You Have Two Great Tasks in Life

“You have two great tasks in life: to live in peace within yourself and to live in harmony with the [beings] around you.” - Gay Hendricks

The author of that quote said ‘people’ and I changed it to ‘beings’ because I believe we need to consciously live in harmony with all the different creatures on our planet. A vegan diet and lifestyle is one aspect of this, and a topic of other posts here.

This week, I am pondering the response to the results of the elections here in America, and ultimately the way inward and forward. I have friends with many different world-views, and it’s been interesting to observe their responses, as well as my own. Some aligning with the team that lost - this time - feel dejected, others are frightened, shocked, angry, or even rather freaked out. Many siding with the winning team - this time - are elated and deeply relieved, feeling a sense of justice at last, or feeling a heady combination of simultaneous exuberance for themselves, their team and the country, and deep compassion for their fellow humans who are having a different experience and feeling so distraught. Other friends, in either camp, are quickly back to life as usual. Still others choose a life response of complete indifference to elections, preferring to harness their energy for more spiritual focus, and viewing that as their proper contribution.

If you are ready to reflect on your own response, do you see yourself in one of these descriptions? Is yours another that I have missed? I believe that deep self-reflection is essential for fulfilling the two tasks of living in peace with yourself, and in harmony with the beings around you. I often talk about the vibrational or energetic tone or frequency we carry in our own being, which radiates outward to those around us. It takes a certain amount of self-awareness to tune into this, and a great deal more still to accept full responsibility for it.

Though we are spiritual beings at our essence, we are all learning to navigate our human experience. There are so many tests and pitfalls to keep us on our toes and constantly growing in our spiritual awareness, and our ability to ground and integrate our human emotional experience. This, I believe, is the real work of life, on the path to knowing our essential Self. Events like this week’s contentious election, and all the dramatic energetic swirl surrounding it, happen FOR us, rather than to us. If you align with the side that lost the election you are not a victim, any more than those on the winning side are victors. There is danger in identifying too much with these labels. From a spiritual perspective we are all one, just unique expressions of the very same, one and only Source energy, and therefore inseparable from each other. Dramas such as what unfolded this week, and our triggered reactions, reveal our shadow parts - those parts of us we have not yet fully accepted and integrated.

It is our straying from this knowing that is causing all of the emotional drama in our country right now. Imagine if we all declared ourselves to be “Independent” voters, abolished the 2-party system that so conveniently supports a narrative of eternal conflict between “sides,” and elected leaders who were equipped to remind us of our essential unity (underneath our opinions, surface differences, and perceived differing needs), and to guide us from a truly spiritual perspective. Imagine!! That could be our true “Golden Age.”

As it is, in our collective’s current level of evolvement and perceived reality, we each individually have the difficult task of seeing this higher order for ourselves, and consciously choosing our response to the confusion and seeming madness unfolding around us. If you have been struggling through a big emotional reaction of any kind this week, I invite you to step back, get yourself into nature, feel your connection to the bigness and beauty of our planet, our sky, and our universe, breathe consciously, and forgive your human self. It’s a really hard journey sometimes!

Thoughts and words are very, very powerful, and must be chosen wisely if we desire to heal our human community. When negative or overwhelming emotions are aroused, we have strayed from the natural peace of our core essence, and it is so easy to slip into unconscious thoughts and language, especially if we choose to express our emotions by venting to others. An understanding ‘shoulder to cry on,’ or for some reflective listening, can certainly be a healthy initial support, but very soon it is necessary on a conscious path to sit with our emotions alone. Only then, away from all distractions and external distortions, will we be able to find our way back to our Self, and the inner peace of our divine essence.

The two great tasks presented here, peace within yourself and harmony with others, are both an inside job that requires our full presence and deep attention. Support from others can feel good and help us find our courage, but then we must each do the solo work of reconnecting with our Source, and re-grounding our energy there. If we each committed to making this our #1 priority in life, harmony with each other would be the natural outcome. As frustrating as it can feel sometimes, we cannot with any integrity control the thoughts, words, or behaviors and choices that others make. But believe it or not, we can ALWAYS choose to be at the helm in selecting which of our own thoughts to engage with, and this will determine our outwardly expressed words and behaviors that follow.

As natural as it feels for humans to bond with a group, group-think beyond the most pragmatic form is treacherous, and holds us back from our true spiritual journey, and the inner (and outer) peace that is ours to claim if we are willing to do the inner work which must be done alone. If that sounds arduous, that’s because it is! But it’s necessary, if what we actually desire is peace and harmony.