Triggering season

Tis the triggering season. 

Are you feeling everything amped up in America these days? The upcoming election shines light on our many dysfunctions.

The energy, from where I sense it, is heightened, chaotic, angry, moving fast, destabilizing. It’s easy to get swept off our feet by the constant changes, announcements, attacks, conventions, and social media framing.

This intensified energy affects us all - and has impacts on all our interactions, not just conversations and beliefs about politics.

You, my friend, might be caught up in this too, getting triggered. 

Feeling charge and certainty that others are wrong.

And believing that blaming and shaming others might somehow help.

I hear you. I hear that you care. I hear that you want to help. You're right that our society is quite sick. You are sensing something important. Your experience matters.

However.

 Blaming is a big warm blinking sign, inviting you inward. 

Blaming others is a signal of feeling provoked, angered, and probably also vulnerable and scared

And it’s not effective.

Have you ever been blamed or shamed into a whole new outlook on life? Does that vibe entice you into wanting to open yourself, to open your mind, to change?

I know this position well. I am the queen of blame. I have been self righteous for more years of my life than not. I have felt extremely justified in all my high and mighty positions – those other people are obviously stupid and WRONG. Unlike me, who apparently knew it all. At age 15, 20, 25, 30, 35, 40...

And then, knocked upside the head by the covid era, that no longer worked for me. The othering and shaming of that time prompted something new in me.

I made a vow to evolve beyond this dualistic way of thinking and behaving, that of good/bad, right/wrong, to find the deeper pattern underneath it all. It doesn’t mean there isn’t evil out there, but there is something more vast than the evil, something beyond the things that I believe are bad and wrong.

I’m realizing just now, that it’s not about completely throwing out the right/wrong concept – but it’s adding the layer beyond dualism. We still need discernment. Not everything is okay or good for a person or for society. It’s building upon the dualism to bring another dimension and another layer to wisdom. 

On a walk just now, I had a little laugh at how I want people to get what I'm getting, to see how they are "wrong" for blaming people for being wrong. Hahaha, it's so tempting, isn't it? It's so very easy to get sucked into this blame game!

I'm a work in progress with all of this too.

To start, just noticing if you are in the blame game is very helpful awareness. Awareness is always the first step. 

Next essay will have more suggestions on what to do when pulled into the blame tornado. That blame tornado has quite the force and the pull. When we take ourselves out of it, it takes some of the energy out of the collective, entrenched blaming too. 

With love for all of us, all of our humanity, and our big hearts that are yearning for the more beautiful world we know is possible!
marta

PS - Photo by Dejan Zakic on Unsplash