This podcast requires a special introduction because it is reflective of a side of myself that I have often alluded to, but largely kept private until now.
And that is my searching for personal insight, meaning, and deeper inner fulfillment. I’ve been actively and intensively exploring this area for roughly 5 years.
Some might call this a spiritual questing, while others would call it inner tracking. Either way, this part of my life involves building my emotional IQ and resilience.
It is perhaps the hardest, bravest,and most important work I’ve ever undertaken. It requires being willing to face my own deepest shadows, beliefs, and sources of grief.
In this interview with Teal Swan, a modern spiritual teacher and catalyst, I use this quote by Carl Jung:
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own Soul.
One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”
More and more I am concerned with how individuals are going to face the painful awakening that is before us all as our earth’s ecosystems continue to decline and collapse.
Our larger narrative of growth is being increasingly revealed as hopelessly wrong and misguided. Our other narratives about fairness and justice are being proven utterly wrong on a daily basis by monetary printing and selective Justice Department actions and inactions.
When our narratives get shredded, either on a personal basis by some major loss such as being fired, getting divorced, or losing a close loved one, we either experience a major round of grief or we numb ourselves and shut our feelings down.
If we dare to really experience and move through the grief, we have the chance to be transformed by it, to be renewed into the sacredness of life.
But I am increasingly certain that our culture lacks the ability to really face and process such intense emotions and therefore is doing everything, no matter how absurd, to avoid the painful truth of our current predicament(s). Which means that there’s a more painful set of moments awaiting us before we’ll collectively and finally face reality.
That’s the central thrust of this podcast, and my questing is both personally important and something I am doing because the world needs people to bravely wade into the waters of actual transformation.
I am highly cognizant of just how dangerous and tricky these waters are.
I fully expect to lose some of you along the way, because this topic is simply too emotionally charged and we are not communicating face-to-face where there’s a chance to decipher and defuse complex interactions but via the internet where our humanness is reduced by the medium to a difficult flatness.
Oh well, there’s not much we can do about that except (shameless plug alert) come to the Rowe seminar, or simply work at maintaining an open mind.
Others will be challenged and excited by this line of inquiry because they share the understanding that this inner transformation is really our only path to a better future.
In my view, we’re not going to elect a savior, ever, it’s simply not possible. There’s no fixing this from the top down, and the outside in. There are no outer laws that will ever be sufficient.
Our only salvation as a species will require us to each individually change first so that we can once again exist in balance with the greater world, returning to a relational (and regenerative) stance by turning away from our transactional (and extractive) practices. We need to work from the inside out.
That is, our inner guidance on knowing the difference between right and wrong is the only thing upon which we can truly pin our hopes. No, we don’t need more studies and rules and regulations to determine the right amount of neonicotinoid pesticide use to allow, we need farmers who would never dream of using a biocide on their fields because it is the wrong thing to do.
We need personal integrity and that comes from within.
This is my deepest truth, the one I’ve been sitting with for a long while, wondering how and when to reveal it. Well, here it comes.
And this brings me to the final and very important point I want to make. I am going to ask you to put into practice your best and highest form of discernment as we wade into these waters.
Said simply, I want you to trust yourself and take from these podcasts and investigations what nuggets work for you and to then leave the rest behind. You decide what works and what doesn’t. I’m not going to find any one teacher, guide or source that everyone likes or agrees with.
The key word here is discernment.
My interview style is to let whomever I am interviewing say what they are going to say. I feel no need to confront and try to change their views on the fly, but to hear them out and listen to what they have to say. Usually I find something useful ion every guest even if it’s “hey, now I know how the opposition is thinking.”
This is my style. I go forth and collect everything I can, winnow it through my utility filter, and then share it with you and put it to use in my own thinking and life.
So the invitation here is to receive this material with an open mind, taking what works for you in the here and now while leaving the rest. Trust yourself to know what works for you.
In closing, Peak Prosperity has always been about three things. Knowing, doing and being. All of the data we collect and present provides the context that allows us to know where we are in this story. We then put that knowing into practice by doing things. We build gardens and support our neighbors and reposition our portfolios.
It is the beingness that is more openly on display now. The thing that treebeard is always so eloquently writing about. How do we want to be? How do we find and offer our deepest gifts to the world? How do we process the inevitable flood of emotions that accompany the loss of a guiding narrative?
I don’t have all the answers to those questions, only my own years of experience and practice to offer to anyone that might find them useful and my own open ears ready to listen to those that can help me as I continue my life-long journey of growth, inner discovery and outer mastery.
I am honored to be able to be in relationship with each of you at this time, on this journey, doing this work.
So that’s it…have courage, practice discernment, trust yourself, and let’s create a world worth inheriting.
Click the play button below to listen to my interview with Teal Swan (51m:33s)
by time2help