I see you, Fear, and I see what you are doing. I see you looming around and attempting to seep into the collective subconscious. You seek to pit people against each other; you seek to divide and conquer, and you give excuses to people to unleash rather than heal their inner demons.
I see you, Fear, and I have decided to stop and face you this week. I have slowed down my usual attempts at escaping you. I have meditated a bit more, and I’ve watched myself more closely. I’ve been kind to myself when I’ve desperately wanted to escape, but I’ve brought myself back after a reasonable hiatus. (Pregnancy keeps me from being able to use wine to do this, so I’ve noticed myself turning to food, which is another process I am watching and healing.) I’ve noticed where fear resides inside me, and I refuse to project it onto this election, and onto other people.
What I’ve been experiencing this week is a deep and profound connection to my own inner shadow.
In an election process that seems to be manufactured to produce fear, division, and tension across the board, I have allowed myself to pay attention to the drama as it has unfolded this week. Although rather than focusing on the outside process, such as a figurehead that is supposed to represent us, I’ve been going inward and looking at the fear hidden away inside myself. What hidden fears inside of me resonate with the manufactured fear outside of me?
This election is cutting straight to the core of every individual so that we wall it up more and/or project it outside of us more. The drama has people blaming each other. This does not serve us. It does not heal us. We have to take the personal responsibility to feel honestly into the places where this election is affecting us the most inside. If we do this, we can use it to catalyze healing at a rapid rate. If we don’t, we will only compound our trauma, and make excuses for hurting others. The choice is up to each of us.
I’ve used this as a head start to look inside and examine where I am the weakest: the least tolerant, the least abundant, the least loving. I’ve worked to transform it by watching my scarcity beliefs, and this allows them to lift. What part of me is scared for my situation, be it personal, financial, gendered, racial? What part of me feels unsafe, like my security could be breached? What part of me thinks I will be taken advantage of by those in power? What part of me is conditioned to give away my power in the first place?
Overwhelmingly, I have felt all of this the most in my heart center. I feel a physical ache in the center of my chest. I’m feeling the pain, and then the release, of decades-old trauma that has been walled up in my heart, which has nothing to do with the election at all. I’m moving into greater understanding and connection with everyone, including those I don’t agree with, because I can see our similarity: the pain and the terrified refusal to feel vulnerable. I get it.
This election is doing us the service of forcing fear and other negative qualities to the top of our consciousness, rather than allowing them to stay hidden, unseen and simmering, below the surface. When someone speaks or acts out in a misogynist way toward me, I feel pain and grief. It hurts and cuts deeply, but it also transforms the situation. The perpetrator has now outed themselves rather than hiding behind the facade of pretending to be better than their thoughts. It forces them to face their action - a result of thought - whether they choose to take responsibility or not. And it doesn’t matter if they choose to face themselves, or if others hold them accountable, because it gives me an opportunity to prove to myself that I am strong enough to face the misogyny that I always knew existed. The power dynamic shifts as I move through the grief stage, through righteous indignation, and then into peace and (hopefully!) love. It takes time, but I can feel the dynamic shift away from victimization, or suspecting I was going to be victim, or feeling victimized by secrets and insinuations. I will stand firm and not respond in kind. I will not fall for the trap of fighting fire with fire. I will heal myself and move forward, and allow them the space to heal themselves. It’s their choice, but on a grand scale this will allow a rapid shift for the better, and I let go of the need to control the outcome.
This election is about taking back our power. It is about rediscovering our autonomy, not giving it away to people outside of ourselves. The political structure as it stands only reinforces our need for a monarch or guru, and hides secrets and lies that we are complicit with keeping from ourselves, because we do the same in our inner world. Let’s not hide from ourselves any longer - let’s out our shadows to ourselves. Let’s push through the shame and grow strong from this deep process of healing, and help each other with it. Let’s allow leader figures to catalyze our inner healing process. By doing this within ourselves we will force our leader figures to do it as well, no matter who they are, no matter if they seemed to need it or not. We will not be responding to hatred in kind, by lashing out in defensive reaction. We are strong enough to deal with it. We will stand together and help each other heal, and we will see past the drama, the fear, and the secrets. We will truly be better for it. It is high time we demonstrated our personal power in this way.
We are powerful, and we each set the tone for the kind of world we want to live in: one of peace, healing, and kindness. And so it is.