Withdrawing into darkness as a necessity to transition out of a wrong life

Jan 12, 2022

Hello {{first_name}},

 

I don't know about you but there is a constant refrain going on in my being right now THAT THE WHOLE WORLD IS FLIPPING CHANGING AT A CRAZY PACE! On the surface we may look like we're ducks gliding along, but boy under the water we are paddling like mad.

It's tiring.

It's stressful.

You've still got all this stuff TO DO - as normal, a ton of work and family obligations etc etc but now, underneath it all the foundation of the lives we used to take for granted is being shaken.

I think the tendency to want to numb out is growing. A lot of people have lost the boundaries between work and home now that we work at home. By the way I couldn't believe it when the HR manager of a large South African firm explained that the Candidate Attorneys hired this year have not yet set foot inside the office. I mean, I can believe it, I just can't imagine it. My experience of articles is so tied up with the physical building, and dressing as a lawyer and going to meet clients. I cannot fathom what it would be like to be introduced to this whole new world, but from my own bedroom? Like a virtual reality show...

While there is a massive sense of dis-ease you may also not know whether the anxiety you're feeling is your own, or belonging to those around you or belonging to the collective.

Please take care of you. We are facing another epidemic of mental health crises, that professionals have been warning about for a long time, but it's here. It's real.

Personally I am finding it stressful, but I'm also excited as I can feel I am shifting daily and absorbing new information about what might be possible in the world. I was born a changemaker, I have always questioned the system, so my time has come.

Radical change is needed. What we have built up since the Industrial revolution is so toxic and dysfunctional, we have to live differently. We haven't been prepared to shift voluntarily so now we will be forced to. People spoke of "disruption" 2 years ago but it meant businesses doing things slightly differently. Disruption has new meaning now. We don't know what's coming next.

I am drawing a lot of inspiration from Charles Eisenstein. He's an ecologist, a philosopher and he's quite radical, but I'm feeling more aligned to his thinking with each video I watch.

Here's a message from him, that I trust will reach who it's meant to, and can be scrolled over by those it isn't.

I would ask you to consider that the pace of your transition out of the dark state has its own intelligence and that when the moment comes to take these steps, you will be ready and you will do them. That if you've withdrawn into a cave, that maybe there's a deep wisdom operating there. That you've gone through a process and the very fact that you're listening to this right now means that that process is at a transition point. So it's not about what can you do to get out of this. It's about recognizing that this time of darkness is reaching its end. And you can feel grateful for that and you can feel the ring of truth in my words. That this isn't something that is up to you to do. It's an initiation that's happened to you. It's a process that has taken you through itself.

And a change is coming and you can trust that. It's not that it just happens without your participation. It's that you come into a new willingness to participate. You come into a readiness and a responsiveness, and this isn't something either that you have to make yourself do. Instead, I would ask you to give a little bit of attention right now to the feeling of readiness that is growing in you and offer it some trust and say “Thank you readiness because you are going to push me with a feeling of excitement and rightness at the moment when the time to take these small steps comes and I will recognize that moment and I will trust my feeling of readiness, my desire to participate in this life that perhaps I've withdrawn into darkness as a necessity to transition out of a wrong life. And I thank my soul for guiding me to do this".

So this is a kind of an invitation into self-trust that again is not something that you have to accomplish. I hope this isn't too complicated. It's something that you can feel. It's already there. Like a deep knowing, a deep trust through all the darkness, like there's some little speck of knowledge that says "I'm not a fuck up", that, "I am whole", that "I am wise", that "This is who am. I am life. I am life, taking the form that life takes in the circumstances that I was put into. I am just as much life as that tree over there. Or the tree that is growing up all twisted and gnarled because it was in rocky soil and shadow and against a cliff or whatever and it knew what to do. It knew how to grow in that rocky soil and maybe I was in rocky soil too. I am life. I know how to grow just as much as any other living being".

And so I guess what I'm asking right now is to touch that knowledge and accept that that's all you need to do. Touch that knowledge and it begins to work you.

Even if you don't believe it. Even if you think that you won't take those steps, there's that knowledge that you will.

That you are life.

You can watch the video of this, here

What I want to say is this...

Things are hectic. The change is happening fast. Walk in nature. Meditate. DO NOT read the news as much as you can avoid it. Call your loved ones. See some friends. Play with children.

Dream of a better life for yourself and for ALL of us. And when you feel called, let's start making the changes the world is calling us to make. For many of us, that means healing the legal profession, one lawyer at a time. I'll share with you soon the feedback from the participants in the Awakening Lawyers Student Mentorship Programme - because the thing that made my soul sing, was hearing again and again in our final zoom call, from both the mentors and mentees "this programme was healing to me".

 

Love always

 

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