Week Ninety: Choosing Your Point of Reference

In recent days, many people have come into my office focused on their fears about the prospects of war with Iraq – fearful of the consequences, and filled with sadness for the people who will die as a result. Current circumstances require all of us to cope with a “what is” that is deeply challenging, as well as controversial.

In one conversation this week, I found myself talking again about the importance of resonating, reminding both my client and myself that, if we fall into personal fear, we also begin to resonate with collective fear, which escalates the intensity of our own experience. If we move in the direction of prayer, sending love to all involved, or some other inspiring focus, we resonate with these qualities. In a very real sense, each moment offers us an opportunity to choose our point of reference. We can choose fear or we can choose inspiration.

Whether you are for or against the war, this will be a time of deep practice, as humanity’s collective consciousness is already heavy with fear, anger and sadness. From the perspective of collective consciousness, we each resonate with what moves through humanity, even when we aren’t aware of it consciously. The more we can choose to resonate with collective sources of inspiration, the more we will be able to allow fear to arise, move through, and move on more effectively. We also have an opportunity not to add more fear to the collective when we consciously choose to shift to more positive states of awareness.

And so, as you move through the next couple of weeks, and as we – our collective self, humanity – move through whatever emerges as a result of current world events, explore what happens if you take on as a practice consciously shifting away from fear when it arises. Allow yourself to acknowledge its presence – of course there is fear – and then to actively choose to focus your attention elsewhere. Replace fear with a prayer for someone, or with an image, sound, or thought that brings you comfort or ease.

For example, I have found the Dalai Lama to be a source of inspiration over the years. His experiences with the destruction of Tibet, and how he has handled that with compassion and equanimity, offer me a model for the possibility of how we can face crises that seem overwhelming. Someone else I know follows a particular spiritual teacher who talks about how everything is constantly held within a background of love regardless of how things appear on the surface, and this person finds great comfort in these beliefs. Yet another finds his comfort in a sense of patriotism, as he supports the war completely. There are as many potential responses as there are individuals. The key is to find whatever allows you to move away from fear and into a more positive, inspired state of mind-body being.

The purpose of the experiment isn’t to demand from yourself that you successfully eliminate fear each time it arises, as fear is a compelling and powerful feeling. Rather, it’s to practice becoming conscious of the fact that you are in the grip of fear and then noticing what happens when you deliberately shift to something else. It’s also a way for all of us to remind ourselves about the power of resonating, and to make more active choices about the qualities and states of being with which we choose to resonate (and contribute to collective consciousness) as we move through daily life.

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