**
If we are to embody the seeds of a new world, we need to clean out the shaming, demeaning messages we have received. Shaming others usually occurs in the wake of ourselves being shamed, either in childhood or adulthood.
Given the widespread family, relational, and institutional dysfunction in a control-paradigm-based society - we all have this work to do.
Since these diminishing and dehumanizing wounds were delivered interpersonally, the great majority of us need an interpersonal relationship (such as with a competent psychotherapist) to heal them.
In the final analysis, we need to learn to deeply accept and appreciate ourselves. As the Dalai Lama once said, "All beings have Buddha-Nature."
**
RECOVERY MOVEMENTS
Utilizing the model of recovery from the Alcoholics Anonymous, an argument can be made that either: we allow our addiction to the current paradigm to die, or we will die.
However, we can also remember that - dying to a deadly paradigm creates space for the birth of a new one based in aliveness.
As in A.A., we first need to experience our internalization of the prevailing societal paradigms. "Micro-recovery" is where this revolution starts: exploring our (often subtle and unconscious) habits of diminishment and denigration toward self and others. It is up to each one of us to confront our experience of our "soul-loss."
Micro-recovery deals first with family-of-origin traumas (whether large or small) and issues of self-value - rooted in our personal history. We need to observe and recognize our feelings of disempowerment clearly, while seeing precisely how our sense of emptiness has led to our own addiction and vulnerability to the trance of our prevailing paradigm.
Yet: as if individual recovery wasn't difficult enough, we are embedded in systems that impede our recovery and empowerment.
As we begin to recover, we often experience more intensely, the self-demeaning messages coming from both institutions and within ourselves. We may come to realize that we have adopted a pattern of self/other disparagement in our own thoughts and feelings.
The 12-Step Model [currently existing groups deal with many issues, such as overeating, under-earning, and anger management, are free, and exist across the world] can aid us in moving into "soul awareness." Ideally, these groups counter isolation by providing a sense of connection, acceptance and belonging in the midst of an increasingly fragmented society. They function as an antidote to shame. (If we choose to introduce ourselves, we are immediately met with a group response of, "Hi, our name" - i.e., we welcome and value you).
Thus, the first three steps state:
1) "We admitted we were powerless over" [fill in the blank: alcohol, our dysfunctional mental patterns, or our addiction to Control Culture memes] - and 'that our lives had become unmanageable.'"
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