The Work Of Our Time
“Now it is time for us all to step into our role as ancestors of the future and dream the next seven generations into being. In doing so, we must recognize that giving them life is not enough. We must also work to provide them with a world that is capable of sustaining their lives.
This is the work of our time, the work of our lives. ”
Sherri Mitchell, from Sacred Instructions, Indigenous Wisdom For Living Spirit-Based Change
My personal experience in community and with friends is very different from what I see happening in the media about the US right now. Is that true for you as well?
In Sherri’s powerful book, she speaks of the longing we have to see through the illusion of separation that for millennia has prevented us from unifying, using fear and superstition to create shadows and divisions. We go through our lives competing for scarce resources. Sometimes we come together and often we feel so distant.
We are being manipulated into fearing each other, and seeing people who don’t agree with us as dangerous. There are real world consequences when people who are disconnected from themselves and others are in power and making laws that harm us all. It’s discouraging. There are also many good people who work hard to make our world better. Both things are true.
One reason I focus so much on a stable grounded nervous system is because we only have access to our full humanity, kindness and compassion when our nervous systems are regulated. The hypervigilance and high anxiety so prevalent in many people is because we feel threatened and we are in a survival response.
Our nervous system detects threat and goes into a survival response to save us but living in fight/ flight/ freeze/ fawn is not sustainable physically. Stress makes us sick. Suspicion and “othering” is not sustainable in friendships and in our communities. It breaks us apart.
One way to work with this is to balance life affirming connection with what creates despair. There are many things we can’t control and we don’t know what is going to happen. That’s frustrating and scary. We can’t afford to pretend life is different from what it us AND we can’t afford to allow our nervous system to be overwhelmed by fear and division.
Focus on what you can do:
Cultivate and enjoy connection with like-minded people where we connect in our hearts with kindness and compassion. We can do this in person or online - like joining our Sunday free community class.
Somatic mindfulness can help us recognize when we’re feeling overwhelmed and need to increase our practice
Break the trance of ruminating and catastrophic thinking: Friends With Your Mind
Nourish your body through sleep, good nutrition, exercise, time outdoors, hugging yourself a pet or a person
Get together with others to make a change in your community
Do something every day to regulate your nervous system
Learn to signal safety to your nervous system
Join us live every day at 8AM Eastern for daily practice
Do guided practices and courses on Insight Timer
Learn to breathe diaphragmatically 24/7 and to reset with practices like Cyclic Sighing
“To succeed in this work, we must reconnect with the thread of life. Together, we must turn from our stories of domination and destruction and begin to write a new story based on cooperation and conscious co-creation of a more humane and sacred way of being.” Sherri Mitchell
This can be a difficult balance to maintain and we need each other. This is the story we want to write as we move into the future.