By Brandon Alter:
I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had to be too concerned about survival. I’ve never had to worry about having enough food to eat or a place to call home. And yet, I am only one or two generations removed from these basic concerns that so many of my ancestors were preoccupied with, day in and day out. Survival instincts are part of my legacy, but I can’t say I’ve ever had to resource them until now. Because now, we are all in survival mode. And survival mode is a very different way of living for contemporary humans.
Survival mode is bare bones, lean, moment to moment. It requires all of ourselves.
And whether or not you have admitted it to yourself, a global pandemic (especially of these proportions) plunges all of us in the deep end of survival mode. So if you’re pretending that it’s still business as usual, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Because survival mode is a full-time job, it requires all of ourselves. It begs of us direct and immediate access to our instincts and our intuition.
Do not underestimate the energetic cost of survival mode.
It’s like holding your breath and wondering why you can’t run a marathon. And babies, this is a marathon, a marathon of survival mode.
So give yourself a break. Cut yourself some slack. Take it easy on yourself. Are you alive? Are you healthy? Are you safe? These are the priorities. Everything else is luxury.
So, for those who need to hear it, please put your life in the correct context. This is survival. This is not a time to feel compelled to write your novel, to grow your business, to be productive.
This is a time to survive; staying alive and well is the height of productivity.
And for those of you who are staying creative and productive, who find themselves thriving in the midst of a crisis, Goddess bless you. But for the rest of us, each and every day of waking up, tending to ourselves, our hearts, our moods, and our families, keeping our heads above water is more than just getting through—it’s everything.
BRANDON ALTER is a Shamanic healer, Tarot reader, teacher, mystic and writer living in Los Angeles. He is passionate about sharing spiritual tools that have helped him reconnect to the wisdom of his heart. Brandon is a thoroughly trained healer, astrologer and yoga teacher who co-hosts The Spiritual Gayz with his husband, a twice-monthly podcast dedicated to exploring the wide reaches of spirituality, without pretending that it all makes sense. Brandon’s mom took him to his very first psychic when he was seven and gave him his first Tarot deck when he was eleven. Since then he has devoted himself to the study of Tarot, Yoga, Pilates, Reiki, Astrology and Shamanic Skills.
Visit www.thespiritualgayz.com to learn more. To sign up for The Spiritual Gayz newsletter and get these Tarotscopes delivered to your inbox, click here.