Becoming a Beacon of Hope

I hosted the Beacon of Hope Brunches in my hometown today.  I wanted these brunches to be a place to have deep discussions of philosophy and hope. No one signed up – not surprising I hadn’t tried to do a lot of marketing. So, in response to the minimal sign-ups – I had asked my partner, Tim, to come with me, and he did. The topic of today, because it was our launching  brunch, was “Hope.”   To be honest, I wasn’t in a good headspace to have discussions, as I felt very spacey, but I was determined to have deep and respectful dialogue that would prompt us to think deeper.   So, I asked him the question “How do you maintain hope in the face of everything that’s going on?” His answer surprised me, almost as much as my own answer surprised me. 

“I have very little control over things, and so I just focus on what control I have, knowing that I only control my own life.”  

I sat with that a bit, and then pressed “But how do you stay hopeful?”  He looked out the window behind me and paused before he responded. (Admittedly, I’m not sure I genuinely remember what he said.)  I was still stuck on his first comment, “I just focus on what control I have.” In this second exercise of listening, I probably failed. 

Focus on what you can control.

I have a chapter in my first book titled, “Focus on what you can control.” The idea is that you can only control your actions and behaviors and that if you focus on others, you’ll surely get wrapped up in fighting battles that you have no hope of “winning.”  Since writing that first book I have come to an interesting duality in my thoughts about things.  On one hand, I still believe in taking responsibility for taking action, doing the right thing, marching on, and fighting the good fight for a better world for all.  On the other, I have come to understand, at least spiritually, that when we are truly in alignment spiritually, “we” have no control.  I have learned that my brain, and my body, while connected, are also divided to some degree.   My body will do things that my brain tells it to… My brain takes in information and processes it to share those response signals with my brain… However, I also know that my body has acted on its own before.

Evidence of my lack of control

Last year, I drove down one of the 4 major roads that you take to get into my town, and as I drove down this 55 mph road, I saw a woman hitchhiking.  I suddenly pressed on the brakes, not realizing what I was doing.  In retrospect, I could tell, even from behind that she was an older woman and this wasn’t exactly a safe part of the road for her to be walking down. When I realized that I was stopping for a hitchhiker, my brain started SCREAMING at me “Wait! No! What are you doing!”  Afterall, I grew up with a police officer for a mother and watching unsolved mysteries.  I KNOW the dangers of picking up a stranger.  So, while my brain told me not to do it and my own voice echoed from inside, my body seemed to be doing its own thing.  

Without control, I rolled down the window and asked if she wanted a ride, and she said she was going to Wautoma, I unlocked the doors and let her hop in.  As she strapped on her seatbelt, my brain was seething from having broken all the self-developed rules and perceptions that should be emanating fear. Instead of fear, my body felt giddy and warm from this defiant act which helped another person.  It’s not the only time I have had my body decide to do something I’ve told it not to.  

It’s okay to not always be in control.

When I was writing Perspectives Through Broken Glass, I accidentally deleted my core notes.  My brain was screaming as my finger went to the delete button, and proceeded then to confirm TWICE that it wanted to delete the notes I’d been feverishly working on for years!   I was so mad at myself after that, that I didn’t write for weeks out of defiance.  When I did write though, things seemed to flow just as well and the topics still came to me with ease.  A few months after the book was published, I found an old Apple device and charged it. I disconnected it from the internet as I logged back into it. I found my notes and also found that my chapters were all there, there was no “lost work,” and in fact, the work I’d done without the notes was better than the work that I’d done with them.  

In both scenarios, despite my brain not controlling my body, everything worked out wonderfully. This is where I want to express that observation is important when it comes to hope.

Observation helps me to see places to be hopeful.

If we have no control, we must look for evidence that things will be okay.  Over the last few years of my business, I’ve realized that when I let go of control, it usually ends with a better result.  The universe, God, my past or future selves, or something else that I simply can’t understand appears to be keeping an eye out for me.  Sure, bad things have happened in my life.  But, I’ve always found a way out, and I’ve always found a way to be better despite the bad things.  For months and months and months I pushed for my business to operate the way that I wanted…  and when I finally said, “I just don’t know what to do anymore, I’ve tried everything…. There’s nothing left to do than to see what happens… ” That’s when things started to work for me.  Within hours I started seeing clients come to me.

So, by anecdotal evidence, I’ve found that when I trust myself to let go and just go with the flow, my body, and whatever else is happening in the quantum entangled universe, I find success. I can observe that I fail when I exert control, and I find ease and success when I let go of control.  While this duality is apparent to me, that we can only focus on what we can control, and yet, we control nothing, this isn’t as easy to stomach for others.  However, I hope that if you have ever found yourself in this same space of understanding (logically or spiritually) you can see why observation and resigning control are helpful.  

Back to brunch and how we can find Hope in the now.

I turned to Tim and said, “We really don’t control much of anything.”  He took a sip of coffee and nodded before he turned his question back to me. “So, how do you find hope?”  I told him that I actually have to look to history to find hope. (There is a running joke between us about my love of history so there was a nod and smile that signaled “Of course that’s where you look.”)  If you look through history, there is evidence that despite all of our collective challenges over the last thousands of years of human history, we have always found a way to keep going, to keep surviving.  Humans have done and continue to do some horrible shit… Violence, Pollution, Extinction, and Genocide all rest on our shoulders, but for all of it, we also have continued to find more compassion and empathy, more acceptance of others, and more community.  

In the earliest dawns of history, our communities were small, singularly developed – family units that warred with each other over resources to continue. Now, while we still war over resources, we have effectively converted ourselves into a GLOBAL society.  Over 98% of the world’s population utilizes the internet, and even though we have a long way to go to solve the injustices and the violence, the murder and genocide, and the destruction of the planet in which we live, I have to look back through history and see how far we’ve come. Where we are now compared to where we used to be? I hold on to the hope that whatever our collective experience will bring us in the next few decades, one day… one day we’ll be better for it.

The Resistance

I’ve also been looking for evidence of the resistance.  Evidence of people who long stood with “the other side” who are now coming to the side of the resistance. I search for the people who are organizing, championing, calling, writing, protesting, and boycotting. Perhaps their efforts will prove to be too little too late, or maybe… just maybe, their efforts will prove to be just enough to save us. We can’t know, but the more I look for evidence that others are fighting with me, the more I see it.  The more I see it, the more I search for it even more and find the hope that I need to keep going.  I don’t believe that we are beyond the threshold of putting a stop to the chaos and madness of our systems breaking down.  We have recourse, we can make a difference, but what happens with our nation is up to us.  It’s up to us to make the difference, and it’s also up to us to become the beacons of hope. 

See, the resistance won’t succeed by waiting for war… the resistance will succeed by connecting with the hearts and minds of others.   Our current crises aren’t due to a chasm between good and evil… blue and red… family values and woke values…  Our current crises are due to the disconnection of ourselves from our communities, AND the belief that we cannot reconnect.  Where I find hope is that the majority of people I meet don’t find themselves on one “side” or another, they find themselves in the middle.  The majority of people I know miss feeling connected to others. The wedge issues brought to the forefront of our political discussions continue to divide us. 

What if it all does break down? 

Well, that’s kind of how rebuilding works.  We’ve seen this too, time and time again through history.  War, revolution, and more cause a government to restructure.  We know that the systems of America were built on some amazing things. AND the systems were built on the oppression of people. People who were not white male property owners.  A breakdown of our systems provides an opportunity to rebuild and re-write the systems. It allows us to make things more equitable, and more compassionate.. more HUMANE. 

We continue to divide ourselves but we aren’t alone.

By keeping our distance and putting up “boundaries” to protect ourselves we’re serving to continue to further the divide.  Listen, I’m not advocating for you to get involved or to stay involved with toxic people. You must do what’s right for you. However, allowing yourself to start discussions and hold discussions around difficult conversations is a key principle to closing the divide.  In every abortion debate, gun debate, and economy debate you will find that most of us want the same things.  The freedom to be able to live our lives the way we want. Our constitution gives us this. They talk about freedom to live how you want all over the original documents.

Morality is the single biggest wedge discussion topics that we engage in. This is where the arguments get lost.   This is not a left or right thing – it’s a left AND right thing.  We must find a way to have conversations that are not ALL or NOTHING… conversations that end in compromise so that we can move forward. The fact is that we aren’t alone.  The world is with us, the world wants us to be okay – as citizens, and as a democratic government.  Republican citizens want us to be okay, democratic citizens want us to be okay, and independent citizens want us to be okay.  The truth is, that we all want us to be okay.  So we aren’t alone in this fight. 

So, what do we do? 

I believe it’s time to recall our government officials and that it’s time for a constitutional convention – where we can leverage the minds of legal experts, and the hearts of everyday citizens to implement change that will work for all of us.  It’s time that we sure up our government and the checks and balances that are being tested right now.  And I believe that we examine our own involvement in our government.   It didn’t get this way because of money. Things got this way because most of us (a large portion of the citizens of this country) have decided that it’s best to just not be involved. 

Get involved! The time is now. If you are voting, GREAT!  What else can you do?  How can you encourage others to vote? 

Are you an elected official? Great! How are you creating a more fair and democratic system? 

Are you an activist?!

WONDERFUL! How are you promoting inclusion rather than division? 

This is what we do… As a country, we turn inward and assess what more we can do, how can we bridge the divide, and how can we find hope in today’s world?