How do we honor truth, compassion, justice, and love through the ways that we live our daily lives? What diminishes or increases our capacity for compassion, wisdom, kindness, generosity, and love?
In my own personal life, these are some of the obstacles that I have discovered over the course of many years of self-reflection which have impaired my growth and my capacity to love and to be authentically aligned with my most cherished values:
- Fear.
- Frozen grief.
- Shame.
- Dishonesty.
- Isolation.
- Adherence to the rules of Don't Talk, Don't Trust, Don't Feel, Don't Be.
- Addictions, both substance and non-substance.
- Obliviousness of my blind spots.
- Unaddressed childhood and cultural wounds.
- Unseen biases.
- Not owning, understanding, or intervening on my triggers.
- Placing personalities before principles.
- Prioritizing the politics and propaganda of polarization over deeper truths.
- Judgments, projections, and dehumanization.
- A constricted circle of caring.
- Being aligned with an identity connected with a particular political party.
- Ignorance related to how to follow the money funding politicians, policies, and resources of information.
- Attachment to harmful, unhealthy, and limiting belief systems and resources of information.
- Injured instincts and a compromised capacity for discernment.
- Attachment to political figures, media personalities, healers and teachers I did not recognize as being compromised in their depth of integrity, commitment to truth, and capacity for love, compassion, and wisdom.
- Resistance to the pain of going deeper into unfamiliar territory and disillusioning facts which threatened my entrenched belief systems.
- Clinging to the world as I knew it to be rather than allowing the death of the old so that the new could be born.
- Pushing away and resisting new information and deeper truths which would break my heart open.
It has been my experience that it takes a great deal to gradually dismantle the walls that we humans unknowingly build against vulnerability, truth, and love. Those qualities, values, and experiences which can help empower us to unstuck ourselves, to see our blind spots and recognize our illusions, and evolve into greater wholeness often include grace, resilience, courage, a passion for truth, the support of wise and compassionate teachers, an enduring commitment our spiritual growth and evolution, and the intention to contribute to that which lessens rather than adds to our own suffering and that of others.
It is my experience that, to one degree or another, we all have these walls. We humans all fall somewhere along the continuum with ignorance on the one end and consciousness on the other. And this is largely determined by our awareness of the obstacles that we have built against love, truth, and consciousness and what, if anything, that we choose to do about it.
* * * * *
For the first 30+ years of my life, and unknown to me, my heart was often more closed than open. I had unknowingly built a protective shield around my heart to survive childhood trauma and loss, and to also cope with unhealthy cultural belief systems and norms that I had been indoctrinated into absorbing. Over the course of my young life, I'd become swept up in addictions, shame and fear and trauma that I'd long buried, and a false sense of who I was that was disconnected from the truth of my wholeness and the essence of my sacred self.
I did not begin to understand how impenetrable the depths of my heart were until I began therapy in 1984 and, just before entering sobriety, an early counselor told me that I was going to need to do something called "shadow work" and "make the long journey from your head to your heart." I had no idea what he was talking about. I just knew that his words scared me to death....
There is something within in me that has been inspired and nurtured by so many others. Over many years, I have adopted a diversity of teachers, truth-tellers, wisdom-keepers, activists and artists and poets, authors and visionaries who in some way have supported me from near and afar in shedding my illusions and opening to the deeper wisdom of my heart and soul. This list, among others, includes —
Pema Chödrön, Riane Eisler, Joanna Macy, Jane Goodall, Naomi Klein, Amy Goodman, Arundhati Roy, Vandana Shiva, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, Angela Davis, Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz, Angeles Arrien, the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers, Rachel Carson, Dorothy Day, Rosa Parks, Harriet Tubman, Michelle Alexander, Jane Mayer, Frances Moore Lappé, Terry Tempest Williams, Margaret Mead, Christiana Figueres, Sir David Attenborough, Howard Zinn, Martin Luther King, Jr., James Baldwin, Malcolm X, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Cornel West, Bernie Sanders, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges, Henry Giroux, Jeremy Scahill, David Sirota, Daniel Ellsberg, Michael Parenti, Chalmers Johnson, Timothy Snyder, Bill Moyers, Bill McKibben, Dahr Jamail, David Korten, Bryan Stevenson, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Ibram X. Kendi, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber II, Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Michael Meade, Carl Jung, Frank Ostaseski, Francis Weller, Thích Nhất Hạnh, the Dalai Lama, Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Judith Duerk, Rachel Naomi Remen, Brené Brown, Charlotte Kasl, Mary Oliver, John O'Donohue, Rumi, Wendell Berry, Joy Harjo, Jack Kornfield, Matthew Fox, Robert Beatty, Doug Pullin, my three sons, my loving husband Ron Matela, many beloved and wise friends, the Earth, and the list goes on and on...
I envision a time when more often than not we humans will be encouraged, informed, expanded, and inspired by our connections with those wise ones who support us in moving through our resistance to remembering what we have forgotten and into ever evolving and deepening levels of truth, consciousness, and love. It has certainly been my experience that it takes a lot of support to open our hearts, and especially when we are surrounded with distractions, disinformation, and that which divides us from within and with each other. Yet, it is possible to again and again allow the
world as we know it to collapse out from under us. This is the journey that brings with it many
deaths and many rebirths. It is the ongoing journey of opening our hearts, minds, and souls.
To me, this journey of awakening from our illusions is a profound form of Grace — a Grace that compels us to know, to seek truth, to understand that there is always another vista beyond what we are able to see today where more will be revealed. This is God/Goddess/Spirit working through us, this is the encouragement of our ancestors from the other side, and this is the mysterious and powerful workings of the forces of Love and Grace.
Before beginning this sacred journey of awakening from the illusions of my fragmented self, I was largely blind to any harm that I was complicit with and perpetuating upon myself, those I loved and cared about, and of the ripples that I sent out into the wider world. While the tenderness, strength, and beauty of my heart was not always obscured, my consistent and deep capacity for love — and for intimacy and honesty, empathy and compassion, joy and generosity, truth and wisdom, and for service work and dedication to a greater purpose — was largely stunted, weakened, and impaired.
There have been many, many layers within myself and within those around and beyond me that I was out of touch with. These past nearly 38 years have asked of me to let go of so much that I had held to be true, but which had in some way contributed to my heart staying closed off to the depths of my potential as a fully embodied and deeply loving human being.
* * * * *
My oldest son, Brian Murray, first told me this quote by Oliver Wendell Holmes approximately 20 years ago. Today I can deeply relate with its wisdom.
The truth that I have learned from my own journey is that there is no way to go from Point A to Point Z in our lifetimes without going through the messy middle. It is not possible to evolve or teleport into wisdom and clear seeing without turning towards, rather than away from, that which interrupts and challenges what we believe to be true. And going through the disruptions, the disillusionment, the humility and fear, the falling away of what we think of as "reality" in order to enter the birth canal of our greater awakening is no small feat. It truly does take a lot of courage to give up our attachment to the simplicity on this side of complexity. At least this has certainly been true for me.
Some examples from my own life:
- Believing (because of shame, denial, ignorance, and fear) that I did not know anyone who was alcoholic — until an intervention in my life pushed me to learn about addiction and ultimately come to understand that both my parents, my brother, most of my friends at that time, my former husband, and ultimately Me were all alcoholic.
- Believing that I had done all the healing work needed to be a healthy parent and break the cycle of trauma — until that reality was crushed when at young ages my own children developed symptoms of depression, shame, secrecy, anxiety, and/or addiction.
- Believing that my marriage to my sons' father was fine, thank you very much — until after 31 years I had gradually come to a place of realizing that I could no longer stay in the marriage and live an authentic life. The two were not compatible.
- Believing that I knew how to have healthy, stable relationships — until most of those relationships prior to recovery, and in the early years of sobriety, fell apart.
- Believing that voting democrat was all that I needed to do as my civic American duty — until 9-11 happened, which then led me down a long path of discovering the shadow side of our nation, including the deep corruption within both major political parties and our government.
- Believing that all liberal (but corporate funded) media told the truth and all the facts of what I needed to know — until I began to listen to independent media and other resources of information which cut right through the veils of the fog of my ignorance and indoctrination.
- Believing in the wisdom of certain therapists, spiritual leaders, and other teachers — until the time came when I recognized that I had been misled, misinformed, and/or further traumatized by what I had been led to be true.
- Believing myself to not be racist — until I attended my first diversity training and have pursued a deeper understanding ever since of how to be antiracist.
- My heart is strengthened.
- My circle of caring is expanded.
- My tolerance for the many faces of violence is lessened.
- My experience of being a part of rather than a part from is more clear.
- My injured instincts are replaced with increased discernment.
- My limiting identify as ______ (fill in the blank with an alcoholic, an adult child of alcoholics, a trauma survivor, a New Ager, a democrat, a lover and unquestioning believer in corporate funded media, etc., etc.) is shifted and deepened into the greater wholeness of who I am and the evolving wisdom of grace-filled loving consciousness.
- My capacity to recognize lies and know truth is increased.
- My capacity to listen with the ears of my heart is expanded.
- My skills to intervene on myself and others and not buy into or contribute to that which harms grows.
- My ability to follow the money and not be unknowingly complicit with harmful policies, systems, ideologies, and beliefs which are at the root of suffering is strengthened.
- My consciousness of systemic racism and awareness of how to be antiracist is nurtured and deepened in an ongoing way.
- My capacity to love, to grieve, to experience gratitude and joy, and to be in the world with my eyes and hearts open is expanded.
- My capacity to recognize suffering within myself, those close to me, and within other people and beings AND to act to alleviate that suffering is strengthened.
Every morning a new arrival.
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Of particular importance are new stories about human nature. We need new narratives that give us a more complete and accurate picture of who we are and who we can be ― stories that show that our enormous capacities for consciousness, creativity and caring are integral to human evolution, that these capacities are what make us distinctively human.
―
- We are in the midst of a global pandemic with the United States experiencing more coronavirus cases and deaths than anywhere in the world.
- Unlike the rest of the developed world, our national healthcare system does not ensure healthcare as a human right and is instead rooted in profit and greed. It is justified and perpetuated despite the unfathomable suffering, bankruptcies, and deaths that it causes every year and are now compounded by the coronavirus.
- The violence, oppression, and inequity of systemic racism has continued for 400 years in our nation.
- Funding endless wars and worldwide militarism takes precedence over funding and ensuring the basic needs of our citizenry, our infrastructure, our educational systems, social services, and more..
- Corporations are declared to have the same rights as people and over the last 40 years corporate power has infiltrated all aspects of our government, our major political parties and policies, our media and educational systems, our prisons and criminal injustice systems, economic and environmental policies and laws, and on and on.
- Nealy half of Americans live at or below the poverty line while the wealth of the .1% has continued to grow exponentially.
- A high percentage of Americans believe that any economic system other than capitalism is dangerous and bad.
- The demonetization of the "radical left" ― which seeks to ensure healthcare as a human right, address the climate crisis through dramatic systemic changes and transitioning onto renewables, transforming our economic system to one which is equitable for all, this and more ― is normalized.
- In our nation and worldwide, and year after year, there are record breaking wildfires, floods and droughts, hurricanes and tornadoes and typhoons, deadly heatwaves and devastating winter storms, rising seas and melting glaciers, species die offs and crop failures, starvation and millions of climate refugees, and on and on.
- Despite the well documented dire warnings from 97% of the world's climate scientists, the dark money connected to the fossil fuel industry and Wall Street continues to propagate "debate" about the human caused climate emergency.
- Most American have no idea how to follow the money or how to discern the level of integrity related to the resources from which they receive their information.
- We are a dangerously polarized, propagandized, and misinformed populace.
- Imperialism
- Colonialism
- Neoliberalism
- Capitalism
- Racism
- Fascism
- Nationalism
- Militarism
- Misogyny
- Patriarchy
- White Supremacy
I believe these to be the essential questions of our times and all time. May we choose wisely. May we choose beauty, kindness, truth, and love. This is my deepest prayer.
Bless us all,
Molly
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