So many hearts and minds are heavy laden right now. That these times are troubled seems like an understatement to people all around the world.

But I’m a spiritual contrarian. So I’m hopeful. Very hopeful.

And here’s why: Humanity is still very young. We are still finding our way. We are still evolving toward wellbeing. And you can witness this evolution taking place in real-time, if you zoom out.

But in the day-to-day, month-to-month, year-to-year lens, our collective evolutionary path looks less like a hockey stick and more like a roller-coaster economics chart: ups and downs, big problems calling in big solutions, contractions preceding expansion, always.

And yes: we are in a contraction moment right now.

We’ll talk much more about this here in the months to come, as the contractions get closer and closer, just like the series of pushes right before a child is born. We are giving birth to a new world. It’s a process. And it’s uncomfortable.

This discomfort has caused many a sensitive soul to feel powerless or defeated, of late. It has caused outrage of the righteous (but also paralyzing) kind.

But this discomfort also presents us with some opportunities, should we choose to accept the mission.

You can use this uncomfortable season of change to practice radically accepting your own unwanted emotions, your own experience and your own full life history, because (a) it’s not going away anytime soon, and (b) when you fully accept your own history, you reclaim your power over your present experience and who you are becoming.

You can use this season to begin pulling out old spiritual thorns and releasing old emotional triggers, shedding light on the things you never speak about, now that you know they cannot do you in. You now have models who have done this transparently, on a very public stage.

You can feel the feelings you need to feel, without pushing them away, giving them the space to pass and process out.

You can investigate your emotions and experiences with kindness.

You can use this season to learn how to speak up, say what you mean, ask for what you need and even call in help and support, if you need it.

You are not your past traumas. You are not your past anything. You are eternal. And you can’t be done in.

This collective journey of social transformation can become part of your own personal Hero’s Journey, where after the series of quests, the Hero always comes back home, with the spoils of battle, victorious, but more importantly: changed and expanded. Freer. More powerful. Clearer.

You can practice, during this time, making technology your servant and not your master. You can reclaim control over your own time, your own mind, and your own emotions. You can manage your attention and exposure to the outrage cycles, by flowing your attention to the corner of the world you can impact, by reading instead of watching your news, or by taking steps to replace your social media habits with soul-nourishing activities and soul-filing relationships.

You can learn, during this time, to listen for golden threads of inspiration about your own personal mission and calling, which might be to spark the next great social justice movement… or not. That is not everyone’s calling. You can learn, during this time, that everything you, personally, are Divinely guided to do is a golden link in the chain of the greater good, even if it seems insignificant or irrelevant to the big picture social remodeling that’s taking place.

You can learn, during this time to get clear on your calling, and to walk into that with clarity and power, having chosen a different path from the chronically depleting, demoralizing, paralyzing addiction to news and bonding with each other over outrage that so many with tender hearts and caring souls are prone to do, today.

In this way, you can begin to do your personal part in co-creating the more beautiful world we all know is possible, to borrow Charles Eisenstein’s phrase. Even if that’s as granular as raising your children differently, or being a beacon of love and consciousness everywhere you go. Using your words impeccably. Modeling your own journey transparently. Being a love-monger.

During this time, you can become a member of what I’ve started to call the Tribe of Thick Skins and Soft Hearts. It’s a process. It’s uncomfortable. It’s like life. It changes you. Always onward, always upward, but with ebbs and flows, and the ability to feel tenderly, without being done in.

So. What should you do in troubled times? First, understand the evolution that is happening. Understand that what seems like “trouble” is all part of the path. This is not a reframe. This is necessary for change. All of it. Collectively and individually.

NOTE: A few months ago, I gave a talk inspired by our troubled times and my contrarian response to it. My talk was called Humanity is Not a Dumpster Fire. I thought it might resonate now.

Click to watch: Tara explains why Humanity is not a Dumpster Fire, at Inman Connect San Francisco this Summer.

Head up + heart out,

TNN

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