Day 293: We Are All Participating
This morning I was thinking about how connected we are.
From the fact that a bunch of people meditating to lower the crime rate in a U.S. city actually made it happen, all the way down to the fact that particles, which atoms are made of, change their motion when they're observed.
The act of observing changes behavior in particles, and in people.
One example that has fascinated me for years is the 1993 meditation experiment in Washington, D.C., often called the Maharishi Effect.
Over almost two months, a group grew to approximately 4,000 people practicing meditation together. The researchers reported a substantial reduction in certain violent crimes during the period and attributed it to the influence of the group meditation.
The findings and their interpretation have been debated, but what has always fascinated me is the possibility that what we cultivate within ourselves may reach further than we realize.
I've read about a dozen books on quantum physics over the years, and it still fascinates me, even when I struggle to wrap my brain around it. The relationship between measurement (observing) and what happens in the quantum world is extraordinary.
I'm also fascinated by how different we become as humans when we start observing ourselves. The moment we recognize a belief, thought, or behavior we've been repeating unconsciously, something changes. We now have information we didn't have before, and that gives us the opportunity to choose differently.
It goes way beyond what we learned in school about things not really being solid and how they vibrate at such a high rate they appear solid. That in itself can stretch your brain.
At the same time, I see the similarities in how we work as humans.
When we observe our beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors, we can never unlearn what we learn from observing. Whether we choose to do anything with that information or not.
I read Gregg Braden's books, and he talks a lot about the power of language and the origins of words and how similar words were used in different ancient languages. And how connected they were.
Ancient languages also show how much more connected people were to the entire Universe than we are today.
There is great comfort to be found in being a part of something ancient that has been true for thousands and thousands of years. And at the same time, it shows us how connected everything on Earth is to the rest of the Universe.
It makes big things feel more possible, like we have invisible support waiting to help us in whatever we choose to create in our lives.
And I believe we do have that support.
We are all one, all the way up and down the scale. There are many parts within the whole, but they are within the whole.
Even when things appear not to be connected, if we look, we will see how they fit as a part of the whole.
We are always participating in the collective energy.
And whether we look at that through a spiritual lens or simply through the way people influence one another, our participation matters. What we're bringing into our conversations, our relationships, our communities, and the work we do becomes part of what other people experience.
We've all been around someone whose presence made us feel calmer, more hopeful, or more capable of handling whatever was happening. We've also experienced how quickly fear, anger, or anxiety can spread through a group of people.
Those experiences remind us that what happens inside us doesn't always stay there. We carry it into the world through the way we speak, listen, respond, and make decisions.
Our thoughts that generate our emotions are constantly putting out our own vibrational energy into the world, into the universe.
Every person is also doing the same thing all the time, and so there's this big energetic field that everyone is participating in.
We can change things by changing our beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors as individuals. We can change our own world, which then ripples out in its effect on the world around us.
Collectively, as a group of people, if we change our beliefs, thoughts, and behaviors, we can shift what's happening in the world in an even larger way.
The Berlin Wall coming down is a good example of the collective energy of a large group of people who decided the time had come, and something the world was sure would never happen became a possibility; as the collective energy built, it became a reality.
We have enormous power in our own lives when we choose to exercise it. We may not be able to control every circumstance or what other people choose, but we can decide what we're willing to participate in and what we want to create moving forward.
All decisions are made in a moment. You can make them, or you can keep pushing them off until the only decision you're repeatedly making is to stay exactly where you are.
And because we're all connected, those decisions reach beyond us. When we change how we respond to something, it changes the experience for the people around us. When we become more conscious about our thoughts and beliefs, we begin making different choices, and those choices become part of what we're contributing to the world.
We're far enough along in our discussion this year that you already know much of this somewhere inside you.
Perhaps looking at the bigger picture today will help you recognize how much influence you have, beginning with your own life.
And maybe looking at something that feels like it's outside of ourselves will inspire you to take a stand today.
You don't have to change the whole world. You have your own part of it to participate in, and every day you're deciding what that participation looks like.
Pay attention to where your energy is going, what you're contributing through your choices, and whether those choices are taking you in the direction you actually want to go.
We're all in this together, and each of us gets to decide how consciously we're going to participate.
That's where our individual power begins, and that's how the larger world begins to change.
Today's Gentle Practice
Think about one area of your life where you've been waiting for something outside of you to change.
Ask yourself:
What am I contributing to this situation through my own thoughts, choices, and behavior?
Look at it without judging yourself.
Notice what you've been giving your attention to and whether it's helping create the experience you want.
You may not control everything happening around you, but you can choose how you're participating.
Let that awareness guide one decision today.
With you,
Lynn
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