Are You On the Transition Team?: Part 2


As many of you know, I inadvertently published my previous blog post before it was complete. If you are just joining this blog, click here to check out Part 1.

Here’s how Part 1 left off:

If we cannot know what a better world will look like, and if we cannot fix what’s broken, and if we cannot judge what is happening or right what is wrong necessarily, what, then, is the Transition Team to DO in the world that can make a difference? And, if hospicing and midwifing are the transformational practices that can help us to evolve, how do we progress? How do we apply these tools? And, with what aim in mind?

A Both/And Perspective in an Either/Or World

Before I dive too deeply into what’s next, let me just remind you that I am suggesting that hospicing that which needs to be released, and midwifing that which needs to be birthed, is a transformational polarity. And since most of us really want to DO something about what’s happening in the world, our actions must be within the context of 2nd Tier imperatives. This means that our work is to primarily align our thinking, our intentionality, and “how we are being with what we are having” with a holistic and transpersonal context that sees beyond appearances into the heart and soul of human evolution. In addition, 2nd Tier imperatives help us to move away from “either/or” characterizations and move toward a “both/and” perspective in order for the desired and undesired to co-exist. This welcoming of seeming opposite and contradictory perspectives is necessary for the deeper work of integration, reconciliation, and awakening.

There are two arenas in which our DOING has relevance and impact, and also informs how we work with the transformational polarity – hospicing what needs to be released and midwifing what needs to actualized or brought forth. The first arena focuses upon our inner world. This includes aspects of ourselves in need of hospicing and midwifing with respect to our internal processes: how our thoughts, beliefs, perceptions, meaning-making, and states of being (how we show up with what we are having) may move transition work forward or impede it. The second arena deals with our outer experience and most specifically with respect to aiding in the evolution of consciousness. Stay tuned for more
information about the second arena in upcoming blogs.

In order to fully appreciate the importance of presencing the dynamic of our inner world and the need to address this arena first becomes apparent in the context of our third Unity principle – we create our personal reality through our thoughts, beliefs, and states of being. Each of us, as individuals, contributes to the collective consciousness underlying the current outer landscape. The outer world is an effect of mind. Duality is the dominant context for most of humanity. If we, as Transition Team members, engage the issues of the world with the same mind that feeds the current reality, our efforts will be ineffectual or unsustainable. Consequently, the aim of transition work in the first arena becomes evolving ourselves into people who no longer feed the beast we are ostensibly trying to vanquish.

Consider this: Is your attention and awareness (and therefore your meaning-making) under your own dominion or is it informed by external circumstances, limiting beliefs, or unconscious life patterns? We need to remember that we co-create our own personal reality and that the issues and circumstances that trigger us (such as what is currently going on in politics) are mirroring something within, that we need to own and ultimately address. Although we believe our discomfort over whatever is bothering us is linked to outer events and circumstances, in truth it is arising from within us. It is only possible to feel diminished or otherwise triggered when there is an incongruence between who we truly are in our heart of hearts and who we are being in the moment that gives rise to the uncomfortable feeling.  In 2nd Tier consciousness, we understand the relationship between how we are having our life and who we are being in the moment, and we seek to resolve this issue before trying to reconcile the outer injustice or problem.

Until we understand that our power to transform our outer experience is dependent upon our emotional and spiritual maturity, it is easy to work the problem from the outside in, rather than from the inside out. Just saying.

Give Yourself What You Need

So before taking any outer action to try to transform an outer situation, first the action needs to be addressing the inner issue. Simply put, the midwifery aspect of transforming our inner world is a matter of giving to ourselves what the outer world is not capable of providing. Just as our feelings of discomfort can lead us to discovering an unconscious limiting belief that is running us, these same experiences can also point to an unmet need that we have otherwise sought to fulfill outside of ourselves.

Five Core Needs

Here are five needs that every human being has that when unmet, can create incoherence and suffering in the field of human engagement: A sense of abundance; a feeling of safety or security; an experience of love and connection; a sense of innate value and worth; and feeling empowered. These are five core needs that those of us choosing to join the Transition Team must first demonstrate in our personal lives in relationship to whatever experience we are having.

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Whatever action we take should be aimed at addressing the need that was unmet during our triggering moment. The reason we can address the need is because within us we have the antidote – whether it is a sense of abundance, worthiness, self-love, empowerment or safety – that resource already exists within us as potential. We actualize it by thinking of people, places and/or memories that can bring forth the feeling of abundance, safety, connection, worthiness or empowerment. Then we let the feeling arise and take action from that feeling.

If my need in a triggering moment is safety, for instance, what I can do is to make a list of all the people, events, places that have given me a sense of safety and then imagine being there, feeling the safety and asking what actions I take when I am feeling safe. Maybe it’s my grandmother’s house as a child and the action can be to bake the cookies we used to bake back then together. We want to bring forth the felt sense of this memory as we take any action in the outer. Only after the sense of safety is restored do we take action toward the outer circumstance.

Here is a story from Rev. Dr. Jane that illustrates this process beautifully:

Every morning I was waking up around 3 a.m. or earlier, and I would immediately start worrying about the day before and all of the things I should or shouldn’t have said or done. And then I’d fret about what I didn’t get done and still had to do, feeling stressed out because of not enough time. I would be filled with anxiety almost immediately upon waking up. I found my mind going over every nuance of the day before and stewing about the mistakes I had surely made. Then I would feel like I was in trouble of some kind. It didn’t matter if the day before had been stellar – these worries, criticisms and put downs would be waiting for me as soon as I woke up. The more I tried to push them away, the tighter my resistance tied me to them. I started thinking of them as gremlins living under the bed that I had fed after midnight. The gremlins were stealing my joy.

The way I kept trying to fix it was by getting out of bed and getting online or reading as a way of distracting myself. Until one day, I decided I needed to take a different action.

As I considered what was missing for me, I realized it was a sense of safety and security and it was linked to the past. I was transported back to early school years and could feel the insecurity rising up. Then in my mind, I went back in time, so to speak, to my younger self and showed up as her future self. I held her in my heart and imagined wrapping my arms around my 7-year-old self and I started telling her how it was all going to turn out for her. I told her that it was going to get so much better, that she was safe and secure – that I would be with her throughout all of her years. I showered her with compassion, telling her that she was deeply loved. I told her to keep on with her creative writing – and that she was going to become a speaker. And her surprise and delight was palpable. I felt relief and some real integration take place and I realized I was giving myself what I needed as a child.

Then I considered how I might meet that need with those nocturnal visits from the gremlins. I made a list of all of the events, people and places that brought forth a feeling of safety for me and I immersed myself in the memories of them until I felt safe and secure. Blanketing by that feeling of safety, I asked my heart what my action should be. As I stayed still and listened, the answer became obvious – I should invite in those gremlins with compassion. Instead of trying to push them away, I decided to make friends with them and welcome them in.

I suddenly remembered a beautiful poem by Rumi called The Guest House and I was inspired to go and read it. One of the more poignant lines in it reads:

“The dark thought, the shame, the malice. Meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.”

So, every day when I woke up, I sat with the feelings of anxiety and I welcomed them in. Like a friend. I let them come up, met them with love and compassion, and in the safety of that melting pot, they subsided. And that became my joyous action every morning – welcome whatever is showing up. That turned out to be the wizard’s wand that changed everything.  My early morning internal state shifted to being very peaceful, calm and friendly. The anxiety dissipated.

I did it with a feeling of playfulness. I moved myself to the viewpoint of a playful person and felt the playfulness rise up as I welcomed in the feelings. Almost like a child opening the door to friends and saying let’s play.

By going back in time in my mind and heart, and assuring my younger self that I would be there for her, I had showered her with the safety she needed. And it translated into being able to open the door of my heart in welcome to current issues.

Instead of my mind using its creativity to think up worries and problems for me, now it became an ally. The gremlins became supporters. When I welcomed them in, they stopped running wild in my psyche and began to provide me with all kinds of wonderful, creative ideas, but without the judgment and fear that had previously accompanied them. Now, they were infused with playfulness, inspiration and creativity.

I discovered something else – when I showered myself with compassion and made my internal space a safe and welcoming one, I became a safer person for others. They could feel the compassion and the safety and could share their hearts with me knowing it was safe to do so. In effect, I began giving the world what I had needed. A tiny little shift with powerful effects.

The Abundant Life

If this is all making sense to you, I hope that you can also sense the transformative power that arises as you discover how to meet these core needs. It could be said that the capacity of meeting these core needs is what constitutes The Abundant Life that Jesus proclaimed was our Divine inheritance. Now here’s the secret sauce: once you discover that you can meet any of these needs, you can’t help but want to teach others how to do so for themselves.

Can you see how all of this translates into something quite different going on in your life? Can you also see how essential this capacity to fulfill your own needs is for everyone on the planet to possess? Think about what might be possible, in your own personal life, in the lives of those you touch and beyond.

To learn more about how to do this process, go to www.theqeffect.com.

Love and Blessings, Gary

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