We’ve all been experiencing a tidal wave of bad news for many months now; the ongoing pandemic with a death toll exceeding 115,000 in this country alone, a deeply fractured economy with massive unemployment (over 40 million people at last count), senseless racism, violence, murders, police brutality, and deceitful politics and policies — a seemingly endless list of horrific pain and suffering across the entire planet. Yes, this is where we are right now, and it is very painful — too painful to hear, too painful to watch, too painful to feel, too painful to hold, and just too painful to even go there. But go we must, because that is the only path that will heal us — individually and collectively.
However, before we proceed, let’s Ground ourselves in the Truth; namely, everything and everyone is interconnected and interdependent on everything and everyone else. We and Mother Earth exist within an interdependent Field of Being — completely interconnected on every level, whether we recognize it or not. More specifically, everything we are experiencing is an expression of Being Itself.
Being is without boundaries — It is Everywhere, Is Everything; and most importantly Is always Knowing Itself; including all of our unique and collective Pain.
We all know Pain; physical, emotional, and mental — intense, minor, transitory, persistent, or continuous — individual, group, collective, or cultural. There are as many varieties of Pain as there are Beings on this planet because all Pain is created by our Minds; uniquely and collectively. Pain is a projection of the Mind; and as we all know, a very powerful one — and it is ubiquitous to this Reality and This Life — totally unavoidable. We will certainly continue to experience pain — however, we must each examine our relationship to pain. Do we live our lives trying to avoid it at all costs, or do we work with our pain by Being in intimate, caring relationship? The only way to heal is by doing the latter, and we all know what happens if we don’t.
Each of us knows people (maybe ourselves) that continuously structure and arrange our lives to avoid pain — and it is a never ending cycle. Our actions to avoid our pain guarantees its continued existence and power over our lives. The only way to heal pain is to be in direct relationship with it — to attune ourselves to our physical, emotional, and mental wounds.
If we can hold pain in intimate and loving embrace, it will begin to metabolize and dissolve — no longer controlling our actions.
Of course, this is not an easy or quick path, but it is essential that we all journey together, because much of the pain we experience is not our own — it is the pain of others; the pain of the Field of Being. Since we are interconnected Beings on every level, we feel the pain of others — and often very deeply. The mistake we can make is to name that pain as “our own”. Now we have created a problem (my pain), that either needs to be healed or included with our Pain Identity which we consciously and unconsciously try to avoid.
When life’s experiences become “too painful to go there”, we create boundaries to make sure we never do.
Those unique boundaries in each of us become the Collective Pain of our society; and we are seeing this in full blown High Definition Right Now. The only solution is to heal ourselves One By One — until One by One becomes Everyone. How do we heal ourselves? — by working skillfully with our own Body-Mind.
We have approximately 34 Trillion cells within our bodies; and each one vibrating and pulsating with life. When we calm our Minds and feel our bodies, we are in direct relationship with the moment-by-moment vibratory sensation of Mother Earth herself. Moreover, our bodies are finely tuned antenna; both Receiving and Transmitting the moment-by-moment Gift of Being. Each of those 34 trillion cells is receiving and transmitting the Wholistic Information of Being Itself — and the unique and collective pain of others is certainly included. All we need to do is to recognize and intimately hold our collective pain on behalf of all Beings — with a clear Intention of Loving Kindness and Healing.
This is certainly something we can do. One obvious example of a Great Being illuminating the path within the Christian Tradition is Jesus himself. When we can hold the image of the crucifixion in our Hearts, we are directly experiencing the LOVE of a Being that was able to hold and heal the Pain of all Humanity. Jesus had no boundaries of experience which were too painful to hold and embrace. He was demonstrating for all of us that healing our Pain is the direct path to LIBERATION; and there are many examples of other Great Beings that have done the same. Let us all embark on this sacred work for ourselves and others.
If we can do this for each other every day, then One-by-One will surely become Everyone. This ongoing cycle of madness, driven by selfish separation and divisiveness, will surely cease.