Spectacular Awareness
October 2023
What does spectacular awareness look like? To me, it looks like leaning into love with every chance we get, the service of others, and radical acceptance of exactly where we find ourselves. Let’s face it, the world we live in now is busy, angry, and summarily distracted. Yes, I’m a grateful old dog, who still loves running around well off the porch. Social media is destroying our children’s ability to be fully present and safe to play, learn & grow. Our federal governance remains completely unhinged with personalities winning out over principles and values. Hate seems more pervasive than at any point in human history and it’s no doubt exacerbated by our overall minute-to-minute ability to disseminate our rage from behind our laptops. Two wars are going on for reasons that both seem unconscionably inappropriate. One was born from a dictator locked in around attempts to widen his borders while crushing very noble Ukrainian people, and the other was born from decades of oppression and overt terror from a subset of their generally beautiful population. Where this is headed, no one honestly knows other than to understand that countless innocent people will continue to die or maybe worse, live under the circumstances they are faced with each day.
Spectacular awareness means that we ALL must combat this darkness, this hate, this delusion with love and light. I believe fervently that the light will always drown out darkness. We benefit from trusting this universal truth; we must carry the light into every room and interaction we are blessed with. We must be aware that so many are suffering & within this awareness, we should look for ways to show up in loving service to one another. What a beautiful and in fact divine opportunity. My internal narrative is to lean in and to love recklessly at every turn without judgment, condemnation, or as importantly, expectation.
I believe we need to consider going back to earlier days, to heal. Meaning, re-harnessing, non-judgmental, community-based efforts to truly support all those who are suffering. A dear friend of mine once said, you can pretend to care, but you can’t pretend to show up. This is a mindset, a practice, an opportunity we all have daily. Active listening is also a key. We need to hear one another without judgment to understand one another more richly. Put down the texting, the messaging, the posting, and have actual conversations. Without this shift, I believe we will continue to become more and more isolated & susceptible to the darkness. Look for opportunities to love and lift one another up. Look for the good in people rather than their brokenness. Humanity needs a reboot. We need to cultivate loving-kindness at every turn.
As a person in long-term recovery, I fully understand why we call ourselves “grateful alcoholics” or “grateful addicts.” This is manifested throughout our individual and collective healing. This awareness is earned through hard work and self-discovery. Things like, uncover, discover, and discard the things that are holding us back. My hope is that we in recovery can model for all the “normies” as we call them, what it looks like to be self-aware, to be of service, to lead with love in all that we do, to bring humility into every human interaction. To show up each day as the best version of our most authentic selves and accept that will always be good enough.