You don't have to be against things to change them

How to express yourself in a world that is afraid; personal and collective stages of growth are natural and beautiful

Photo by Isaac Quesada on Unsplash

What if you have the courage to express your soul into the world, gently, and allow a new frequency of evolution to awaken and ripple out into life... and it is enough? What if it is why you are here?

I have been thinking a lot about the energy of things. Currently, I am aware of a lot of war-like energy in the world. Many people are against things. Sometimes, I find myself in a group chat with a friend who frequently says, in relation to Bitcoin and the financial system, that, “This is a war!”

And I wonder about that.

Because the problem I see has to do with the energy of war and people fighting against things. The energy of war, to me, is the problem. So how can it be part of the solution?

I don’t think being against things is the path towards a new version of a more peaceful and sovereign world.

And I don’t think an inner collapse into hopelessness that things will never change is the answer either.

I notice a process of change in myself over the years. I have slowly stopped a desperate search for someone or something outside myself to help me navigate my life. This search led me to various spiritual teachers, yoga teachers, and mentors who I would put on pedestals of all-knowing wisdom.

I told myself if I followed what they said, if I was diligent and meditated for two hours in the early morning, or ate only vegetarian food and quit drinking (I did that one for fourteen years), if I chanted a mantra enough times, if I loved people more, if I was some version of good and lived in the present moment enough, I would be fine.

Just tell me what to do.

Please.

Recently, I have been noticing that in myself, and in the collective field of humanity in general, these are simply developmental stages. I have been thinking about the stages we go through as humans, in life. First we are young children reliant on our parents or adult caregivers, then we are two and want to do everything ourselves, then we are rebellious teenagers stepping into our own sovereignty by pushing those same caregivers away, and finally, if we are lucky, we become some version of a secure adult who has integrated a lot of life experiences and is available to offer guidance to others (which is different from a so-called adult who wants power over others). And that secure adult can work synergistically with other people, without reverting to a child-like stance of wanting others to tell them what to do.

I tell myself that none of those stages are wrong.

It is not wrong to want someone to tell you what to do. It is simply a developmental stage.

These stages are fluid and there is a process of evolution happening on the planet right now, both individually and collectively.

We are all part of it.

We are maturing and it often feels messy to me.

I told myself I would not put another person on a pedestal. Until I did. Again. And I am learning, day by day, to accept the wisdom of others and to trust myself and stand up for what I believe in. I don’t have to fight to do that. I just have to do it.

But I continue to be curious about the energy of being “against” something.

Everything seems polarized in the world. Are you pro-Bitcoin, or anti-Bitcoin? Are you pro-Trump, pro-Biden, Anarchist, or Libertarian? Are you pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine? Conservative or Liberal? Christian? Born-again? Mormon? Spiritual-but-not-religious? Atheist or agnostic? No matter where you stand, it is easy to be “against” the other things

I ask myself if being “against” things can change the world.

How did Gandhi do it? How did Martin Luther King? There is a way they both stood strongly “for” something without being “against” things (and by that I mean physically fighting). And for me, energy is very real. You can be strongly, energetically against something and to others, it can feel like you are pushing on them with your hands. Energy can certainly be directed against things. A good martial artist knows this.

But my sense is that there is something new being invited in now. A new vibration that is evolutionary, because everything is changing and growing. I believe the frequencies of Gandhi and Martin Luther King are also evolving in complexity.

Which has led me to wonder about how to love things into being without being against anything?

I was on a group call yesterday with Kevin Kaiser and Jeff Goins, both writers here on Substack, and Kevin said something that made me think. He said, “Does this path that you’re on have a heart?”

He went on to suggest one ask oneself if what you are doing matters to you and if you are expressing your energy towards something you care about.

Which led me once again to feel what this means to me? I know when I am with someone who has strong opinions or a sense of strong purpose, and they express their energy towards me, meaning “at” me, it does not feel good. It feels pushy. It feels like they are telling me what to do.

Any child over the age of one, will likely resist this.

But a strong adult, with love and care, who expresses themselves from the center of their being, and allows other people to take it or leave it…well, that is a different thing. Can I express myself, and be directed towards something that feels like it comes from my heart, without pushing on other people?

Some of you may be headed to Thanksgiving dinner today, to spend time with family. Maybe it will feel warm and comforting? Maybe it will be challenging?

But how can you go and be you, authentically, and affect those around you, without pushing against the energy in the room? How can you enjoy Thanksgiving?

I feel I was gifted a bit of an answer to this question in another group recently. My friend read a poem called St. Francis and the Sow. To me, it is about loving things into being. To me, it is about finding something in someone, a frequency that is already there, and recognizing it and awakening it simply through your seeing it, so it can sing its way into the world. It is like pointing out that there is a guitar string in someone, just waiting to be played. When you touch it and feel it, and they recognize it in themselves, in that moment, their soul, their beautiful soul, starts to sing with more complexity and beauty.

There is something profound in simply recognizing and welcoming something beautiful, in someone, that has to do with love.

Saint Francis and the Sow

—GALWAY KINNELL

The bud

stands for all things,

even for those things that don’t flower,

for everything flowers, from within, of self-blessing;   

though sometimes it is necessary

to reteach a thing its loveliness,

to put a hand on its brow

of the flower

and retell it in words and in touch

it is lovely

until it flowers again from within, of self-blessing;   

as Saint Francis

put his hand on the creased forehead

of the sow, and told her in words and in touch   

blessings of earth on the sow, and the sow   

began remembering all down her thick length,   

from the earthen snout all the way

through the fodder and slops to the spiritual curl of the tail,   

from the hard spininess spiked out from the spine   

down through the great broken heart

to the sheer blue milken dreaminess spurting and shuddering   

from the fourteen teats into the fourteen mouths sucking and blowing beneath them:

the long, perfect loveliness of sow.

For me, the question and the answer seem to be about accepting oneself and others at whatever soul-stage of growth is present. Then, to notice that there is a process going on in oneself, others, and the collective energy of humanity.

For me, this brings more compassion.

For me, it brings some hope.

Photo by Benjamin Wedemeyer on Unsplash

And I have an image of the power of simply being something and emanating it, that has the potential to profoundly change things.

I don’t have a specific technique for you on how to manage Thanksgiving or divisiveness you may encounter. But I do believe simply noticing it allows you to choose not to be against anything. Including yourself. Maybe you don’t force yourself to do something that feels wrong for your inner being? Maybe you choose how you spend Thanksgiving?

Maybe you feel that little guitar string of beauty humming in your heart or maybe you see it in someone else and allow theirs to hum, by simply offering your presence, care, and listening?

Somehow, there is a way to love the world into a new song and frequency of being. I am still learning how to do it. But curiosity is part of it. I am curious about things.

And in El Salvador, I will not be at my family Thanksgiving. For me, that brings some ease. It would be a lot to navigate... and there would be a lot of opportunities to look for strings in people to love, and to avoid expressing energy against things and still own my view and my choices, and where my heart calls me.

I finished reading my friend’s new book this morning. I met him at the Adopting Bitcoin conference recently. We had a short conversation in the lobby and he gave me a signed copy of his book along with answering some questions for me. He was interesting, talented, and thoughtful. He quit his job because it didn’t sound like it aligned with his heart trajectory. He moved into a basement and spent two years during the pandemic researching and writing what he gave to me. I like what he says here:

“The controversy around Bitcoin shows just how transformational it really is, for there is a strong correlation between controversy and transformational technologies.”

—p. 283 The Seventh Property of Bitcoin and the Monetary Revolution, Eric Yakes

There is a lot of controversy about a lot of things in the world right now. I think that speaks to how transformational many things are that are happening. And through them, I, and maybe we, are all becoming more adult versions of ourselves and our souls are growing.

The hard things, the frustrating things, the things we feel “against” are all part of helping that happen. It is how we respond to those things that matters greatly. Things are challenging. Those challenging things are changing you and me. I trust from an eagle-eyed view of the divine field of love, it is all happening “for” something, and that “something” has to do with maturing.

I don’t know how to do it. I just know somehow, it has to do with the feeling in that poem.