In order to truly heal, you have to let go of your blame and anger, your rage towards your parents, siblings, teachers, the opposite sex, society, the nation, the other nation, the world and ultimately even to the universe and to God. All of us will find some level of these wounds within us as we engage on a healing journey. If your institution, ideology or social justice movement stands in the way of that, if it teaches you – directly or indirectly – that it is “just” to hold onto attitudes of blame and resentment to other people or to the world, then you have a choice to make. Whom do I serve? Do I choose the movement and its story, or do I choose healing and to honour my Authentic Self? If the movement or institution freely permits you to heal all of that, without politicizing and weaponising your woundedness, then no such choice is required.
This is true of any given movement or organisation, whether it be your church, Black Lives Matter, the feminist movement, men’s rights activism, human rights organisations, CNN or Fox News, the World Economic Forum, Alcoholics Anonymous, your local meditation centre or even Meals on Wheels. And it is equally true of the online tribes that marshal together the foot soldiers of the culture wars and various other online tribalist conflicts.
That is a choice that nobody should be permitted to make for you. So, what do you choose?
We are all permitted to make the choice, and I don’t personally think there is any judgment for not choosing to heal. But there is a price to pay for not healing. Or rather, more than a single price. The first is that you will go to your grave having not integrated all your unresolved issues. Secondly, you will tend to pass those consciousnesss structures on to your children. Even if you have no children, those unconscious issues will tend to become drivers of drama, both personal and in regard to broader social movements you engage in. Finally, you will have lived and died not having fully embodied your Authentic Self.
I might end here by saying that there are few amongst us who have complete awareness of all the unresolved narratives and self-limiting beliefs contained within our psyches and our emotional bodies. Many of those structures are not actually our own, but are passed down to us from our ancestors, or inherited from our cultures. It may be “unfair” in a sense, but the only person who can resolve those issues is ourselves – and with the subtle help that our integrated intelligence permits.
This is an extract from Marcus T Anthony’s upcoming book Power and Presence: Reclaiming Your Authentic Self in a Weaponised World.
