A Sanctuary Within

These times aren’t about self-pity, fixing, or blame. They are an invitation to build momentum toward goodness so we can provide one another sanctuary during the long dark ahead. 

Enjoy this 10-minute read (click to access the audio file at the top of the webpage)

I’m going out on a little limb here. I’m going to get a little fierce. Because I’ve been hearing a lot of people lately complaining about the state of the world – mostly politically – as if one person or one party is to blame. Yes – these calloused comments and oppressive policies are horrendous – AND we’re reaping what we sowed.

We are – all of us – complicit in the larger system that brought us to this moment. We have all benefited, however unconsciously or unintentionally. So let’s get out of resentment, blame, and helplessness and face it like a grown-up, deal with it like we do every other issue in our lives that doesn’t land us hungry, homeless, hospitalized, or incarcerated.

This starts with accepting that the way we’ve traditionally dealt with issues is exactly what’s gotten us into this mess – feeling entitled, lashing out, taking over, keeping quiet, staying complicit, tuning out, minding our own business.

We learn to survive. We anticipate and navigate situations to benefit ourselves and those we care about. And we do so within systems that devalue self-knowledge and collaboration in favor of self-preservation and exploitation.

Any attempt at liberation must start with fully understanding and admitting how enslaved we are. No one can live free of oil or the cash economy. The few indigenous tribes who did are pulled in. The handful who make the best attempts have privilege that cannot be matched on a large scale. When we admit we are bound, we free ourselves from hypocritical self-righteousness, from blame and resentment founded in naïve over-simplifications of how the machine works. Most importantly, we allow ourselves to be humbled, and to suffer the consequences.

No one is getting out of this unscathed. We will suffer for generations as infrastructure and supply chains and institutions fail at even more profound levels. We will adapt and find new ways to nurture life amid collapse. We already are.

The first step is admitting how vulnerable we are. Western civilization has shielded the majority of us from hunger, disease, and many forms of discomfort for generations, but we will become less and less able to rely on it and more and more familiar with how exposed we as human beings have always been. Our strength has always been our culture, our beliefs: how we define ourselves and our struggles, how we chart an honorable way through them, how we inspire each other to generosity and sacrifice on behalf of all things, and how we make sense of the senseless. Our stories – the stories we tell each other and especially the stories we tell ourselves – MUST affirm insight, perseverance, and trust or we will not survive.

The next step is admitting how short-sighted we are. Our vulnerability leads us to tell stories that simply aren’t true. We plunder resources without seeing the impact on the ecosystem. We build companies that require others to surrender their autonomy. We protect ourselves to the point of isolation. We gorge ourselves to obesity. We fight for justice in ways that oppress and we express ourselves to the point of losing who we are in a hungry sea of praise demanding more. Our imagination is so often simply denigrating fantasy. We’re meant instead to use our perceptions in collaboration with Mystery, to inquire into what is needed of us in this moment, follow that guidance, and let go – trusting that our real, true needs will be met in the process.

My life – my outlook, sense of well-being, fulfillment, and relationships – all go better when I surrender my desire to fix, orchestrate, control, and increasingly even foresee the outcome of my life or what occurs in the world. I surrender my agenda to a sense of lightness and spaciousness that enables me to hear, feel, and enact what is being asked of me by this moment. That is my purpose, that is my way of participating in the healing of the world – tending my physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being so I am ready, willing, and able to respond to the best of my ability however I’m called.

This is stepping out of self-pity and hopelessness into where my power really lies: responding with my gifts as called – in full respect of my limitations – and letting the divine care for the big picture, as it always has.

Adapting to the new world that’s emerging, to this liminal space between collapse and regeneration, requires us to be honest about where we are – about our contributions and our limitations – and to be willing to let go of our need to foresee and control in order to be led, moment to moment, by something larger, wiser, kinder, and more competent than we.

Lastly, I believe adaptation requires us to reorient from distraction and consumption toward “goodness”. This isn’t a moral judgment, but a fundamental sense of rightness that aligns us with the way the universe and life itself has always worked. One could call it Truth – not a subjective clinging to my desires and gratification, but an intuitive, felt sense that reaches beyond me to US.

When we surrender our agenda and listen, that is what emerges. It can guide us in the moment and serve as a foundation for new stories that reorient us when we’re lost, new habits that are truly nurturing, new ways of being in relationship that honor who we are and give Others space to be them while tending the tender movements that bind us.

We are surrounded by living ancestors. We are related to every animal and plant on this planet by common ancestors. The life in our bodies relies on this biodiversity for every breath and each bite we take. We cannot survive without the warmth, shelter, compassion, and creativity of our fellow humans. And we cannot live in right relationship to any of these – override the fear and hunger and pain that can cleave us from our values – without a powerful connection to the goodness in our core. It’s the goodness that leads us from short-sighted harm of self and other towards the gentler, more nurturing long-view.

This doesn’t mean we aren’t fierce or we don’t fight. Taking a stand when called to defend ourselves, other people, and ecosystems matters. But it means we don’t live in them as our default survival strategy. We let them pass through us as the gazelle does once the immediate threat has moved on, for it knows its longevity depends on its capacity to move with herd. And our ultimate herd is nature’s law, which knows how to restore balance.

The next time you want to reach for a box of cookies, binge watch reality TV, vent about the guy in charge, or fantasize about your ideal lover, ask yourself: “What is my real need? Will this satisfy me?” Because the more we rely on empty fixes when what we’re really lost is ourselves and the ground beneath us – and the more we blame others and wait for them to change to save us – the further and further we’ll drift away until we’ve not only forgotten why life’s worth living, but we’re actively killing ourselves and the planet.

If you don’t see an alternative, drop me a line. I’m right there with you, day by day building momentum toward something worth living for, starting with the breath in this miraculous body that enables me to be here now in the middle of all this and share it with you. If there are fewer and fewer safe places to go, let’s build an inner temple, which can then become a sanctuary for each other.

Nancy

Thanks to this post’s inspirations:

Jim Hollis: https://resources.soundstrue.com/podcast/james-hollis-find-what-you-love-and-let-it-kill-you/

Jim Hollis speaks of Insight, Courage, and Perseverance, especially to resist the pulls of Consumption and Distraction that take us away from feeling, intuition, and action.

Craig Foster: https://resources.soundstrue.com/podcast/craig-foster-belonging-to-the-wild/

Craig Foster speaks of species extinction as harming our ancestors and destroying our mother of mothers. This creates a foundational existential anxiety, turning us toward short-term dopamine hits that cause greater destruction because we lack the sustainable serotonin reserves that come from connecting with the greater-than-human world.