Curious Glow

What is going on energetically in New York City? And how do you thrive in it?

NYC is a hotbed. A hotbed of potential energy ready to become kinetic energy, constantly becoming kinetic energy and then perpetuating itself into more potential energy, and the density of potential and manifestation keeps growing. It is dense, full, like inside a volcano. This density is something you can swim in. It’s a vibration that is strong and powerful. It’s thick and vibrant and active, and can move as fast as you direct it to. 

How it can take you for not the best ride:

If you're in it but not of it - if you are too whispy for it - it will likely be too much for you. If it’s too much for you, you can be crushed by it, becoming overwhelmed, closed off or closed down. Or maybe you'll try to run away from it, or have to leave. 

If you are in it and it comes inside you, but if you have no center of your own, it can take over you, as it starts to move you, rather than you moving it. 

If it gets inside you and if you don't have the ability to discern the direction you want it to take, it might not take the best path... or it can propel you in all sorts of directions, running this way and that, spinning out.   

If it gets inside you and if you use it from a place of disconnection from the whole - from fear, from mind without heart, from ego, selfishness, separation - you will use it wrongly, and you will turn a tool into a weapon. You might use the power to manifest violence, competition, or that which simply doesn’t truly serve and just wastes resources and diverts from true connected creativity/creation. This is the place of masculine energy, to be used for good or evil. It depends on the intention you meet the energy with. 

How you can take it for the best ride:

But if you tap into it and let it run inside your body, if you bring it through the inside of your body and allow it to fill you up so that inside you is the same energy as all around you, you can use it as fuel, and you can learn how to manipulate it - how to sculpt it like clay, how to direct its energies like directing the flow of a river. As it comes in, you direct its flow out. 

This is the place in which focus itself has the ability to truly create, because the energy is already there. The potential energy is there, so if you focus, and if you allow yourself to be a conductor, the energy will flow through you, and into your area of focus. Into whatever it is you choose to direct the energy towards. In other words, as energy and awareness together create movement and build reality... and as energy in New York is hyper-available, in mass and dense quantity and force... once you add awareness, it will shoot out into whatever direction you choose. So: what do you want to create? Focus very specifically and run the energy through you towards that.

This is the creative potential of New York. This is the place of ambition, motivation, and action. Those who know how to tap into these energies, how to run these energies through their system, how to mould and direct these energies, can create anything they want. The raw material is already here, present. Now it’s about sculpting it, playing with it, moving it, building from what is already given. 

Why do we have to suffer? Here’s one potential idea... The universe (and your life - lifetimes) as a puzzle...

The Universe as a Puzzle

Oneness individuated itself into separate parts so that they could identify themselves as such (identify Self by experiencing “other” as a mirror for Self to even know you're there). So let’s picture it as a puzzle, that got taken apart into tiny separate pieces. The puzzle can’t know its entire self until it knows each of its parts, and then once it does, it brings those parts back together into a unified whole. So there’s a value in separating out, and then regrouping. Hence why it got taken apart. (One easy way to consider this is: you can’t know light without dark, you can’t know hot without cold - you can experience them, but you can't have awareness of their qualities without experiencing what they’re not. Hence why we experience duality before/during (re)experiencing non-duality). So, as Oneness individuated itself into separate pieces, one of those individuations is you. You (your soul) are a piece of the Oneness puzzle, and you are simultaneously the entire Oneness puzzle itself, since you are also that Oneness - fractal universe! 

But let’s focus on you as your own puzzle - we will stay on that “level” of the infinite fractals.   

Your Life as a Puzzle:

The Puzzle of Lifetimes, the Pieces of Awareness

What I’m suggesting here is not that each puzzle piece is one lifetime and your entire soul is the puzzle. Instead, what I’m suggesting is that the puzzle is “awareness of all of what is”, and each puzzle piece is an awareness of a certain aspect of reality. Once you’ve uncovered an awareness for every single aspect of what exists, you know everything - you are aware of everything, you are all-aware, you have included everything into your awareness, there is nothing you have forgotten, ignored, or not acknowledged - all of existence is seen and understood, and brought together into the light of awareness, and unified in what is finally non duality. 

So, in this sense, each time we incarnate, and each time we have experiences in our incarnation, we have opportunities to uncover aspects of reality, or uncover an awareness of something that exists in reality, that we currently didn’t know. Maybe in some lifetimes, we uncover a lot of puzzle pieces, maybe in others we don’t. For example, a puzzle piece could be “this is what loss with attachment looks like”. Or, another could be “this is how pride blocks me”, or, another could be “this is how to listen to trees”, or “this is one way oppression manifests politically”. Each puzzle piece has its own “sister and brother” puzzle pieces, like “this is how pride blocks me in this situation” versus “this is how pride blocks me a little bit differently in that situation”. Or, “parent and child” puzzle pieces, like seeing oppression on the political level mirroring oppression on the individual relationship level, mirroring internal oppression within our own inner thoughts. (It feels like each puzzle piece might have its own fractal puzzles within it - unclear whether any of this puzzle stuff is finite somewhere, or just totally infinite). 

What it feels is that we’re uncovering certain truths. They begin on a very physical level when we are experiencing this realm of physical reality on this planet - for example, when I touch the hot stove, my finger hurts. Then, we can eventually move to “wider” aspects of a truth like that, such as “there are consequences to our actions”, or “I experience pain as well as pleasure, and if I experience pain from something, it doesn’t mean that thing meant to hurt me”. Etc. 

(By saying that we are uncovering truths, I'm not trying to insert dogma into this, saying that there are certain truths we need to know, and that if you don’t know them, or if you think other things are true instead of the ones I’m thinking of, then I’m right and you’re wrong. That would just mean that we haven’t included everything into our awareness yet, and are still living in a state of binaries/duality. In other words, I think that perhaps one of the final truths we are able to understand is that everything is true - because everything EXISTS, and that’s what I mean by truth: acknowledging that something exists, and how it exists in the context of everything else, and what it’s like to really experience it firsthand - to “be it” in a way, even if for a moment).   

How we Find Puzzle Pieces

Opportunities for Learning

So anyway, what allows us to uncover these truths? In other words, what allows us to find out that something exists? 

I think that we uncover what exists by having experiences and learning from them. An experience is an event that happens in our life, and learning from the experience means that we’ve registered an awareness of what happened, even if unconsciously. For example, if I touch the hot stove and my finger hurts, but I haven’t registered that the learning is “hot stoves cause finger pains”, I will keep touching the stove till I understand there’s a cause and effect there. The event will keep happening, until I’ve understood what it is, and acknowledged its internal laws you could say, and then I have a learning. 

So: every event is an opportunity to learn, not necessarily a learning in and of itself. So, each time you experience an event, you don’t necessarily uncover a puzzle piece - but each time you learn from an event, aka you become aware of a new aspect of reality - a new truth, a new understanding of what exists and how things work - then you’ve uncovered a puzzle piece.   

I think interestingly that sometimes we think we know how things work, but we’ve actually just created an illusion. For example, if a hetero teenage boy has learned from pop media something like “If I’m rude to girls, they’ll like me, because I’ll be “cool””, he may think that that is a truth, but ultimately, at some point, it won’t hold up anymore. So there’s a difference between our thoughts and ultimate truths. That said, we can learn that our thoughts are also truths in their own world: that our thoughts create entire worlds of events, perceptions, and other thoughts that stabilize a little world we’ve created for ourselves that we can live in that sustains the “truths” we’ve built for ourselves. 

Example:

For example, someone who thinks money is the most important thing in the world will indeed life a life in which everything around him seems to mirror that. Each cue in the external world that enforces that view will be recognized, and probably multiple cues that might suggest otherwise will be dismissed or ignored. In this way, the greater truth to be learned (a “parent” truth of this puzzle piece) might be that “we create our own world”. I think we learn this when eventually other truths encroach upon ours and topple our house of cards - eventually we cannot live within our own bubble. The other pieces start coming in and forces us to reconsider our view of reality based on what we now need to adopt into our schema. 

How to Integrate New Truths

Here’s a great metaphor for the last example: the game Bananagrams. In this game, you are given a certain number of letters, and you need to form a set of words with them until you’ve used all the letters. But then, once you’ve formed words with all of the letters, you need to receive a new letter, and include it into the whole - which means that you’ll need to dismantle a lot of the words you had just created, and reconfigure them into new words that will include the new letter. And you keep on doing this. So every time it feels like you’re done - you’ve created a little organized matrix - and then a new variable comes in and you have to dismantle what you had built and partially - and even, at rare times, completely - start over. 

Often when we’ve created a little world for ourselves and are ignoring other truths, we need to have a huge shift in order to open our eyes to those truths. For example, a truth like “money is not the most important thing in the world” might not be recognized if small, calm experiences happen to this person suggesting otherwise, such as someone merely telling the person that, or telling a story that would suggest that, or even the person experiencing a little bit of financial loss. The person simply doesn’t “listen” to those cues. only a very large cue, like for example losing all of one’s personal assets (an event many would consider to be very painful), might this person uncover the truth they were previously missing in their repertoire - and finally uncover that new puzzle piece. 

Insights Attract Each Other 

There are so many puzzle pieces to uncover, but it seems that we tend to uncover puzzle pieces around the ones we have already uncovered. Just like making a puzzle, we start having groupings of pieces that we have connected to each other that are starting to form part of the picture. Though there are gazillions of individual puzzle pieces still out there, the only ones we’re able to recognize and bring into the wholeness of the puzzle we are building are the ones that have the drawing on them that matches the drawing already in the little bunches of the puzzle we’ve been able to form up to this point - they need context to invite them in. 

Thus, for example lets say our character in this story who has lost all his money is now homeless and begging for change on the street and receives an incredibly generous donation from a passer-by. Maybe our character is now ready to uncover some puzzle pieces regarding generosity, gratitude, resilience, connection, relationship, hope, relief, joy, etc. Maybe even though he had the possibility of experiencing some of those truths in his rich life, he is experiencing a new side of joy, a new side of resilience, for example (“sister and brother pieces” of the joy and resilience pieces that were already in his repertoire - in his puzzle before). 

The Keys that Unlock the Learnings

That was just one example of maybe why we suffer. I think we can see it this way: there are certain truths we need to uncover, an awareness of certain things that exist - which we can call learnings. And so then, there are certain experiences that can be the keys that will unlock those learnings. And then our multiple lifetime process is kind of like a “collect them all!” game. 

Perhaps multiple experiences can lead to each learning. For example, to learn humility, our character may have done that via being homeless and receiving a donation, and for someone else, someone may learn humility by becoming a refugee and accepting help from aid workers. So maybe not everyone has a lifetime where they’re a refugee, but everyone has a lifetime where eventually they tap into exactly a specific type and level of humility, through whatever experience is able to get them there. 

The Role of Pain

And, importantly, there are many learnings that can only be uncovered by the keys of painful experiences. There are certain truths that are simply not accessible without pain first. In that case, when we see ourselves or someone else suffer, there is no blame, shame, or pity, because that person is not “bad” or “being punished” - instead, that person has come to a point where they have accessed the key to a certain learning that maybe you or I haven’t accessed yet - or perhaps already did. 

And once we do get the learning that that key or a similar key provided - if for example maybe we didn’t uncover the learning from the first such event - the fact that we have that learning allows us to understand others who are experiencing events in that similar key ‘category’ - and being able to understand, empathize, commiserate, and help those specific people in those specific situations, are itself experiences and learnings only accessible after all experiences and learnings that came before. 

Which comes to - how do our experiences fit together? How do my learnings affect yours, and vice versa? I’ll come to that after discussing one last thing - how our own learnings may build on each other. 

Starting to See the Whole Puzzle...

So let’s say that you’ve hit a certain number of learnings by this point - you’re starting to see the image in the puzzle. By seeing the image, you have a greater view of what you’re eventually going towards, and you can start to guess what other learnings are missing. You can start going out in search of the puzzle pieces you’re still missing because you know their size, shape, color, etc. 

In our lives, this might look like the following: perhaps we have a view of who we are on a greater level, via our intuition, and our felt sense experience. We have a pull towards what feels like our greater purpose, or we have had experiences of deep love, oneness, truth, or anything else that feels very powerful to us and is calling us to experience more of it. Maybe, our awareness is there and it has come from multiple very painful experiences, and we are determined to find out what’s on the other side. However we’ve come to it, we’re now at a place where we’re curious and determined to go out and search for what we do not yet know. 

It’s a humble search, because we are on a quest to see, experience, and understand, everything - including that which is not pretty, including that which is not pretty inside ourselves, including accepting that we may have to let go of our current perspectives, truths, convictions, etc, in just the way the game Bananagrams requires us till the end of the game to sometimes have to re-vamp entire parts of our “game board”. (In truth, our puzzle seems to be built by a bananagrams type way of building). 

So, what we can do at this point, is go in search of learnings - in search of considering how we may not yet be seeing certain things, where our blind spots might be, courageous to face those very painful keys that are still ahead, and faithful and determined to keep building our puzzle.   

Ok, back to individual and collective...

How do our Puzzles Intersect? 

Are my puzzle and your puzzle each an individual piece of the entire puzzle of Oneness? It doesn’t seem like that, since we’re all learning the same things. How are we building the same puzzle? Maybe.. though it seems like each of us has to uncover each piece - or can one person uncover a piece for the whole? I’ve heard of some individuals taking on other individuals’ karma… We’ve also heard of the idea of “tipping points” that happen on a societal level that has an energetic basis to it - how when a certain number of people are already on a certain wavelength, others quickly catch up, or are swept into the new awareness. 

So maybe we are learning for each other? And it seems clear that we also are helping each other experience - sometimes the person who hurts us the most is the one that has brought us into a painful experience that was the key to a learning that wouldn’t have otherwise been accessible. And that person’s role will lead them to another kind of key… 

Questions...  

Fractals

There’s a part of this I don’t yet know how to tap into… something around how we build the puzzle together… How does it work? I still can’t picture it. If the puzzle is a fractal, what does that mean? I’ve only really written about the puzzle being each individual soul’s journey across the experiences of incarnations.. But what does it mean for there to be a fractal level of the puzzle as Oneness itself? 

Infinity

But then we get to other complications - about infinity - the infinity of the puzzle, and of time... 

For example, what if the puzzle is infinite? Many say we incarnate *until* we’re “done” - until we’ve uncovered the whole puzzle. But how can we ever uncover the entire puzzle, especially if the universe itself - absolute beingness itself - is constantly evolving and changing, and itself infinite? Does that mean we are always learning, forever? Or is there a state of “rest” or “end”? For some reason the forever thing feels like it makes more sense than the end thing - because an end would assume linear time, of which there is none. But if there’s no linearity, then is there even a progression of the puzzle-building at all? 

If there is no linear time (if instead there is only the eternal now), and if we are always whole although a part of us is learning, then we are simultaneously the full puzzle and the puzzle-in-the-making. And so lets say that a puzzle isn't infinite and can be completed - if we complete it, do we just do it all over again? 

Or if there’s no time, and we’re simultaneously having all our lives in the infinite now, then are we always at every point of the puzzle building? In each “reality” we’re at a different point of the puzzle building? 

Just read this deeply insightful piece by Bell Hooks and wanted to share:

Here’s my own summary:

Patriarchy is a cultural warping of natural masculine and feminine energies into rigid categories of masculinity and femininity that kills our ability to be whole, by saying that men have to be a certain way, and women have to be a certain way, in order for society to function (let alone the deep gender binary implied here, which I won’t even get into). 

And that those ways are: 

Men: not emotional, powerful, controlling, aggressive. 

Women: emotional, nurturing, submissive, weak. 

Most importantly, the issue is that this system hurts EVERYONE, not just the females (who obviously hurt more). Power has been artificially divided and given to one group - including the abuse of that power. 

The solution? 

Not for women to have to become like men - though to allow women the full range of emotion and power of men is a part of it. But assuming that becoming like men is what needs to happen is still holding a superior view of “being like men” as better. What about allowing men to just get to be themselves, rather than have to suppress their feelings and act tough? We all lose in this. 

What we ALL deserve is: for all of us to experience all of our masculine and feminine energies, in wholeness, in an equal sharing of power, and in peacefulness. 

Dangers of individualizing

Q: Why do some people survive difficult situations and some don’t?

For example surviving a disease. Why do some people who think positive thoughts, pray, and envision their healing, and are loving towards all, don’t survive, and others who think negative thoughts, don’t have any kind of spiritual beliefs, are mean to others, etc, could survive? 

I want to answer this in depth - more importantly, respond to potential answers I don’t agree with.

Let’s first set the stage with the understanding of our ability to affect reality 

Princeton has created an awesome series of experiments in which people have focused their attention and intention on changing certain outcomes in random event generator machines, and seen undeniable results of the impact of intention on the result. 

They’re not the only ones. You can also watch this great video presentation on other similar science experiments: And you can check out info from IONS - the Institute of Noetic Sciences - which has a huge database of science reports. So what does this mean? It means that YES we have an undeniable effect on our reality and on our healing. I’m not going into details, because I’m just giving references and moving on, but check them out if you’re a science person. Otherwise, you already know this, because it’s been a part of ancient wisdom across the ages.

How do we contextualize our individual abilities? Seeing ourselves as individuals can be a huge problem

The aforementioned truth and reality does not mean though, that if someone doesn’t succeed in changing their future, that they did something “wrong” or that they are “wrong” or not as good as other people. That is a myopic view. Why? Because it’s very common for us to see each other as individual parts. To break things up into little circles and then look within that little circle as if it were a snow globe and think that everything in there is happening in its own little world. 

Our entire scientific method is based on this - on separation, individuation, and isolation. 

We HAVE to create all sorts of limitations, boundaries, and rules so that we eliminate confounding variables to find our outcome. But instead, what if we were to understand that there are ALWAYS confounding variables we can’t see? That even when we think we have isolated variables, we can humbly remember that indeed we can isolate only the variables that we are consciously aware of, and have access to on the physical dimension. I’ll give a example I see all the time: when scientists divorce body, mind, and spirit from each other, as if they were independent systems that - at best - interacted with each other, rather than holding them as multiple manifestations of the same reality in simultaneous forms. When this divorce happens, dangerously simplistic explanations are given to an unseen, deeply connected reality. For example, telling someone that they are ill in a certain part of their body because of a chemical imbalance. As if the chemical were the cause! Rather than its own form of physical manifestation of a larger story. What could the integrated story be? What if we simply don’t know? 

Note the danger here: a scientist, someone well regarded in our culture, is telling “laypeople” how things work. The scientist works within a rational, logical framework, which is a limited framework, but happens to be the most valued framework of our modern western culture. As long as we stay within a framework, our answers will be myopic. 

Spiritual people have the capacity to make the explanation even worse: The problem is that it’s not just atheist scientists that make the mistake of assuming that what they see is all there is. Spiritual people do this all the time. While scientists will say that someone is sick because of a chemical issue, someone who looks at things in a more integrated way, such as a spiritual person, (or certain therapists) could say that someone physically sick because, let’s say, they haven’t let go of an emotional pain in their childhood. Or, looking at an even longer time horizon, they could say that the person is suffering from a sickness in this life because they did something bad in their past life. What if we simply don’t know? 

Note the danger here: a spiritual person, who says that they have a connection to the Divine (in whatever their current understanding or experience of that is), is telling others how things work. And what’s their proof? God of course! "God said so!" (Or whatever other way they explain the Divine). My point here is that it’s very dangerous for someone to be giving answers based on a specific framework, as if that framework encompassed and explained everything, especially when they are legitimizing the framework with something other people don’t have the ability to argue against (aka the Divine)- which is something that some people fear, depend on, relinquish their own intuition to, feel powerless in relation to, or have whatever other complicated emotions they might have about the idea of the divine — emotions affected and clouded by culture and stresses. 

A special note about karma:

It’s not news that a lot of people use the excuse of God or the Divine to spread all sorts of distorted views on things in order to gain and maintain power and authority on a cultural/societal level. (For example, "if you do XYZ you will go to hell, so you have to do things the way I tell you to”). That is an extreme religious view that a lot of spiritual people laugh at (including me). 

But what’s also out there is people who identify as spiritual not religious, who are liberal, preach love and equality…. and then…continue to infuse cultural influences into their spiritual understandings without necessarily realizing that those limitations are happening. One way I see this happen is in people’s definition of karma.   

I see people define karma as: “if this bad thing is happening to you, it’s because you deserve it, since you did a bad thing last time”. I see two issues around this: First, there is the cultural infusion of a concept of morality: the idea that certain actions require punishment. What if instead we were to say that each kind of action is related to a certain energy frequency that tends to encounter other similar energy frequencies? There is no blame or hierarchy in this. These are very similar definitions that still hold the concept of a certain cause-effect chain, but one of them infuses morality and blame, and the other infuses neutrality. I don’t think morality and blame exist on a cosmic level, I think they’re human constructs. So we’re infusing something apparently cosmic (the concept of karma) with our human constructs. What if there was simple energetic neutrality? You’re on a certain energy stream, and it perpetuates in certain ways, and then you are maybe on a different energy stream, which perpetuates in other ways? 

Another issue around these views of karma is the issue of individuation. Who says that something is happening to ME because something similar was done by ME beforehand? Who is this ME we’re talking about? What if the divisions between me and you and us aren’t so simple? And so actually, there is a collective co-creation happening, which makes the concept of karma simply be the concept of group streams, group creation, group movements. It’s like asking why a water molecule is at a specific part of a river. Because the river is flowing. It’s not about that water molecule. We can withhold our explanations for why we think something happened to someone, because we actually don’t have enough information to understand the larger connections between this someone and everyone and everything else in the entire universe. 

You don’t know what you don’t know:

The important - and humbling - part of this all is to acknowledge that most of us or all of us do not have the full information of how things happen and why, while we’re incarnated . You can’t see the full view of the town you’re in until you get in an airplane. We can’t see the full map when we’re just seeing one tiny piece right now. Maybe sometimes we can access a larger view of the map, or parts of it. But I believe there will always be aspects of this larger story that aren’t accessible while we’re incarnated. 

Also so important to remember that this map is alive and constantly evolving. Not fixed.   

In sum, I think it’s extremely important for us to remember that we are not individuals operating independently. We are a huge connection of a whole, of an infinite amount of streams of energy and flow happening due to all sorts of reasons we don’t have access to understanding with our 5 senses and with the limited view we have of cause and effect. Why did something happen to someone? Here are some tiny explanations of possibilities, but the truth is I DON’T KNOW. Maybe it’s from a past life. Maybe it’s a part of someone else’s journey you’re riding too, somehow, to share the weight. Maybe it’s intergenerational, ancestral. Maybe your twin flame is experiencing something and you’re balancing it out. Maybe what looks like a bad thing is the precursor to the best thing ever. Maybe it’s a trajectory you’ll only find out in your next life. Maybe you’re flowing in a larger societal flow, picked up by the current of the collective consciousness. Maybe, maybe, maybe… What else? Let’s remember that my explanations are also limited because I’m still using linear time and individuating people quite a lot. 

Dangers of generalizing:

What is “right” for healing?

Some people bathe themselves in holy water in Lourdes, and get better. Some don’t. Some people who are very sick quit their jobs and then get better. Others who had quit go back to their job and get better. Some people care for their sick children a certain way, and they get better. Others do the same thing, or even more, and the kids don’t get better. Why? What are you “supposed” to do? 

I think based on all the above, it should be clear right now that my stance is that there is no cookie cutter answer. 

Because we don’t know why things are happening the way they are, who are we to say we know how they should go, or how to make them go the way we want them to go? 

I’ll give a very practical example about the variety of healing forms possible. A great research report on resilience after traumatic events shows that coping mechanisms are varied, and there isn’t one “right thing to do”. For example, if you just went through a difficult experience, some people might tell you that you have to think or act or feel a certain way, so that you can get better. Really, though? Nope. Each moment may require different kinds of responses. And everyone is different. Surprise! Yes, of course there are certain trends for things that can help for healing. I’m not saying it’s a total free-for-all, or anything you try on a healing standpoint will have the same chance of success. That said, I value bringing in a clear understanding that one-size-fits-all attempts at healing have been shown to not just not work, but can bring more bad than good to those for whom the “help” was the opposite of what they needed. 

There’s one thing in the universe and that is love. We hear that a lot: “there is only love”, “everything is love”, etc. But why doesn’t it feel that way? Why instead does so much suck???

What if we look at it this way…

First let me introduce LOVE and the UNKNOWN (the “2 things” that make up the entire universe):

So, first, there’s the love we know. We have seen and felt it. It’s KNOWN LOVE, but for short I’ll call it “LOVE”.

Then also, there is the love we don’t know. It’s the same stuff as the first, but the only difference is that we haven’t experienced it yet. It’s love not yet experienced, so, UNKNOWN LOVE, but for short, and to differentiate it from the first category, I’ll call it “UNKNOWN”.

So we’ve got love plus this second love which we don’t see as love the way we see the first one, but instead we see it as a giant UNKNOWN. A question mark. What is behind that door, we wonder? I already told you the answer, but from here (being human, alive, etc) we can’t see it, so we don’t know. We haven’t gotten there yet. Tomorrow hasn’t happened yet. We haven’t been there yet.

So what do we do?

What is in that space of the UNKNOWN??? We guess!!!

If we guess right, we get what we hoped for…

When we guess what that unknown is made of, we guess right: more love! If we open that door, we’ll simply find.. more love!

If we guess LOVE, we’ll gladly be where we are, and we will gladly go over there into the unknown, because they’re both the same anyway, and they’re both great stuff. So we can kinda just drift with the current. Let the flow take us.

But if we guess wrong… 

We guess that behind the door is PAIN. 

(Note that I’m not saying some people guess one and some people guess the other. While this is also true, and while the same person can guess one versus the other at different moments, the more important point here is that we guess as a collective - all of humanity is “casting a vote” as to what they guess this is to be, through all the tiny votes we make as individuals in each moment. We are constantly “voting” our guess).

Ok so if we guess PAIN, watch what happens…

First, we act. 

Our action performs two functions, and has one outcome:

The first function of our action is to AVOID the UNKNOWN side we view as PAIN. (Remember: this side is actually just love but we think it must be pain).

The second function of our action is to GRASP the side we already know as LOVE. We will do anything to protect the LOVE we do know. The love we know about. The love we have. The love we feel we have access to. The love we recognize. We grab onto it with all our might.

What is the outcome of our action? 

Well, we need only to look at the action itself. When we grasp, we constrict and distort. We take love and squeeeeeeze it until it can’t breathe. We take love and say “you’re not allowed to leave, in going to lock you into this tiny space I’ve made to keep you”. We take love and say, “it’s mine not yours! Give it to me now!”. We take love and say, “I will sacrifice anything to make sure I have this”.

Why do we do this? We do it because we think it’s worth it. We think we need to make sure we have it or else we won’t. We think it is in short supply. So what do we do? We hurt someone else in order to hold it closer, or to make sure we keep it. We hurt someone else or ourselves.

In trying to preserve love, in trying to gain love, we have made what we feared might be on the other side.

So if we guess wrong, we get what we feared…

With our action, we manufactured the PAIN we were trying to avoid. We may have manufactured it into our own lives, or someone else’s life. But we just created it.

Summary:

Guess love, and there’s love.

Guess pain, and there’s pain.

“Wait a second!” you might be thinking as you read this… “If you’re saying love is the only thing that there really is, then how come now you’re saying there’s pain? Doesn’t that just prove that there are TWO things, love and pain?”

Well, what if…

Pain = love distorted

What if PAIN is not a THING that is vying for space in competition with love. 

What if only love is a thing, or, better said, what if all things are made of only love? Then PAIN, instead, is actually LOVE in a different FORM. A constricted squished distorted mangled screwed up FORM. The same material, but a different density, a different shape. Pain is love distorted.

Now what?

Ok… so we just went through a full cycle of: hypothesis (questioning what the UNKNOWN is made of), action (fear leading to avoidance-grasping), and result (pain).

So now with the new result, on the table what we have is LOVE, more love in the UNKNOWN, and now this distorted constricted version of love we experience as PAIN.

So what if we now go through a second cycle? Now when we look at what’s out there, we actually do see PAIN; we’re not just guessing about it. Someone has already created it - or, since it’s not really an “it”, a better way of saying that is “someone has already distorted some of the love”.

So there are two ways this could go. Let’s try out Round 2, and see what happens when we assess LOVE, PAIN, and UNKNOWN:

Round 2: Perpetuating the cycle

We can continue the spiral, this time trying to AVOID the PAIN that we or the other person has just made, GRASPING the LOVE we have in reach. In order to avoid potential pain and grasp the lve we know, we do all sorts of clever PAIN-creating and PAIN-perpetuating things such as: denial, fighting, resisting, attacking, etc, and, as it goes, create more PAIN again. You might recognize this as a lot of what we see in humanity on planet earth.

Or….

Round 2: Coming back to love’s original form

Rather than perpetuating the cycle, we can heal. Through 

1) integration, which heals pain, 

and 

2) trust, openness, and curiosity, which prevents further pain from being created.

How? Lets look at each of these at a time:

1) Integration: The love reminds the pain of its true nature as love

What if pain is not something to be avoided or fought, but instead something to be integrated? Integrated meaning: brought back into its original form. Love becoming its soft form again. 

How do we heal through integration?

We put our attention on the original LOVE and on the created PAIN at the same exact time. What this does is it brings LOVE to the PAIN. The pain gets to be loved. It gets to be surrounded with itself in its pure form, to remind it what it truly is. What does this look like? Awareness, seeing, accepting, caring, nurturing, loving, understanding, welcoming, forgiving.

As my teachers at Luminous say, it’s like the PAIN was an ice cube and the ice cube gets placed back into the infinite ocean (which is LOVE), and it is going to just melt back into it. The ice cube is just water, in a different form, and with the warmth of the ocean surrounding it it will melt back into the flowy free state of its original nature.

So that’s a way we can integrate the part of love that got condensed. We can free it back into itself.

But since there are a lot of PAIN ice cubes out there, until we melt all of them we’ve got to figure out how to navigate the sea. And since we don’t want to bang into an ice cube (huge iceberg perhaps?) we may end up finding ourselves avoiding or grasping in order to try to stay in warm ocean territory and not iceberg territory - unfortunately, perpetuating the cycle of pain mentioned above.

So how else can we heal? Not just by integrating PAIN back into LOVE, but also by FINDING something beyond our reactionary avoidant-grasping actions, so that we don’t create more pain. 

What can we seek to find? More love! Where do we find it? By looking into that UNKNOWN spot, of course!

2) Searching for more love 

If we can remember anything, it’s that there is always more love. No matter where we’re at right now, we can know that there will be more love; there is more love somewhere else. On the other side of whatever it is. Inside whatever it is. So, what we get to do is we get to be explorers and with curiosity go searching for the UNKNOWN that we know is made of LOVE!!! Ooooh where have we not looked yet where we could find it? We’ve seen the LOVE we know, we’ve seen the PAIN we or others have created for fear of the unknown, but there’s that other thing, that UNKNOWN, that has been there the whole time, full of love waiting for us to uncover! More love. Just gotta find it.

Don’t see it? That’s cuz you haven’t found it yet! It’s still unknown. But we can uncover the UNKNOWN until it’s known too. (And of course there will always be an infinite amount of unknown for us to continue uncovering - hence the multiple lifetime thing. Whatever we don’t get to now, we will later!).

Note that in searching for more love, you’re already utilizing manifestations of love to do so: trust, hope, possibility, curiosity, openness, allowing, etc.

Where does fear fit into all this? Love and fear

People say “there’s only Love and Fear” - in other words, everything in the world can be noticed to be a derivative of one or the other”. Let’s now map that duality onto the framework I’ve created here, since my “duality” was “known LOVE” and “UNKNOWN (aka not-yet-experienced) love”. So how to fit Love and Fear into that?

Well, it’s clear where Love fits in. Love is in the known LOVE bucket and the UNKNOWN love bucket. Fear is not knowing what’s in the UNKNOWN bucket AND not being able to access trust, (remember that trust is a specific manifestation of love, so when it’s gone we are already feeling far from love). Fear is then the feeling that motivates action that creates the pain that the fear feared in the first place. The fear then encounters what it was focusing on and trying to avoid. 

Known Love + Unknown Love + Trust => 

Unknown Love is perceived as Love.

Action from Trust does not avoid/grasp, but instead allows, and encounters Love

Known Love + Unknown Love + Fear (aka absence of Trust) =>

Unknown Love is perceived as Pain

Action from Fear grasps Known Love (trying to avoid Unknown) and encounters Pain

Where does fear come from? I think we could see it as: Fear is not being able to see love, not being able to have certainty about love, currently feeling lost from love.

In other words, fear is FORGETTING love. Fear comes from forgetting.

Fear can be seen as the empty spot that results when trust (a form of love) is stolen from us through someone else’s pain-producing action (It’s kind of like someone did a vampire move and for their own lack of ability to feel close to love, went over to you who had some and snatched it, and brought you pain and now fear in the process). Of course the whole point is that there is always more love, so when someone snatches the love you have, there is always more love to fill its place. But it requires trust to know that, and in that moment it’s hard to find because your own reserves feel like they’ve run dry. That’s why I think it’s so important for us to remember that we can access bigger reserves, either through reaching out to friends and community, God or whatever other perception of spirituality we have, self care practices, or other ways we can see proof of love in other parts of life, to start gaining the trust again that more love is in fact there, and that it’s just about finding it again. We don’t need to snatch our love reserves back from the person who took it, we can re-fuel anywhere. The person who took it thinks love is in short supply. You who are re-fueling know it is an infinite supply. You can know it, even when you don’t feel it, and your knowing will help you go find it, till you feel it again.

A note on law of attraction:

I want to be clear that I’m not saying that we create the bad things that happen to us. Sure, sometimes, in the sense that we can create thoughts that can lead to painful emotions or bodily states. But the point here is to remember that we are all co-creating. Law of attraction is on a collective level, not individual level. If we think on an individual level, we are forgetting the oneness of our quantum reality and misperceiving ourselves in a Newtonian view as separate things. 

Which means that pain can get shared on a collective level but so can healing. Because someone else’s fear can just whack a PAIN distortion into your face if you’re nearby, even if you weren’t the one creating it in the first place. But then, because of the pain, you’re going to need a solution for how to deal with it, and you have the opportunity to find either or both of those two ways of healing I mentioned above (integration, and seeking more love), and then you’re going to be able to teach that healing work to others too!

Ok, to end all this with clarity, let’s summarize and contextualize with a quick Q&A: 

What is LOVE? 

Well, everything, the known and the UNKNOWN, IN ITS PURE FORM.

How do we see LOVE in our human lives? 

Nurturing, acceptance, true seeing, acknowledgement, wisdom, understanding, forgiveness, possibility, curiosity, etc. That which opens, trusts, embraces, and integrates. That which neither avoids nor grasps, but ALLOWS.

What is PAIN? 

It’s something that’s still made of love, but it’s the distortion of that love. Pain is love distorted into a FORM that hurts.

How do we see PAIN in our human lives? 

Pain is the outcome of an action of grasping-avoiding motivated by fear. (Fear being the forgetting of love, the momentary inability to perceive love, and thus the losing of trust in love). You can identify pain as having some or all of the following grasping-avoidant qualities: it separates, limits, ignores, denies, attempts to destroy, attempts to control, etc. The action that causes pain can range anywhere from having a limiting belief on one end to murdering someone on the other end. All fear-based actions that cause pain are an attempt to grasp love - to find it, keep it, or try to feel it - in any of the forms love takes. 

In what way does a pain-producing action try to grasp love? 

Let’s ask this in a more contextualized way.. “Why do people do horrible things?”

Consider some examples of some horrible actions that people do, and see if people doing them might be wanting any of the following: wanting to feel powerful, wanting safety, wanting to be seen, wanting attention, wanting to express themselves, wanting to know they will be okay. If they are not particularly wanting them, then they are probably afraid of losing them. In either case, they want to have those things or be those things…. and they fear that they can’t or won’t. So they fight.

While those things the people in these examples may be seeking or holding onto are love - power, safety, being seen, being given attention, expression, calm - the way they are grasping each of these things mangles them into a distorted form: power turns from “power-with”, the pure form, to “power-over”, the distorted form. Safety goes from shared safety, to safety for one at the expense of the other, in a misperception of separateness, and with it, competition. Being seen, expressing, etc also come at that same expense, whereas in its pure form, there is love-expression and attention for all that is always for the best of all, not of some above others. We can see a pattern: that when love gets distorted into its painful form, what happens is that our understanding (and resulting behavior from our understanding) of connection, unity, and oneness, becomes forgotten, and temporarily replaced with a perception of separation, division, and competition (leading to pain-creating behaviors conducted through this distorted view). (It's not surprising that grasping distorts love that in its original form was oneness, into a distorted form that looks like duality. Because the act of grasping itself comes from thinking the UNKNOWN could be anything besides love itself- in other words, thinking that there could be duality.)

Note then that every action is an action of trying to protect LOVE. 

Ironically, the attempt to protect it distorts it. Why? Because an attempt to protect it axiomatically contains within the attempt a fear that more love is not for certain, and that this love thus needs to be protected, because there could be something ELSE that is a different something that is not IT. The act of wanting to protect love is simultaneously a communication telling the universe that we also expect there to be something else that we need to protect FROM. So, if we are conceptualizing a “something else”, it will show up, because we conceptualized it (and then we’re back to the beginning of this post, where in our mistrust of the unknown, we produce pain).

So what do we do?

All we can do, instead, is replace fear with trust.

Inside each action that causes pain is the “LOVE-Fear” combination. When we trust that there must be more love out there, we automatically remove the Fear from that combination and replace it with Trust, and so there is no more action that causes distortion, no more resulting PAIN. It is no longer “LOVE-Fear”, it is just “Love-Trust”, which is just “Love-Plus-More-Forms-of-Love”, or just, LOVE. Just love before and love after, love as it is in its natural form. If you truly trust that more love will show up, then more love will show up.

More love.

How can we take action in a way that is aligned for the greater good? I want to talk about this in the framework of stillness versus movement, and love power versus aggression power.

The universe is made of stillness and dynamism. Structure and flow. The container that holds everything, and the stuff in it. The witness, and the life events and actions that happen. The pauses, and the steps taken.

But there is a way we can live this stillness that is deflated, and a way we can live this stillness that is expanded.

There is a way we can live this action that is distorted, and a way we can live this action that is aligned.

Types of stillness:

1. Deflated stillness: Hopelessness, apathy, giving up. The couch potato watching sit coms who says “I can’t do anything anyway, I won’t make a difference”. This is someone who has disconnected from the greater whole, who is not feeling or being connected, and not acting.

2. Expanded stillness: Love meditator on the cushion or mountaintop. Aligning themselves with their expanded nature, connecting to true self, Source, God, or whatever you call it. From here, this person can go out into the world resourced, restored, and ready. From here, this person can access healing energy. This is someone who is connected to the greater whole on a spiritual and energetic level, who may be acting on an energetic or spiritual level, and not acting on a material level.

Types of movement/action/dynamism:

1. Aggression power. The action fueled by anger angst fear. Most power we see in the world unfortunately is from this place. Built to have power over. Built to dominate intimidate and destruct. Throwing stones, throwing mean words, throwing bombs. This power happens because people feel something needs to be different, and by taking these kinds of actions they believe they will be heard or something will change. Dangerously though, aggression power by its very nature fuels more of itself, and thus the opponent (since this is a competitive dualistic world view that thus includes opponents/enemy sides) will retaliate with aggression-power as well, spiraling it up. Note that this is action disconnected from source, God, spirit, whatever you want to call it, though many say it is for or from God as an excuse.

2. Love power. The action fueled by love, knowing what is in alignment with the well being of all and what is not, and how to act to bring it back to alignment. Though it is love it does not always look dainty. This can be tough moves. It asserts boundaries. It directs flows away from where energy ended up going and back to where it should be going if it is to serve the greatest good of all. This is activism on all levels, fighting for freedom, dignity, equality, expression, life, love, and human rights for all. This is the struggle and support of the marginalized who are being oppressed. This is taking a stand when it is needed. It is fueled by love and compassion, it has centeredness and alignment, it is clear and connected to the greater whole. It has a larger macro-view of humanity, and the evolution of humanity towards connection, well-being, and peace. It is fueled by the strength of love, and it shows up in actions, words, community connection, and social movements. There is an alignment with that which is greater, and there is tangible physical manifestation on the ground. The way you differentiate the real connection to God or whatever you call it, versus the aggression-power’s usage of God as an excuse is: which is fighting for equality and freedom for ALL? Which is using the most peaceful means of protest and action for change possible in order to fight?

When people see injustice and want to take action, they usually take aggression-action. When people remember that love wins, they might just go to stillness-love. Let’s remember the strength of love-action!

While the shock of the election is still trying to settle, I got a question today from a friend: “Where are you finding your sense of peace?”. I want to try to answer the question via this post... Who knows, maybe what I share here can be helpful for others. Or if I missed something, others can share with me what might be helpful for me and others too.

Working out thoughts and emotions:

Part of seeking understanding is simply trying to take stock of what is even present. What are the facts? What has happened and what will happen? What do I fear will happen but will probably not happen? What feelings am I having? What feelings have I not yet gotten in touch with? How can I care for myself and others right now, today?

I’m noticing that writing is helpful for this. To just go through stream of consciousness.

I’m noticing that talking to friends and writing is crucial to try to make sense of things, even if it’s the long phone calls with friends of mostly silence with intermittent interruptions of “I just can’t believe this”.

Seeking a larger framework of understanding:

Maybe if I understand why things happen they way they do in terms of a larger narrative for life and the world, understanding will lead to some kind of peace.

How has shit gotten this bad?

Educating myself on US history

Why did what happen happen? What is really going on with our country and why? How can I learn more about this mess to really understand why we’re here and what we can do about it? I’m noticing that there’s a part of the country whose experience I’m not educated about: poor white rural Americans. 

It’s not enough to say “those people are crazy”. People act “crazy” when they are hurt. Yes there is bigotry. And there is a fear and pain that found bigotry as a solution. What do we do about the bigotry is on the top of my mind and that of many others. But I’m also curious about the question underneath that, which I don’t know much about - what is going on regarding the fear and pain that found bigotry as a solution?

So what’s behind this? What privileges do I have that are lacking in the lives of voters who have the struggles I don’t have? Ex: education, career mobility, financial security... How would I see the world differently if I didn’t have these things?

What I know is how poor whites were pitted against blacks in order for elite whites to maintain their power historically - indeed, this is how the concept of race began. An arbitrary distinction as a way for those in power to pit those under them against each other so they wouldn’t gain ground. We see this pattern happening across the globe and throughout history: to generalize, oppressor cuts oppressed in two and makes them enemies. Ok, so that’s one way to understand white rural racism.

What about the poverty? What does the anger of white rural Americans say about urbanization, globalization, industrialization and post-industrialization, and the giant monster that constructed all of this: capitalism? Once again, capitalism is our protagonist.

Most importantly, how can I take this as an opportunity to learn about all oppressed groups? Hearing from the voices of those most marginalized, what the real story of power and oppression has been and continues to be today. And what they are calling for in terms of needs and change.

How do politics intersect within my understanding of the world, life, the universe, God?

How does all of the political turmoil, social justice chaos, and ignorance leading to backwards movement on a societal level... map into my understanding of spirituality? Some questions that come up:

Why do bad things happen?

Is the world / humanity on some kind of evolution towards betterment, or is it just a rollercoaster?

Is the world / universe inherently good underneath all of this shit? Is the universe / God simply neutral? Or love, somehow, above, around, or within all of this shit? And if love, how and when?

Is everyone inherently good, just hurt? Or are some people simply vessels incarnated to carry streams of negativity? If so, why?

If love creates more love, and hate creates more hate, and just a little bit of hate topples over love and creates a huge mess, how much love do we need to add to hate until love wins out?

What does this mean when people say that we create our reality? I know that though the phrased is used as though it’s about individuals creating individual reality, what it actually means is that TOGETHER we co-create reality. Ok, so what does that mean?

Often things have to get way worse until there’s some kind of breaking point until they get better. But how bad does it have to get, and for how long? And do they always get better, even eventually? 

What does it mean for “progress” when we have justice without peace, or peace without justice? What does peace and justice combined look like? 

What does healing on a societal level look like? How much of the past do we need to factor in and address / how much do we try to forgive and forget and focus on the future? How can we give due acknowledgement and reconciliation/reparations with the past while also making enough space for a new future outside of the cycle of pain that spirals of cause and effect can perpetuate?

What role do I have in all of this and what does it mean?

How can things get better?

Educating myself on successful leaders of peace and freedom: Ghandi, Mandela, King, and others.

Things have been bad before, in the US and all over the world. And people have continued to fight for love, freedom, equality, safety, and humanity - and made a difference!

In healing work we talk about how in all the shadow, we look for the tiny spark of light, and put our attention there and help it grow a little bit bigger, and that’s where hope and transformation can come from. So: who are the people, groups, and movements out there that have shown in the history of humanity that that spark of light has indeed happened, grown, and changed things? I think about Ghandi, Mandela, and King. I want to learn more about these histories. How did they do it? More importantly for me and us as a collective - how did the common person act? The regular individual human being with a job and rent to pay, who felt insignificant but who had feelings and a desire for something better - how did they join in to the collective movement that did indeed make a difference?

Finding community

Today I walked into Washington Square Park and there was a big group of people holding up signs and chanting in unison. The signs said MORE LOVE, LOVE TRUMPS HATE, KEEP HOPE, etc. I joined. We sang. We recited poetry. We listened to each other. We gave each other space to speak, be heard, and have their voices echoed in our own. We looked into each other’s eyes and hugged. We yelled MORE LOVE with loud voices while tears streamed down. Space for emotions to come out, space to feel held, space to feel not alone, space to feel that there is hope, there has always been hardship, and there are poems, chants, and songs from social movements throughout the history of this exact country. It has been worse, and it can still get better.

I walked into Union Square and there were people standing with signs: FREE HUGS. I got two. Just a hug, then looking in each other’s eyes, a thank you, and a goodbye.

On a day when we are all sad, we are also more together. 

We are not meant to be alone, see each other as separate, or assume we don’t need help or can’t ask for help. We need each other so that one person can hold hope and strength while the other buckles and cries, and then they switch. We do this in big groups, so the parts of us that are strong can love and support the parts of us that hurt. 

How can I help?

While I feel insignificant, and while we are not meant to change the world alone, I want to remember that TOGETHER we can make a difference. 

And importantly, it is my responsibility as a person with privilege: white privilege, economic privilege, the privilege of higher education, the privilege of language, access, and citizenship, to channel that privilege towards action - action that those without this privilege don’t have the means to take.

One friend today said to me: “today is the first day of the 2020 elections”. What if the turmoil we see today is the fuel behind the movements towards greater awareness of the hardship that’s currently a reality in each of the social groups in this country - without leaving any of them forgotten. What if with that awareness we can get real with institutions that we let slide as acceptable before? What if we really question the core values our entire society is based on, like capitalism - aka hierarchy, oppression of workers and nature, competition based rules, and profit-over-everything goals?

In sum...Can we turn this into a necessary wake-up call? Can we make something of this?

What if we are not hopeless but instead...

More aware of reality. Yes, we’re aware of all the ways this country is about to get more screwed up. But we can also get more aware of the shit that for a long time hasn’t been working for a lot of people. 

More fueled to take action. More connected with each other, more enthusiastic about making a difference, no matter how small. More educated about past social justice successes, and more powerful in our own life purpose around creating positive change.

Here I want to talk about emotions and dialogues related to race.

Background Story about Black Lady and White Lady in the Office

There’s an academic paper well known in the racial justice world called "When White Women Cry: How White Women's Tears Oppress Women of Color” by Mamta Motwani Accapadi. In a nutshell, the story is: during an organizational meeting a black person brings up a racial issue that is happening on an organizational level, and a white person takes it personally and feels guilty and sad and cries. Everyone tries to take care of her to help her feel better, including the black person who brought up the organizational issue. At the end of the situation, no one gets back to the original organizational issue posed by the black person. In sum, the attention went to the white person’s emotions rather than the organizational racial issue, and the issue is never resolved.

What’s Going on Emotionally for the White Lady, and How Does that Impact Everyone Else?

There’s something called the Privileged Identity Exploration Model that explains the typical emotional response by white people when racist issues come up in dialogue. It’s helpful to note that the same emotions come up in a predictable pattern, for those of us who are white to notice when we are experiencing it. Here they are in summary format (mixing my own words with those of the Model to explain it):

Regarding Recognizing Privileged Identity:

1) Denial - “arguing against an anxiety provoking stimuli by stating it doesn’t exist” (but note that something just gave you anxiety...hmmm)

2) Deflection - “taking out impulses on a less threatening target” (a way of partially changing the subject - getting mad/sad at something that’s not the main issue)

3) Rationalization - “supplying a logical or rational reason as opposed to the real reason” (explaining it away)

Regarding Contemplating Privileged Identity:

4) Intellectualization - “avoiding unacceptable emotions by focusing on the intellectual aspects” (comes from not wanting to acknowledge feelings you’re having that might be out of line with your image of yourself as a good person,so you make an intellectual formula explaining why things happen in the way they do, in a way that makes it all look justified). 

5) Principium - “avoiding exploration based on a religious or personal principle” (such as spiritual bypassing)

6) False Envy - “displaying an affection for a person or a feature of a person in an effort to deny the complexity of the social and political context” (for example stating things that are fun about being black and that you wish you could be black to have that thing) 

Regarding Addressing Privileged Identity:

7) Minimization - “reducing the magnitude of a social and political issue down to simple facts” (this creates the ease of having a ‘recipe’ of small steps to follow in order to achieve what’s needed, rather than accepting that the issues are much larger than what’s solvable by those small steps)

8) Benevolence -  “displaying an overly sensitive attitude toward a social and political issue based on an attitude of charity”. (This can be anything from wanting to make sure that you look not racist, to performing acts of charity and thinking that’s enough, rather than understanding that charity itself has a power imbalance to it that must be sensitively addressed).

FYI to get a paragraph long explanation of each of these terms check out this paper “Difficult Dialogues, Privilege and Social Justice: Uses of the Privileged Identity Exploration (PIE) Model in Student Affairs Practice”, by Sherry Watt.

What to Do About This? 

Every one of the emotions or actions above are due to defending oneself, internally or externally, because of experiencing cognitive dissonance around who one believes oneself to be, and the information the person is hearing that is challenging those beliefs. In order to neutralize the cognitive dissonance, the person employs one of the defense patterns. 

So first of all, this is normal. We are not bad people for feeling scared of being bad people, wanting to be good people, or scared we did, do, or will do bad things or things other people won’t like or will be hurt by.

What Happens with Self-Judgment...

So the first thing we can do is not judge ourselves for feeling these things. And, if we think about it, we are feeling these things because we are already, consciously or not, judging ourselves. If we generally go about our lives wanting to see ourselves as good people, and if an issue comes up that makes us question that, it’s because we are judging ourselves, AKA not allowing ourselves to make a blunder, to fumble, to screw up. 

If we have to be perfect and we’re not allowed to be wrong or do wrong, then how are we supposed to deal with moments when maybe we don’t know everything, and maybe because of that we mess up on something that someone needs to clarify for us, or ask us to do something differently?

If we have to be right / good, then when something that potentially shows that we may have messed up shows up, two things might happen:

1) Self-Judgment leads to Defensiveness

So lets say something came up in conversation about racism that makes you as a white person feel like maybe you made a mistake. First, you might start internally judging yourself, either because you’re scared you might “be bad” or because you do think you “were/are bad”. Immediately to quell that fear you’ll do one of the defense mechanisms above. 

2) Defensiveness leads to Self Judgment

But then let’s say you start learning about anti-racism and about the Privileged Identity Exploration Model and now you know that those defense mechanisms actually just perpetuate the issue because you’re taking attention away from the main point (the racism issue that came up in a conversation) and putting it onto your self defense. So then you think, oh no, I’m screwing up even more! Not only did I make that racist mistake but now I’m crying because I feel guilty and my crying is taking over the conversation and deflecting it from its main point!

So now you’re spiraling.

Solutions?

1) It’s okay to make mistakes

The more you believe this and live this, the more it’s okay to make mistakes and the more space you have to learn from them when you do. This means that you’ll be putting less attention on your self defense and more attention on what the other person is experiencing, caring for them and helping them feel seen and heard. It means you’ll be curious about how you can learn more, because you want to do better. It means that the person you potentially hurt with the racist thing you may have done by mistake gets to see you in dialogue with them, aware of what’s going on, accepting and admitting your actions, and showing a desire for learning, growth, and change. Wow, that sounds productive!

Buddhists call this beginner’s mind. Think about babies when they’re learning to walk. They don’t get down on themselves when they fall over and over. They’re just eager to learn. And with aspects of white privilege, there’s no limit to our learning! There will always be more to learn, which means there will always be mistakes along the way. The more we become aware of them, the more we’re learning!

2) It’s okay to feel shitty - just stay on track

Of course if we always accepted we’d make mistakes we’d never get defensive, but odds are we’re going to feel some self-judgment, especially in the beginning of our learning process. So what to do when you have all these uncomfortable feelings coming up?

The best I can say is what I know from healing work and relational work in general. Some tips:

1) Slow down

When we feel agitated, we tend to not watch our words. It’s okay to let time pass in silence. Think about things from every person’s point of view. Remember there are unknown unknowns.

2) See if you can manage emotions with BALANCE. 

Often we think “Shit, I’m not supposed to be feeling it, I’m going to try to hide my feelings and push them down”. If we’re able to kindly find our footing and categorize our emotions to look at a little bit later, that’s great. But we also need to check if we’re systematically repressing our emotions, or they will only somaticize or come out worse later. So if you have to feel and express them in order for the energetic flow to move through your system and out, do what you need to do to get on that footing again. You can do a little piece of it and then go home and do the rest. 

3) Contextualize your emotional expressions and steer the conversation back towards its focus

Something like, “I just want to acknowledge that I’m crying right now, and that’s totally okay and I don’t need us to focus on that. While I feel sad/guilty/confused, I want to learn what you’re explaining and make sure I understand what you are saying/wanting/needing. In other words, I want to make sure we stay on track with the main point of this conversation”.

2) Ask questions instead of make comments

I’m just starting to learn about cultural appropriation of healing and spiritual work in the west, but wanted to share an awesome source of knowledge that I’ve come across, specifically a video by Nisha Ahuja called You Are Here: Exploring Yoga and the Impacts of Cultural Appropriation (filmed by Toby Wiggins, and some info from it sourced from Tannis Nielsen).

I wrote some notes from it while I was watching which I’ll share below. (Most is in my own words, so it by no means replaces video-watching FYI.)

What is cultural appropriation?

Short description:

When a dominating group takes a concept from the culture of an oppressed group and brings a watered-down or distorted version of the concept back to their dominant culture and spreads it in a way that benefits them an others of the dominating group without helping or honoring those from the culture it originally came from, and often continuing to reinforce oppressive power dynamics between those cultures. 

Longer description:

When people take a concept out of its original context so that the concept becomes a stripped-down version of itself, and then use it for their own benefit, often related to making money, and often in a way that makes it look like they’re the ones who made the [stripped down version of the] concept up in the first place. The concept that is now sold is no longer connected to its original source and thus meaning, and the meaning it now carries is either not complete or distorted. The source the concept came from is not honored - the place, the people of that place, the people who made, carried, espoused, and enriched that concept, and the people who hold that concept sacred. Instead, these people are often oppressed by those who are currently benefitting from the concept. 

Cultural appropriation of yoga:

Yoga has been practiced for 5,000 years in southeast Asia. When Europeans colonized what is now India, they denounced, devalued, and judged as “lesser” the native practices, traditions, beliefs, and spirituality they encountered (including yoga). Then in the 1800’s, Europeans began to bring certain aspects of yoga to the west, while rejecting others that make it whole, spiritual, and honoring of its original culture and creators. They then spread their distorted version of it in the west in a way that brought them, and others who espoused it in the new culture, visibility, power, and honors, while they still continued to oppress those they sourced it from. Today, for example, western yoga companies benefit financially from the commodification of yoga, and many people practice aspects of yoga disconnected from the full practice of yoga and with intentions stripped of the spirituality it was built on and for. 

The legacy of colonization we see today: 

(I did not make these up. Credits go to Tannis Nielsen and those Tannis learned from).

1) Denial 

No acknowledgement of the history, lineage, and people who developed and practiced yoga 

2) Destruction 

No more space for the traditional ways yoga was practiced, shared, and taught. Also an oppression of the people from the places yoga comes from. Also the severing between spirituality and yoga. 

3) Eradication 

Erasing the violence that was a part of the destruction. Erasing who can practice yoga, making it look like a skinny white middle/upper-class cis female thing. 

4) Surface Accommodation 

Making the cultural appropriation somehow look okay on the surface to those who are doing it while still doing it.

5) Tokenism 

Focusing on the one brown/Asian person in the room or yoga studio, expecting them to represent the culture. 

Strategies Nisha suggests to address cultural appropriation: 

1) Humbleness and humility 

Watch our ego and remember there’s a lot we don’t know. 

2) Acknowledging where the practices come from 

You’re not the one who made this and you’re not the expert, you’re not the only one who has done this. 

Learn about the lineage and history 

3) Acknowledge what you are/aren’t sharing of the original concept 

(ex: what about yoga are you and are you not sharing) 

ex: Asana yoga versus all of yoga 

4) Recognize who’s in the room and who’s not, and your impact in it

How much space you’re taking up and what power/privileges you might have, and ways you might be marginalized. 

How is your identity and presence making others feel? 

Who is and isn’t in the room and why? 

Notice what identities are/aren’t included in the space. 

5) Build real relationships with people of all identities

(not tokenizing people)

6) Acknowledging where sacred objects come from

Language, tools, art, symbols, etc. 

7) Be accountable with your use of sacred languages

Putting these learnings to use:

In this post I am sharing the wisdom of Linda Lantieri, who has helped build the Social and Emotional Learning curriculum in public schools. She is the editor of a book called Schools with Spirit: Nurturing the Inner Lives of Children and Teachers. In the first chapter, which she has written, she gives a very clean, non-religious-bending definition of spirituality. What I like about it is that it goes straight towards the ways in which spirituality is the center of ALL of our lives, independent of our views (or lack thereof) on “God”. It is not esoteric, complicated, one-sided, or limited to those who have certain beliefs. It is a word that describes the deep inner and inter-relational experience of any human being. She then explains what it could look like to nurture this spirituality in the classroom (and as I see it, in everyday life in and out of the classroom).

Definition of “spiritual”:

In the book, Linda Lantieri says, 

“The definition of “spiritual” that we are exploring in this book encompasses a realm of human life that is nonjudgmental and integrated. it is about belonging and connectedness, meaning and purpose. 

Spiritual experience cannot be taught. But it can be uncovered, evoked, found, and recovered. 

Humans have the capacity for creativity, for love, for meaning and purpose, for wisdom, beauty, and justice. All these are aspects of our spiritual lives...

Spiritual experience can be described as the conscious recognition of a connection that goes beyond our own minds or emotions.”

Nurturing Spirituality in Children:

Linda Lantieri then goes on to explain what it would look like if classrooms created the nurturing environment that would allow for children to explore their inner lives and experience of relating to others and the world. This description can also be read as ideas for caring for children outside of the classroom. 

She says...

What would it be like if soul were more present in our schools?...

We’re all unique and learning from each other

“The uniqueness and inherent value of every individual would be honored, and education would be seen as a lifelong process.”

Asking ourselves “what in this has heart and meaning to me?”

“Students and teachers alike would be engaged in inquiry, exploring and learning about what has heart and meaning for themselves.” 

Knowledge and truth come in many forms

“Different ways of knowing would be respected - those we could test for and others too subjective to be measured.”

Power is not hierarchical, but distributed and self-organized

“School leaders would shift from a centralized concept of power to approaches that help individuals and groups to self-organize”

Diversity adds value, collaboration & partnership reap that value

“We would be less concerned with the “school spirit” that comes from winning a football game and more concerned with the spirit of collaboration and partnership, and with an appreciation of diversity within the school community”

Knowing we are part of a global ecosystem, we treat it with respect

“We would acknowledge our interconnectedness, with one another and with all of life, by a commitment to ecological principles, environmental limits, and social responsibility”.

“Right brain” wisdom is given the value it deserves

“We would enlarge our ability to put to use our gifts of intuition, imagination, and creativity”. 

We can develop our individual gifts to serve social justice

“We would value personal change as a vehicle for systemic change and social justice.”

Learning to find calm within ourselves can help us in stressful times

“There would be places and time for silence and stillness, to help us face the chaos and complexity of school life yet stay in touch with inner truth and the web of interconnectedness.”

We’re nurturing human beings with life purpose, not just grades

“We would pay as much attention to whether a student knows his or her unique purpose in life as we do to his or her SAT scores.”

“In short, I believe we need to see schools as active and alive organisms that place the highest value on self-knowledge, healthy interpersonal relationships, and building community”.

(Note: I summarized in the bold bullet points with my own words and then put Linda’s own words in the full quoted sentences below each bold bullet point line).

Conclusion: Living this spirituality in our own lives:

So I’m watching a PBS documentary on quantum mechanics.. it explains the slit experiments, “particles” as wave-like possibilities, quantum entanglement, etc. Awesome stuff I’ve heard about before. But then we get to new territory, which I hadn’t yet heard about from the quantum physics perspective: Teleportation. I was so perplexed I came straight here to write about it. 

Here’s how to watch it:

This is the documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBrsWPCp_rs. The part about teleportation is from minutes 38-45.

The premise:

It starts out with the idea of quantum entanglement. Two particles that are “entangled” act in concert independent of distance. In other words, if I can find out one particle’s spin over here, I will automatically and instantaneously have influenced and determined it’s “buddy” particle’s spin over on the other side of the world. 

The experiments:

Now for teleportation. Scientists have already conducted multiple studies in laboratories in the Canary Islands in which they have successfully teleported particles. Here’s how they do it: First, they get two entangled particles, and put one on each island. These particles are already “in communication with each other” - what one does, the other will instantaneously react to. Let’s call them Particle A and Particle B, A being on the island we’re on and B being on the island over there. Then, they get a third particle, the one they want to teleport. Let’s call this one Particle T, for “Teleport”. What they do with T is that they get it “talking to” A, over here. What happens is, A is “learning” all of the ways that particle T is set up - what configuration it’s in. Once it has “downloaded” all this info, B automatically knows it too, and - BECOMES IT. So what happens? Well, on our island we used to have A and T right? Now, neither of them are here. On that other island, we used to have B. Now, B has become T. WTF? I know...

The human body example:

So they made a metaphor to give an example about how they’d do it with the human body (they are nowhere near this in real life, it’s just an idea). But using the same properties of quantum physics that we see on an individual particle level, and knowing that the body is a conglomeration of trillions of particles, we’re basically doing it for multiple particles at once. So, imagine that over on this island there’s are 2 big cylinders you could fit inside of. In one of them are trillions of particles floating around, waiting to “learn your blueprint”. This is Particles in Cylinder A. Then in the other cylinder which is empty, you walk in. So over here on this island is A and YOU. Over on the other island is Particles in Cylinder B, which is a bunch of particles floating around that are “in communication with” A. Then what?

Every single one of the particles in A is picking up the exact information of every single one of the particles in your body - matching one for one. Matching where the electrons are - what special unique configuration each particle is in, that makes it what it is. Automatically, since B instantaneously picks up and matches whatever A is doing, the particles over on the other island in B are starting to configure based on your exact particle structures. YOU are starting to dissolve over here, and B is becoming YOU. The movie showed the remains of the original YOU over on the first island, once all of this is done, as a small mess of dots on the floor - protons, neutrons, and electrons no longer in their places in relation to each other, no longer spinning, no longer with space between them - just dead. 

Metaphor of a house:

What was it that made YOU YOU? Not the physical particles - not those little dots on the floor - but the WAY they moved, where they were, what they did. In other words, how they acted. In other words, the information in them. The blueprint that says “this one goes over here and spins like this and this one moves like this”. Like a blueprint to a house. When a house made of bricks gets torn apart, all the bricks are lying on the ground in a pile. Even if not one of the bricks was removed from the site where the house once stood - and thus the pile is made of exactly the same stuff as the house was - the reason the pile is not a house is because the bricks are not configured in the same shape they were before - they are no longer in order, in specific positions in relation to each other. The house is not what it is made of, it’s how the material it is made of is organized. 

So all the particles hanging out in cylinder B over on the other island have now “received” this “blueprint” - like, put these bricks this way and that way and make a window here, and make this wall extra thick..

It’s as if a house that looks exactly like your house, made of the exact same kind of bricks (but not THOSE ORIGINAL bricks), were now constructed - instantaneously - on the other island.

We are not stuff, we are information stuff holds...

In this case, you are not the specific protons, neutrons, and electrons in you, but instead the way they are configured. Think about it - different atoms or molecules aren’t made of different things, they’re different because they’re made of the same original building blocks (protons, neutrons, electrons) in a different order, amount, quantity, position, or movement. 

Think about electrons...

But think about electrons making up atoms...the fact that there’s one electron in a hydrogen atom make the thing be hydrogen, and the fact that there are two electrons in a helium atom make the thing be helium. Hydrogen and helium are not the same thing. They definitely don’t act the same way or make the same impact on the world. 

Think about molecules...

Think about it on a level one step bigger...the level of molecules making up things we can see. Carbon is a molecule that is a basic building block of the human body. It’s also a basic building block of diamonds. If you switched out a carbon molecule from my body and put it into a diamond and took a carbon molecule from a diamond and put it into me there would be no difference.

Think about cells...

Now, one step bigger.. cells made of molecules, making up the human body.. Actually, cells in the human body do come and go all the time... You remember those things you hear about the entire body regenerating every 7 years? Well, that’s a random number, but the point is there.. the truth is that different kinds of cells have different lifespans, completely disconnected from the lifespan of an actual human life. Here are some examples (full article here): Stomach cells: 5 days. Skin cells: 2-4 weeks. Liver cells: 6 months to almost 2 years. Bone cells: 10 years. Also note FYI that contrary to popular belief when brain cells die yes can get new ones. It’s called neurogenesis.

The entire human body AAAHHH!!!

So even though I feel creepy about “me” being my “information” rather than the “stuff” I’m made of in the teleportation example, it’s happening ANYWAY in our body even without teleporting!!!

Think about reincarnation...

And if we go way out one step way bigger, to the concept of the soul incarnated in the physical body, our entire body is just a configuration of physical stuff that holds the “information”, the “blueprint”, of our eternal soul, which can incarnate over and over in any body. Because we’re not the “stuff” anyway.

Where attention goes, energy flows.

Here I will talk about how we build pathways, such as Pathways to Source.

How pathways are built:

Paths are carved like walking through the forest. The first time someone walks a path through the forest it is thick and hard to walk. They may need to cut down some vegetation in order to get through. For the second or third, similar. For the tenth, better. For the hundredth person walking down that path, the path has been trodden and is free to move through without obstruction. This person can move through it so easily that they can even run through it, the path is so smooth.

Pathways of what?

A path can be anything. It can be a thought process: the more the same thought is had, the stronger it gets solidified as a belief - the quicker we access it when something happens that puts us at the beginning of the path. Automatically we zoom down that path of that thought process we know, so fast that we don't even stop to consider whether we want to turn left or right.

Ex: Neuroplasticity

We see this path creation in the brain via neural networks being created and recreated and changed. This is the concept of neuroplasticity. Each time we do something or think something, that neuropathway gets strengthened. Whether it is accessing love and compassion, or accessing self blame and judgment. Both act in the same way: the path is strengthened.

Ex: Meditation

Paths to Source and healing work the same way. People who meditate choose to stick to the same meditation for a certain period of time, rather than try out dozens and flip flop between them, because they are building a path. They are building their own path to Source, something their system is getting familiar with. The cool thing about meditations, prayers, and healing modalities, is that we are not building these paths from scratch. Others already walked these paths hundreds thousands or billions of times before us. And those paths are more open.

Ex: Network Care

An example of creating energy healing modalities by building pathways to Source is Network care. Network care is a healing modality that has certain protocols. For example, it has specific movements the healer makes with their hands in relation to the client's spine and head. It is like a choreographed dance rather than an improvised dance: the healer has certain steps they follow. Those steps actually work. They work exactly due to the fact that they have been done many many times, by people who are connecting the same intention to the same movement. 

Metaphor: Pavlov’s Dog

It is a little bit like Pavlov's dog. A symbol (a movement, an action, such as a hand gesture), becomes correlated to an intention and its outcome, so that when someone with that same intention does that same movement, the outcome is more easily accessible.

Accessing Source:

There are multiple ways to access Source. (I've defined Source in other posts and will again below).

For example, we can access Source through any of the chakras.

Quick metaphor: The elephant

Do you know the story of the blind men and the elephant? There were 5 blind men who walked up to an elephant and touched a part of the elephant's body with their hands. One guy touched the elephant's trunk, one guy the ear, one guy the side, one guy the foot, one guy the tail. Then someone asks them, what is an elephant like, will you describe an elephant to me? The guy touching the trunk says, it's like a snake! The guy touching the ear says no, it's big and wide and flat! The guy touching the tail says, no its small and full of little hairs, etc. The elephant is each of those things, all of those things. Not one or the other, but made of the all, which make it into a full elephant.

Ok back to the chakras. 

Each chakra is like it's own pathway to Source. Each will show us a different "side" of Source- just like the different sides of the elephant. So sometime accessing Source through the 7th chakra will say, Source is clarity! Someone accessing trough the 4th chakra will say Source is love! Someone accessing via the 1st will say, Source is groundedness! Etc. Source is insight, intuition, creation, creativity, compassion, equanimity, spaciousness, understanding, calm, ecstasy, nurturing, connecting, silent, energized, empty, full. Yes, Source is made up of all of those things, all at the same time, and more. What you experience of it depends on which doorway you opened.

How do I understand reality to be? What are the tenets of reality that serve as “universal laws” around which I experience and facilitate healing work? 

I started this post thinking I would write down 3 or 4 lines of the tenets I come back to again and again around healing work and how the world works in general. Off the top of my head, these are the ones I come to: 

Everything exists. 

Where you put your awareness is where you experience reality. 

Structure and flow are balanced partners. 

Healing is bringing light - seeing - and love to the parts that hurt. 

With healing, everything can be integrated into wholeness. 

While listing these though, I ended up writing many more than expected (15), as well as longer explanations for each. So here’s the full list... (at least the full list for now, as truth will reveal more of itself in time). 

(Note: Yes, these are my views. It doesn’t mean I want your views to be the same as mine. Actually as you see below, within my views includes the real-ness of all views. It doesn’t mean I like all views, but I do acknowledge them to be real frameworks just like all others. So, as always, feel free to take what works for you, and leave the rest.) 

Here goes: 

1. Everything exists

Everything exists. Everything. Everything exists in all moments: all states of being, all emotions, all sensations, all potentialities all exist all the time. Like an electron that is a wave until it is looked at by someone and becomes a particle in that moment, everything exists within a field of potentiality and can be manifested when attention is given to it. 

2. Awareness placement is key

Where you put your awareness (your attention) is where you create and experience reality. 

If your attention is not in a specific place, that thing exists anyway, but not really to you in that moment. And based on where you place your attention, that is what you will experience. 

Often we allow ourselves to be taken to certain places by external events. We can also practice how to choose where we want to place our attention, and thus shift our state of being, independent of external circumstances. (Based on those circumstances the difficulty level of this can range from quite easy to majorly ninja.) 

3. Changing perspective changes reality

If you believe that something exists, it does exist. There is no “that’s not real”. It exists, in the world you created. You can live within that world. Every person, community, and culture, lives within a world that they agreed exist, and thus that world functions within the laws they expect it to function in. Change how you believe things are - change your perception of things - and they will occur differently.   

4. We all vote to create shared reality

While as individuals we can create our own world, we also must live within the creations of the collective. We are all in this together - we are all architects, affecting what is being built for all. It is like we each have a vote of what will get created. Each of us votes on what we think reality is like, and the reality that has the most votes wins and becomes most strongly manifested. Like with voting results for governmental leaders, often we’ll end up living in a society run by that which we didn’t vote for. 

So, whatever you focus on, that is what will happen, especially if enough people are focusing on it, or if a gazillion people aren’t focusing on the exact opposite. 

5. Bad things are not our fault

What I just said above does not imply that we deserve or personally created bad things that happen to us. It simply means that we are in a web of many streams of energy all moving and flowing all around and those streams have all sorts of intersections. Everyone is creating, and we co-create. We are in a complex web of everythingness. Often we receive and carry what others have been carrying and hand over to us, and then we hand it over to someone else. Or what comes about now can be a manifestation of creations from streams that you did not see because they came in generations before you, or in lifetimes before this one. (Note that the word “before” cannot be literal, as time is not linear, but we can let that one pass for now). 

6. Hard times are a challenge given to us to assert who we really are

So if some things that we or society or energy flows or the synchronous chaotic web ebb flow of the universe create are uncomfortable, painful, or horrible, what’s up with that? Why do we have to experience pain? Honestly this is a very hard question for me but the truth I feel abut it is this: 

Every suffering is a chance to see who you are. I believe that every difficult experience is a darkness that by contrast helps us see that we are light. The contrast of what we are not, what is not our truth, what is not love, so that we can remember on a deeper level who we are in contrast to that: that we are truth and love. This doesn’t mean that the moment of suffering will be enlightening. But I believe the will to live and make meaning of difficult experience after the fact brings a deep wisdom and access to truth that everyday reality often doesn’t spark. 

In that way, I believe we experience what we need to in order to wake up, and it happens throughout lifetimes. Often bottoming out leads to the greatest awakenings. Anything gentler than that sometimes is not efficient enough of a wake-up call, and so we risk continuing on with our ignorance. Sometimes we need something strong enough to push us onto a path of greater truth. I respect deeply those who are ready for this type of call. 

7. Don’t abandon your true self in order to belong

Our culture has made us have to choose between being ourselves and belonging. We need both. When we are not being ourselves but instead moulding ourselves to what others want us to be in order to belong, we are betraying ourselves. Something deep inside is numbed, rejected, unseen potentially even by ourselves. But it is never lost or nonexistent. It is always there. We are always us, no matter how much we have covered ourselves up. 

We deserve to both be ourselves AND to belong, simultaneously. Often this doesn't happen in the ways we deserve or wish they would. But there is always someone or some thing to connect to. A stranger. The soul of a loved one who passed away. A tree. A star. A belief. God. 

When we allow ourselves to love, accept, and manifest our true self, we have deep belonging with ourselves. It doesn’t mean we’ll be able to be who we truly are within unsafe environments. We build strategies and protections. But we know who we are and we can love ourselves for that, independent of the ignorance and thus judgment of others. 

When we are rooted in our own power, we are vibrating at a higher frequency than those who judge us. We do not become what they want us to be, nor do we internalize their judgments. Instead, we acknowledge that they can’t see us, and with compassion, when we’re ready, we meet them where they’re at, and we speak to them in their language, without losing our own power (via our groundedness and our alignment). We maintain who we are, and we come to others where they are. It is different from the type of belonging in which we abandon ourselves to become what others can understand and thus accept. Instead, we have a belonging with ourselves and with that which energizes and nurtures us, and we come to those who do not have the ability to see us dressed in clothes they will recognize. But our insides are free.

8. Fear and judgment come from not understanding. 

We fear what we do not understand and what we don’t know how to integrate into our sense of meaning. 

When we fear we often judge, as a way to separate ourselves from something and try to protect ourselves from it by putting us as far away from it as possible. When we judge, we constrict. We solidify something within the harsh definition of it that we have created and we reduce the space it would have potentially had to show itself as different from that which we are perceiving it to be. 

9. The antidote to fear is love

One antidote to fear can be curiosity and learning. Truth is a form of love. Searching for truth brings possibility, spaciousness, and hope, and places us humbly within the vast beautiful mystery of the universe.

The most powerful antidote to fear is its opposite - love. When you are in fear, bring in love, notice your heart, let it be warm, imagine that which you love, bring in compassion, see the other as a child (or yourself, if you are being hard on yourself), and see if you notice a shift. 

Note that shame is judgment accepted by the self. When others judge us, we have the choice to let it in or not. When we let it in, we feel ashamed. To release ourselves of shame, we make two movements. We bring the part of us that shames ourselves into our heart. And we bring the part that we are ashamed of into our heart.

More about love later.

10. Our witnessing self can witness our experiencing self with non-judgment and spaciousness

Non-judgment, instead, allows for things to remain transformable. There is spaciousness around them. 

With non-judgment, we have two simultaneous experiences that allow for the spaciousness. We have our experiencing self, that is feeling the sensations, believing certain beliefs. Then we also have our witnessing self, that is watching all of this happen. Our witnessing self is the calm waters deep in the ocean while the waves on the surface are wild in the wind and storm. The witnessing self creates a space buffer around the experiencing self, which can be watched. Then we can say “part of me feels this way”, and “part of me is noticing that”. We are thus not fully identified with our experience, but we know that part of us is in it while the other part is anchored to firm ground. From this firm ground, we can make wise decisions about how to care for the part of ourselves that is experiencing what we are currently experiencing. 

With the witnessing self, we can acknowledge that everything has its place and that when we deny or reject we are saying no to a part of reality. Everything belongs - all experiences. It is not about a binary of yes versus no, this not that. It is about "yes I see you", to everything. Because everything has a role. Knowing this, we can come to what we are experiencing with the equanimity of non-judgment.   

And: when we simply do have judgment, the best thing we can do is to not judge ourselves for having judgment. Instead, we love the part that judges. Once we do that, the judgment melts a bit, and we have an opening through which we can love the part that the judgment is judging.

10. We can find resource larger than ourselves to give us the strength we need

We are a part of a stream of energy and do not need to do things alone - we were not made to do things alone. We do not need to source energy from our own limited resources. Instead, we can plug into the larger universal energy flows. 

We can do this through connection to community, for example. In this example, in order to face people who are difficult for us - with whom we feel no connection, belonging, or safety - we can strengthen ourselves before, sometime during, or after, with those with whom we do feel those things. In other words, in order to give others love and compassion, especially others from whom we are not receiving it, we can fill our tank with our own supporters. So we receive love and support from someone on our left, and our heart becomes full, and we can then let it stream through us to someone on our right, even if that person on our right will not return that love. 

If our access to resource (to strength, vitality, solidity, compassionate power) doesn’t come from other people, it can come through connection to nature, our inner selves via contemplation, imagination, our bodies, music, art, poetry, prayer, rituals, etc. We each have our ways to plug into a force which is larger than ourselves. That is what we call resource. 

When we feel resourced we feel: love, fullness, health, vitality, faith, trust, hope, strength, calm, grounding, connection. 

Anything that brings us to these states is our own unique path to resource, whether or not it works for someone else. 

It is our witnessing self watching our experiencing self get into a tough place that can make the decision to call upon resource whenever possible. Calling upon resource during easeful times (such as via a daily meditation practice, or frequent connection with nature or community) can give us a stronger baseline resilience. Preparing for a hard time by resourcing just before going into it can be key. Keeping the witnessing self online during hard times can also maintain the moment in grounded awareness leading to better decision-making. 

11. Healing is integration through connecting the hurt parts to resource: seeing and loving without resistance

Even when there are moments of fight for survival that take over the nervous system in such a way that there is not enough space to connect to resource, healing of that wound after the fact will come from connecting to resource, and bringing love, light, and deep seeing to the place that got hurt. Again, one does not need to do this alone. It can be hard but it is your right to reach out for help. 

Healing is about integration. Integration happens by acknowledging and accepting and welcoming all parts of us including those we are inclined to reject or fear. We can do this, again, by connecting to resource and then bring it to the parts that hurt. The parts that hurt hurt because they are unintegrated. Unintegrated means they are not holding hands with the other parts. Often this means they are not seen or not loved. When we see them with respect, no matter how ugly they are, they transform in some way. 

The transformation process itself can hurt when there is resistance. Resistance often comes from fear of the unknown. Learning more about the healing process and having a plan and creating a safe container beforehand can bring ease to the healing process. Breathing into places that are constricted will also create space and opening for movement to flow through. 

And: when there’s resistance, loving the resistance too.

12. Attachment or aversion are both off-kilter from presence

We can notice that we are acting out of fear, resisting simply being present with reality, when we find ourselves driven to either cling or reject. In other words, when we behave with attachment (clinging, merging, holding on, needing desperately, identifying fully, or some other form of “too much YES”) or with aversion (rejecting, pushing away, disengaging, dissociating, cutting ties, not interacting, or some other form of “too much NO”).

When we are being truly present, we are neither running towards nor running away. We are just being.

In other words:

When we are attached, we are “of this world”.

When we are in aversion, we are “not in this world”.

When we are in balance, we are “in this world, but not of this world”.

13. Structure and flow need each other for balance

We create the structures through which flow can flow through. Structure is that which is stable, predictable, which directs flow. Structure is how we place our intention, how we ground our groundedness, how we create a safe container of agreements and expectations, how we can educate ourselves about what we are ready to try out. 

Flow is letting go and trusting what is arising, without tinkering with it, blocking it, or wanting to get in its way. Flow is giving space for that which needs to move to move. Flow is letting emotions take their course. 

14. When we put our attention on an emotion and give it permission to be felt, it will move through

Structure is create a time and place and circumstance in which it is safe to feel an emotion. Flow is allowing the emotion to be felt and expressed, inside and out. Structure includes guidelines and safety plans to ensure a safe environment for all. Flow is the health of allowing energy to take its natural course. The rain falls, and then when the cloud is all rained out, the cloud is no more. We cry for a time, and then we are done crying. We scream for a time, and then we are done screaming. Our emotions deserve and need to be expressed fully and safely. 

15. Love is seeing and being seen

Love is seeing. Love is seeing someone fully, all the way. Love is being seen for who you really are. 

Because unintegrated parts are not seen, they are in darkness, where the light of awareness has not yet been. We are not aware of them and because of this they control us - they show up psychosomatically in our bodies and behaviors. Independent of our lack of acknowledgement, they silently factor into the equation of our lives, even though we have not included them in the version of the equation that we are aware of - so we often don't understand why the results are coming out the way they are. There is an unacknowledged variable. In healing, we go in search for those hidden parts. We find them and see them with nonjudgment. Because they feel our acceptance, they can come out into the fold of integration. 

Seeing someone, some thing, or oneself fully is having a clarity of awareness we rarely allow ourselves to have but which we all have access to. Awareness is seeing truth all the way through, without allowing our fear to remove or distort parts of the story. When our awareness is refined, we can access, understand, and hold anything. When we touch something not only with nonjudgment but while adding also the warmth of compassion, that which we see, transforms in some way. Something that now has light shining on it, when previously it was in shadow, is different than it was before. 

In closing..

Transformation, truth, seeing, integration, wholeness, acceptance, and love. None of this is easy by any means. Sometimes it is really fun, and usually parts of it is, but also it is often messy and painful, and can at times include horrific moments too. But I believe that somehow, some way, at some point, we arrive at a beauty beyond what we could imagine.

PS: About this list being incomplete: