Let's expand on the idea of shifting beliefs to make life easier.

How can you do that when you look at the world around you?

We interpret our reality based on our beliefs, pain, and previous experience. Some of the beliefs that I had about the world around me were based on my own pain. One very specific idea I had was to regulate everything and everybody. That belief came from a feeling of being out of control within myself and then wanting to control the world around me to make myself feel better.

Look around and see if you can find people or places where that's happening. It exists and it happens all the time. Pain and fear will cause people to try to take almost a death-grip level of control over things. You can find people that try to do that pretty easily.

Beliefs like that make life complicated and very frustrating because the reality is that we can't get the level of control we think we need. In most cases even if we did, we wouldn't be very happy for very long.

The challenge when you look at the outside world is to identify the pain and fear that is present. By recognizing the pain and fear you can begin to see why people are behaving the way they are. We don't need specifics to recognize pain in other people. We don't need to fully understand the pain to simply be okay with the fact that the pain is there. Making complete understanding a requirement for compassion is one of the beliefs that can make life pretty complicated.

We can't change the behavior of other people. We can't make people do things. People get mad when they are told how to be in the world. People don't like to be put upon in that way. Yet we do it to each other all the time, both collectively and individually. It's all pain-based behavior. The underlying causes are all different, but the basic premise is either a need for control or a fear of change or both.

Our governments are filled with people in varying degrees of pain and it affects how they attempt to govern. The fear and pain run rampant. It shows up in the laws they attempt to create. It shows up in the dysfunction and inability to get anything useful accomplished. It shows up in their need for control.

We decide that because they are paid to do a job that this stuff shouldn't be an issue but it is an issue constantly. We can identify the fear, the pain, and the greed easily. I would suggest that political life is one of the hardest places to separate personal views from political views from collective/societal rules and regulations. We see the carryover between all those things on a regular basis.

The people that are most likely to run for office are the ones that want control, power, and/or money. That's the way the system has been setup. You're unlikely to find people that aren't after one or all of those things. To want to do that job in the current system you have to be motivated by something and currently pain, control, and money are the major motivations.

Can we change it?

Only by changing the entire system so that we can affect the motivation and desire to be in government in the first place. You need an overall system that isn't motivated by greed, power, and money to attract people that aren't motivated by those same things.

That's why the systems are beginning to collapse. The level of pain that's present is no longer acceptable. The underlying motivation and reason for the existence of these systems is no longer okay.

In order to ride out this collective shift, you have to keep your perspective balanced. You have to be able to be okay within yourself. You have to find your own internal equilibrium. If you don't you're going to be stressed out and upset constantly.

A lot of what we try to do when we get upset about things actually causes us to defend the problem. It doesn't solve anything. It's because we're afraid of the change that we do that.

It's okay to take on a cause and be an activist if that's the path you want to take. For most of us, the dysfunction is just going to be there. We don't have control over it and we can't change it. It's just going to be there until the system collapses.

Be careful with what you take on. It doesn't mean you can't notice what's happening around you, but there is a difference between simply being aware of things and actively taking them on. Notice that distinction and be mindful of it within yourself.

You have the power to be okay even in the chaos. It's all a matter of how you see it and what you do with it within yourself.

Love to all.

Della