Occupy Divergence explores who and how we perceive ourselvesas diverse expressions of a complex system of wholeness.
12-2p PST | 3-5p EST | 8-10p GMT
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This Occupy Heart call deepens our Vital Conversation exploration of The Challenge of Divergent Worldviews. As I type this, I'm watching the "Occupy Live" Feed scrolling news flashes to my right. Conflict after conflict. Right wing politicians & progressive politicians, police & occupy protesters, hackers & government prosecutors, 1% & 99%, truthers & debunkers—I could fill the page listing people, groups and organizations with their divergent counterparts.
People instinctively and passionately defend their worldview as the right and true perspective—as if their life depended on it. Well...it does, to a very large extent. Life "as we us know it" is represented by a world to which we have applied many layers of meaning. Some of our meanings form the foundation on which sits our very existence. To challenge a person's meaning in this core domain, is to challenge their very existence.
Now, let's turn this inquiry inward, since this is the purpose of Occupy Heart. Before you consider opening to a view that's divergent from yours, ask yourself, "How do I relate to and interact with divergence (conflicting thoughts and feelings) within myself?"
To what degree are you open, patient and inquisitive to with yourself? To what degree are you judgmental and short-fused? To what degree do you allow yourself to be present with uncomfortable feelings? To what degree do you divert your attention with distractions or simply ignore certain feelings all together? This level of flexibility has to do with emotional competence, the capacity to digest and integrate your emotional experiences. I have found this to be one of the more challenging skills for westerners, in particular, to adopt, simply because of the cultural training to devalue and resist one's inner landscape.
As within, so without. The degree to which we are aware, expansive and fluid with our own inner divergence will be mirrored in our capacity to tolerate or, even better, be interested in understanding a worldview that seems far from yours.
There's another step to deepening our perspective in understanding the role of diversity. Our existence, each of us and our physical universe, is a dance of energy in multiple dimensions and innumerable frequencies, flowing between positive and negative polarities. The Tao describes this dance with the principles of Yin and Yang, masculine and feminine, light and dark, etc.
Every diverse perspective expresses a role in the polarity dance. Some are real hard to deal with. They plunge us to the core of our own self-judgment and lack of trust. Funny thing–without exception–every role exists within each of us. The yin/yang symbol reminds us there's light in the dark and dark in the light and it's ever-moving and shifting, perpetually seeking a balance of energy.
When we're able to track the essence of "those 1%-ers" inside of us with an open heart, awareness expands and something shifts. The polarity collapses and, at least momentarily, loses its charge. The more adept we become in the dance, the more peace and effectiveness we bring to the playing field.
We'll explore real-time process that will give you more capacity to stay more present and empowered with divergence worldview challenges.
