Who do you choose to be?

Lately, I have been walking around with a bit of sadness and a feeling of emotional exhaustion.

I initially attributed it to some physical things I am challenged by, but it feels like it is more at a soul level. So today when my friend Judy messaged me the words “systemic challenge of the soul”, I burst into tears.

Those words struck my heart so deeply.

Everywhere I look in the world it seems that the soul is being challenged. As systems become more corrupt and broken, and people and corporations become focused on money and success at the expense of others, the soul suffers.  I look around the world at the amount of hate and violence and the lack of value for human life and the earth. I am disheartened and in disbelief.

I will never understand how people can participate in hurting another or how they can contribute to the destruction of the planet. I know that I am guilty of certain things, I drive a car, I fly in airplanes, I don’t always eat local, but I know climate change is real. Anyone who doesn’t believe so needs to take a look at California and listen to the tens of thousands who are experiencing loss from the fires. So many examples of environmental destruction right now.  The humans in leadership are making self-righteous and self-aggrandized decisions that serve no one but themselves. Where are the souls of these people?

So many seem to be walking around like zombies, hypnotized, perhaps by GMOs, preservatives, pesticides and other chemicals in our foods and environment. I would rather think that than think that this is human nature, but it may very well be in our DNA. One look at history and I know that people can be this way and have been this way forever. Still I don’t understand.

I don’t watch the news because it hurts my heart and my soul.

I worry about the souls of our youth and young adults. Many of them are experiencing soul loss or at least soul despair. What must it feel like to be my son Evan’s age and look out at the world and wonder, will it still be here in 30 years, 50 years, even 10 or 20? My heart hurts and I can sink deeply into despair when I think of Evan and the life I would love for him to live. If I think of my young grand nephews and nieces, I wonder and worry what the world will be like as they grow. I don’t usually dwell in the despair too long though, because there is work to be done.

This seems to be a time when the erosion of the body, mind, and spirit is happening all around us. It seems to be the end of civilization and we have seen it before in history, but has there ever been a time when the soul has been so challenged and the earth in so much danger?

Meg Wheatley, writer, teacher and chaos/systems theorist, in her book Who Do We Choose to Be?, talks about this time and asks us the important question, who do we choose to be at a time like this?

It is a call to create possibility and humaneness in the midst of increasing fear and turmoil.

It is a call to awaken our soul and step into our highest integrity and step forward as sane leaders in the midst of insanity.

The balance of existence seems to hang so delicately and depends so much on the reawakening of the soul and the way of the peaceful but fierce warrior. Who knows if it is too late..

But we all have to decide who we choose to be right now in these soul challenged times.

My work is loving the world, listening deeply to myself, reclaiming myself, and guiding others to listen to their soul wisdom.

Who do you choose to be?