How Do You Deal with Chaos?
Maybe some aspect of your life has turned upside down recently. Or maybe your whole life has shifted. I’m seeing it in my own life, in the lives of my clients, and everywhere. These are chaotic times. What do you do when life gets chaotic? How do you deal with chaos?
I just read of several people who literally changed everything in their life. They gave up their jobs, homes, moved countries, etc. They’re starting over from ground zero to make their life anew.
Your shift may not be so radical, but I’m guessing there’s something that either has already shifted, or will be. Everything I’m reading says that these next few months will be a time of radical shifts and changes for each of us personally and collectively. The shifts will probably occur in literally every aspect of life.
If you’re like most of us, when chaos erupts, you go into fear, contraction, and anxiety. Most of us are afraid of the future, particularly a future that we know nothing about, that we can’t control.
Welcoming Chaos
We tend to think of chaos as a negative thing. We love to have ordered lives.
Routine, while it can be deadening, also gives a sense of security and the illusion of stability and control.
But what if chaos is the opposite? What if it is a positive instead of a negative force? What if it is necessary for us to fulfill our potential?
Science tells us that chaos is a necessary part of creativity. Scientists have been studying chaos for the past few decades and they’re discovering amazing things.
When something is shifting and changing, there is always a chaotic aspect. But it’s more than that. The shifts and changes occur at the very “edge of chaos,” to use a term coined by physicist Norman Packard.
Seeing the Shifts
In fact, all big shifts and changes seem to come very close to the boundary between order and disorder. To quote Dr. Robert Bilder, a psychiatry and psychology professor at UCLA’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, “The truly creative changes and the big shifts occur right at the edge of chaos.”
And we’re right smack in the midst of huge shifts and changes, as we watch the tumbling of the old order and the coming of the new. We can see it everywhere, but here the astrology of these next few months is really helpful for understanding the possibilities that chaos brings.
This month, and for the rest of the year, Uranus energy is especially strong. As I’ve written before, Uranus is the revolutionary, the maverick, but also the awakener. Whenever Uranus energy is especially strong, you can expect eruptions and great change. However, the eruptions, the chaos, if you will, is not for the sake of chaos. It’s always in service of awakening. Uranus energy breaks down to break through.
Breaking Through
What if chaos is the necessary breaking down to break through? How would that understanding change how you experience and deal with chaotic events, or rapid shifts and changes in your life?
Of course, your knee-jerk reaction to any big shift or change, or chaos of any kind is likely to be fear and anxiety. That’s part of being human. It’s important to feel those and move through them.
But that isn’t the end. If you can remember that the edge of chaos is the edge of creativity and the place where the new forms, then you can also see its potential and possibility. Instead of dreading the chaos and change, you can see it as something that will give you more freedom and more joy.
And here is the real place where chaos can be positive. If you choose to see chaos as a creative force rather than a destructive force, when chaos happens in your life — and in the lives of all of us, at every level in these coming months — then you also have choice not to stay in contraction and fear. You can choose to use it for your and the collective’s highest and best good.
Since we are in chaotic times, this is the opportunity to look at your life and ask which aspects are not life-giving, but limiting. Is it a relationship or a situation, or a job or your own attachment to an old pattern of behavior that doesn’t serve you?
Look at it clearly. And then dream big. If you weren’t stuck in the old, what could be new? Allow your creativity to come forward. What can you create for your good and the good of society at large? As several have said in various ways, going back as far as Napoleon Hill, and including Muhammed Ali: if you can conceive it with both your mind and your heart, then you can achieve it.
The Guiding Stars
The astrological energies of this time are challenging, but they are also offering a lot of help. I already talked about Uranus breaking down to break through. If you know the break through is coming, that’s an entirely different story than believing that the chaos is negative and destructive.
There’s more, however! Remember I talked about Eris in a recent blog? Eris energy is also very strong in these next few months. And I’ve just learned that she is not just the Goddess of Discord in mythology, but she is also the patron of chaotic creation. Yes, you read that right. Chaos and creation are not only in the same sentence but out of chaos comes creation.
Not only that, but Eris is also about justice, which is another theme that’s prevalent now and in the next few months. She is the one who wants to make sure that every voice is heard. She is the one who supports those who protest and work for justice for everyone. She is all about the toppling of the old top-down structures to make way for the new grassroots, collaborative, community-oriented structures that will sustain all of us and all of life. Together with Uranus, Eris wants equality for all.
In the midst of all this chaos, remember that chaos is not negative but positive. While it’s uncomfortable and challenging, chaos also brings you huge opportunities to look at what’s not working and to choose to make change.
Connecting and Tending
So what do you do when everything seems chaotic, or when there is a lot of drama in the daily news or around the globe? Remember and then act.
Remind yourself that chaos is actually a creative force. Remember that out of chaos comes the new. Instead of getting stuck in fear, remember that everything comes from the Source of Love.
Connect with Source. Remember that you are loved just by virtue of your very existence. There is nothing you need to do to earn that love.
Tend to your heart. The Heart Math Institute practice that I’ve recommended so often can be a huge help. Here is a link to a free heart coherence practice, a practice backed up by a lot of research. When your heart is in coherence, you can move through chaos with more ease. Even more importantly, when your heart is in coherence, you can dream and envision a new, even better future.
And once you’ve remembered and dreamed and imagined and envisioned, then act. Move out of what doesn’t serve you or holds you back. Work for justice, not just for yourself but for the planet. Connect with like-hearted people to support one another. Above all, act from a place of love instead of fear.
Instead of fearing chaos, learn to embrace it. It is the creative force helping you and all of us to move into this new era.