Day 54 Viral Wisdom: Our instinct is to run away…

0:02 hello everyone hi guys happy to be here I'm here with my viral wisdom weekly course for the time being don't know how long it'll last this is lesson or session number 54 so welcome in tell me how you are how are you doing have things opened up where

0:32 you are you back to trying in normalcy that is still experimental how is it for where you are tell me where you are signing in from I'm really happy to be here I see you neshama Nash from the Maldives Kira from Dubai veronique from Connecticut Adeline Kristina Shafak hi guys from South

1:04 Africa San Diego Mexico this is one of the the redeeming features of social media we get to connect to people from all over the world in this community and I love that I honor it i cherish it I see you Paula from Brazil Andrea from Italy Portugal krishma is on lockdown level 3 in South Africa Sydney India

1:40 hello everyone hi Erica Agnieszka ok so what I want to talk about today is a smorgasbord of things that may seem disconnected at first but they they will connect and make sense I hope toward the end there is a definite palpable sense at least here in the US of A fatigue I don't know whether the rest of you are feeling this in your

2:10 own life but definitely an exhaustion right and a sense of when will this be over when will this be over and the corona has now been sidelined a little bit in America with racism with the deplorable state of racism here in this country and then globally it's a global phenomenon so we've had to global

2:40 phenomenons hit us back-to-back we've had the corona virus and then the virus the psychological virus of racism to virus is a biological one and a psychological one and when we have these intersecting traumas that bombard the psyche it can be debilitating right because then there's an economic fallout there's a social fallout there is more mental fallout and

3:12 all of these interweave to create a collossal post-traumatic or traumatic stress disorder right now we're still in the trauma of it this is huge it's unprecedented and I sense from the people I speak to that there is a deep fatigue and exhaustion a wanting to shut down to let go so let's talk a little

3:44 bit about our coping mechanisms in trauma one of the most common coping mechanisms in trauma is denial is avoidance is withdrawal it's shutting down deflecting they're all part of one part of denial withdrawal shutting down deflecting denying withdrawing distracting right you distract and you

4:14 distract in many ways you drink too much you eat too much you watch too much TV because the present moment is too painful another very common more sophisticated coping strategy is to spiritually bypass you may have heard of this term it's very common especially in people who like to think that spiritual what is spiritual bypass it means you bypass the tumult and the chaos and the pain and

4:46 the destruction of the present moment because it's so intolerable it's so chaotic making that you bypass it for a higher seeming sounding goal of spirituality so no one can fault you because you're talking love the speaking love you're talking about the highest ideals of spirituality such as kumbaya unity consciousness we're all brothers and sisters it's all beautiful beautiful

5:18 and we need to and it's true it's nothing is untrue but why is it a bypass because in order to get there you first have to heal the wound it's like the surgeon coming into your operating room you are right there opened up ready to be fixed and the surgeon goes Kamiya we let's just pray to to you know the red chested robins and hear the birds chirping and let's just well wish this broken bone into

5:45 healing you'll be like are you smoking something my bone is broken can you fix my bone and the surgeon is like now but we just have to trust and we just have to surrender and not see anything broken see everything Hollow you see now I don't like that too but I don't bypass to talk like that right there is a place for that but not when the wound is wounding and the blood is bleeding do you understand so that's another

6:13 coping mechanism I see it rapidly right now in the conversation which is so uncomfortable around race I see it so rampantly so another coping mechanism is outright blame complete deflection not deflection of just the problem but deflect the responsibility onto someone else it's not my fault I didn't do anything

6:44 it's your fault your fault your fault yeah so blame blame blame blame blame which equals more abuse more violence more anger yes you sing that too so these are standard psychological coping mechanisms of the very primitive kind of the elementary school garden-variety I do them you do them let's not act like we don't do them but the trick here is not not to do it because you're going to do it because you're on trauma the trick

7:17 is to be aware that you're doing it and then if someone calls you alternate and says hey I think you're drinking too much or I think you're blaming the water to make sure you enter victimhood you know you're feeling like you're a victim you're not the victim you actually maybe you're the perpetrator but you're entering this victimhood when somebody calls you out on it you have to be brave okay but here's the thing our tendency is to avoid pain

7:45 period our tendency though is not to stop causing pain and here is why humanity looks the way it does if we had a mentality to avoid causing pain now we're talking about oneness consciousness unity consciousness but that's not where our energy is our energy is more in avoiding pain if we focused our life more on how am i causing me how how's my ego causing me

8:19 how am i part of the system of injustice how am i part of a system of racial inequality harm i how am i how am i causing my child to be in pain i'm i causing my neighbors to hurt how am i but participating in a in a system of systemic hierarchical oppression how am i but if we ask that that pivotal question of turning the mirror inward would entirely change the globe we would

8:50 move from a dehumanizing society to a human eyes society you see at the core of it all is dehumanization deflection detraction denial avoidance spiritual bypass blame other ring these are all tactics because we live in a dehumanized way we're not human to human our capacity to understand another person's pain is so limited why because as children we were

9:23 not understood for our pain and our parents told us to eat it stuff and drink it run it run away from it our parents made us feel so ashamed to be in pain that we learned to cover up our pain through ego defense mechanisms such as the ones I've talked about you know we we try to be ultra competent you know it's it's not bothering me I'm fine right that's a defense mechanism the defense mechanism of even being the

9:56 comedian or being the pastor of being the the uplifter right these can all be defense mechanisms because they're taking us away from the humanity of the present moment so right now in the coronavirus for example if we have encountered groups of people who tell us that we're crazy to think that the virus is serious or we have people who deny the existence of the virus and there's no there's no knock on people being

10:27 skeptics we should all be healthy skeptics not cynical but skeptic I'm talking about people who deny that it exists what that does is it obliterates the humanity of the experiences then have experienced it and the person is like but but but but what I have and the person is right I don't think you have so to deny it you know the Jews have felt this way because in many many many times in history the Holocaust has been

10:58 denied and you know how that feels when your entire history has been denied but forget even groups of people talk about is you and me when your and my experience is denied where you're saying this happened to me how many children have gone to their parents saying I've been sexually abused and the parents going down you're just making it up right can you imagine can you imagine what that feels like what's happening in that moment is that the

11:25 parent is so threatened by the possibility that their child is in pain that their parent cannot tolerate and hold space for the groundlessness that that brings up in the parent so in order to tolerate the pain that the parent experiences the parent shuts the child up similarly in the corona virus many people have been shut up but in the dialogue on racism now here is where you

11:56 see the most voices been shut up right the most voices being shut up why because of what I talked about it is too traumatic to imagine that this has occurred to our brothers and sisters it's soni unfathomable to us that they have endured hundreds of years that the pain of that feels so intolerable that instead of empathizing with it we do spiritual bypass or we do deflection or

12:28 we do blame or we do some spiritual Ubu nonsense because we cannot acknowledge the pain because to acknowledge the pain somewhere for us feels to admit that we have failed and because our egos are so fragile we can't admit that we have been part of the wrong but it's only when we admit that we have been part of the wrong we're not taking the whole responsibility but can we at least say we're part of the wrong part of the

12:55 privilege that have experienced benefit if we say something to acknowledge the pain it is only then that we can do the work and until we do the work and this is on all sides we will not change and turn a corner now I've been going pretty hard on my social media it seems like I'm racist but I've been accused of being racist because I've been going after white supremacy and

13:29 people don't read everything I write because they're quick to other quick to blame quick to judge so because they're in judgment they think I'm a judgement so when I write white supremacy they think I'm talking about white people and they shut down and then they deflect and then they yell and then they finger point and they miss the point I am never against a white person here or a white person there who it's not who

13:59 cares about the white person here a white person there but that's not the point the point isn't one person or the other person it's white supremacy which is a systematic systematized institutionalized hierarchical state of continued oppression of a certain group of people no matter the time in history and every one of us is part of white supremacy including black people go to them and they hate it I'm sure but you have to become part of it right each

14:32 time we straighten our head each time we wear contact lenses each time be whiten and fair clarify right the word fair which really is associated with equity is associated with white skin every time we participate we are part of this ideology of white supremacy and until we fight the ideology and understand how the ideology is dehumanizing and stopped taking things personally we will not topple the system you know in conscious parenting when I used to say that every

15:04 single parent is unconscious oh my goodness it's like I started ignited Armageddon because the first reaction people had is oh I'm not unconscious I'm not unconscious yesterday I was so conscious and they missed the point right it doesn't matter if on Tuesday night between 7:00 and 9:00 20 you happen to be conscious because you actually didn't see your kids for two hours and 20 minutes the matter it's about a system of

15:37 parental oppression it's about a system of parental unconsciousness and unless we can go to that level and go that and understand that because it's a system we are all part of it and at best right we can call it a system of universal dehumanization because that's really what it is but it has another name and you may not like the name but it's a name and you don't have to attach to the name it's just for colloquial

16:05 communication it's called racism it's called white supremacy it doesn't matter though what the name is it's about the fact that it exists and only when we are willing to step out of our comfort zone offer comfortable Eagles which long for perfection which long for infallibility which long for the delusion of grandeur you see our egos want to be intact until we're willing to step out and call our ego we will keep thinking it is not our

16:36 problem how is it my problem you're going to say that my white ancestors did something on some slave ship how is it my problem you may say oh the the brown person in in Iowa right now me see how is it my problem that there's risk issues going on in Atlanta Georgia and the person in Georgia I would say how's it my problem that Muslims are being persecuted in in India right now and the Muslim in India ourselves in my problem

17:04 if the Jews have been killed in Palestine in in Gaza or whatever right and everyone will keep ping-pong in the issue and nothing will get resolved because in our fundamental individual mentality we truly don't believe it's our problem and so we think it's personal we don't think it's our problem because we think it's personal you see because I am such good person I rather them either it's not about the eye right now it's about the eye in part of a

17:34 collective and unless we understand that we're all feeling in collective unconscious and doing our part through complicit denial or implicitly for speaking up or strutting up we're all participating nothing will change so it is a unique time in history with the corona completely bringing us to our knees in a way that we never thought will happen in this century America

18:05 especially right in New York especially but the whole world been brought to its knees already right there was a dismantling of the ego of structures of comfort and predictability the delusions of grandeur and security we realize from the corona that there is no permanence in life there is no predictability there is no security there is no future we are living moment by moment and now just on the heels of that no coincidence we are

18:37 now confronting the real virus which is beneath us and that is the virus of subjugation of others the injustice toward others and right now it's focused on black lives matter but don't worry other people will get their time it is really the ignition of all our awareness around all subjugation but right now we're focusing on black lives matter and using that as the symbol of all

19:07 inequities but we must first acknowledge the big one the big one right and until we're willing to look in the mirror and see how we have vilified the black man right more than even other groups and I don't want to have a bidding war but you know if your daughter came home with an Indian man if your daughter came home with a Muslim man if your daughter came home with a Hindu man your daughter came home with a Bangladeshi

19:33 daughter came home with a black man you don't came home with a white man your daughter came home with an asian man where would you be the most yes as a system and until we are honest about it we will not change the racism that exists in our country and the globe until we say that I you know each one of us says I've been part of this oppression toward you my black brother we will be

20:01 faking it we will be pretending we will be missing the point and racism as it has will continue for another 400 years because we all are pretending that we are not racist you know it's tough it's tough it's a tough conversation to have but just like in parenting until we can look in the mirror and say you know what I'm a bloody tyrant in my house I like power I like my children to be obedient little puppets until we are willing to

20:33 do that as parents we will not shift the parenting paradigm and if parents can do it and I have helped one parent update after the other break down their ego if they can do it we can all do it right because no one apparently loves the other than the parent right no one loves their children more than the parent so if I can help there and see their own inherent stereotypes their own inherent bigotry so to speak against their

21:00 children surely we can get the whole globe to wake up and yes why people need to wake up too and that's okay just because it's called white supremacy doesn't mean white people are bad it just means they're part of of a system called white supremacy but they are part of it and so are brown people we are all part of it but right now black lives matter you see and which we cannot lose focus of where the pain is the deepest

21:29 where does the cut go the furthest who is leading the most that's where you start and until we start there we can't continue on but this doesn't mean we excluding anyone you know a lot of people have come to see that the phrase black lives matter if it had only said oh if it had only said black lives matter - we would have solved the whole problem why didn't we just say black lives matter - then all these people who

22:00 talk about all lives matter couldn't just mean quiet and my answer is I'm so glad we didn't say - because the - was implicit the - was understood but the fact that people took to arms because it didn't say - ah it reveals an underlying racism like it or not it reveals an underlying problem so I'm so happy we didn't cuddle the issue and take care of everybody's ego because either you get it or you don't get it and this is one

22:31 of those pivotal times and so it is with the coronavirus you know both the coronavirus and the racial divide right now are pivotal points because it's an either/or situation either/or doesn't mean duality because in the in the big mind of our wise selves we know there is no duality this all one race it's all the human race we know that but in the moment in order to get to the bigger ideal we need to start cleaning up all the wounds and fixing

23:03 all the broken bones and and stitching up all the the fragmented skin we need to start with where where the blood is bleeding and then we work our way up and we reach the utopia but by denying by ignoring by by pretending by not fully sitting with the pain we will miss the point sitting with the pain is not easy none of us want to be in pain our

23:33 instinct is to stay away from pain yet pain chases us as if we were the flame and it was the moth right it just chases us why because pain is part of life and what's happening right now with the coronavirus and with the racial divide we're seeing pain pain all of us are in pain and wherever we fall on these issues we are in pain and until we stop in 2020 and we say you know what this is

24:07 the year of clear vision it is we're getting to see the pain we're getting to see what's underneath we're getting to see how resilient we are how together we are or not how unified we are or not how our voice matters right are we using our platform to to talk about the pain pretending like the pit doesn't exist how are we using our voices and no judgment on people who don't want to use their voices however one has the

24:37 question how are we evade in the most predominant lessons of this moment the coronavirus and the racial divide have posed to humanity our biggest issues it is now our choice to see it in clear 2020 or not right it's like 2020 is looking back looking back in hindsight can we see how we got here we didn't just get here we got here through a myriad of centuries of eons of

25:09 causes and effects and causes and effects and unless we now make a change call your school district change the curriculum have more black voices have more diversity hire more black people on your staff you have to have black screen writers you have to have black movie directors we have to because we need the other other perspective and other people of color and indigenous people and transgender and LGBTQ of course right

25:39 when I say black I do are not excluding but we are now realizing that without these other voices in our mind you know many white people are talking about how can they educate themselves right and I know the cynical person of color goes really now you're educating yourself but that's okay better now than ever so they're trying to educate wonderful now we start educating but to educate means everyone needs to speak up how do we educate if

26:07 we all don't speak up so I began by saying it's a time of fatigue and it's a time of exhaustion but I'm going to end by saying this is not the time to be exhausted yes it is a type of exhaustion and it is a time of fatigue but we can't give up we cannot give up right now because this is the moment of 20/20 this is the moment of rising from all that we're seeing you see seeing too much in

26:38 awareness hurts you know ignorance is bliss awareness is tough awareness is not easy awareness is a pain in the ass but now we're seeing and it's exhausting we want to run away we want to employ one of our our primitive coping mechanisms you know paint it change it let's shift the focus let's go have a summer okay but just go back to how we all were before in our little bubbles we can't though because the veils have

27:08 been lifted and now we're getting tired we want to run away but I'm here to say we can of course we can you can do whatever you want but as a collective we can we cannot get tired now we need to understand where our fatigue is coming from a fatigue is coming from finally seeing things as they are you're getting tired of seeing black lives matter too much with you know people are telling me enough stop this you're funny

27:34 can you just stick to your lid outage file what Lane what way systemic injustice is everybody's Lane racial injustice is everybody's Lane your child could come home with a person of color and marry them and your grandchildren could be children of color it's everybody's game everybody's Lane everybody's problem right people are telling me you know that that's higher now enough now enough like enough you did it one time you did it two times but you're pounding your social media too

28:02 much as people don't want to hear too much it's painful to keep the shining spotlight on you but this time we cannot run away if to keep the finger there right when the wound is leading we keep it there right till it stops bleeding same here we're going to keep the pressure till things change right it's not easy it's difficult it takes courage right I'm nervous to talk about this because I'm getting so much flak back

28:29 but I'm like I don't care but we have to wake up and go okay is the problem finished if the problem isn't finished how can the Warriors have change get tired and go to sleep we can't this is the year of 2020 meaning we have to see things clearly but we can't run away we can't regress we can't avoid we have to move forward to move forward to a new tomorrow so 20 years from now children look back and go remember

28:57 remember when police used to brutalize black people remember we need this to truly be in hindsight in in retrospect but it's not in retrospect it is right here right now and as long as it is here right now we have to stand up we have to rise up we have to keep it on everybody's radar right but I'm gonna tell you we're tired enough now talk about some flowers and butterflies and barbecues and and beaches please right

29:26 what a downer you are dr. Shefali all the time again you talk about racism you get talking about it right well let me tell you just like the corona virus isn't going to go till it goes and just like in the corona virus we have to presume that everyone had it we have to do the same here racism is alive and kicking as much if not more than before just now we are more dignified sophisticated more covered more more

29:54 MORE you know covert about it but it's still here you can see it it's everywhere and until it dissipates until we have educated our children and their parents enough and their grandparents enough and then more and then some more nothing will change right when I wrote a book on parenting I couldn't stop at one book I had to go write book - it couldn't stop a book - I had to write book three why because

30:24 things don't change just through a few names and a few uprisings and a few months of protest this is two months not even two months one month of black lives matter and people are already complaining that people are tired imagine living like this for centuries for eons the generations black people don't have a choice to say we're tired so we can't be tired now so this is the the sign of the times this is the moment

30:50 it's showing up we have to be here we have to respond and we have to respond appropriately not by deflection not by denial not by running away not by withdrawal not by becoming more alcoholic by responding to the pain by educating ourselves to ask how have I contributed to the pain and by making the changes every single day till the system changes act as if it happened to your father act as if it happened to your son act as

31:23 if it's going to happen to your daughter that's it act as if you know people talk about the distant secret and how to manifest change you act as if okay now it's time to do this for our black brothers and sisters and our people of color and indigenous and LGBTQ act as if it's your family act as if it's your sister act as if it's you and those of us in the privileged group whatever that is the heterosexual cisgender white

31:52 group whatever the group is that enjoys privilege it needs to get off the high voice and join the others no more dividing we are the only way to stop this divide is we need more on one side and it's not one side against the other it is simply the side of right of justice of equity of compassion of love right and those who come to this side we need to greet them with open arms not go

32:20 do Q so long oh really where have you been for so long now you're coming here no we need to open arms and go come come come we need to educate with love with compassion trust me I'm I'm not good at this I have so much judgment I have so much resentments so much anger I'm working on that every day and I'm becoming better because I realized if I'm if I'm judgmental and and filled with with with vitriolic anger I am the

32:49 same my consciousness is the same as the consciousness I wish to change so I have to shift my consciousness right like Michelle Obama says when they go low we go high and we educate and educate and talk and talk and talk and we make our lives purposeful we create a life of activism simple activism it doesn't have to be you to go ahead you know on a crusade but there are many ways to be active and social media is the way use

33:19 your social media platform don't let it go with love do it with compassion but don't be silent speak up for what's right we have to because it is our children act as if it's your father brother's son and your daughter's husband that's how we act because that's how it is and when we get to that place of unification in our consciousness where we no longer the human eyes only

33:50 then will the system change so while we are exhausted we cannot stop why we are fatigued we have to remember those who've been fighting this battle for years more than us this is the time to keep going 2020 is taking us down we can't allow it to take us down without learning anything right without changing anything well darling out already so let's use this pain to elevate to Avon we're

34:22 suffering all of us are suffering but let's make something of the suffering let's not give up let's not become cozy let's not become complacent let our children see us the parents rising up okay guys thank you if you want to meditate with me I am teaching meditation for free I'm gonna go there in 20 minutes to teach meditation come to this page it's a Facebook page it's facebook.com forward slash groups forward slash get super powered forward

34:56 slash come meditate with me I'll be there in 20 minutes I want to see some of you there thank you for joining me I should be back here next week with another viral wisdom on Sunday at 1:00 p.m. Eastern