"I can't breathe." These are famous words now. Words we will never forget, uttered by George Floyd just before his life was taken from him. He said it for himself and he said it for all of us. They are words I utter too often these days, in regard to myself.
I have experienced varying levels of asthma since my late twenties. I'm seventy now, so that's over 50 years of difficult breathing. The masks we must now wear because of Covid exacerbate my breathing difficulties. I feel like I'm suffocating all too often.
Energetically, the lungs are affected by grief. It has not gone unnoticed by me that my buried grief has been expressing itself through my congested lungs for most of my life; that my grief is so overpowering that it inhibits my breathing.
The grief I carry is complicated and many-layered. I've managed to process some of it, but not enough to free my lungs from the burden they carry. I might or might not ever manage it in this lifetime. But, I continue to focus on expanding my awareness into my grief in an effort to see it fully for what it is, accept it, and love it free. It is a life's work.
Lately, I've been thinking about Covid in regard to collective grief. Covid is a virus that affects the lungs and stops people from being able to breathe. "I can't breathe." We put them on respirators, hoping that a device will be able to bridge the gap between not being able to breathe and being able to breathe on their own. It works sometimes, but not all the time. Sometimes the lungs just can't manage it anymore.
We each carry a lot of collective sadness. We have perpetrated a lot of horror upon each other throughout history. And, most of the time, life has just continued on without even a small pause to consider what has happened. Cultures rise and fall, governments come and go, belief systems form and adapt and crumble, and all the while, the sadness just builds underneath it all. Generations and generations of sadness. How often has a culture or a government that rose out of horror and blood turned around to acknowledge the devastation left in its wake and to say we're sorry? We misperceived a situation and overreacted. We took offense to something and overreacted. We perpetrated cruelty, pain and death over those who believed differently for centuries. We thought we were better than those we conquered, ruled, suppressed, and enslaved. We thought it all belonged to us. We lacked the ability to care for our fellow human beings and all other life upon this planet. We wanted to think we were the best. We wanted to have it all to ourselves. We wanted others to work for us and do our bidding without being compensated for their efforts. We wanted to own land, people...everything. Mine, mine, mine.
The collective shame and grief associated with millennia of aggressive greed and narcissism is a lot for all of us to bear. It occurred to me that maybe Life gave us a pandemic that affects the lungs as an effective way to release a lot of the grief that has built up within us, all of us. And, that a virus might be an effective way to affect and upgrade our collective DNA. We all carry all the grief. None of us are outside of it. We've all perpetrated the horror. None of us are outside of it. It's in our genes, our DNA. It's passed on through the generations. We've been on both sides of the horror. We've experienced all of it.
It might feel too big to be able to acknowledge and take responsibility for what has gone before and what is happening now. We question what we can possibly do to affect change, release the sadness, and relieve our continuously weeping wounds. There is a practice that I've used for many years now that is sublimely simple, yet profoundly effective. It is called Self-I-Dentity Ho-oponopono. It comes from Hawaii through a Hawaiian shaman named Mornah Nalamaku Simeona, who is no longer in the body, and through the work carried on by her student, Stanley Haleakala Hew Len, who is still living. There are books and videos about it, if one is interested; but, I will give the basics of it here, that anyone can use to great benefit.
No matter what is occurring within oneself or within one's surroundings that is disturbing one's peace, sit with that in mind. Center the self by taking a few focused breaths. Then, the first statement one says is: "I love you." The "I love you" opens a field of love in which the process takes place. The "I love you" is said to oneself, to whomever or whatever might be disturbing one's peace, to all Life. It opens the heart. Sometimes I have to say it a number of times before I feel I can continue to the next step. The second statement one says is: "I'm sorry." The "I'm sorry" is all encompassing. I'm sorry for anything that exists within me that would be causing this situation, disagreement, ignorance...whatever...all encompassing. It's how we take responsibility for whatever is happening. If something didn't exist within us, it would not be able to show itself in our 3D reality. So, "I'm sorry." Truly sorry. Sometimes, at this point of the process, I weep uncontrollably for a while. I let myself have this release and truly feel the "sorry" before moving on to the next step. The third statement one says is: "Please forgive me." The "Please forgive me" is to oneself, to anyone or anything that one has been blaming, to all of Life. Please forgive me. And, the last statement one says is: "Thank you." The "Thank you" accepts the process being done and complete. It gives thanks to oneself, to anyone or anything that one has been blaming, and to all of Life. Thank you. All is well. It is done. Thank you.
I'm not saying that using this process will reap instant results, although it can. This process can be done over and over, if need be, until one finds peace. And, if peace comes after using it once, then so be it. There is no timeframe that can be superimposed onto it. Peace comes in its own time. If you have no resonance with this process, then move on. You will find something that you will resonate with and that will be effective for you. We have a bottomless toolbox from which to choose.
No matter what process any of us use to process our pain or help us through difficult times, I would posit that it would be beneficial to all of us if each of us could acquaint ourselves with our sadness and take responsibility for our collective situation. It's so easy to blame someone or something else for our pain and hardship. It's easy to blame one man, or one group of people, or one country, or one situation, or one pandemic; but, the blaming won't get us any further down the road. The blaming will only keep us stuck. None of us like to see ourselves as guilty, and yet we are all guilty. We are all innocent and we are all guilty. We are all things. We are all capable of great compassion and love. And, at the same time, we are capable of deep hatred and alienation. No one is all good or all bad. We are all wounded. And, our unaccepted and unloved wounds cause great difficulties for the entire collective. As we each accept and love ourselves, in spite of and because of everything we carry, we will help the collective to find peace and acceptance as well. One person at a time. One step at a time. I love you. I'm sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you.
