Stepping Into the Void

What if this… is not the darkness of the tomb, but the?darkness of the womb? ~Valarie Kaur

Many of us are moving through a powerful passage of relinquishing the many ways we have allowed our lives and our work to be defined from the outside-in.???Indeed you may now find yourself letting go of the ways you had learned?long ago?not?to trust your own internal guidance system, and instead had hitched your wagon to the rules of an old paradigm; one that has now reached the limits of its usefulness.?

The Great Resignation was not a demand to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.??Instead, it speaks to a deeper, more fundamental paradigm shift within and around us regarding what really matters, and how we can be in service to That.

As we watch our modern society’s systems all breaking down across the globe, there is a natural tendency in our amygdala to try to turn up the dial on Control.??To try to hold on to what is familiar. To fight back.??To just shut down and say enough.??Or to try to quickly step in to our new vision, without taking a breath.??We’ll do anything but Stop and Open to what is asking for our attention.

Yet the larger Invitation right now is to connect with what is more meaningful, more generative and more real than anything our amygdala can dream up.??And that requires a willingness to allow ourselves to just S-T-O-P.??To let go.??To not know what comes next.??

Charles Eisenstein says, “In a process of breakdown, we are repeatedly invited personally and collectively to step into a different Story (e.g. a different worldview, a different identity, a different understanding of what’s real).?These aren’t addressed by doing more cleverly what we’ve already been doing.?Some fundamental shift is begging to happen.?And these days, it’s a choice that is being offered to us more and more starkly.”

Today as my colleague and friend D speaks about getting off the train of go-go-going, to allow herself time out to just STOP, to recalibrate and get more clarity around the work that is more aligned with who she actually Is, I am aware this is the 5th?such conversation I have had with clients and colleagues in the last several days.??All sensing a need to turn off the hypnotic machinery of the paradigm of "more is better" and that tells us "pausing is illogical if not dangerous."??A growing number of us are feeling an undeniable need to take time out, to consciously let go of what no longer serves, and to allow room for new more aligned expressions to emerge.

As a part of this letting go and letting come, we will inevitably enter what some have called the VOID; a liminal place that leaves us with little to say or think about anything. It can be a confusing passage as our?culture has a strong bias toward action and knowing.??And yet in order for this radical transformation of self and society to emerge, we must allow ourselves to enter the Great Unknown with no agenda other than to be of service to what is emerging, and to what feels in full integrity each moment.?

...in order for this radical transformation of self and society to emerge, we must allow ourselves to enter the Great Unknown with no agenda other than to be of service to what is emerging, and to what feels in full integrity each moment.?

It has been said that after Moses led the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt, and the Red Sea had parted, that once they were safe on the other side, many wanted to return to Egypt, even though that meant a return to slavery.??Because at least slavery was familiar. Then as they began to turn toward what had called them, to find the Promised Land, there were no signs that said “Promised Land this way!”??So they wandered in the desert for 40 years!??Imagine the confusion.??“We left slavery for this???Why?”??And yet this liminal passage was absolutely necessary.??For as I understand it, if the Hebrews had gone directly from slavery to the Promised Land, the Promised Land would have looked just like slavery.??Indeed, the same is true for us all right now.

...if the Hebrews had gone directly from slavery to the Promised Land, the Promised Land would have looked just like slavery.

Here we are… at the crossroads of The Old Story…and the yet to be revealed / created New World.??It is a time of death and rebirth.??And though the sights and sounds of endings are quite loud right now, many of us are beginning to experience an enlivening and most generative Call to help co-create something more Whole, more connected, more real than anything our amygdala can dream up; something that has never existed before.

Such a radical shift demands that we allow our fields to go fallow for a bit.??To take longer pauses, to create intentional time-outs when we are not trying to?doanything.??To give ourselves time to allow the old stories, the old identities to unwind, and the seeds of the new to take root and sprout in fertile soil.??Covid helped to initiate us into this Pause, and in the coming days/weeks/months/years, more will be asked of us.

Like the caterpillar that completely dissolves into black goo before transforming into a butterfly, a transition of this magnitude requires a deep letting go, both as individuals and as a collective.??It’s very messy at times.??Painful.??Uplifting.??Surprising.??Confusing. Energizing.??Exhausting. Humbling. As we let go of our caterpillar self, we also give up all the structures that supported it.??We meet our gifts and our shadows in the most undeniable ways.??Essentially, we are all walking into the great Unknown together step by step whether we like it or not.???

Like the caterpillar that completely dissolves into black goo before transforming into a butterfly, a transition of this magnitude requires a deep letting go, both as individuals and as a collective

As with all Great Turnings through the ages, there are no instructions, no street signs, no Google searches to point us in a clear direction.??Instead we will be guided step by step by an innate trust in a process that is now parting the Red Sea of the Old Story, and is carrying us into?what has never existed.??Ever.

We can move through this VOID kicking and screaming… or we can be curious and trust the still small voice within us that is beginning to inspire and inform new seeds / new expressions / new collectives of people coming together to co-create a new world.??We will learn as we go, step by step; learn as we walk into this fertile Unknown together.

I leave you for now with the incredibly wise words of Bayo Akomolafe…

“May this decade bring more than just solutions, more than just a future - may it bring words we don't know yet, and temporalities we have not yet inhabited. May we be slower than speed could calculate, and swifter than the pull of the gravity of words can incarcerate. And may we be visited so thoroughly, and met in wild places so overwhelmingly, that we are left undone. Ready for composting. Ready for the impossible. Welcome to the decade of the fugitive.”

With love, peg

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Peggy McAllister?is?Principal, Founder and Chief Mischief Maker?for?ESSENTIAL LEADERSHIP,?and supports leaders, coaches / consultants and organizations who create and offer products, services and?experiences that transform the ways we engage with our world.

Stay tuned for more information on upcoming?2023?RETURN to WHOLENESS RETREATS,?a three day experiential journey, described by one participant as "a life changing experience for those who are ready for this profound and sacred work."