Groundedness and Practice in the face of Political Tragedy
My intention in offering this Connection Gem is to bring us together in the solidness of our commitment to stay grounded in care and compassion, and to stay expansive enough to access wise action moment by moment.
This Connection Gem is inspired by the desire to offer support as we face tragic political events all over the world and in the United States. We continue to witness a sharp increase in political actions taken from fear masked as promises of security. Specifically, we acknowledge the change of presidency in the U.S. that is and will result in more division, violence, pain, and suffering.
I want to speak to our practice with what is happening so that we may be a force of compassion, care, and wisdom.
In service to this, I offer three points. These points focus on shaping our consciousness. Focusing in this way is not meant to ignore the many complicated layers of events and systems, and all the actions we might be able to take to relieve suffering and support equity.
Here are the three points of focus that I will address in this article:
The difference between fear and love—contraction and expansion
Undoing the conditioning of fear, separation, and scarcity
Cultivating trust in beneficence
Before we dive in, I want to make space for any grief that is present in you. I want to name that even in this moment there is a choice for you. In this moment, you can notice if contraction, fear, or anger are present. And, you can choose to be with this. Expand around this. Invite your body to relax and feel the grief and pain. You can continue to expand by breathing deeply and slowly, closing your eyes, or looking out at nature and inviting something bigger to support you and the whole. These simple practices will keep us grounded and will allow us to move, inspire, and change the global consciousness.
THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FEAR AND LOVE—CONTRACTION AND EXPANSION
What we are seeing in tragic political elections is a lack of discernment and capacity to recognize the difference between fear and love—contraction and expansion. There is the fundamental confusion that someone who can attract and direct the attention of the masses must have a particular competency to create the change they are promising. At a mass level there is a thinking error that control/fame/the wielding of mass attention implies competence, care, or wisdom.
I offer here three invitations that I hope will support the disarming of this delusion and a fundamental change in your guidance system so that you can have the power to choose an expansive consciousness which is inherently life-serving.
Watch your mind: Do not let yourself be hooked by any form of fame, beauty, glamour, or someone who is able to wield the attention of the masses.
Notice the signs of being entranced by someone; how it pulls you out of your greater self, and attempts to feed some false sense of worth or security. Set your intention to bring yourself back into your heart where your true power resides.
When you practice this, you will become intimate with the difference between contraction and expansion and be able to recognize what is truly life-serving.
Set your intention to keep asking yourself if your thoughts and decisions are truly life-serving; each time, notice the sense of expansion and contraction.
Become intimate with your intuition and felt-sense of the truth: Release the habit of looking for truth in the content of what’s offered, and instead look for the quality of consciousness underneath what is offered. Learn to engage in an energetic reading of situations. For example, you might listen to something with the sound off and just watch body language and facial expressions. You might pause what you are engaged with and scan your experience in silence, noticing your body sensations, emotions, impulses, expansion, contraction, and energy.
Affirm, articulate, share your intuition—and learn to trust it: As you practice attuning to the consciousness present in a given situation, I invite you into a deeper cultivation of trusting and affirming your own felt-sense. The more you practice this, the more you will experience positive results. Celebrate every positive result. Write it down. Share it with others. When you give more attention to your own capacity, you increase that capacity. Make this a priority in your life. As you learn to trust your inner guidance you invite others to do the same and, as a collective, we become less vulnerable to being entranced by our conditioning and promises of security or worth offered from those operating from fear and delusions of separation. Root yourself in a deep confidence in your inner guidance.
UNDO THE CONDITIONING OF FEAR, SEPARATION, AND SCARCITY
In our practice we are attempting to undo the conditioning of fear, separation, and scarcity. This is an active intervention.
Ask yourself how many different ways you can wake up from the trance of anxiety, judgment, or fear. The moment you recognize a form of limiting conditioning, interrupt it immediately. Regulate, and then focus on your own deep intention to express love and compassion. Reflect on and share these moments of successfully interrupting reactivity with a spiritual friend.
As a starting place with this practice, I invite you to set your intention to undo a particular form of limiting conditioning. First, ask yourself:
Where does fear come up for you the most? Here are the most common triggers:
Money
The perception that someone different from you is a threat or less than
News media
Choose a strategy for being with and disidentifying from the reactivity that arises with these triggers. For example, you might:
Engage in regulation strategies
Actively engage with people and media that affirm the power of connection and collaboration
Take action that expresses confidence relative to a given trigger. For example:
With money, give generously in ways that are meaningful for you
When you perceive threat in difference, seek connection with those who you perceive as different
With news media, seek media stories that report the successes of care and collaboration around the world
CULTIVATE A FELT-SENSE OF KNOWING BENEFICENCE AS THE FOUNDATION OF OUR UNIVERSE AND OUR TRUE NATURE
When you locate in the confidence that beyond all tragic strategies to meet needs everyone wants to love and be loved, everything you do and say will be life-serving because the place you are coming from is life itself.
The invitation here is two-fold. One, set your intention every day to live from love and compassion, and to interrupt contraction with regulation and anchoring. Celebrate with others your expanding capacity to maintain regulation, groundedness, and the expansive perspective. (Notice that I am not naming emotions here. An expansive perspective is not an emotional state, but rather the capacity to witness your experience from an ever more expansive perspective.)
Two, set your intention to notice the goodness in others and celebrate either internally or externally small acts of kindness and care.
Thank you for your practice. Your practice matters. When you shift your consciousness—the ground of your being—you help us all to shift.
Together we can live from the truth of who we are!
Practice
Review the suggested practices. I have copied them below for ease of reference. Choose one to engage with just for today.
Watch your mind: Do not let yourself be hooked by any form of fame, beauty, glamour, or someone who is able to wield the attention of large groups of people.
Become intimate with your intuition and felt-sense of the truth.
Affirm, articulate, share your intuition, and learn to trust it.
Identify your most common triggers of fear and contraction.
Choose a strategy for being with and disidentifying from these triggers.
Set your intention every day to live from love and compassion, to interrupt contraction with regulation and anchoring.
Celebrate with others your expanding capacity to maintain regulation, groundedness, and expansive perspective.
Set your intention to notice the goodness in others and celebrate, either internally or externally, small acts of kindness and care.
You can also listen to the podcast version of this Connection Gem here beginning on Saturday, January 25th.