weird thing in the right foot.
Turns out, I have the same condition in both of my big toes. I have arthritis. And if I hurt myself these days, like I did with the tendon, arthritis will set in to that spot and then it becomes inflamed and then it's like three months of pain, or even ongoing pain. So it's like those spots never really fully heal. They become something else. This has been happening on other parts of my body.
So, I will stew on things. I will over analyse. I will look for meaning where there may only be randomness. Because I’ve lived through some major health scares like having a stroke 16 years ago and anal cancer 10 years ago, I honestly can be a bit of a hypochondriac. And after having my foot diagnosis saying, you know what? You really just have arthritis... I almost felt embarrassed by how much I thought something horrible was going on.
Not that that's not bad and it might not be better over time, but it wasn't what I thought it was. I blew it up into this whole other thing in my head and I took the synchronicity of my trainer having the same spot in the same foot, having the same issue as just like a sign. Oh, well I have the same problem automatically. It's synchronicity.
Dr Julia, who’s an administrator in our Facebook community and she's a friend of mine. She's a cancer survivor herself which she speaks about openly — Julia, do we like that term "cancer survivor"? Have we talked about this? I’m using it because it’s common shorthand and people know what you mean when you say that, but I’m not sure that I like that term.
Anyway, if you've had cancer, you've come out the other side of it and you're still here, I guess you're a cancer survivor.
Anyway, we were talking about how once you have the big c, every little thing that happens, even if you're the most laid back zen person in the whole world, every little thing has this tiny whisper in the back of your mind, “Oh my god it’s back." Every freckle a skin cancer. Every stomach ache is some kind of horrible tumour in your gut.
And so I kind of now, because I KNOW that that phenomenon is taking place, and that I am a little bit of a hypocondriac because of it, I then try to over correct for that tendency by trying to be overly calm and rational and let's not go there.
So if I know something's wrong with me and I have a diagnosis for sure, like if you tell me, oh yeah, you need surgery, I'm like, let's do it tomorrow. I don't want to wait because I know that the only way out is through. So let's just get on with it.
But I do have this tendency to some wait. Maybe two weeks in, I have the thought, I probably need to get my foot x-rayed. But I thought, no, you're a hypochondriac. You're turning this into something it's not. It'll probably be fine. Let's wait and see.
So I do that a lot. And it's not about a fear. It's not a fear of having something wrong. It's a fear of looking like a dumbass because I've gone to the doctor yet again thinking that I need to have my foot amputated and really, it's like, yeah dude, you have a little bit of arthritis but it's not the end of the world.
So I'm actually kind of fearful of looking stupid because of my anxiety around health issues. Okay. That's another episode.
I just have to say this though:
I do not believe we manifest every illness we have with our thoughts. That we create the illnesses that we have some agreement with heaven to experience illnesses at certain points of our lives. I just don't believe that. I know a lot of people do. It's fine if you want to do it, but I'm just letting you know where my train of thought and my perspective, how I process stuff.
And I do want to say, something that I want to get off my chest is... Don't say that to someone in the middle of chemo even if you believe it with all your heart that they've manifested their cancer. Please. For the love of God, do not say that to someone who has just been hit with a serious health diagnosis.
I’ve had plenty of people in the new age community do that. To me. Recently. And I've seen it done to others in front of me. And it really... Whether you believe that's true, whether or not it is true, you need to check why it is that you would communicate that to someone at that moment in that vulnerable space.
Like, what is it about you that needs to express that and be heard saying it? I guarantee you it's not helpful to the person who is in the midst of chemotherapy and radiation. That's not helpful for them to hear that. So just don't say it.
And check yourself about why you might want to say that. Say it to yourself.
Shit happens to people.
Some things are genetic.
Some things are shitty luck, and I just don’t go through life believing that you’re punished for having negative thoughts.
That’s some Old Testament shit in my opinion. That’s New Age echoes of religious fundamentalism.
No thank you. No! Not doing that.
But I digress with that soapbox.
Being intuitive isn’t as helpful as we’d like it to be when it's you. I even have some instances of some really cool medical intuition. I've had instances of medical intuition consistently around drug interactions and dosages. That seems to be the way in which my medical intuition will come through in a reading or just in interacting with someone.
Sometimes I get information about medications that people are on. It's not something I offer as a service, because it's not something that shows up 100% of the time when I do readings for people. But I'm just saying, like, I can have medical insights for other people, for clients. But when it's MY stuff, it's just... no... It's not helpful. It doesn't work like that. We wish it would.
Everybody spins out over their own personal life threatening shit.
Other intuitives can help you. By all means, if you want to get a reading with someone who might have some insight or thought for you, that can be very constructive. But you need messages from outside the vacuum of your own mind. Especially when it comes to something that you might have a tendency to overanalyze or stew over or be anxious over or be a hypochondriac over.
That stuff needs to be tested and mirrored outside yourself. And that experience happens with other people. So you need some partners. You need some participants, whether it's your mama, your best girl friend, your favourite tarot reader... Whatever.
One of the most powerful ways, the most real ways, that I believe with all my heart that your guides do come through for you, that your prayers do get answered is by putting real people in your paths in the real world who have the training, the knowledge, the wisdom, the tools and the medicine to make a difference.
Signs and patterns are tricky things. My trainer had a stress fracture same foot. She encouraged me. Because of that, to assume that that was what was going on with me. I overly identified with her illness. And then when I got the referral, and it was to the same PA she saw which, by the way, she recommended I go to someone but when I actually, you know the way it works, your doctor often says, okay we're going to get you a referral, and then that office will call you and someone who works the front desk will make an appointment for sometimes a whole group of doctors and physician assistants.
It just turned out that I randomly got assigned was the person that my trainer went to as well. And so, again, that was another synchronicity that sort of sent me into space of expecting a certain outcome. I went in there thinking, okay, I'm going to get a boot. I have a stress fracture. I'm gonna have to wear this thing for 10 weeks.
So I went on Monday and got that whole thing diagnosed, which I already told you about.
So it was nowhere near the trauma I'd prepared myself for. And that was the real lesson here.
It was a pain in my foot. That's all I knew. I should have stopped there with the self diagnosis.
That was on Monday.
On Tuesday I drive to Knoxville which is about 100 miles away, a neighbouring city, to get my car serviced. I drive a mini cooper. They only have mini cooper dealers so many hundred miles. They don't have a dealership in my city, so I drive out of town once a year and get work done on my car to get oil changes and all that kind of stuff.
I've become pretty friendly with the woman who is the service concierge. Her name's Anne. She's super cool. I love having a woman as kind of the face of the service department. I think it's really cool. She's got a really outgoing personality. Since I end up waiting there a lot, I've struck up conversations with her. We just click, you know? We've become friends. She'll give me a loaner car and send me off to have lunch or do whatever.
I remember asking her very early on when I first met her, I said, Is there anywhere to go that's not like, Panera or McDonald's? I hate Panera. I think it's like the most beige food in the whole world. She was like, what kind of food do you like? I said I love Thai food. That was the first thing I blurted out. And she's from Thailand.
So she was very excited about being able to recommend her favourite Thai food restaurant called Little Bangkok. It's in Farragut, west Knoxville. If you go through there, check it out. It's some good Thai food.
So anyway, I'm pulling up to the dealership. I'm expecting to see Anne and talk about Little Bangkok, get my loaner car, go have lunch. I walk in, and I kid you not. This is a day later, right? A day after I've been to the orthopedist. I walk in. Anne is wearing a boot on her left foot
I said, “Do not tell me you have a stress fracture in your left foot?”
She said yes. She got the boot yesterday. The day before. Same day that I went to the doctor, this woman I know, who lives 100 miles away, was going to the same doctor and she got the diagnosis that I was expecting.
She got the boot for 10 weeks.
I was like, What are the odds of that?! What does that even mean?! Does that not blow your mind when stuff like that happens? I have a mini explosion in my head. I just turn into a firework inside, when I get that kind of synchronicity matching up.
What are the chances?!
So we were talking about the whole thing. I was telling her that mine wasn't what hers was. And I was explaining to her why I was freaking out over her having the boot. And she said, "What do you think it means then, when something like that happens?"
I said, “Well you know, at the end of the day, I think at a basic level I always interpret it as meaning that I'm exactly where I need to be, for whatever reason I’m in exactly the right moment. It's almost like a little flashing sign that says 'Intersection up ahead'.”
So I get my loaner car, go to lunch, and here was another synchronicity. This place, Little Bangkok, at lunchtime is packed to the rafters. The last time I was there was 10 months ago. I took Seth camping with me for the first time, where I go every year. We stopped to have lunch on the way, and I said, "Let's go to this place, Little Bangkok."
Tuesday, they sat me at the same exact table where they sat me and Seth 10 months ago.
This is a fairly large restaurant. There were a million people in there and the only empty chair was the last one I sat in.
What are the chances? Again, synchronicity. I'm like, what is up?? Something's coming up for me.
When I get back, there’s this really beautiful young woman who's waiting on her car. She's sitting in the lounge area and she's talking to Anne. I can tell that they're friends the way I'm friends with Anne. Maybe Anne's that way with everyone who has the capacity.
They are talking about her foot. I just immediately sat down next to this woman and just sort of butted in the conversation, not in an obnoxious way. Anne sort of brought me in to it. So I started telling her about the synchronicity with my foot.
As I'm talking to her, I notice that she has some facial paralysis. Nothing too, too bad, but I know the signs because I've had that and I'm sensitive to it and will notice it in other people and I always wonder if they've maybe had a similar experience to me. A lot of times they've had bell's palsy.
It was really weird how we just immediately started talking like friends. It was almost like I was meeting her there. And I walked in and was like, "Oh, there you are," and I sat down and we just started talking.
Anne walks by and she goes, “OMG - of course you guys are talking. You guys are my like my special buddies. I have this connection with both of you that I don't have with everyone." So apparently she doesn't talk to everyone like she talks to me. And she said, "It totally makes sense that you guys are hanging out." Which was cool because we were sitting there in a waiting room so it was fun to talk.
I ask her what her name was and she says Felicia. She says “I was just telling Anne about my own medical horror story since the last time I saw her. I had a stroke 3 months ago.”
I let her tell me her story before jumping in because I hate it when people do that. I just listened and I held space for her story.
All the time, I'm realizing, okay, here it is. Here's the intersection. Here's where these synchronicities are leading me. I'm in one of those stranger angels situations where I am the angel. Remember that the word 'angel' means messenger. I'm here. I'm supposed to tell her something.
She starts telling me about her job. She works with students at a university. Again, same scenario as when I had my stroke. And she tells me the stress triggers are what brought the stroke on for her. That they were very much related to a horrible situation with her boss. Very similar to what I experienced.
When she sort of comes to a natural pause in her story, I finally said something. I said, “Do you mind my asking how old you are?”
She said, "I'm 33."
So then I had to tell her I had a stroke at 33.
Her mouth dropped. She was like, no way! So I told her my story. She's of course freaking out because she's hearing and seeing parallels. And I just flat out told her. I said, "You know what? I have been having all these synchronicities all day and I think that maybe I'm here to have this conversation with you. So I'm just curious. I'm going to be really nosy but I'm going to put this out there to you."
I didn't tell her that I'm an intuitive or anything like that. I don't really like to necessarily do that with people because I think it shuts them down or sends them off on a tangent in an other direction. She was already open to me, so I just said, "Is there anything that's really weighing on you right now? What's the question in your mind? What are you holding in your mind right now that's just on a loop, that you really want a message around?"
So she starts to tell me that she is considering moving back home because of all the stuff that's happening with her health. It feels like defeat to her. She feels she's kind of run out everything she loved about her job. It's now become this source of stress that's literally impacting her health. She kind of just wants to curl up and just go home. Which I think for her was Memphis, on the other end of the state.
So I talked to her about the fact that I really get what that feels like. I didn't immediately, as necessarily as quickly as her, decide to move home. But within a few years of having my stroke, I decided to just fold it up and go home and be in my mom's house for awhile. I told her what an amazing turning point that was for me, without tell her that I started Shift Your Spirits or anything like that. I just in more general terms talked about how I was able to start a business of my own, that I'd been wanting to do and really get it off the ground.
I asked her what she would like to do, if she could remove herself from all the stress, go back home to a safe place, and even accepting that that's somehow a defeat, returning home to your parents house at 33, if it allowed you to do any project. Like if you just had the breathing room to heal for awhile and work on something. What would it be?
Omg y’all, she starts telling me about a podcast she wants to start with two girlfriends of hers!!!
She’s pitching me this show and telling me about the concept. The next thing I know, of course, I'm rolling into podcasting advice and cheerleading and enabling her.
At one point, we're interrupted and her dad texts. And she actually isn't moving back in with her mom. She would be moving back home with her dad. And she said, it's kind of unusual for him to text her in the middle of the day like that, so it was a weird little sign that he texted at that moment. That we were talking about her going back to live with him.
She said something about his name and it turns out he has the same name as my dad and we talk about that and all this is happening really quickly. It was like the fastest conversation.
Finally she goes, “You know what? Damn. I really do think you were put here for me to have this conversation with me today. I feel really different about how the next few months could play out. I was feeling like, oh this is terrible, and now you've presented it to me in a way of like, okay well hold on a minute. Maybe you can use this more constructively and it actually might lead to this new phase in your life.
After kind of getting that feedback from her, she finally asked me what I did. What I do for a living.
I was like, "Okay, you know what, I'm just going to show you."
I knew she had an iPhone. It was sitting right there in the palm of her hand and I said, "Go to your podcast app." She went to her podcast app and she's grinning at me like, okay, she's expecting something.
I told her to search, 'Shift Your Spirits', and of course, my cover image pops up, which is a picture of me. She was like, dying. No way. I can't believe I've been sitting here this whole time talking to you about this and... We were both kind of freaking out over the synchronicity and basking in the glow of having had this meaningful random intersection.
Right at that moment, both of our cars were ready.
Anne said, "Hey, you guys, you're both parked out front."
We're both checking out. I had another person check me out while Anne was checking her out. We walked out together, walk over to where our cars are and our cars are identical. They're parked side by side, they're the same British racing green colour and they were so similar like we had to use our key fobs to lock and unlock the car to see which one was talking to which car.
I got in my car and I waved at her. Without any irony at all, I called out “Bye, Felicia!”
I kind of cracked up. She cracked up. I'm sure she's heard that joke a million times. I thought, in that moment, that expression will never work for me again in the same way. Because now, it felt like I was sending her on her way to something. It felt more like a Bon Voyage than a you-can't-sit-at-our-table, done with you kind of thing.
I hope Felicia hears this. That's why I gave it the title that I did. I'm hoping that she be curious about my show and it'll be there in her podcast app and maybe she's telling her friends, "Oh, I met this guy who has a podcast and then she sees this title and it makes her curious to check it out and see if it was about her.
But the story for this week is actually not over.
I found a lump on my left testicle that night. I had suspected it'd been there before. It kind of crossed my consciousness in the last couple of months. But I for real found it, and holy shit, did I go down the Google rabbit hole Tuesday night.
The whole time I’m like REALLY? Do I really need another milestone health crisis, Universe, guides and all Divine things? I mean, do I really need to do this again? Oh God... and I have somewhat of a jaded attitude about it, just to tell you the truth. I'm not so quick to think, Ohmygod I'm gonna die, as I was the first time. But I am weary of having to be put through the test again because I'm like, don't I already get it? Don't I already know? Do we really need to repeat this?
I got up that morning, Wednesday morning, and I texted 3 people - Seth, Jeff and Dr Julia.
I needed messages through them and I needed them to come without telling them that they were meant to be messages. So I literally just was like, "Good morning. I have a lump on my left testicle."
I got back 3 messages that were pretty much almost the exact same thing, and I always think about the idea that when you hear a message 3 times, or when 3 different people recommend the same thing to you 3 times, there's something about that magic number 3 that we recognize as Divine. Like, okay, somebody's trying to tell me something.
So I was sort of purposefully running that experiment with them.
And Jeff answered back first and right away mentioned the fact that, you know what, testicular cancer usually happens to much younger guys, like in their 20s. So hold off on thinking that that's what this has to be.
Julia messaged me maybe 30 minutes later, said the same thing. "By the way, let me put your mind at ease a little bit before you freak out. Statistically, testicular cancer is something that happens to much younger men so it may be something else. I'll talk to you later." She was about to go into a session.
And then Seth said something to the effect of, "You know what? Right now, it's a lump. That's all it is. It's not cancer, it's a lump. You found a lump in your testicle. That's all it is right now." Which is so much the message that I got on Monday and Tuesday about the thing with my foot and my hypochondriacal acceptance of the scenario that didn't even turn out to be true.
So what was really even cooler - Dr. Julia has worked in oncology for much of her career and she is married to an oncologist. He's a really wonderful man. I have a rapport with him as a friend personally. So I already love his personality. But she told me, she said, "He's right here. He's wanting to ask questions. Do you want to just talk to him?"
I was like, "Of course I want to talk to him."
I mean, I couldn't even get my own doctor on the phone. All I could get was an appointment. So to be able to talk to a man who has retired from a lifetime in oncology was like, okay, this is really what a wonderful scenario to have here at my fingertips. So yeah, put him on the phone!
And, you know, he has such a great bedside manner. I think Julia knew that he could do a lot to sort of alleviate me from going down some bad thought track. He told me right away there are a lot of other things it could be. Google didn't tell me that there were other things it could be. Google just told me the worst news imaginable. One thing that Google did tell me is that even when it is cancer, it's literally one of the most treatable kinds of cancers that we have.
He also offered me some perspective on statistically why it was kind of unlikely that it was cancer. That there was a chance it could be a cyst. That there were actually two different areas of tissue that it could be attached to. That there was a very good chance that it would just be something benign. A lot of different kinds of things that were benign that might only require monitoring.
Yes, of course, I needed to go get an ultrasound because I need the diagnosis to be sure. And I remember the lesson about my foot, and not deciding what something is before I have actual diagnosis and information from a medical professional who knows what it is.
Diagnosing yourself with your own intuition - it's not a thing, y'all. Diagnosing yourself with Google is a really bad idea.
I think that we get hints and we get alerts, and some of those are intuitive. Some of those are body-mind connection. And we need to follow through with them in real life. You can't follow through in the ether. It's not a thought experiment. You can't follow through to an actual diagnosis in your mind.
You can get the clues in your mind. You can get the clues in your intuition. But you can't be deciding to rewrite your will at 3am because you're on Google spinning out.
You know, the whole 'fewer hearts and flowers' tagline is really not a dig at emotion or sensitivity or wearing your heart on your sleeve. Because, as you know, I do all of those things, and that quip, 'fewer hearts and flowers', it's really about reality versus the ethereal. It's about the type of information that we work with, that we can take in to a really delusional place or we can take into a really practical place.
For me, what's the point of all this spiritual guidance and instruction and practice and information if it's not impacting my experience in the real world for the better.
So I'm going next Monday to my GP to get the referral to go to a urologist to get an ultrasound.
And guys, this is all happening the week that I finally go to Dallas to spend the weekend with Mr. Shoot the Moon. And as all things hateful will turn out, because yes of course it was a full moon on Mondayish, when all this stuff was happening, he kind of had his own life trauma happen the same freaking day that I discovered my lump.
His situation is not necessarily something life threatening or anything like that, but it's not something I can really share because it's not my story to tell and I'm not going to put his private business out there, for god's sake. I've protected his identity because I do want to be able to speak about him as he is a character, an important person, in my world and in my stories.
What he's dealing with though was definitely something bad enough that I was kind of afraid that he might need to cancel our weekend. This has been two years coming, we have been doing a daily countdown for two months. You know, because you've heard me talk about it for that long.
So I was kind of like, Really, universe? I get this close and then you have to give me a fucking cloud to take on my sunny honeymoon?
I was joking with Seth earlier. I was sending him pictures of goths in summer and I was saying, "You know what? My joy guides are confused. They're like Joy Division guides." My joy guides are like goth kid angels who got distracted and ended up at like a fetish bar in the underworld because there was a really cool show and then they showed up.
So I was sending him these pictures of, saying like, "Oh! I asked for a honeymoon and I got this!" It's like a picture of a goth chick talking on her phone, "Let me make a few calls." It's like my wedding planner is in head to toe black and looks really really pouty.
So yeah, I mean I was joking about it because I do feel a little bit of like, Really?? Come on... I was going for joy here. This is going to be a big moment of joy and then BAM BAM. I just got sucker punched right as I'm going in. And it's not that I think it's gonna have some lasting impact. It's more the idea of I wanted to have this experience with a certain mindset and I didn't need anything handicapping that, even a little bit. It can just kind of throw some sand in the motor.
I'm telling you a story about testicular lumps because I cannot NOT tell this story this week. I have all kinds of ideas for things I want to do episodes about but something like this comes along and it's too big. I can't get on here and act like, "Oh, I'm telling you stories from my personal life and how I use my spiritual perspective to deal with the bullshit. Because if this isn't a story, I don't know what is.
And I can’t fake my way through a planned episode about Finding Your Center or You Can Do it, reach for the stars!
Hopefully you get some of those kind of messages from me but... That’s all fine and dandy until we need our spirit to cope with some real shit and this is where the REAL SHIFT is required.
This is the kind of stuff that we are shifting.
I’m pissed. I'm a little pissed.
I'm worried.
I hate having to wait for actual information
I hate that it may affect my time with Mr Moon
I hate what a protracted cancer treatment period could do to my life and my body and my bank account at this moment.
I don’t want to do all that again. I don't. And I may not have a choice.
Here’s just some things, before you freak out for me too bad, that you do need to know about testicular cancer because I need to keep it in my mind as well.
If it's found early and it's not metastasized or in your lymph nodes or anything like that, it is an almost 100% treatable condition and usually it's just a surgery. They just take one out. You have two, so you can do without one and I'm pretty sure that they give you a little fake silicone one just so everything looks the same and feels normal.
And again, it is something that does happen to younger men than me. I'm almost 50 years old. That's kind of a weird age to be getting it. The rational part of my mind is okay with this because I always say, as long as I get something treatable, I'm good. Because there are a lot of things that people are dealing with that have no answers. That have no therapy. That have no cures.
This has all those things. Even the worst case scenario, if it's cancer, it's one of the most treatable cancers.
So, you know, I'm rolling with it here. I'm shifting.
I knew this year was in flux. This is a big year of changes for me. I feel like going on with everyone else. I'm talking to all of you guys about how it's happening in your own world. And I'm doing my best to create the kind of changes that I want in this moment of change. I just didn't plan for the changes that I DON'T want.
The one thing we can count on is change.
I have a friend named Scott who has been going through a lot and he is kind of traumatized by everything. I don't mean that in a mean way. I listen to him a lot. I provide a lot of space. I provide a Scorpio black hole for him to throw a lot of crap into and I'm not negatively impacted by it at all. But he is someone that needs to express a lot of trauma verbally and analytically.
And recently he messaged me and said he was just exhausted from feeling panicked. And he said, "I'm afraid that I'm disconnecting because I'm just so tired from feeling anxious that I can't feel anything anymore."
And I said, "You know, I actually think that's healthy."
I call it robot mode: Go through the motions. Seek information. Get data. Do all that before you take action. Do all that before you decide things. Do all that before you have any kind of feeling about it.
Anxiety comes from a lack of information.
And the quickest way out is always through. So let's go get the data. Let's go get the information.
But still - really universe?
Robot mode the same week I go to Dallas to have my heart truly open for the first time in twenty years?
Sigh.
I read somewhere once in Rolling Stone or something, that because of the movie the Breakfast Club, the John Hughes movie, the David Bowie’s Changes was sort of considered the collective anthem for Gen X. And I thought, I’m good with that being our bumper sticker and our message to the world.
Turn and face the strange changes