Let’s Meet in the Field.
Today, can you remember that every single one of us is making decisions based on our unique experiences with the level of self awareness and ability to access our inner resources we have at each particular moment in time?
Every time we blink an eye, another event or circumstance challenges us to stay grounded and connected to our Wise Adult selves while we attempt to sort through the upside down realities of our world.
Whether it is a political activist being shot and killed in view of millions of people in real time, thanks to social media…
Or yet another senseless mass shooting sadly and ironically happening at the same time…
Not to mention the barrage of reactions of every human being having their own personal lived experience of it all, and therefore, their own passionate opinions on every aspect of every situation possible.
We are bombarded from every angle; try as we might to look away, to turn off the TV, to block or unfollow social media “friends,” to resist watching replays and images that cause trauma and distress, to breathe and keep our emotions regulated so that we might receive information without getting overwhelmed…
It is impossible to completely avoid the toxicity that permeates the air.
Even if you’re not regularly plugged into social media; even if you’re not a news network junkie.
We can’t avoid the impact of the energy of the stress and the fear and the confusion and the rage and the pain that pervades our current lives.
And it’s made even more challenging because despite the fact that we are all experiencing it, there is very little space to try and make sense of it with one another.
Maybe we have a few people around us with whom we can process our discomfort.
When we are able to share, can we stay grounded in our Wise Adult while we do so?
Or do the Protector Parts take over and cause us to polarize, judge, demonize, and dehumanize, so the only thing we can see together is some monster out there to hate?
It may also be that some of the people you have around you see things very, very differently.
Are you talking with them? Can you breathe and allow your Adult self to be curious about their perspective?
Why do they think the way they do? Believe what they believe? Feel what they feel?
I know it’s a challenge; even if you invite kindly, not everyone is open or willing to communicate from a place of curiosity.
When you’re feeling scared and uncomfortable, it’s not easy to be curious.
Curiosity can’t exist when we’re faced with the threat of a hungry tiger; we need all our resources to fight, run away, or hide!
So we must use our ability to breathe and ground in order to shift from those Protector positions.
It’s complicated, this world we’re living in. How can we feel safe enough to let our Protectors rest?
The key is to find the safety that exists out in the “field” which 13th century Sufi poet, Rumí, deeply understood and wrote about in one of his most famous poems:
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there.
Let’s keep reminding ourselves, no one is inherently an enemy when we recognize the Light in every other human being.
When we remember it exists, even if they are not consistently shining it outwardly, it can give us a place to aim our own Light while we invite them to join us in the field.
Much love,
Carol
