Global Crises: We Don’t Have to Hit Bottom...

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...emotionally, psychologically, or spiritually! This past week while preparing for a training presentation for addiction therapists, I was struck by several themes, and indeed wisdoms, that speak directly to the multidimensional and interconnected global predicaments that are swirling around all of us. I had re-read the words of the late M. Scott Peck, M.D., author of the all-time bestseller The Road Less Traveled when he stated "I believe the greatest positive event of the 20th century occurred in 1935 with the convening of the first AA meeting. It was not only the beginning of the self-help movement and the beginning of the integration of science and spirituality at a grass- roots level, but also the beginning of the community movement. I think of addiction as the sacred disease. Very probably, God created alcoholism in order to create AA, and thereby spearhead the community movement which is going to be the salvation not only of alcoholics and addicts, but of us all."

In my sharing with the group on the evolution of the healing (and recovery) tools of the community movement such as Stage One and Stage Two Recovery, Somatic Experiencing and Focalizing, I was also aware of some key elements that I’ve integrated into the latter with group settings. These insights and tools incorporate Otto Scharmer’s (from MIT) teachings and his book Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges about learning from the shared inter-connected field of our existence, Bert Hellinger’s “spiritual constellations,” and World Café methodologies centering on “conversations that matter” and discovering new opportunities for action.

Personally having “recovered” from a multitude of both personal and community crises, I for one will not sit by and feel un-empowered and/or victimized by our present circumstances. On some level we all felt them coming, and I encourage us to face them head–on with the tools at hand. As we in addictions work know, we don’t have to hit bottom. We can halt the downward spiral of victimization and provide assistance no matter how far down we have already gone. High-bottom or low-bottom, everyone can recover from the disease of victimization with the help of a strong support system and knowledge of the energetic field that supports us all — a creative vortex where there is “magic in the air” supporting great discoveries from deep inner journeys and allowing us a source of collective mastery.

I am “dynamically linked” to a number of inspiring people, treatment centers and healing organizations. It will be my mission to engage a conversation with them in the days and weeks ahead about how we can organically meet our collective challenge in ways that allow us to move forward with grace and dignity and at the same time benefit all. Never before in history has our human, global inter-connectedness been so tangibly obvious — to have a blind spot to this and not seize the moment would be a tragedy.

If you are wondering how you can start in your own course of action in alignment with my own, I have a few suggestions to offer: (1) Since whole-hearted acceptance is always the pivotal shift to meaningful transformation, I invite you to listen (in a full-bodied relaxed way) to this 6 minute spoken meditation by Bert Hellinger titled Consenting (by the way, it also inspired the naming of a vibrational essence organically created over the last year in a collaboration between myself and Shabd Sangeet Khalsa). (2) Read a brief, yet powerful excerpt from Otto Scharmer’s book here and some of the above links or search your own stirrings and note if an inner voice calls you to action, no matter how small or large, (3) take that action and observe what happens. Lastly, stay tuned and I will keep you posted on the organic process with this recovery that I begin with this writing. Contact me if that would be your calling, we don’t want to be in this alone.

PS: There are still a few openings in the November 8th NY workshop on Hellinger's Work & Focalizing, consider joining us.