Managing Social Issues

I offer a lot of perspective around healing ourselves as individuals. Sometimes when big things happen, I'll offer my perspective on those events to help others gain their own clarity. But the reality is I don't offer a ton of perspective on what to do with the myriad of social issues we have in our society today. I'd like to start offering some of that right here in this blog.

I need to start with some transparency. I am Canadian and many of the issues and struggles that I'll be talking about will be based on American news and politics. Why? Because that's a heck of a lot more exciting than anything I have going on here in Canada. It also happens to be where the majority of my readers are located. Given that I live in a country that shares a rather long border with the United States, I feel often like I have a front row seat to the chaos that is the United States of America.

I'll be honest that we have a lot of what I call copy cat politics here in our own way. We definitely have a group of people within our population that take their cues from the American far right and try to bring those ideas here. They don't go over as well here, but that's not to say that there is no appetite for them, it's just a little more limited.

When I look at the discourse that happens on social media around any and all social issues affecting our world today, there is one major issue that I see in all of it. That is that people are far too identified with their opinions and beliefs to have objective conversations about anything.

Ego identification with opinions and beliefs causes an immediate need to defend that opinion or belief. The ego naturally defends itself. That is a built-in human behavior. It is normal and it is how the ego is meant to operate. At its core though, the goal is safety. It's designed to help protect the physical form from danger, it is not meant to be used to protect ourselves from the differing opinions of other people. It is not meant to be used as a way to force other people to change their opinions. The ego serves an important role in our lives, but this isn't it.

The reason why people identify so strongly with their beliefs is because of pain. My own personal identification with my own beliefs was very strong because I felt powerless within myself. I used my beliefs as a source of power to make myself feel better. It didn't actually work - just saying - but that was the idea.

When people can attach firmly to their beliefs in this way it gives them a source of power that they may not feel or have otherwise. It gives them a purpose in life that they may not feel they have otherwise. It offers them a sense of duty or responsibility that they may not feel is available to them otherwise.

When you engage in a conversation with somebody about any social issue at all and they go down the path of needing to defend themselves or their beliefs, that is pain that they are displaying, whether they will admit it or not. The pain becomes even more apparent when they resort to insults as a means of defending themselves. It's all just snowballs being thrown around.

Your job as a self-aware, conscious human being is not to pick up that pain. Your job is to find compassion. You can remember that you don't need to defend yourself. Your ego does not need to get involved. There is nothing to protect yourself from. You do not have to continue to engage in the conversation. It is perfectly okay to have boundaries. You are allowed to walk away when you feel the conversation is no longer serving a purpose. The relationship can end at this stage.

When you look around and you see the chaos bubbling up all over the place, you have to remember what the purpose of the chaos is. We're in a healing phase for the collective that doesn't really feel much like healing at this moment. It feels a lot like going backwards. It feels a lot like regression and staying stuck in the pain. I get that because I see that too.

We have government leaders, CEO's, executives, and other people in places of power that are literally throwing their own pain around and making laws, rules, and choices based on that pain. We know that when we make choices from pain, we get more pain. That's exactly what's happening.

As crazy as this phase seems, it is relatively temporary in the grand scheme of things. It may go on for the majority of our lifetimes, but it will not stick around forever. There will be evolution and progress. It just may not be at the speed we would like it to come in at. It may not look quite like what we want it to look like.

The more you can keep your ego out of this stuff, see yourself as safe, and recognize that you're in control of your internal weather all the time, the better off you're going to be. We need to create some space between ourselves and what we see happening in the world. It's not that we don't care, it's that upsetting ourselves with it doesn't fix it. We're creating pain for ourselves that we can't really do anything about.

Somewhere in this process you're likely going to have to make a choice. What's the choice? To take on the cause or not. It's okay to take on a cause. We need activists and advocates because those are important roles in society. It's okay to take on those rolls if you want to. There are plenty of platforms to use to offer opinions, ideas, and solutions if you so choose. The number of people choosing to take on a cause is increasing all the time and that's okay too. It's a necessary part of the process of evolution.

However, not everybody needs a cause. What I've come to for myself over the last little while is that adding my voice to the ever growing ego-based arguments on the myriad of social issues that we are facing is not helpful to me or anyone else. I have a message of self-mastery and self-awareness that I am focused on sharing. What I am going to attempt to do is teach you how to manage that chaos within yourself. I am going to find ways to combine and balance the process of self-mastery with the social issues of the world around us.

My own learning, understanding, and practicing of self-mastery has offered me a unique perception because I can step back from all of it. I can get my ego out of the way. I don't need to defend my opinion anymore and I've learned to recognize the pain that's being thrown around.

Yes, I'm still human. No, it's not a perfect system. My goal is to offer as much clarity and guidance as I can using the tools and strategies that I've learned and been offered over the years.

So I'm not going to add my ego-based opinion on all the social issues that are out there. I am going to add my perspective without my ego though. I am probably going to poke holes in some arguments to show where the pain is and where the problem with the argument is. I am going to offer ways to manage the bumpiness of the collective journey. I am also going to offer you ways to get out of your own ego identification with everything going on around you.

Having an opinion is normal. That's part of being human. We all have opinions. Our ability to express it well comes from being able to heal ourselves, not project the pain, and keep the ego out of it. You are allowed to put space between you and the issues you're passionate about so that you can stay balanced within yourself and learn to be okay.

So, we're going to talk about all this and we're going to see where we end up. There are lots of discussions to have, plenty of opinions to go around, and more pain and fear floating around than we can handle. I'm going to my best to help you navigate this crazy ride so that you can stay okay within yourself more of the time. This is part of the self-mastery journey and it is one that I'm excited to share with you.

Love to all.

Della