What On Earth: Uncomfortable Truths
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We all deal with conflict differently. Whether it’s within or externally.
Some project.
Some withdraw.
Some object.
Some ignore.
Some of us battle with ourselves about saying something or not. I have found the ones who stay quiet have perhaps some of the most powerful messages, yet stay quiet because they do not want to side. Or they understand each side and find it difficult to say anything at all. These ones do not know if they are right and this is why they also stay quiet. This is a neutrality trap which I will speak about more in another session.
I have always battled with this dynamic - do I stay quiet or do I say something. What do I say? I used to say so much yet in hindsight didn’t say much at all. I have mentioned many times I used to be a social activist and this gave me a great look at this side of creating change, as well as a great look within.
We are living in times with our internet, where everyone has a voice. It doesn’t mean everyone uses it.
The loudest in the room are the ones who feel the greatest conviction in their own beliefs.
In other words they believe they are right and wish everyone to know about how right their beliefs are. This is the nature of righteousness which we all have in some form or another. Whether we choose to spread that is an individual choice and reflects something deeper.
I have spent the past 5 years deprogramming from a sense of righteousness with my spiritual beliefs and this is reflected in all my material since. Yet it has affected every area. When I look back in my life I realise just how much I believed I was right, how much I thought I knew.
Does it mean we say silent? Does it mean we ignore?
Does it mean we sit on the so called fence?
Firstly there is no fence.
Fences only exist when there are two sides.
For polarised conflict they will always see a fence and see those as not involved in their polarised war as sitting on it. For some finding conflict too much to accept, may see themselves as on the fence. For those not seeing sides, may see many shades of complexity in between.
When we side, we fuel the divisions. When we say everyone should just love one another, we bypass the very real traumas people are experiencing on the ground level.
So what do we do?
War is complex and we need to become increasingly aware of our individual impact upon it.
To understand conflict and division, its important to understand our shadow behaviours, our reflective natures and the journey towards unity consciousness by understanding our polarised natures.
Persecution
The world is healing the idea of persecution on a deep level right now. Persecution is the grounding force of conflict.
It is the source of the victim / blame / persecutor cycle.
Victim consciousness essentially says I blame ... for my problems.
I know this well from my time in depression, I blamed everything around me and blamed myself. I didn’t know any other way to explain why I was experiencing what I was. I didn’t know anything else apart from blame. Yet it steeped me in victim consciousness and I was a victim of my own reality. Reality reflected this back to me.
Blame requires an enemy.
It is a human response to pain. It evokes emotions and can allow for a healing process providing it is contained. If it is allowed to fester and grow out of control, it becomes controlling and severely distorts our reality. It will see enemies everywhere and distort our own reality.
When I began to explore the idea of empowerment consciousness, I began to take ownership for my reality - which was a very challenging thing to do because I still misread this as self blame initially.
When I understood that it wasn’t about blame of anyone including me, I understood it was about me being in the driving seat to change my reality.
This shift in consciousness changes everything.
We are no longer the victim, we no longer want to blame.
Cracks open and the light is allowed in. Compassion enters and we begin to forgive, we begin to let go, we begin to understand, we begin to listen.
Persecution is rife throughout our history in many many ways. The problem with persecution is that victim consciousness will cloud the possibility that we ourselves can be a persecutor.
Victim consciousness will always see the self as the victim of any problem.
This brings me to the modern day witch hunt...
What happened to the women during the middle ages were terrible. Yet the energy of the Mob and Persecution still lay within humanity’s framework.
Whenever we feel the need for self righteous justification it takes us into the reactionary witch-hunt mentality.
We se it play out in many ways. In recent years, we have seen it play out in terms of shame culture. It is more persecution. Persecuting others for not sharing our beliefs essentially.
The cancel culture is essentially a witch hunt.
A demonisation of polar opposite beliefs to the point we do not even want them the ability to speak freely.
And strangely it emanated from the left moment, the liberal movement. Yet is it so strange when we are depolarising?
Left becomes right.
Right becomes left.
This is the nature of unification and integration.
In social activism I say it play out as persecuting the persecutor. In essence it’s like judging the one who judges. We become the very thing we are pointing the finger at as we are so caught up in our vindication that we become blind to any faults or responsibility we may have.
The problem with persecution is that we are fuelled by a sense of righteousness perhaps initially to defend those we believe who have been persecuted - without realising we are becoming the persecutor ourselves.
As we do, we end up persecuting the innocent because that is the nature of the witch hunt.
Projection of our Inner Pain
There is another element here that we all need to be aware of in regards to how we heal - when we are unconscious of our healing.
We use external situations, dramas to play out our own inner dramas.
They become a portal for us to heal.
Yet the problem with this as we project onto the collective and become vocal is that we become part of the problem. Or should I say, we create new problems. We certainly deepen divisions. This isn’t about self blame, it is about self and collective responsibility.
We all unwittingly use external situations as opportunities for our own healing. From an extreme this can be road rage. To the so called micro aggressions we do daily with our projections. Also referred to as passive aggressive behaviour.
We cannot help but vent our unresolved emotions in our daily life so we may see them. Yet because we are unconscious we don’t see them, we project and embody them. We may blame, we judge, we criticise - yet these are all reflections of our deeper wounds of needing self healing.
Again this isn’t about self judgement or judging others for judging. It is about changing our behaviour. Changing our beliefs. Appreciating and taking responsibility for our actions. Creating change.
Us vs Them: The seductive pull of our inner battles
Divisive events allow us to project our internal war onto them
What I have found is that when I am unhappy in my life - especially when I am unconscious about it - I will become absolutely wrapped up in external events in a particularly unhealthy way. In my past it was conspiracies or faraway wars or what the government was doing - anything that allowed me to feel there was an Us vs Them.
Because under the surface I was experiencing Me vs Me.
Us vs them allows us to feel justified with our anger, feel vindicated with our frustration, it allows us to displace personal responsibility and issue blame.
Initially we feel "better" as we project, we are no longer carrying the burdens of our inner pain.
Yet it takes us down a rabbit hole.
A dark one.
One where we realise we cannot hide from our unresolved pains, we cannot throw it away. It becomes amplified as we project it. It becomes uglier as we displace it.
In a way this can serve us as we realise just how far we have dug ourselves into - to realise we no longer want to play in this dark pit.
Meeting our own suffering is essential to relate to the suffering of the world.
Most are not in touch with their own suffering and this creates a huge problem collectively.
It means that we project it externally as a way to deal with it.
When we feel the need to tell others around us about the suffering of the world intently, as I have done in my past as an activist, we create more fear, panic and well more suffering.
On some level we need others to suffer with us.
It seems selfish, and perhaps it is, yet it is our only way on this unconscious level to deal with it. When we take responsibility for our own suffering, we realise this is something that I do not want to spread around. I want to deal with it, and put out a very different message.
This doesn’t mean we hide our suffering or our pains, it means the opposite, we own it, we acknowledge it, we share with others about it vulnerably. We recognise it is directly influencing the way we see reality.
We realise that we may have something missing in our life and are possibly using external events to be seen, be heard, be recognised by others. To reveal our suffering, back to ourselves.
Perhaps it is also a sign that this something missing within that can be filled with something else more fulfilling.
Taking Action and Creating Change
This isn’t to deny the power of raising awareness over issues that need to be highlighted in society. It isn't to deny taking action. It is where the action comes from and it is the admittance that so far we may not even be taking any action as much as we believe we are.
It is to recognise with humility that we may not know what those issues really are because we are inherently biased. We can only know if we research and listen to both proverbial sides. Speak less. Listen More. Hear from all involved. Then ask, are we equipped to be involved? Are there other ways we can be involved? Who really needs our help right now and can we directly help them instead of trying to change the beliefs of those who disagree with us?
Perhaps we ask a different question
Rather than: "What world would I like to live in?"
Perhaps asking:
What kind of world am I responsible for - that Others live in?
Perhaps here we begin the process of taking collective responsibility. Perhaps here we begin to create real tangible positive unified change.
Namaste
Vaz