Happy Fourth of July! A celebration of freedom…
Planetary transits these last few weeks have left many of us wondering about our personal contributions to humanity and questioning how we can make a positive difference in the world. As we move towards the new moon and a powerful solar eclipse and finishing up solar transits in the Gate 15 (The Love of Humanity), the Gate 39 (Provocation) and moving into the Gate 53 (The Gate of Starting Things) in Human Design, our intention has been to start acting in ways that restore the flow of abundance in our own lives and in the world around us.
It is a time of renewing our commitment to making a positive difference in the world and truly expressing and invoking compassion for each other.
The news has been a nice example of this energy. On CNN.com they have been running a series of stories about human slavery in the world. Did you know that there are an estimated 10-30 million slaves on the planet at this time?
Horrific stories about rape being used as a weapon of war all over the world have also been featured prominently in the media. I have been reading these stories and working with my stunned amazement at the capacity human beings seem to have to treat each other terribly. (Of course, I also believe that our capacity to create an abundant world for everyone is unlimited!)
You may be wondering why I would read such stories. Many of us are taught by our spiritual teachers to ignore the news. It’s not “happy” and lowers our vibration.
Truly, I understand that.
But, I would also argue that nothing can lower our vibration and “take away” our happiness except our own consciousness. You can choose to be happy no matter what your situation and no matter what you read or even experience.
And, if we ignore what’s really going on out here, we miss an opportunity to create change.
One of the first books I ever read about awakening our creative potential was a small book by Charles Fillmore, one of the founders of the Unity Church of Christianity. Frankly, I don’t even remember the title of the book but in it he wrote about the power of what he called “denial”.
Charles Fillmore limped for most of his life as one of his legs was significantly shorter than the other. He had to wear special shoes and orthotics to compensate for this difference in leg length. During the course of Fillmore’s life, he “denied” that his leg was a problem and his leg actually grew several inches so that his limp was barely perceptible by the end of his life.
The principal of “denial” was an integral part of Fillmore’s teaching. Basically, Fillmore taught his students to deny that problems are real and consequently, the possibility of experiencing something different than the perceived problem can manifest.
I think there are two kinds of denial.
The first kind of denial is the dysfunctional kind of fear-based denial that keeps us from looking head on at a problem and handling it with faith and confidence that we are fully supported and there is an elegant solution (i.e. miracle) available to us. Sometimes we don’t want to see challenges because our mindset and belief systems are such that we don’t think we can handle the problem.
The real danger of this kind of denial is that it puts us into a kind of la-la fairy land existence that doesn’t empower us to make good choices. With this kind of denial, we can’t use the “negative” emotions from this experience to clarify and deepen our intentions to create something different.
Fearful denial is very different from the second kind of denial which is not so much “denial” as it is simply shifting your attention to a different aspect of a challenge and then focusing on a solution. You “deny” the situation your attention and energy, not as a way of avoiding it, but as a way of focusing on something better, a solution or ways to make change.
What we “deny” with this kind of denial is that pain and suffering of any kind is in alignment with Divine Abundance. We deny that rape, torture, slavery, oppression or poverty (to name a few) are fulfillments of our abundant potential. And we allow that there are other more abundant realities for us to manifest.
We also affirm that we have faith that something else is possible and we are empowered to create a new reality. This is a denial rooted in the understanding that abundance is the promise of the Universe. We operate from a place of complete trust and surrender to the true abundant nature of the Divine, knowing that a miracle is always at hand.
Some of the stories I read this week were very moving. One in particular was about a group of students and journalists who traveled the world with the mission of simply listening to the stories of war-rape victims all over the world.
These compassionate souls quietly held space for victims, not even necessarily sharing their stories with others. They just listened, turning each victims recounting into a sacred moment ripe for transformation. Many of these women (and men, btw) had been silent about their stories for years and this sacred sharing moment was the first time they had ever told anyone what had happened to them.
One of the many (many, many) reasons I love Human Design is that there is actually a complete, extensive energetic circuit in the Human Design body graph (Don’t know about Human Design? Check it out: http://www.humandesignforeveryone.com) that is all about the energy for sharing stories.
The human mind before the age of nine is designed to learn about values and the world through stories. In the archetype of humanity, we are designed to share our stories together to create a collective tapestry of all the rhythms, colors, experiences and adventures of mankind. When we stop listening to stories, our tapestry gets dull and monochromatic. We lose the depth of who we are.
Another essay I read was about rape victims during the Holocaust. In their book, "Sexual Violence against Jewish Women during the Holocaust”, authors Sonja M. Hedgepeth and Rochelle G. Saidel, share the stories of women who were horrifically raped during the Holocaust. While the stories and, obviously, the experiences of these women were beyond traumatic, the trauma has only been amplified by the Jewish academic community who has declared these stories as being “insignificant” because the numbers of rape victims pales compares to the number of people murdered…(???)
After years of keeping their stories to themselves, these victims are again being silenced.
When we silence victims, we not only delay their healing, but we also cut our collective consciousness off from a vital piece of the human creative process.
We have gotten into a funny habit in the metaphysical community with our denial of all things “negative”. We only want to hear “happy” things.
That’s nice. But if that’s what we’re working with, we’re missing a whole spectrum of reality and blocking our capacity to grow and evolve.
It’s natural to want to feel good. Feeling good is a prime directive of life. But when we experience pain and trauma, we can’t just leap to feeling good right away. Sometimes we have to get there step-by-step and the only way we get there is to work through our emotions and our stories.
And it doesn’t always look or sound pretty. (Or happy.)
Have you ever had the experience of trying to talk through a challenge with a friend and they shut you down, trying to get you to refocus on the positive?
I even know of a “technique” taught by a very influential personal growth “guru” that involves taking your attention off of a challenge and problem until a better solution appears.
Now, I know I’m walking on shaky ground here so keep rolling with me here.
There is a difference between a real story and a habitual patterned retelling of an event that you have allowed to define you. Sharing the story of your trauma is different than calling yourself a survivor of your trauma.
If you call yourself a Rape Survivor or an Incest Survivor you are stuck in your story and it isn’t a story anymore. It’s an identity. If your trauma has become your identity, then you are not evolving your story. You are trapped and each re-telling only anchors the story in your neuro-biology.
But simply telling your story, moving through it and giving yourself a chance to discharge some of the emotional energy around it, is crucial to the healing process. Emotions are energy in motion. If we aren’t allowed to freely express ourselves, the emotional energy doesn’t go away. It just shifts around, building up in the physical body or manifesting as challenges in other areas of your life, repeating in cycles until the energy finally shifts.
Being heard can be a powerful way to release the emotional energy of pain and suffering.
The Hopi Elders teach us that one of the first steps in creating a template in consciousness for a new Era of Sustainable Peace is for us to take care of each other and our relationships. I believe that to invoke this new era, we must first and foremost live with compassion for each other.
Listening is the primary step necessary to live compassionately. When we hear each other’s stories, our hearts open and our natural caring for each other grows.
Not only that, when we listen (Btw, did you ever notice that when you take the letters in the word “silent” you can make the word “listen”?), we become aware of the dark boundaries of human behavior. These stories inspire us in consciousness and in our physical realities to create a world in which these kinds of tragedies never happen again. Our rules and laws, heck, even America, is here as a result of the contrast people experienced.
If the European Americans had not experienced religious oppression, they may not have ever sought to create a new country where religious tolerance is legally protected.
If we don’t listen to stories about war crimes, rape or slavery (or other stories with a “negative vibe”), how are we going to know what needs to be nurtured, protected and evolved? One person’s nightmare can be the catalyst for a collective dream; the initiating sequence for the possibility of change...something better…
Sometimes knowing what we don’t want, is the best way to get clear about what we do want.
Yes, the trauma of your CNN.com news page can be draining and heartbreaking. And, of course, if you are already struggling with your own well-being, you don’t have to read each story word for word. You must take care of yourself first.
But what if there was a way to read the news and be empowered by it? What if you read the stories and, instead of cringing and turning away, you used these stories to clarify what you do want to see in the world and took a moment to hold a space for each story and each person who is a part of the story and then hold an intention or a vision of what you’d love to see manifest into form in the world?
Here’s an example. Right now Syria has been featured prominently in the news. There has been a tremendous amount of government sponsored violence and murder. Take a minute and imagine a Syria where all citizens are safe, where government is for the people and by the people and the police are trustworthy souls who genuinely want to uphold laws that are fair and democratic and everyone is empowered and abundant.
You don’t have to know how these things will be created. Enough awareness and contrast will create an energy in the world that will initiate the sequence of evolution, revolution and change. Your intention is an important start. Nothing has ever started on this planet without starting first in someone’s mind with a vision and an intention.
So, I end this very long blog post with this short gratitude.
Thank you to all of you who have honored the world with your stories. Thank you to all of you who have experienced trauma, oppression, repression, slavery and other horrors. Thank you to all of you who have listened and transmitted these stories to the world.
Without your stories and experiences, the possibility for real change would not exist.
Remember that where we put our energy and attention is where we get growth and results. Celebrate your freedom this weekend and the possibility of freedom will grow for the whole world.
Let’s hold a vision of every human being on this planet living in joyful freedom!
“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings.” - Optimus Prime, from the movie Transformers
Love,
Karen
