Healing as an Act of Revolution
There are many different ideas as to what recovery looks like in our nation right now. Economic recovery, healthcare recovery, energy recovery, recovery of the planet itself. We often feel gridlocked, confused about how to respond to chaotic leadership. Many feel simply trapped in an endless loop of verbal warfare about issues of social justice and more divided than ever before on our core beliefs.
But rather than protest or support a political agenda, let me suggest a third way, a different type of recovery, recovery from dysfunctional systems. This is the not the way of cranking down on control or running away, rather, it is the way of letting go.
The greatest threat to our world is not a chaotic leader, this too shall pass, or even the extreme lack of unity in our country, we’ve been here before, but the core issue is dysfunction itself. Whatever threatens the soul threatens the world. If we want to live in a better world with clarity and purpose, it often begins with our own recovery. Healing is an act of revolution.
In this election season, we have been exposed to leadership styles that mirror dysfunction, in which we see our own worst selves. The creation of chaos and confusion, using insults as a form of communication, shaming, blaming, compulsive behavior, greed, bullying, sexual harassment, acting out on racist beliefs, deception, perfectionism, anger, etc. These behaviors, when practiced in organizations and families, create mistrust, confusion, dishonesty, instability, denial and a deathliness of spirit. Even when one seeks to do the right thing, to help others, to be a good citizen, one often feels trapped, as if there is no way out, in dysfunctional systems, it often feels as if a heavy blanket of despair covers the world. More dysfunction is always needed to make things appear successful, dysfunction is a progressive disease and grows worse with time if untreated.
It may appear to be a recipe for success but to the millions upon millions of people in recovery programs, we have learned to see dysfunction for what it is. We know that productivity does not equal wholeness, and chaotic attempts at the management of dysfunctional behavior is not the same thing as sanity. We are discovering a new way to live. Coming out of denial as we realize that our own behaviors are often driven by the chaotic spiral of the dysfunctional trap.
But there is a force that is greater than dysfunction, and we connect with this as an act of recovery. God within. The same power that has pulsed in every living thing for over four billion years is the power that brings sanity out of chaos in our lives, in our hearts. A new kind of stability awaits us. It is as if we begin to live from heart center instead of chaos center. We let go of control over the unmanageable disease of dysfunction and we come to realize that only a Higher Power, God, can restore us to sanity.
Witnessing dysfunction as a leadership strategy on the world stage can often be daunting. However, it can be viewed as a positive development because it no longer remains a hidden thing. Wherever dysfunction is hidden, it becomes more powerful. Because it is a progressive disease, it creates a sense of learned helplessness, in dysfunctional environments, we feel a sense of abandonment, maybe even a sense that there is no God. Or, in the other extreme, we create our own versions of God that make us feel that we are in control. This is how dysfunction works, while convincing you that you must control a chaotic environment, it traps you in despair, loneliness, toxic shame, isolation and anger. At the same time, it drives you into the exercise of will power to gain control, gain the upper hand over the chaos and confusion that seems to have stolen your identity and taken over your life. On the one hand we become way to weak, on the other, way to powerful, we vacillate wildly between the two extremes.
The truth is we are simply powerless over dysfunctional behavior, and it makes our lives unmanageable.
As we learn to name it, we recognize that there is a greater force at work in us, greater than world leaders, political systems or the stock market. There is a force in us that can create sanity and bring stability and manageability to our lives. God. Not some gray bearded man in the sky or some action hero savior that is going to punish everyone in an eternal hell who fails to obey all the rules. We haven’t always painted the most appealing image of God in religious environments. Dysfunction is pervasive. As we become a new creation by letting go of our own control and asking God to be the creator of sanity in our lives, we come to know the God of the universe, the God of creation, who has created and is creating. We come to know the God that Jesus spoke of as love. There are no contradictions in Divine love, there is just love.
We begin to heal. Healing is a radical act, it is one’s own individual revolution that begins to infect the whole world with a new kind of freedom. Jesus knew this.. It makes way for a Divine power to order the world through us. Healing and the proclamation of freedom were intricately linked in Jesus’ ministry. To heal from dysfunctional systems is to claim that your body is not property and you are not at the mercy of chaos. You come to know yourself, body, mind and soul as sacred, created by God. It is to claim that you were created for love. Love is the most powerful force in the universe.
We cannot control dysfunction, but we can let go of it. It seems counter intuitive, but strangely,as we allow God to bring us to sanity, this is how we move towards healing the world, one heart , one soul at a time. This is the constant source of energy that motivates us to serve others, to love with all of our hearts. Finally, because we have access to the source of love within.
For more resources on recovery, check out this site, www.adultchildren.org
What about you? I’d love to hear your feedback on this topic, leave your comments in the box below, I’ll look forward to reading them.
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