We’re all subject to personal overwhelm, our daily and accumulated grief, worries and challenges, but “our contemporary culture is deeply entrenched in chronic overwhelm, unattended overwhelm, overwhelm without any significant relief in sight, overwhelm that continues to pick up steam; it is a global destabilizing condition that combines excessive stimulation, massive information overload, unrelenting pressure and a dread-infused numbing; it keeps us in energetic debt, borrowing from our reserve tanks, until we’re all but running on empty.” It is all-pervasive; “more common than the common cold and more infectious than any plague; it blocks emotional intimacy by scattering and disorienting us and by keeping many of us in so much chronic fear that we tend to view others as threats, more competition for resources and stability. In collective overwhelm we’re often just too drained and scattered to expend the energy and attention needed to take better care of ourselves, including doing what it takes to develop emotional intimacy.”
“If ‘future shock’ — the result of too much change in too short a time — is collective overwhelm’s past, systemic depression is its present. This flattens and presses all too many of us down, driving us into compensatory flight, obsession with stimulation, and other distractions from our suffering until we crash. Fear (anxiety, angst, dread) and anger (irritation, frustration, hostility, rage) are collective overwhelm’s predominant emotional correlates, operating on so much adrenaline that the only respite from them is eventual exhaustion and a tagalong apathy that features us being numb to our numbness. No wonder the reported incidence of depression has shot up by more than 1000 percent in the last five decades; no wonder there’s widespread anxiety, and so much addiction, so much hell on earth.”
“Yet, all is not lost, if we get off the overwhelm express and cease to let ourselves be fed or seduced or engulfed by it. Yes, it will continue to affect us, sometimes intensely so, but we do not have to let it occupy us. And this begins with seeing it for what it is and becoming as intimate as possible with the fearfulness at its core, given how central our fears are to collective overwhelm. We need to do whatever helps to cut through depressiveness, and do it full out. No more pressing down our pain, or wasting our vitality, no more energetic or emotional flattening. What’s helpful is a mix of aerobic workouts, a grounded meditative practice, well-supported self exploration that connects the dots — intellectually and emotionally — between our past and our present, and an in-depth emotionally-open sharing of this with others, until such work is not just personal, but interpersonal, liberatingly relational and collective.”
“And last, but not least, we need to develop the endurance and patience to stay the course. It’s a life’s work and needs to be treated as such. Spiritual stamina is essential, don’t postpone developing it. Go to the heart of collective overwhelm, beyond the fear and anger and numbness and shock, and there you’ll find enormous grief. Get into it, opening channels for it to flow, to cut loose, to break open your heart, until its cry is your cry. Then what’s below and beyond all the pain starts to shine forth, inviting us into what we never really left but only dreamt we did. This is the healing through which we embody a deeper life; this is the healing that calls us through all that we are and all that we do. Yes, it may overwhelm us at times, but it’s the kind of overwhelm that cleanses, purifies, heals, awakens. It is time to move toward it, for the sake of one and all.”
(Passages quoted from chapter 29, Collective Overwhelm, from the book: Emotional Intimacy, a Comprehensive Guide for Connecting with the Power of your Emotions, written by Robert Augustus Masters, PhD, published by Sounds True.)
Having read some of this book, I found this information to be so compelling and pertinent to what most of us are experiencing at this current time in our history. We cannot give up hope! We must adequately deal with our own wounds, fears, biases, anxieties, and go forward with as much equanimity and humanity in our hearts and souls, as we can possibly muster, if we would progress and evolve our society in a relatively soulful manner. Collective means that we are all in this planetary/global community together. Let’s embrace our shared involvement. Trish Forsyth Voss
Jun 24 2019
Working with Collective emotional overwhelm — WE CANNOT GIVE UP HOPE!
We’re all subject to personal overwhelm, our daily and accumulated grief, worries and challenges, but “our contemporary culture is deeply entrenched in chronic overwhelm, unattended overwhelm, overwhelm without any significant relief in sight, overwhelm that continues to pick up steam; it is a global destabilizing condition that combines excessive stimulation, massive information overload, unrelenting pressure and a dread-infused numbing; it keeps us in energetic debt, borrowing from our reserve tanks, until we’re all but running on empty.” It is all-pervasive; “more common than the common cold and more infectious than any plague; it blocks emotional intimacy by scattering and disorienting us and by keeping many of us in so much chronic fear that we tend to view others as threats, more competition for resources and stability. In collective overwhelm we’re often just too drained and scattered to expend the energy and attention needed to take better care of ourselves, including doing what it takes to develop emotional intimacy.”
“If ‘future shock’ — the result of too much change in too short a time — is collective overwhelm’s past, systemic depression is its present. This flattens and presses all too many of us down, driving us into compensatory flight, obsession with stimulation, and other distractions from our suffering until we crash. Fear (anxiety, angst, dread) and anger (irritation, frustration, hostility, rage) are collective overwhelm’s predominant emotional correlates, operating on so much adrenaline that the only respite from them is eventual exhaustion and a tagalong apathy that features us being numb to our numbness. No wonder the reported incidence of depression has shot up by more than 1000 percent in the last five decades; no wonder there’s widespread anxiety, and so much addiction, so much hell on earth.”
“Yet, all is not lost, if we get off the overwhelm express and cease to let ourselves be fed or seduced or engulfed by it. Yes, it will continue to affect us, sometimes intensely so, but we do not have to let it occupy us. And this begins with seeing it for what it is and becoming as intimate as possible with the fearfulness at its core, given how central our fears are to collective overwhelm. We need to do whatever helps to cut through depressiveness, and do it full out. No more pressing down our pain, or wasting our vitality, no more energetic or emotional flattening. What’s helpful is a mix of aerobic workouts, a grounded meditative practice, well-supported self exploration that connects the dots — intellectually and emotionally — between our past and our present, and an in-depth emotionally-open sharing of this with others, until such work is not just personal, but interpersonal, liberatingly relational and collective.”
“And last, but not least, we need to develop the endurance and patience to stay the course. It’s a life’s work and needs to be treated as such. Spiritual stamina is essential, don’t postpone developing it. Go to the heart of collective overwhelm, beyond the fear and anger and numbness and shock, and there you’ll find enormous grief. Get into it, opening channels for it to flow, to cut loose, to break open your heart, until its cry is your cry. Then what’s below and beyond all the pain starts to shine forth, inviting us into what we never really left but only dreamt we did. This is the healing through which we embody a deeper life; this is the healing that calls us through all that we are and all that we do. Yes, it may overwhelm us at times, but it’s the kind of overwhelm that cleanses, purifies, heals, awakens. It is time to move toward it, for the sake of one and all.”
(Passages quoted from chapter 29, Collective Overwhelm, from the book: Emotional Intimacy, a Comprehensive Guide for Connecting with the Power of your Emotions, written by Robert Augustus Masters, PhD, published by Sounds True.)
Having read some of this book, I found this information to be so compelling and pertinent to what most of us are experiencing at this current time in our history. We cannot give up hope! We must adequately deal with our own wounds, fears, biases, anxieties, and go forward with as much equanimity and humanity in our hearts and souls, as we can possibly muster, if we would progress and evolve our society in a relatively soulful manner. Collective means that we are all in this planetary/global community together. Let’s embrace our shared involvement. Trish Forsyth Voss
By spiritspeak • Health 0