The following was posted on FaceBook by my pal, Robin Rice. Robin is a marvelous Being who spends her life in the service of others. She offers a variety of courses that are intended to help you along your chosen path, regardless of what that path may be. I have taken several of her courses and can attest to the impact they've had on my life. She really is a marvelous Being!
With that said, here is her response to a question that has been posed to her frequently in the past months. I hope you will read it through. And then, read it again. Let her words soak into your psyche. Because...for PETE'S SAKE!...there's enough crap getting in there that isn't doing you a bit of good!
So then...
{photo credits to Craig Whitehead}
"Recently I was asked about what I thought of the future. Would 2018 be the hard year that ends, or was it going further into 2019? I've been asked this question by a lot of people in a lot of different circumstances, and each time I try to answer it from my greater worldview at the moment.
Keep in mind that in many ways, I have an insider view. I work with leaders who are creating 2019. They don't know the future wins and losses any more than anyone else, but they know who and what is lining up to take a swing. I listen carefully to everything I hear, read all I can, and synthesize it into a worldview that is ever evolving but not entirely uneducated.
Despite all that, here is my answer:
I think we are exhausted. We have used up all our mental energy on the news and the stress that brings. Our entertainment is violent and depressing and - worst of all - insignificant. We empathize with our new "friends" (Isn't everyone in the world a friend, now that we can see their house on fire or neighborhood under siege?), some of whom are always in some kind of trouble somewhere. We have run out of a sense of psychic safety in our food and water and at the same time we are utterly unhinged over the cost and effort to get the "healthy body" we think we need to be "good enough" to win the human game.
We actually believe we see everything so we believe everything is falling apart and since we know we cannot fix everything we are undeniably screwed. (We don't see everything, we see the negative cultural narrative. Last night a beautiful baby was laughing and a kid helped another kid with his homework and a lovely new couple made love on a beach - did you hear about that? No?)
We have so much world fear that we have moved out of the safety zone where the cultural narrative includes that we will all be okay, if not this year then next, and into the narrative where a very real $400 parking ticket could mean that the driver's kids don't eat this week. That latter narrative erodes our strength even when it is not our personal story. But we care, so we do not turn away from those stories.
We follow these narratives, again and again, caught up in the stories of US ALL which are added to our own stories. These stories are not always true, and yet we are primed to click on and tune into the scary/bad/horrible/tragic ones because that might be what saves our neck some day (thank you cocktail of inherent biology and fear-based conditioning).
When we have had enough of all this (sorry if I have tired you just reading this, but I am going somewhere with it), which is often before 9 a.m. in the day, and we have nothing in place to counter this battering of the psyche, we crumble when the bad stuff happens. And the bad stuff always happens right alongside the good stuff because it's a good/bad world.
So, will 2019 be another "bad" year? Well, it will be another year of bad things and good things, like every other year. But if we do not awaken to our limits and capacities to handle a world of negative narrative, if we do not adult ourselves and turn off that narrative when we have had enough, we will be too exhausted to enjoy the good. Our metaphorical $400 parking ticket will sink our inner bank of resources and we will not be able to feed our children any kind of hope and goodness.
If, on the other hand, we stop working harder, playing the games that defeat us from the outset, become self-aware of our limits and stick to them (which could mean putting ourselves to be on time, no longer eating all that damned sugar, or making time to make love more often, whatever), we might actually experience a very good bad/good year.
So anyway, that's what I said (and then some). Something to think about, anyway."
It may not surprise you that this very missive leads us right back to what this very blog is all about:
CHOICES.
We get to choose the narratives we turn on...and turn off. Either choice isn't going to affect what we can't change in the first place. But one choice will affect our well-being, our capacity to actually do something when we are compelled to take action, and keep us from withering away under the crushing pressure of this madness.
As always, the choice is YOURS.
P.S. One last thing: should you choose to find out more about Robin and her wealth of fabulous stuff, you can find her at the following sites:
RobinRice.com
BeWhoYouAre.com
Choose well, my friends.
{And please do include some JOY, yes?}
With that said, here is her response to a question that has been posed to her frequently in the past months. I hope you will read it through. And then, read it again. Let her words soak into your psyche. Because...for PETE'S SAKE!...there's enough crap getting in there that isn't doing you a bit of good!
So then...
"Recently I was asked about what I thought of the future. Would 2018 be the hard year that ends, or was it going further into 2019? I've been asked this question by a lot of people in a lot of different circumstances, and each time I try to answer it from my greater worldview at the moment.
Keep in mind that in many ways, I have an insider view. I work with leaders who are creating 2019. They don't know the future wins and losses any more than anyone else, but they know who and what is lining up to take a swing. I listen carefully to everything I hear, read all I can, and synthesize it into a worldview that is ever evolving but not entirely uneducated.
Despite all that, here is my answer:
I think we are exhausted. We have used up all our mental energy on the news and the stress that brings. Our entertainment is violent and depressing and - worst of all - insignificant. We empathize with our new "friends" (Isn't everyone in the world a friend, now that we can see their house on fire or neighborhood under siege?), some of whom are always in some kind of trouble somewhere. We have run out of a sense of psychic safety in our food and water and at the same time we are utterly unhinged over the cost and effort to get the "healthy body" we think we need to be "good enough" to win the human game.
We actually believe we see everything so we believe everything is falling apart and since we know we cannot fix everything we are undeniably screwed. (We don't see everything, we see the negative cultural narrative. Last night a beautiful baby was laughing and a kid helped another kid with his homework and a lovely new couple made love on a beach - did you hear about that? No?)
We have so much world fear that we have moved out of the safety zone where the cultural narrative includes that we will all be okay, if not this year then next, and into the narrative where a very real $400 parking ticket could mean that the driver's kids don't eat this week. That latter narrative erodes our strength even when it is not our personal story. But we care, so we do not turn away from those stories.
We follow these narratives, again and again, caught up in the stories of US ALL which are added to our own stories. These stories are not always true, and yet we are primed to click on and tune into the scary/bad/horrible/tragic ones because that might be what saves our neck some day (thank you cocktail of inherent biology and fear-based conditioning).
When we have had enough of all this (sorry if I have tired you just reading this, but I am going somewhere with it), which is often before 9 a.m. in the day, and we have nothing in place to counter this battering of the psyche, we crumble when the bad stuff happens. And the bad stuff always happens right alongside the good stuff because it's a good/bad world.
So, will 2019 be another "bad" year? Well, it will be another year of bad things and good things, like every other year. But if we do not awaken to our limits and capacities to handle a world of negative narrative, if we do not adult ourselves and turn off that narrative when we have had enough, we will be too exhausted to enjoy the good. Our metaphorical $400 parking ticket will sink our inner bank of resources and we will not be able to feed our children any kind of hope and goodness.
If, on the other hand, we stop working harder, playing the games that defeat us from the outset, become self-aware of our limits and stick to them (which could mean putting ourselves to be on time, no longer eating all that damned sugar, or making time to make love more often, whatever), we might actually experience a very good bad/good year.
So anyway, that's what I said (and then some). Something to think about, anyway."
It may not surprise you that this very missive leads us right back to what this very blog is all about:
CHOICES.
We get to choose the narratives we turn on...and turn off. Either choice isn't going to affect what we can't change in the first place. But one choice will affect our well-being, our capacity to actually do something when we are compelled to take action, and keep us from withering away under the crushing pressure of this madness.
As always, the choice is YOURS.
P.S. One last thing: should you choose to find out more about Robin and her wealth of fabulous stuff, you can find her at the following sites:
RobinRice.com
BeWhoYouAre.com
Choose well, my friends.
{And please do include some JOY, yes?}
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