Political Craziness is Waking Us Up

Even if your mind reacted in disbelief to the idea that the craziness of politics at this time is a gift, I’d like to invite you to explore the possibility inherent in that statement.

For the past year, I have been reading historical novels that started in 900 AD and I am now in the early 20^th century. It is a marvel to see how history repeats itself. We have lived the ‘them and us’ and the “for and against” energy for all that time. Isn’t it time to try something new? Rather than reacting to everything that is going on in these increasingly chaotic times, we are being given an important opportunity to intelligently respond rather than react to all that is unfolding before the election.

What does responding look like? We start with the truth that you have been given the exquisite gift of a mind. It is a wonderful tool for maneuvering through reality. But most people think it is reality. In other words, very few people are actually here for life. Instead, most think about life rather than experiencing it, living a second-hand life. Or, as the Zen teacher Alan Watts once said, “No matter how many times you say the word water, it will never be wet.”

How do you use your mind rather than being lost in it? How do you respond, rather than react, no matter what is happening in your life? The first step is curiosity. When you discover how to be curious about what your mind is talking about, you can see that it has a running commentary all day long about what it likes and what it dislikes; what it feels is right and wrong, good or bad. If you look a little closer, you will see that it is fueled by fear and glued together with judgment.

Most of the time fear shows up as a subtle sense of unease, but it can flare up into waves of anxiousness and even terror. The same is true about judgment. You, like most people, judge a lot but mostly don’t notice it. It is just there, permeating so many of your thoughts. The place where you can see it most clearly is when you have a strong judger attack about somebody else or when you unmercifully judge yourself.

Life will bring you different situations where you can begin to see your fear and judgment rather than being run by it. Or, as the beloved Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron once said, “Do I prefer to grow up and relate to life directly, or do I choose to live and die in fear?”

This is where politics comes in. You probably have politicians you like and ones you don’t. I am inviting you to realize that one of the most powerful things you can do to bring healing out of what looks like chaos is to use all this divisiveness to heal yourself. Or, as it says in one of my favorite songs, “Let there be peace on Earth and let it begin with me.”

So, one of the most divisive politicians right now is Trump. Even though I will be talking about him, none of this is a judgment of him. He is just fulfilling his soul’s purpose. And he is a gift to us for what we are exploring here are the qualities that block our hearts, mainly fear and judgment. Trump right now is expressing both strongly enough that it can become easier for us to see them as they operate inside of us.

Fear is seen in his demonizing immigrants, instilling fear in the populace by saying they are all rapists and murderers when there is no proof of that. It is also seen in his love affair with dictators. It is even there in his push to win, denying that he lost the last election even though almost 60 courts said Biden won. If you are honest with yourself, you can see that you too live in a quiet sense of fear a lot of the time.

We can also see his judgment – of women, of disabled people, or anybody that speaks something about him that he doesn’t like. When he feels threatened, he attacks and defends, giving them nasty nicknames. Again, if you become curious about what your mind does, you can see that judgment is a big part of your story too.

We can also see his inclination for exaggeration. He says he has had the largest campaign crowds that have ever been, much larger than Harris’s crowd size when the pictures and videos show this isn’t true. Can you recognize that you exaggerate too? If you doubt that, think of things you have said when meeting someone new you were trying to impress – a date, a boss, the parents of your girlfriend.

Oftentimes when Trump is challenged around what he has said, he then denies it. If you doubt that you have done this too, think of a time when you were caught doing something you didn’t want anybody to know about.

What I am offering here is an invitation to see that we all live in fear and judgment. We all exaggerate, deny, attack, defend and judge. These qualities inside of us may not be as big or evident as with Trump (we are very good at hiding them even from ourselves), but they are there inside of us just the same.

What would happen if you contemplated the possibility that one of the reasons he was elected the first time was to bring up the collective fear and judgment inside of all of us so we can heal it? If you get lost in your fears (or cheers) of where his choices might possibly take us; or if you judge him for his actions and reactions, then you are aligned with fear and judgment. But you can realize that everything that you react to in him is also inside of you! If you doubt all this, go back to the last big argument you had with a friend or a loved one.

The whole movement of ‘them and us,’ out of which Trump operates, is not what will heal the world. What heals is more and more of us looking and unhooking from the storyteller in our head that lives in fear and judgment. This is not about trying to get rid of these qualities or even saying they are bad or wrong. It’s just what the unconscious human mind does, and we are discovering how not to be run by them.

As we clear the clouds of fear and judgment, what is there to meet us is the phenomenally intelligent human heart – the heart that is inclusive rather than exclusive; the heart that is empathetic rather than judgmental; the heart that sees that no matter what the color of our skin, our religion, our sexual orientation, our gender or even our political beliefs, we are all in this together, every single one of us a necessary thread in the tapestry of wholeness.

Life is constantly evolving, and every time an old way is fading away and a new one is arising, there is always chaos. What would happen in your life if you understood that the old way of fear and judgment is giving way so that the intelligent heart (which science has shown is our main brain) can come to the forefront?  This is happening inside of you and all over the world. The invitation is to use your whole life, including your response to politicians you don’t like, to get to know how fear and judgment reside inside of you so you can live from your aware heart and become a part of the healing of our planet.

If this blog resonated with you and want to explore more of my work, I invite you to listen to my upcoming radio show on Dreamvisions 7 Radio: Those Challenging Choices, It will air on Thursday, September 26th at 5am and 5pm HERE. After the 26th, it will be available on demand, along with every other radio show I’ve ever done HERE. Please feel free to explore my catalog and listen to topics that call to you.

Offerings:

I am excited to announce the details for the next Free Live Call! It will be called: The Phenomenal Healing Power of Trust and take place on October 8th at 5:30pm PDT for an hour and a half like usual. Here’s a little more detail in what we will be discussing:

It seems like so much is out of our control right now – angry, berating politics, climate change, and seemingly endless wars. Can we trust it all?  Join Mary in exploring what true trust is, how to bring it into your life, and the gifts that will bring.

Don’t forget if you can’t make it on the day, you can still participate by sending your questions in advance and enjoying the recording after the call at your convenience. I hope to see you there!

Click HERE to learn more and register!