Eight Teachings That Have Kept Me Sane in 2020
“Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy.” - Thomas Merton
A recurring theme for me this year has been amplification. When you pile a significant amount of stress onto any individual or system the weaknesses are amplified. Whatever is festering at the core surfaces. Sometimes this amplification leads to revelation and healthy clarification while at other times it leads to a doubling down on misguided and unhealthy ways of being in the world.
We have witnessed this as individuals, families, organizations, social movements, nations, and really, as an entire species. I have most definitely witnessed this in my own life. Many people have called 2020 an “apocalyptic year”. Considering the original greek word “apokalypsis” means an “unveiling” or “revelation”, I find this to be precisely suitable.
As I have navigated this year, there are a number of teachings that have helped me conceptualize and work with some of these amplifications. I hope that something here will prove useful to you as you move into the new year. I am very much a seeker on a journey and claim exactly zero mastery. Welcome to my inner wrestling match.
Circle of Concern vs. Circle of Influence
This year I often found myself completely overwhelmed and paralyzed by what was happening to our world. I spent a significant amount of mental energy focused on the big picture and wishing that massive groups of people would come to their senses. In reality, my wishing this didn’t really accomplish much. It just kept me transfixed by social media or news media. Revisiting Stephen Covey’s first habit was helpful. If I am entirely focused on my Circle of Concern while avoiding my Circle of Influence I am mostly ineffective. I have had to revisit this and ask myself “How exactly can I make a tangible difference?”
“Proactive people focus their efforts in their Circle of Influence. They work on the things they can do something about. The nature of their energy is positive, enlarging and magnifying, causing their Circle of Influence to increase. Reactive people, on the other hand, focus their efforts in the Circle of Concern, They focus on the weakness of other people, the problems in the environment, and circumstances over which they have no control. Their focus results in blaming and accusing attitudes, reactive language, and increased feelings of victimization. The negative energy generated by that focus, combined with neglect in areas they could do something about, causes their Circle of Influence to shrink.” — Stephen Covey
The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
Contemplation
More than anything else this year, contemplative practices have aided me through some very dark days. Our minds are prone to dualistic, black and white thinking. While there is great utility in reductionistic thinking (decision making, science, rationality etc.) it can prove to be a deadly hindrance if it is my only operating system. Complexity, paradox, and mystery are deeply ingrained within our reality. If I am too quick to label, categorize, or narrow things down I tend towards bias and problematic certainty, missing alternate perspectives and deeper levels of truth. If I am stuck in the past or the future I miss the present moment, the only time that really exists. Contemplation isn’t an intellectual posture, it is a practice of quieting the mind and connecting to a deeper source and a clearer way of seeing. It is also the path to the “True Self”.
“This very moment is the perfect teacher, and it’s always with us… We can be with what’s happening and not dissociate. Awakeness is found in our pleasure and our pain, our confusion and our wisdom, available in each moment of our weird, unfathomable, ordinary everyday lives.” — Pema Chodron
Here is a brief article on Father Thomas Keating’s powerful practice of centering prayer
Everything Belongs & The Naked Now by Friar Richard Rohr (Great intro books)
When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron (Incredible book for tough times)
Shadow Projection
The past few years I have become fascinated by Carl Jung’s Analytical Psychology. An area particularly relevant to 2020 is the concept of “shadow projection”. Jung believed that aspects of our personalities we find shameful are repressed into our unconscious and then these rejected parts of ourselves are projected outward. This concept explains why I can be so quick to label, diagnose, or judge attributes of others while at the same time missing the same attributes within myself. Jung’s path toward “individuation” (or self-actualization) advocates the often painful process of integrating these shadow aspects into conscious awareness. This means the deep work can only start through ruthless and honest curiosity. As this year has put a tremendous amount of pressure on all of us, we have witnessed an overload of individual and collective shadow projection. This has been particularly visible in the political arena where opponents are readily available for our blame.
“A person who is unconscious of [them]self acts in a blind, instinctive way and is in addition fooled by all the illusions that arise when they see everything that they are not conscious of in [them]self coming to meet [them] from outside as projections upon their neighbour” — Carl Jung
Here is a youtube intro to this concept
Here is a blog on “integrating your shadow”
The Undiscovered Self by Carl Jung (A fascinating and seemingly prophetic book examining this in the context of politics and religion)
The Scapegoat
We are all familiar with the concept of a scapegoat but the depth to which the anthropologist philosopher Rene Girard delves into this mechanism has fascinated me for a few years now. Girard argues that at the root of violence within societies lies “mimetic rivalry” or tension that builds up due to the imitative and competitive nature of desire. In order to maintain in-group harmony, historical tribes projected their rivalry onto animals, people, or groups who were deemed guilty. They were then either driven from the tribe or sacrificed. The basic idea is that group cohesion is maintained and bolstered through opposition of an “other”. When you extrapolate this concept outward it reveals why movements gain steam when they rally around a clearly articulated enemy. This mechanism has been on full display this year as we’ve watched politics devolve into various forms of extremism. Girard’s exploration of Christ as the innocent scapegoat, undermining the mythological guilty victim narrative, has also deeply influenced my theology.
“If you scapegoat someone, it’s a third party that will be aware of it. It won’t be you. Because you will believe you are doing the right thing.” — Rene Girard
Here is an article I wrote regarding Christianity, Trump, and Scapegoating
Here is a a great youtube intro to Girard’s ideas
Here is an in depth interview with Girard from CBC’s Ideas
The Scapegoat by Rene Girard
True Self/False Self
The True Self/False Self concept is a spiritual teaching that has proven incredibly valuable to me. It examines the illusion of our egocentric persona contrasted by a divine and unconditionally loved inner self. Much of my life has been spent trying to prove the worth of a somewhat superficial and exterior idea of myself. Difficult times can make me cling to maintaining this false identity but a better option is to allow the pressure to crack me open to reveal a deep inner self. One whose worth does not fluctuate. This teaching comes from the trappist monk, Thomas Merton who has impacted a number of my favourite spiritual teachers. I have found this concept to be both deeply challenging and deeply healing.
“At the center of our being is a point of nothingness which is untouched by sin and by illusion, a point of pure truth, a point or spark which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal … which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will … It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven … All sin starts from the assumption that my false self, the self that exists only in my own egocentric desires, is the fundamental reality of life to which everything else in the universe is ordered.” - Thomas Merton
Here is a great overview of Merton’s teaching on this.
New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton
Here is a fascinating and related system called The Enneagram
True Self/False Self or Immortal Diamond by Richard Rohr
Sacred Objects
The social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has been a voice of clarity for me over the last few years. As has been displayed very clearly this year, our political and religious bodies repeatedly default to dividing people into two camps: good people or evil people. Moral Foundations Theory reveals that the reality is way more complicated as our opponents are likely rallied around a different set of values. The five moral foundations identified by this theory are: Care/Harm, Fairness/Cheating, Loyalty/Betrayal, Authority/Subversion, Sanctity/Degradation, Liberty/Oppression. The most vocal groups tend to rally around one or two of these “sacred objects” sometimes at the expense of other important values. For example progressives tend to rally around Care/Harm while Libertarians rally around Liberty/Oppression. This is not to say that all positions are equal. However, unbalanced extremes of any political/religious/philosophical variety tilt towards tyranny. I have spent my life in a variety of completely different socio-cultural contexts and have realized that good intentions typically underlie most of the people most of the time. Haidt’s work has helped me to conceptualize this more clearly.
“Morality binds and blinds. This is not just something that happens to people on the other side. We all get sucked into tribal moral communities. We circle around sacred values and then share post hoc arguments about why we are so right and they are so wrong. We think the other side is blind to truth, reason, science, and common sense, but in fact everyone goes blind when talking about their sacred objects.” -Jonathan Haidt
Here is a great Ted Talk overview
The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt (Fantastic and comprehensive book on this and more)
Assertive Action + Love
In the wake of the Black Lives Matter movement there has been a much needed awakening to the systemic issues within our society. As I have read through the various views of what “anti-racism” should look like, I keep coming back to the tried and true examples of Martin Luther King Jr., Nelson Mandela, Ghandi , and Christ — all of whom embodied assertive political action alongside love. This is the most difficult sort of activism. MLK’s Non-Violent Direct Action, Mandela’s Truth & Reconciliation, Ghandi’s Satyagraha, and Christ’s provocative political action combined with “love of enemy” have all proven to be effective. As far as I can tell, they work because they share a universal framework and are centered around the restorative power of love, which undercuts the fatal dualism of some other approaches. Reading through some of their teachings has been deeply clarifying for me this year.
“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.” — MLK
Six Steps for Non-Violent Direct Action
Letter from Birmingaham Jail by MLK
Loving Your Enemy sermon by MLK
Truth & Reconciliation youtube doc outlining Mandela’s nation saving approach
Include & Transcend
If you are still with me, I have one more concept for you. There is a vast amount of research charting distinctive stages of human development. These models reveal that we tend to evolve along a specific pathway as individuals and as an entire species. In the “first tier” stages, we battle it out, attacking the stages above or below. In the “second tier” or “integral” stages, we begin to see value within all of the different stages. At every stage of this pathway, we recognize important truths that need to be integrated, along with shadow elements that need to be shed. This has been very helpful for me as I have spent much of my life trying to reconcile my traditional upbringing with my rational education and my post-modern generation. I have continued to find true value and serious flaws at every step of the way. If this interests you, have a look at social psychologists Clare Graves & Don Beck’s work on Spiral Dynamics, philosopher Ken Wilber’s Integral Theory, or Jesuit priest & palaeontologist Tielhard De Chardin’s Omega Point Theory. It is fascinating to note that Don Beck made 36 trips to South Africa during the late 80’s to advise Nelson Mandela.
“At the Integral stages of development, the entire universe starts to make sense, to hang together, to actually appear as a uni-verse — a “one world” — a single, unified, integrated world that unites not only different philosophies and ideas about the world, but different practices for growth and development as well.” ― Ken Wilber
Me, We, Everybody podcast series by Rob Bell (An over view of these models. If I could encourage you to listen to one thing this year, this would be it!)
Here is a brief intro to Spiral Dynamics
Trump and a Post Truth World by Ken Wilber (A fascinating examination of the current culture wars through this lens)
[Before looking at this material it is important to understand that we don’t simply graduate from one level to the next. The different levels necessarily exist within us at the same time. If we haven’t integrated the lower levels we’re likely operating out of a regressive form of our dominant level.]
