Though used in a completely different context, there's a line in my current favorite novel, The Girl in the Road, by Monica Byrne, that beautifully captures my all~too~common experience these days. I am living in "a state of perpetual incredulity."
I cannot believe what is happening to my country. Of course I know that America has always had a pronounced shadow side, that money has controlled policy, and that an underbelly of repression has lead to many thousands being marginalized in myriad ways.
But good golly, what we're seeing now is something of a different magnitude altogether~~social programs for those in need dismantled, environmental safeguards gutted, financial disparity set to grow, and even talk, for pete's sake, of invading, oh, excuse me, annexing Canada.
While I do hope that what's unfolding will cause many to rethink the decisions they made at the polls last November, we can't wait for that. We each need to respond appropriately right now.
And that's the beauty of Bareilles' rousing speech. She charges us with "being the medicine," and she calls this sacred work. She doesn't deny that, "It's hard and it's messy and it's uncertain and there are so many trap doors, but there are so many trampolines." To find those trampolines, "you just have to keep telling the truth. Whatever that is, your blunt, broken, beautiful, perfectly imperfect human truth with a capital T. That is the medicine. You already have it and you can trust it. It will guide you to the next right thing."
In my other current favorite novel, Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood, a character refers to the Buddhist concept of dharma. Dharma is not a simplistic spiritual teaching, but rather a nuanced and multilayered one.
As used by Wood, it speaks to the importance of living in alignment with our moral duties and life purpose, to use the skills we possess in a way that ultimately brings us closer to an inner calling that is ours alone. "If you don't live the life you are born for, it makes you ill," states Wood's character, Helen Parry. "You must live according to your own dharma, even if you could be very successful living someone else's." Otherwise, "you will cause grave spiritual injury to yourself."
But how do we know what our dharma is and how best to enact it within our lives? There are no simple answers, though after sitting with hundreds of people in my 44~plus years as a psychotherapist, I am convinced that the answers to such questions lie within each of us.
Our dharma arises from the intersection of our unique essence and the raw material of our individual lives.
To find it, we must first do the work of deeply knowing ourselves, and intuiting where our passion and our talents lie.
The true art of being fully human, though, comes with the next step~~ascertaining according to that dharma and within the unique details of our lives and personal spheres, how to step forward in the best possible way, while also adjusting those steps as conditions change.
It is doable, but not easy. "The truth does not offer you the path that is frictionless and smooth and AI and free of blemishes," Bareilles warns. "Truth with a capital T asks you to be willing to lose everything to get closer to her. To have the courage to be demolished in her honor by opening up wider and wider to this staggering, awesome, complicated, heartbreaking, brilliant life, to bear witness to what is joyful but also to what is painful with the same curiosity and respect and love."
Bareilles' video was sent to me by a woman whose heart is breaking from what she sees happening in our country and to our planet. Her dharma in that moment included sending me the link to that video, and mine in this moment has been to share its essence with you.
"We live in a world of darkness and light," Bareilles concludes, "and they are both great teachers. Whatever you do, keep telling your truth to the world. It's your unique medicine...You are the medicine."
I wish us each well figuring out our dharma and living our medicine to the best of our abilities, day in and day out. It will look different for you than it will for me, different for each of us one day than on the next. Yet this is truly our calling. It is what we're here to do.
Will it shift things in the outer world? I don't know, but that seems the wrong question to ask. We are here to come fully alive as ourselves, and the only questions worth asking are how do we do that, what will it look like, and how do we share it with the community that holds us?
I am the medicine, and so are you. Be the medicine. It is the life you were born for.
Much love,
Leia
You can listen to the instagram post of Bareilles' speech by clicking here.
No comments:
Post a Comment