Episode 2 - TWIN PROCESSES OF INTEGRATION AND DISINTEGRATION

In this episode we examine the reality that there are two simultaneous processes at work in the world today: the process of disintegration and the process of integration. While both are accelerating and moving to a climax, we’ll explore how it is that they are actually working for us rather than against us.

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Hello and welcome to Reimagining Our World, a podcast dedicated to envisioning a better world and to infusing hope that we can make the principled choices to build that world. In this episode, we examine the reality that there are two simultaneous processes at work in the world today. The process of disintegration and the process of integration. While both are accelerating and moving to a climax, we'll explore how they are actually working for us rather than against us. Well, we stand here at the end of 2020. It's been quite a year. It's been a long, difficult, and turbulent year marked by confusion, global turbulence, and a good deal of suffering, both, mental and physical. As we take stock of this year, I think one word to me stands out more than any other, and that is the word disintegration. I think we've all been stunned by the bewildering rapidity with which our systems, our social, economic, political, environmental systems have been unraveling. We've undoubtedly been witnessing a marked acceleration in this disintegration of our systems. And for many of us, the result of witnessing. This unraveling has been fear, anxiety and depression. What seems to make it worse is that as we look ahead we can see that we're going to have quite a bit more of the same. There's going to be more chaos and suffering, especially in view of the fact that it's becoming apparent, increasingly so that our leaders are ill equipped to help us face the challenges of this time, of this 21st century. Having said that, what if we could look at these same experiences, these same events, these same circumstances, but applying two slight shifts? The first shift I propose is inspired by a quotation from a famous author James Redfield. You remember he wrote the book, The Celestine Prophecy. That was such a big hit a number of years ago and now we don't hear that much about it. But still, he had a lot of very insightful things to say, and one of them was this: where attention goes, energy flows. So let's look at what we mean by applying this shift in how we look at the events of 2020 by applying this principle. We're talking about attention, our attention, the things that we choose to focus on. When I think of focus, I think of myself in a dark space with a flashlight. And what I see is where I choose to train the light beam of the flashlight. So, I want you to imagine with me being on a On a cliff, on a very dark night, with only a flashlight in hand. Now imagine that you were to cast the light of that beam over to the left. And there on the left, all we could see is plunge hundreds of feet down onto the rocks and a turbulent ocean. Now, if we were to keep the flashlight, the beam of the flashlight focused just on that view, it would undoubtedly evoke enough in us a sense of despair, and we would likely succumb to it, thinking that we were doomed. But what if we were to take the same light of that flashlight and turn it over to the right, and there we would see endless fields of flowers, pathways, streams; paths that lead us to warm homes and inns where we could take shelter and get food. In other words, a path out of our dilemma. That is the power of focus. That is the power of applying this principle, this truth, with a capital T really, that where attention goes. energy flows. Now that's the first shift in, in analyzing and looking at what's been happening in 2020 that I propose we apply. But before we move on, let me share with you a second shift that I also propose. And that is that we replace the lenses through which we view the experiences of 2020 and replace them with a lens that interprets these events slightly differently. This shift is based on a different quote by a different leader of thought, if you like, a motivational speaker, famous author Wayne Dyer, who said, if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change. I think the best way to understand this concept is by looking at it an analogy. I want to look at the analogy of how a caterpillar transforms into a butterfly. It's a process of metamorphosis and of transformation, of deep transformation. So let's look at this caterpillar. So the caterpillar starts life earthbound. And basically its job and its business all day long is to gorge itself, to eat as much as it can. As it eats and eats, it gets larger and larger. And as it gets larger, it gets too big for its skin and has to shed the skin. This process that is called molting basically happens several times over until the caterpillar basically hits a certain ceiling, at which point it goes into a cocoon, it cocoons itself. Now this next stage is really fascinating because as this caterpillar spends time in the cocoon, what it starts doing is it starts excreting certain enzymes that start devouring and destroying its body. The process of disintegration is a very messy one. It's goopy, it's smelly, it's pretty disgusting. And yet, in the middle of all that chaos and mess, something else is going on. There are groups of small groups of cells called imaginal discs that have always been latent. They've been there, they were there when the caterpillar was a caterpillar. But they weren't visible and nobody really paid attention to them. It is during this process of disintegration that these imaginal disks, which are few in number and they appear in clusters, each cluster representing a different part of the butterfly that is to emerge. It is during this process of disintegration that those imaginal disks start to multiply rapidly. So we have these two processes going on simultaneously, the process of disintegration, the destruction of the body of the caterpillar, and the creation and the construction and the integration of these imaginal cells into new parts that ultimately become the butterfly. Once that new creation is ready, then the cocoon breaks open and all we see is this new butterfly that has emerged. And at that point, we're no longer bemoaning the fact that this poor caterpillar destroyed itself and died. So, let's take this analogy and apply it to our global experience in 2020 by choosing to focus the light of our attention on the butterfly, on this new way of interpreting and understanding our social reality. Just as the caterpillar spends its days gorging on food. So too, we, humanity as a collective whole, has spent an inordinate amount of time consuming. We have been in the business of consumption and we have been voraciously basically eating up precious and limited resources on planet earth. We've become a very materialistic society and we are starting to pay very dearly the cost of these consumption and materialistic tendencies in the form of climate change, global warming, and the ensuing pandemics. We're in the middle of one. Now the effects of spewing vast unprecedented quantities of carbon dioxide into our environment has obviously led to the problem of global warming and climate change, and we've started to really feel the severe effects of it, including in the wildfires that we've been seeing. For those of you in Australia, you're very well familiar with this. Those of you in California, those of you in Siberia with the forests burning and the permafrost also starting to melt, which itself releases large quantities of methane, another terrible greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Then we've got the fires in the Amazon, which is considered the forest there's considered the lungs of the world taking in vast quantities of carbon dioxide and replacing it with oxygen. And even in the Congo Basin, we have had many fires. And that is just one example of the manifestation of climate change and the havoc that it's wreaking. We've got others. We've got the storms and the typhoons and the droughts and the famines and the extremes of heat and cold. We've got rising waters that are displacing communities, coastal communities around the world, and reducing the amount of arable land, which will affect our food supply and also our clean water supply. So this is all to say that we are that caterpillar that has been mindlessly consuming and as we've hit one ceiling we've just broken through, shed our skin, molted, and gone for more consumption. Now, in addition to our habits of consumption and materialism, we have also built economic and political systems that are founded on the notion of very dysfunctional habit of competition. And as a result, we now live in a world where there are terrible extremes of wealth and poverty, and inequality is rising with every day. The latest manifestation of this inequality and the suffering it's causing is what we refer to as vaccine nationalism, with the wealthy countries in the developed world able to buy up basically all of the available quantities of vaccine leaving the developing countries with very few options. Really a system that is grossly unfair and very short sighted because we all are very interconnected. There are many other evidences and manifestations of this process of disintegration in our world. We see it in things like our recurring genocide, the recurring pandemic scares that we've had with potential pandemics with SARS, with the Ebola. And now of course, we have ended up with COVID 19 and we're told that we can expect further COVID pandemics in the decades ahead, especially in light of climate change and global warming and the environment that it has created to make these pandemics more likely. We've also seen it in the proliferation of nuclear arms, in our recurring financial crises, in the immigration, and this, and the state of refugees around the world, and on and on we go. However, at the same time, and we've seen this particularly in 2020, because of the pandemic, we have all literally had to cocoon ourselves. We have had to stay home, go on lockdowns, socially and physically distance ourselves and stop certain activities that we've been so accustomed to doing. We can't go to large sporting events anymore. We can't go to the movie theaters. We can't go to large concerts. We can't visit and socialize with each other. We can't go to large conferences in person. And so it's given us time to really cocoon and an opportunity consequently to reflect on who we are, what our world has come to, how we got here, and what we want to be in the future. So some of the very positive glimmerings that I see in this year when I look at everything that has happened is the emergence of imaginal discs in the forms of groups of people who have uplifting thoughts, a new vision of who we can be as a humanity, and who have started really pondering, reflecting, discussing, having meaningful conversations around these topics. So let's examine a few examples of these imaginal discs at work. The first is, the growing and rising consciousness, and to me this is all about waking up as a human race and rising consciousness. So the first is the rising consciousness that there has to be more to life than just voraciously consuming and our quest for material goods. and vapid experiences of entertainment and fun. And the question becomes, and people are starting to ask this, is there more to life than this? What is the purpose of life? This is a really key question. So one of the interesting latest studies that has been done shows that people apparently as a result of the pandemic are becoming less materialistic, because they're starting to realize we don't actually need all the things that we have strived for all these years, all these goods that we keep amassing and acquiring and we're actually quite contented with what we have, with a lot less. We don't have to take all the fancy vacations and we don't have to have all these experiences that we thought we couldn't live without. And we don't need all the gadgets that we thought we needed or the clothes or the jewelry. So that's one fascinating rise in consciousness. The other is a rising consciousness that we have a common identity and that we're here on planet earth for a common purpose. We're on a common journey towards a common destination regardless of our ethnic backgrounds, our racial backgrounds, our gender, and so on. That has been one of the most fascinating and exciting rises in consciousness that I have witnessed, and I think that it bodes well for our future. So we have become aware of, for instance, of the scourge of anti Black racism in the United States. It's been there from the time that this nation was born, but it's only now, because of the circumstances of the pandemic, where we have a chance to reflect that it has come to the surface and the scales have been rudely removed or are still in the process of being removed from our eyes. And this growing recognition that there is a gross inequality and injustice that is being perpetrated that we need to fix. And the opportunity is there for all of us to ask ourselves, is this really who we want to be as a society going forward? And what was thrilling was to see the number of people around the world who rose up in unity with a unity of thought and purpose to protest peacefully against racism, not only in the United States, but in their own countries. We've also became more aware of the scourge of discrimination against women and discrimination on the basis of gender. So one of the things that's come to light during this pandemic is the levels of domestic violence that occur. These these poor women usually are trapped at home now with their abusers and society is now facing a reckoning and getting the opportunity again to deal with this new awareness that has been born. In this country where I live, in the United States despite the extreme political polarization that we've been witnessing, there have also been glimmerings of these imaginal disks. And one of them is this amazing report that was published in June of this year. It was a bipartisan report issued by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences called Our Common Purpose. And the goal of this report is to really propose six new groundbreaking strategies and 31 specific recommendations on how we can basically improve our systems in this country, social, political, and otherwise, in order to make us a healthier nation. I think that this report is extremely exciting, especially since it is born of unity between the parties. It is a bipartisan report and it's very ambitious. It aims to implement these recommendations by the year 2026 when the United States will celebrate the 250th anniversary of its birth. Now, we clearly have a long way to go, but like we said in the first episode. We need to start with a vision. We first examine where we are, we look at where we want to be, and then we think of how to bridge the gap. And that is exactly what this report does. It lays out a roadmap for bridging the gap between where we are and where we want to be. Another fascinating and wonderful, constructive thing that has been happening during this pandemic is that the calls for greater consultation, cooperation, and solidarity have been growing at a global level. One prime example of the implementation of such collaboration has been seen by what our scientists have done. They have really risen to the challenge. They have role modeled for us that it is possible. They've put aside all the old habits of egotism, of wanting to be the first to make discoveries and publish something, and the old constructs of nationalism and competition, and really collaborated together and succeeded. As a result, they have come up with vaccines that will save our planet from the scourge of COVID 19. And this has been an unprecedented advance. Usually vaccines take years to develop and before they're brought to market. And we've been able to do this as a human race within 10 or 11 months. It is absolutely astounding and shows what can be done with the power of unity. The other thing that we have seen that speaks to our awareness of integration and construction and building is an awareness of our interdependence and our interconnectedness. And again, we see examples of this in the movement. There's a lot of young people that's that are growing, especially amongst the young people to combat climate change. And we all know that Greta Thunberg has become really the face of this movement of the younger generation, and for that, we thank them. There have also been movements of civil society with hundreds of NGOs coming together to think about new ways of reforming the United Nations and thinking about constructing institutions of global governance that serve us in the 21st century and beyond. And there were some amazing conversations and consultations around the planet initiated by the Secretary General of the United Nations, who sought input from every single human being who was willing to provide input. There were wonderful consultations about the future we imagined and the steps that could be taken. This was all done under the auspices of a wonderful umbrella organization called UN 2020 and Together First. So there's been a lot of advance just in the course of this one year. If we just chose to turn the light of our focus and attention onto these exciting developments, we might feel very differently at the end of the year. Instead of feeling depressed and anxious, we may start to feel hopeful and motivated which is exactly our purpose here with this series. So to sum up both of these processes of integration and disintegration, they both have value and they both have a critical role to play, because it's not until we realize that our current systems are outmoded and we have hit the limits of what we can achieve as a human race with our systems as they are economic, political, social, environmental. It's only once we get there, we're willing to let go of them, that we then are in a space where we can be innovative, creative, visionary, and create new ideas of the new we that we want to be, the new identity we want to have, and we start to build the capacities and the tools and the moral standards in order to achieve that vision. To get there it's worth focusing on this saying from Lao Tse the famous Chinese philosopher, who said, When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. In other words, it requires the willingness to detach and let go of what we are in order to become a new creation, just as that butterfly is really a new order of creation. Unlike the caterpillar, it is no longer earthbound. It can fly. It therefore has perspectives and has access to choices that the caterpillar could but dream of. And is, is just a totally new creation and none of us weep when the butterfly is born for the loss of the caterpillar, even though that loss was an essential sacrifice in order for the butterfly to be born. The challenge before us is to stop clinging stubbornly to old outmoded habits. I want to end on that note by sharing a funny personal story. I mean, I say it's funny. It wasn't funny at the time, but when I gave birth to our daughter about 20 years ago I was in labor for many, many, many hours. And Every time they try to do something to get the process of birth going and to get the contractions going again, such as getting you out of the hospital bed to walk down the corridors, every time they tried one of those things, it would have the completely opposite effect on me. My contractions would slow down. And it wasn't until they administered an epidural and I completely relaxed and I was unable to control my body by sheer dint of of will that I relaxed enough and the birthing process started to just move really rapidly and thank goodness gave birth to a healthy baby girl. But later the doctor told me that it was this innate, kind of a habit I had of control, literally exerting control over my body, that had interfered with the process of birthing. This is a thing we need to recognize, that our insistence on clinging to the old ways of doing things, of controlling things because we think if we let go, we will lose it all. And because of our fear, if we but knew that letting go is actually the answer to birthing something new. So that's a really good question. How might we let go of who we are? So the first step, I think, is to Reflect to see what aspects of who we are no longer serve us. Because there are some aspects of who we are that we may very well want to hang on to that serve us well, but there are aspects that don't. And then the second question once we've recognized that is to ask ourselves, what is it costing us to hang on to these old ways of being. And that's why I took some time today to unpack, you know, what disintegration looks like, including global warming, genocide, nuclear proliferation, the pandemic, the economic recession. The costs are pretty high. And we're already really suffering a lot. And, and so we have to ask ourselves, is it really worth clinging to these old ways of being? My own view is that we're going to get to the point where the suffering becomes so severe that we will be forced to, despite ourselves and our inclinations, to let go of of our old ways of being that no longer serve us. But we must remember that we have free will choice and we don't have to wait until we're left with no choice. At any moment, we can choose a different reality by making better choices, by letting go, that involve letting go of old dysfunctional habits and then adopting a series of new ones. Alex, I hope that has helped answer your question. So, I want to end on that note, and I want to again share with you the wonderful news that I'm very excited about, about the release of my latest book, The Alchemy of Peace. If you like the kinds of topics that we're covering in these episodes, you will really like this book because it's all about the essential shifts and mindsets and habits that are necessary for us to bring about a world that is peaceful. It is available actually as of today for pre order on Amazon, and it'll be released on January 1st, 2021. All right. Well, I hope you all have a wonderful, wonderful end of the year. And may 2021 be a year in which humanity starts to wake up even more and starts to make better choices for all of us because we all rise or fall together. We sink or swim together. We really are interconnected and a single organism. That's all for this episode of Reimagining Our World. I'll see you back here next month. If you liked this episode, please help us to get the word out by rating us and subscribing to the program on your favorite podcast platform. This series is also available in video on the YouTube channel of the Center for Peace and Global Governance, CPGG.