Step into a bigger sense of self.
By Rose Diamond
The economic recession is turning the lives of people all over the country inside out. It’s a great leveler, because apart from the ultra rich, we’re all affected. It’s traumatic to lose your home, your job or your savings, and when this happens the first step has to be to find some firm physical base from which to survive. We humans are creative and resourceful beings and from a very young age we are capable of making creative adaptations to our life situation in order to survive.
This is a prime time for creative problem solving on a practical level. Many people are finding solutions to their changed circumstances by sharing living space with others, using one vehicle instead of two, cutting inessential spending and avoiding credit card debt, passing on whatever things they no longer need, planting vegetable gardens, conserving resources like power, water and gas, joining with others to create communities for mutual support.
Once we have our physical base covered we are free to move on to the next level of reconstruction: our emotions. When we suffer a loss: whether it’s the loss of a loved one through death or relationship break up, the loss of livelihood, home or possessions, we also lose our sense of identity and we enter what is called an existential crisis, or a crisis about the meaning and purpose of life. This leads to confusion, depression, anger, hopelessness and despair; all difficult states to sustain ourselves through. In existential crisis we are disillusioned, literally stripped of our illusions. We thought we were somebody but who are we now? We thought we understood the way the world works but now we’re lost.
However, this very state of confusion and disillusionment can be a doorway to something new: a more authentic life; a life lived by deeper and more sustaining values. Unless we acknowledge, attend to, and process these difficult emotions, they go underground and wreak havoc with our health, relationships, and plans for the future. This time of crisis is an opportunity to strip down to essentials and build again on a more sustainable foundation.
Any time of major loss involves a grieving process and psychologists have identified stages of this process, these are the ones that make sense to me: shock, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, release and acceptance. Only when we have moved through all the stages can we start to build anew on a more solid foundation.
Most people are less skilled with emotional work than at sorting out the practicalities of life. A symptom of the denial stage is when we try to lose ourselves or distract ourselves with activity rather than facing our underlying emotions. We tend to be scared of our unpredictable emotions and self exploration because we fear ending up in a bottomless pit which we are then helpless to climb out of.
I worked as a psychotherapist for many years and this kind of deep self exploration with someone trained in the territory of the inner world and with the skills to be an empathic yet objective listener can be very helpful. Now I prefer to work as a coach because my main interest is to help people move through blocks to their creativity, become empowered, and build lives around their deepest passion and purpose. A coach will help you to accept, contain and clear your emotions within the framework of building a meaningful life.
There are three great questions in life: Who am I? What am I doing here? What do I want? These questions can be answered on many different levels and form the basis for a spiritual practice that will take you deeper into yourself. The more deeply we know ourselves, and the more authentic we are, the more we connect with the meaning and purpose of our individual and collective life. This is the most powerful support we can have in a time of crisis.
When you first answer the question: Who am I? It might go something like this: “My name is Rose Diamond. I was born in England and now I’m living in Virginia, USA. I’m a lifelong educator and I’m passionate about writing….” The emphasis is on family personal history and roles, all things which give us our sense of identity.
If you dig a little deeper and come into the present, it might go something like this: “ Right now I’m hurting, angry and frustrated because……” Once you’re present and in touch with your emotions, you can start cleaning out the old in preparation for building the new. When you’ve taken ownership of your emotions and become more aware of the old conditioned mental patterns that rule your life, you are in a better position to answer the second and third questions.
“What am I doing here?” is a question about purpose. What is your purpose in being here on Earth at this time? What unique gifts and skills do you have to offer? How do you make sense of what’s going on in the world and your role in it?
I would answer this question something like this:” I’m in America right now because there are things I can learn only here which will help me to become more of who I can be. I also have skills and experience to help people through this crisis and transition.“
When we answer the question: “What do I really want?” it’s always a good idea to find the values behind what we think we want. For example, I asked a midlife client to make her “bucket list” of all the things she wants to do, have, or be in the second half of life and before she dies. She came back to me the following week and said she’s had an image of floating in an air balloon above a European city. When she dug a little deeper she discovered the values hidden in this image were freedom and transcendence. She wants to be free to have a bigger perspective on life and on history and to transcend the limitations of her present reality.
This is exciting because she may not be able to take off tomorrow to Europe and an air balloon, but she can start right now to realize freedom and transcendence. These are the qualities we develop when we commit to a spiritual practice, whether the practice is meditation or any of the other myriad tools and vehicles for developing awareness.
The master key to conscious choice and creating the lives we really want is awareness. With awareness we step into a bigger, freer, higher part of the mind. We become a witness of our experience, and as Einstein said: “We can’t solve a problem from the level at which that problem was created, we can only solve it by moving to a higher level”.
I’m convinced the only way we can solve our individual and collective problems in the face of this current economic and environmental crisis, is to move up the mountain of self discovery and gain a bigger, freer perspective.
Rose and Woods offer coaching to help you to Breakthrough to your Creative Power, go to: www.awholenewworldcoaching.com As part of the Whole New World community we offer monthly e-books on aspects of conscious living. The first two: Being Peace in Action and Living in Harmony with Nature are available now; the third, Exploring the New Consciousness and bringing it down to Earth, will be published on March 26th.
Go to: www.awholenewworld.net or http://livingyourpassion.info//nmm
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