Change is happening at so many levels right now and it doesn’t
matter what side of the issues you are on, it is rippling through our country
like a firestorm. It is as if we are waking up from a long slumber to find a
world barely recognizable and it is shaking us at our core. We are finding our
voice after being silent and suppressed for decades. For me, it is a beautiful
thing, I rejoice in the fact that systems are crashing and old ways of ‘being’
are no longer sustaining. We have a long way to go, but it is happening.
I stayed up late last night reading the flurry of posts on
Facebook regarding the Supreme Court’s ruling on gay marriage. I watched as people’s
profile pictures became covered in rainbow colors. I listened to the Eulogy our
president gave in Charleston, I watched as confederate flags came down and
rainbow flags went up. I shared my own posts of gratitude for the changes
happening. I also realized what a diverse set of ‘friends’ I am connected to
through social media. I love the diversity it exposes us to, the connections,
agreements, disagreements and debates this platform has brought forth (of
course realizing its many restrictions and short comings). Most of all, I love
that social media has helped us become more aware and more likely to question
those we have trusted for too long. Institutions like McDonald’s, Monsanto and
Sea World are crashing because of our awareness. We have better knowledge of
how bad factory farming is for our food supply, our health as well as our
planet. This global awakening is very exciting to me. Change happens through awareness.
Early this morning while walking on the Oak Leaf trail, my head
was swirling with thoughts from everything I read last night. I began to further
examine my own thoughts on racism and prejudice. Reading through friends posts last
night and the comments those posts created, made me even more aware of how much
we really do classify people and how outdated so many of our belief systems are.
Statements like I have many gay friends, I have many black friends really
bothered me, especially when being used as a way of claiming you are not a
prejudice person. Why are they not just friends? Why would we classify even our
own friends? I have always believed that if you truly want equality, stop
categorizing people. Are we not all just sentient beings, created from the same source? When we record world
records, we do so by race; first black man to hit this many home runs, first
white man to run this fast. Why are we separating the white and black people,
or any other ethnicity in recording those records? Why isn’t it just the
fastest person? Why do we continue to have affirmative action? I understand the
intent when it started, but doesn’t it just keep us segregated? Why did I as a
child get called out of my 4th and 5th grade classrooms
to go to the office where they offered me free school supplies because my
parents happened to list that part of my nationality was Native American? We
were a middle class family (when they still existed) and we could afford school
supplies. If you want to provide free supplies, why not supply them to students
of families that had financial hardship. Doesn’t that make more sense? Why single
me out because of a checked box signifying a specific ethnicity? My parents
refused to accept the supplies and eventually stopped listing me as anything
other than Caucasian.
As I walked further on the trail this morning, I was
rounding a curve through a heavily wooded area of the trail and suddenly I became
fully aware of my own programmed responses. A runner came from behind, passing
me. He happened to be black and there it was. I instantly felt it in my body
before it even came to my awareness and for a split second I had a flash of feeling
unsafe. But then something really interesting happened. I looked at his legs,
his body type and how he was dressed. It was very clear that he was a runner;
probably a marathon runner and I cleared him as a possible threat. I do not
consider myself prejudice in any way, so I couldn’t believe I had that initial
response, I was horrified actually, and it left me searching for an explanation.
Five minutes before this incident, I was walking under an overpass, a darker
secluded part of the trail. A white older man was walking towards me. I
analyzed the situation – he seemed out of place. He wasn’t dressed in what
would seem typical clothes for walking. He seemed over dressed, too many layers,
heavier jacket. But he did have a bottle of water in his hand, I rationalized. I
was very alert as we passed on the trail and I ‘neutralized’ him as a threat
and continued on my way. This entire process happened in seconds. I then tried
to convince myself that this was no different than how I acted toward the black
man therefore I was indeed not acting from prejudice - right? Wrong. This man I
saw coming and I was able to assess the situation with my conscious mind, based
on something I was seeing in the present moment that seemed out of place. I
convinced myself that I had ‘acted’ the same way towards a white man who seemed
out of place and a black man. But what about that initial feeling when the
young black man jogged past me? I didn’t see him coming therefore I didn’t have
the opportunity to consciously assess the situation, as was the case with the
white man.
This is a perfect example of subconscious programming.
Because of my age, my race and the city I grew up in, I had a core programming,
a belief that was placed there by society. We are a product of our environment
and as young children we are programmed by it more than any other time in our
life. Becoming aware of subconscious programming also happens to be the work I
do with clients; creating an awareness of those programs and understanding how
they create our current beliefs, fears and realities. Clearly I still have some
programming that I am now aware of. Once you have the awareness you can make a
change, you can rewrite the program. By being fully present in the moment I was
able to assess if this person was indeed an actual threat, and that shifted me
out of a programmed response to one based in the present moment reality.
Fear is a valuable emotion, and this is a perfect example of
how it is most helpful to us – it creates awareness by heightening our senses,
thereby keeping us safe by keeping us alert. I spend an unusual amount of time
in nature, most often alone. Fear is a valuable tool for survival, yet I rarely
feel it and I certainly don’t live in it. My awareness of it today was only
heightened by the previous evening’s topics. Every day I practice being present
in the moment, and I feel that has helped me be in tune with my surroundings
and decipher dangerous situations by reading/feeling the energy of a situation.
None of which is usually taking place on a real conscious level. I don’t walk
around my life analyzing everything, but I am very in tune when something doesn’t
‘feel right’ and I always want that awareness to be free of irrational fear or someone else's beliefs.
Who you are is expressed more in your actions than your
words but your words are a window to your subconscious beliefs. People may claim
they are not prejudice, but their choice of words may say otherwise. If we are
not aware of our subconscious programming that creates our beliefs which is then
reflected in our personal realty (personality), we react more out of fear. We
as a nation have a long way to go in shifting out of fear, but it starts with
the awareness of it. That is what I see happening – people are becoming more
aware – and that excites me.
I will leave you with words that I recently shared with a
client who is struggling with his marriage. I said to him “love your wife, not
because she is your wife, not because you have spent so many years together, not
because it is expected of you. Love her because she is a soul who is no less
worthy of love than you are. Love her unconditionally for who she is. If the
marriage ends or the marriage lasts makes no difference, love her no less”.
