Reflections On Transforming the Narratives of the Stories We Live By: Lead Me From Falsehood to Truth, From Hate to Love

"Look at what realists have done for us. They have led us to war and climate change, poverty on an unimaginable scale, and wholesale ecological destruction. Half of humanity goes to bed hungry because of all the realistic leaders in the world. I tell people who call me 'unrealistic' to show me what their realism has done. Realism is an outdated, overplayed and wholly exaggerated concept."

— Satish Kumar 

 

It has been my experience and my observation that we humans, at times and to varying degrees, all lose our way. It is indeed human to be vulnerable to being swept up and propelled in directions which lead us further and further away from our capacity to live with compassion, generosity, wisdom, and love. 

 

What I witness again and again is how the personal and collective stories that we live by, and whether or not we do so with conscious awareness, can either act to alleviate or to add to the suffering within ourselves and the world. And, as Pema Chödrön wisely states — whether or not our hearts are open has global implications. Because I increasingly understand these implications, both personally and as it relates to all my relations, I am on a continuous journey of exploring what it is that closes and what it is that opens our hearts.

Certainly one vital aspect of diminishing our ignorance and feeding our conscious awareness is looking deeply at the stories we hold and act out of. In today's time of deep division, a global pandemic and global warming, endless wars and violence, and planetary poverty and peril, the value has grown for me of going under the surface and doing deep dives into the roots of what has brought us to where we are today.

Too often we're not offered the questions which would point in the direction of looking beyond surface appearances and illusions into what lies beyond the familiar territory of our understanding. Whether we're listening to or watching FOX, Breitbart, and Rush Limbaugh or to MSNBC, CNN, and NPR/PBS, we often are not hearing questions and perspectives which truly inform, empower, unite, and invite us to go deeper. You may say that, oh!, but there are huge differences between these resources. And that is true. And, if we go deeper, we can see some commonalities.

Over the years, there are many questions which I find myself looking at again and again. I have been inspired to come upon these questions in part through my exploration of the American mainstream media and questioning the cultural stories we are commonly immersed in. Through contrasting independent and corporate funded resources of information — and a diversity of other resources which are grounded in integrity, truth, consciousness, and wisdom — I have gradually come to see more and more of how it is that we Americans have come to be so polarized and impoverished in our understanding of and caring for one another and our planet. The costs of this impoverishment have been and continue to be enormous.

Half the solution that I have long been discovering is first arriving at a growing and evolving understanding of the problem. Over the years, I've gradually come to recognize more and more of many faces and layers of the stories which give us narratives of separation rather than the wisdom and truth of our deep interrelatedness and the sacredness of life. These normalized cultural narratives dissuade us from going deeper and looking beyond the surface illusions which divide us and instead into the greater truths of what connects us as planetary beings. This tragic disconnect feeds our collective fragmentation and all the ways that we humans have lost our way. 

 

Those such as Satish Kumar invite us to make different choices and to question where the story of being "realistic" has led us. Courage and curiosity are qualities which can be helpful in propelling us to look beyond the status quo and dive deeper and deeper in our questioning of what is true and what best serves a higher good for us all. These are just some of the questions which I have been asking myself along the way and which you may also find illuminating if you, too, choose to ask them and follow the threads of where they lead...

• What has been the cost of adhering to a status quo narrative which promotes pragmatism, incrementalism, and being a "realist" as our only alternatives to chaos and the dreaded radicalism of deep systemic change?
• What has been the cost to our nation and the planet of our culture's attachment to its definition of what it is to be "radical"? In the normalized stories of our culture, is it considered radical to act out of reverence for life on Earth?
  
• What is the impact of the narratives which confine and define our differences as simply existing between alliances within two different political parties? What is the cost of perpetuating belief systems that our struggle is just one of democrats vs republicans, liberals vs conservatives, right vs left? What is the cost of failing to expose the facts of the shadow side within both major political parties? What would a humane and just political system look like that is grounded in integrity and acting on behalf of We the People and the planet rather than wealthy corporate donors?
  
• What is the cost of demonizing the word "socialism"? What is the impact of holding up capitalism as the only effective economic system? What is the cost of demonizing democratic socialism and failing to shed factual light on its actual meaning? What would a humane and just economic system look like?
  
• Why are most Americans unfamiliar with neoliberalism and its meaning? Why are we not informed about the vast redistribution of wealth upwards into fewer and fewer hands? Why is it that most of us are unaware of the price of neoliberal capitalism on our economy, our citizens, other nations, and the planet?
  
• What is the cost of disparaging the Green New Deal and failing to illuminate the poisonous power and influence of the fossil fuel industry? What is the cost of failing to inform the American people of the facts of our dangerously warming planet? What is the price that we are all paying — and most especially the poor in our country and around the world — for our failure over the past 30 years to develop renewable sources of energy, keep fossil fuels in the ground, and declare a national and planetary climate emergency? What is the cost to our children today and to those for the next seven generations of our failure to act to address the climate crisis? What would a national and planetary program look like which adequately addressed the climate emergency?
  
• What is the cost of demonizing Medicare for All? What is the cost of failing to ensure healthcare as a human right in America? What are the reasons why our nation is the only developed nation to not do so? What is the cost of failing to inform us about the power of the insurance and pharmaceutical industries and its direct ties to poverty and to thousands of bankruptcies and deaths every year? What is the cost of the American for-profit healthcare system to human beings now that we are in the midst of a global pandemic? What would a humane and moral healthcare system look like?
  
• What is the cost of demonizing the term "defund the police"? What is the cost of believing that systemic racism doesn't exist or that racism is the problem of someone other than ourselves? What is the impact — especially on Blacks and other people of color — of vastly prioritizing funding for a militarized police and the American for-profit prison systems over funding for vital social services for healthcare, education, housing, jobs, mental health, addiction treatment, etc.? What is the cost of promoting systems of punishment rather than systems of care? What are alternatives that would act out of consciousness of a higher good for all?
  
• What is the cost of the "war on terror"? What is the cost of funneling our primary funding into the Military Industrial Complex and of our nation's worldwide militarism? What is terrorism? Does war bring peace or is war terrorism? What perpetuates and fuels violence in our world and what lessens it? What is the truth about why our nation goes to war? Is it our soldiers stationed and fighting wars overseas who bring us peace, protection, and prosperity? Who are our nation's true heroes? What would be a different definition and cultural norm of hero/heroine look like that honors peacekeeping?
  
• What are the root causes of vast immigration? Who are asylum seekers? Why and what are they fleeing? Who are these people? What role has the American government played in contributing to the conditions in which they feel forced to flee their homelands? What have our immigration policies been and what has been their cost on human beings? What would humane and just immigration policies look like? 
• How has it come to be that America is comprised of 4.2% of the global population while using 25-30% of the world's natural resources? What is the cost to other nations, peoples, sentient beings, and the Earth of the American Empire? How would our nation and other nations be different if there were an equal redistribution of life-saving natural resources and basic services which protect life and protect the Earth?
  
• What is the impact of seeing Donald Trump as either our savior on the one end or as the root of all our problems on the other? What is the cost of failing to understand Trump as a symptom of something much larger than this one man and his administration? What would a government which authentically serves the needs of all its citizens and also — given our interrelationship with everything beyond our borders — serves the higher good of all look like?
  
• What is the cost of failing to teach the American citizenry how to follow the money? How would the stories held by American citizens be different if we were to understand how enormous wealthy corporate interests have infiltrated our government and our political, educational, media, criminal justice, healthcare, military, and other systems? How would our nation look different if we had a well informed citizenry and consistently heard stories which speak the truth and connect rather than divide?
  
• What is the impact of our separation from the Earth and all her inhabitants? How does this separation make us vulnerable to plundering the life support systems of our planet? How would we humans experience our lives and live our values if we were consistently offered stories of what it is to live in harmony and connection with the Earth and all her inhabitants? What are the obstacles to this harmony?
  
• What is our understanding of the sixth major extinction? What species are at risk and which are dying today? How would we be acting if we were informed about the great die offs, the causes of these extinctions, and its implications for the extinction of humans?
  
• What is the cost of normalizing, perpetuating, and justifying dehumanization — of democrats/republicans, immigrants and asylum seekers, those of different races and religions, those struggling for racial, social, economic, and environmental justice? What would our lives be like if the stories we consistently heard were those of healing and helping, caring and compassion, connection and courage, and the value of changes which inspire and nourish the evolution of our species?
  
• What is the cost of failing to consistently offer vital information, deeper truths, and compassionate and wise narratives which serve to dismantle walls of separation and instead unite? 
• How would our nation be different if our cultural stories were grounded in reverence for life? What would the stories we live by look like if they reflected our interrelationship with all beings, our capacity for generosity and justice and wisdom and love, and our higher human values of caring for and protecting one another, other beings, and the Earth? 
  

*****

"The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves 'inside the skin' of the other. We 'go inside' their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for ourselves their suffering. Shallow observation as an outsider is not enough to see their suffering. We must become one with the subject of our observation. When we are in contact with another's suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us. Compassion means, literally, 'to suffer with'."

 — Thích Nhất Hạnh

 

To one degree or another we humans are all walking contradictions. It's been my experience that the gap between our professed and our practiced values can be measured by the degree of our experiential consciousness and practice of empathy, compassion, and love.

 

There are countless examples, and I believe in all of our lives, which can shine illuminating and humbling light on the actual authenticity of what we believe to be true of ourselves. We can profess a strong identity with being "pro-life" or with not being racist while at the same time unknowingly supporting politicians and policies which are destroying life on the planet and which are perpetuating the relentless trauma, deaths, inequality, and suffering of racism. Those are just two examples out of a plethora of possibilities. 

 

So often we humans are oblivious to the ways that we are walking paradoxes. At least this has certainly been true for me. And I believe that this is also part of the human condition. This is why our human journeys invite us to keep going, to keep growing and evolving, to lift the veils of illusions in an ongoing way which have been obstacles to our healing and awakening and capacity to love. There is no graduation, no end point. The point is the journey of opening our hearts. And if we are alive and breathing, there is more that we can open to and be transformed by.

 

So how to extricate ourselves from our illusions? This is what I have been exploring for myself for some time now — and especially since I first discovered that not everything I experienced as reality was indeed grounded in truth. Learning to live in the space of not knowing was something I initially resisted, and especially as a trauma survivor who thought I had to have everything under control. But gradually I grew braver and my questioning grew deeper. For years I also had a bumper sticker up on my kitchen cupboard as a reminder: DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU THINK. Very helpful.

 

I also believe that there is no one path, easy way, or simplistic answer which empowers us to compassionately explore and gradually recognize in an ongoing way how we may be fragmented and disassociated and how it is that we can grow and deepen. It is also true that the personal is also connected with the collective. The divisions and separateness that we witness in our world are also a reflection of the internal disassociation we humans experience. To the degree that we have numbed, distracted, denied the pain in our own hearts is the same degree that we will be disconnected from the pain of our world. Practices which reconnect are essential.

 

Pema Chödrön wisely states, "We don’t set out to save the world; we set out to wonder how other people are doing and to reflect on how our actions affect other people’s hearts." However, we can only suffer with and put ourselves inside the skin of the other to the degree that we are first living and breathing within our own. Therefore, healing our own hearts also heals the heart of the world.

 

* * * * *

“I don't think whole populations are villainous, but Americans are just extraordinarily unaware of all kinds of things. If you live in the middle of that vast continent, with apparently everything your heart could wish for just because you were born there, then why worry? ...If people lose knowledge, sympathy and understanding of the natural world, they're going to mistreat it and will not ask their politicians to care for it.”

― David Attenborough

 

David Attenborough is tragically spot on. Too many of us are disconnected, focused on the Other of a different political party, and oblivious to the deeper reality of where we are and how we got here. Our separation from within ourselves and life on Earth threatens much more than our nation alone. Instead, our interconnection ensures that the suffering, destruction, and death of other humans, other species, and the Earth herself imperils us all. Our denial, distractions, minimization, projections, and partial truths will not protect us.

It is my belief that these times ask of us all to go to where we haven't been before. If we're alive and breathing, there is always another vista up ahead that will offer us a more expansive view than the one we are aware of today. This is not about what those Others need to do. This is the direction that I believe each and every one of us needs to courageously move towards. 

 

I say this with great humility and full accountability for all the ways that I have been asleep without any idea of how impaired my consciousness was. And what I have discovered again and again over the years is that to the degree that any of us are asleep and disconnected from the greater wholeness of our hearts and souls is the degree that we will inevitably cause harm to ourselves and others, including those we love. There's no blame or shame in saying this. It is just part of what it is to be human.

 

There are countless experiences which can break our hearts wide open and reconnect us with ourselves, each other, and our Earth Mother. Among them are documentaries which touch us so deeply that we are shaken awake to a new level of experiential awareness. These films I list below are among those which have deeply moved me and inspired, informed, and further motivated me to expand how it is that I contribute to the healing and wholeness our world yearns for.

• David Attenborough's A Life on Our Planet
• 13th
• The Social Dilemma
• This Changes Everything
• The United States of Conspiracy
• After Truth: Disinformation and the Cost of Fake News 

This is but a small glimpse into what has been helpful for me in peeling back the layers of what has harmed and held me back. And my experiences are but a mirror for how millions of us have been stunted in our understanding of each other and our connection with the natural world.

Whatever it is that informs us, consciously or otherwise, matters and matters deeply. The narratives that we absorb in our families, our communities, our culture can either feed our fears and illusions or they can be grounded in Grace, Truth, and Love.

 * * * * *

 

"Lead me from death to life, from falsehood to truth.
Lead me from despair to hope, from fear to trust.
Lead me from hate to love, from war to peace.
Let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe."

— Satish Kumar

For some time now I've joined with millions of others worldwide who are engaged in the great universal struggle for racial, social, economic, and environmental justice. I've been able to understand what is at stake with increasing clarity as I've opened my heart to an experiential knowing of both the suffering and the beauty of our world. For most of us, this is an ongoing process of coming to see each new obstacle to our loving and doing the deeper work of healing and transforming those impediments to our consciousness into greater awareness and love.

 

As I continue to open, heal, and evolve, I have come to understand that the lifting of the veils of human illusions and ignorance becomes possible as we courageously explore the roots of the stories that we humans live by. Where do they emerge from? Do they hurt or heal and awaken our hearts? How do these stories impact our planetary relatives, human and nonhuman alike? Do they feed our fears or our capacity to love? Do they emanate from our experiential interrelationship with life or from the illusion of separation? Are they grounded in what holds heart and meaning, or do they stunt and inhibit our human capacity to grow, to be conscious, and to act on behalf of a higher good? And do these narratives that we live by justify dehumanization and any of the many faces of violence, or do they nurture our capacity for empathy, compassion, and fierce love? 

 

The stories that we live by can serve to either open or close our hearts. They can be medicine for our hurting world or they can further poison it. Weaving consciousness into the stories which bring grounding and nourish and strengthen our hearts for the long-term is what I believe to be an essential spiritual practice. Reflective practice, compassion practice, mindfulness practice can lead us into the heart of our own wounds and those which plague our planet. They are not disconnected. If we are on a path which avoids embracing our pain, we will not be able to act out of conscious empathic awareness of the pain of others. And we will be stuck. 

 

Yet, there is always this choice to move towards the roar, as my longtime teacher Michael Meade frames it, or to go in the opposite direction away from the suffering within our world and — given our interbeing — the suffering that is also ours. And there can be no individual or collective healing for that which is rejected, pushed away, minimized or denied. Indeed, there is no spiritual tradition which embodies love without supporting us on our journeys to heal and awaken into fully embodied human beings. Our hearts are intimately connected with the heart of the world.

  

For me, personally, this has been an extraordinary spiritual journey from a young woman who was incredibly fragmented, fearful, and living with the story of separation to one where I experience our abiding interconnection. We are not separate. We are one, all related, all family, all in this together. This soulful heart path has been gifting me with the capacity to dismantle the many walls I've built against love. At times it's been frightening, overwhelming, and deeply painful. And today my sorrows are matched with joy. And rather than devolving into greater separation — and fear and fragmentation, rigidity and judgment, delusions and denied grief — my greatest experiences today are rooted in gratitude, compassion, connection, and love.

 

And I can feel! I can feel the heartbreaks and the joy of my life and those of others, both near and far. And I care. Deeply. About the well-being of us all. My focus has shifted and been radically transformed from me to we. What an extraordinary experience to awaken to! We are all family!

This is the spiritual journey that I have discovered from falsehood to truth, from hate to love, from disassociation to wholeness, and from inner and outer wars to peace. Yes, let peace fill our heart, our world, our universe.

Heartfelt blessings,

Molly