Your Impact on a Violent World |
Are you a good world citizen? What does good mean to you? What does it mean to be a citizen? What is your world? What is the evidence that you are this good world citizen…and I don’t care how small or intimate or grand
and universal your world is. I just want to know about your impact. Just a couple of weeks ago I wrote a post on reviewing the impact of the 8 contexts of your life: World, Nature, Relationships, Health, Finances, Space/place, Culture, and Work. Now I want to
rephrase that as a more difficult question: Who are you in each context? How do you impact each context?
In this post I am going to focus on the World, its impact on our individual souls and the potential for our souls, our thinking, feeling and willing, to impact the world. Of course, I am writing “in general” and from my perspective. It’s up to you to reflect and imagine what is so for
you.
A Violent World of Hate and Fear…
How Do You Impact It?Right now violence is a
central element of the world context and it is impacting all of us. How are you impacting this violent world?
Violence begins in an individual’s soul. It begins with someone’s fear and hatred. One person’s words or deeds of fear and hate infect other souls with fear and hate. Love does not hate or fear.
Violence drives us to blame and take revenge or take cover. We become victims: we flee, fight or freeze. We look for rescuers and heroes and protectors as we feel small, powerless and needy. We lose our ability to be safe and calm. We fall into a maelstrom of contagious violent emotions. Our thinking loses the capacity for love and freedom. Our deeds lack wisdom and compassion.
- Who or what are you blaming for this violence? Do you have a list of perpetrators: the bad, the mad, the sick, the stupid? All those who are different from you in race, creed, status and opinion? Do you want to hate and shame those you blame or blame those you hate or those you are unwilling to understand or make room for in your world?
- Do you want to counter the violence with more violence? Violence in thoughts? In words? In deeds? Do you want to push back, add fuel to the fire, whip into an aggressive frenzy in your soul?
- Do you want to shrink, retreat and hide? Hold your breath and close your eyes until it all passes? Do you feel all you can do is pray that you and the world will be rescued by a hero and
made safe by a protector…a president or a god? Or do you maintain a “safe” distance with a holiness that avoids the messiness of being human?
Depending on my mood and on what else is going on in the other contexts of my life, I find myself doing any combination of the above. None of these options give me any sense of safety, love, or possibility for a new world future. They impact the world with
negative energy.
If I take a deep, slow cleansing breath, if I observe, question and consider rather than judge, identify or react, my soul impacts my world differently. My soul becomes spacious and sober and strong and when I use my voice and cast my vote there is no fear and no hatred entering the world.
The Impact of Conversations
Fifteen years ago I lived in a brownstone in Jersey
City. The deck gave me a clear view of the Twin Towers which were less than a mile away. You know what I saw with my own two eyes that September morning. I went immediately into those three states: blame, attack, hide. About a month later, I began a year long series of conversations with another thoughtful woman, Bethene LeMahieu,
that led to a 6 hour audio book, Ground Zero and the Human Soul: The Search for the New Ordinary Life.
We met 3-5 times a week usually for a couple of hours calmly exploring human consciousness and the mysteries of 9/11. Through our conversations examining what it means to
be human in light of fear, hatred and violence, we sought equanimity and compassion in our feeling, clarity and truth in our thinking and a will to do no harm and manifest simple good deeds. We spent time considering evil as an archetype and how each individual could shape their own inner life to be able to directly meet evil in their/our own souls and vanquish its subtle temptations, manipulations, and
seductions. We realized love was not about possession, power or pleasure but generosity and kindness and single thoughts, words, and deeds in individual souls. The world of 9/11 impacted us and we impacted the world with our conversations.
In the dark shadows of 9/11 and its cold aftermath, these conversations brought to life something new in my soul. They brought light and warmth to my understanding
of the strength and weakness of every human soul in every kind of condition. It deepened my ability to resonate with compassion to the suffering of others: the victims, the perpetrators, the witnesses and the unaware and uninvolved. It brought a new force to my capacity for moral questioning and moral imagination. The conversations Bethene and I had were a mindful, moral and spiritual practice.
We need a new ordinary life. It is up to us to be compassionate, courageous, curious, and creative. And we need to have many bold conversations about potential and peace and all the obstacles, not just for the few but for everyone. We need open minds and open hearts so we can consider multiple perspectives and make a practice of considering things from opposing points of view. We need lots and lots of wisdom seeking and
very tough questions. We need to forego any answers that depend on blame, revenge or putting our head in the sand.
Please make a practice of having conversations on the dark shadows in the world. Look at the shadows you cast. Ask how your soul can shine some light on the problems of being human and encourage the potential of the human soul. We need to look at our own accountability,
forgiveness, objectivity and universal empathy. We need to look, not to the gods above us, but the loving divinity within us. We need to be willing to evolve and to sacrifice the familiar, the unexamined, the selfish. (Yes, I am also speaking to the selfishness of the liberal, altruistic and loving souls. How about that for a conversation…examining the selfishness of your unselfishness. Look at all your self-contradictions.)
Have conversations about your loyalty to your tribes and how that leads you to exclude or dismiss other tribes…how many tribes to you belong to? Have conversations about your need to be a hero in your thoughts, words and deeds…how romantic, but how does it empower others? Have conversations about your political and personal philosophies and how rigid your thoughts are? And see if you can find the humbling gifts of irony,
radical doubt and archetypal humor as you face your need to be right and superior.
I have a grandson who at age six is asking me (thanks to Disney) what the difference is between bad and evil. My response is to keep the conversation alive with questions. If I can give my grandson a gift it will not be the gift of answers
but the gifts of questions and unending conversation.
Here are some previous posts I have written on evil and empathy. Use them for the ground of your courageous and creative conversations.
http://imagineself.com/2012/12/sandy-hook-imagining-empathy/
http://imagineself.com/2010/09/some-thoughts-on-evil-2/
Please share your thoughts on this post.
If you would like guidance, listening or support for living in our violent world, please consider having a conversation with me.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
The course on the Twelve Senses & How Perception Shapes Your Soul begins on Friday, July 22, 2016. Sign up now.
We have made thee neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with freedom of choice and with honor, as though the maker and molder of thyself, thou mayest fashion thyself in whatever shape thou shalt prefer. Pico della Mirandola Oration on the Dignity of Man 1486
IT'S NOT TOO LATE TO HAVE A
TRANSFORMATIVE INNER SUMMER! SIGN UP FOR
THE THREE SHAPERS OF YOUR REALITY
Please register for the online course: The Three Shapers of Your Reality $127
LEARN MORE AND REGISTER HERE.
In around eight hours of listening to the audios, 4.5 hours of live webinars and whatever time you want to spend on the suggested exercises, you will be well on your way to a more rewarding life. The course is self-study so you can work with the content at
your own pace. If you need a scholarship or a payment plan, email me.
If you would like to give this life-changing course to a recent high school or college grad, email me.
Individual Courses
Only have time, or interest for diving into just one of the shapers? I am making each available as a single option. To register…
The Four Temperaments $47 Currently available. Begin now. Live webinar on Saturday, July 9th at Noon Eastern. Approximately 3 hours of downloadable audio recordings to listen to on your own schedule, 90 min live webinar, amazing handouts, suggested exercises, online forum for sharing your insights and interacting with other participants. A creative understanding of the choleric, sanguine, phlegmatic and
melancholic ways we react, interact, act and attract as we live in all elements of our reality.
Register for the Four Temperaments here.
The Twelve Senses $47 Begins Friday, July 22th Live webinar on Saturday, Aug 6th at Noon
Eastern. Approximately 4 hours of downloadable audio recordings to listen to on your own schedule, 90 min live webinar, amazing handouts, suggested exercises, online forum for sharing your insights and interacting with other participants. A deep exploration of the twelve senses – four perceptions of the reality inside our skin: the senses of touch, well-being, movement, and balance; the four perceptions of the world: the senses of smell, taste, vision and
warmth; and the four senses of knowing another human being: the sense of hearing, the sense of language, the sense of meaning, the sense of the other’s I AM or Spirit.
Register for the Twelve Senses here.
The Eight Processes $37 Begins
Friday, August 12th Live webinar on Saturday, Aug 20th at Noon Eastern.
Approximately 2.5 hours of downloadable audio recordings to listen to on your own schedule, 90 min live webinar, amazing handouts, suggested exercises, online forum for sharing your insights and interacting with other participants. Develop awareness and understanding of how you soul processes reality mirroring the biological processes of breathing, warming, nourishing, secreting,
maintaining, growing, reproducing and dying. This is amazing, liberating and empowering.
Register for the Eight Processes here.
If you have questions, feedback or want to say hello...email me. How You Can Appreciate...Encourage...Support My Work |
These thoughts are the result of hours and hours of my inner work, creative work, and technical work.
This message and all of Imagine Self is filled with much devotion for you and a future shaped by individuals who have a moral imagination of themselves, of all others, and of what is possible and necessary for building a compassionate, practical and meaningful existence for all.
If you appreciate the inspiration you have found in all the emails, blogposts, Inner Christmas Messages and Imagine Self courses, won't you consider making a donation or becoming a subscribing member.
" I support Lynn Jericho's Imagine Self joyfully. I have always been
interested in self-help literature, programs and thought leaders. Lynn's courses, writings and insights are among the best.
Lynn's unique ability to "name" and describe issues that each of us experience brings clarity and comprehension that always eludes me when studying
other authors and material.
Her skills are particularly powerful in one-one conversations." Ruth Boulter, subscribing donor
To make a one time gift of appreciation, encouragement and support to Imagine Self... To become a subscribing Imagine Self member and join other loyal and grateful friends
making a monthly donation somewhere between the cost of a cup of tea and a good lunch ... SUBSCRIBE HERE. To learn more about what your financial
contribution, one-time or recurring monthly, could mean to the work of Imagine Self, take a moment to
The Ways I Can Support Your Inner Work
|
Inner work is tough work and moving through the mysterious and labyrinthine pathways of your soul requires guides, tools, support, creativity, humor and perseverance.
Books, prayers, coaching, counseling, meditation, workshops, good friends...every kind of help is needed and available. But ultimately, only you can do the work of becoming you.
Below are the ways I can help you with your Spring inner work
of finding, knowing and becoming yourself… and making sense of it all.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~* Conversations with Me Is this the year to answer a question, solve a mystery, survive a crisis, take a leap, imagine a future, find self-compassion, balance inner extremes??? Can I support you, comfort you, mentor you, and celebrate you as you take on this threshold experience consciously and creatively. I will bring an archetypal and spiritual context for understanding the uniqueness,
challenges and realities of your life. Our conversations will reveal your karma and your destiny.
Why don’t you schedule a complimentary 20 minute conversation here Let’s talk about what you are seeking and how I can help.
Every time I speak with you, my world makes sense. I move from child to woman. I am so
grateful. Lilia M.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Blessings & Imaginations, Lynn Lynn Jericho
www.imagineself.com | | |
|
