Let’s just cut right to the chase, shall we? You can handle the truth right?
Your life, and everything in it that you know to be “real” or “tangible” is just a construct invented by someone else ages ago. That house you live in? The car you drive, the words you listen to in books and on the radio? All of it was made up. None of it existed until someone came up with it and a quorum agreed. That’s it. That’s all it takes for any group or society to adopt a new system, or belief or object. Just blow the dog whistle, hold a Silent Disco and see who shows up to the party. Those who are dancing to it can hear the music, while those who cannot stand around wondering why the crowd all looks insane.
This is crowd-sourced hysteria, if you will. They are all dancing to the similar beat as they understand and translate it. This becomes a new shared reality to the point where those with the headphones can’t even hear those without them. The crazy cool thing though, is that if you don’t like the dance track, or what’s going on, you can switch it up and listen to a whole new jam, or simply leave the scene for another vibe to pay tribute to.
Those who live in cults do so because they are convinced that this is the only way of life for them. That the cult is everywhere and will find them even if they escape. That they are beholden to this group due to family ties or social standing or safety. When in fact, this manipulation game serves to keep them weak and tied to a herd/ mob mentality, fulfilling the perceived desires of a few at the expense of the many. Once the cult member escapes the tribe and becomes assimilated into a new system of thought, say Renaissance Italy or the Spanish Inquisition, or Summer in Virginia, or Washington DC at Election time, there is a whole new set of circumstances and rules and thought forms that seem just as real as the old system for those who engage in it. And it seems really, really real until you step outside of the madness and get a cool, clean look at the landscape. Only then will you see the headphones again and watch them all dancing to the same beat, just on a new stage.
We as humans have created the very things in our life and landscape that actually existed in our minds first. Folks have a thought, then write it down or talk about it long enough, that eventually, it forms into matter and you can buy it on Amazon. That’s how it goes with everything. Enough folks sit around conference rooms with coffee and donuts that their ancestors thought was yummy enough to invent, and discuss ratings and past show lineups and then decide from the arrangement of thought forms presented to them in slides and pdf’s which ones to amplify and share with the masses. You, as the representative of the masses, tune in and vote with your attention span on the crowdsourced next reality show tirade or flop.
It’s pretty simple, but most folks never spend two seconds thinking about how the attention they spend on any given topic or thing helps to feed the very monster that they are afraid of.
Hate the political gamesmanship? Vote them out. Hate the Telenovela lifestyles of the rich and infamous? Stop paying attention. Don’t want to support the earth shattering chemicals and toxins pouring into our atmosphere? Drive electric and recycle for real. Quit playing around at change and actually change. YOU are the regulator of the remote control of your life. Because quite literally, you can either go along with what other folks have created for you, or you can buckle up and change what no longer serves you.
Those liberated cult members need support to get back into the stream of a life. Anyone who has been imprisoned either by circumstances or by misguided choice, has to be supported into a new framework of thought and experience long enough in order for new tissues and bones to grow straight. Like an espalier for fruit trees, we all need support when coming out of one dance party to the next. Women coming out of battered lifestyles, children coming from sexual abuse, you coming from a life of victimization, drug addicts, power junkies, ego-trippers, hate-mongers, all of these clubs that you applied to either by birth or registration can be escaped and reformulated. But you need to lean into the arms of the community that holds the new energetic frequency that you need to stay sober, and anger free and drug free and anxiety free long enough for it to stick, and for the fruit tree to bear fruit after the shell shock has worn off. It’s not wearing off just because the bombing has stopped, it’s due to a new alignment being held long enough, like the cast around shattered bones, to help the wounds heal within. In the dark they are harder to see, but are deeply felt.
We must create a new alignment everywhere in our lives that allow ourselves to heal when faced with the mind-blowing awareness that, “If I stay doing this- fill in the blank– for one more second, I am going to lose my mind.” Yes, you are correct. And this one teensy moment of clarity, like a gasp of air, is all you get before the water rushes back in to swallow you up and pull you into the undertow again.
Maybe it’s a marriage that must evolve. Maybe it’s the way you say hurtful things to yourself and others. Maybe its the deep inauthenticity you feel when you pretend to be happy but know you are not. It’s the recovery from self-denial and power tripping greed and manipulation. It’s relief to the grief of any loss. It does heal. All of it can with the right alignment and support system and stick-to-it-ness, all of it can heal. You will heal. But not alone and not overnight. You will heal because of who you surround yourself with and who you create yourself to be within a new frequency you hear, held up around you long enough for the sounds to become music and for you to learn how to dance to the new rhythm.
