Inter-being: being with, not alone.
How do we build resilience in a world that seems to be falling apart?
How do we cultivate joy when we are living with so much despair?
How do we remain open to feel the pain of the Earth without isolating ourselves and losing hope?
What would it take to make our work sacred?
A week ago, a group of 100 Latin American climate activists at the forefront of global direct action gathered together in the hot, humid jungle of Costa Rica, to dive deep into these hard questions and paradoxes. "The way out, is in" was the name of the retreat hosted by the monastics of Plum Village (in the Thich Nhat Hanh tradition) and the activist and diplomat Christiana Figueres.
Once we got there, we learned that the aim of the retreat was twofold:
i. to begin to learn how to heal our suffering
ii. to actively cultivate joy and happiness.
Sounds relatively simple, but I guarantee this was not an event for the fainthearted. What our facilitators explained is that pain is part of the "ecology of life". We cannot escape it. In fact, and as Buddhism has taught us for thousands of years, it's not just an inevitable part of being human, it has an absolutely pivotal role to play.
The premise is that we need incredible resilience in order to go inward and do the work to heal ourselves (an absolutely necessary step if we want to heal the planet). That’s why the intentional cultivation of joy and happiness is key.
But let me back track a second...
I recently interviewed Christiana for the Heroine's Journey podcast, where we discussed the intersection between activism and spiritual infrastructure. My deep resonance with this topic led her to offer me the last space of the gathering even though I don't work directly with climate (although I am an empathy activist!). Showing up required important changes of plans, but I was beyond thrilled and had no idea what to expect.
In one of those weird twists of fate, the day I got there I fell sick with a violent flu and fever that left me really weak and delirious for the rest of the week. I wasn't prepared for navigating that, or what happened after; when I accessed layers of pain so deep within myself that I'm still processing and trying to put into words what happened. To say I was a walking fountain of tears is an understatement. It was extremely intense.
There is so much I could say about what we learned in that week, but Im sticking with three powerful practices that I hope you find useful.
Deep Listening
Four simple revolutionary steps:
i. What do we appreciate in the other person?
ii. What do we regret about what we did?
iii. What is hurting? Here we want to focus on the feelings, not the story. Can we see where the other person tried there best?
iv. How do we want to take care of this relationship? What is a concrete action we can take?
Useful things to keep in mind before and during this exercise, which I found extremely powerful:
Listen with your heart, not your ears. This is the foundation of vulnerability, which leads to very different conversations.
The primary goal is to understand the suffering of the other person vs. seeking resolution for ourselves. This means letting go of proving I'm right, or making the other recognize certain things we want to hear, or showing them how we’ve been the victim.
When you show up with a seed of love and compassion, you encourage and allow for that seed to be activated in the other person.
Ask yourself: am I framing myself as a victim in this situation? If you are, there is usually blame and blame can be a trap because you depend on others actions to regain your sense of power, sovereignty, and peace. Remember, you don’t need an apology to find peace.
All of this is so much easier said than done, but here is a question that was posed that I found very convincing: What do you want your legacy to be: love or being right?
Remember, when we practice deep listening we are responding to a deeper calling—the calling of contributing to nonviolence, love, and not causing more harm in the world.
2. Cultivate Joy:
Make a list of the things that bring you joy no matter what, things you don’t need anyone else to do. Like walking barefoot on wet moss, listening to a song, watching floating seeds fall from trees on a summer day, feeling the warm ocean on your skin, the smell of fresh coffee or tea. This list may not come easy, but it is sacred. Start paying attention and you'll find those things. Write them down and make them visible for you to see.
Not surprisingly, nature can be an incredible ally in cultivating joy: innovation, adaptation, creativity, wisdom, resilience, acceptance of impermanence, the ability to push through incredible threats and dangers... nature is an extraordinary source of resilience and a wise teacher.
Allowing ourselves to feel so deeply is really hard. So is welcoming our pain. This is the work of warriors and as such, we need to cultivate joy and happiness as a priority in order to show up.
3. Access the Ultimate Reality
There are two realities that we always have access to. "Historical reality" is where we spend the vast majority of our time. In this realm things are separate, life is limited, urgent and broken. It's also where innovation, creation, and birth happens. The ultimate reality is the implicate order: where we are inseparable, life is limitless, and everything is whole and complete as it is... it belongs—the pain, the mud, the failures. The invitation is to access the ultimate reality more and more so that we can understand: How can we balance the urgency of this moment with the freedom of the infinite?
Please let me know if any of this resonated with you.
And if you have listented to it yet, here is Christiana's incredible episode in spanish.
In light and darkness,
Christine Raine
Coach, Speaker & Podcast Host
