Is this our greatest opportunity?

Guest Post by Jason Kappel

Hey gang, how have you been doing lately? In the last week we’ve had to add new words to our vocabulary like Social Distancing and having to figure out what that means for us and how we act.

What have you been feeling about that? At first I was feeling that constricting feeling in my heart thinking about how I’ll have to be isolated during this time. I’m an ambivert so that means I need to have social interaction AND I need alone time to process all the extroverting I may have just done. The extrovert in me was freaking out a bit saying “dude, we need to hang out with people” and the introvert inside me said “ok we’ve introverted the f**k out of this, now what?”

How about you? Are you feeling that way?

I continue to sit with with my thoughts and emotions and remind myself this too shall pass.

As I was sitting I started to get a feeling that this may be one of those times in history where we collectively as humans can make a fundamental shift in consciousness. That we collectively can change how we treat each other, how we conduct business, and how we can treat our planet, it’s the only one we got you know. I feel like the collective adversity that we’re ALL experiencing may be one of the greatest gifts we’ve ever been given as humankind. In order to receive this gift I feel like it’s going to take some work on all of our behalves.

This is the hardest work that we will all have to do alone, together.

What I mean by that is each of us has an opportunity to awaken and to become conscious. To explore our own vulnerabilities, shames, feelings and to learn let those go. To learn that our mind will try to pull us to the past which can cause depression or try to make stories about the future that isn’t predictable and create anxiety, In both the past and the future there is fear. Fear that we may never have an experience like we had or fear that the experiences we wanted to have won’t happen. That fear causes us to pull back, to lean towards scarcity, that we’re not worthy or not enough.

That stuff, is f**king hard to deal with. It is our own personal journey and those are our own personal emotions. The thing is, we don’t have to face this alone. There are healers and teachers in this world that have done this. They’ve been through the hells, the purgatory and they’ve come our the other side and are here to help us. They love us and want more than anything for us to feel the love they feel.

I’m telling you, we can feel that love. Even in the hard times, we can live it. We can be love. WE are worthy.

What are they saying?

In the present moment, none of that fear exists. The plane of pure love exists in the now. That in the now, in the moment, there is pure love. Pure love exist inside all of us. We’re all worthy of love and are love. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you.

Within. Right now in each of us.

Great Jason, awesome words, nice soap box, blah blah how do we do that?

Well, it’s kinda like that old joke. How do I get to Carnegie Hall? Practice man, Practice.

The practice is being in the now and being grounded. A great way to start is to sit and focus on your breath. To feel the air in through your nose and feel it as it goes out through your nose. Maybe feel your stomach or chest rise on the inhale and soften on the exhale. Sh*t’s gonna come up. I promise your mind and your emotions are going interrupt your focus on the breathing. It happens to me ALL the time and it’s OK. Through this work we can learn how to be kind and have compassion for ourselves. We can learn empathy. So when that happens, sometimes it’s all the time, we can simply stay with them for a bit to see where they’re coming from as an observer and/or we can kindly say thank you, I’m focusing on my breath right now.

There are healers and teachers available for us right now for no monetary cost. On Youtube you can listen to Eckhart Tolle, Ram Dass, Brene Brown, Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, and the folks at The Mindful Movement.

If you’re interested please feel free to message me and I can connected with some videos I’ve watched. Of if you just want to talk, I’ll make space or I can help get you connected to a healer or teacher.

This write up all started as me wanting to share a meditation that I’ve found helpful the last few days. For those of you that know me IRL I can be a little long winded from time to time. So without further ado here’s the meditation from Sara Raymond at The Mindful Movement.

Love and Light to you all – Jason