My lockdown bubble comprises of the ‘famous five girls’ and their families that come in their own unique form and shapes. A more diverse crowd you couldn’t pull together. I have often pondered, so curious about humanity and human nature that I am, how it came to be that 5 people with different perspectives on life, love and everything else, classic polarised views etc all came together?
Yet we respect each others’ viewpoints, there is little or no ridicule, belittling, shaming, mud slinging, oh maybe there is some name calling — in jest?
But mostly there is joy, laughter and small moments of love. Meals abandoned to search the streets for a lost dog, holding space for the friend who has spun into anxiety when unknowingly put others at risk, the one who is the glue pulling us all together when we most need it. The one that makes us laugh until we cry. The one who hugs the best.
One of my daughters got tested positive for covid in December, we all quarantined and isolated according to the guidelines and came out of our isolation on Christmas Eve. Having followed the guidelines and that we were all clear and safe I decided to go ahead with lunch on 25 December as is tradition in my family. There are people in my family who are compromised from a health perspective so the need to isolate and choose the people in their bubble is paramount to them. My extended family decided to have Christmas Day without us. Like school, we are tested on the theory we have learnt by asking us to apply our theory to real life situations, and in my personal situation, all the compassion I speak of, and staying out of the drama — well I failed miserably. I had to dig deep to find compassion and empathy for the fear my family were carrying. I fully understand the situation and our collective need for everyone to be safe, but my own stuff got in the way. Once I worked through this, I was able to feel compassion for this fear and open my heart again. To see my shadow and inner child playing out, acknowledging and moving through this, finding my personal joy and freedom from traditions and attachments was very liberating indeed. I tell this story because when we think we have done the work our stuff often comes up again to test us, and if we have done some of the work we are able to dissolve these emotions/feelings that no longer serve us, quicker. Family is a good school for learning and triggers.
We are all responsible for our own work, it’s a choice to do the work or to ‘wallow’ in our circumstances. These circumstances and experiences are gifts in the form of practical lessons. This is how we get to practice our theory that make us stronger, compassionate and brave.
“Earthquakes happen so the earth moves into a more comfortable place” - Deon Meyer
In A human story, living beyond the box I use this analogy to explain “our path to awareness often begins when the universe sends us nudges and bumps in the form of upsets in our lives. When we ignore these signs, the universe shakes our foundations a little harder and if we still ignore these bumps and shakes, the earthquake happens. Our life-box is devastated.”
My feeling is 2019 was the calm before the storm. The storm was brewing bubbling under the surface, the crazy energy of our lives acting out on our ‘hamster wheels’ were on steroids.
2020 was the ground shifting year, the earth started to shift and move under our feet. Time was strange, we were presented with events and experiences we had not encountered before, we had no manual on how to navigate through these new strange times. We started to realise that we couldn’t always count on governments and authority to fix us. We realised it was an inside job.
2021 perhaps will be the earthquake that will reset the future. No one can predict the future, and there are many timelines that can play out. We do get to choose how we experience our reality. As we know, we have little control on the external, we can only control our inner world. Even if we are in prison, in the dark with our eyes shut we can choose our thoughts, use our imagination — to see the ocean, to swim in the ocean, to be the ocean. We all hold the key to our prison cell.
So we are still on this roller coaster for the next while. Can we rise above this playground and spend this time building some solid foundations grounded in self-honouring, self care, self trust and making healthy choices physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually for the self? When our foundations are solid we are able to hold the external chaos and accept the opinions and ideas of others.
Thank you to my bubble for the gift of showing me that despite our polar opposite views and ideas, we are strengthened through unity. If we can practice unity consciousness in our bubbles, neighbourhoods, communities — there is hope for the world.
An excerpt from my October blog on unity consciousness.
We should be mindful that our truth is not absolute and acknowledge that each of us hold our own truth and that we are able to co-exist with the many truths in this world. The path to a unified field is not that we all agree, but that we can each resonate with our own truth and acknowledge that this may not be the truth of other people. Can we honour another’s truth while staying true to ourselves? Remembering that there is no right and no wrong, no absolutes but only that which resonates and aligns with our own truth. This is key to breaking down or alchemising polarity and division. An important question to ask ourselves is, can we co-exist in our environment, and to make space and acknowledge each person’s personal truth?
Be safe