Our Common-Unity: Paradoxical Theory of Change
We are only as strong as we are united, as weak as we are divided.
Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling)
Dear Ones,
Last night as I lay sleeping, I felt a powerful force coming from deep within. It filled the hungry vacancies of my heart, and a voice softly whispered from my inner core, “The change you are seeking, has always been and always will be. Common-Unity is not a destination, it is the truth of who we are. If you continue to fight and protest for it, the shadow of your striving will cloud your vision and obscure that which is, was, and always will be.” My whole body became luminous in love and a sensation of peace, possibility, and serenity filled the room, the house, and flowed out across the land, illuminating everything it touched.
Last night as I lay sleeping, I felt a powerful force coming from deep within. It filled the hungry vacancies of my heart, and a voice softly whispered from my inner core, “The change you are seeking, has always been and always will be. Common-Unity is not a destination, it is the truth of who we are. If you continue to fight and protest for it, the shadow of your striving will cloud your vision and obscure that which is, was, and always will be.” My whole body became luminous in love and a sensation of peace, possibility, and serenity filled the room, the house, and flowed out across the land, illuminating everything it touched.
Photo Credit: Greg Rushton
As I woke from this dream, it seemed so much more real than the effortful struggle of chasing and grasping that I’ve experienced in my striving to bring about changes in myself and others, changes I hoped might support a world that worked for everyone. Lately, I’ve been realizing how much we focus on our differences, and what’s wrong, rather than celebrating our similarities, our inherent common-unity, and recognizing the essential goodness that we are all born with, and how quickly it can dissipate. It was then that I grasped the real meaning of surrender, the miracle of letting go and saying “Yes” to what is!
Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts
working for you rather than against you.
Eckhart Tolle
working for you rather than against you.
Eckhart Tolle
Photo Credit: Greg Rushton
There’s been a lot of change in my life in the past few years and, like many of you, I’m watching the unfolding of this pandemic and the myriad of global changes, wondering where we’re headed, and what’s the future that is calling to me and to us? It is clear that the “getting back to business as usual” or “making America great again” is a recipe for disaster, perhaps the end of life here on planet earth. But, what can we do to shepherd in a new era of peace, equality, and interconnection. After my dream, I remembered my early Gestalt training and the Paradoxical Theory of Change. .
The Gestalt Paradoxical Theory of Change states that the more you try to be something you're not, the more you'll stay right where you are. Change is an organic process that takes place as a side-effect of organismic growth. Changes occur when one becomes what one is, not when one tries to be what one is not. It does not occur through coercion, persuasion, or effort to be something else. When one abandons for the moment what one would like to become and instead becomes what one is, the grounds and opportunity for change become more apparent. By the same token, when we are trying to change any outer circumstances, we are validating and affirming their existence, moment to moment! That doesn’t mean we can’t lean into and listen for the emergent future that is wanting to be born.
The ability to shift from reacting against the past to leaning into and presencing an emerging future is probably the single most important leadership capacity today.
C. Otto Scharmer
C. Otto Scharmer
Photo Credit: Greg Rushton
Energy follows attention. If our energetic focus is on trying to fix, change, or avoid something we only reaffirm its existence. If we focus our attention on the world we want to live in and let our actions, conversations, and ways of being in the world be consistent with that vision, the conditions for its emergence become fertile soil for it to grow and become fruitful. This is not simply wishful or positive thinking, it is allowing the desired future to shape our present. This is how new worlds are born! As Buckminster Fuller said: “You never change things by fighting against the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.”
So how do we shift our attention (energy) from fighting the existing social paradigm to calling forth this new way of thinking and being in the world?
I think the first thing is to recognize that we are already intimately interconnected and hold that belief (even if not yet actualized). Let the recognition of our inseparability become our ground of being and inform all our actions and interactions with the world. Can we see ourselves in everyone else and see them in us? Will we recognize and embrace the shadow projections we place on others, that leave us finger-pointing and blaming them for our disappointments and distractions?
Ultimately, work on self is inseparable from work in the world.
Each mirrors the other; each is a vehicle for the other.
When we change ourselves, our values and actions change as well.
Charles Eisenstein
Each mirrors the other; each is a vehicle for the other.
When we change ourselves, our values and actions change as well.
Charles Eisenstein
Photo Credit Greg Rushton
This would mean that we need to dedicate ourselves to doing our own personal inner work and transcend our habitual speaking, acting, and reacting. This cannot be done with a busy, wanting, and grasping mind. It is essential that we have a meditation and contemplation practice that helps us to cultivate stillness and recognize the energetic power of our presence. This will help us to respond from our future vision rather than react to unwanted circumstances. By dedicating ourselves to our inner work, and what’s essential in our lives, our experience of the world will change, and when our experience of the world changes, life aligns with our new worldview.
I invite you to look deeply into your own life and see what is truly essential to you! What are you holding on to that is ready to be released, and what is calling to you that you are resisting? Take the leap! If not now, when? As Mary Oliver so eloquently expressed, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
I believe that the answer to this question is the first step to finding common-unity.
I believe that the answer to this question is the first step to finding common-unity.
with Infinite Love and Gratitude,
Michael
Michael
My dear brothers and sisters, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity. What we have to be is what we are.
Thomas Merton
Thomas Merton
Photo Credit: Greg Rushton
I want to humbly express my immense gratitude and love for my former partner Meriel. Her tireless efforts to serve all of us is what has brought us together in our common-unity. She will be greatly missed as she phases out her participation. Also, a special thanks to Debra, Holly, Blanche, and Rita for stepping in to carry the torch and keep the vision of an interconnected world, with no one and nothing left out, a world that serves and supports all.
Michael
Michael
Photo Credit: Greg Rushton
This month we decided to showcase the stunning photography of local artist, wilderness guide and dear friend Greg Rushton. Greg’s photographs are motivated by his vision to express the life force and spirit that permeates the living world:
Nature communicates through a nameless language; a language of feeling. The doorway is sacred silence. Engaging the feeling function can be a bit of a mystery for us as it comes from the capacity to give value or worth to something outside of the external.
Though the origin of the word to feel originates from the tactile sense, it is the internal more subtle connection that is harder to define. In our language we have one word for Love, while the Sanskrit language has ninety-six and the Persian language eighty! The Inuit people have thirty words for snow, hence the value placed on its relationship to their life.
The camera is a marvel of technology and precision and yet alone it is just a machine. However, when we open our feeling function and our Webstrings that are always there within, (often masked or not enabled), we awaken a new perspective.
Our world is alive, is intelligent, is conscious and flows through us and around us. It is sacred as are we.
As a photographer I must try to vibrate with love and ask permission to be in the sacred space of the forest and the waters. I listen to my Webstrings and feelings that connect me to life.
We as humans often live in and create fear energy around us, which can block us from connecting with nature. This closes us off from the life force and the spirit of the wild.
Be in Love, Be in the now and Be in gratitude for the living energy and life that surrounds us, and find the magic, for it is everywhere!
Greg Rushton
To contact Greg about his photography
(or perhaps arrange an eco tour on the Sunshine Coast BC. with Greg, Meriel and Michael....!)
Go to: https://mettaecoexperiences.ca/