We are a social species. Our deepest primal fear, which co-authors the stories of most people’s lives, is that we will become separated from the pack. Primal instinct instructs us to stay with the group, for survival. Emotionally, we want to feel belongingness, and we need to feel connected to something bigger than ourselves. As I shared in my post De-Coding True Hunger, we have collectively become so disconnected from our one true source, that we have developed many strategic coping mechanisms to dull the exquisite pain of this. What we fail to recognize, is that by engaging directly with the very pain we are so desperately attempting to protect ourselves from, we will find the trailhead that will point us on the journey home to the connection we are craving.
“On my new path to awakening, life was no longer an obstacle to my growth. Life was now the battlefield on which I was to remain conscious enough to willingly permit my old self to be stripped away.
I was living in a life made by the flow of life...I can look back now and see the exact moment when the winds ushering in the next period of change first blew across my face. I didn’t understand what was coming at the time, but at least I knew enough to embrace whatever was taking place. I had already learned time and again that it didn’t matter if I understood what was happening; it was sufficient to devote myself to the present moment and trust that the flow of life knew what it was doing.
The more I let go of “Mickey” and just committed myself to the task life had given me, the more the spiritual energy flow increased within me. It was as though by aligning myself with life’s outer flow, the beautiful, inward flow of energy was naturally strengthened. By now, I had become thoroughly convinced that the constant act of letting go of one’s self-centered thoughts and emotions was all that was needed for profound personal, professional, and spiritual growth.” - Michael A. Singer, The Surrender Experiment (a book about the organic flow of community)
I begin this post on community by emphasizing the personal journey, because we will not find our authentic place in community until we are fully present with our individual experience. The rub is that we will only get the pleasure that we really seek when we stop trying to side-step around the pain of life. I love what Mr. Singer says about learning to ‘trust that the flow of life knew what it was doing.’ In the same vein, we can trust that the intelligence of our bodies, and the grand intelligence of nature, knows what it is doing. We need to get our emotion-driven ego-mind out of the way. It feels scary to let go like this, because our egoistic self wants to feel in control. But that kind of control is not real (or happy) anyway, so we may as well surrender and let the higher intelligence of the universe run the show – since it’s going to do that, regardless.
As I have shared before, this kind of surrender is not synonymous with inaction or apathy. It’s more about understanding the kinds of actions to take, the things that are worth caring deeply about, and when and how to let go and ‘let God.’ This seems like a complex topic, at first, because most of us have been taught that we need to take the kinds of actions that can ‘make things happen.’ By this philosophy of action, if what we want is community (or a group to belong to), then we would need to go out and get it, or join it, or somehow directly cause it to happen. One huge problem with this approach is that what we often create through this type of action is not the most authentic kind of community space for us, and this may explain why so many people feel lonely even in a group of people they have chosen to affiliate with.
My subtitle says, ‘emit a clear signal.’ Think of the frequency of a beam of light, or the vibration of a sound-wave. Think of tuning your own vibration up to the beautiful frequency of love, compassion, joy, and service, and trusting that as you emit this frequency more, the flow of life will respond accordingly. As you sow, so shall you reap. Be still with yourself, listen deeply, and get to know what makes your heart sing.
“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.” - Joseph Campbell
I feel a deep connection with a woman I never met in person, who called herself ‘Peace Pilgrim.’ She sincerely committed to a path of surrender, service, and non-attachment. She let go of all material possessions (except the clothes on her body), including all money. She said, “I began to live to give what I could, instead of to get what I could, and I entered a new and wonderful world.” She let go of attachments to people, too, yet she loved all of humanity and felt deeply held in community, even as a solo-traveling pilgrim. She wore a plain tunic with the words “PEACE PILGRIM” embroidered across it, and walked more than 25,000 miles ‘for peace.’ Rather than approach people to tell them her message about inner peace leading to world peace, she became peace, and she also became a clear and graceful billboard to attract those who were curious. She said:
“Your lower self sees you as the center of the universe – your higher self sees you as a cell in the body of humanity.” - Peace Pilgrim
In my own life, I have taken a great many actions to attempt to join, create, foster, facilitate or acquire community around me. I could fill a book with all the examples of these earnest efforts, and truthfully, so much good has come from them that I continue often in this vein. However, I can get so absorbed in manifesting a vision that I just KNOW other people will love, that I may not attend to the energy draining out of me because I have unwittingly veered out of my own most syncopated rhythm, my own most grounded natural frequency, in order to attempt to take responsibility for other people’s experience of life. My motives are pure in these situations, and I am certainly aiming to be of service, but through much experience I have earned a deeper wisdom which is beginning to work its magic more and more in my life. The amazing results of all of my deliberate efforts to network, match-make, share, market, and manifest my ideas have paled in comparison to the peace within that I feel when I focus myself on simply, wholeheartedly singing MY most authentic song, and observing the beautiful response from the universe.
“A bird does not sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.” -Joan Anglund
I heard a saying, “There are 3 kinds of business: your business, other people’s business, and God’s business. You only need to be concerned with the first kind.” I see this as an invitation to realize that when I take responsibility for my own well-being - how I am tending to my heart/spirit/body, how I am showing up in the world, and what I am radiating outward – I am in the business where I can be of highest service. Service is joyful when it flows naturally from this place of self-love. And the natural and authentic outgrowth of community becomes an inevitable experience. (Health becomes inevitable through healthy living.)
The thing to get clear about, is what is your most natural, native state of being? Once you realize that our spiritual essence is love, compassion, and joy (which supports vibrant health and joyful service), then the ultimate task of life becomes to release what obscures this beautiful, natural essence. (Remove the causes of harm, and provide the conditions for health.) As we let this essence shine, its beam is so strong and pure that we become the genuine connection we want to feel with others, simply by being our true, naturally-connected and whole selves, getting out into the world, and living in love.
“Where love is there also is unity.” - Walter Russell
Thank you for your service Ellen, beautiful message. And beautiful time of community today. I love this about you, that you walk the talk ❤️