I had a funeral today.
So, my journey with the formula of Follow Your Highest Excitement (FYHE) has come to a conclusion today and I had a funeral for that version of me. If you want to watch the funeral here it is:
https://youtube.com/shorts/EW8M0MQyfe8?si=k_AisvrDkwFhMrxG
I posted about the start of my journey here in the group and made 2 subsequent posts as well. For any that want to read the whole ride, here it is:
Since then, anytime I was consciously deciding what to do, I would simply follow my highest excitement. Overall it's been about since February or March that I went completely all-in on it. No second guesses. No hedging. A simple question. Is this my highest excitement? Y/N
If yes - follow it as far as I can as fully as I can with no expectation as to the outcome.
Today, for the first time since then, I consciously decided to do something I strongly dislike. And I kept doing it for the entire day. Something that has ZERO excitement for me and because of this, I will say that for me, the formula is not a way that I can live life any longer.
Before I explain WHY I had to stop, let me stress - I am not saying the formula doesn't work. I believe every story that Bashar has told about the people it has worked for. I believe everyone here who has told me it has worked for them. For all I know, it may work for 99% of people. But I am sharing my story for 2 reasons.
I told the start of my journey here, so I feel it is incomplete to not share the conclusion of my journey.
If anyone else finds themselves in predicament like I have found myself in, know you are not alone.
Just as with other religions, I believe they truly work for some individuals. I know there are people who have beautiful experiences following Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Hindu teachings etc. And if ANY teaching works for someone I encourage them to continue to follow it. I do not judge or disbelieve the stories and beliefs of others. But just as I can say that I found my journey with one of these traditional religions to be something that was not contributing to my well-being on a day-to-day basis, I can say the FYHE formula is something I can no longer follow wholeheartedly.
And I should clarify here - by "work" I mean give a quality of life that one desires internally and externally. For me personally, "works" means that a teaching is giving me internal peace and assisting me to be the best version of myself that functions in a loving way towards myself and others.
Now why did I have to stop? Well to summarize my journey, for me, following my highest excitement looked like was simply waking up each day and asking a simple question. What excites me to do today? Generally, it has looked like spending time with people I love, traveling, and working on passion projects with no regard to income or bills. For the past couple months, instead of applying for a new traditional job (I retired from a previous job in January) I simply did what gave me joy and excitement. I gave freely. I spent freely. I loved freely. I lived freely. And, I continued to work for a part-time job I truly love.
I was trusting the process.
Today, after getting home from a trip to see my kids, I found a notice on my door that my rent hadn't been paid for two months. Now, you might ask me, did I know my rent was not being paid? Why would I let that happen? Simply put, I never found paying attention to bills and such exciting. So I simply stopped doing it because I was only following my highest excitement and budgeting and figuring out bills and such was definitively never something I enjoyed or that excited me. For better or worse, I've always been an all or nothing type of person so if I was going to do the FYHE, I was going all in. Full send. No exceptions. At all. So I stopped trying to figure that stuff out and made up a fanciful magical theory about how my bills could get paid magically. That was my highest excitement when it came to bills.
For a full read on my complex magical theory about why this could be possible and ethical, read my second update post (link at the top).
Anyways, but I did have one rule for myself as I have been going on this FYHE. If someone told me that I was harming them as I was following my own highest excitement, I would stop. Because I don't think it's fair for me to follow my highest excitement if it infringes or impedes another persons ability to do so as well. The whole principle - you can swing your arms around as much as you want as long as you don't hit someone else.
So as long as no one told me that I bill WASN'T paid, I was assuming that it was magically being taken care of. But that came to a crashing end yesterday with a big legal letter posted to my door saying that it WASN'T being magically taken care of.
So, today, I did things that give me ZERO excitement. Instead of working on my projects, reading books, and having fun, I began the process of picking up the pieces from my journey of FYHE. I went and talked to management. I figured out my finances. I went to the bank to take care of what I can. And I applied for jobs all day long.
Now, an overthinker like me might object and say "SEE! You still are following your highest excitement. Now your highest excitement is genuinely to be an adult and do productive things. THAT was the lesson you were supposed to learn with the formula."
And to that line of thinking, I must strenuously object. Because that essentially devalues the meaning of the word excitement. By that logic, one is ALWAYS doing their highest excitement and it is impossible to never be doing your highest excitement. By that logic, it's saying that everyone around the country is excited to pay taxes. Or go to the dentist. Or other things that we do because we want to be responsible, productive, healthy individuals. It's like saying a kid is excited to eat vegetable when their parent tells them there will be a consequence if they don't.
Some things we do not because they excite us - if we allow the word to retain any true meaning - we do them from obligation, duty, fear or even simply practicality.
And this is where I find myself now. I am now attempting to balance practicality with excitement. I will of course at times follow my highest excitement. But I will also be practical with the world as it is. Practical is not exciting to me. It is like taking bad tasting medicine. I do it because I want the outcome and I know I need it. But it is not exciting.
I conclude with the following reflection. I do still love most Bashar's principles and teachings. I still strongly retain the principle that negative outcome is a perspective. Even for my own journey with FYHE, I have no regrets. I do not see my current predicament as a negative. It was a very valuable learning experience and I am grateful to have had it. Also, I am very privileged to even have been able to go on this journey because it has not been a matter of having something to eat or not - more so the quality of life I am living.
Beyond the specific teachings themselves, I am realizing that perhaps the point was never the teachings themselves. Perhaps the point was the people and experiences we had along the way.
Everyone I have met on this journey with Bashar is a beautiful soul. Maybe the point of the teachings was to simply bring people of this energy into my life.
So to everyone that commented and shared and followed my journey, I appreciate you! This is a beautiful community. The energy of the people that are attracted by these teachings is very uplifting, encouraging and expansive. This community is amazing - and that's the highest excitement I will continue to follow.