Abraham Lincoln’s words are as true today as when he spoke them. “A house divided against itself, cannot stand.” We must heal or this sickness will continue the chaos and destroy our nation and us. My heart hurts and this pain won’t easily go away and won’t until we care and recognize we are one humanity. 

Today, I see a glimmer of hope.  I see people of all colors standing for a change that needs to happen, for justice, equality, and treating each and every person with respect.  Most people protesting are doing so in a peaceful way to raise awareness of the tragic injustice happening to black and disenfranchised groups of people.

We have a long way to go.  Storms of violence have spread across the nation.  It is painful to see violence, and it is a reflection of the violence against human lives that has been fostered through oppression. There are those that are fighting for their life.  When you have been shoved down and your anguish and pleas have been ignored the buried rage to survive bursts out often in exceedingly destructive ways.  You may judge it or not understand it but this reaction comes from a natural will to live and for justice to be enacted.  Desperation causes desperate acts.

Desperation Causes Desperate Acts

Fear Closes the Heart

There is another insidious element of malicious violence that is being incited to create division and separation.  There are those that do not want peace and harmony or justice and equality.  Their racism stems from fear and entitlement.  It closes one’s heart to the suffering of others.   Cold hatred lashes out with a desire to keep others down.  These people do not want change or unity.  They manipulate the view of the protests and create more fear and retaliation by threatening rhetoric or by intermingling with peaceful protesters and agitating violence by setting fires, looting and causing destruction.    

As we know, violence begets violence and although the chaos is bringing an awareness that we cannot ignore, it is also breeding more hatred and misunderstanding.  All attacks against protestors, bystanders, journalists, police, shop owners, and neighbors are toxic.  None of the violence and destruction is acceptable or will bring peace.  What to do? 

Open to the Pain

This can only be solved by adjusting our consciousness away from the mental distortions of fear and into the depths of our heart.  This means

feeling the pain, despair, futility, and sense of powerlessness that is held within our fellow humans.  At the deepest core of our being, we must open ourselves to feeling the suffering we cause each other through our defensive nature of separation.  It takes courage to move beyond conditioned fear and to reach for understanding and compassion.  Justice will prevail when we stand up to the truth of our dysfunction.  When will we see that championing equality with the right to life and liberty benefits everyone?  

Can you not see that if you hurt another, you hurt yourself as well?  We are interdependent.  What I do affects you and what you do affects me.  Our nation and our world are out of balance because we believe we must compete, outwit, dominate and fight.  These are primitive behaviors that no longer work.  We are destroying ourselves.  Let’s stop the hatred.  Let’s lift each other up and care for one another. 

Allow Feeling to Connect You

The world has rapidly changed.  We are connected globally and we cannot go backwards into some past that really wasn’t just.  In this mechanized world, will we succumb to numbness and ignore the pain caused from righteous indignation?  Will we lose all of our feeling and with it our connection to one another?  If we do not learn how to care, cooperate and empower one another, we will perish.  Let’s realize that our unique differences are valuable gifts that strengthen all of us.  Will you allow yourself to feel?

My heart aches….and that is good.

Dorothy Wallis is a former intern at People House in private practice with an M.A. in Marriage and Family Therapy.  She is a Psychotherapist, Certified Relational Life Therapist, Certified Clinical Hypnotherapist, and an International Spiritual Teacher at the forefront of the consciousness movement for over thirty years grounded in practices of meditation, family systems, relationships, and emotional growth.  Her work reflects efficacious modalities of alternative approaches to healing for individuals and couples based upon the latest research in science, human energy fields, psychology, and spirituality. 

As a leader in the field of emotional consciousness and the connection to mind, body and spirit, her compassionate approach safely teaches you how to connect to your body, intuition and knowing to clear emotional wounds and trauma at the core.  The powerful Heartfulness protocol empowers your ability to join with your body’s innate capacity to heal through holistic Somatic, Sensory and Emotional awareness. 

www.TheDorWay.com and www.Heartfulnesspath.com  

After posting that blog, I reflected on the pain and difficult emotions that can arise when we find ourselves outside of our comfort zone. Sometimes we push ourselves into a place of the uncomfortable and, other times, we find ourselves there following or in the midst of a situation or event that is undesired and perhaps out of our control. This could be learning of an affair, a divorce, a trauma, a health crisis, loss of a job or a loved one, etc. And for the current situation living through a global pandemic. Whatever it is—and we’ve all experienced at least one event or situation in our lives that created significant discomfort—the emotions that arise when we feel stressed or scared are worth exploring. Emotions can serve as important messengers, if we pay attention to them. It’s hard to slow down in this world—especially so when we feel like we’re in the throes of crisis or dealing with the aftermath of a fire—but by taking a mindful moment to reflect on our emotions and explore what our emotions are trying to tell us, what can be an otherwise uncomfortable experience becomes an opportunity for discoveries, personal growth and even significant transformation. We can’t tell in the beginning what the transformation will be as it is a lived through experience. It is in looking back we can see the path of transformation.

Discovering The Beauty Beneath the Fire

A few weekends ago, my partner and I were up in Pike National Forest near Woodland Park in the Hayman Fire area in Colorado. The Hayman Fire of 2002 burned for more than 30 days and scorched to the ground 138,000 acres, causing $42 million losses in housing costs alone. This is a place that we’ve visited often, both pre and post fire, and as we cruised around on our ATVs I was struck by the devastation as well as the resilient rebounding of nature. The loss of mature old growth trees revealed the unique beauty of the landscape of the forest that had been unexposed before the fire. I was able to witness what I fondly call ‘The Baby Forest’ returning to life with a thriving diversity of plants, flowers, shrubs and trees that could not fully develop when the old forest overshadowed the floor before the Hayman Fire. I could see rocks, cliffs and other amazing features in the overall landscape, which are usually hidden. You can notice them in the photos I took of the area. Also notice the ‘Baby Forest’ filling in the scorched land. When life is going along in an automatic routine in usual fashion, we generally do not notice the underlying features of who we are as unique individuals with a unique history. Sometimes it takes a fire of some sort to bring both new things and the long overshadowed to the surface.

All this got me thinking about how we all experience fires in our lives—whether we started them ourselves or they were lit up by another. When dealing with a forest fire in our own lives, it can be hard to see the forest through the trees or see the fire as an opportunity to experience or grow something different. But, there can be beauty and eventual growth in the wake of any destruction. And, when we feel into our emotions, seeking messages and learning from a painful experience, what we rebuild is oftentimes more fulfilling than what was there before. One thing is for sure, however. When a forest fire sweeps across the landscape of your life causing devastation, something new will happen. Today we are trying to put the forest fire out across the globe. We are and will create something new.

On this note, I asked a forest ranger we met on our ride about the fire and what has occurred in the ecosystem and environment since Hayman Fire. The ranger said that, in a way, the fire was actually good for the area. A balance of flora and fauna was restored. Plants once overshadowed by the looming trees now had a chance to thrive, which was improving the vitality of wildlife, particularly the deer, in the area. We saw an abundance of wildlife on our excursions through the burn area. While initially scary and even devastating, there can be beauty, growth and opportunity to be found beneath or in the wake of any fire—mental, emotional or physical. It can be challenging, but it boils down to a matter of taking the time, however long or short, to sit with the pain compassionately and then seek the wisdom that resides within the experience. Letting yourself recover with a sense of curiosity and knowing a new ‘Baby Forest’ will spring forth within you that holds lessons valuable to your life.

The Beauty of Change 

I invite you to think back on one of the forest fires of your life. You’re in the midst of one now, think back to a previous one—we all usually have a few. Remember, it may have been that you felt you wanted to quit when the pain felt too heavy and hard to bear. And, like many humans before and among you, you may have fought the pain, not realizing that fighting pain just increases the intensity of it. What we resist persists, and that is certainly true of pain. Allow yourself room to experience the present with whatever might show up be it fear, anxiety, anger and even numbness. Today it feels surreal to me. I am curious and impatient like a teenager. 

However, when we recognize that everything is impermanent—the fire you were thinking about eventually went out, right?—including your pain, it becomes more endurable. And, there is strength and security of self to be discovered when we’re in the throes of a fire. Think about where you are today versus where you were when a particularly devastating fire ignited in your life. Do you feel stronger knowing that you got through it? Did you develop increased trust in your ability to navigate a challenging situation, walk through the fire and come out the other side?

The secret to happiness isn’t the absence of pain or thinking you’re skilled in the art of avoiding it. Rather, it’s learning to embrace change and to lean into and accept pain and other emotions as part of your life experience. It’s also about seeing in hindsight that you have proved yourself capable, even if you fell apart some (we all do and that’s totally okay). But, you got where you are today through these experiences and tomorrow you will probably learn something new about yourself and the world. And, by accepting that what you know and experience today will change and then change again tomorrow, you’re able to embark on a path to greater fulfillment—even if it sometimes includes the pain that comes with stepping (or being pushed) out of what you think you know…today.

Embrace Change and Create Something New

It’s human nature to resist change, although it’s the only thing in this world that we can 100 percent count on. What would you like to let go of and change today? How has something devastating, like a forest fire, ended up becoming a gift in your life? How can you tap into the beauty of change and nurture something new? And, if you need a little more inspiration, check out 21 Insightful Quotes On Embracing Change from success.com, with quotes from people like Henry Ford, JFK, Bill Clinton and Lao Tzu.

About the Author: Brenda Bomgardner is in her encore career. One of her greatest joys is seeing people move beyond life’s roadblocks toward a fulfilling and meaningful life. She believes each person has a purpose in life waiting to be realized that evolves over a lifetime. And the path to reaching life’s purpose is as unique as each individual. We all have dreams. Step by step she will walk with you on uncovering how to bring your dreams to fruition.  Brenda is a counselor, coach and clinical supervisor specializing in practicing Acceptance and Commitment Therapy/Training (ACT) which is a cutting edge evidenced-based processes. This means there is scientific research proven to show ACT works. Before becoming a therapist, she completed a successful 17-year career in Human Resources at a Fortune 500 company. On a personal note she loves the great outdoors, ATV riding, adventure travel and family. To learn more about Brenda visit her About Me page. 

We often hear about “treating the whole person”, which is an acknowledgement that modern Western medicine and psychology has, in practice, separated human beings in disparate parts and treated those parts as if they exist in a vacuum, unconnected to the rest of the person. Medicine has become the domain of specialists, highly educated in a specific area of health. In many ways, psychology has also become the domain of specialists, and it can be difficult for clients and patients to untangle the different modalities and discover which treatment will best serve their needs.

It seems as if physicians treat the body and counselors treat the mind and emotions.

Spiritual practices also may have contributed to this separation, as they have often placed the person’s spiritual needs above and beyond the physical and the realm of emotional life, imparting the belief that one’s eternal soul is a more important concern than physical needs and health. Spiritual leaders often give up many quotidian needs in the service of their spiritual well being.  However, Abraham Maslow recognized in his hierarchy of needs that one must have their basic physical needs met before being able to pursue spiritual goals.

It seems that science has taken us apart in order to learn about how we work, and that spirit calls out to put us back together.

How do we “put a person back together”, therapeutically? 

Perhaps I have experienced childhood or adult physical or emotional trauma, neglect, or other life experiences that have taught me that life is to be feared and people, in general, not to be trusted. This may have taught me to “live in my head” by avoiding feeling my body and my emotions. It may have caused me to numb my feelings or misuse my body through drug or alcohol abuse, or by eating disorders, angry outbursts, or self harm. This dissociation from the body is also dissociation from my soul and my spirit. I might be living on auto pilot, disregarding physical symptoms or seeing them as unrelated to my thinking mind. I might struggle to articulate what I am feeling.

I may resist feeling at all.

It can be uncomfortable or frightening to allow myself to feel my body or to let myself acknowledge long buried emotions. Sometimes smothered emotions emerge as chronic depression, uncontrolled anger, physical illness, or ongoing anxiety.

Do I say to myself, “I wonder why I am feeling so sad much of the time?” Or “I don’t know where that panic attack came from.” It is as if I am stuck in a level of depression or anxiety and not willing to bring it up into the light and examine it. It could be that looking at is seems just too overwhelming. I might be caught and never be able to free myself from the despair, pain, or anger I am carrying in my body.

But the body and the heart never lie.

My mind can lie to me, because it may be filled with ideas, beliefs, mental habits, opinions, and negative cognitions that come from my family of origin, my culture, physical and emotional trauma, or my religious upbringing. They may not be my truths. By bringing these mental habits, the feelings and emotions I carry in my body, I can free myself from the weight of unexamined fears, memories, and experiences. I can bring my mind into alignment with my body, my soul, and my spirit.

This is true integrity, the integration of my being into living a life that manifests my deepest beliefs, values, and priorities. I am then able to know that my work, my personal relationships, my daily actions are expressing who I truly am as a human being, body, mind, and spirit.

Here is a list of some of my favorite authors on the subject of body, mind and spirit integration:

 Larry Dossey

Carolyn Myss

Rudolph Ballentine

Christian Nothrup

Deepak Chopra

Faye Maguire, MA, LACC, is a People House private practitioner working with youth and adults, using a transpersonal approach to therapy. Counseling is her second career, after being a business owner for nearly 30 years. She enjoys working with people experiencing life transitions, grief and loss, depression, anxiety, trauma, addictions, relationship issues, and figuring out life’s direction, using a holistic approach. Please contact her at 720-331-2454 or at fayemaguire@gmail.com for more information.