Seeing through the eyes of love

Checking out, voting with our hearts and reclaiming trust

Twelve years old. That was the year I became aware of the state of the world, the way humans treat animals and nature and the astronomical level of suffering in the world.

My heart broke.

My heart broke and it’s never recovered. To live with an open heart is to live in the awareness of all the suffering and choosing love anyway. And to me, that is the only way to live. Eyes open, heart open. Deep breaths. And an unwavering commitment to seeking the beauty in everything despite the heartache.

But at some point during the pandemic I stopped choosing love.

Many things broke my heart, shocked me and frightened me at a profound level during that time; mostly the devolved reactions of people who I thought were more anchored in love and sanity than their behaviour during that time demonstrated.

The media propaganda, the censorship, the polarisation, the condemnation and dehumanisation of people who held a different perspective from the mainstream (like me). The ferocious social media attacks, the venomous and hateful comments of people in a state of fear and self-righteousness - I had never witnessed the lower instincts of humans rise up like that before firsthand and it completely pulled the existential rug out from under me.

My belief that I lived in a (relatively) sane place where postmodern thinking prevailed, where rational debate was assured, where freedom of thought and speech were sanctified, was shattered.

Fuck everyone

I feel like I’m still living in the shadow of the unease and deep-rooted fear and betrayal that was engendered by that period. And part of what happened in me was a giant FUCK YOU.

I withdrew from the purpose that had been guiding my life for the last twenty years - of doing what I could to help create a better world - and shrank back into a bitter shell of myself.

Pre-pandemic I was living in quite a consistent state of grace for about a year, and for most of 2020 I managed to maintain that. But then things started getting much darker in the collective and I started to contract. 

It’s been hard to be with myself the last two years, to feel stuck in this bitterness and withdrawal from participation. To struggle to see the good in people, to feel all that anger and grief just beneath the surface all the time.

I stopped wanting to facilitate because my inner stance was, “Fuck everyone, I’m done trying to help”. I felt a bitter disgust for humankind, more than I ever had before. Mixed in with a hefty dose of very personal disappointment, a sense of betrayal and grief.

Grief because I know what might be - the beauty that is possible when we are conscious enough to be self-aware, to heal and love unconditionally.

But as a society it feels like we are still very far away from that potential reality, and the pandemic made me feel like we were even further away from it than I had previously thought. My hope for transformation in my lifetime shrivelled, and desolate resignation beckoned.

I think part of my disappointment was around how easily people (including really intelligent, emotionally aware people) turned to finger-pointing and dehumanising behaviour.

It felt like people were eager to be hateful, to point and blame and shame - both people they knew and people they didn’t know. Embracing the excuse to allow their base instincts to take over their (fragile?) shell of civility. It felt shocking and abhorrent to me, and quite surprising (which possibly reveals some naiveté on my part).

From a psychological perspective I can organise that behaviour into a coherent narrative, but that has done nothing to heal the grief in my heart.

I suppose that after all that I do care, very much, about humanity.

Choosing love

I remember being about six years old, coming home from school and asking my Mum why someone was mean to me when I hadn’t done anything mean to them. She explained that how someone treats you is mostly about them and how they’re feeling and I got it, but what I couldn’t reconcile myself to was that choice; to choose to make oneself feel better at the expense of someone else.

That self-interest that seems to be baked into the nature of humankind is something I have still not managed to accept.

On a macro level we are going to be increasingly tested, challenged to “vote” as Teal Swan puts it, about what is most important to us. What values do we hold most sacred? What do we really stand for? What do we want to be remembered for doing as humanity faces its own destruction?

For me the most important piece is choosing love. Because the second I don’t actively choose love I am part of the war. It’s so simple and so hard. This self-vigilance is my most sacred task.

The next is trust. The thing that keeps me sane and strong is the trust I have found through spiritual practice. This isn’t an experience-it-once-and-you’re-good kind of trust, it needs regular cultivation. Spending time in meditation and communion with the divine and calling myself back to it in challenging moments is the practice of trust.

And in a way the most fundamental thing is being in radical alignment with myself. When I know that I am following what my heart is calling me towards I have so much more peace. This requires a daily practice of self-love; of making the most loving choice for myself in every moment.

The return of the light

I want this race of beings to thrive. I want the incredible planet we live on and the beautiful beings we share it with to thrive. I want evolution to lead us towards beauty, not away from it.

It is so hard for me to watch that happening - outside as well as within.

But something is shifting in me. Slowly the light is creeping back in. Occasional whispers of enchantment and devotion are rising up in me. The embodied recollection of the message of light.

A turn of the spiral; I am starting to come back to my innocence (which I would describe as an energetic state of optimism and trust) but I sense it will never feel the same as it did. That’s ok.

I want to see through the eyes of love, because that is what I believe truth to be.

I want to live with devotion, with reverence for life, no matter what it looks like, because I believe I chose to be here and that it is a sacred privilege to be alive.

I want to trust that all is unfolding with the highest intelligence, and that at a absolute level, everything is ok.

The other day during my morning practice (with recently reinstated contemplation time) this prayer came out, which feels like a fitting close to this post:

I bow to the origin of light, and to the light within all of us.