War & Our Wild, Precious Lives

I take the title above from a recent comment on a post I made on social media more than eight years ago. Of course, it is also a remembering of the brilliant and wonderful poet, Mary Oliver. The post I’m referencing was recounting a night dream that—today—seems like a dream within a dream. I don’t know about you, but I hardly remember the “me” of 8 years ago. We are living lifetimes within lifetimes, like the nested Russian dolls, one inside the other. They are seemingly the same but for size, and appear as only one until unpacked.?

Yes, I am aware I am mentioning Russia. It is a conscious choice.?

It seems we are going off the rails, my fellow humans. We are making war and we are making war out of war. We are online soldiers the world over, arming ourselves with ideas, searching out threats, making villains and victims and taking strong, emotional positions in our own minds.

We say Russia and Ukraine as if we know what we are talking about. As if these parcels of land are not equally filled with humans like ourselves. As if good and evil were baked into the soil and the lines we have drawn between this patch of earth and that patch of earth are more real than the whole of the earth as one interconnected reality.

For those feeling hot already, please know I am not saying this war is not real. It is frighteningly so. I am not saying there are not very real consequences and that there is not untold pain and suffering. It’s already horrific.?I am not saying that we ought not take a position or action. I already have.

What I am pointing to is something just as critical: the war in our heads.?The villain in us. The victim in us. The hero in us. The coward, and all the other ways we are just like all of the players in any war.

Inside of each of us there is a sense of war and a sense of peace. How we participate in wars, even online and in conversations, can be as conscious an act as any. In fact, without this, have we evolved in our consciousness at all??

As the very real drama unfolds, to have any hope of conscious leadership we also have to deal with our own inner dramatists. So to my fellow conscious leaders, and anyone else interested in our growing consciousness, I say this: Take a minute. Take a breath. Remember all you have learned in the dojo, on the mat, in your online classes, and quality leadership trainings.?Most of all, remember what you have learned in the times of your own silence and sufferings. Remember your insights and truths.

Remind yourself, as I will myself, that we don’t have to play by our old, worn-out, nearly defunct fearmongering selves. We don’t have to make war in our heads. We never again have to play the old games the old ways, if we can only remember to choose something better. We don’t have to participate through our more primal instincts, even when we feel them rise. We can resist unwise action in our relationships, our families, our workplaces, our towns, our states, our countries.

To actively choose to not participate in the war within the war, we must stop. Center. Listen in the silence for what is right. Then we must move (yes, we do act!) with great caution. We walk as if on thin ice, just like the masters of old have suggested.?

In times of war out there, we have the opportunity to face the war within. The war in here, in us, is just as alive as we allow it to be. Are we caught like a fish in a net? Or do we have the presence within to seek out the space between the netting, the hole between the string and knots that is open to us through our own inner thoughts and greater wisdom??

To lead consciously now, we must see where we are falling into old stories, old ways, old ideas. Where we are instinctually clinging to me, mine, ours-not-yours, them-not-us. These are the ideas we have worked to outgrow. Now, we have the opportunity to practice.?

This is not easy. It is not anything close to easy.?War and villains and victims and sharp-sword realities push all of our buttons, known and unknown, at the deepest levels.

In fact, we might say that the threat of war and destruction are the greatest tests of our consciousness. Yet to be peaceful and wise when the world appears to be crumbling around us is to have truly gained something profound through all our breathing, meditations, practices, and yogas.?

Can we see that we are living out the war in our heads, even as it goes on in the very real world, as a doll nested within a doll, nested within another? Can we look at war clearly, listen wisely to what is out there and what is within, and then take our proper place in this raging divide that threatens our one humanity? Can we hold this much (so very much) and not lose our own inner peace??

It’s an enormous ask. But if we can, this is not only how we lead consciously. This is how we do not waste our one wild, precious life.

I'm Robin Rice,?an author, teacher, and senior advisor?in conscious leadership. I work at the intersection of our professional lives, personal relationships, and social impact. Please connect with me here on?LinkedIn ?(follow me for posts that support your deeper journey or request a connection) or email me through my website at?RobinRice.com .