"The Trance of Unworthiness"
I realized this morning that the reason I value mindful living so much is because it wakes us up. As Tara Brach, a renowned mindfulness teacher says, it helps us to break free from the “virtual reality” of the mind and wakes us up out of the “trance of unworthiness”.
This all starts with becoming aware in the present moment with a level of acceptance and kindness. So…it all starts with mindfulness.
I have known that mindfulness wakes us up, but this morning, I guess it became more solidified in my mind and in the ability to put it into words. It happened somewhat humorously…
I was doing the crossword puzzle ,like I do every morning, and I was cheating with google…like I do every morning. The clue was “____to Wake Up,” 2006 Oscar-winning song”. So, of course I pulled out my phone and typed it in, and a song by Melissa Etheridge entitled “I Need to Wake Up” appeared. So, I entered the crossword answer and then decided to just watch the YouTube video that popped up with my google search.
Here it is:
If watching this brings you to tears, you’re not alone. When it flashes to the image of the Earth from space, I had such mixed emotions of awe and love along with a deep sadness at how much the Earth and those of us living on it are suffering.
As the stats about global warming flash across the screen and the lyrics of “I Need to Wake Up” play, it creates a sense of urgency, in a way, that we can’t continue living with hate, judgment, war, and pollution. We can’t live with ignorance to how our actions impact others, to include other humans, animals, and the Earth as a whole.
So this song is a perfect reminder to wake up. And how do we do that? Mindfulness provides that foundation.
When we live unaware of how our thoughts are impacting ours and others’ lives and when we act out of unconscious reactivity, we’re simply adding fuel to the fire that is creating so much pain and suffering in our world.
So, when we begin to live with awareness…awareness of our thoughts, emotions, and actions….this awareness begins to grow to seeing the interconnected nature of all things. We begin to see that when we help ourselves, we help others, and when we help others, we help ourselves. It empowers us to want to create positive change.
You know, some may say that things are getting worse in the world, and there is no doubt that living unconsciously from greed, hatred and ignorance is wreaking havoc in our lives, but there are a lot of things that, through living mindfully, are getting better.
Steven Pinker’s book “The Better Angels of our Nature” gives us hope that violence has actually decreased in many ways. There is so much hope for things getting better, and in order for that to happen, we must wake up. We must wake up out of the trance of isolation and out of the ‘virtual reality’ of thoughts and beliefs that keep us separate from each other, whether that be feeling superior to another because of the color of their skin or feeling inferior because you don’t have as many likes on Instagram.
By the way, if you know of anyone who still holds prejudice against people of different skin colors, you may recommend reading page 14 of Bill Bryson’s “The Body”. I’ll just share it with you here…
“One of the most memorably unexpected events I experienced in the course of doing this book came in a dissection room at the University of Nottingham in England when a professor and surgeon named Ben Ollivere gently incised and peeled back a sliver of skin about a millimeter thick from the arm of a cadaver. It was so thin as to be translucent. ‘That,’ he said, ‘is where all your skin color is. That’s all that race is—a sliver of epidermis.’”
Statements like this help raise our awareness to what the truth really is. We come up with so many stories and beliefs that keep us separate and in an “us against them” mentality when, really, we are all so much more similar than we are different. We all want to be happy. We all long to be heard and loved. AND, we do have unique differences that need to be valued and integrated so our differences create that much more beauty in our world as opposed to more hatred and separation.
So, as we wake up through mindful living, we begin to see the truth of who we are beyond our thoughts, cultural conditioning, and judgments. We begin to see how when we wake up, it may help others wake up, as well. We become awake to the present moment, in all of its beauty and sorrow, and from this place of authentic awareness, we can act in ways that bring about healing instead of harm, offer love instead of hate, instill hope instead of fear, and ultimately, restore both inner and outer harmony. I think we all could use a little more of that!