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I don’t think it’s too controversial to say that America is reeling from an ongoing, destabilizing divisiveness. Unfortunately, many of us cling to the pursuit of our private happiness with little regard for the collective well-being.
Embracing Our Interconnectedness
The timeless wisdom traditions encourage us to love one another. What is love if not caring for the well-being of our fellow humans—allowing ourselves to be responsive to the feelings and needs of those around us through empathy and caring?
Spirituality derives from the word meaning “breath.” We experience the breath of life that continually flows within us and outside of ourselves. Breath is all about interacting with our environment. Our life is dependent upon the oxygen freely supplied by the trees and oceans. How we treat our planet comes back to bless or haunt us. When I visited Greenland, I was astonished by how good it felt to breathe in clean air and drink pure water.
The fact of our interdependence clashes with the desire to be self-sufficient—clinging to ideologies and values that shut down our empathy and openness to life and each other. Spirituality is about honoring our incarnation as embodied spiritual beings—recognizing our sacred interconnectedness with others and our natural environment. Transpersonal psychology, often called the “fourth force” in psychology was developed to integrate the spiritual within the framework of modern psychology.
When our longing for love and connection goes unmet for a long time, it atrophies. Reeling from attachment wounds (disruptions of trust and connection), we may pursue what seems more reliable—material goods, power, wealth, or status—until we realize that these passing pleasures don’t satisfy a deeper, insistent longing within us.
Disconnected from our true nature, which includes qualities of empathy, kindness, compassion, and openness, we may reach a crisis point. We might feel gratified that we “made it” in some way. Perhaps we raised a family and thrived materially. It may please us to have a nice car, a lovely home, stylish clothing, comfortable surroundings, and so on—and there’s nothing wrong with these things. But we may eventually realize that we’re missing a sense of meaning and purpose in our lives, which Dr. Victor Frankl heralded as essential for our well-being. Growing older, a vague discontent may beg the question, “Did I miss something?”
Expanding Our Circle of Care
As we embrace our vulnerability and our defenses recede, our hearts open—and we discover a surprising joy that comes from living a life that reflects a vivid awareness of our interconnectedness. We become more attuned to the well-being of others. We start to include in our circle of care something larger than ourselves and our immediate family. Our sphere of responsibility—what we feel drawn to respond to—expands naturally as we become more attuned to our friends, neighbors, clients, customers, co-workers, our village, our country, and the wider world, including our environment.
I hope that as our collective wisdom grows, we can create social infrastructures that support people in meeting their basic physical and emotional needs. We can gradually lower the temperature of fear and outrage that is infecting our communities and world.
Our Vulnerabilities Connect Us
Many of us grow up in families where we learn that being strong is inconsistent with being vulnerable, which is viewed as a weakness. Whether at home, in school, or playing with friends, if we were frequently shamed for being afraid, crying, or showing any vulnerability, we shut down emotionally.
As a consequence of becoming numb to our feelings, we may look away from those who are suffering, the plight of wildlife, and the environmental havoc we’re creating. We may pursue our dreams of being “successful” without realizing how our own lives are interconnected with the lives of others and with nature.
Failing to embrace our vulnerability, we may judge people who are struggling. We may dismiss homeless and unemployed people as weak or “other.” This pre-empts any empathy toward their predicament.
Becoming numb to our own pain due to unresolved wounds, the speed of life, and varied distractions, we may not register the sorrow around us. A common mindset in today’s America, which fortunately is slowly changing, is that everyone’s in it for themselves. As we become more awake to our own vulnerabilities, we become more sensitized and responsive to the privation and distress around us. We are moved to help if we can.
As social policies become more rooted in human caring, we can create a civilization embedded in a longstanding spiritual tradition: love your neighbor as yourself. What is often overlooked, however, is the “as yourself” part. The more we connect with our true nature and care for ourselves, the more resourced we are to love others. Western psychology has come a long way in helping us learn what self-care means and how to pursue it.
As we become more kind, compassionate, and friendly toward all aspects of ourselves, we become less armored and more attuned to the world we share. We gradually become more adept at noticing and responding to what’s needed from us to create a home, a family life, a community, a nation, and a world where we care for each other.
© John Amodeo
