hidden wisdom revealed
I love city living. While I loved my country life for many years, I am crazy about having access to amazing opportunities that living even in a small city allows. Last week I had the great pleasure of experiencing a great treasure in her element.
Author/teacher Ruth Miller, gave a great presentation at a local bookstore, Aquarius, on “Living in a Culture of Fear” . And as always she delivered content that was diverse, holistic, comprehensive, intelligent and scholarly. She really covers all the bases from her background as anthropologist, futurist, feminist, ecologist, and New Thought minister.(whew, she’s been busy!)
She shares the viewpoint obvious to many conscious thinkers: we live in a fear based culture. The question she answered was: why? And boy did she have a lot to say. Spanning 5000 years of history, and yet highlighting the recent 50, (including recent research in neuroscience, epigenetics, anthropology and quantum mechanics) she defined how Western Industrial Culture (which is now everywhere) was seeded and sown throughout the world.
And how a few mindsets that she feels were put in place “way back then” are still alive today. One key belief woven into the fabric of our culture is: “more and better”. How many of us were raised with the idea that “you can be anything” so a young girl, wanting to be a nurse (like all the women around her) was told “yes, but you can be a DOCTOR too” “or president” (be a bigger and better you is implied here). So we are always ill at ease, stretching beyond ourselves to be “better than” our parents and others around us. Exhausting, and fear inducing, at a basic level.
Another thought paradigm she relayed was summarized as, “Take as much as you can”. This expansionist, one upping of the Joneses, that pervades our culture. We are all about acquiring what we can for ourselves and this is so woven into the fiber of our beings that we don’t even see this as strange. All this getting is tiring and implies lack of faith that we will be provided for. And that is fear based too.
I see these patterns in myself. I see how my quest to find and fulfill my purpose is in some ways a manifestation of these deeply held and internalized beliefs. I am curious to know how this new awareness will shift my thinking and being on this quest.
I do know that access to the Divine is critical tool for anyone in any culture. Having access to a deeper truth and wisdom that has my best in mind, and guides me towards my soul, enriches me by working with and around my ego and its drives from the culture.
I would like to think fear is not a big motivator for me. I am reminded of that fallacy when something in my life goes so-called “wrong”. I know, and consciously make that shift to NOT be afraid. But it does take remembering to do so. And even then some work. Very few things are really worth being in fear about, and worry rarely improves any situation. Such a sly master, fear and worry.
Some days we get lots of opportunity to practice noticing the fear and contraction that can subtly run our lives. Take a moment to breath, notice and shift from fear to love, trust, faith or whatever reminds you that this is not all there is. And truly, if you and those around you aren’t dead, everything is probably fine.
This fear can keep us from living our lives, awakening our dreams and living our purpose. it keeps us safe, which is good, but it keeps us too safe and small. This is a big distraction and easy to get swayed by. Don’t go there. And remember: fear is just False Evidence Appearing Real.
Thanks, Ruth, for a great reminder and some excellent nourishment for heart, mind and spirit. I am truly blessed.
