Chaotic times call for new solutions.
In these chaotic times, we are choosing how we define ourselves: as way-followers, who cling to outdated mindsets and institutions, or as way-showers, who are creating a worldwide community that chooses strength in diversity. We begin by first finding our “true self,” which helps us compassionately engage others.
Every generation has a defining moment, something they choose that says, “That is how they’ll remember us.” There were the extreme challenges, like the Great Depression and World War II, and the triumphs, like the Renaissance and the Space Age. As we define ourselves, what will we choose: what defeated us or what built us?
What Our Chaotic Times Mean
In the last few years, community worldwide has been shattered by escalating violence compounded by a bewildering divisiveness that mars our daily lives. In our families and social circles, we’ve been shocked when the previously mild-mannered lash out: “If you criticize my president I’m walking out.” Sadly, this theme reverberates worldwide: “They don’t believe what I believe, and I refuse to connect.”
What is going on?
Of course the age-old quandary, fear versus love: choosing between embracing lack and disharmony or embracing connection and living full out. Throughout history, that struggle has historically played out in divisiveness. We are human, it’s a given.
But this new divisiveness is signaling an epoch change, our defining moment. The fear-full cling to what they believe makes them worthy: an outdated patriarchal worldview and its religious and cultural institutions. As these icons buckle, and world citizenship rises up, fear struggles for relevance, while those who are ready to grow into something new are mystified and unbalanced by the chaotic times.
What do we do? We create new leaders.
Choosing Who We Are and Who Leads Us
How do we choose leadership? Will we continue to defer to a nation-state or will we come home to ourselves? This is a worldwide choice pitting religion, race, politics, and borders—the things that divide us—against a common humanity. The struggle can lead to a larger choice, defining whether we stick to the old and remain increasingly isolated and bitter way-followers, or choose to be our own leaders treading uncertain roads to a new unity as way-showers.
The choice is simple and stark: Who are we? The answer is simpler yet: We are one. The problem that stymies us: How does “one” become our way of life?
That, too, is simple. We start by honoring what shamanic insight calls our “true self”—our eternal, individual soul that grows, learns and forms a complete whole, body and soul, strengths and weaknesses, viewpoints, needs, and desires. We individually choose to be our own “sovereign being, our own sovereign nation,” which gives us the strength to be compassionate, aware, able to negotiate differences, and open to change.
The next step is unity: whether individual or nationwide, sovereignty demands consensus. We live in society because we’re hard-wired for it. The challenge is creating a community that supports and nurtures by honoring all, acknowledging diversity, and requiring thoughtful participation.
How We Create Community
Here’s how we do that, starting with our homes, at our holiday gatherings, and expanding into our neighborhoods, cities, states, and countries.
We breathe. Deep, measured breaths help us find our true self, which calms and centers us, reminding us that life is imperfect and in flux, and that’s okay.
We engage. We calmly say, “Let’s talk, let’s learn how to create community,” because it’s okay to disagree, it means we are thinking. But successful engagement means to defer judgment, listen compassionately, ask questions, be open-minded. It means finding common ground by understanding what others fear and believe—and why—then build consensus.
We evolve. Listening is hard right now, but that’s our growth opportunity. We stay balanced by grounding into ourselves and into all the elements—earth, air, fire, water, spirit. We gather in supportive communities; release what no longer serves, from relationships to thought patterns; and hold love to inspire others and invigorate ourselves. As we grieve for the suffering and celebrate gains, from fellowship to understanding, we embrace the power to create.
We choose. We must know ourselves: what we believe and why. We study history, plan for the future, and consider our differences—because that’s where consensus lies. Moving towards world citizenship is a rocky road, dissolving nation-states into a diverse community that loves, grows, disagrees, walks away, and comes back again.
Will we be the way-followers, who refuse change and wither in fear in these chaotic times? Or will we be the way-showers, honoring others as souls in bodies struggling to grow and serve, sometimes to triumph and sometimes to fail, always to rise again? Will we be the isolated? Or will we be the 22,000 in Las Vegas, the Londoners, the Barcelonans, the world citizens who carry on with strength, resilience, and determination?
Clearly, the majority has already chosen: we are way-showers. We are many who rise, love and create a diverse community that chooses acceptance.
Because we are one.
Originally published in OMTimes.com Magazine: Claiming Our Place in Chaotic Times – OMTimes Magazine
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About the Author
Robyn M Fritz MA MBA CHt is an intuitive and spiritual consultant and certified past life regression specialist with an international practice based in Seattle, Washington. An OM Times Expert and award-winning author, teacher, and speaker, she hosts “The Practical Intuitive: Mind Body Spirit for the Real World” each Monday at 2 pm PST on OM Times Radio. Find her services at RobynFritz.co