When I decided to do the Virtual Retreat: Finding Calm, Confidence and Contentment No Matter What, I knew I wanted it to happen soon for two reasons:
Because so many of us are in need of help dealing with uncertainty, fear, worry, even terror like:
• Yesterday a friend announces, “Either we’re moving across the country or he loses his job. We find out this week.”
• An Israeli woman comments on this blog yesterday about feeling guilty for seeking inner calm when Hamas are using children for human shields less than 10 miles away.
• A client waits for a diagnosis.
• My boyfriend wonders if his job of ten years for a global non-profit is disappearing—and with it, his irreplaceable environmental work.
And
Because we humans, we don’t always love change.
You may hate it, at least some aspects of it. You may want to scream, “Give me my comfort zone back!” (And some good chocolate and a blanket to hide under while you’re at it, thank you very much.)
But you also know that–and this one may wake you up at 3 am–that never before in the history of humanity have we needed to work together to save ourselves–and our children, and our common futures, like we do now.
You want, you may need, to be part of the goodness and possibility sweeping our world. Even in the midst of such turmoil, war, and suffering. It’s here.
No matter your politics, you want to be part of the hope that is building.
We can feel it, hope and purpose and decency returning, wanting us to work with its tide of wholeness, to let it carry us and to help carry it.
Michele Obama knows we want to be part of the change — how brilliant is it that the day before the Inauguration she’s asking us to be of service? See her invite here.
And often, we must prepare ourselves to be the change we wish to see.
We don’t stop doing service (wouldn’t it be cool if you offered a gift of service to someone and made doing that part of your Virtual Retreat!?!) or reaching out to others; we do this at the same time we till our souls, we listen to the fears that may be stopping us, we give ourselves gentle attention and rest, we attend to our deepest needs.
At the same time.
I adore this comment left a few days ago in response to my post How to Take Action when Fear is Paralyzing You by writer Joely Black because it speaks to how important tilling the soil is so we can get out of our way.
For the last two years or so, I’ve been completely stuck by a fear I can’t even feel. I know I’ve got blocks and limiting beliefs, so for two years, I just worked on the limiting beliefs I had around getting an agent and being a published author.
No matter what technique I used, the beliefs always came back. It was the fear underneath that kept re-instating them, so I wouldn’t actually look at the fear itself. That’s how scared I was – and still am.
This Christmas I went into a bookstore to get Yet Another Book On Dealing With Issues and stopped myself. “But I’m OK,” is what I kept thinking.
Since then, I’ve noticed the beliefs dropping away, and at last I can actually feel and deal with the fear I’ve been hiding from. I’ve started doing the work with somebody’s help to really get Amnar out there. It’s amazing how we get blocked in ways we can’t even see.
Let us join together to bring down the obstacles to wholeness and justice, outside and inside.
Let us be of service in ways that show each we are not alone, never have been, never will be.
Let us gather our beauty together and shine it out into the world, shot through with courage and pockmarked with imperfection.
Let’s us.
So whether you intend to join us at the Virtual Retreat, what will you do, externally and internally, to prepare the way for change? To be the change you want to see? (and if you need to start under the covers, that is so perfectly fine – I may meet you there!)
Related posts:
2 responses so far ↓
1 Joely Black (@TheCharmQuark on Twitter) Jan 13, 2009
Wow and wow again. I wish I could be at the retreat but I can’t, unfortunately.
I think the fear of change itself is often what holds us back – personally and in the wider world. Sometimes we prefer the bed of nails because at least we know the nails, we’re familiar with the nails. What if we’re not worthy of the nice mattress over there?
I’m still learning how to get out of my own way. But it’s a process that has inspired my fiction, something I never expected but that has proved invaluable.
2 Timmy Jan 14, 2009
Wow Jen, inspiring to say the least. I feel the exact same way(ironically, I wrote a very similar post a few hours ago. In fact, several of my posts have a similar theme.) Loving reciprocity is they key to the universe :]
However, I have to politely disagree with: “never before in the history of humanity have we needed to work together to save ourselves.” We have always needed to come together. In fact, this country in particular has NEEDED all sorts of change for many, many decades. It seems we have reach a culmination point, though. Now is when we’re starting to see the change, and feel the hope. We have actually needed it for quite some time. By change I mean big change. it is safe to say that we ALWAYS need change. i think I have a post about that too.
(I’m not just trying to market my blog here. These post really do relate, big time.)
I’m not attempting to downplay the importance of change. Like I said, I totally agree with you on this service thing. But that list at the top of the post, people have always been going through things like that. Thankfully, people are starting to notice that we can’t all live alone.
Blood has never stopped spilling from masses; in fact, many conflicts going on around the world are not even covered by American television and newspapers. Unfortunately, it is usually because the U.S. is involved and is being exploitative.
And I think it is safe to say that people in situations like your boyfriend and the friend possibly having to move have drastically increased in the last few decades. Those situations are direct results of our greed-driven, capitalistic society.
My point is, we have always needed what we finally may be getting. If we look at this period in time like an anomaly, then once we think we have everything fixed, it will all slowly unravel again.
I should better say, “Constant progressive change through loving reciprocity is the key to the universe.”
:]
I like your posts very much.