I have refrained from getting into the political discussion on this blog. And this really is not a foray into politics. Rather, it is reflection on the spiritual message that I took from listening to Barack Obama talking so candidly and courageously about the racial divide in the United States. Regardless of one’s political persuasion, this speech was a watershed moment in the history of the U.S. When have we heard any leader, especially in a presidential election cycle, talk so publically and directly about the hidden sufferings borne everyday by people, regardless of their color?
I was deeply touched by Obama’s NAMING of some aspect of the internal experiences of blacks, of whites, and of immigrants. This required a depth of understanding coupled with the courage and capacity to talk in a reasoned, non-reactive way about the pains and “perceptions of the ‘so-called-other’ ” in “mixed” racial and ethnic company.
At an individual level, I have always found that when someone who seeks real healing names a painful inner experience and brings it into the light of awareness so that it can be understood more clearly, something about that inner experience begins to change. It can no longer hide below the surface of life where it may have festered for decades, and maybe for generations. When a suffering, a hardship, anger or resentment, grief, shame or any other feeling- memory is brought into the light of awareness, it loses some of its ‘festering’ power. To do this on an individual level can be immensely freeing and sometimes life-altering. To do this at the collective level has the power to redirect the course of history.
Gurdjieff, an esoteric teacher who first introduced the Enneagram as a tool of awakening to the Western world at the turn of the 20th century, called this type of action ’striking a doh.’ That is, even when things are seemingly static, they can’t continue in this state for a long period. When the inevitable change occurs, it typically follows a trajectory downward or upward–things get better or they get worse. When a conscious ’doh’ is struck, the trajectory is changed and consciousness has a chance of awakening.
One speech, one person, (or as Obama himself said, one “single candidate, particularly–particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own” will not change the world. But it does create the opening and the oportunity for a new level of discourse and inquiry, honesty and vulnerability, caring and curiosity, realness and intentionality that can contribute to the healing that is so desperately needed. I see this as an invitation to allow personal hidden sufferings to be brought into the light of our own awareness, compassion and love; and then to let them dissolve so that our hearts may open more to ourselves and to each other. This is the time. If not now, when?
To ‘strike a doh’ in your own life, join me in an upcoming workshop or retreat to learn more about yourself, about others and to heal with the support of the Enneagram. The time for our awakening is now. www.lifewisecoaching.com
Roxanne
