My job is to confront myself over and over and over again, until I am the clearest, stillest channel for spirit to exist within – Liana Naima
I’ve struggled to find what to say, fearing whatever came wouldn’t be enough or complete or right. I am in process, just like all of you are, so I’m sharing this from where I am right now:
Something I have learned, so deeply that it’s now held in every cell in my being, is that we are all looking for our souls. When we experience human events like trauma, injustice, war, othering, division, violence, and abuse, we long to return to our souls.
We live in a society filled with systems that separate us from our souls – from our seats of power, from the truth of our spirits, from a compass that’s calibrated to the magnetic north of love. We live in a society that preys on unconsciousness and banks on the average human not stepping into their own power. These systems cause destruction and suffering and breed fear. These systems are the opposite of our spirits, our souls, of the truth of us.
One of the most powerful ways we can honor someone else’s suffering is to let it change us. To be altered by someone else’s experience – to gain empathy, understanding, determination, compassion or to release judgment, scapegoating, blame, assumption, or anger – is of the soul. To be changed by someone else’s experience is to raise our consciousness and be better positioned to participate in healing, soul-centered living, and the kind of love that dismantles systems.
We’ve come here, as souls incarnated into human bodies, to be changed. We’ve come here to experience the raw intensity of the human experience so we are driven into our spiritual centers. We’ve come here to learn that the greatest expressions of our power of choice and free will come when we move, individually and collectively, toward love, compassion, sacred respect, and unity.
There is so much I don’t know. So much I’m learning. One thing I know, deeply, is that I can allow myself to be changed for the better. I can read and consider and feel and be outraged and grieve and allow myself to be changed. I can give myself over to the process of being human, knowing that if I let it wake me up and change me, it’ll bring me to my soul.