I have been circling around, feeling into, digesting, metabolizing, holding in my prayers the events happening in Iran and Minnesota in my own way over the last few weeks.

I do not consume news on a regular basis through any channels (other than reading my local newspaper weekly) because:

1. I have a very sensitive system and I know myself well. I’m not afraid of ‘dysregulation’ but I am solidly aware of how much I can actually hold within my body without going unconscious. I am in a season of life where I have young souls to shepard and my solid, stable presence is needed here, at home. As Mother Theresa said, “You want to change the world? Go home and love your family.” I take this very seriously.

2. My personal life, the way I live, how I spend my money, the work I do in the world, and the way I hold myself, is my activism. It is how I use my energy to create the world I would like to leave my children. I am very clear and very passionate about this. As I’ve heard credited to Marion Woodman (although I don’t think she originated the quote) “the personal is political.” I truly live by this concept in so many ways. My way of living and being is my rebellion.

However, it can feel a little off in some way to be posting about my business and little memes about nourishment when it feels like the world is on fire.

The Two Camps

There is one camp that says, “Be professional.” This voice says, “You don’t need to weigh in on every political disruption.” “No one cares what you have to say about politics, just stay in your lane.” This voice is the voice of business as usual. This doesn’t feel attuned to the thread of Truth and authenticity I aspire to uphold. And yet, it is exhausting and not necessarily in service for me to add my voice to the cacophony of enraged and disembodied voices.

There is another camp that seems to be more prevalent these days in the social media sphere: “Share every single thing you think.” It’s become fashionable and popular for anyone with a social media account to share their political views perpetually, at all hours, and without discernment or consideration. In fact, for some (and I’m so glad this is not my readership) not sharing your political views or stance is akin to sin. The threat of ‘silence is compliance.’

As always, the Truth is somewhere in the middle. It’s not ok to float right over all the atrocities and current events and act as if nothing is happening and just go on posting about my offerings. It’s also not ok for me to lose my s**t and report every single thing I think and feel when it isn’t related to what I’m in the public eye sharing about.

Wide Open Heart, Big F*****g Fence

Maybe surprisingly, I think of myself as a private person. I would not have social media at all if it weren’t in service to The Mother for me to do so. I don’t always want the attention on me. I can be comfortable in the confident leader role and I can also be comfortable as the quiet, back-of-the-room observer. I have a very big, robust, and strong fence around my heart because of how open, soft, and sensitive my heart is.

As Danielle LaPorte says, “Wide open heart, big f*****g fence.” I keep my inner circle very small, on purpose. It’s taken me until my late 30s to get comfortable and clear with this.

I share a good deal about my personal life, but anything I share is for the specific purpose of teaching on a larger theme. I am not just sharing my life to share my life. I am sharing my perspective/experience to illustrate a universal deeper meaning. That’s the way my writing and expression works. I show what I would like to teach with my beingness. I become the lesson. However, this doesn’t mean I share anywhere near the majority of my unique and personal process. I am also a messy, unsure, hurting-at-times human, after all.

My messaging politically has been consistent throughout my whole tenure being in the somewhat public eye. I belong to neither side. I identify with neither side. On a personal level, I agree with one side on some things and I agree with the other on others. I am on the side of humanity, and that is a not a political party. Something I read today hit home: “Love your neighbors more than your government.” I am on the side of humanity, of love, of courage, of beauty, of the thread of organic Life. Always.

Separation Has Always Been the True Enemy

Separation has always been the true enemy in my eyes. Atrocities happen. They happen for no good reason. I would never try to explain away or gloss over pain, suffering, and real injustice. My spirituality doesn’t avoid the dirt. It is about brining the Soul into the dirt, the body, the matter. Not in a “lets make meaning out of this” way, but in a way that honors the organic and God.

A long time teacher of mine, Coly Vulpiani wrote recently:

“What if the quality of energy we are expressing in the name of justice is actually feeding the very atmosphere we are trying to change? Not because our concerns are wrong. But because of the quality of consciousness we bring to them matters…. In times like these what we are becoming matters as much as what we are resisting.”

What we are becoming matters.

This is the creator’s focus: in the face of atrocities, what and who am I becoming? What am I embodying with my actions, words, and thoughts?

We are creators and artists. Each and every one of us in a co-creation with our reality and those around us. This isn’t woo woo mumbo jumbo. This is quantum entanglement. This is the field within which we all abide. How we show up matters. The “quality of consciousness” we bring to a situation matters.

We cannot fight violence, disconnection and insanity with violence, disconnection and insanity.

As Martin Luther King said:

“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

We don’t have to go out and hold signs on the streets to be activists. We can if that feels right for us. We don’t have to call our senators. We definitely can and should if that’s what feels right for us. We don’t have to ‘be political’ in any way shape or form to be advocates for the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible.

We do need to love each other. Truly love. We need to become the people that can do conflict differently. We need to bring integrity and coherence into our work, our homes, our relationships, the places we spend our time, where we put our attention. We need to clean up where we’re sitting. The personal is political, after all.

For me, this looks like a very deep and personal practice of prayer. I spend precious time each morning with my attention on all the pain and hope emanating from Iran. I send the freedom fighters my energetic support. I allow myself to reach into the hearts of the people in pain and offer them my love. I pray for the souls of the people in the regime causing the hurt to wake up to their own despair and feel it. I pray for Trump and ICE agents and the families being torn apart.

Sometimes, I breathe in the agony and suffering into the alchemical energetic chamber of my heart and breathe out love. I do this over and over again. I use my attention and intention to bring coherence to the field within myself and the one we all inhabit.

I am reminded of the poem, Call Me By My True Names by Tich Nhat Hanh. I remember that one being’s ache is my ache.

Make Art with Our Pain

We need to make art with and from our grief, our misery, our fear, and our suffering. People always lament, “What can I do!? I just wish I could do something!”

This is what we “do.” I am not saying every person needs to become a painter or a sculptor, but in the broader sense of artist, as in making something that is uniquely yours and did not exist before you came to be on this planet. Maybe it’s taking a walk every morning and dancing with the sunrise. Maybe it’s the way you chat with a stranger at the grocery store. Maybe it’s baking biscuits for your new neighbor. Maybe it’s writing poetry or love letters. Maybe it is making an epic protest sign and holding it in the freezing cold. Maybe it is writing a post on social media.

Make whatever it is with your whole heart, the grief, the rage, the hopelessness included. I believe this to be the greatest act of resistance.

I can never pretend to understand why the atrocities happening in the world happen. I would never desecrate a mother’s or a father’s or a child’s or a friend’s pain by trying to explain it away.

I do encourage all of us to express ourselves through art. To make our pain known through an act of creation. To let ourselves and our pain be seen, heard and felt through our unique extension of ourselves and our love out into the world.

Please, let us know in the comments, what are you creating?

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