I spent my middle-school years in a tiny town in the northern part of South Africa in the early 1980s, and my very favorite memories of that time in my life involved going to the game parks. Game watching was serious business. We’d get up early in the morning, tin cups of instant coffee with milk and sugar in hand, driving quietly and slowly through the African savanna looking for animals.
For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere, today is the Winter Solstice, the darkest day of the year. After today, our days will start getting longer and lighter again. I find myself reflecting on the themes of dark and light. We talk about the light of awareness, the light of consciousness, the light of the soul or spirit, and bringing light to dark spaces. So, what does it mean for people to be a light in the darkness?
I learned recently that airline pilots spend about 90% of flight time off-course. Using feedback from their on-board guidance system and from air traffic control, they constantly course correct for turbulence, winds, and weather conditions. The same can be true of our lives and our inner state, and here I offer 4 ways to get back on track.
If we want to overcome defensiveness, we need to make peace with ourselves and develop trust in ourselves. We need to lean into our experiences instead of bracing ourselves against them.
I was recently invited to a social event with a group of people who know me in a very particular work-related way. They were used to seeing me teaching, speaking, and writing about nonviolent communication, integral theory, positive psychology, and mind-body practices, and I noticed an unexpected reaction in me when I attended this event.