Rachel’s feedback helps everyone listening. Kosha Joubert was listening “wow, all these places this is not going to this is not going to go in let's continue practice” Kosha heard she can improve her lexicon to reach more people. That was Rachel doing that.
Thinking about what hurts people, and/or causes people to hurt others, raises the spectre of the social engineering of hurt. Ed Zitron has a great article on the unfettered damages technology is doing -https://www.wheresyoured.at/lost-in-the-future/ How about platforming him?
The most involving part of this episode was Kosha's description of her experience in South Africa. As a young activist she risked much and wandering around the country must also have carried its own dangers. She has a great heart but the ideas need to be made concrete both in language and form. I am fairly well versed in the language of the abstract but I was desperate for some concrete examples to anchor these ideas to. The example of regular breath work with the Ukranians was useful and began to give some real world context to her work. Nonetheless an interesting episode, if only to see your expressions, Rachel! (I watch the Youtube version)
Thanks for getting past the questionable Social Psychology/Depth Psychology equivalence, the deceptive Therapeutics/Ecology metaphor and the simplistic Self-Help blame-the- victim bs to talking about somehow getting people back to earth, grounded, actually getting our hands back in the dirt we come from and return to - a humbling task when billions of us (especially our power brokers and those in the cockpit) are urban beings sorely out of touch with terrestrial material reality.
Glad to hear Dr. Stephen Porges, promoter of the PolyVagal model, cited here. I realized we were doomed by 1996 due to my intensive environmental activism. So I finished my master's degree by seeing what happens after death via qigong master Chunyi Lin who does spiritual yoga meditation healing in Minnesota - he has worked with several Mayo Clinic doctors. Dr. Ann Vincent did a study of his "external qi" healing and she published the results in a peer-reviewed journal - calling the external qi healing "especially impressive" on chronic pain (that Western medicine had not been able to treat for five years).
The trauma is a very deep issue - the "male figure" - this is a problem that becomes "hard-wired" into males when trauma happens to the male before puberty is finished. In terms of the spiritual intention based on biophotons - what I call the "magnetic moment" of virtual photons is then the subconscious or even unconscious intention that is then hard-wired in the lower body of that person. Gurdjieff called this a "number one" person. This is something I learned from experience through my training.
Due to the development of patriarchal plow-based farming around the world this traumatic "Male figure" that has this hard-wired lower body intention (based on spiking cortisol against the right-side vagus nerve as per Dr. Stephen Porges model) - is sometimes the focus of whole "cultures" for "civilization." This is very difficult for people to believe and accept. For example there is anthropology work by say - Peter Sigal - focused on the Aztecs and Nahua having institutionalized pederasty that creates a cultural trauma based on violence. This explains why, for example, the Nahua Pipil culture in Central America is the most violent culture on Earth. That's just one example but the Catholic church or the Boy Scouts could be considered other examples. The Epstein-Drumpf control of the U.S. empire as fascism - exposed by Wayne Madsen, is another example. As Noam Chomsky wrote, Drumpf is worse than Shitzler.
Ouch. I’m a trauma survivor and I haven’t hurt anyone. There’s this idea that if you were abused in some way, you grow up to be an abuser. It’s victim-blaming. I say this because titles like this one *hurt people.* The very idea here that hurt people are hurters was the basis for an ex trying to take my son away…simply because I am a trauma survivor. I want to listen because I love Planet Critical…but please.
Hey Melanie, I’m so pleased you find value in Planet: Critical. You are welcome to sit this episode out if you’d feel more comfortable, of course. The title speaks more to the systemic harms that are caused to us all by the violence it wields—this isn’t an episode about individuals, although Kosha offers what we should seek to do to confront that system of violence we are all engaged with to some degree. I hope this helps.
Rachel, please interview Vanessa Andreotti, author of "Hospicing Modernity", , co -founder of "Gestures toward decolonial futures" - brilliant educator, academic and dedication to "anti-assholism" - you will love her as I do as she turns my world inside out.
This was an interesting discussion because early on, I took the message of people’s trauma and their “unprocessed and undigested history of transgression” as one small part of what I have seen as the wider problem of privileged people not being honest with themselves and how that has in part resulted in the state of crisis we are in today. And when I say “privileged” here I am not so much referring to financial status as much as to a focus on people whose lifestyles, however meager they may be, have played a role in the lion’s share of the environmental destruction we are suffering from, which primarily means a focus on those living in developed nations, as their daily lives take place within the destructive machinery of our societies as opposed to those whose lives are farther away from that. When we live our day-to-day lives, as we must, whereby we focus on “what have I got to get done today?” where do we get the time, or where do we find the reason, the need, to zoom out and ask ourselves what we are doing, anyway? Where do we come from? What has happened in the world to bring me and those around me to where we are now? Are we doing what we should? Is this the right way to be? Should I want what I think I want, or am I wrong?
Seeing clearly, and thinking clearly, is the first step. (And it is of course not something we in developed nations are taught how to do, nor is it what those in power want us to be able to do.) But then the discussion took a turn, when Rachel expressed her concern about how healing ourselves, to whatever extent each of us may carry trauma within us, might be an unfair goal to suggest to the people who suffer the most, by which I take Rachel to mean those people who contribute the least to, but are most affected by, the lifestyles and actions of those in developed nations, depending on how that goal is presented to those people.
This is where the discussion moves away from my own general concept of our personal dishonesty with ourselves. Although everyone can benefit to some extent from introspection, whether the focus is on trauma or otherwise, if the goal by, let’s call them “educators” from developed nations, is to say to those causing the least harm that their personal healing will go a long way towards ending, or is in some way responsible, for these disasters all around us, I think that’s problematic. I don’t know if that is what people like Kosha Joubert are in fact doing, but her comments did not make me feel that she was.
This episode is one of my all time favorites - thanks to both Kosha and Rachel. I listened to it twice and I might have to go back a third time!
I do think one point of view was missing from the conversation around Rachel's critique of the trauma-informed approach to addressing the polycrisis, especially in the context of the 2024 US election outcome. Yes, it's true that a large portion of Trump voters report having voted for the former president due to concerns around the economy/inflation. But the deeper question is why - why would voters decide that Trump was the candidate that would deliver for them?
Any rational, objective analysis of Trump's economic "plan" can result in only one conclusion: Trump's tariff-crazy, pro-billionaire, anti-regulation hodgepodge is bad for working class people - the very core of his base. (Not to mention the obvious fact that Trump is a shameless grifter who has done nothing but rip people off his entire life - mostly working class people).
So yes, Trump supporters may have voted with their wallets in mind - and rightfully so. Inequality is worse now than it has been in living memory. But Trump voters also voted for the one candidate who will almost certainly make things materially worse for them. What gives?
Sure, we can blame disinformation, and I'm certain that played a role. But it's not the whole story. Here's where a trauma-informed approach is so illuminating. I believe Trump supporters when they say they are voting on the economy, but I think the exit poll numbers that Rachel cites obscure a deeper, unconscious truth.
Growing up in a working class family in the US, I can say this: I deeply internalized the core tenets of American-style "bootstraps" capitalism: the rich deserve to be rich because they work harder and are more capable than the rest of us, and the poor deserve to be poor because they are lazy, ignorant, and morally corrupt. All lies, of course. But useful ones. Especially for a candidate like Trump.
I have many Trump supporters in my family, all of whom have internalized these destructive lies for decades. None is interested in exploring the damage they sustained or emotional baggage they may carry growing up on the edge of poverty (or within it). Quite the contrary - they see poverty as a moral failing, and they willfully ignore the fact that impoverishment could happen to them at any point given the lack of a reliable safety net in this country. I would argue that many, many Trump supporters are dealing with similar emotional baggage (and a similar resistance to engaging meaningfully with any of it).
So, returning to the question - why would Trump supporters who claim to be voting out of concerns for their material well being cast a ballot for a morally corrupt madman who will not deliver for them? Because these people - my people - have been deeply scarred by living in a state of precarity for generations. They have internalized this inter-generational trauma, and these deep wounds manifest themselves in all kinds of ways - including their seemingly nonsensical political decisions.
But it makes a lot of sense, when you consider what Trump represents: a billionaire (whose wealth by default earns him the esteem of his base) who promises to punch down at the people beneath them (immigrants, the queer community, etc). If you're a white working class dude without a college education, and you've always existed in a state of precarity without doing any work to heal those wounds, you are the prototypical Trump voter.
And while your truth is that you vote out of concern for your pocketbook, there is another truth as well: you're voting because you feel deeply insecure, because you've always felt insecure, and because you believe your insecurity is your own fault. Ultimately, you voted for Trump because he promised to keep those "beneath" you on the economic ladder in the place where they "belong." It ain't much, but it's something.
We've all got wounds and blind spots and delusions. Trump voters are not bad people, but they do regularly vote for bad people.
Saying that these poor and working class folks don't need to do internal work to heal deep wounds - or that it shouldn't be prioritized - comes off as a bit patronizing to me (even though I know it came from a place of sincere concern). Of course they need to do this work! All of us do (including Trump himself, but I'm not holding out hope). Healing these wounds, as Kosha indicated, is a vital part of the project of increasing individual agency, organizing from the bottom up, and saving our planet.
And yes, we need to resource these communities and do a much better job of making sure everyone in this country (planet) has their basic needs met. We can (and should) argue about what rhetoric will most move people to action around this difficult internal work. But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. This is a yes/and situation, not either/or.
Because here's the thing: Trump and his ilk aren't going anywhere until we force them out. And we can't force them out without a mass movement to reject the politics of division and hate. We need to awaken to all of the ways our collective trauma continues to manifest in the violent, unresponsive, and destructive systems that are driving us ever closer to ruin.
Everyone will have a history and deeper history that will be scarred. The fundamental dislocation from the land, the provisioning of our needs from that abundance is shared. The individual, community, regional historical realities of that shared trauma are all unique, making any general discussion of it a bit woowee. Perhaps we are coming to the limits of language and ideas that universalise the human condition. The healing, as far as I can see it, is going to take place incrementally over generations, in communities very much of and shaped by the bioregions, towns and villages that they are embedded in. Its gonna be local and worked out messily through actual work like growing food, making furniture fro. Real trees and weaving clothes from natural fibres, all of which create embodied skill and practical meditation, and are fun (serotonin) and a cultivate community. Global discussions of embodied and embedded practice on complex technological platforms/media owned by the MIC are kind of the height of cognitive dissonance. But it's the best we got. Lol.
(At 15:00- 17:30 I repeated listening several times )
Am I hearing;
When I loose my capacity to witness and interact creatively with what is in front of me, my possible fearful reaction, or flight take over, This is me loosing my capacity to creatively interact?
( At 20:00 the lecture turns to:) the conscious knowing of paradigm design and the design’s reality
How are the two connected?
The difference between company policy and company culture? What’s Written and what is said in the lift between coworkers? Where is that reality?
I think in what drives stockholders shares?
Nothing to do with community, nature, and the greater good?
(At 31:15 I hit pause to ponder) my father was a sociopath. Born a sociopath, lived as a sociopath, and died as a sociopath.
Even at 85 years old I caught him shoplifting
My Dad at Breakfast on mornings out, was spent reminiscing all his criminal activities. Celebrating
Half his life wasted in prison, countless friends, family, and strangers were impacted, victim to his schemes.
A very interesting discussion and I felt that the guest both didn't answer the most pertinent question, and then avoided it intentionally. That kind of language IS really polarising – it's hugely off-putting to the majority of people especially in the Western hemisphere and given that it's they who have to do the majority of the inner work, the fact that this kind of launguage will make most of them turn off is an issue. How DO we engage eveyryone to feel both engaged and willing to do the work to make a difference is not going to be answered in spiritual retreats!!
I was hearing the same. I was picturing the women in my neighborhood setting down their latte’ on their way to a spiritual uplifting goat yoga session?
The idea of layering support for both basic needs and healing to victims of designed paradigms, seem exceptionalist who might believe in Bill Gates model of Philantropy. The idea that a person, group, or thing is superior or different from the norm is hard to shake, when privilege is simply your norm.
Kosha, might consider discussing the layering of exploitation, and acquisition? Imagine the wealthy considering a stop to opulence? Whittle away the carbon footprint of extravagance? Imagine ending that trip to the other side of the planet, touring the latest trendy destination?
Hi Sorrrel, Buddha says we are all responsible for our own salvation, no one elses. We don't get others to do the work we think that they need. We only work on ourselves. And spiritual retreats are a wonderful way to do that. I've heard Gabor Mate say very similar things to audience questions about how to get other people to listen to their body's and become self-aware: we do it by doing the work and being examples, no more, no less.
Most of the so called trauma is self induced by a media and activists that use scare tactics on admittingly a weak minded population including impressionable children. We need to strengthen our society, not train it to be weaker with this nonsense. Its victimhood at its worst.
Rachel’s feedback helps everyone listening. Kosha Joubert was listening “wow, all these places this is not going to this is not going to go in let's continue practice” Kosha heard she can improve her lexicon to reach more people. That was Rachel doing that.
Thinking about what hurts people, and/or causes people to hurt others, raises the spectre of the social engineering of hurt. Ed Zitron has a great article on the unfettered damages technology is doing -https://www.wheresyoured.at/lost-in-the-future/ How about platforming him?
How amazingly weird—I emailed him out of the blue about an hour before reading your comment and he’s now coming on the show!
The universe works in mysterious ways!
The most involving part of this episode was Kosha's description of her experience in South Africa. As a young activist she risked much and wandering around the country must also have carried its own dangers. She has a great heart but the ideas need to be made concrete both in language and form. I am fairly well versed in the language of the abstract but I was desperate for some concrete examples to anchor these ideas to. The example of regular breath work with the Ukranians was useful and began to give some real world context to her work. Nonetheless an interesting episode, if only to see your expressions, Rachel! (I watch the Youtube version)
Thanks for getting past the questionable Social Psychology/Depth Psychology equivalence, the deceptive Therapeutics/Ecology metaphor and the simplistic Self-Help blame-the- victim bs to talking about somehow getting people back to earth, grounded, actually getting our hands back in the dirt we come from and return to - a humbling task when billions of us (especially our power brokers and those in the cockpit) are urban beings sorely out of touch with terrestrial material reality.
Glad to hear Dr. Stephen Porges, promoter of the PolyVagal model, cited here. I realized we were doomed by 1996 due to my intensive environmental activism. So I finished my master's degree by seeing what happens after death via qigong master Chunyi Lin who does spiritual yoga meditation healing in Minnesota - he has worked with several Mayo Clinic doctors. Dr. Ann Vincent did a study of his "external qi" healing and she published the results in a peer-reviewed journal - calling the external qi healing "especially impressive" on chronic pain (that Western medicine had not been able to treat for five years).
The trauma is a very deep issue - the "male figure" - this is a problem that becomes "hard-wired" into males when trauma happens to the male before puberty is finished. In terms of the spiritual intention based on biophotons - what I call the "magnetic moment" of virtual photons is then the subconscious or even unconscious intention that is then hard-wired in the lower body of that person. Gurdjieff called this a "number one" person. This is something I learned from experience through my training.
Due to the development of patriarchal plow-based farming around the world this traumatic "Male figure" that has this hard-wired lower body intention (based on spiking cortisol against the right-side vagus nerve as per Dr. Stephen Porges model) - is sometimes the focus of whole "cultures" for "civilization." This is very difficult for people to believe and accept. For example there is anthropology work by say - Peter Sigal - focused on the Aztecs and Nahua having institutionalized pederasty that creates a cultural trauma based on violence. This explains why, for example, the Nahua Pipil culture in Central America is the most violent culture on Earth. That's just one example but the Catholic church or the Boy Scouts could be considered other examples. The Epstein-Drumpf control of the U.S. empire as fascism - exposed by Wayne Madsen, is another example. As Noam Chomsky wrote, Drumpf is worse than Shitzler.
Ouch. I’m a trauma survivor and I haven’t hurt anyone. There’s this idea that if you were abused in some way, you grow up to be an abuser. It’s victim-blaming. I say this because titles like this one *hurt people.* The very idea here that hurt people are hurters was the basis for an ex trying to take my son away…simply because I am a trauma survivor. I want to listen because I love Planet Critical…but please.
Hey Melanie, I’m so pleased you find value in Planet: Critical. You are welcome to sit this episode out if you’d feel more comfortable, of course. The title speaks more to the systemic harms that are caused to us all by the violence it wields—this isn’t an episode about individuals, although Kosha offers what we should seek to do to confront that system of violence we are all engaged with to some degree. I hope this helps.
I get it. But titles convey a message and this misses the mark in a big way, your explanation notwithstanding. Discourse matters. Even in titles.
Rachel, please interview Vanessa Andreotti, author of "Hospicing Modernity", , co -founder of "Gestures toward decolonial futures" - brilliant educator, academic and dedication to "anti-assholism" - you will love her as I do as she turns my world inside out.
This was an interesting discussion because early on, I took the message of people’s trauma and their “unprocessed and undigested history of transgression” as one small part of what I have seen as the wider problem of privileged people not being honest with themselves and how that has in part resulted in the state of crisis we are in today. And when I say “privileged” here I am not so much referring to financial status as much as to a focus on people whose lifestyles, however meager they may be, have played a role in the lion’s share of the environmental destruction we are suffering from, which primarily means a focus on those living in developed nations, as their daily lives take place within the destructive machinery of our societies as opposed to those whose lives are farther away from that. When we live our day-to-day lives, as we must, whereby we focus on “what have I got to get done today?” where do we get the time, or where do we find the reason, the need, to zoom out and ask ourselves what we are doing, anyway? Where do we come from? What has happened in the world to bring me and those around me to where we are now? Are we doing what we should? Is this the right way to be? Should I want what I think I want, or am I wrong?
Seeing clearly, and thinking clearly, is the first step. (And it is of course not something we in developed nations are taught how to do, nor is it what those in power want us to be able to do.) But then the discussion took a turn, when Rachel expressed her concern about how healing ourselves, to whatever extent each of us may carry trauma within us, might be an unfair goal to suggest to the people who suffer the most, by which I take Rachel to mean those people who contribute the least to, but are most affected by, the lifestyles and actions of those in developed nations, depending on how that goal is presented to those people.
This is where the discussion moves away from my own general concept of our personal dishonesty with ourselves. Although everyone can benefit to some extent from introspection, whether the focus is on trauma or otherwise, if the goal by, let’s call them “educators” from developed nations, is to say to those causing the least harm that their personal healing will go a long way towards ending, or is in some way responsible, for these disasters all around us, I think that’s problematic. I don’t know if that is what people like Kosha Joubert are in fact doing, but her comments did not make me feel that she was.
I use this phrase ALOT. It's so true. I loved this episode. So many golden nuggets here
This episode is one of my all time favorites - thanks to both Kosha and Rachel. I listened to it twice and I might have to go back a third time!
I do think one point of view was missing from the conversation around Rachel's critique of the trauma-informed approach to addressing the polycrisis, especially in the context of the 2024 US election outcome. Yes, it's true that a large portion of Trump voters report having voted for the former president due to concerns around the economy/inflation. But the deeper question is why - why would voters decide that Trump was the candidate that would deliver for them?
Any rational, objective analysis of Trump's economic "plan" can result in only one conclusion: Trump's tariff-crazy, pro-billionaire, anti-regulation hodgepodge is bad for working class people - the very core of his base. (Not to mention the obvious fact that Trump is a shameless grifter who has done nothing but rip people off his entire life - mostly working class people).
So yes, Trump supporters may have voted with their wallets in mind - and rightfully so. Inequality is worse now than it has been in living memory. But Trump voters also voted for the one candidate who will almost certainly make things materially worse for them. What gives?
Sure, we can blame disinformation, and I'm certain that played a role. But it's not the whole story. Here's where a trauma-informed approach is so illuminating. I believe Trump supporters when they say they are voting on the economy, but I think the exit poll numbers that Rachel cites obscure a deeper, unconscious truth.
Growing up in a working class family in the US, I can say this: I deeply internalized the core tenets of American-style "bootstraps" capitalism: the rich deserve to be rich because they work harder and are more capable than the rest of us, and the poor deserve to be poor because they are lazy, ignorant, and morally corrupt. All lies, of course. But useful ones. Especially for a candidate like Trump.
I have many Trump supporters in my family, all of whom have internalized these destructive lies for decades. None is interested in exploring the damage they sustained or emotional baggage they may carry growing up on the edge of poverty (or within it). Quite the contrary - they see poverty as a moral failing, and they willfully ignore the fact that impoverishment could happen to them at any point given the lack of a reliable safety net in this country. I would argue that many, many Trump supporters are dealing with similar emotional baggage (and a similar resistance to engaging meaningfully with any of it).
So, returning to the question - why would Trump supporters who claim to be voting out of concerns for their material well being cast a ballot for a morally corrupt madman who will not deliver for them? Because these people - my people - have been deeply scarred by living in a state of precarity for generations. They have internalized this inter-generational trauma, and these deep wounds manifest themselves in all kinds of ways - including their seemingly nonsensical political decisions.
But it makes a lot of sense, when you consider what Trump represents: a billionaire (whose wealth by default earns him the esteem of his base) who promises to punch down at the people beneath them (immigrants, the queer community, etc). If you're a white working class dude without a college education, and you've always existed in a state of precarity without doing any work to heal those wounds, you are the prototypical Trump voter.
And while your truth is that you vote out of concern for your pocketbook, there is another truth as well: you're voting because you feel deeply insecure, because you've always felt insecure, and because you believe your insecurity is your own fault. Ultimately, you voted for Trump because he promised to keep those "beneath" you on the economic ladder in the place where they "belong." It ain't much, but it's something.
We've all got wounds and blind spots and delusions. Trump voters are not bad people, but they do regularly vote for bad people.
Saying that these poor and working class folks don't need to do internal work to heal deep wounds - or that it shouldn't be prioritized - comes off as a bit patronizing to me (even though I know it came from a place of sincere concern). Of course they need to do this work! All of us do (including Trump himself, but I'm not holding out hope). Healing these wounds, as Kosha indicated, is a vital part of the project of increasing individual agency, organizing from the bottom up, and saving our planet.
And yes, we need to resource these communities and do a much better job of making sure everyone in this country (planet) has their basic needs met. We can (and should) argue about what rhetoric will most move people to action around this difficult internal work. But let's not throw the baby out with the bath water. This is a yes/and situation, not either/or.
Because here's the thing: Trump and his ilk aren't going anywhere until we force them out. And we can't force them out without a mass movement to reject the politics of division and hate. We need to awaken to all of the ways our collective trauma continues to manifest in the violent, unresponsive, and destructive systems that are driving us ever closer to ruin.
Everyone will have a history and deeper history that will be scarred. The fundamental dislocation from the land, the provisioning of our needs from that abundance is shared. The individual, community, regional historical realities of that shared trauma are all unique, making any general discussion of it a bit woowee. Perhaps we are coming to the limits of language and ideas that universalise the human condition. The healing, as far as I can see it, is going to take place incrementally over generations, in communities very much of and shaped by the bioregions, towns and villages that they are embedded in. Its gonna be local and worked out messily through actual work like growing food, making furniture fro. Real trees and weaving clothes from natural fibres, all of which create embodied skill and practical meditation, and are fun (serotonin) and a cultivate community. Global discussions of embodied and embedded practice on complex technological platforms/media owned by the MIC are kind of the height of cognitive dissonance. But it's the best we got. Lol.
(At 15:00- 17:30 I repeated listening several times )
Am I hearing;
When I loose my capacity to witness and interact creatively with what is in front of me, my possible fearful reaction, or flight take over, This is me loosing my capacity to creatively interact?
( At 20:00 the lecture turns to:) the conscious knowing of paradigm design and the design’s reality
How are the two connected?
The difference between company policy and company culture? What’s Written and what is said in the lift between coworkers? Where is that reality?
I think in what drives stockholders shares?
Nothing to do with community, nature, and the greater good?
(At 31:15 I hit pause to ponder) my father was a sociopath. Born a sociopath, lived as a sociopath, and died as a sociopath.
Even at 85 years old I caught him shoplifting
My Dad at Breakfast on mornings out, was spent reminiscing all his criminal activities. Celebrating
Half his life wasted in prison, countless friends, family, and strangers were impacted, victim to his schemes.
There are evil human beings,
charming, charismatic and a delight
to be around. My Dad was very good at
gaining trust.
My anecdotal response might be, My Dad,
he would always strive to gain something,
some personal gain from every encounter.
Is this an ancestral transmitted behavior?
Do we think genetic transmitted trauma is a possible factor in the vast spectrum of autism? Perhaps sociopathic behavior falls on ancestral lineage?
Bad Blood?
My Dad had no conscious, empathy for all his victims throughout his criminal career.
The Bill & Melinda Foundation Philanthropy seems to devoted to profit schemes over truly solving hunger?
That is quite a leap from my Dad’s schemes, and Bill Gates enterprises? I connect dots they may not exist?
🌲💀🌲 Billions Must Die 🌲💀🌲
A very interesting discussion and I felt that the guest both didn't answer the most pertinent question, and then avoided it intentionally. That kind of language IS really polarising – it's hugely off-putting to the majority of people especially in the Western hemisphere and given that it's they who have to do the majority of the inner work, the fact that this kind of launguage will make most of them turn off is an issue. How DO we engage eveyryone to feel both engaged and willing to do the work to make a difference is not going to be answered in spiritual retreats!!
I was hearing the same. I was picturing the women in my neighborhood setting down their latte’ on their way to a spiritual uplifting goat yoga session?
The idea of layering support for both basic needs and healing to victims of designed paradigms, seem exceptionalist who might believe in Bill Gates model of Philantropy. The idea that a person, group, or thing is superior or different from the norm is hard to shake, when privilege is simply your norm.
Kosha, might consider discussing the layering of exploitation, and acquisition? Imagine the wealthy considering a stop to opulence? Whittle away the carbon footprint of extravagance? Imagine ending that trip to the other side of the planet, touring the latest trendy destination?
How would anyone be persuaded?
Hi Sorrrel, Buddha says we are all responsible for our own salvation, no one elses. We don't get others to do the work we think that they need. We only work on ourselves. And spiritual retreats are a wonderful way to do that. I've heard Gabor Mate say very similar things to audience questions about how to get other people to listen to their body's and become self-aware: we do it by doing the work and being examples, no more, no less.
Most of the so called trauma is self induced by a media and activists that use scare tactics on admittingly a weak minded population including impressionable children. We need to strengthen our society, not train it to be weaker with this nonsense. Its victimhood at its worst.
The hurt that you express through this loveless and compassionless view of others is palpable.