In a world where we are told to “Just Do It” and where success is measured by how far we can go, how fast we can move, how big we can create and how much we can do, we humans are challenged when it comes to recognizing our own suffering and the suffering of others.  Without this personal and then transpersonal acknowledgement, we lack the empathy required to connect with the deepest parts of ourselves, with others and all living things, including our wonderful planet.

Joanna Macy, Buddhist practitioner, author and eco-activist speaks of embracing suffering (ourselves and others) from a place of compassion in Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age.  She wisely states that "feeling our own despair and fear [is] the key to loving, to hoping, and to acting.  But this ability runs against the dominant [global] preoccupation with  success in which all pain is viewed as dysfunctional."

I would extend this philosophy to many New Age dictums about how we should perceive our lives and describe our experiences, shying away from expressions of anger, grief, ennui and only allowing ourselves to feel and express joy, love and passion.  Although these are, without a doubt, powerful experiences of being, denying the totality of our human experience prevents us from fully acknowledging and accepting responsibility for the impact of our thoughts, words and deeds on everyone and everything that co-exists in the web of life.

In reflecting on her experience of her culture, Joanna continues.  “We lack the mirrors that tell us the truth about our lives [in the shadow of a] sanguine confidence in the future that is the hallmark of the American character and a source of national pride.”  If we dare to “[admit] that we know fear and pain, [it] can appear to be a failure of maintaining stamina and even competence” and more frighteningly in the global psyche, an admission of vulnerability which is perceived as a weakness that deserves to be preyed upon.

The many years that I spent denying the truth of what I was feeling did me more harm than good.  And without awareness of my actual experience, I could not recognize what the people and world around me was trying to mirror to me.  I could not, like the mythical undead, see myself in the mirror…and so a life of passionate fulfillment was not available to me…nor was authentic connection with other living things.

The refusal to acknowledge pain and suffering as our own and as impacting all other living things is akin to refusing to look at the little man behind the curtain or to being able to see that the emperor truly has no clothes.  This lack of vision and awareness then allows suffering to continue in the world as we distract ourselves with technology and with doing more and having more.

It takes almost super-human courage (at least it felt that way to me at first) to be willing to acknowledge our own suffering because at the moment we agree to do so, we open Pandora’s box and we begin to actually feel our pain.  What most people forget is that at the bottom of the box was Hope…and without Hope, we risk being trapped in the hamster wheel of fear and despair.  When we allow Hope to co-exist with our pain, we give ourselves the energy (even if it’s only the size of a ‘mustard seed’) and willingness to move through our suffering and onto self-actualization.

I close with another quote from Rita Nakashima Brock in her article “On Mirrors, Mists, and Murmurs” from the anthology Weaving the Visions: New Patterns in Feminist Spirituality by Judith Plaskow and Carol P. Christ.

“To allow ourselves to suffer means risking feeling stupid, guilty, unpatriotic, doubtful, powerless, panicky, too emotional, or a failure.  We can be accused of provoking disaster or causing others distress, but to deny our own suffering and the suffering of others leads us, according to Macy, to live an alienated double life haunted by self-doubt, to hedonistic or compulsive displacement activity, to passivity, to the psychological projection of our pain, to destructive behaviours, to burnout, to intellectual apathy and to the ability to receive painful information…often immobilized by the fear of moving through that pain.  But to be healed [and to support others in their healing] we must be willing to suffer.”

My biggest fear when I began to travel down this path of awareness and ultimate integration was that my suffering would become my primary default setting and that I would never enjoy life again.  Ironically, I wasn’t really enjoying life and embracing my capacity for and experience of suffering brought incredible colour and depth to my life, making it more real than it had been since I was a little child.  In fact children are the greatest teachers in this regard...they can move through suffering to joy within minutes and continue to live a life that is not weighed down by 'shoulds' or 

Perhaps the vibrant colours of the fall have inspired me to reflect on this journey and to share these thoughts with any who happen upon them.  Be that as it may, my prayer for me, for you and all living things is that we may become empowered to stand up for ourselves and each other as fully actualized beings and co-create a world in which, through partnership and mutual fulfillment, we can live lives that are fully and completely whole.

Blessed Be. 

Often, when my husband looks at me and says “You are beautiful”, my inner critic immediately places conditions on that observation by telling me that he is seeing me through the filter of his love for me.  Rarely do I feel validated because my deepest fear, cultivated by years of being exposed to cultural messages and familial fractures that tell me otherwise, is that I am not beautiful, physically or otherwise. 

I am nearing 50 years on this planet and it hasn’t been until the last couple of years that I have had the courage to ask myself in these situations “Who says?”  What gives any group that is in a position of power in a culture or society the right to define or create truths that must be internalized and accepted by everyone?  Whether it is a matter of spirituality, physical beauty or intellect, each individual has the right to determine what is true for them…and the right to declare truths that are life-affirming and self-loving.

Self-loving does not, and never did, mean believing that one person is better than another.  Self-loving thoughts, words and actions are those that express a deep acceptance of the entirety of who one is and a belief that one is a valuable human being, deserving of unconditional love.

Unconditional love allows us to be who we are; however, it does not condone thoughts, words or deeds that are harmful to others.  I.E., unconditional love acknowledges that each and every one of us has the right to be self-determining individuals and, by being so, that we also accept responsibility for our innate power and the things we think, speak and do…and making choices that are not harmful to ourselves or others.

This doesn’t mean that our choices will always be well received by others.  Sometimes what is right for one person is not right for another.  This delicate balance can be honoured if each of us understands that living a life that is true to us does not automatically give us the right to assume it is right for another nor to impose our truths on others.  This also doesn’t mean that what is true for us is not shared by others…this is how families, tribes, communities and cultures are created and can co-exist…when they have shared values and ethics.

And lastly (at least for the moment), although each individual, community, and culture has the right to live their truths, when their truths are harmful to others, then each and every one of us has the right to expose those harming beliefs, words and deeds for what they are - purposeful means of controlling or manipulating a vulnerable individual or group of individuals so that the dominant group can maintain its position of power.

On Feb 14th, women and men are being called to action in a global happening called “One Billion Rising”.  Through the expressive and compelling act of dancing and authentic and heart-felt movement, all of us are being given an opportunity to ask “Who says that violence against any vulnerable being is okay?”  We’re being called to express that violence against any vulnerable being (women, children, animals, the planet) is not only NOT OKAY but that it will NO LONGER BE TOLERATED.   We are being called to take a stand, rise up, and speak our truth. 

In a world that for thousands of years has socialized us to believe that violence is ‘normal’ and that it is the default setting for humans, this will be received in a variety of ways:  agreement, denial, or resistance.  We are being called to point to the elephant in the room or reveal the man behind the curtain and say NO MORE.  Let us join our voices, our bodies, our souls to create a reality and a world where all beings have the right to be safe, respected and unconditionally loved…where violence against vulnerable beings is an aberration and not the culturally, socialized norm.   

You can locate a One Billion Rising event in your locale by visiting the following website:  www.onebillionrising.org and dance like you’ve never danced before!