People still email these days about jobs they’ve taken that they don’t even want – and how to cope with the reality of doing uninspired work for modest pay and trying to make the best of that.
This is a good example of what I’d call vibrational cringe. It’s a vibrationally compromised choice that the person doesn’t even want to make, yet they do this to themselves anyway, even knowing that the emotional outcome is probably going to be dreadful.
In most cases they’re right. It is dreadful, sometimes worse than they expect, sometimes not as bad. But usually their expectations turn out to be reasonably accurate. They go through the motions but don’t like the experience very much. They cope, but they aren’t prospering.
Usually these people seem otherwise bright and self-aware. They have no delusions that they’re walking into a trap, and yet they still do this to themselves.
So why does Admiral Ackbar’s classic “It’s a trap!” admonition go unheeded by so many?
The main reason such people would give for deliberately walking into a trap is that they felt they had no other choice. They need the money. They have bills to pay. No other opportunities presented themselves. They may claim to have tried everything else, and this is their option of last resort.
That makes sense when viewed objectively. I don’t view these situations objectively though because the objective version doesn’t land as true for me. It’s only a thin slice of what’s really happening.
The vibrational reality is really what’s running the show here, not the objective side. And your vibrational reality is revealed through your decisions.
In order to make a vibrationally cringe choice that so obviously goes against your heart and your inner senses, you need to be in a vibrationally cringeworthy space to begin with – a space like worry, fear, dread, confusion, pressure, etc.
If you were in a different vibrational space – such as love, delight, wonder, abundance, trust, fun, expansiveness – then walking into an obvious trap would have no appeal. You probably wouldn’t even see such possibilities on your radar.
Do both people have bills to pay? Sure. They each have objective reality to contend with. Objective reality is very flexible too, but the face it presents depends on one’s vibrational reality.
If you present vibrational cringe to objective reality, you get to experience cringeworthy options such as running out of money or taking a job you don’t really want. It may indeed be true that your reality is presenting zero good options to you. So your choices are among options that are bad, worse, and worst, and you make the optimal choice of going with bad. That’s a reasonable decision from a purely objective standpoint. However, you don’t live in a purely objective reality, so from a broader perspective, there’s a smarter way to make such decisions.
What options does objective reality present to someone who’s in a vibrationally harmonious space? In this space you see options that are good, great, and outstanding. Do something you love that pays well. Do something else that’s fun and exciting, and have money show up as a surprise bonus. Go meditate… and an idea comes through that turns out to be very lucrative afterwards. All of this is normal for you. You really don’t even see or consider options that would crush your heart. Why even look for them if you’re awash in delightful possibilities?
Personally I’ve been in both of these vibrational realities but at different times in my life. I can attest that objectively they are both very real and solid – or at least it seems when inside one of them.
What’s the key to graduate from one vibrational reality to the other? It’s quite simple actually. You pass the tests that you’re given.
What tests?
The tests are of this nature: Will you fall for a vibrational trap? Will you take the path that’s vibrationally cringeworthy? Will you go against your own heart?
You can’t fake heart alignment. You can’t fake trust in a vibrational reality. Life will test you now and then to help you see where you really are.
Someone attuned to the first reality will fail this kind of test. They will choose the path without a heart. Then they’ll get to experience that kind of reality for a while – as long as they keep choosing it and showing up to it.
Someone attuned to the second reality will pass such a test. It’s an easy no – not particularly tempting. They see it as a trap and soundly reject it as obviously wrong.
What if you don’t see a path with a heart? What if all you see are heartless options?
Someone in the first reality will compromise and take a heartless path. They will vibe more strongly with fear, worry, stress, anxiety, or embarrassment (cringeworthy vibes) and less strongly with trust, love, delight, curiosity, courage, etc. So they’ll make a fear-based decision that aligns with their vibrational truth.
Someone in the second reality will know that it’s not intelligent to choose the heartless path. They’ll wait till one or more heart-aligned path reveals themselves, even if it means letting the objective world collapse for a while. They’ll resonate more strongly with a vibrational reality rooted in trust, courage, creativity, and so on. They may still see fear-based possibilities, but they’ll wisely set those aside as being less intelligent.
Both choices are fine if they’re honest. If you resonate with cringeworthy vibes, go ahead and make cringeworthy decisions, so you get to immerse yourself in experiencing them. That’s a big part of why you’re here in this life. You get to make vibrational decisions and see what kind of “objective” reality they generate for you. Then you get to make the more detailed decisions within that objective reality.
When you’re ready to do so, you can pop back up to the vibrational level of reality and make different vibrational decisions. Then you’ll get to experience the objective reality – and the cascade of more detailed decisions – that flows from a non-cringeworthy vibe space.
Both are valuable.
I’ve put many years of my life in cringeworthy space, and it was an interesting ride. I made choices that went against my heart. I compromised to satisfy others’ expectations when I would have preferred not to. I followed society’s rules instead of my own. I racked up a lot of cringe credits… until at last I was finally ready to move on and be done with that mode of existing.
Ultimately I just got too tired with it. I ran out of energy and gave up and surrendered. I had my “Fuck this!” moment. I felt I’d experienced enough setbacks and frustration that I saw no point in continuing to engage with life in that way. Eventually I realized that the way I was living was just ridiculous and clearly not working for me. That helped me ask different kinds of questions, one of which was especially helpful: What kind of reality am I actually inhabiting?
I sensed that maybe reality worked differently than I’d been assuming. And I figured that a good way to find out was to start making decisions that felt right or at least genuinely hopeful or interesting but also went against my old modeling of reality. I started doing what I’d previously told myself I couldn’t or shouldn’t do – such as volunteering while I was broke. I also began saying no to traps, which took a while since I was still inside some traps I wasn’t recognizing as traps.
After that point, the experience of shifting into a new vibrational reality was wave-like. I didn’t instantly cross into a new reality on the objective side. It was more like progressing in waves, and I’d say that’s still ongoing to this day.
The waves are of this nature: Keep shedding falsehood. Keep releasing what doesn’t feel like some form of love. Stop doing what doesn’t feel right, even before there’s something to replace it. Decline the false paths first, even if better paths aren’t visible yet.
And also of this nature: Do what feels truly right in my heart even when zero other people agree. Love everyone. Follow the path with a heart, even when it leads into strange territory. Keep turning towards what feels inspiring. Do more of what delights me, less of what doesn’t.
When life is inspiring and deeply heartfelt, covering expenses is relatively easy. That can be handled with 10% or less of one’s attention, and it can be done in ways that are fun and meaningful, not torturous or dreadful. When motivation is sustainably sky high because the heart is truly lit, there’s excess capacity. This abundance of heart energy is more than enough to take care of our needs and most of our wants as well.
What about problems? Problems can be fun and engaging to solve when the heart is full of happiness and delight. Playing the most immersive video game will seem a bit dull by comparison. The problems that some people love solving and that other people dread having to face – are often the same problems.
What about taking a job? Only if it lights you up and makes your heart sing. Not if it’s just to cover expenses. That’s a different kind of search, right? Filter first based on: Will I love this? Does this direction light me up? Is my heart screaming yes, yes, oh yes please?
Or create the job yourself – many jobs are never listed anywhere. They’re created by heart-aligned people who spot beautiful opportunities to contribute.
Investing in the heart pays very good returns.
