Personal Reflections On Courage and The Imperative of Connecting the Dots

Lifting the Veils

Emerging from the fog of my sleep has been and remains an incredible journey. In the early 1980's, when it first all began, I had no idea of the many forms that my ignorance had taken, or that I even swam in a dangerous dark sea that was hardening my heart and shutting tight my mind and squeezing the Spirit-fed breath out of my being. I lived on the surface of my life unaware of the depths of the fears and false stories, the shame and blame, the anger and untouched grief, the judgments and addictions, the disassociation and distractions, and the myriad of ways that some might have said that I was "comfortably numb." 
 

But that is a big fat lie. It was not "comfortable." Because the price of numb is also to be shut out of any true depth or sustained experience of joy and love, empathy and open-heartedness, kindness and caring, mystery and wonder, compassion and connection, wisdom and understanding, humor and belly-deep laughter, healing and wholeness, and well-being and peace. Back then, however, I didn't know the fog I lived in and I didn't know what I was missing. I was often tuned out, detached, disassociated, asleep. And it is hard to be conscious of something you've never known or perhaps have only had glimpses of, something you've been taught to not know and experience by parents and community and culture, who may have meant well, but who were all largely asleep themselves and also disconnected from the wholeness of their being. 
 

Then there were the stories I learned to believe in growing up in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, which certainly had a culture of its own. Not that everyone who lived in this wealthy Detroit suburb was indoctrinated into a perspective that had many of its roots in narcissism. Some were less impacted than others. But not our family. I learned well the norm of perfecting that false self, managing an expected image, and pretending I did not know what I knew, felt what I felt, and needed what I needed. Shut down, shut up, shut out. Don't question. Don't be. But you had damn well better look good.
 

This is not exactly the fertile ground for any child to develop more fully into the wholeness of who they are or to understand the wholeness of others. Rather, it is an environment permeated with implicit rules to be the object to be shown off, to be compliant, to not question, to achieve and look good, to attach to materialism rather than people and life, to be cut off from the Mystery and the Great Heart of wisdom and compassion, and to be externally oriented to what was expected rather than connected with any true and sustained sense of Self. Being lost to connection within myself and with the Sacred thread that weaves through and connects us all is a form of living death. We can look good on the outside. Yet, when the fog lifts what comes to be exposed are indeed an array of symptoms that say something is wrong, something is missing, something is not right. We are out of alignment with a depth of kindness and heart-spirit connection with ourselves, others, Earth, and the Sacred.
 

This often manifests in patterns of depression, illness, anxiety, anger, broken relationships, subtle to blatant forms of violence, and a whole plethora of addictions. Of course, growing up in Grosse Pointe and being indoctrinated into the high value of looking good and being better than those "Others" out there, I was frequently - and yet often not consciously - measuring myself up against others and working to perfect the image I believed was expected of me. Under my false self were many of the above symptoms, which - although obvious to me today - at the time I could not allow myself to be aware of and see. The gift that my healing has given me is the conscious awareness that under those symptoms, under all my foibles and fears, under all the shame and grief and woundedness, is the essence of the beauty of my true nature. This is the beauty and the love that will not die. And it is this loving and Sacred essence that I believe resides as the core nature of us all. 

But in the early days of questioning and allowing healing and thawing out and waking up to gradually unfold, it was not easy having my cover blown. I hated it. And I was scared, so scared. Yet, somehow, through Grace and synchronicity and all those resources of support and people who came into my life reaching out hands and hearts lighting a path of awakening, I did not go back to sleep. I persisted.
 

An early therapist told me, "Molly, you could be addicted to standing on your head." True! He was empowering me with awareness and insight into my sabotaging self by speaking to how strong the pull was for me to go back to familiar old patterns and not heal my heart. All addictions are, I believe, rooted in a broken and unattended heart. And anything can become a drug if we are on the run from ourselves. In addition to what many of us may think of as "normal" addictions, such as alcohol or other drugs, we can also become addicted to bad relationships, religion, working, gambling, sex, image management, staying busy, over eating or starving, shopping and accumulating stuff, care-taking and fixing, blaming and shaming, judging and polarizing, perfectionism and projections, false stories, being right, and on and on. In the early days I read Anne Wilson Schaef's "When Society Becomes An Addict." That was an eye opener. I no longer felt alone as someone struggling with addictions. Our culture is awash in them.

Of course, if we are not paying attention, we may not notice. The camera shutter that reveals a deeper reality and greater truths beyond the ones we are aware of may just occasionally flash open only to quickly shut tight. The unfamiliar light of deep beauty and love and kindness and possibility, and the darkness of our own long neglected wounds - and those of our families and ancestors and culture and Earth - may scare us to death, as it certainly did me.

"We'll only go as deep as the support we perceive is available to us." I heard this wise quote in the very early days of my awakening. I bow in gratitude. Because I knew I needed support. And I sought it and I stuck with this messy-scary-amazing journey of gradual awakening.

My oldest son, Brian, gifted me with this quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes many years ago: "I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity." Today I deeply understand and get in my bones what this means. 

One of my mentors, Michael Meade, also speaks to this point when he describes what most of us want. Standing on one side of the stage on which he is speaking, Michael reflects that this is where we are when we start out. We also see the other side, and Michael then walks across the stage to the far right side. We want to be here, where we are living the values we say we are, we are evolved and enlightened or have Jesus in our hearts or however it is that any of us frames being who we really want to be. Michael then goes on to say that the only problem is that most of us want to avoid going through the middle. We want to somehow side step the middle - the messiness of deep disillusionment, of having our belief systems about ourselves and the world turned on their head and seeing what we fear to see, feeling what we deny, healing the hearts that we neglect, and uncovering the false selves and false stories that we have lived by. It is painful and courageous to move toward what we fear, what is unknown, and take steps to intimately know and befriend the strangers that we have become to ourselves and one another. Michael illuminates the simplicity in the beginning of our lives. Everything is this way or that, black or white, right or wrong, saved or unsaved, left or right, good or bad. Very simplistic, very linear, very limited. Many of us get stuck there, sometimes for decades, sometimes for a lifetime.

Then, for any of us who have the courage and curiosity and desire to embark on the journey into the unknown - into "beginner's mind," into the darkness of our blind spots and false stories, into our deeper heart and wisdom, and into the host of ways that we have often been blindly causing harm to ourselves and others - it is then that things get real uncomfortable and painful and unsettling and disturbing and... different. Things are no longer just simple. They are often deeply confusing and unfamiliar and humbling and complex and scary. Sometimes it feels as though the world as we have known it is crumbling beneath our feat. And, indeed, a death is happening and we find ourselves in this space of neither this nor that, of no more black and white, of no more knowing it all, no more turning to the old familiar drugs of choice, and of the door behind us closing before a new doorway has clearly appeared. We are in a birth canal of sorts, an initiation, a time of great unraveling and mystery and birthing. 

Gradually the fog begins to lift and the many veils that had distorted our vision are fewer now. The simple that gave way to the complex is now transforming once again. A new and different awareness is emerging and growing. And things are becoming clear and very simple.

There is a simplicity unfolding that informs us of these basic truths... We are all wounded in life. We need to love and heal ourselves and one another. We are all connected. No one is better or less than anyone else. The suffering of all beings matters. Your oppression is my oppression. The Earth is my Mother. All life is Sacred. We need to be kind. We need to hold ourselves and others with compassion. We need to intervene on and transform our old patterns of harm and increasingly be the peace we yearn for. We need each other. We cannot do this alone. We are all in this together. All life matters. I will do my part. I will nourish that which sustains and nurtures life. Life is a precious gift to be embraced rather than pushed away. Our circle of caring grows and grows. As does our courage and consciousness. New pathways are in process of being cleared in our brains, our hearts, our souls.

"I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity."

Yet, many of us avoid entering the unfamiliar. It appears to be easier to stay with what we believe we understand and seemingly have under control. We like having our shit together and knowing it all. I understand, as this was my motto back then. My line of thinking was that I don't have any problems, thank you very much. YOU are my problem. Those Others out there are my problem. I'm fine. Which was another big fat lie. I was not fine.

However, this turning away, this fear that keeps us from pinching our noses and jumping into the unknown is also the birth place of living a life out of alignment with who we believe ourselves to be. And, indeed, this part of ourselves that stands up blindly to support that which causes harm is not who we truly are. Yet, the turning away from deeper truths, the staying on the surface of seemingly safe territory, the unconscious attachment to our impaired capacity to connect the dots manifests as the roots of the paradox of when our actions do not match the values we profess. There is both great tragedy and great cost to staying with the simplicity we believe in and fiercely defend when we avoid the territory of our wounds and our gifts.

I believe I can speak with humility and compassion to being on both sides and to the journey through because I have lived it. And I do know how hard it is, this journey of waking up. I also know that it is harder to stay asleep. The illusion is that the opposite is true.

Recently I posted this on Facebook:

One of my friends and former high school classmates replied, "Quite the leap." Which inspired me to write this post. (Thank you, John!) Because today I understand the imperative and utter necessity of leaning into the issues which are impacting us all and learning how to connect the dots. Making these connections reveals how so much that may, on the surface and on the simplistic side of things, appear like there is no connection - that it is "quite a leap" to connect this with that - is indeed an illusion. Yet, isn't this failure to look deeper, to question, to look with new eyes, to connect the dots, to passionately seek the truth and care deeply about all of life, isn't that how we humans have gotten ourselves into the same tragic circumstances over and over and over again?

Being attached to the world as I once knew it and turning away from deeper truths is certainly how I came to cause harm to myself and others, even unknowingly to those who I most love. And it remains, to this very day, an ongoing challenge to continue to peel back the layers of my illusions and indoctrination into false and often violent belief systems that I have learned in my family and culture. This journey also keeps me humble and passionate about my lifelong commitment to continue to pursue deeper truths and how it is that I can expand my capacity to live my life in alignment with my values, to live my life as a prayer, to be the peace our world hungers for. It is often not easy for most of us to walk our talk in a sustained and deepening way. And, yet, the cost to ourselves and all that we touch of remaining in the seemingly safe territory of the familiar is too great. The gift and the beauty that is connected with doing the work of exploring our belief systems and the wounds we carry, of coming to gradually see the truth of the impact of our actions and beliefs on ourselves and others, is the potential of deep healing and awakening.

If we don't go back to sleep. If we don't open that camera shutter only to slam it shut. Sometimes we spend years and years with just these glimpses into the deeper nature of ourselves, those we love, and this world we all share. There is also this great possibility of supporting ourselves and one another on the journey of becoming and sustaining a kind presence in the world, of becoming who we truly are.

I find myself wondering how long humankind will repeat our unconscious patterns before we have had enough. When will we reach a tipping point where our high tolerance for all forms of violence within ourselves and our culture and our world will fall away and give birth to the power we often neglect - our power to love?

Meanwhile, we humans - each and every one of us - will continue to make choices, consciously or otherwise. May we choose wisely. May we choose one day at a time to be conscious, compassionate, courageous, curious, open, mindful, and kind. May we be brave enough to pursue connecting the dots that thread seemingly disparate acts with their roots. May we increasingly recognize and intervene on our triggers, our patterns, our ignorance, our unskilled and unkind thoughts and actions. May we dive deep enough to discover more and more of the stories that we tell ourselves that keep us in the darkness of simplicity this side of complexity. May we find the community of support that we need to shed the obstacles that stand between us and our potential to love, to care, and to courageously and compassionately act out of a higher good for all.

Since 9/11 in particular, I have expanded what I have been passionately seeking to learn. My circle of caring, of conscious awareness, continues to grow and expand as I follow threads and follow one doorway to the next, and lift yet another veil of my ignorance. And everything is changing, evolving, deepening. Each year I am alive, this circle of caring grows even wider. The power and unfolding Grace of commitment and intention amazes me. It is simply stunning, to have been so asleep and blind and today to be seeing so much. I am deeply grateful - whether it horrifies me or overwhelms me with beauty and love - I am grateful to see.

In following the threads deeper and deeper, today I can increasingly connect the dots between all of this and more:
Mass shootings, propaganda, violent and toxic politics, resource wars, ISIS, global warming, the NRA, Citizens United, greed, poverty, racism, child abuse, suicide, genocide, the stories of the Founding Fathers and the birth of America, capitalism, Monsanto, NAFTA, CAFTA, TPP, the poisoning of the Earth, refugee crises, domestic violence, rape, toxic and violent media, Trump, all the many faces of narcissism, polarization, the death penalty, the prison industrial complex, the military industrial complex, the pharmaceutical industrial complex, addiction to fossil fuels, redistribution of wealth upward, failure of imagination, pervasive empathic failure, suicide, epidemic gun violence, the ban on gun violence research, homelessness, depression, anxiety, rage, addiction of all kinds, mental illness, homophobia, Islamophobia, isolation, lack of health care, lack of quality education, lack of social resources, crumbling infrastructure, lack of community, starvation, melting glaciers, pollution, species extinction, factory farms, destruction of rain forests, despair, drones, child soldiers, gangs, guns, sex trafficking, the war on terrorism, the war on drugs, religious discrimination, torture, police brutality, American exceptionalism, hyper-nationalism, lawlessness, religious bigotry, hate speech, sacrifice zones, Keystone XL Pipeline, sweat shops, economic fundamentalism, famine, corporate power, the Koch brothers, "holding back the march of collectivism," the triumph of individualism, the legacy of McCarthyism, Wal-Mart, Fortune 500, the war on the life support systems of Earth, deregulation, shock doctrine, privatization, neoliberalism, vigilantly violence, fascism, demonization of environmentalism, austerity, scapegoating the poor, disbelief in science, ethnic discrimination, hatred, dehumanization, disregard of Habeas Corpus, fracking, Wall Street, rising seas, droughts, floods, forest fires, hurricanes, typhoons, tornadoes, wind storms, melting glaciers, CO2 levels at 400+ PPM (parts per million), climate refugees, income disparity, FOX News, disintegration of investigative journalism, targeting whistle-blowers, glorification of free market, extraordinary rendition, torture, Guantanamo, the Patriot Act, climate change denial, invasions of AAfghanistan and Iraq, No Child Left Behind, standardized testing, severe heat waves, severe winter storms, Exxon-Mobile... and the list goes on and on.

These may all or mostly seem like separate issues or, for some, not even issues at all but rather the lies of a "liberal media." This is where lifting the veils of our individual and collective ignorance becomes an imperative.

I am also connecting the dots more and more and joining with those who are courageously working in some way to understand, to know, to embrace, to heal, and to transform our world. Beginning with transforming ourselves. There is truly an imperative to learning how to connect the dots - those that both cause violence and harm and those that heal and awaken. Then, as more and more of us discover the truths behind the the ones we are aware of, and the deeper layers behind that, the stories that we live by that are the root of our destruction will shift to ones that are life sustaining and rooted in consciousness of our Sacred connection. 

Truly, another world is possible. There is a solution -- and we are it! May we join hands and hearts and birth her together.

Namaste ~ Molly