If you are experiencing crisis — of any type or degree — I do not wish to waste your time. Therefore, I offer my fundamental perspective right from the beginning: heart-centered expansion is the core response to create wholeness, well-being, and uplift in a time of shock, disruption, and uncertainty.
If you are excited by a different crisis model — fear-soaked scenarios, envisioning new problems, or broadcasting emotional drama — this article will not provide much. There are plenty of others who can assist and co-create with you on those pathways. I wonder if people even realize that they are spinning future realities from the unresolved threads of the past? It can seem so obvious, natural, and rational to do so.
But reality does not need to be created in those ways. You do not need to attend the disaster party! I would like to offer three clear steps to walk a different road towards an elevated life experience — regardless of your current or past circumstances.
I was inspired to write this article to uplift the responses to the worldwide COVID-19 pandemic. However, I do not want to focus on the current, changing drama of the “virus” because there is no singular situation — every reader is in a different place with different impacts.
Furthermore, this wisdom transcends any particular event — these recommendations are relevant and potent no matter the source of crisis, be it physical, economic, spiritual, or emotional. Over the years, I have worked with many, many planetary and personal “disasters.” The power of these steps endure far beyond our immediate planetary context.
So, please, join me, if you feel called to create a more peaceful, clear, and uplifted future … for yourself, and those around you.
To begin, the three steps of self-empowerment during/after crisis are:
- Choose to expand instead of contract
- Allow grief and loss to be present while energizing renewal
- Commit to wholeness and uplift rather than decline and distress
Each of these is a starting point, an entryway for many forms of awareness and creative inner/outer response. The core simplicity of each “step” will launch you into constructive, healthy, elevating, and compassionate action NOW.
Step 1: The Expansion Principle
“Choose to expand instead of contract.”
Inner health and wholeness are your REAL sources of power to be resilient, patient, compassionate, and participate in a reality of your own creation. There are so many different realities that are experienced during a large-scale crisis — some stable, some chaotic, some fearful, some peaceful. Each personal reality fundamentally originates from basic (un)conscious choices. That is why I am offering these three key steps — to make your choices clear and beneficial. It is truly the smallest scale that manifests (large) experiences.
Now, might I ask for a pause here: what type of reality are you actively (or passively) creating?
Can you see your choices of how to perceive, feel, and act clearly?
Your answers provide your starting point: which aspects of your reality to elevate, which to eliminate, and which you wish to sustain.
I have no doubt that expanded awareness will lead you beyond the veil of uncertainty and chaotic energies, regardless of the particularities of your situation. But you have to actually use EXPANDED rather than fear-contracted awareness. In a larger-scale crisis, the contracted state is usually directed by hyperbolic headlines, reactionary decisions, streams of meaningless news updates, and emotionally charged social media chatter.
It can seem that your reality is being mostly driven by “outside events,” but that only occurs if you accept and orient to the projections of others. Many people have poor discernment regarding the information that they consume or people that they listen to for advice. Just because someone says something, or makes a graph of something, does not mean it is an inevitable or even likely future reality. It is well-honed skill to help recapitulate disasters, and resurrect the (long forgotten) memories of other personal and planetary catastrophes into current events.
These projections do not have to be your reality unless you decide to spiral your life into the world that they are (consciously or unconsciously) promoting. I call this “swallowing reality bait.” Most have had a choice, and usually many (conscious or unconscious) choices, along the way to the outcome that they ultimately experience. Much more on this issue in the third step!
Faced with the circumstances in your life, whatever they may be currently, you can make a conscious choice to expand rather than contract. If contraction tends to be automatic for you, then you will need to consciously re-choose, repeatedly, to expand. That’s ok — it gets easier once you are in the expansive flow of energy and awareness. Sometimes the initial shift from fear/contraction is the most difficult part. In this case, you will need to make a strong and clear choice; half-hearted effort will likely suck you down again. Making a conscious, direct decision will launch you into freedom and new potential outside of the “personal and planetary drama engine.”
No matter the circumstances, a key component of living through, or better yet, living beyond a crisis is clear navigation. You have to make decisions and bring supportive energies into motion for your well-being. If you are looking “down” or “backwards,” you are not going to have the perspective to lift yourself and others “upwards.”
Orienting to fear usually results in an ever-narrowing circle of awareness and perceived options. If you have any doubt, observe your body, thoughts, and emotions. Creating from the state of heart-centered expansion and open awareness is very distinct from the state of fear, self-doubt, panic, and helplessness. Generally, you embody a state of expansion by first looking within. Sometimes stillness practices, contemplation, and meditation lead you there. Connecting with other people oriented to expansion can pry open the doorway out of contraction.
If nothing else works to shift into expansion, just stop. Stop. Stop your chain of action and re-action long enough to breathe, look around (and within), and open an inner or outer doorway to allow something new to enter your awareness. A moment of peace, a different thought, a possibility that hasn’t occurred to you before. I call this the process of “emerging from your reality container”: you can learn more about empowered Stillness in this article.
If you embrace an expanded state of awareness for yourself, you can also assist others to go beyond fear to greater creative capacity. The expansion then keeps expanding. Everyone who connects benefits.
The NEXT Step: Moving from Loss to Renewal
