A Curious Year in the Great Vivarium Experiment

by Tim Shields

For as long I could remember, I had been living in the past or dreaming of the future, always wondering what was next, comparing myself to others, and seeing deficiency in everything I looked at. I always wondered why I wasn’t where I thought I would be at “x” point in my life and why things weren’t working out the way they were “supposed” to. But those were thoughts of the past.

While no journey is the same, there’s a reason why people depart from the road well traveled. In our daily lives, we flitter to and fro on the familiar longitudinal and latitudinal grids of our neighborhoods, commutes, city blocks, and minds, but when we set out on this new road there is but one direction—forward. A forward momentum from the familiar to the foreign. The act of leaving is an outward expression of sound and movement and an inward process of discovery and healing. Even more than healing, it’s an unfolding into the lightness of being. In the act of travel, lightness of being comes through the kindness of strangers, the serendipity of synchronicities, the surrender of control, and trust in the path. One comes to discover their strength, resilience, and potential, and in doing so begins to understand the limitlessness of their potential.

Negative thoughts were the malware hidden in my computer. Not only did it make my computer sluggish and dysfunctional, but it wasn’t even my program. It was time to wipe the computer clean and upgrade my operating system.

I am so grateful for: 1. Sophia showing up in my life. 2. Spending the next two months traveling with one of my best friends. 3. The fun and interesting people I’ve met through Sophia. 4. The adventures Rich and I will have. 5. For the countless ways this journey has opened up my life and heart. Today I intend and create: 1. To have spiritual experiences that deepen my understanding of who I am. 2. To have great adventures with Rich that will deepen our friendship. 3. A free plane ticket home for Christmas. 4. To be the magician and sorcerer of my life. 5. To learn to move to the rhythm of my own life.

“There was nowhere to go but everywhere,” Kerouac said in the voice of Sal. “My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.”

The human experience is such that we have no choice but to interject meaning into it. This is what Preetika told me on the flight from Newark to New Delhi. I was learning that the hero’s search is not something simply to be read and studied; the search is for each of us to live.

I was expanding my relationship with the generous Source—the life-giving energy—that flows through me and all other living things. I was learning to communicate with it through trust and surrender, which created a feedback loop. The more I trusted and surrendered, the better I felt, and the better I felt, the better the experiences I attracted into my life. My heart relaxed, becoming more open and unburdened. I was ready.

Pranav came to mind: I don’t need to ask for anything when I pray. I have all I need. Shiva knows what I need and desire, so I just say hello and ask how He is doing.

It appeared there really was something to the equation of intention + gratitude = blessings and grace.

I am so grateful for: 1. Manifesting a free flight home for Christmas and getting to see my siblings, nieces, and nephews. 2. All the time I was blessed to spend with Skip, and despite the circumstances, for all of the friends I will be reunited with at his funeral. 3. That I’ve managed to make money while traveling and still have a large reserve of cash. 4. Being shown direction by my parents. 5. Everything I will learn from this new, unexpected twist in the journey. Today I intend and create: 1. To have a great visit with my family and grow from the experience. 2. To gain a deeper understanding of myself through this journey. 3. To be divinely guided on the rest of my trip. 4. The courage and strength to be myself and follow my dreams. 5. To gain a better understanding of what this whole journey means and how it fits into my life.

For a long time it seemed to me that life was about to begin—real life. But there was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, a debt to be paid. At last it dawned on me that these obstacles were my life. This perspective has helped me to see there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. “Happiness” – Alfred D. Souza

If my life was not in Seattle, and if my life was not to be the corporate life I had once known, then who was I? In the womb of the chrysalis where there is room for only one entity, this question enfolded me. Even for the caterpillar transforming into a butterfly, no stage of instar is an easy, comfortable process. I simply had to hold onto the walls and see the process through.

Above me stretched the lattice of the Milky Way. If I can just hold on, trust, and surrender to whatever this thing is with completeness and without fear…

On ferries, buses, and planes all over Southeast Asia, I often found myself indulging in daydreams about love, yet when I observed others who seemed trapped in unhappy marriages, I felt revulsion. And my freedom, which I valued beyond all else, was a whole other story. Whatever the freedom was that I clung to at that moment, it was stronger than my desire to build something with just one person.

“Just remember,” she added, “everything right now is a reflection of the things you need to learn.”

I am so grateful for: 1. The many beautiful spaces through which I have moved, both externally and internally. 2. Having the courage to make new discoveries about myself, even if they are painful to look at. 3. The amazing life I am living and that I’m the only one who can express it because I’m living it. 4. Moving on to the next part of my journey. 5. The experiences I had with Sophia and all she taught me. Today I intend and create: 1. To meet a cute girl to travel with. 2. Free lodging. 3. To know my truth. 4. The generosity of a stranger. 5. To shed the weight of sadness I currently feel.

That evening, for the first time in a long time, I got down on my hands and knees. Release me from myself, I prayed. Release me from myself. Take away this loneliness. Show me what’s behind the veil.

And although each participant knows it’s raw, uncultivated language, you can’t help but judge others and compare yourself to them.

Perhaps the fact that I was putting that expectation on someone else was part of the problem.

I knew to be a writer I needed to embrace uncertainty—the unknown—and I hadn’t been doing a very good job of it as of late. Like life, there was no clearly defined path in writing—only inquiry, choice, and the discernment that comes from experience. Above all, what life and art have in common is trusting the process and doing the work.

Importantly, what I took away from the workshop was a need to separate myself from my writing so that I was living my life instead of living the story.

I am so grateful for: 1. The relief I experienced in hearing my father’s voice. 2. The possibilities that have spread out before me. 3. For being fortunate enough to fund a writer’s workshop while traveling for nine months. 4. For the quiet nights in Beijing and Shanghai that I got to just read my book in the bathtub after a day of making money. 5. For all the other interesting writers I met at the writer’s workshop. Today I intend and create: 1. To surrender negative feelings and older energies of loneliness, sadness, unworthiness, self-doubt, fear, and anxiety. 2. To not be discouraged by what I wrote at the workshop and to continue searching for the question and the answer. 3. For a sign that I am on the right path and for a sign about where to travel after the Philippines. 4. To be able to someday write the book and express the feelings I’ve had in my heart since I was seventeen. 5. To have obscene amounts of fun in the Philippines and meet awesome people who I can be friends with for life.

I am so grateful for: 1. The opportunity to spend this time with Cassandra and to be able to travel with someone I care about. 2. The fact that we stayed in touch the entire year and how serendipitously the whole thing came together. 3. All of the beautiful places I’ve traveled to and seen this year. 4. Growth and all the old parts of the self that I’ve molted. 5. My quiet time in church, the feeling of connection to something greater than me, and for remembering how to slow down, bring the volume down, and be still. Today I intend and create: 1. To have an incredible time with Cassandra. 2. For us to share countless smiles and laughter. 3. Adventure. 4. Trust in my new path. 5. Romance and surprise.

As I told her the story, I became aware that these were not the thoughts and feelings of a man but the wounds of a boy. Whenever I grew close to someone, the wounds formed a moat between that person and me. I rationally and intellectually understood how ridiculous it was that these thoughts and feelings from so long ago had been the driving force of my life up until now, but our bodies have a memory of their own—memory encoded in feelings. Sometimes the memories in our bodies are stronger than our will. And sometimes, until we bring them to light, those memories are the unconscious programs that run our lives. And sometimes, those memories become scar tissue. And sometimes, part of adulthood is healing the wounds of childhood.

The Anatomy of Consciousness Lecture Will Answer Three Questions: • What if our intentions and feelings really do create and impact the world in which we live? • What if our perceptions, rather than our DNA, give rise to our genetic expression? • What if the human heart is the most advanced technology on earth?

I had been trying to prove to myself that the intentions and feelings of my internal world actually had power and influence on my external world, beginning with the imagination. Thought and intention were the outward-bound signals, synchronicity and serendipity were the inbound feedback, and gratitude ahead of the event fueled the whole process.

Our mind is the master of our epigenetic code and perception is the wild card.

“That’s fantastic. In my experience, stagnancy breeds misery. You know, if I had another secret—and it’s more for me—it’s that when people ask me how I’m doing, I say, ‘Things are unfolding at an exponentially fabulous rate.’ Whether they are or not, I think the words—the lifeblood of ideas—put that in motion. Words and thoughts are energetic, and they do make a difference. Plus, nobody really cares if you’re feeling shitty.”

I have been here many times before, I know it’s more than just a curtain. It’s a veil, and I am terrified of whatever is behind it. I don’t know if it’s a thing, an energy, or a monster, but the thought of it has haunted me for as long as I can remember.

I see how some of the most painful losses of my life served to uplift me and bring me closer to my light. Then I sense what has been holding me back my entire life. Like a boat towing a buoy through water, I have been tethered by fear: fear of my limits and fear of my boundlessness; fear of failure and fear of success; fear of my humanity and fear of my divinity; fear of living and fear of dying; paralyzing fear that at times kept me from moving in the direction of my dreams, suspending me in anxious states of disconnectedness, doubt, and despair. I sense how none of the obstacles that separated me from the dream came from outside of me; rather, they all came from within. It was not what was behind the veil that terrified me. It was not the uncertainty of tomorrow—it was my free will.

There was power in this realization and even more power in its acceptance. Pain existed for healing, and healing existed for wholeness, just as the darkness existed to show us the light. It was a delivery mechanism for the evolution of consciousness, that thing we can’t grasp or touch but can only name. Consciousness—the executive control system of the mind. Consciousness—the mechanism that allows self to reflect upon self. Consciousness—the field of information we are all connected to.

Transformation was not only the constant in the last year of my life, but it was also the constant in all of life and existence because transformation is change from one state to another. With every breath of expansion and contraction the universe has uttered, whether a nanosecond or 100 million light years, no moment has ever been the same. Nothing stays the same. The molecules and atoms around us are constantly being rearranged and reorganized through a field of time and space.

It’s about not being afraid to lose yourself in the chaos of disorder while finding stillness in the order of the chaos.