The world we live in right now is full of chaos.
This is something that’s likely always been true - but what’s unique about the times we’re currently living in, is the fact that we have such unfettered ACCESS to information about what’s going on in the world both close to us and far away.
Not only that, we have unfettered access to innumerable amounts of OPINIONS about what’s happening, as well as a whole lot of exposure to what people think COULD happen in the future.
We live in a time where we are so deeply overexposed to information from all around the world - and our poor brains and bodies really struggle to keep up and make sense of it all because the fact of the matter is, we did not evolve to exist in a culture like this.
We didn’t evolve to have such permanent and unrelenting awareness of what’s going on all over the planet and what everyone thinks and believes about what’s going on.
We didn’t evolve to be so aware of what ‘could happen’ and all the potential outcomes that may or may not affect us at some point in the future.
We didn’t evolve to have access to so many different sources of information about what we ‘should’ be doing and how we ‘should’ be living.
Rather, for most of our time on the planet, humans were rather limited in how much awareness they had - and while this absolutely had it’s down-sides and while it’s totally true that there are many benefits to the fact that we have so much more awareness now than we ever have - this doesn’t mean that our current way of being is perfect or something we should all be thriving within.
Today I want to explore why it’s so vital that we all start to take the time to develop our connection to something greater than ourselves - our own personal source of inspiration, lightness, intuition, guidance or source energy - and why doing so will not only help you feel better, it will also make you a better community member for all of us!
Reactivity Vs Response - A Big Problem
A huge part of the problem we face in our current culture of hyper-exposure is that it keeps us in a perpetual state of reactivity.
It keeps us in a perpetual state of fear - fearing the world around us, fearing what the power structures are doing or will do, fearing our neighbours and those close to us, fearing far off people and what effect they may have on us, fearing ourselves, our bodies, our emotions, our thoughts, fearing disease, fearing weather, fearing change, fearing no change - there’s always something to be concerned about.
The 24 hour news cycle that comes with a never ending flow of commentary and extrapolation is completely new to us in terms of our evolution and it’s again, not something we evolved to thrive within.
For MOST of our existence here on the planet, humans had an incredibly LIMITED capacity to know what was going on in the world around us.
We were limited by time and space and generally speaking, for literally THOUSANDS of years we were only exposed to what was going on with the 100 or so people that we interacted with on a daily basis in our small groups.
It’s only been in the last 100 years that we started to have an awareness of what was going on beyond our specific tribes and cultures.
This shift from being insulated by time and space to rapidly moving to being able to know what someone literally on the other side of the planet is having for dinner happened SO quickly that it would be totally unreasonable to believe that we as a species have adapted to this new reality.
On top of that, this constant exposure is being deliberately used as a tool of division, fear, chaos and destruction that is keeping so many of us trapped in lives that don’t feel good, that don’t feel expansive, that feel purposeless or generally like a spiral of doom all the time.
Now, this is not to say that this increased awareness is a BAD thing on all levels - in many ways it's been a miraculous form of innovation that’s created all kinds of positive changes for both individuals and for us as a global community.
But there have been a LOT of negative side effects as well.
You see, a big part of how our current power structures keep themselves in their positions of power, is through keeping the general population in a constant state of reactivity vs. a state of thought out response.
We have to understand that we’re living in a world where those who have the most wealth - the most access to resources and those who are controlling who have access to what resources, when and how - have the most power.
The people who determine how our collective wealth is managed, who has access to food, who has access to healthcare, who has access to education, who has access to leisure and who is going to have access to upwards mobility in society and who doesn’t hold a LOT of sway in terms of how our daily lives unfold and how our future as a species is going to unfold.
Those who are making the decisions about what we’re going to do in terms of technology and its development and whether those developments are going to go with or against what’s best for the health of the environment and humans, those who determine how much is spent on the military and prisons, those who determine what is going to be accessible in terms of healthcare and information hold incredibly large amounts of sway when it comes to how people are going to think, what we’re going to agree to and not agree to, what gets made, how much of things get made, how things get made - when you really zoom out the scope of power that is in a very small minorities hands is again, pretty scary.
With this, we have to understand that our culture of perpetual information dissemination is being used by these people as a way of keeping us disconnected from reality.
It’s being used as a tool to keep us in a perpetual state of OVER awareness while simultaneously being in a state of confusion, panic and fear because just as we are being given so much ‘news’ we are also being funnelled into echo-chambers, we’re being given information that’s false, we’re being lied to and we’re being emotionally and mentally triggered constantly to the point where most of us aren’t even sure how to vet a source or how to determine if what we’ve just consumed is factual or not.
We live in a world where all forms of media are being used as tools to twist, edit, distort and inflate reality - making it more sensational, less complex, less nuanced and more stimulating - leaving us again in states where we’re living from a place of perpetual reaction or shut down rather than from clear, critical thought or from actual awareness of truth and reality.
We’re being driven to a state where we are being heavily manipulated into living and acting in ways that go against our own best interests, that pit us against ourselves and one another and that create short term action that leads to long term negative outcomes because we aren’t even given a chance to pause, breathe, assess and draw complex conclusions from multiple angles.
THIS is how chaos continues to spread all over the planet.
THIS is how those in power maintain their power.
Overwhelm, Over Consumption, Overproduction
For most of us, the actual practical outcomes of this current system is that we are living from a place of perpetual OVER doing it.
For most of us, this perpetual information overload is centered around ideas that WE are not enough. That we’re failing on some level to ‘keep up’ and do the right things.
Most of us are being exposed to information that is letting us know just how deeply inadequate we are all the time - and this is how we are being MOST manipulated to stay in a state where we perpetuate these systems of harm without even realizing we’re doing it.
You see, many of us are of course taking in news stories and information about what’s going on in the world, and this is driving us into a state of fear, helplessness, hopelessness and overwhelm because - of course it is! Learning about every disaster, every war, every mass shooting, every potential disease outbreak, all the plight of everyone all over the world without being given any tools to help us figure out how to actually help or make a difference and while being in a state of feeling like we don’t know what’s going to impact us is a recipe for feeling like we have no power in life and like we’re doomed.
Most of us aren’t totally AWARE that this is what’s happening inside of us, but it’s what’s happening. We are being pushed into that state of fear and stress and for most of us it’s just a lived ‘normal’ at this point.
We fear the economy. War. Disease. Prices going up and down. We worry about the wars in far off places and feel guilty that we can’t help or do more. We feel scared of people who are struggling as the news tells us that they are dangerous criminals coming to take away our way of life. Bad news story after bad new story and it’s no wonder many of us are in a constant state of overwhelm.
Then, just as we’re being shown all the most fearful and terrifying images and news from all over the world, we’re also being told that if we don’t feel good, if we don’t feel balanced, if we don’t feel like we have our lives together and like everything is perfectly perfect that this means that WE are failing in life.
We are living in a world where finding our footing and finding actual security and stability is getting harder and harder as society shifts more and more towards a hyper rich upper class and a very much struggling to survive lower class with a diminishing middle class, and rather than being given tools for how to navigate this in any kind of healthy way (ie. questioning our systems and demanding changes where changes need to be made so that there’s more equity for all of us), we’re then convinced that all of this instability is a sign that WE are failing to do what WE need to be doing to make ourselves and our lives better.
We are sold on the idea that self improvement, self help, spirituality and personal growth will help us feel better. We’re given a million and a half resources to help us dial in our morning routines, set goals, make more money, optimize our sleep, optimize our nutrition, change our minds, regulate our nervous systems - all with the promise that if we just take enough responsibility for ourselves we can radically alter our feelings of safety, security and connection.
We’re being fear-bated and rage-bated by the media constantly. We’re being over exposed to information that is meant to sow fear and doubt and distrust. We’re being convinced that the world is one giant threat to us and we’re being shown just how helpless we are to make things better for all the other people who are suffering - and then to remedy that pain we’re being told that the answer is more consumption, self help and productivity.
We’re told that if we just work harder, work smarter, make more money, perfect our bodies, perfect our minds and become spiritual masters that in THIS we'll save ourselves from that gut-wrenching feeling that life is out of control.
We’re told that if producing more doesn’t make us feel better, that we then can CONSUME more. That we need to have the latest and greatest clothes, supplements, gym memberships, skin-care and that we need to be engaging in all the ‘in’ wellness trends.
That we need to be experiencing luxury and showing that we’re ‘prospering’ - because again, we live in a classist society that highly values the wealthy as being better people than those who are struggling.
We literally fear those who are struggling and we are perpetually being told that the way to avoid becoming them is to produce more, consume more and work on ourselves more.
We are constantly reacting.
Constantly feeling unsafe.
Constantly feeling disconnected and constantly feeling like the floor is about to drop out from under us.
And rather than being offered ANY actual solutions - we’re being offered more of the problem.
More things to buy. More things to distract ourselves with. More navel gazing. More checking out of reality. More participation in the over production that is polluting our planet and taking up resources we don’t need to be taking up.
It’s a big mess - and we need to learn how to check out of it if we’re going to find any kind of personal peace, and if we’re going to be the kinds of people that can actually help make the world BETTER in the future.
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Let’s take a break here and come back next week for more!
<3
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