Many days the outer world can feel like a terrifying place…from things happening with the government, from war conflict, people suffering from supreme court decisions. And when we see these things in our outer world, we are naturally affected, often especially as sensitive, empathic people. And we notice that we start spinning out. It’s hard to go through daily life. It’s hard to feel okay when these things are happening in the outer world.
What are the main key steps that I need to stay as a grounded connected human, even when the outer world seems like it’s going to hell in a handbasket pretty quick? The spiritual principles and inner alignment that will help you stay grounded and connected no matter what the outer world is doing. Let’s take a look.
Dissociation is not something that can’t be realized or understood. Read about the 4 signs of dissociation here!
It's not about what it's about.
Remember that nothing in the outer world is really totally about what it is about. What that means is the way that things appear on the surface is generally only the top of the story. And what’s actually happening has much more to do with lots of things: other people’s agendas, fear, separation of the mind. We must remember that the outer world is like a play or a movie that is unfolding. It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t affect you in a non-substantial way, but we don’t go to the movie theater and get so engrossed that when we leave the movie theater we think that those things are actually happening. So we wanna shift a little and get a little bit of observer mind distance. And we want to remember before we go into reaction, it’s not about what it’s about.
What is mind shift?
"Mind shift - realizing that hope and despair are part of the same issue."
Mind shift is that hope and despair are part of the same issue. Now this is a little tough for some brains to get. So what I want you to walk through is to realize that hope and despair are part of the same thing. This blog came about because one of our clients in our inner circle asked me the question, “Leslie, I see that I’m going into despair. How do I not do that?”
And other times I hear people say, “I’m losing hope. How do I have hope?“ So from a deeper grounded spiritual, we could say non-dualistic understanding of spiritual reality is that there is no need for despair and you can also let go of hope.
If inwardly your understanding of reality is that underneath there is a oneness about reality…you came here perhaps to you know, embody something in your life…that there is a greater spiritual understanding to the nature of embodiment. We can start to see that in itself, that your basic essence is good, the basic nature of humanity. And this experience has great joy in it, even when we go through deep suffering at the same time.
Mind shift is that from a sort of inner spiritual unity perspective, despair is a misunderstanding of the nature of reality.
If I am ultimately in connection with all things, if everything is ultimately arising for my benefit, then I can rest in that natural goodness more and focus on the things that I think really matter, despite the fact of what seems to be appearing on the outside.
Formulate and affirm your working spiritual hypothesis.
This is something that I often help people with. And coming up this fall, we are walking people through our Practical Spirituality training, which helps you in a non-dogmatic, non-religious cornered type of way, find your own landing of actual practical spirituality that serves your life.
Essentially what do you believe is really going on here? Why are we here? What’s really going on? Who or what is in charge? And what does that force think about me? Do I have a two-way phone conversation or is it just coming in one direction? You might have a religious tradition that helps you inform your hypothesis, but even if you don’t, what I find is most people do have a sense of how they answer these big questions.
The problem I find is not that people don’t have a working spiritual hypothesis, cuz most people do, even if they don’t consider themselves religious. The problem is one, it’s not well defined, and two, that they don’t connect it when it hits the fan in the outer world. So this is a big thing you can do.
So how you answer these questions, ideally written down on paper is a start to really understanding and having an anchor that when you see things that seem very difficult in the outer world, you can actually come back to landing in what you choose to believe as true with your working spiritual hypothesis. If you don’t have one or know how to formulate that, check out my video on practical spirituality by clicking here!
“False Evidence Appearing Real” Because the tricky nature of embodied reality is that it appears very real. You might have even heard one of those wonderful acronyms that FEAR is “False Evidence Appearing Real”. So “False Evidence Appearing Real” is sort of the nature of fear and embodiment in the mind. And the only thing that ultimately counters the mind is our inner spiritual understanding, or we could say the way of the heart as we teach in Practical Spirituality for having a balance to that.
So what people often say is like, “Well that sounds like you just say that you just shouldn’t care and you should just go meditate in a cave.” That’s actually not what I’m saying.
It is possible to be an actor in the outer world
It is possible to be an actor in the outer world and to try and offer and be a part of outer world change.
A little working hypothesis about the world is that I cannot be a clear actor in the world until I am clear inwardly. And our mind has this idea that I need to change the world, I need to have an effect. And this is not totally untrue, but just as when we are on the airplane ourselves getting the emergency instructions, you must put your oxygen mask on first before you help another person.
So if you are not clear in yourself, you will not be very effective on the team to help anyone or anything outwardly including society. So put your oxygen mask on first and recognize the truth that I must be clear in myself. So here’s the test. If I am still disturbed to the point that I cannot connect with myself, I can’t feel my body, I can’t think, I can’t function, I need to do inner work before I go and try and solve some outer world problem.
Be clear on your 50% line.
You can work for a cause, you can contribute in a way that feels meaningful for you, but do not skip the previous step. You must first be clear.
You must be taking action from a place of clarity and connectedness rather than fear and anger and trying to fix something in that way.
This is a way that we get out of what I call our 50% line. We have a personal responsibility in every relationship, our relationship to ourselves, our relationship to other people, and my relationship with you. I am contributing and you are also contributing. So I must be clear on my 50%. We also have a 50% line with the world and God in the universe, there are some things that are on God in the universe’s plate. Some people might list those off as life and death, when you come in and when you leave.
One certainty about life and a spiritual nature of reality is that the time of death is uncertain and it will certainly come for everyone. That’s not really my business, wasn’t set up by me, isn’t implemented by me. Now people could say yes, we have actors and what if someone murders someone else? We can get into the nitty gritty, but that’s a little bit of a mind category that ultimately can be solved by a little bit more trust in the unfolding of the way of the universe. So come back to an understanding that I cannot be clear in myself unless I actually take time and connect with what’s really happening on the inside. And from there I can be a better actor in the world.
Can you believe that we can feel peace even with challenges? Check this article to know more!
We should be clear about our dharma
If I’m acting out in the world, I have to be clear first about what is sometimes called my dharma.
One way to translate this: ” It’s an Eastern understanding of thought that we each sort of have a calling or a purpose that we’re here.”
And that dharma or that purpose is more known by our inner selves than our brain. So before your brain tells you, in the outer world, “I’m upset about this, so I should join this cause.” We should notice that we’re upset about something. But check in with ourselves and feel into the question, “What is mine to do?” There are some fights that you are not meant to fight. Leave those on other people’s 50% line.
Come back into the body.
And we teach these ways of subtle body work in our deeper trainings. If you don’t already have a way to really hear what the inner voice and the heart is saying, ask first, is this mine to do? What am I being called to? I once saw a wonderful t-shirt that said “God answers prayers. And sometimes the answer is no.” We could say the same thing, whether it’s the universe or God, that we are being called to things and we are also not being called to things. So instead of following your mind out into the world, come back into the body which is the spokesperson for your soul. And tune in first to see if this is actually yours to do or not. Lots of struggle and suffering in the outer world. This is the nature of reality. And when we see that, we cannot be sucked into it like a vortex.
And before you go out into the world, you actually need to really ask, “What am I being called to do?”
I hope these have been helpful. It can be very difficult to be a human. May these practices help you stay more connected to yourself, which will help bring you into a more balanced and effective way of being a force for love in the world. If you know somebody that has been having a particularly hard time with the way that the world is unfolding, please send them this blog. I’m on a mission to help as many people as I possibly can, and I can’t do that without you. We are in this together.
Disclaimer: This program is not intended to be a substitute for professional mental health or counseling services. No practitioner-patient relationship is established and the training content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA and nothing here is intended to diagnose, cure or treat any disorders.