There is no escape 11:11

There are no shortcuts. There are no quick fixes. No secrets or hacks. No "spiritual bypassing." When it comes to developing one's psyche, the process may be simple (or simplified) through various methods and traditions—but it's not easy. It takes focused, persistent effort.

I recently came across the story of the person who "invented" Angel Numbers and how she regrets it. Seemingly, she took her personal experience of synchronicity and attempted to codify an aspect of it—seeing three or more repeating numbers—for the masses.

Instead of people using their own discernment and inner potential for meaning-making, they attached universal meanings to repeating numbers. When you remove that key step of personal meaning-making and discernment, you avoid responsibility.

As Doreen Virtue, "inventor" of Angel Numbers laments, people start believing ‘I don’t have to take action, because the angels are going to do the work,’ or ‘the angels told me this is going to be okay.’

You can see similar behavior when people use their Sun Sign or Life Path Number or whatever else as a crutch: "Oh did I disrespect your boundaries? Sorry, I'm such a Pisces!"; "Oops, did I sabotage the entire project? Sorry, I pulled The Devil card this morning!"

This is why I personally don't care if Astrology is "real" or provable scientifically. To me, it's a tool for awareness. Indeed, in my experience, it seems to have an eerie level of accuracy, but even if it's not perfectly accurate, the point is that it can help people look inward. It provides a language, symbology and archetypes in order to look at one's own psyche objectively, providing a foundation for pursuing the observer or "witness consciousness."

"Awareness is like the sun. When it shines on things, they are transformed." —Thich Nhat Hanh

This is a foundational aspect of Jungian Psychology—that there are core archetypes of expression and behavior that are shared across humanity and cultural lines. Each archetype has a higher expression and lower expressions. On the low end, it's either reactive or repressive. The goal is to spot reactive and repressive expressions and seek ways to integrate towards higher, healthy expression.

Using tools like Astrology, Numerology, Tarot, Human Design, or even Enneagram Tests, should be prompts to go inwards, not to identify with and use as an excuse for poor or undesirable behavior. They are guidelines, maps and sign posts for navigating the depths of your own psychology—ideally, with the express purpose of evolving one's behavior, associations and potential complexes.

You hold the sole responsibility for your experience. Your circumstance and opportunities (or lack of) are the result of innumerable variables, actions of other people, chance and laws of nature, but your perspective, response, reaction and meaning-making is solely yours. While it can seem like so much of life is out of our control, taking responsibility for one's experience creates a surprising amount of room for growth and change.

Ultimately, there's no escaping yourself. Your ability to react or, ideally, respond to life is 100% your own. No one can absolve you of this responsibility. Only you can take control of your experience.

“As I often tell my students, the person you’ll have the hardest time opening to and truly loving without reserve is yourself. Once you can do that, you can love the whole universe unconditionally.” ―Adyashanti, Falling Into Grace

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All this responsibility can seem daunting, so here's a fun fact to lighten the mood: The New Jersey Nets basketball team nearly changed their name to The Swamp Dragons back in the nineties! How cool would that have been!?