The Positive Energy of 2012

By Tonya Elliott-Walker, LMFT, University of Phoenix Lead Faculty Area Chair I, Morningstar Counseling & Wellness Center

There has been so much media attention focused on the doom and gloom of 2012 and yet it is Fall and we are still here and relatively intact. The Mayan and Hopi prophecies suggest that time will end as we know it. Many people thought this meant that our world was coming to a violent end.  Indeed, there have been natural disasters and difficult economic and political climates, however, our planet still spins. So what did the ancients mean when they said that time would end as we know it?  Perhaps the key phrase here is “as we know it”.

 Maybe what the ancients meant was that our relationship with time would change. Does your life feel as if you are going 90 miles an hour with no way to slow it down? With cell phones, computers and the speed of information, people feel like they are “on” all the time. They are texting or emailing colleagues, family and friends. They have very little down time.  Maybe the ancients understood that our relationship with time would become imbalanced. Just because we have better technology and can accomplish more in less time doesn't mean we should. What about quality of life and relationships? What about our health? We know that stress is the number one common denominator in all major life threatening diseases. Think of the word:  disease. Our global health is a reflection of our consciousness of dis-ease, being ill at ease, or completely stressed out on all levels for way too long. 
 Maybe the ancients knew that there would come a time when we, as a human race, would have to choose to slow down consciously to avoid becoming worker drones living to pay off our credit card debt and slaving at work so that we can support our shopping habits. Maybe they knew that there would have to be a tremendous shift in consciousness as a mass collective to avoid some of the doom and gloom scenarios that are associated with those types of lifestyles that bring dis-ease to ourselves and our planet.  Maybe they understood that we would need to choose to attend to our spiritual values and family values again on a mass level to rebuild the foundation.  Love, connectedness, peace, tolerance, faith, trust; these are the qualities of a sustainable world and the energy that 2012 brings.  A wise spiritual master once told me that just before the attribute manifests the counterfeit shows up to be healed and released. Maybe all of the war and economic crisis and political tension is the counterfeit showing up. Whether we respond in love or fear is the real determiner of our future.