A photo posted by c o r r i (@littlenectar) on Jul 20, 2016 at 12:18pm PDT

First things first: stop everything.

Take a deep breath in and hold it. Now exhale. Begin to know this breath, and use this breath. We are going to need it.

Here we are—looking right in the face of our greatest fear.

We are scratching our heads. Many of us angry. Many of us scared. Many of us holding our children and wondering what this means for them and their future. We’re running the list in our heads of all the ways in which things change: a tolerance for hate, our dear Mother Earth, a woman’s right to choose, the Supreme Court. All of it.

Almost too big and too painful to hold.

And yet…

There is a quiet, tiny space inside my heart that knows. And it knows that it knows. This is divine.

There is something in this. In all of its rock-bottomness, there is something there. And we cannot be afraid to look inside this cavern, this dark shadow, because our truth knows that something big is happening. Light cannot exist without the darkness, and in becoming whole, we must embrace both. It will be a journey that begins with a single step. With willingness. But know, with certainty, that you are being called.

Something much bigger is urging and pleading for us to look inside.

Be clear. Be so clear that we cannot solve this situation with the same thinking that got us into it in the first place. The temptation to engage in anger, and divisiveness, and fear, and separation will be there—in the form of conversation, social media, our own insidious thoughts. It will be the easy and unconscious choice. Our work is to stay present enough not to indulge it.

Instead we respond with love and kindness. And if we’re not there yet, then we excuse ourselves and come back to our breath until we can at least respond with neutrality.

This is an awakening. An opportunity for us to become so clear about who it is that we want to be. Not our country as a whole. But right here at home.

We have to start having honest conversations with ourselves because we know that this is where true and lasting change begins. No more pointing the finger, no more blame, no more believing that this problem will resolve outside of our own personal worlds. The moment we see injustice or perceive hatred outside of us, we are immediately responsible to see where this condition exists inside of our own minds. The anger and hatred immobilizes us and there simply is no time for that.

We walk relentlessly forward into these dark places, shining light and truth on them.

Darkness is the absence of light and so we become light workers. We do our own work and heal ourselves, in the name of healing this country.

Fear and faith cannot live in the same house. Now is the time to believe deeply that the universe is wise and constantly at work, and something to be trusted. When we operate from faith, we surrender to a deeper wisdom. The same wisdom that knows to make the sun rise, and the flowers to grow, and the planets to orbit around the sun.

There is no space, no situation, no conversation, no person in which this same intelligence does not exist.

Faith dear friends, faith.

This journey will be work. It will require constant awareness, because awareness is the key agent for change. It will require vulnerability and truth. It will require relentless effort. And above all, it will always come down to love. Our ability to love and embrace it all, starting with ourselves.

Love is the answer. It always has been. It always will be.

This is our calling.

~

Relephant:

~

Author: Corri Chadwick

Image: @elephantjournal on Instagram

Editor: Khara-Jade Warren