Meeting the Election Results With Your Heart
What has your mind been doing with the election? Some of you may be feeling good, and some may be feeling dismayed. If you are feeling good, is it because you think you “got what you wanted” and that will guarantee that you aren’t going to get what you don’t want? How would you have felt if it had gone the other way? And if you are feeling dismayed, is your mind filled with fear about what may happen as a result of Trump’s policies being implemented?
Take a moment and ask yourself, “Do these thoughts and feelings open my heart? Do they bring more spaciousness, kindness and trust?” Or do they bring reaction, judgment, fear and reinforce the ‘us and them’ point of view. There is another way to relate to the huge rift in our country that this election has amplified. There is a way that helps us to see this, not as a breakdown, but as a breakthrough time. There is a way of relating to all of this that allows each one of us to become a part of the healing that always available in chaos.
This new way comes from the understanding that whenever we are in a time of accelerated growth, there is always chaos as the old way is letting go and a new way is showing up. Think of the American and French revolutions and you will know what I mean. Out of chaos came a representative form of government! There is a wonderful quote by Cynthia Occelli that speaks to the healing that can come from times like this: “For a seed to achieve its greatest expression, it must come completely undone. The shell cracks, its insides come out and everything changes. To someone who doesn’t understand growth, it would look like complete destruction.”
Whatever your political beliefs may be, this is an opportunity for accelerated growth. The seed of our collective heart is being cracked open. It is messy, it is scary, and yet think of the potentiality of a seed. Think of the potentiality of humanity as more and more of us live from our aware hearts rather than our reactionary minds.
There are many protests and expressions of reactivity now and they speak to how deeply people are feeling. But all lasting healing comes from our hearts. The healing we long for comes from the understanding that there is no ‘them and us’. We are all in this together and each one of us is doing the best that we know how with the conditioning we have taken on.
To be against anything simply perpetuates the game of liking/disliking, right/wrong that humanity has been caught in since we lived in caves. What I am offering you is that the healing you long for comes from meeting all of this with your heart. That is the place where our divided country can be healed. In fact, that is what all of this chaos is asking of you – to allow your heart to be your guide, for your heart is not against anything. It has room for everything. Your natural state is the aware heart! All you need to do to live from your heart is to bring kindness, compassion, and curiosity to judgment, fear, and grief as they show up inside of you. Clearing the clouds from your mind, you will naturally meet life with your heart.
What does this look like? It is the shift from ‘I am afraid or angry’ to ‘there is something inside of me that is feeling fear or anger right now’. Can you feel the difference? In the first you are identified with your conditioned, reactive, separate mind. In the second you are relating to what you are experiencing. In that place, there is the possibility of bringing spaciousness to everything inside of you that is reacting and contracting. And in that spaciousness, your heart can be heard.
So be willing to become aware of your stories around the election. And for a moment here and a moment there, rather than buying into the stories that tighten you and create more reaction, be willing to pause and check-in to see what story you are believing at that moment. Then touch it with compassion, with understanding, with the willingness to not go to get lost in your mind.
I have mapped the pathway from our mind to our heart in my radio show. If this interests you, follow and start with the previous show button. Also, it is fully laid out in my book, What’s in the Way IS the Way.
Our world needs your aware heart. It needs your willingness to heal your reactionary mind so that you can live from your heart and become a part of the healing that is possible right now.
Thank you for this post. My heart needs to hear this message today.
Thankyou Mary, you are a lovely shining Star through all darkness. Thankyou for your strong loving believe in our selves, that we all deep inside have a passionatet heart. But we all need to hear that, so that we remember, we are all alike.
I appreciate your comment. It is important to understand that ‘it’s all good’ is a foundational place from which we can respond to life in the best possible way. It doesn’t mean that it is ok to stay in an abusive relationship or it is ok for a dog or person to be beaten. When we take action from the awareness that Life is in charge and we are expressions of its greater intelligence, then we can truly respond to the situation with compassion and integrity rather than reacting.
Maya Angelou’s words are wise when dealing with individuals, but we are talking about much more than how to be with one or several individuals. We are talking about how to be with all of the feelings this election has brought up in ourselves and in others that affect our actions.
When people seem to be no longer held accountable for what they say or do, and seem to have no moral compass, it shows us that maybe, we EACH need to dig deep and be more vigilant about what we say or do…each living our best version of ourselves…and showing up that way in the world. It is not about being okay with being fooled–but about being very, very brave, and about being fiercely compassionate and kind while living your truth.
Yes!
congruence and alignment of head and heart and speech and thought and actions by commission and omission–and a compassionate openness, honesty and curiosity to discover more and stretch wider…
A pimple must rupture before it can heal. Our system of “representative” government is truly corrupted or broken. Just because a problem exists is no reason to solve it. Jesus taught that you cannot sew a new patch on an old garment and you cannot put new wine in an old skin. There are always alternative paths to our heart-felt objectives. What we must now do is find one or more of those paths in which no problems or few and smaller problems exist.
The current chaos in our political system is truly a blessing albeit in a form we didn’t expect and don’t seem to want. It is the pimple upon our society’s skin that needs to rupture, The corruption within it needs to be exposed to the air so the inner tissues can heal. We must be wise enough to objectively view this local, national and global eruption for what it really is — the answer to getting things re-arranged so that we all (yes, ALL) benefit as in “Peace on Earth.” We must release our attachments to “being right” and “winning” and move our consciousness out there somewhere in space to gain a Cosmic Perspective that allows us to see things as they really are.
There has historically been conflict between good and evil. Why? The Quran, the Torah and the Bible are three scriptural books all telling the story of the Garden of Eden. In that story there were two trees: the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the Tree of life. Much attention has been placed on the good vs evil tree and very little on the tree of life (check your Bible). Therefore, most of the world’s population has been colored by the competition and conflict involved between good and evil. It seems most people feel a need to fight evil in order to demonstrate how good they are (43rd President). How foolish! It also seems that people need to “demonize” something or someone else in order to engage in such a fight. Our world is constantly engaged in some level of warfare or false warfare as in competitive sports. To compete to win you must make another or many others lose. Such thinking is far from the sense of the Tree of Life and Oneness that is innately housed within every human soul.
So — let’s avoid the problem of who is right and get busy generating a sense of Oneness in our individual environments. Get creative and do something that lifts someone who is suffering. All suffer who feel unequal. Our efforts to contribute to an expanding environment of Oneness can range from always smiling (Gwen Ifill) to building a massive movement (Bernie Sanders and Our Revolution). Why would anyone do such things? It is because of the psychic income they receive — that inner feeling of satisfaction because you know you did something that helped another aspect of your SELF. Yes, we are all ONE and each of our lives, when lived fully, is just one big Help-Your-SELF program — and that feels really good and you didn’t have to fight anyone to experience it — and the world becomes what every politician promises and eventually finds they cannot deliver. Jesus came to switch the emphasis from the Tree of the knowledge of good and evil to the Tree of LIFE! Re-examine each of His teachings and see if that is not the essence of what He taught (even though this statement was omitted from the Bible). Jesus was truly the “Prince of Peace” and Love and Oneness and Inclusiveness and Compassionate Grace and Charity. (ideas from my upcoming book, “How Cosmic Spirituality can Reboot Current Christianity”)
Thank you, Joe for sharing your thoughts. We truly are all one, and what we think, say and do affects the whole.
Thank you for your words of wisdom.