CLEANING UP yourself so you can clean up our environment
Changing the things that you can, Accepting what you cannot, and gaining the Wisdom to know the difference
Page 135 - The inconvenient truth must be faced. It was 2006 when Al Gore put out his documentary on Global Warming. Same year that James Lovelock wrote The Revenge of Gaia: Earth's Climate Crisis & the Fate of Humanity. Yes, we are more aware today. We are more AWAKE. But when you look at our species as a whole, are we more GROWN UP? Have we OPENED UP more? Yes, but not enough. David Wallace-Wells punched me in the gut with his book The Uninhabitable Earth. After reading the devastating account of what is happening to our environment, I was in a funk... a regular old depression that washes over us when, to put it simply, we don't get what we want. Yes, we depress ourselves when we don't get what we want, and I want a sustainable earth for my children and grandchildren. I'll dig into the grief and hope in the next chapter.
Page 136 - Pandora's Box and Hope. Pandora's box is an artifact in Greek mythology connected with the myth that speaks of a box filled with all sorts of evils, including hope. I'm yet doing some thinking about this, tentatively thinking that I've misrepresented the story of Pandora's Box. I'm researching this some more. From wikipedia: "The key question is how to interpret the myth. Is the imprisonment of hope inside the jar (box) a benefit for humanity, or a further bane? If hope is another evil, then we should be thankful that hope was withheld. The idea is that by hoping for or expecting a good life that we can never have, we prolong our torment. Thus it is better to live without hope, and it is good that hope remained in the jar. But if hope is good, then its imprisonment makes life even more dreary and insufferable. In this case, all the evils were scattered from the jar, while the one potentially mitigating force, hope, remains locked inside. However, this latter interpretation causes us to wonder why this good hope was in the jar of evils in the first place. To this question, I have no answer." In Pandora's Box one can find all the problems of life, and even hope right there as well. How is hope a problem? How might hope be included among the evils in the box? Deb Ozarko's challenging book, Beyond Hope, has been a great help to me. I have an answer about the presence of hope, which I shall reveal in the following chapter.
Page 136 - CLEANING UP our personal lives is important because it frees us up to put our energy into cleaning up our environment. It might be a matter of emotional, or energetic economics. if we are spending a ton of energy on managing our broken souls, then we are hampered in our freedom to address the environment.
Page 137 - We can be more compassionate supporters of efforts to Love Mother Earth, if we have made peace with our own pain. There is great health and wonderful virtue to be found in the cultivation of compassion. It is something of the first step in the healing process, in the CLEANING UP process. First, we begin with a sympathetic concern for the sufferings and misfortunes of others. We join first with the heart, and then we walk out into the light. Compassion is to feel another's pain without entering into their suffering. It is to feel my own pain without prolonged suffering. It is to feel Mother Earth's pain without suffering along with her.
And there is the quest to find and affirm one's Real Unique Self. I was helped a great deal by Marc Gafni's 2012 book, Your Unique Self. Gafni stumbled and needed to do some cleaning up himself. Nonetheless, or because of his stumbling, his book was helpful to me.
Page 138 - CLEAN UP, set it aside, or just give it up. Yes, it is important to do the work of CLEANING UP, but at this point in time, we don't have time. I look regularly at the climateclock.world and as I write this, and right now there are 7 years and 100 days left before we must achieve zero emissions. MUST. One can spend a lot of time and energy rearranging the chairs on the Titanic, as the story goes. What I am trying to say on this page is this: get over it, if you can, and get on with LOVING MOTHER EARTH. Our mission to love, her must become preeminent.
Page 138ff - The Drama Triangle. I really do recommend David Emerald's little book, T.E.D. - The Empowerment Dynamic. The Drama Triangle, or as it is referred to elsewhere as The Trauma Triangle, is a common model used by many in the world of psychotherapy. Here is a rule of thumb you can live by. Whenever you find yourself caught up in drama, at home or at work, in politics or at church, whenever... consider The Drama Triangle. Use it to diagnose what is going on, and how to get yourself to the Mindful Observing Witness who Coaches and Challenges.
Page 141 - A video on The Drama Triangle.
Page 142 - Pay attention to your reactivity when you feel victimized. We all get triggered, and we all react defensively when we get triggered. After years of self-observation and reflection, I've boiled it down to this when it comes to my own reactivity - Given my bias for forward momentum, for progress, do not thwart me! When I perceive that I'm being thwarted I act like a petulant child. What triggers you, and how then do you behave defensively? Examine it all, and let it go. Just let it go.
Page 143f - We have all been persecuted, and are all persecutors. To think otherwise is to engage in some delusional denial. Hear Matthew 7:5. "You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye." Or this verse from Romans 7:15. "I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do." This is where CLEANING UP becomes important. We all have been Persecutors of our own selves, for example, by carrying shame and guilt beyond its usefulness. We have Persecuted others for their bad behavior. Not one of us is perfect, and not one of us is totally to blame. Face it, own it, forgive it, and "go and sin no more." Again, I recommend Michael Singer's book. The Untethered Soul. Cut yourself loose from the chains that bind you. In doing so you will have more energy available for LOVING MOTHER EARTH.
Page 144 - The Rescuer is an Enabler. This can be dicy to differentiate. There is goodness in being charitable and kind, but there is pathology in enabling others to be irresponsible. One of the business leaders I have worked with had a sign on the wall in his shared office space that read "2 Not 4" as a reminder. Be responsible to each other, but not for each other.
And yes, the more drama the faster everyone is switching roles. STOP IT, and get yourself out and up to the Mindful Observing Witness where you can choose to Coach and/or Challenge. See through the drama so you can get to the primary work of LOVING MOTHER EARTH.
Page 147 - The Empowerment Dynamic. When we are living out of The Empowerment Dynamic we are in effective control of our life. I spent some time with Dr. Richard Gardner, author of Reality Therapy. One key learning for me at the time was that we are all in control of our own lives. That made sense to me then, as it still does. The question is this, however: am I in effective control of my life? When I lock into The Empowerment Dynamic I am in effective control of my life. I am not in the reactive Drama Triangle.
Page 148 - The Expulsive Power of a New Affection. We have to fall in love with a new way of living if we are to save Mother Earth. Can we do it, in the window of time we have? Tough question. It will require us falling love with electric cars, wind and solar, nuclear energy, walking and bicycles, smaller homes, meat alternatives, and a lot more. There are steps we should take, are able to take... but do we have the will to make the change? Do we have the will to let go of what we have loved, and to love Mother Earth more? Can we expel the old ways will cultivating a new love for Mother Earth?
Page 149 - Here is a stretch for some. Yes, there are wounds that have been, and continue to be rather debilitating. Yes, it is good to put some effort into trying to heal those wounds, and to do so in some creative ways. But think of it this way. Imagine that you are in your therapist office doing some work to CLEAN UP your life, when the fire alarm goes off. You sit and wait to see what is happening, and fire trucks pull up, and the smell of smoke enters your room. Do you sit there, continuing to work on the wounds of the past? Nope. You do what you can to escape. It is about priorities. LOVING MOTHER EARTH has to become a priority. It isn't that healing your wounds is not important, but it just can't be a consuming priority.
Page 150 - Think globally, and act locally. This phrase, which supposedly began in 1915 in Scotland around city planning. It has become ubiquitous and commonly used around the globe. This book, LOVING MOTHER EARTH, is more about the "think globally" half of the equation. The "act locally" half will involve strategic and tactical actions and I'll defer to others for coaching in that arena.
Page 152 - Coach and Challenge yourself, and others, to LOVE MOTHER EARTH. So that we are stuck in the Drama Triangle, we have to step out into our Mindful Observing Witness where we can Coach and Challenge ourselves and each other, to LOVE MOTHER EARTH. This isn't very complex. But it is a huge shift in priorities.
Page 153 - Like attracts like. We are all subjected to "Confirmation Bias" and that phenomena works for all of us around all sorts of issues. We look for what supports our point of view. Social media is a powerful perpetuator of confirmation bias. "Birds of a feather flock together." There is comfort in that human inclination toward tribalism, but it is horribly dangerous as well. Herd mentality can take the herd off the cliff. But, movements toward goodness, truth, and beauty need our support. Discerning what is goodness, truth, and beauty has become a confusing challenge in our world today, but your Mindful Observing Witness, your Enlightened Lover, knows. Knows. Knows. Let us support each other on our quest to LOVE MOTHER EARTH.
Page 154 - The goal is to get out of the Drama Triangle and into The Empowerment Dynamic. Two choices - stay in the Drama Triangle, or step into The Empowerment Dynamic.
Page 155 - Catch it. Check it. Change it. This little strategy comes from the world of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. We all engage in "stinkin' thinkin'" on a daily basis. We slip into cognitive distortions every single day of our lives. This is a normal thought process, but not a helpful one. What does help is also the normal process of catching, checking, and then changing our troublesome thoughts. A simple illustration. I am trying to catch myself when the impulse arrives to ask for a meat based meal at home, or when ordering out. I am trying to check my impulse. I am trying to change my eating habits in a more meat-less direction.
Page 156 - There it is again. "At the bottom of Pandora's Box was HOPE." Admittedly, I have to do more research and work on the role of hope, not just in the story of Pandora's Box, but as it pertains to our Global Environmental Emergency. Is there always hope? And if so, in what do we place our hope? Work with me on this one. Please.
If some of us are to survive, it will be necessary to make some changes now so that those of us who survive have some life-sustaining options available to them. We should be engaging in cathedral-thinking now, so that as many of us as possible can live on into the future, in a world that will be vastly different than the world we live in right now.
Then, there is the Serenity Prayer which was written by American theologian Reinhold Niebuhr. The original prayer began with courage. Take a look. "Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other." That prayer was popularized in a different form and has been used by many, most notably those in the Alcoholics Anonymous movement. A copy of the Serenity Prayer, given to me by my mother, sits conspicuously in my office as a steady reminder. And, during this times of enormous change, a little book given to me by a dear friend, sits right here next to me at home. It is titled SERENITY: Reflections and Scripture on the Serenity Prayer.
I've kept Niebuhr's order. Change the things that you can, Accept what you cannot, and gain the Wisdom to know the difference.