Our Country Needs Us! How to Get Unstuck and Do Something

It’s less than two weeks before the most consequential election of our lifetimes.

Its hard to believe that after Hurricane Helene, the horrific wildfires from California to Canada to Colorado, and flooding all over the world, we are at risk once again of living under a president who denies the reality of climate change. Its hard to believe that after the way children were ripped from their parents at the border, the same man is threatening even worse. That after #MeToo, we’re on the brink of electing a man now not only suspected, but convicted, of sexual assault.

But here we are. Some of you have already been working hard: writing postcards and letters, door-knocking, phone-banking. But if you’re like many of my clients (and me as well), you may have felt stuck in depression, anxiety, disbelief, or horror.

It’s like we are watching the sinking ship of our democracy in slow motion, and we feel unable to do anything about it.

For me personally, it’s not that I don’t know where to start. I don’t have the privilege of living in a swing state, but I’m aware of plenty of opportunities to help remotely. I have been to Kamala’s webpage many times, and have planned to join in phone banking. I’ve also learned about other, more grassroots, movement-building approaches, such as those of Seed the Vote, People’s Action, and Showing Up for Racial Justice.* But I haven’t done a damn thing except write a few postcards to swing state voters.

Why? Maybe there’s some ego in it – I want to use my skills, my gifts, not just read a script phone banking. Maybe I feel some aversion to cold-calling people I don’t know. But I know myself well enough to know that these are only excuses, and don’t address the root problem.

The core issue is that I’ve literally felt paralyzed. And I believe this paralysis is made worse by today’s media landscape.

I keep myself very well-informed. Too informed, because I’ve noticed that the more information I take in, the more angry, hopeless, and stuck I feel. The problems feel so massive. What can I possibly do about the way corporations and the uber-rich are turning this election into a horse race when it should be no contest? And yet, so much is at stake that I can’t look away.

The only path of action the for-profit media provides, is to participate in the for-profit media itself: to shoot off an angry comment at the end of an article, rant on social media, or get into an argument with someone on the other side. To what end? The only material effects our ranting and raving on media sites have, is to increase the profits of media corporations. To line the pockets of yet more wealthy, white men. These days, every time I witness (or get sucked into participating in) a useless online argument, I imagine a Scrooge-like cartoon man rubbing his hands with glee.

So, for those of you who, like me, want to help, but have felt some strange, immovable wall that prevents you from jumping in, I want to share with you how I got unstuck.

A couple of days ago, one of my shamanic clients approached me and asked for help with the very same issue. Now, I have a very hard time receiving guidance from my Spirit Helpers for myself, when the issue is something I feel strongly about. But for some reason, when it is on behalf of another person – even when our question is the same – I can do it. So I won’t lie: I was thrilled that one of my clients finally asked for help on the very issue I needed help with, too!

As the steady beat of the drum allowed my analytical mind to relax and recede into the background, and my heart, intuition and Soul-Spirit Self stepped forward, a vision began to take form. I found myself on a smallish patch of level ground, surrounded by a cirque of high mountain peaks. They glistened in the brilliant sunshine with a fresh coat of snow, so beautiful I could hardly breathe.

These mountains didn’t feel familiar, like the Rockies out my back door. These felt much higher, and much more remote. While I have never traveled to Nepal before, somehow that is what it felt like.

As I took in the beauty, the tight, anxious ball in my chest unwound. It felt like a remembering, a coming home: there are still peaceful places on this planet. While this election feels huge, it is just a blip in geologic time. These mountains have stood through thousands of years of human folly. Wars, genocides, ethnic cleansing all over the globe. These mountains hold so much patience and peace.

I began to feel how I do when I have been vigorously hiking, and I finally attain a viewpoint, and I sit down offtrail and connect with the life and beauty around me. I am part of it all. I belong here. Even though we humans suffer hardship and hurt each other terribly, the natural world is always here, still fundamentally beautiful, trustworthy, and sane.

I came back to my purpose - to help my client - and in my vision, she didn’t seem to be having the same transformative experience that I was. I looked around for her Spirit Helpers, but no one stepped forward. As I waited, I began to feel the growing presence of someone I hadn’t met before, a wise human ancestor. A figure took shape: brown skin, long, black hair immaculately tied back in two or three places, and a nice round belly. He was filled with welcome and joy. A Buddha!, I realized with delight. Never in all my 15 years of shamanic journeying, have I met a Buddha teacher. He approached me and my client with a grin on his face.  

He looked curiously at my client, and gestured toward the stunning panoramic view. “Why aren’t you taking in the beauty you see?” he asked. Why aren’t you basking in it?”  

“I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I feel blocked from it. Maybe it’s that what is happening in the human realm is just too heavy, too scary, too serious right now to leave it all behind and play in nature.” There was a touch of condescension as she uttered the word ‘play.’ Like it is a thing reserved for lightweights, for children.

He acknowledged her honesty, and then continued: “But how do you think you will find the resilience and lightness of spirit to cope – and better yet, act – when you allow yourself to be pulled into the muck? Nature is your healer, your partner, your respite, your belonging!”

She replied, “but I just can’t go there. You know, if Trump is elected, I’ll probably be fine. I’m white, straight, and middle class. In other words: privileged. How can I allow myself to play, when so much is at stake for people of color, immigrants, working class people?”

Suddenly I felt his energy shift from joy to a righteous, focused rage. Not the kind of anger that is scary or aggressive, but the kind that startles, that cuts through and frees a person from beliefs or patterns that are not serving them. The Buddha teacher held up a hand and curled his finger tips to touch his thumb, forming an ‘O.’ “This is exactly how many beings your paralysis helps. Zero. And it is because of this heaviness that you have not even looked for ways to help. You have convinced yourself that there is nothing you can do. Which is why,” he continued, nodding to his hand again, “you have taken exactly this many actions to help.

“But,” he continued, “if you let go of your heaviness and join me in this light place, you can then bring lightness and joy back to the human realm with you, and it will free up energy for you to act! THAT is the proper way to help - connected, buoyed and perpetually replenished by spiritual energy.”

She understood. In the vision, I saw her objections, her critical analysis, and her rigid heaviness leaving her body. In fact, the resistance left her so fully that her body crumpled to the ground, limp! And I realized that in some strange way her resistance had been holding her up. Her muscles had forgotten how to function without it. After a moment, slowly, experimentally, she began to move her fingers, her wrists, her ankles, and, sure enough, she said it felt like a relief! It felt new and strange, and she noticed how weak her muscles were, but it felt right to move them with her own internal motivation and power.

The Buddha teacher said in closing, “You start with little motions, little actions, building the muscles of your free will. And as you gain strength, you move on to bigger and bigger internally-motivated actions.” He added, “It will help you to jot down some ideas every morning in answer to this question: How can I find a way to move and act, today? And then of course, you do them.”

After my client and I closed our session, I knew that this was not only what she needed, it was exactly what I had needed. I felt energy surging through my body, and that same day, I signed up with an organization I respect, and have begun helping to recruit canvassers in the hurricane-stricken Asheville area of North Carolina.

And so friends, if you have felt paralyzed by the enormity of this election, and have wanted to find ways to help out, but have not yet done so, know this: it is not too late. You can still make a difference. Go out and do what you need to do to resource yourself; ask Nature for help. Our ship is sinking and we can’t just stand there and watch as it takes all of us with it. Start small, but do something.

*Some might feel that as a psychotherapist and shamanic practitioner, I shouldn’t be sharing my political views or urging people to act. I don’t buy that. Depression, anxiety, and trauma aren’t just about individual mental health challenges. Class oppression, racism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia, and the destruction of our beloved natural world all have profound impacts on mental health and well-being. Additionally, in recent years I have seen the way that mis- and dis-information are messing with people’s minds. I believe all of these ‘isms’ and cultural phenomena can be root causes of our illnesses. I also believes that one of the most successful paths for healing is for people to get unstuck and become part of the solution. And so healers who stay silent about this, I believe, can also become part of the problem.

As far as which candidate I am supporting, internationally-renowned animal communicator Nancy Windheart just wrote a phenomenal piece about this, and I can’t do any better. Note that it is not because I agree with all of Harris’ views or policies that I endorse her. It is because I believe the alternative threatens everything that I stand for: the health and well-being of people and the planet. And unfortunately, the two-party system in this country doesn’t allow for other viable alternatives. You can find  Windheart’s powerful piece here.

The challenges of receiving direct spiritual guidance in the modern world

Why we struggle to communicate with Spirit

In the famous 1956 movie The Ten Commandments, Moses (played by Charlton Heston) asks Joshua if he sees a strange fire on the mountainside. Joshua replies that yes, he sees a burning bush. Moses responds, "it is a bush on fire, but does not burn."

So Moses climbs the mountain to behold the mysterious sight. Emanating from the fiery bush, he hears the booming, resonant voice of God. God tells Moses to lead the Israelites out of bondage.

Call this scene dramatic, call it cheesy. I call it tragic. Why? because it propagates a damaging message. From our earliest days, we’re taught that the only events that are real are physical events out there in the world. This scene takes that message a step further by suggesting that even divine revelation is a physical event. When Moses received his vision, others saw it in the same place. When God spoke to Moses, His voice had a particular tone and location.

Cultural influences such as this movie, the education we receive, the messages we hear from authority figures – all of these combine to force a wedge between us and the divine. Prayer becomes a one-way entreaty. We lose the ability to hear Spirit directly. We have forgotten how to communicate.

The nature of Shamanic Journeying

For many years now I have received guidance from Helping Spirits through a practice known as shamanic Journeying. The process looks nothing like the scene with Moses and the burning bush.

According to various shamanic traditions, each of us have Spirit Helpers who can provide guidance, support, and spiritual connection throughout our lives, if only we can learn to open up to them and hear them. These Helpers can take the form of animals, humans, or other presences in nature such as trees and mountains.

In a shamanic Journey, you might see your Helper in your mind’s eye. Your Helper might then provide an experience for you that helps you to transform the way you are seeing or dealing with a particular challenge in your life.

Sometimes during Journeys, words appear in your mind. They don’t have tone or location, but you know they are from your Helper. At other times, your Helper might transmit a message without words. You sense what your Helper is communicating, and then you do your best to find words that capture the essence of the message.

So shamanic Journeying is a quiet, inner experience. It requires that you patiently focus all of your attention and ‘listen’ carefully in order to receive authentic guidance.

It is not easy to trust guidance received in this way. In my early Journeys (and sometimes still), my rational mind constantly interrupted with such thoughts: “This isn’t real, you’re making this up!” or, “What’s happening to you? You’re going off the deep end!”

At the time, I thought my mind was overly critical because I had majored in Neuroscience and Philosophy of Science – I had been especially well-conditioned in what our culture counts as reality. It didn’t occur to me that my mind was reflecting a deeper cultural challenge.

But now that I’m supporting others to take their first steps with shamanic Journeying, I repeatedly hear similar objections from them. The problem runs deep in our culture.

Don’t let our culture get in your way

It’s fascinating to me how the Bible actually tells the story of Moses and the burning bush:

3 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up.

Now this reminds me of my experience with shamanic Journeying. There is no one else that saw the burning bush. It is not clear that there is actually a physical bush on fire, or whether it is a vision Moses is receiving. This experience could have been a quiet, inner experience of the mind. If it indeed was an inner experience of the divine, Moses would not have questioned it in the same way that we do. He lived thousands of years before the so-called Enlightenment.

Direct spiritual guidance is available to everyone. The modern world – the same world that created nuclear bombs, holocausts, and climate change – has taught us to disparage it and block it out. It would be tragic if we allowed this conditioning to prevent us from accessing precious and sacred support that helps us to live lives of service, meaning and joy.