Embracing Our Own Healing to Change the World

“We can not expect things to change if we keep doing the same things.” —Albert Einstein

A world pandemic, civil movements, an economic crisis—it’s impossible to deny that the world as we knew it is certainly changing. This could be, for many, the most challenging time in their lifetimes. Questions such as how do we handle the global pandemic, what we should we do about the economic crisis, and how can we change systemic racism are at the top of our minds right now. Many people want to get back to their normal lives—before all this started. Others are eagerly seeking lasting change on the outside through acts of protest and open resistance calling for changes in the systems’ structures and within government. Still, others have turned to acts of violence in hopes of seeing the changes they long for. But as Martin Luther King, a leader in the civil rights movement, said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that!” Most people believe that change comes from the outside. And it does—outside peaceful change can be part of the “change equation.” But for lasting peace to occur for the good of everyone in the world, change must begin inside each of us—from interconnection, not separation. 

In the past, when ancients referred to the whole, they referred to the universe—comprising all existing matter and space. From largest to smallest, the universe is comprised of different parts. And whether or not we’re aware, galaxies, stars, planets, humans, atoms, and the space in between are interconnected. 

Somehow the ancients knew this. They knew that not only was each and every part of the whole naturally connected to all its parts, but also the parts and the whole were able to influence each other. If any of the parts lacked balance, the whole intrinsically was imbalanced and vice versa. From this perspective, when any of our inner parts as a human being—our thoughts, our emotions, or different parts of our body—are imbalanced, this disequilibrium can be experienced as illness, emotional instability, and absence of well-being. This model can also be applied to our different tribes, such as our families, our societies, and our cultures. The lack of balance of any member of our family; of the white, black, or indigenous tribe we belong to; of the different genders we identify with; and of the different nations and other beings (such as animals) we share our planet with has the ability to affect us all—because we are all intrinsically interconnected.

But why are we not aware of that natural connection that the ancients were aware of?

We have learned to identify with what divides us instead of what connects us. We’ve learned to identify with our families’, societies’, religions’, and cultures’ limiting beliefs and with the limiting beliefs of the individuals that comprise these groups. And we’ve forgotten that we are part of the universe. Identifying only with parts has planted the seeds of separation inside of us.

In order for the universe to be in balance, all the parts must be interconnected. The problem here is that a feeling of disconnection has permeated our societies for a long time. When we resonate with disconnection, we lose our sense of interconnectivity and wholeness. Separation brings disequilibrium. We are more divided than ever; no wonder the world is in such chaos today! 

How can “I” become “we?”

Incorporating the limited perspectives of “the parts,” we’ve learned to separate from each other and have set this as a repeating pattern—transmitted generation after generation. 

The different “tribes” we’ve learned to identify with and the particular belief systems we’ve integrated from them have caused a rift inside us—between who we really are and who we think we are. It’s important to keep in mind that these sets of beliefs aren’t necessarily absolute truths. Rather, they’re more like the residue of a system of unconscious patterns and codes developed based on the experiences of survival of a specific group—on the group’s sense of security and how its members learned to process emotional challenges. This energy cloud hovers over all of our different tribes. 

The problem here is that you’ve integrated the concepts of what is good and what is bad according to whatever group(s) you identify with. You were taught by your family, by influences outside your family, and by the culture you grew up with certain ways of thinking. For example, you may have incorporated certain ideas as “absolutes”: “People who are white are god’s chosen ones.” “Those who are LGBTQIA are sinners.” “Family is everything.” You may have adopted certain “truths” on how it’s okay or not okay to feel: “Women can’t get angry.” “Men can’t cry.” “You can’t express freely certain emotions, such as sadness. And you may have learned that nonconformity is not okay, and your nonconformity must be suppressed and never expressed. With time, this information inside you created an incongruity between who you think you are and who you really are. As a consequence, you became disconnected, not only from your own self, but also from your own humanity—and separated from the whole!

Racism, for example, has been part of the world’s legacy for a very long time and lives unconsciously inside many of us, including you.

Ask yourself: How is my tribe’s present influenced by the past, by society, and by culture? How did my family, my culture, my religion, my race, and my gender affect the way I connect to others? What patterns did the groups I identify with adopt for their survival and how were those patterns passed on to me? How did they communicate that to me?

Although we’ve learned that change comes from the outside and from the “part”—the limited perspective we integrated from our tribe(s)—outside or partial change is not enough to bring lasting change. We’ve adopted the limited vision of the part, rather than the entire vision of the whole—by way of both the separation consciousness our ancestors adopted for survival and passed down over many generations and our identification with the limited perspectives of specific “tribes” or (parts). Our inner information has become our blind spots, our inner individual walls, and wounds that disconnect us and, collectively, the wounds of our surrounding world. Change must come from the inside, from the interconnection with all the parts—from the whole.

It’s time to raise our standards if we want to bring lasting change into the world. Integrating a holistic perspective is part of this change. But for that first you must become aware and engage in your own process of healing, of shifting your separation consciousness inside of you—not only psychologically but also energetically. You cannot change what you don’t look at, don’t accept, and don’t integrate. I invite you to be honest with yourself and track deep inside of you your real source of separation in order to become whole inside and resonate with what is whole on the outside.

We need to become aware that we all matter. Without exception, we are all equally important parts of the whole. We, as parts, need to interconnect again and find our way back to the whole.

We are shaped by our tribes—our family, cultural, and societal dynamics. We all need to heal our learned conditioning and all of the dysfunctional patterns that prevent us from resonating with interconnection, individually and collectively. We need to heal the tribes we belong to in order to resonate with the whole and create something new.

We definitely need a more holistic direction—one that emphasizes connection rather than separation. For this, we are required to evolve out of our family’s and different tribes’ legacies from separation to wholeness. 

This is a time to go deep inside and transform together. We as leaders cannot expect things to change if we keep doing the same things. If we keep looking for solutions from our limited inner separation consciousness, we will keep hitting the same walls. It’s time to create a new leadership. 

We need to evolve out of our learned normal—our tribes’ legacy and limited perspectives (this includes our politics dynamics). Real solutions come from our leaders’ own inner expansion, and this can only happen if each of our leaders chooses to heal and reconnect her or his inner parts to resonate with the whole. Albert Einstein once said, “Let us stop, once and for all with the only dangerous crisis, which is the tragedy of not being willing to overcome.” It’s time to shift the fragmented parts inside of us and awaken to the inner parts of you that are connected to the whole. This is all about us together (not separated)! Embrace your own healing and change the world now. The world needs you!