Integration

It seems that every where you look these days there is opposition and rejection, and to the rational mind there seems plenty of good reason. The political, economic and even environmental narrative are focused more on being right than being real, or more accurately making someone else wrong.

At this time in our history large numbers of people are waking up to the uncomfortable reality that our institutions, leaders and systems are not as they have been presented. Governments are being seen for what they so often are, self-serving instigators of discord actively creating division between ordinary people. Britain built an empire using the principle of divide and rule.

The difficulty for many is that awakening to this reality provokes a different version of the same energy. Opposition. It is a natural reaction to want to put things right. 'Right' being the commonly held ideas of transparency, democracy, legality and all the other ideas which are meant to promote a fair society. But ultimately that opposition and the adherence to an absolute idea of 'right' are what have lead us to the current situation. Our rejection of all that we perceive as wrong actually perpetuates the division.

There is a natural instinct within us to want to heal what we perceive as wrong, and the collective desire to 'heal' the world is very strong at the moment, but if we are to mature collectively then we must mature individually. The division we see in the world is a reflection of our internal conflict and it is little surprise that so many are actively seeking healing in one form or another. But the situation we face at the moment requires something more than healing, something beyond healing. It requires integration.

Michael Brown presents this powerfully, and illuminates a truth which is not easy for many to hear:

"More often than not, those who enter healing as a profession are individuals who project their unresolved conditions onto the world, then try to fix the reflection they perceive."

This is just a direct version of Jesus'  'healer heal thyself' and is perhaps the toughest step on the path to maturity as we are asked to integrate all those parts we have spent a life time rejecting. Integration does not regard something as wrong and in need of fixing, rather as something out of balance, needing to be embraced back into the whole.

The world is as it is because we have failed to address our internal division. When we feel repulsed by the xenophobia and exclusion which seems to be so prevalent trying to remove those expressions is just more of the same energy. We need to go within and embrace those unresolved parts so they can return to neutrality. To most this will seem a futile act in the face of an overwhelming problem, but it only takes a few to own and resolve their internal difference to allow a new perception of our world to take seed.

This work is not easy but it is increasingly necessary. Best wishes and many thanks to those brave enough to try.    

Bill