My partner Jonathan just returned from a week at The New Story Summit at the Findhorn community in Scotland. Teachers, shamans, artists, writers, visionaries, leaders and healers from all over the world gathered there, to see if they could plant the seeds of a new story for our planet. They had a very intense time together, those four hundred and fifty people.
What Jonathan encountered was something that felt to him like hitting a collective wall. It was the stark realization that we can’t get there from here. We can’t open to a new story, a new way of being together, until we really penetrate the depths of the old story. We can’t lean into the field of possibility and listen to what is waiting for us, until we let go of what we think we know here, inside the old story. And what we’ve known mostly, is the story of separation, of isolation, of ‘I’m all alone in a dangerous world.’ Facing this in Findhorn was not easy. In the beginning there was an immense amount of grief and despair in the collective field.
To wake up from this old story asks a great deal of us. And we are all, whether we know it or not, under this evolutionary pressure right now. A woman I have been working with spoke to me this week about her desire for ‘expanding love.’ When I asked her how she felt that expansion of love might actually happen in her life, she spoke to me from a place of tenderness, honesty and clarity. “I need to know myself better,” she said. “There are things going on inside me that I don’t understand, there are shadows operating in my life.” As she said those words, I heard her speaking for all of us.
We sat together and looked at a whole new story that is emerging in her life—the revelation of the feelings she has been avoiding, and the necessity of turning toward them, of learning to say yes, of learning to embrace what she has been negating and denying all of her life.
“I’m so curious, “ I said to her, “of how you will actually do this. What kind of motivation will allow you to transform this no? How will you become ready to say a real yes? You can talk about it, you can consider it, you can listen to teachings about it. That’s all part of the old story. But to be vulnerable enough, open enough, present enough, grounded in your body enough, so that you can really start to feel what you have been avoiding–you are not there yet.” As I said those words, I heard myself speaking for all of us.
Most of us in our North American culture lead lives profoundly disconnected from the body and from the world of feeling and emotion. This is true in many other cultures on our planet as well. So we are constantly re-enforcing this notion, on many overt and subtle levels, that feelings are dangerous, that we must control, manage and avoid them. We assume, without really questioning this belief, that something is wrong with these feelings. We end up living with these feelings locked into our bodies, and spinning around in our minds, in the form of beliefs and stories. When we meet a difficulty or an obstruction, when we are triggered, the feelings erupt, they try to flow and move in us. And because we don’t know how to meet these feelings, we become reactive, defensive, hostile, overwhelmed.
I don’t think we will be able to say a real yes to the intensity of our real feelings until we hit our own wall. Until we can actually face the fact that continuing to say ‘no’ to the truth of our own experience is unsustainable. What does unsustainable mean? It means unworkable. It means that things are falling apart. It means that this old story is slamming us into a wall.
Until we have the courage and presence and humility and honesty to face right into this old story, we’ll just keep on doing what we we’ve been doing for thousands of years–saying no to what we are feeling. Unfortunately, this seems to be how we are wired. We’ll do what we think we can get away with, until we find out that we can’t.
Much of what we are still doing looks good, on the surface. We don’t realize how much of it is about abandoning ourselves, running from the tenderness, the awkwardness, the profoundly vulnerable places inside us. A lot of our personal development work and spiritual practice, a lot of the ways we are trying to help others, trying to change the world, is the same old dance in disguise. It’s not really the new story at all. We are still looking for something that will lift us up and away from the intensity of our own experience. Human beings will do almost anything to avoid these difficult feelings. We don’t really know how to embrace what we experience yet. We don’t know how to stand in the ‘witness position’ in relation to our feelings, without dissociating from them. I know this because I said no for so long myself. And still I do it sometimes; but I’m moving in another direction- in the direction of yes.
When I am disconnected from myself, from the depth of who I am, I can’t connect with you, and I can’t connect with the loving intelligence of life. I am jammed inside my survival system, trying to get it right, trying to make it through life alone, trying to be strong, always believing there is a problem.
The hero’s journey isn’t what we need right now. We need to get together; we need to see each other, listen to each other, and join our intelligence and love together, on a very deep level. We’ve been part of a great experiment, and the evidence is in. The way of isolation, of separation, of turning away from our experience, of vacating our bodies-this way is going to take us down, sooner rather than later.
Dear readers, I’d love to hear from you. In fact, I’m going to invite you, right here and now, to step out of the old story and into the new one. In the old story, you read whatever is in this Lifeletter, and that’s it. You might think about it, be inspired by it, moved by it. But you don’t step into the larger field with it. You don’t share your voice, your insights, your struggles, your longing. This way, we all lose out. Because we’re all in this together. Knowing this, feeling this, living from the truth of this is the new story.
I need to hear from you. We need to hear from you. These Lifeletters are not lectures. They are a call and response. Everyone matters in the new story. Your life matters. This moment matters. I want to hear about where you are, what you are discovering about the old story and your part in it. I want to know what you feel is possible. What signs have you seen and felt of the new story? I want to know what inspires you, what you have learned, how you work with anger, grief, fear and despair. I want to know if you are ready for a yes, an embrace, a love that could change everything.
And how we are all
preparing for that
abrupt waking,
and that calling,
and that moment
we have to say yes,
except it will
not come so grandly,
so Biblically,
but more subtly
and intimately in the face
of the one you know
you have to love
-David Whyte
with love,
Shayla
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beautiful, a lot to consider.
Thank You Shayla. This lifeletter resonates strongly with me this morning. “Jammed inside our own survival system” in particular.
I feel very tired of fighting to create happiness in my life and the lives of those who surround me. I’m pretty sure fighting is not what ‘s needed anymore. But I dont know how to change. Being responsible for the creation of my life and accepting what is, is such a fine balance to achieve.
Anne
Take the first easy step.
Dear Shayla,
I can relate so much with this Lifeletter. I feel such a big yes and a big surge of motivation and energy (menopause surge!) to finally take a deep deep look at old patterns that have been governing my reality, look through the shadow, the conditioning and habits that blur my perception. This period for me is such an incredible download of insights and perspective, it does rock the boat a lot and I really appreciate that. Not so comfortable on the surface but with a sense of such a beneficial outcome.
Looking forward to be with you later today.
Much love,
F
Hi, Shayla.
Thanks for another wonderful Lifeletter, Shayla.
It can be so hard to just be sometimes, can’t it? As much as I love words, I know their limits. Empathy, connection, trust — our whole culture discourages them in many ways. And they’re the real gold.
And authenticity. Sometimes I think all of it’s authentic. We’re all doing the best we can with what we’ve got. Breaking through those inner chains that are so strong and invisible: how do we do that?
For some reason, a line from a Dylan Thomas poem comes to mind:
“Time held me green and dying
Though I sang in my chains like the sea.”
Namaste.
Diana
Wow, Shayla, this is a huge invitation and a powerful call to allow what is – the chaos, confusion, the uncertainty, the embarrassment, awkwardness, the distress and all the ways we handle that – anger, righteousness, avoidance, pretending, trying to ‘get a handle’ or have control over something we collectively have no real control over. I am finding that just surrendering, the yes to ‘what is’ – mostly depends on my ability to know and affirm I am not alone, I am a part of some greater order or interconnectedness, like any other part of nature. The meeting at Findhorn was a collective cry that we can’t simply ‘figure it out,’ or ‘take charge.’ I don’t think but we won’t make it through this unless we awaken to, bow down to , support in each other, and embrace a humble heart and say the yes you speak of. “Yes” to all the feelings that are arising in the confusion, then “yes” to the unknown, “yes” to a mystery individually and collectively and most important “yes” to what I hold is the starkest and sweetest reality of all for me – “none of us are home until we are all home.” That’s an internal as well as external reality for me…yes to the mush I am feeling most often these days. The end of the caterpillar is the beginning of the butterfly. A new story is being born everyday through countless hearts in countless ways. Besides your beautiful newsletters that inspire me every time I read them, I have the Daily Good come into my box every day. I don’t think the caterpillar can imagine that one day, if he or she just allow nature to take its course, it will fly and a whole new perspective on life on Earth can then be born. Thanks so much Shayla for who you are…to me you are a ‘new story’. .
Thank you for your newsletters, Shayla. I’ve been enjoying them for some time now.
This is a new story for me – By luck and guidance recently, I actually saw that something I thought was real for years was actually imagination! The automatic release and vulnerableness from that seeing is so peculiar, feels like the tender hole left by a newly missing tooth.
What seemed to expose the story as a story was the precision and specificity of the guidance/noticing. Vagueness, and the feelings confirming what vagueness said was real, seems to be what kept it in place.
I agree very much we need to get beyond the hero story.
I know how to help individuals do this. I am stuck about new social forms. For the moment my wife and I are helping a friend and talking to others about growing veges in each other’s gardens to be shared. I have joined a small political party (the big ones are part of the problem in my view) to see if anything worthwhile is possible.
I think we desperately need new social forms.
i can’t agree more with what you have written. The first time, a week ago, i became aware of my feelings of grief and their acute pain. It so happened that, alone at home, this feeling just unfolded, rose to the surface with lots of tears and then was gone. This is coming after the journey to learn how to love and respect myself, to be considered a loved human being. Being a refugee of war during my childhood and most of my teenage years played a huge role in diminishing the value of what truly a person is.
We do need to write a new story, and there is no other way but by remembering and bringing to light the stories of the generations that preceded us. In a way, we become the healers and lovers of what is lost, wounded and destroyed.
Perhaps, we’re so busy being grown-up, we’ve forgotten that we are children.
The experience is so vast that the temptation to just sink into it, and then rise above it with the mind is so seducing. The vulnerability you refer to holds such power within its depths, but first we need to meet it, not head on, but as lovers do when they’ve known each other for a long time. That leap of faith that everything is supporting us, down to the deepest darkest, most painful experiences in the case of All.
A transition point in every old story comes down to acceptance.
And I say this heart heavy and everything screaming to disassociate. It takes a great deal of courage to relax and be within such a chaotic mix, and I’m not sure if I have the will for such steps right now; at the same time I do…
I feel you brothers and sisters as I experience this further. As I am with you.