Articles - Loving Circles

by Tracy Neff

The World is our Mirror

The destruction in the world, everything from war to murder, apartheid to the Klu Klux Klan, AIDS to cancer, starvation to obesity, genocide to rage, to anger, to blaming others is a reflection of our inner selves. The world reflects what is inside of us. It is a gauge of how we are doing internally, as a collective society.

There are wonderful people in this world who do wonderful things, who risk judgment and sometimes their lives to rid the world of destruction. These are people who share their hearts, live life with passion and purpose, and teach us how to make a difference - people like Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, and the local volunteer. Being with these people, or listening to them makes us feel good inside because they reflect all that is good within ourselves.

We witness horrendous acts of injustice in the world. Genocide, starvation, holocausts, war, abuse, oppression, all exist because of fear and they reflect the fear inside ourselves - fear we are not good enough, fear of opening our hearts, fear of speaking the truth, fear of being as loving and as bright a light as we are created to be.

We are not born into this world fearful. When we are born, we are filled with God's pure love and we know how amazing and beautiful we are. That is why it feels so good to be around babies. They reflect the pure love we are born into this world being, and, when we touch a baby, we touch, for a moment, that place inside us that is pure love, a place we forgot existed.

Why did we forget? Why did this pure love become contaminated with fear? Why did we become too afraid to shine bright?

It is because we grew up in a world of judgments and conditions, a world based on fear. And, when we are exposed to the fear of others everyday and see images of the collective fear of society, when we see the Twin Towers crumble or an emancipated child lying open-eyed and lifeless on the side of a dusty road, it is hard to keep shining. We get worn down, lost in a million little messages, that whisper, "You cannot make a difference," "You are not good enough", "Don't be too happy, others will be jealous and they won't like you."

Eventually, we shrink; we make ourselves smaller than we were meant to be so we can fit in and feel accepted. Over time, we completely forget who we truly are and become who we are conditioned to be.

It is painful to remember what we gave up, but it is more painful to forget. Subconsciously, we store resentment and anger toward ourselves for betraying who we really are, and we begin to blame everyone around us, our spouses, our mothers, our fathers, our children. We blame everyone for the pain and emptiness we feel inside so we don't have to go within and face the truth of our own betrayal.

We stuff the truth far, far down and we keep busy - going to school, finding a job, finding a spouse, having children. We do all the things we are supposed to do, and we are happy, because we are supposed to be happy. But, in those rare quiet moments when there are no distractions, we touch that part within ourselves that remembers what we gave up and we hear a little voice whispering, "There is something missing. There is something missing."

The fact is we don't feel as happy as we pretend to be. We often feel disconnected and separate from people around us. But, when we are honest enough to acknowledge these feelings, we judge ourselves to be bad. We make ourselves wrong for feeling incomplete. Most of us, when we get to this place, if we ever do, push the discomfort down again. It scares us to look at the truth about how we feel. It scares us to remember who we gave up in order to fit in.

We avoid the truth by diving into motherhood and living for our children, by working longer and longer hours to support our families, buying bigger houses, more expensive cars, smoking, drinking, gambling, committing adultery, blaming others, going to war, and judging ourselves and everyone around us. The longer we avoid being who we are meant to be, the more angry and depressed we get because subconsciously we really hate ourselves for turning down our light.

Each of us was born into this world with a purpose and with gifts to advance the evolution of the human spirit. Over time, exposed everyday to judgments and conditions and fear in the world, we give up our purposes and our gifts. We know we feel disconnected from people, but don't know why. We don't recognize we feel disconnected from people because we are disconnected from our true selves.

The light in the world is dim. Some places are almost completely dark. This is because the resentment, anger and fear we feel inside ourselves, as a collective group, is building and is reflected in our world. Wars reflect our inner hatred and self-destruction. Starving children reflect our starving spirit and our ability to ignore the truth. The disconnection that allows a person to kill another human being reflects the disconnection from ourselves. Emotional, physical and sexual abuse reflects abuse toward ourselves. Diseases such as AIDS, cancer and heart attacks reflect the dis-ease we feel inside ourselves. The neglect and uncaring manner with which we treat the earth and our atmosphere reflects the neglect and uncaring manner with which we treat ourselves.

The world is our mirror. The destruction of others is the destruction of ourselves. The question is, are you willing to look at the reflection? Are you willing to look inside yourself?

It takes courage to step into the fear and stand naked before the world and yourself. I know because I have done it. With the help of some very loving people, I dove into darkness, grabbed hold of the passionate, loving, heart-felt spirit I was born into this world being and swam back up. I kicked hard; I was pulled down; I kicked harder; I felt like letting my true self go because it was so hard, so heavy. But, I did not. I held on and I swam the hardest race of my life, and when I burst to the surface and took a deep breath, I felt alive, unburdened, free. I remembered who I was.

In the process of recovering my true self, I had to face my own betrayal and forgive myself. I had done the best I could, I did not know better. And, when I found compassion for me, I found compassion for the people in the world and I saw beautiful, passionate, heart-felt, alive spirits beneath all the fear.

For the world to heal, we must all take responsibility to heal ourselves. The events of September 11th reflected this powerful message. The planes falling from the sky and the towers crashing to the ground reflected the crippling fear within us. It was a call to let our masks fall. It was a call to "wake-up" and face the truth about how we really feel and who we truly are.

The world is our mirror. It reflects what is inside us as a collective group of people, and, it reflects what is inside us as individuals. The truth is the reflection isn't pretty. The mirror of the world is full of fear, pain, guilt, anger, destruction, and emptiness. But, it is possible to change this. It is possible to create a reflection of love, compassion, joy and connection. But the only way to change the reflection in the mirror of the world is to recover our true selves, and the only way to recover our true selves is to face the truth in the reflection.

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