Posted in Conscious Communication |
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There are many programs available that deal with similar concepts around having the difficult, critical, crucial, fierce, non-violent conversations.
We in wealthy nations live in a post modern, pluralistic world, where the unwritten code is non judgement, non violence, happiness, and all things sugar and nice. I am not anti these things, I just know that all of these things come through wearing a monological lens.
I have known since I was very young, that this world is not the way it is. There are times that we need judgment, we need sorrow, and we may also need violence. At core I believe in the good in people, and have been aware of my naiveté in this area at times.
However, after one incident where I was stalked for several weeks, and then three home invasions whilst my infant daughter and I slept, I decided it was time I learnt to defend myself. I took private classes in self defense. My wonderful instructor was passionate about supporting people in becoming able to take care of their physical safety. He insisted that I go beyond the hurting stage of infliction, and get into the maim and kill stage. Why? Because if I didn’t, I would never really ~get~ self defense. If someone attacks me with intent to do extreme violence, unless I am able to respond quickly and to the extent my opponent is seriously hurt, or worse, then I am not defending myself. In the process of crossing this threshold and looking into my own ability (or not) to inflict serious harm, or to kill, I had to look at the part of myself that can do this, or is afraid of doing this. I had to make friends with my shadow. To the extent that we deny the shadow aspect in ourselves is the extent that we live a half life with fear as our ruler.
I know I am able to kill and I know I would if it was a life or death situation. Heavy words. Heavy topic. The paradox is that because I am no longer a victim around my own self defense, it is unlikely I will ever be attacked. I do not project weakness or fear of any form in this way. I have looked my shadow in the eye and integrated that part of me.
(Just to be very clear, I would use violence as the very last resort, and only in extreme situations.)
Gandhi was a great role model for modern society. One of the few. The question is- would his methods of non violence have worked in Nazi Germany?
Using the Integral model and exploring stages of development, the Amber ethnocentric stage of Nazi Germany’s development was not the same as the stage India under British rule was at when Gandhi practiced non violence. The British were at a more pluralistic Green stage, which afforded a very different response. Under the rule of tyrants of the level of Hitler, Mugabe et al, I am not so sure that Gandhi’s non violence would have been the best strategy. Idealistically, I would like to believe that he would have been able to turn the situation around through non violence, however, he would have been more likely to end up a statistic.
Dare to Care recognises that people are at many stages of development, neither right nor wrong, good or bad. That as a master communicator, we must adapt our communication to suit the stage we are communicating to. Even further, that we must adapt the way we are present in our thinking and being according to the stage we are speaking to. There is no one right way. There is only the way to speak and respond depending on the audience and the environment.
Judgement is not bad. I need to make judgements for my safety and survival. If a large man is showing malicious intent towards me I better make a very quick judgment about my situation. It is when I judge for the sake of my ego-for feeling better than, right, etc, that I could well do to examine my judgements.
Being nice is not always the best way to serve people. If you have someone who can’t sing to save themselves and you tell them they are OK at singing because you don’t want to hurt them, or knock them in any way, that is not being of service to them. That is colluding with them in denial. Yes, there are ways to tell them, some better than others, which is exactly what we teach in Dare to Care.
I need to care enough about you, to not care about what you think of me. That is a great act of service. And serving the other is exactly what Dare to Care is about.
It requires us to speak what is true, and to know the difference between truth and our ego. And to do so with exquisite care and compassion, willing to step into the domains of passion, sadness, anger, and even violence. If I am unable to say NO to someone, with complete alignment, and using the maximum force of my character, then I am going to remain a push over, indecisive, without back bone.
Learning to speak truth from an Integral frame is what Dare to Care is all about. As people begin to move from the post modern, pluralistic world, into the post post modern integral world, discovering along the way that at times violence, judgement, strong opinions, criticism and sorrow have their place, they will need to learn to speak with clarity, heart and an absence of ego, from that place, relevant to the audience and environment, and in the spirit of service. They will need to Dare to Care.
Posted in Current Affairs |
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The past few weeks I have been feeling very restless, looking for and finding distractions, not able to focus for any period of time.
I am an avid and committed observer of the world news, current affairs, plus have been studying history, and daily read from my greatest teacher, R Buckminster Fuller. Bucky talked about prognostication, that in order to predict the future, one had to draw the string of the arrow very far back into history. And that he did. He studied history and kept records, covering many areas, from energy use, discovery of new elements, technology advancement. In the 30’s he made over 50 predictions, of which 47 have occurred. (Including man on the moon).
Bucky also started to talk about our ill conceived use of oil and its costs, way back in the 1930’s. He asked a renowned oil geologist, Francois de Chadenedes, to work out how much in energy, from start to finish over the life time of the creation of oil, would it cost nature to make one gallon of oil. In the currency of the early 1980’s that price was over $1 million per gallon.(see note below for the details of this)
Bucky always based his working premise on the principle of Synergy. That the behaviour of the parts taken separately could not predict the behaviour of the whole, that you could not predict a butterfly from studying a caterpillar, and therefore you had to start, without exception, with the whole. That if we are going to study energy, we had to start with cosmic accounting, and reduce it to local accounting, and not the other way around, which is what we have done. That in cosmic accounting terms the use of petroleum to provide energy was always far far too expensive.
That our energy input from natural resources has always been in far more abundance that we would ever need-sun, wind, waves-and that the only problem with using them as energy source is that big business has not found a way to put a meter between the energy source and the user. (Plus to date our technology around this has been in lag, and the price has been much higher than the use of fossil fuels, although this is changing rapidly)
And that the nearest nuclear reactor we need is perfectly positioned 152 million kms away, and is called the Sun.
Bucky considered our fossil fuels to be natures own savings account, an Earth Bank, not to be stolen by exploiters. Everyone knows that we should live on our energy income and not our savings account. In our case on earth, our energy income far far exceeds our energy spend. Everyday. There is no scarcity of energy, we simply have been exploiting the wrong form.
It has always been apparent that oil would run out. We have all been living in a delusional world where this would not happen soon. Now we know that it is happening, faster than we thought.
The bad news is that our lives have already changed. The shift has already occurred. The use of cars, planes, trucks and other oil consumers as they currently exist, is the dinosaur in the room. Petrol prices are not going down, food prices and transport costs likewise are not going down. Not until we create solutions. Which we will do. But not before the situation gets worse for everyone.
I realised today that my sense of restlessness and discombobulation is because the shift has happened, and that I am frustrated that people are going about their business as if it hasn’t, as if the world will go on as we have known it. It can’t and won’t. Everything and everyone is affected. No one escapes this. Travel as we know it, driving to work, school, driving anywhere, how we consume food, how we work, where we live and work, what has value, who has wealth. It all is changing. Fast. The Middle East will lose its power (because of its total dependance on oil).
The good news. Well the environment is going to be happy. We simply have to stop our use of fossil fuels. It was always a short sighted strategy. We have all been asleep at the wheel, literally, on that one. In complete denial.
We must emerge through emergency, which we will do, in the nick of time. Creativity will increase as people are forced by necessity to invent new ways of transport, lifestyle, and all the countless other uses of petroleum.
There will be a massive redistribution of wealth. This too will be a good thing, as there is opportunity for an exploration of our money systems, which are in serious need of systems change of the highest degree. And, there will be an opportunity for the gap between the rich and the poor to be re-calibrated.
We will, at least for the briefest moment, consider the long term effects of our next actions. We will start with the whole, and work from there.
More people will challenge solutions and ask more questions, there will be an automatic raising of consciousness. The environment will make that essential. We will not be able to get away with our shortsighted lack of personal responsibility. There will be no sand to stick our head into, no away to go to.
There will be tremendous opportunities. Our lives will be radically different. We will simply have to move towards natures economy. Either that, or not make it. And there will be very big losses. No one will walk away without being affected in some way.
In Bucky’s words
“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”
We have the opportunity to build the new model. Indeed, many of the new models already exist, and have existed for a long time.
It is an exciting time. People will need support to wrap their heads and hearts around the change. They will go through stress, loss, grief, fear. We will endure. It is our human way, to emerge through emergency.
I write this to urge you to wake up. The shift has happened, and what is occurring now is the lag between the shift and the realisation and daily implication.
Everything has changed. Everything. Yield to it, as nature does, or fight, resist, deny.
The world is in our hands.
Blessings,
Christine
Note. “The script of Francois de Chardenedes “Scenario of Petroleum Production” makes it clear that, with all that cosmic-energy processing (as rain, wind, and gravitational pressure) and the processing time (paid for at rtes you and I pay for household electrical energy), it costs nature well over a million dollars to produce each gallon of petroleum.” Critical Path, page xxxv.
