Perhaps This Is What It Will Take To Change The World

On inner transformation and the outer beauty that emerges as a result.

Where do our desires for what we create come from? Where do our dreams for what we want to become come from?

Sometimes we want to change the world so it will match the way we think it should look based on our ideologies and belief systems. Sometimes we want to build a career and life that resembles ‘success’ that we define through the classic modern story of success.

Money, a house, nice cars, trips… leaving a legacy. This is success to some of us.

When it comes to life, and even the question of ‘changing the world,’ something special happens when we create and dream from a deep place of connection and stillness within ourselves.

The Space of Emergent Interbeing

I’ve noticed that people who are truly coming from a still place within themselves (something you can feel and sense, beyond their claims of coming from that place) don't tend to have massive desires for expensive cars, mass amounts of money, and big houses. This isn’t what drives them, even though sometimes large sums of money can come as a result of their actions.

People deeply connected to this beautiful place within themselves have the desire to contribute to others. To be part of something. To do something beautiful. They are connected to Thich Nhat Hanh’s concept of interbeing.

Those are their primary drivers. They are an emergent quality of being in this space.

The Space Ignites Evolution

The more we anchor in this healthy place, we realize that the way we've designed our world and the way we've defined what to do in this world is not conducive to living easily in this connected space.

Sure, we can work well and do a lot within the world as it's currently designed, there's no doubt about that, but we’re making it very hard for us all to do this given our social design.

This becomes more apparent the more we connect to this deep space of regulation and stillness within ourselves.

Don’t get me wrong, it's not like you must feel that the whole world is messed up and we can never do anything within it given its current state. That would mean you’re not in this space I’m referring to…

It's more so that when we’re in this healthy connected place, you're going to realize that had we all been in this place when designing our society, we never would have designed it this way to begin with.

But that’s evolution. That’s the natural sequence of events. To grow and improve. There is nothing wrong with our past or present.

As Above So Below. As Inside, Out

As we build a collective understanding and state of being built on experiencing this place, what is naturally going to emerge is a peaceful transition to a better social design.

I can't tell you how it's going to happen because I don't know. And hey, perhaps we don’t go in that direction.

And I totally understand the argument that states:

“Good luck trying to do something peacefully when the people in positions of power are going to force and fight you to not give up what it is that they hold in terms of the levers of society.”

But there's something deeper within me that trusts that the healthier, more resilient, more connected we get, the greater the sense of agency we feel as beings. And the more we take emergent action from this place toward something better.

We do not become passive. We do not force our agenda on the world. We do not strife over the current ills or challenges. But we also do not avoid acknowledging the ills of today. We feel, we express and we create emergent action toward something that matches this beautiful inner state.

The Greatest Impact Comes From…

As stated, I can't predict what will happen as we do this more and more collectively. I can't tell you how it will look in transition, especially in the classic linear sense where we believe we will need to defeat the powerful through force to win the day. All I feel is that won’t be the way nor necessary.

Of course, you can take the opposing position which says we need to fight. We need to use everything in our power to fight with force and if we don't do that, we will become passive and we will lose. You can choose that path and you can let me know how that feels as you continue to play with it as I’m always open to other ways.

But to me, that has never felt right and I’ve watched many people suffer over the years holding to that path.  

The greatest impact I have ever made and the most lives I have ever touched came from a place of feeling incredible. Feeling connected to something deeper. Trusting that something would unfold and emerge from this anchored place within myself.

I didn’t will or wish my way into building the largest (at the time) consciousness and media brand out there. It happened by following a series of moment to moment impulses while feeling free within myself.

Sure, you could say:

“Hey, your brand got shut down after 10 years by force, and now few pay attention to it anymore. Didn’t you lose by force?”

Yes, that’s true we got virtually shut down. But lose? I don’t see it that way. Our censorship is part of the story. It's part of the situation unfolding around us. The shutting down of my voice and the shutting down of the voices around us has produced another level of awakening.

We can think that the “elite” won by shutting down and censoring us, but it worked in the favor of a collective evolution (pun intended). From a larger picture, a non-dualistic perspective, more human beings are tending toward evolution and realizing something's “wrong” or “ doesn’t feel right” with the world and they are in reflection.

This pause and reflection is leading to new choices. To look deeper not just at our world but ourselves. And while we can get tripped up into negative spirals along the way, it’s still tending forward.

An important step, as I’ve said for a long time now, is navigating the ways in which we anchor joy, resilience, and deep regulation, into our lives as we navigate this time. This is how we create that healthy space within ourselves where something more beautiful can emerge naturally from us.

That is our job. That is what's next. Not finding the next way to fight and defeat, or the next way to force our agenda on the world.