Bitter Sweet Symphony

Liz: So it was really funny when this became one of our songs. That was Bitter Sweet Symphony, because this was a really hard song for me. I don't even remember when it came out, but effectively it's just a song about life sucks till you die and I think a lot of people...Well, that was their mantra for quite some time.

Rhea: I mean, ‘was’ is a very generous statement. I think it's most people's mantra forever, right? It's life is really difficult and the only sweet moments are the bits of love that come along the way.

Liz: If you're lucky.

Rhea: If you're lucky and that could be love in a family, love in a job, love in partnership, love in work, love in passion, but it's just enjoy those moments because life is shit. We're chasing the sweet, and even when we have the sweet, we're expecting the sweet to leave.

Liz: It's going to run out.

Rhea: So we don't even enjoy it when it's there, because we're trying to hold onto it so tightly that we push it away, maybe sometimes even before it's time.

Liz: Or we just don't have it for very long at all, because our karmic shit just keeps coming through.

Rhea: But then once we're out of our karma, does that change?

Liz: It does. It does, but it takes time. It depends on circumstances. If you're in partnership and you're in one place, but your partner is in another, you're pretty much going to walk through hell with them. That's what I ended up doing. The more conscious we are of what we've come through, the easier it is, but it takes time, especially in our sort of human concept of time, which thanks to 2020 has shifted and as we've seen, won't go back. We can only move forward in our concept of time. So as anchorless and as strange as it all feels, I know that we're coming to a point of ... if not most, many of us might've already reached that point where I think we've become more accustomed to the fluidity of it. You know, two years of focused karmic game shit can sound like a long time to some, whereas others, it's a blip. It's like, you know what? Fine.

But the sweet can only come when we've accepted that we can no longer have it the way we used to have it, and that can be really difficult for some, because they want it the way they want it, or they want it the way that they're familiar with, or they want it the way they have always fantasized it would be, or they want it exactly the way they expect it to be, because that's just how it should be, or they just want what they'd always had. They don't want to accept it can be different and more meaningful and more consistent because that's not something any of us have experienced. So we would rather have more of the same, even if it comes sporadically versus well, maybe there is something different and can I accept that, even though I'm not certain of it because I haven't seen differently?

Rhea: I definitely know from personal experience the world doesn't change just because we want it to. The only way the world really changes when we change cause our perspective changes, our reactions change, our intentions change. The world changes because you're creating it. You know, each choice you make is another step towards creating a world that you've chosen, not that you've half-chosen on behalf of others. I also know that you can't change anything collectively or even within a relationship until it happens on an individual level first.

Liz: Yeah. And it just takes longer because of our karma.

Rhea: So does that mean it's going to take us just the same amount of time to step out of it collectively?

Liz: No, not at all. In part because by the time we've burned out our karma or stepped out of it, as you eloquently put it, our consciousness is to the point where then we can sort of look around and be like, oh, okay, this isn't necessarily for anyone. Let's work towards this now. Again, it's sort of the moving goalposts experience. That's really when the world will shift. So once our karma's divested, we can step into our purpose fully and that's when the world rises up to meet us, even on an individual basis. I finished my karmic game when I was living in LA and we moved to Brazil. It's safe to say that's where my husband had to move out of his and Brazil is a great place for that. For anybody who holds karmic issues, stories just go there for a couple of years, you'll be over it. The energy there is quite specific and very unforgiving and my life wasn't going to look... I mean, it looked different obviously because I was in a different country, in a city which I'd never experienced before, but certain circumstances were still the same. I was still married. I had two small children. I still had to navigate various things, but I just had to do it differently. But that's actually when I started to throw myself into writing and I think that was my way of processing stuff. Sorry for this long story, but I just feel like something was supposed to come out of this. That's probably why I started.

Rhea: No, it's not about me. Go on.

Liz: And that's just where I started writing and writing and writing. And then, well, that's where my husband had his 'Fuck This' moment and....

Rhea: And that was the point of Brazil to get him to the 'Fuck This' moment?

Liz: Yes. Well, Brazil will bring a lot of people to their 'Fuck This' moment.

Rhea: But that's the whole thing, right? It gets worse and worse and worse until they're like, 'Fuck This. Anything's better than this.'

Liz: We managed to get to New York, and that's when we started having issues in our relationship because we were both in different places. I was pretty healed and just wanting to keep my life together with the kids. Like just to keep the peace. Trying to make the best and get settled and create a new life. And he was having his own issues, trying to find a new job. He had a lot of other stressors going on. And so, we really weren't meeting and that created a great deal of friction because that's what happens in any relationship, even within ourselves, is that when we've resolved our karmic issue, but circumstances haven't lined up to help support that new life, the friction's created and it's purposeful because that's where the energy shifts happen. And so that struggle is not only to get us to wake up and be like, all right. Get off your ass, light the fire, start thinking. Start making different types of choices to see where can your life get better. And so my husband ultimately faced two options. Does he stay in the career that he'd gone to school for and that will earn him a particular income and track him for partnership, or does he take the in-house road? Does he take the path that he had started to fantasize about after being in Brazil and became very disillusioned with firm life, but it's the path to the unknown. It's less pay, which for him meant greater insecurity because he'd grown up with a great deal of financial insecurity, like a lot of highs and lows. And so for him, security was everything. And it's not to say that he was always financially driven. That's not the same thing. It's not greed; it really is security. And of course, when you're in your karmic game, you're never going to make the choice for uncertainty. You're never going to make the choice for the unfamiliar. You're always going to stay where you're going to feel most secure. As you said, your coping mechanisms become your lifestyle.

Rhea: If you choose the unknown, your fears could come true ad that's what your ego is set up to avoid.

Liz: Exactly. Exactly. But the moment he made the choice was the moment, then he allowed for other possibilities to come to fruition. And that's where we could begin to find peace with one another because up until then we'd started to fight a lot.

Rhea: So when you say that that friction is purposeful, can you explain more?

Liz: The other way to explain it would be sort of vibrational. When you are in your karmic game, just like you said, you've got your fear informing your ego. Your ego is just firing off a lot of decisions and making all the choices and running the show. That's not particularly high vibration if you're operating from a space of fear. If you're operating from a fearless space, so for me, I run on a shit ton of faith and trust and knowing it's always going to be fine. It always is. Then the vibration is a lot higher. And so for the two of us, we were really in just two different planes of existence. One where he was really trying to survive and burn out his fear, and me trying not to get sucked into his fear vortex so I can keep my shit together for the children and that massive transition that they had undergone.

Rhea: But you said it was purposeful.

Liz: It is purposeful.

Rhea: Why?

Liz: Because it forces consciousness. If we don't have that bit of struggle, a bit of that fire under us, especially when we've just come out of our fear, we really don't know what's going to drive us. We don't know what's moving us forward. We tend towards complacency. We will tend towards sameness. It's not to say that we will necessarily backslide. When you're out of your karma, you're out of your karma, but what new patterns and habits have I developed? Have I had time? Not really. And so that friction is like...that struggle is, okay. I think I've got something to push against now. Let me find a way. Let me set a goal so that way I can move forward out of this. That's what that friction is.

Rhea: So was that you doing that, or was that him doing that?

Liz: I think it was something that both of us were doing.

Rhea: So after you both came out of your karma as well, there was still that friction.

Liz: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, funny enough is when you're together and you're both in your karmic stories, you kind of make your karmic stories work because you're just like ... again, you're kind of coping and if you found your rhythm, you can kind of cope together. It's like, I'm doing my thing. You're doing your thing. You know, we're both just kind of like hot karmic mess. We needed that clean slate, which was the city where we met ironically. But again, in order for our energies to match up, in order for us to kind of find equal footing again and get on the same page, we had that struggle. We had those moments because we needed to get back together and we couldn't do it the way we used to do it. And it doesn't. It's really a matter of just finding your equilibrium within yourself first of all. You know, it's almost like you've downloaded a new operating system. Your usual reactions don't work because you're not reactive. Everything just kind of washes over you. So you're like, oh, I'm just living. It's all fine, but not everyone around you or every such scenario around you matches up to that operating system.

Rhea: And also, you feel like I need to be doing something, but I don't know what that something is. And so, you ended up feeling like... I mean, I'm noticed personally I became more and more insecure.

Liz: Interesting.

Rhea: I stopped acting. Before I was always waiting for a really clear signal to act before I did anything, because I felt really strongly about it. But once I kind of was out of everything, that really strong signal kind of wasn't there in the same way.

Liz: Yeah. Well, let's just be fair that for you, part of that was the fact that you were doing this in 2020 when it was just a really shitty year. That was what was so bittersweet. On the one hand, it's a great time be out of your karma because who wanted to be swimming in all that shit in 2020. The challenge though is the fact that what makes it bitter is you almost didn't get to enjoy it. I mean, the freedom that it usually comes with being karma-less, we were cut off at the knees.

Rhea: What gets you through it then?

Liz: Well, for me it was the, I needed to know that, okay. First of all, I needed to get back to - and it's going to sound so fucking cliché - I needed to figure out where my truth was. I had connected to my purpose when I was living in Brazil. That was the nice thing. Being out of my karma really gave me clarity around my purpose, which was I wrote and I wrote and I wrote and I wrote. Being there afforded me time to try that because I never had time in L.A. and that was really cool. It was like, you know, as we were discussing in the previous episode, it really gave me a great deal of meaning. I was so devoted to story then, and it taught me so much and I developed a new skill and that was wonderful. And so, in New York, I ended up sort of retreating into that a bit because that was how I was going to create my new world. If you haven't figured out your devotion, or what feels right in terms of devotion or vocation. For me, it was desire. Really, what do I have the strongest desire to do? And again, that was my writing and that's just kind of what kept informing all of my decisions and choices and kept leading me down a different path. I'm not writing what I used to write, but that's okay. It brought me joy then and taught me great skills in terms of communication, and is something I still derive income from and I appreciate. What's interesting in the karma-less world is that you're always going to be pivoting. One thing is always going to naturally lead to another and another, and the farther down you get, the more it's going to really make sense and you're going to be able to sort of see the line. You're just never going to recognize it when you're in the middle.

Rhea: But then what happens if what you desired in your karma space was what you still desire when you're out of it? Does that mean you're stuck in your karma still?

Liz: No. It can mean one of two things. One, then you're really meant to have it or two, your perspective hasn't shifted enough, which means while you might be karma-less, there might be a perspective you're not getting.

Rhea: And how do you know which one it is?

Liz: Well, which one is causing you most misery? Usually if it's the one that you know you're really meant to have, your faith knows it's coming. It just may not come that way. If it's the other one where you're just not getting the biggest perspective like there's something missing, then that's the one that is still attached to the karmic story. It's that expectation.

Rhea: And how do you burn that out?

Liz: We can't say that there's a way to burn it out necessarily, ‘cause right now you're asking for a solution and there is no single one. What we're offering here is a path to not even get to that point, which is: get to your purpose. Drown yourself in your purpose, if you will. That stuff then ceases to matter so much. You know, it's really fortunate for people these days versus like the years, the New York years as I like to refer to them, everything's so much faster than it was several years ago even. It blows my mind where I just think people really can move through their shit so much faster. You're so fucking fortunate. You can feel not good one day, but in a week's time have a certain perspective that it would have taken people my generation years and years of therapy to come through. What makes it different today versus several years ago, or a couple of decades ago is consciousness. Consciousness shift and change and the way it's elevated, and the way it keeps elevating every fucking year. And we have a couple of things to thank for that. The young ones who are really wired for compassion and understanding and peace. That's shifting everything and your generation, who came in to really dismantle it all and hold space for that dismantling. That's a massive job because in being able to ask why does it have to be this way, and to not be willing to accept the easy answer...

Rhea: You open the possibility for it not having to be this way.

Liz: Yeah. Yeah. And that's a really big accomplishment. 

Rhea: But isn't that what getting rid of your karma is? Because when you're in a karmic story, there is only one way for it to be, which is the way it's always been.

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: And if you're out of your karma, it can be anything. So that's just like the karma-less approach to life. Why does it have to be this way? Because then you're not filtering your experience through like, well, A happens so B happens, or it has to be this way because otherwise we're unsafe. Then it's well...

Liz: And you were the generation like the millennials were the generation to really be like that. Why do I have to pay my dues? But the reality, and we've said this in previous seasons, there's so much more to this ever changing, ever evolving world that we weren't going to come out of this. Not everyone's going to be happy with what the results end up being. And I'm not talking about you or anyone on a personal level necessarily because expecting that the world was going to change in order to meet their needs was never going to be the case, because that's still expecting someone else or something else to be responsible for us. And so, if we came out of 2020 or 2021 with that expectation and thinking everything was going to be a lot better, then we were going to be seriously disappointed.

Rhea: Yeah. Because anything that involves someone else changing, manipulating, servicing us in some way is where we're giving them our power, and we can't be totally empowered if we need someone else to tell us that we're powerful. So whether it's oh, if I come out of my karma, this relationship will be perfect or ...

Liz: Let me tell you ... not likely!

Rhea: Not likely. Yeah, exactly. As you said, if I come out of my karma, this job will be perfect. Not likely! If anything, if it's not meant to be, it'll start grating on you even more, you know.

Liz: Yeah, exactly.

Rhea: So, because you can't cope anymore enough to pretend it's not.

Liz: Nope.

Rhea: So, that's just doing what we've always done, which also makes sense that why people coming out of their karma and still living in a very 3D separate world would have found it really difficult. And maybe moving into this kind of new Oneness consciousness place might be easier when you're coming out of your karma, because then at least your joining other people who are like you.

Liz: Yes.

Rhea: And I can imagine that makes a big difference.

Liz: It makes a massive difference, and that's the point. I mean, for years I remember Ellen saying soon, soon. There's going to be this need for all light workers to come together, the vision of everyone holding hands. And I'm just like, okay, we're not holding hands in a pandemic, okay? Not without a lot of hand sanitizer, people! But we're only going to also find those people when we take responsibility for the bittersweetness of our lives. The one thing that I had to really grow into and accept, and it took me years. It really did, in my time in New York where I was like, I am really responsible for my happiness. I never expected my husband to be. It was never how I existed in our relationship or how we operated. But I did find I think I was a lot more influenced by his needs than I really needed to be. I also really needed to be the one to make my life what it needed to be and he was never going to provide that.

Rhea: And how do you do that then, in partnership or in relationship with someone else?

Liz: That is not easy, which is why a lot of people divorce. They get to certain stages in their marriages it's easier to cut and run than it is to make something of this. And it's true. I mean, not everybody really is contracted for life partnership with that particular person. It just wouldn't work because again, it just becomes too divergent. There's no point. But I never doubted. I just always understood our commitment was for life. So, it was never, okay, well, it's not about you providing or giving me a sense of purpose, or even pointing me the way. It was I really need to discover what that is and I needed to allow myself to try. I think we think that whatever we do, we have to be able to monetize. Whatever it is we do has to be worth our time or it's going to be a waste, or whatever it is we do it better be successful. Otherwise, it's touted as a hobby. And so I felt insecure about my writing as well, because then I thought, well, if I'm not selling a shit ton of books, then I'm a failure. But if I really took the long view, it was never about any of that. It was about this is an opportunity for me to learn. I'm teaching myself something as I go along and this is fucking cool.

And as I kept doing it, the more it showed me, there was a genius behind all of it and that genius was me. I can say that proudly because I know if I can do it, anyone can do it. And I know if I can—trust me, people when I say that. Okay, you all might be like, well, she's a channel anyway. She has all these guides who are just telling her what to do. But no, this was a time when I was kind of tiptoeing. I was seeing clients here and there, but I actually really was not in my practice fully then. And I was just taking long breaks because I was just trying whatever it was that just kind of tapped into my desire, what was bringing me joy. It wasn't like, oh, I'm in service to God and let's just talk about Guides all the time. It wasn't. It was like, let's talk about fucking, and let's talk about sex, and let's talk about Love. Let me understand relationship. It was just fun. It was meant to be light, and that was really getting me on my path towards everything else. But it's never that simple and we really need to allow ourselves that process and that adventure. Otherwise, we'll never really understand what we're doing.

Rhea: So when you say it's light, is it as in it's meant to be fun and light?

Liz: Yes. And light as in light versus dark. As in ... you know, I moved through some dark years. I had been postpartum. I wasn't aware of it so I was just kind of working through stuff, but we had both been coming out of a dark period and all that work I was doing was bringing a great deal of light and joy into my life. And of course, that helped my husband as he was making the transition and stressed in his own way, and of course we found our way back together. We always knew we would. We just needed to give ourselves an opportunity to do that. But we were only going to do that when we gave ourselves permission to do whatever brought us joy. And so it was the yes, life had been bitter. It had been bitter since our childhoods for various reasons, but we kept bringing in the sweet and that was something we had to choose time and again, and take responsibility for time and again, and we just had to figure out how to do that in our sort of karmaless state in different ways. And yes, it helps that he'll say, well, it helps that you were the more conscious one so I could explain to him what was going on or move through it. But it was just because we were both committed to our own consciousness and making choices that served us.

Rhea: And is it still bitter know?

Liz: No, no. I mean, we get into stupid fights sometimes, but not even … it's like stupid shit. Petty

Rhea: So you can overcome the bitterness and you can just have a sweet symphony without the bitter bit?

Liz: Things will be bitter when you have teenagers. This is still a human life. You still shit, fuck and cry and grieve and experience loss. There's no getting around the bitter ever, but the sweet can become more consistent. It can become more fulfilling when you engage with it more and more through your work, through your vocation. Again, that's just a great way to maintain it and sort of see its constant presence in your life.