For the longest time, despite being a good empowered feminist and yogi, I fundamentally believed myself to be a victim of circumstance.
That’s the cold hard truth of it. Although I knew all the techniques to ease stress, boost my mood and health, I still fundamentally believed the things that my heart truly longed for— a more fulfilling career, more money, true love— were matters of chance and out of my control.
Here’s what I had to learn and graft onto my lived bodily experience to break me out of that self-undermining spell, that so much of capitalism, consumerism, and patriarchy is built upon…
We live in a fractal universe.
Say what?
Fractals are the exquisite structures produced by nature. Some are visible to the human eye (like the patterning on a perfectly symmetrical leaf), but some of my favourites are not, like this enchanting Mandelbrot fractal:
Notice how as the image zooms in closer and closer, the pattern remains identical as it iterates?
All of nature— clouds, trees, and our very human selves – is subject to the same laws in this fractal universe. The shape of a fractal can be completely captured by a small list of mathematical mappings that describe exactly how the smaller copies are arranged to form the whole fractal.
Cool, but what does that mean for us living, breathing, humans?
A fragment contains the entire pattern which structures the whole. So when you change one part of the fractal— say, your individual psyche, habit, or energy, you simultaneously change the whole.
One of my favourite places to observe this is in in the applied yogic science of Kundalini Yoga.
In Kundalini Yoga, we use breath, sound, mantra, and shapes (yoga asanas) to shift how your energy is collected and organized, purify the subconscious, and enhance certain energetic patterns for specific results. The result is that not just you, but your whole universe is altered.
I know a woman who started practicing Kirtan Kriya, a fundamental meditation of Kundalini Yoga, for 31 minutes a day. The meditation involves chanting the sounds Sa (life), Ta (death), Na (infinity), Ma (rebirth), and it’s classically given for creativity and clearing the subconscious.
Now, sure, the woman experienced greatly enhanced creative flow. Kirtan Kriya works— UCLA has studied it extensively.
What was way more interesting to me, though was that her husband spontaneously dropped 20 pounds of extra weight he’d been trying to lose for years to no avail. You see, when she shifted her magnetic field by using the meditation, her entire orbit— including her husband- also had to change to match her vibration.
The universe likes to speak in the language of rhymes and synchronicities.
So what can you do if you want to change something in your external reality? Maybe you find yourself in the rut of singleness (which, to be clear, isn’t always a rut but can be exhilarating), and wish to attract a mate?
Well, there’s something in your fractal design that is projecting a frequency of aloneness, even if your conscious desire is to mate. If you wanted to shift that, I’d perhaps suggest..
-Practicing Breathwork to clear out stagnant energy and give you deeper awareness of deeper layers of consciousness,
-Practicing at least 3 minutes of Sat Kriya a day to re-pattern energy in your lower chakras relating to sexuality, security, and confidence, and
-Chanting the Ajai Alai mantra for the Radiant Body, so you can begin to magnetize the people and circumstances that serve your soul’s destiny
(We could run a similar analysis for being broke, or lost about your life’s purpose, or any really lingering pattern.)
But if none of that really is your bag, here’s all you need to get (like REALLY get, in your bones and your subconscious mind and the first voice in your head when you wake up):
You contain the entire universe.
Reality is not happening to you, it’s taking its cue from you.
Once you really own the self-sovereignty that is your human birthright, life becomes a delightful game of polarities as you maneuver through your exquisite part in this fractal universe.