An honest look at where we are

Artwork by Bettina Norton

Real change is about thinking of ourselves less…

It took me many years to understand that “the path,” the one of Self realization and spirituality can make you more self obsessed, more obsessed with self actualization, than is necessarily good for you.

Unless we learn to see others, and see ourselves in them, our work is incomplete. I’ve seen in this firsthand, in my own experience. How working in isolation only made me more isolated. And more selfish. It took me years to understand that my suffering was only made worse because I kept hacking away at myself like I was a project, shutting the world out until I felt complete.

It sounds obvious when you put it that way, but we aren’t taught that often enough. We are not taught that healing happens in relationship, in community, and that we rise by lifting others. We absorb the message that we rise by lifting ourselves — but when it comes to showing up for the ugly parts of our own experience and the harrowing parts of someone else’s, we’re quick to slap a bandaid on it and look away.

We must show up and be the witness of others’ suffering. The way we “do the work” in our own journey is ultimately meant to help us to be a part of that collective rising of consciousness. It doesn’t happen by denying our experience, but baring witness to our own suffering, and knowing how to give it enough space as not to engulf us. Once we learn to embrace ourselves with compassion, then we can really show up for others with a full heart, and not just a big mouth.

This isn’t just some spiritual mumbo jumbo where we “show up” to our yoga classes or retreats that we can happily share pictures of on social media. It goes wider and deeper than that.

In times of social justice, like what is happening to the people in Palestine right now, no one is obligated to speak up or show up. But social media and spiritual entrepreneurship have only highlighted the gaps in the wellness/spiritual/self help world. The world that claims to have the answers to it all has glaring holes in the solutions it proposes.

The neutrality, the lip service, the saving face, the maintaining of an image, an illusion. We seem to be far more interested in how we appear to others than we are in just taking the mask off and being our full selves.

This is not something we see only in times of tragedy like these, but generally speaking. It just shows itself more when there’s a seismic shock. The fluffy stuff is nice, perhaps, but it falls short. It feels like a smoke that clouds our vision. A mirage instead of the real source.

It’s a colonial thing, isn’t it? Suffer in silence, make sure you look pretty while you do it. Speak up but not clearly enough to be labeled controversial. This is what all of that seems to say: That it’s better not to be controversial, because if you are then you’re not truly spiritual. Where did that belief come from? Am I wrong?

It sometimes looks like seeming spiritual is more important than helping to dismantle the paradigms that have led humanity into this mess time and time again. All of this works quite well for women and how we’ve been indoctrinated: to be “good” and to silence ourselves to appease others, to maintain our appearance, to suppress anything that society deems to be ugly. We can express our grief but not our anger, our compassion but not our judgment. But I think it’s okay to be human, fully so, and to embody the fullness of our experience. Without doing that, then the work is only half-assed, and we will be unable to show up for others.

And here’s another thing: by making a concerted effort to show up for others, to witness them in their joy and their sorrow, we open avenues for healing within ourselves that we didn’t even realize were possible.

What’s the use of being spiritual if we do not acknowledge that we are having a human experience for a reason? It is no accident.

But our approach is a bit faulty. We’ve become so neurotic and concerned with “fixing” ourselves, with drinking the right green juice, understanding our birth chart, our human design chart, our past trauma, our healing and self actualization journey… We are so concerned about self actualizing, with treating ourselves like projects, but what is the use of that if we don’t look out the window?

When we see a plant that’s withering away, its roots must be watered. In the same way, we must get down to our own roots and tend to them. And to the root of our humanity.